Julian Assange's wife Stella, who knows a thing or two about freedom and incarceration, joins Russell Brand to discuss the possibility of her husband being released from prison. Russell also talks about Lindsey Graham's attack on Donald Trump's pro-Russia stance on Ukraine and Afghanistan, and why he should be worried about what s going on in Washington, D.C. Russell Brand is an American comedian, actor, writer, podcaster, and podcaster. He is the host of the podcast Stay Free With Russell Brand, and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and other media outlets. He's also a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, and has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, and The New Republic, among other publications. He is married to the beautiful Stella, and they have a son, a daughter, a son-in-law, and a daughter-to-be, and two step-children, all of whom have been named after famous people in the media and political circles. Russell Brand's new book, Stay Free with Russell Brand: How to Live Free in the 21st Century, is out now, and it's out on all of the social medias, if you search for it, you'll find it. It's available for purchase on Amazon Prime, wherever you get your favourite streaming service. If you don't already have a device, you can get a copy of the book, and watch it here. You can also get it for free on Audible, iTunes, Podcoin, or wherever else you re listening to it's available, and get 20% off the service, too! You'll get 10% off for free, they'll get 15% off your first month, plus free shipping, plus shipping is free for the rest of the month, and you'll get an ad-free version of the ad is available for free for a year, plus a year from Audible starting next month, too. You'll have access to all of that, plus I'm giving you a 20% discount when you sign up for $99.99, and I'll get a maximum of $99, plus an ad discount, plus two other places get $99 gets you get $50, plus they get $5, plus you get an extra $10,000 shipping and shipping starts starting at $50 gets you an ad is free, plus she gets an ad on my site gets a discount, and she'll get my ad is also gets a free shipping policy.
00:01:42.000Has Canada set itself up as some sort of dystopic authoritarian nightmare where academics are punished and penalised, where clerics are flung in jail, where protesters are demonetised?
00:01:55.000What's going on under the auspices of democracy, under the admittedly fantastic coiffured hair of Justin Trudeau?
00:02:05.000We're going to be speaking to Stella Assange, activist and wife of Julian, who knows a thing or two about Freedom and incarceration.
00:02:14.000She's just been to see Julian and we'll be talking today about the possibility of Julian being released and what it means when a man is incarcerated, jailed, without trial, without conviction.
00:02:27.000What does it mean about the principles themselves?
00:02:29.000Are there any principles at Oh, now we need you to follow us on Rumble.
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00:02:38.000Like and subscribe to our channel there and press the red awaken button to join our locals community and to support us directly if that's something that's within your means.
00:02:47.000If not, your presence is so much more valuable than your money.
00:02:51.000I can't tell you how much we value you.
00:02:53.000Lindsey Graham has been sending messages to Trump, essentially a pro-war message.
00:02:59.000The war between Ukraine and Russia continues to escalate.
00:03:21.000That Trump is the lone voice advocating for peace and he's perhaps the most vilified figure on the planet.
00:03:27.000Let's have a look at Lindsey Graham offering a curse to Trump.
00:03:32.000Have you asked Donald Trump, your friend, to come out and publicly support more aid to Ukraine and to push some of these sceptical members of the Republican conference?
00:03:41.000I'll leave it up to him to what to do, but he wanted to get out of Afghanistan.
00:03:45.000Vladimir Putin has been praising him for his comments about Russia and Ukraine.
00:03:47.000Here's what I'll say about President Trump.
00:03:49.000He did not pull the plug on Afghanistan, even though he wanted to.
00:03:53.000The biggest mistake we've made since the war on terror is withdrawing from Afghanistan.
00:03:57.000To President Trump and anybody else, if we pull the plug on Ukraine, that's ten times worse than Afghanistan.
00:04:29.000I'll give you ten Afghanistans for the price of a Ukraine.
00:04:32.000Terrible, terrible auctioneer Lindsey Graham is.
00:04:36.000And do you see how we're sort of gridlocked into perpetual war?
00:04:39.000It's the worst thing since the War of Terror.
00:04:40.000So it was a mistake to get into the War of Terror, but the Afghanistan war is sort of part of that ongoing hellish narrative, and there's no way out of it.
00:04:48.000Let's see who else has been addressing Donald Trump.
00:05:32.000There was a lot of exposition required to get there.
00:05:35.000Okay, but I'm gonna do this down the camera.
00:05:37.000Now, wait, you're not here not because you're not, well, it's not because of the indictments, but,
00:05:41.000and also it's not because of the pose, so, you are ducking, okay, therefore I'm gonna call you,
00:05:46.000wait for it, and all the while you're thinking, this isn't gonna be Donald Duck, is it?
00:05:50.000It's not going to be, like, we've almost sort of forgotten that Donald Duck and Donald Trump have the same name because it's too glaringly obvious.
00:05:56.000It's too much in our face as a reference to warrant being comedically utilised.
00:06:01.000But Chris Christie there, he's giving it a bloody good go.
00:06:07.000I get no joy from criticizing high-profile political figures.
00:06:10.000My belief is that as we continue to awaken, as we continue to access the depths of our being, as we see plainly that these systems are incapable of delivering anything other than hypocrisy and corruption, they appear to get worse whether it's Dear old cadaverous Joe Biden, who's in a plain state of atrophy.
00:06:27.000Or Kamala Harris, who's meant to be the safety net in the event that dear Joe Biden inevitably tumbles.
00:06:34.000She appears to be worse than him, using metaphorical systems and rhetorical devices that don't make sense in any language.
00:06:41.000Although I'm not actually qualified to say, because I only speak this one.
00:06:44.000So let me know if there is another language You know that old story about the two frogs and the pots of water?
00:06:47.000You're a good storyteller, I'm going to tell you a good story.
00:07:15.000I think where Kamala Harris is going is that frogs don't notice that the temperature is gradually increasing to ultimately their boiling point.
00:08:04.000Could there be a more inspiring message as your fuel bills soar, as your food bills become unmanageable, as your country falls apart before your very eyes, as sacred principles just fall away to leave nihilism and a kind of moral morass and an empty hollowness, a facade.
00:08:23.000Let's just remember that our way through this is just don't be that first frog.
00:08:28.000That's what I will say in this situation.
00:08:31.000Uh, Kamala Harris sometimes seems to defy description, but people had a go at it with one of those word clouds.
00:08:36.000Let's have a look at how they described her.
00:09:32.000Hey Lord! The very gods themselves come out in support of us.
00:09:36.000Then in this extraordinary story where a Calgary pastor was sentenced to 60 days in jail for his role in protest against Covid-19 public health measures.
00:09:46.000If you ever want to question whether you're on the right side, have a look at a pastor being arrested by masked men and flung in jail for simply following his religious beliefs and standing with his community.
00:10:25.000Plainly, new revelations are being made.
00:10:27.000Plainly, we are at some sort of biblical apocalyptic time where pastors are put in prison by the Canadian government and neo-Nazis, well not neo-Nazis actually, Original Nazis are celebrated literally in Canadian Parliament.
00:10:47.000And isn't it curious how those that claim to be representing people that are suffering, the vulnerable, appear Considered to be the most authoritarian, dictatorial, deceptive and deceitful of them all.
00:10:57.000Let's look at this story in Canada and see if it can be applied to other global situations that we're experiencing.
00:11:03.000Remember, we need you to follow us now.
00:11:16.000Calgary pastor Artur Polowski has been sentenced to 60 days in jail.
00:11:21.000Nothing like a pastor being arrested in the middle of the road by policemen wearing masks to tell you that democracy and the system are thoroughly healthy.
00:11:30.000For his role in protests against COVID-19, public health measures.
00:11:34.000Polowski was found guilty of mischief and breaching a release order.
00:11:39.000Isn't that like what Bart Simpson and Dennis the Menace and adorable scamps throughout time have done?
00:12:19.000Palowski's impassioned speech to truckers fanned the flames of unrest and convinced them to stay longer.
00:12:27.000We're at a curious point, aren't we, where now, a few years down the line, it seems that many of the questions around coronavirus and the way that it was handled, particularly by authoritative and, I would say, proactive or interventionist governments, is up for inquiry.
00:13:00.000Sorry for the cheap aboot joke, but you know, it is Canada and I'm not there at the moment, so... I always said to the government officials, leave me alone.
00:13:37.000It's now the law in Canada that you have to like it.
00:13:39.000What an extraordinary situation where someone who dedicates their lives to spirituality, to truth, to the exploration of meaning, to support in a community, standing up for their own rights.
00:13:49.000And remember, we now know that on average Canadian truckers were more vaccinated than the average Canadian population member per capita.
00:13:59.000You know, follow the science, as they say.
00:14:00.000So we know that it's not that they were particularly anti-vaccine.
00:14:03.000They were just particularly pro-freedom.
00:14:04.000Now, one of the macro arguments we are making to you on our channel right now is that ideas around safety and convenience and security are being mobilized to shut down your liberty.
00:14:16.000That what was once regarded as the ordinary right of the average citizen is become like privacy or private money, all these things.
00:14:49.000They are so keen to live in a projected reality that actual reality doesn't matter.
00:14:53.000There is the conjured medium maelstrom of reality, then there is actual reality.
00:14:58.000That is why we have to find a deep connection within ourselves to a kind of absolute truth, to absolute values, to absolute principles, because they ain't got any!
00:15:08.000Back in May, Pawlowski was found guilty of mischief and breaching a release order.
00:15:27.000Bart, the record of your mischief is staggering!
00:15:33.000I wouldn't have your hand up at that angle.
00:15:35.000If I were you, I'd give it a speech, mate.
00:15:37.000You might get all of Parliament applauding you.
00:15:39.000Convince the protesters to stay longer and to quote, hold the line.
00:15:44.000Like I said, I should never be arrested, I should never be charged with an offence.
00:15:48.000Martin Luther King was a preacher, Malcolm X was essentially a sort of imam.
00:15:53.000People that have strong religious conviction will apply their religious conviction to social situations because they've not been individualised.
00:16:00.000Materialized, bought low, reduced, told there's no hope and there's no way.
00:16:04.000Because this person's a man of God and sees spirituality as being more valuable than sort of the set of values that a culture just comes up with off the top of his head and then makes the actual law.
00:16:14.000These people, people like you, people like me, that have actual values, that believe in redemption, salvation, believe in change, believe in changing the system, believe in changing the self, believe in moving forward, believe in beauty and grace and truth, they are a threat!
00:16:32.000I was there in the capacity of a pastor.
00:16:34.000For Bridge City News, I'm Micah Quinn.
00:16:39.000Let's have a look though at what else is going on in Canada just to make sure that the imprisonment of a pastor isn't some anomalous outlier.
00:16:46.000We first became interested in what was going on in Canada because in spite of his appearances and, let's face it, lovely haircut, Justin Trudeau doesn't appear to be that interested in freedom.
00:16:55.000The rhetoric of freedom, yes, but the sort of authoritarianism and emergency law revoking kind of capacities of people that are more traditionally associated with tyranny.
00:17:05.000Tyranny in Canada is not always bad, even the worst example of tyranny in human history.
00:17:11.000Last week the Canadian House of Commons Speaker Antony Rota invited a 98-year-old man named Yaroslav Hunkar to attend a speech by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
00:17:20.000Rota called Hunkar a Canadian hero and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cheered for Hunkar alongside lawmakers.
00:17:26.000They were willing to do that just because they just didn't understand the facts and they hadn't looked into them properly.
00:17:31.000In a spiritually evolved society, the possibility of redemption and absolution for a Nazi would be something you'd consider.
00:17:37.000If you read, for example, Viktor Frankl's seminal work on his experiences in concentration camps, Man and His Search for Meaning, then you'd be aware that the travesty and murders and genocide of the Second World War oddly provided an opportunity for change.
00:17:51.000But that's not the culture that's being evoked or invited in Canada, a culture of like where we really try to understand reality, morality, truth, spirituality.
00:18:00.000What they want is just to mobilise and utilise particular narratives that can legitimise authoritarianism in control.
00:18:07.000You'll never see them advocating for a story where it's like, oh yes, I suppose actually we should just let people do what they want and why don't we give people a vote on whether they want that or not and maybe for the next, if there's going to be another lockdown, people can vote on it and maybe we can let the truckers decide.
00:18:18.000They're never going to come to those conclusions.
00:18:20.000It's always going to be, you know that pastor?
00:18:54.000Trudeau's non-apology and dismissal of criticism as Russian disinformation is especially hypocritical given his repeated denunciation of the Canadian Freedom Convoy as a Nazi-linked movement.
00:19:05.000Because the truckers' grievances were legitimate, and over the years seem increasingly legitimate, and because the actions against them were pretty draconian and extreme, emergency laws, freezing bank accounts, not allowing people to fund them, frying people in prison that gave speeches, you have to find a way to legitimise that.
00:20:04.000Isn't it more likely, here's a hypothesis, that it's got nothing to do with that, and they retrospectively apply that in order to disempower that movement?
00:20:11.000What do you think's more likely, looking at the facts?
00:20:13.000Conservative party members can stand with people who wave swastikas, he said.
00:20:18.000They can stand with people who wave the confederate flag.
00:20:20.000I prefer to just out and out applaud Nazis.
00:20:23.000Bring them in from the cold and clap at them up in the gallery.
00:20:39.000The swastikas printed on flags at the convoy were not hate symbols.
00:20:43.000They were intended as criticism of the government's overreach for a comparison to Nazi Germany.
00:20:47.000Yet Trudeau condemned a Jewish member of parliament for being sympathetic to the convoy and for supporting people who wave swastikas.
00:20:53.000Trudeau's colleagues participated in his conspiracy theory.
00:20:56.000One Liberal MP said that Trucker's Honk Honk slogan was a coded message for Heil Hitler.
00:21:02.000There was never any evidence for this then or now.
00:21:04.000Isn't it more likely that at a trucker protest, where there's likely to be trucks, and you're on a road, and people have got horns, that it might mean honk your horn in support of the truckers?
00:21:15.000That well-established form of showing solidarity?
00:21:18.000But I suppose that's not Nazi enough, is it?
00:21:20.000So if we could just, oh, H H Hail Hitler!
00:21:31.000Apparently in the 30s and 40s he got a lot done.
00:21:34.000As such, Trudeau was spreading disinformation.
00:21:36.000Naturally, Trudeau has for the last three years been accusing others of spreading disinformation and demanding that social media companies like Facebook and Twitter censor the people he disagrees with.
00:21:44.000The problem with you, Zlot, is you celebrate misinformation.
00:22:04.000Trudeau has just been engaging in the usual progressive rhetoric of accusing his opponents of being Nazi, something both sides do, as the controversy over last Friday's applauding showed.
00:22:13.000But Trudeau is important, and what he's doing in Canada should terrify everyone in the Western world who cares about being free from government tyranny, censorship and disinformation.
00:22:22.000That's because Trudeau is pioneering a new way for governments to take control over the
00:22:25.000information environment, spreading disinformation and demanding censorship that is similar but
00:22:29.000different to efforts we are seeing in places like California, Australia and New Zealand.
00:22:34.000Former and current colonial powers appear to have relationships with some of the nations
00:22:38.000they helped to establish, i.e. the countries listed just then, where piloting ideas that
00:22:44.000would seem likely to engender resistance in countries like the United States or the UK
00:22:49.000or seem more pronounced and more dangerous, appear to be able to be practised there.
00:22:53.000Notice that during the coronavirus period Australia set up, I think I'm right in saying,
00:22:59.000Notice that Canada is very assertive and progressive with authoritarianism, with the disinformation being described in this article.
00:23:06.000It seems to me that because these countries, because of a shared tongue with significantly your country, the United States of America, are being used to normalize ideas and to introduce ideas that elsewise we might be reluctant to accept.
00:23:18.000Let me know if you think that Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Maybe even the UK to a degree, we're no longer a superpower, we're essentially ancillary to the United States of America, are being used to pilot ideas, normal ideas, so that they can become ubiquitous.
00:23:29.000Let me know in the chat in the comments if you agree with that.
00:23:31.000People across the Western world were rightly alarmed when Trudeau last year invoked for the first time in Canadian history the Emergency Measures Act and froze bank accounts of people who had simply donated to the truckers cause.
00:23:42.000It was brazen thuggery that Trudeau justified by calling ordinary Canadians Nazis and racist.
00:23:48.000If you call someone a Nazi or a racist, whatever you do is permissible.
00:23:52.000It seems to me that's how this particular play works.
00:23:56.000Trudeau's crackdown on the Freedom Convoy protesters was followed by efforts to regulate and control the internet.
00:24:02.000His online streaming act and online news act gave the government expansive new powers to regulate what happens and what you see online.
00:24:23.000Do there seem to be laws being passed all over the world?
00:24:25.000Does there seem to be a process of vilification, shutting down of dissent, shutting down of dissidents, vilifying people that disobey and stand up in opposal for it?
00:24:32.000You can observe all of that for yourself.
00:24:34.000You don't need me or anyone else to tell you.
00:24:38.000The atmosphere created by Trudeau and his party is completely upending Canadian society, leading to the persecution of his detractors and limiting speech and expression.
00:24:46.000Earlier this month, a Liberal judge in Calgary sentenced a Christian pastor to two months in jail for what he said during a 20-minute speech to the Truckers Freedom Convoy.
00:24:54.000We can't keep bringing you inspiring, groundbreaking, anti-authoritarian, anti-totalitarian content like we do without our partners and sponsors.
00:25:04.000And this week, once again, we've teamed up with, you guessed it, Stickermule to create this limited edition sticker pack.
00:25:51.000The College of Psychologists of Ontario recently ordered conservative psychologist Jordan Peterson to undergo social media training because they believed his tweets and opinions were problematic.
00:26:00.000And Ontario court then upheld the college's decision.
00:26:17.000And I disagree with him as I'm sure he disagrees with me on many issues.
00:26:20.000What I don't disagree with is his right to freely communicate and essentially have a set of values that seem to me to be based in pretty thorough research.
00:26:27.000And I've had arguments with Jordan Peterson about some of the matters where I disagree with him and it seems that that's not actually affected our friendship.
00:26:33.000But what is clear is what's going on in Canada is anything but dull.
00:26:36.000In looking to defend minorities and promote culture, Trudeau's liberals are everything they once feared.
00:26:42.000They are authoritarian, anti-democratic and illiberal.
00:26:45.000I think what happens is inept politicians that are kind of like Pop star poster boy politicians that kind of look nice or sort of seem appropriate are kind of groomed and ushered through the system and they don't actually, this is my view, my personal view, understand politics that well and they're able to be manipulated by people who understand things a lot better than they do.
00:27:03.000They don't notice that all of a sudden they're saying things like that.
00:27:09.000Those truckers are Nazis because they're not grounded in the kind of ideals that, for example, that pastor is, who's like, I'm willing to get arrested for what I believe in.
00:27:15.000I'm willing to die for what I believe in.
00:27:17.000Those kind of values, even that kind of mindset, having a community that you care about, having people that you love, having values and principles that go beyond materialism, is being eroded because Well, you know, why?
00:27:25.000Because we're living in sort of cellular atomic little realities where the best we can hope for is just some sort of quick hit of purchase.
00:27:32.000We're being distracted and disconnected from God.
00:27:34.000And you have to wonder whether Jordan Peterson is a problem not because of his views on identity and identity politics or because he has a deep reverence for meaning and passion and standing up for what you believe in.
00:27:46.000What do you think, based on what you're learning about Canada here, think is more of a threat to the Canadian system?
00:27:51.000Do you think it's like they're fretting in all day, oh no we really want to help people on their
00:27:55.000identity issues or do you think they want control? Because look at the legislation that's been
00:27:59.000introduced. What does it seem to be augured and directed towards? And what's happening in
00:28:04.000Canada is not separate from what's happening in the US, the UK, Europe and Brazil but intimately connected
00:28:09.000to those nations. That's what globalism There is a kind of a global tide rising.
00:28:14.000There is authoritarianism, centralism.
00:28:16.000There are connections between laws in the countries just listed there that sort of don't make sense.
00:28:42.000According to Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party supporters, he and their party are the party of compassion for vulnerable people, freedom and Canadian culture.
00:28:50.000Liberals care in their view, while Conservatives don't care.
00:28:53.000Trudeau has proclaimed his loyalty to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
00:28:59.000And when the Liberals introduced their social media reform legislation, they said the goal was to promote Canadian culture, ensure the sustainability of the news industry, and guarantee we heard from marginalized voices.
00:29:10.000But a government cannot claim to care about the vulnerable or about freedom while freezing the bank accounts of a single mother working a minimum wage job as Trudeau's government did.
00:29:18.000Nor can the government claim to care about the vulnerable or freedom while trying to regulate the internet to prevent further protests and challenges to Trudeau's government.
00:29:25.000The main way Trudeau and the Liberal Party are trying to do this is by subsidising news media and punishing smaller media outlets.
00:29:31.000This is similar to what governments are doing all around the world.
00:30:56.000What is Justin Trudeau trying to achieve?
00:30:59.000If your real end was to help people, to protect vulnerable people, wouldn't there be more evidence of it?
00:31:04.000Wouldn't there be less and less globalist measures, like curtailing freedom, freezing bank accounts, etc?
00:31:10.000Wouldn't you see the promotion of open conversation, the promotion of freedom, and a good faith relationship with the population?
00:31:16.000Wouldn't you see the promotion of smaller media outlets and the diminishing of larger ones, rather than the subsidisation of larger ones, which is what's actually happening?
00:31:25.000Authoritarianism is predicated on this idea.
00:31:28.000You should not be allowed to control your own life.
00:31:37.000Trudeau constantly splits the population into liberal angels and conservative devils.
00:31:41.000You either believe in liberal climate policy or are a climate denier, according to Trudeau.
00:31:46.000You either mask up and vax up or are putting lives at risk.
00:31:50.000You either support the radical demands of trans activists or you hate sexual minorities.
00:31:55.000There is also something deeply antisocial about Trudeau's behaviours.
00:31:58.000To falsely accuse your opponents of Nazism and racism, to cut off the bank accounts of people who criticise you, these are cruel and callous behaviours.
00:32:07.000Few Canadians believe that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau meant to undermine democracy or stand with Nazis last Friday when his main Liberal Party ally led the House of Commons in applauding a former Nazi.
00:32:17.000Trudeau no more meant to undermine democracy or stand with Nazis than Canadian truckers meant to undermine democracy or stand with Nazis.
00:32:23.000And yet Trudeau accused them of precisely that.
00:32:26.000Few Canadians see either Trudeau or Canadian truckers as Nazis.
00:32:30.000What we need to change now is for more of us to get angry when we see our leaders label our fellow citizens as such.
00:32:36.000It seems that we live in a time where treasured and hard-won principles such as justice, such as freedom of speech, such as innocent until proven guilty, are just being casually discarded all in the name of kindness and safety and security.
00:32:52.000But if you see a pastor being arrested by masked police and put in prison with a claim that he ought serve 10 months when what he was actually doing was standing up for what he believed in, Meanwhile, Nazis are being applauded in Parliament, which, as this writer says, was obviously an error.
00:33:07.000You have to question how much you can trust this system.
00:33:10.000Are countries like Canada and Australia and even the UK being used to pilot a new form of authoritarianism?
00:33:17.000Authoritarianism not based on militarism, although militarism is always one of the ends and certainly where the money comes from, but a kind of totalitarianism that's based on helping others and protecting others and protecting you from yourself.
00:36:03.000I mean, you know, we only get two visits a week so we have to That's all I get and the kids get with Julian.
00:36:13.000Sometimes I'm traveling so sometimes he's able to also see friends while I'm away or when I'm here and this time he was able to see Roger Waters who of course has been an incredible advocate for Julian.
00:36:26.000He has a free Julian Assange massive image as part of his show that he's been touring around the world with And of course, also Yanis Varoufakis, who was the former Minister of Economy for Greece and a global commentator and an old friend of Julian's.
00:36:47.000He would visit Julian in the embassy regularly.
00:36:51.000So it was really nice for Julian to see his old friend, Yanis, and his new friend, Roger, who he had never met in person, but of course knows all the advocacy and amazing support that Roger has been I understand that there is some more optimism around the campaign for Julian, in particular because of the 60 Australian MPs that have urged the US to release Julian.
00:37:18.000Does this feel like public opinion and even significant political support is beginning to increase?
00:37:27.000What Julian has is a global campaign, the likes of which we have never seen before.
00:37:33.000Every single day there is some action somewhere around the world, from Sri Lanka to the UN General Assembly.
00:37:42.000The UN General Assembly, I bring it up because Lula, the president of Brazil, had his address to the General Assembly.
00:37:52.000This is the meeting that takes place every year in September, where all the heads of state of the world come together to New York, to the UN building, and then they speak, they give an address, and Lula was one of the first ones to speak and he brought Julian up in his speech and what happened there was a completely rare for the UN General Assembly which was that there was a spontaneous applause in the hall and that's because Julian's case is so important and symbolic
00:38:27.000of our times, of an abuse of the legal system, an abuse, a geopolitical kind of show of force in which the person who has exposed the most the excesses of the global Superpowers in situations of war, interfering in the legal systems of not only their small states, but also their big allies like Germany and Italy and Spain.
00:38:59.000So Julian has had such an important role.
00:39:03.000in exposing the true kind of anatomy of power globally, that this has become a reference point for our times and is of geopolitical importance.
00:39:13.000So you have that kind of big picture political significance of the case, you have the legal significance of the case where you have all the major human rights groups, All the major press freedom groups who are saying this is an aberration, this case is the biggest threat to press freedom globally, not only because it's an attack on the First Amendment in the United States, it's the first time the Espionage Act is being used against a publisher, it will be able to be used against the rest of the press, not just the press, you know, not just the ones with the press credentials, but anyone else really who dares publish true information about criminality, about the most powerful people,
00:39:56.000But then you have a different dimension, which is that Julian is Australian, and he wasn't even in the United States, right?
00:40:03.000So the US is using its espionage laws extraterritorially to apply to the rest of the world, to basically muzzle the rest of the world, to restrict freedom of speech in the rest of the world, in other countries, in the UK where he was, in Europe, where he was publishing from, and so on.
00:40:23.000And then you have another aspect, which has developed over the last 10, 12, 13 years, which is the surveillance on the Internet and the means through which they can actually censor speech.
00:40:37.000And we've seen this, of course, in the last four or five years, where social media companies have been instrumental in interfering with people's ability to emit, transmit their voice online.
00:40:56.000And so that has come about because the tools with which speech can be suppressed are proliferating.
00:41:05.000There is not just a market for censorship, there's also a market for tools to censor.
00:41:23.000If the tools exist, of course they will be deployed.
00:41:27.000And at the same time, there's a weakening of the protections, of free speech protections, of human rights in general, of citizenship rights in general.
00:41:42.000And so you have this, on the one hand, states and corporations having greater means of coercion, And at the same time, citizens becoming less and less able to resist, less and less able to speak out, less and less able to push back.
00:42:02.000So Julian's case exists in this greater context.
00:42:06.000And I think the whole world knows the significance and how Julian's case connects with all these issues.
00:42:15.000One of the other shifts that appears to have taken place within the framework of Julian's incarceration is that authoritarianism has peculiarly drifted and acquired a new aesthetic Just prior to our conversation we were talking about events in Canada and their ability to imprison individuals on the basis of protest, their new online bills that of course as you've just outlined permit censorship.
00:42:52.000We've been talking about how comparable bills have been introduced in the UK and indeed across the world and a significant part of Julian's revelations detailed where we were Gosh, 20 years ago or whenever it was that those revelations were made and of course, as you've explained, the situation has gotten worse and the power to censor control and the desire to legitimise authoritarian control has increased since then.
00:43:15.000One of the things that I continue to be surprised by, Stella, is the posture of liberalism whilst endorsing and practising tyranny.
00:43:28.000Do you think that there was something pivotal in Julian's revelations around, for example, the Hillary Clinton emails and other revelations about the Democrat Party that have somehow contributed to this extraordinary shift where parties that present themselves as liberal, pro-minority, pro-protecting vulnerable people are oddly the most willing to shut down dissenting voices?
00:43:56.000Has it sort of been a case that has shown us the transition of liberalism into authoritarianism?
00:44:07.000Well, I think, look, you have to look at this from a long perspective.
00:44:12.000Liberalism was pretty well defined, I think one could say, during the Cold War.
00:44:19.000You had the virtue of liberalism kind of held against, one could say, the virtues of the other bloc.
00:44:27.000So the other bloc was talking about social and economic rights.
00:44:30.000It also had obviously a very dark side to it.
00:44:35.000And then the West upheld civil liberties, freedom of speech, etc.
00:44:42.000And what has happened since is that freedom of speech over time as the internet has become a generalized means of communications globally, freedom of speech has been recast as a danger.
00:45:00.000Information has been cast as a threat.
00:45:06.000You know, it's basically cast in a conflict and war And then at the same time, well, how can they do that?
00:45:17.000How can they go from a self-definition that privileges civil liberties and this self-image of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech to where we are now.
00:45:33.000Well, they've kind of instrumentalized this sense of protection, of safety, and of determining areas in which they, as the The paternal figure will come and look after us, the poor public that cannot discern what they should know or what they should say and so on, because you don't know what the consequences might be.
00:46:10.000It is just the temptation of authoritarianism has been too strong.
00:46:14.000The means through which they can exert authoritarianism have become so available that they keep on keeping up this rhetoric, this liberal rhetoric, but don't believe in it.
00:46:31.000And don't practice it and don't set any expectation of practicing it.
00:46:35.000Because the excessive force through which governments have used their powers to shut down freedom of speech over the last five years have become really obvious to everyone.
00:46:52.000And so, for example, the people who donated to the Canadian truckers now understand that they are in a different world where even their
00:47:05.000What used to be protected expression of freedom of speech to support whatever cause they wish to support has been shut down and there are consequences for you personally as a result of that and you know who knows what kind of list they've been put on through the banks and the banks are now a An extension of that control network through which freedom of speech is being suppressed.
00:47:40.000It seems that while still maintaining the guise of the values that you rightly pointed out preceded, particularly in opposition to a sort of a Cold War opponent where the authoritarianism and the Stasi and the KGB and the Executions and the Poisoned Umbrellas were all sort of very lurid and vivid and Cold War and Ian LaFrennais, is it Ian LaFrennais?
00:48:08.000It was all sort of very pronounced and clear and it appears now that we've drifted into a point sort of, in particular it seems to me Stella, I know you've been observing this more closely than I have, but in the last couple of years, five years, ten years, you're much more likely to get support for actual liberty, whether that's freedom of speech, freedom
00:48:28.000to publish, freedom of press, and principles like judiciary and the assumption of
00:48:32.000innocence until proven guilty. Those kind of principles are being discarded curiously in the name of
00:48:38.000this parentalism that you've just described.
00:48:41.000And have you found that you're more likely to get allies that are on what you might once have
00:48:46.000regarded as the conservative right? Or do you think that part of what's happening is that those
00:48:51.000labels and models are starting to break down?
00:48:53.000Vivek Ramaswamy for example publicly said he would free Julian obviously and I wonder if you feel that There's now a shift where the authoritarian and more tyrannical and censorial and incarcerating and espionage act utilizing government are the ones that present themselves as like the friendly face of progress.
00:49:18.000Well, I find that Julian has allies across the spectrum, and I think that's partly because the attack against him is so outrageous that the only people you really find defending his incarceration, his extradition, are somehow implicated in the crimes and corruption that he exposed.
00:49:47.000You know, be it I study them on Twitter and so on.
00:49:53.000You get this person who says something outrageous about him remaining in prison, and they're usually in Virginia or used to work in Guantanamo Bay as a prison guard.
00:50:51.000That's why you have, you know, the major parties are virtually indistinguishable, because there is no expression within the system for for opposition.
00:51:05.000And that is negative in a way, but it also means that outside of the center, there is a dynamic and interesting development where people from different sides of politics, you know, have different views on the role of the state and immigration and all sorts of things also come to agree about a few things.
00:51:29.000And I think the central one there that I hope everyone can converge on is freedom of speech.
00:51:39.000Freedom of speech is really kind of the central pillar for a democracy.
00:51:47.000And if you start undermining freedom of speech, then all the other rights you have basically melt away.
00:51:57.000And so I think there is a growing awareness that freedom of speech is the one in which we need to agree in order to progress as a society.
00:52:11.000And of course, Julian has been a freedom of speech advocate for decades, and the whole WikiLeaks project is about not just the integrity of the historical record and, you know, the ability to put evidence of wrongdoing onto the public record, but also of the ability to transmit information.
00:52:37.000And if you look at the United Nations declaration, the UN declaration, sorry, If you look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was formulated in 1948, it's kind of the basic document to which the international order was formed after the Second World War, so there was a lot of
00:53:08.000I find it to be a very virtuous document and article 19 talks about freedom of speech and it is the freedom to seek, receive and transmit information regardless of means and across frontiers and this is such a revolutionary this is such a An amazing article when you think about it, if it were actually able to be preserved and enforced, which is obviously what we're trying to do through Julian's case.
00:53:42.000This is something that everyone signed up to, to seek, receive and transmit information.
00:53:51.000Across frontiers and through whichever means.
00:53:54.000And that is what is being attacked right now, because if people are able to speak to each other, then a lot... If information is free, then power is challenged.
00:54:22.000Stella, though, what I'm experiencing, and I don't know if this is because of the kind of cultural space that I'm occupying, I don't believe it is, because what I think is that I have consistently remained anti-authoritarian and once was associated with the left in a conventional way, in the way that, broadly speaking, any celebrity or public figure has that kind of champagne socialist veneer or air about them, although Personally and actually my background had always included activism and because of being a drug addict had always meant that I'd lived on the margins both economically and indeed criminally due to the sort of status of controlled substances.
00:55:09.000What I feel is happening though now is that free speech has become a right-wing talking point.
00:55:17.000I don't see the same appetite to do that on the right.
00:55:20.000States and also Australia and also the United Kingdom are introducing bills that control,
00:55:27.000limit, curb, dilute free speech under the auspices of misinformation and disinformation.
00:55:34.000I don't see the same appetite to do that on the right. I don't know why this point of
00:55:38.000difference has emerged or occurred, but there are times when I think that it is particular
00:55:46.000to Julian Assange in fact, specifically because of revelations around the Clinton emails,
00:55:55.000because of the discrediting of the Democrat party.
00:55:58.000I feel that this issue is a sort of a centrepiece within that.
00:56:04.000And I believe, and I'm obviously in the case of Julian Assange bears this out, that if your free speech is a challenge to the establishment, they will find a way to delegitimize your free speech by saying that you are A particular case where free speech shouldn't apply because of some egregious act or some crime or as in the case in Canada, oh well those truckers are Nazis and you can't give Nazis free speech so we're going to have to shut that down and close down their bank accounts.
00:56:39.000So whilst I acknowledge that support for Julian Assange and the atrocity of his imprisonment can come from across the board, I have a sense that When it comes to significant movement, you're more likely, and this is a question not a statement, do you think it's more likely that a Republican president would pardon Julian Assange than a Democrat president?
00:57:03.000because I do think that's the case, even though of course Trump, who apparently
00:57:09.000considered releasing Julian, ultimately did not.
00:57:13.000Well, look, the support for free speech at the political level is...
00:57:25.000And that's because, as I said, the means through which they can shut down control and control not only your speech, but the narrative is much more accessible now than it was years ago.
00:57:43.000And that is tempting, especially not just tempting, but it's basically required Because they have defined the information sphere as a threat model.
00:58:00.000And there is no significant pushback in that respect.
00:58:03.000And of course you have this whole NGO economy and researchers and think tanks and so on that have suddenly seen the enormous pot of money that is being made available through public funds and so on to be able to fight information that is dangerous.
00:58:22.000And so there's a huge constituency that is keeping this illusion alive.
00:58:32.000And then you have the people who just want to, who are not part of that.
00:58:38.000And it's There are a lot of interests.
00:58:44.000I mean, if right now maybe it's the right who is more sensitive to it because they are being more censored, then it's just a matter of time before the others realize what kind of monster they have created.
00:59:02.000And so I don't think we're there yet where there is a general realization that we all have to converge on the principle of freedom of speech.
00:59:12.000But I hope that we can reach that point.
00:59:16.000And in terms of Julian receiving a pardon, I certainly hope that whether it's a Democrat or a Republican, they will come to their senses.
00:59:30.000Of course, the Obama administration decided not to even prosecute Julian because they said, he's a publisher, not a hacker.
00:59:36.000And if we do, then we're going to set a precedent that can be used against everyone else.
01:00:57.000Another pivotal aspect of this case and the way that Julian is subsequently being handled, in my view, is the seismic change in the ability to communicate and
01:01:11.000That, in a way, what Julian did was the first time, most pronounced and evident time, that
01:01:18.000anybody demonstrated the ability to convey information differently, and potentially and
01:01:23.000specifically, and I assume this is why the response has been so draconian and terrifying,
01:01:31.000show that enormous numbers of people could almost instantaneously deprive the establishment
01:01:38.000of credibility, withdraw their support for existing systems of government, and for prevailing
01:01:44.000and previously unchallengeable modes of geopolitics, i.e.
01:01:50.000the ongoing military-industrial complex, the necessity for wars, the requirement, therefore, for
01:01:56.000unjust wars, because the wars are not legitimate in the ways that are claimed, they are just
01:02:00.000economically necessary wars, both for resources, capital, unipolar objectives.
01:02:07.000Because of the technological capacity, as well as Julian's moral willingness to expose
01:02:14.000that information, What I feel we've seen, and in fact what the response to me demonstrates, is that this is about power.
01:02:22.000This is about preventing what could potentially happen if enough people were willing to dissent and disobey and tell the truth and communicate and form new alliances.
01:02:34.000It could be an end to these types of systems.
01:02:38.000If people were well informed, If people understood that what lies behind clandestine documentation is not just information that would be harmful were it to fall into the hands of our enemies, but information that is harmful if it falls into the hands of the public.
01:02:54.000And that's why I believe that we see this case endure.
01:02:58.000And that is why, whether it's in the purported left or right, there are It's been very slow to have vocal, clear advocates come out.
01:03:24.000If you are willing to talk openly about systemic corruption, if you're willing to openly talk
01:03:30.000about how the media now does not hold the government to account, they simply convey
01:03:35.000the messaging of the state, you are going to get in some serious, serious trouble.
01:03:40.000And obviously what Julian Assange did was unprecedented as a result of available technology
01:03:45.000and his own personal moral position, as I've stated.
01:03:49.000And since then, there's not been anything that significant.
01:03:53.000And I think the reason is, is because the media works for the state, the corporate state, both in terms of where they get their advertising dollars and where they, ultimately, where their interests converge.
01:04:02.000So, in a way, there can be no more significant victory than the release of Julian.
01:04:13.000I think there's a, I think that's why the movement to free Julian is global and because it's tapped into a greater understanding of what his imprisonment actually means.
01:04:29.000It's a show of force where the killers have put the truth teller in prison and You know, have enormous resources to try to complexify and obscure that that's what's actually going on.
01:05:01.000It is putting him in the most kind of brutal and basic way of shutting him in a cell for years on end, silencing him and threatening to keep him in prison for the rest of his life.
01:05:24.000And I think the average person, when they see Julian's situation, they realize that they have a sense of natural justice and they understand that really it is Julian's political speech that is the reason why he is in prison.
01:05:45.000He is being silenced and censored because he made The world know about crimes and assassinations and torture that was not just committed but also impugned ongoingly to this day.
01:06:01.000Nothing has been done to put anyone in prison for the literal war crimes, assassinations of children, you know, of toddlers that are recorded in these publications and nothing has happened.
01:06:17.000There's always been a cover-up and as part of this cover-up they put Julian in prison so that he can no longer speak and so that he can't say, well, he cannot continue to expose crimes and expose corruption.
01:06:39.000To send a message to everyone else that the powerful are untouchable and if you try to do the right thing you will be hounded and that just cannot stand.
01:06:52.000That's why Julian's freedom is connected to everyone else's freedom because his imprisonment started a trend, his persecution started a trend Which is where we are, you know, 13 years down the line.
01:07:05.000And I was just reading an interview that he gave a French magazine called Philosophie.
01:07:14.000In 2013, and the question was, what do you think will be your situation in 10 years time?
01:07:21.000And he says, well, it really doesn't depend on me.
01:07:24.000It depends on which way the world goes.
01:07:26.000If the world continues to, or if the world realizes to uphold, if the trend is that that transparency and holding governments and exposing corruption is a good thing, then I will be free and WikiLeaks' legacy will be upheld as an example.
01:07:57.000But if the world goes in the opposite direction, in a direction in which Control and surveillance and authoritarianism increases, then I will probably be in prison somewhere.
01:08:16.000And plainly that is the way that it's gone, obviously and demonstrably.
01:08:19.000And to my earlier point, that is why the political parties that previously were organised, at least rhetorically, around the language of civil liberties and the rights of the individual and the significance of free speech have shifted so enormously to authoritarianism, censorship, surveillance,
01:08:42.000alliance with global corporatism, geopolitical unipolar goals, the depleting of the capacity
01:08:49.000of other superpowers like Russia and China legitimizing as humanitarian resource-based
01:08:56.000and politically motivated wars, understanding ever more sophist ways of legitimizing wars
01:09:04.000that are plainly about an agenda that's been present forever.
01:09:08.000One of Julian's quotes that I refer to a lot is the function of government is to funnel
01:09:58.000The one that I was actively involved in that was produced by Julian's brother, Gabriel Shipton, is called Ithaca and it was just touring in Brazil and it's toured in the US and it's I think still on ITV in the UK and there's a new documentary called The Trust Fall and it is
01:10:39.000It has a very heartbreaking animation of Julian in court and the kind of difficulties that were The kind of difficulties that he faced when he was in court.
01:10:54.000Of course now he's not even allowed to go to court because he follows hearings from Belmarsh Prison.
01:11:01.000Maybe that will be different in the next hearing.
01:11:06.000But yes, it's called The Trust Fall and do watch the trailer for that and you get a good sense of what it's about.
01:11:13.000And then Julian is, of course, nearing what could be the final hearing here in the UK.
01:11:20.000It's really the end game for Julian, because the High Court just incredibly decided that it would not allow Julian permission to appeal.
01:11:30.000I mean, think about it, when you have all the major human rights organizations, press freedom organizations in the world Saying that this case is of the highest importance.
01:11:40.000It's a greatest threat to press freedom.
01:11:43.000It's absolutely outrageous news about Mike Pompeo ordering the CIA to draw up plans to kidnap and assassinate Julian.
01:11:53.000And then the High Court said, well, we are not going to grant him permission to Appeal to even present his arguments before the High Court.
01:12:02.000He has one final recourse, which is he has gone to a panel of two judges to review the decision and there will be a public hearing.
01:12:13.000So the good news is that there will be a public hearing and we are calling on everyone Who can come to come on that day in front of the High Court, in front of the Royal Courts of Justice in central London.
01:12:26.000We're calling it Day X because we don't have a date for it yet.
01:12:30.000We're waiting for the court to actually announce it.
01:12:33.000But we expect it to be within a matter of weeks, really.
01:12:37.000And this is, you know, if you have never Actually come to a protest or support Julian but haven't expressed it.
01:12:47.000This is the moment to really express it by showing support for him on that day and to come in from the royal courts and I'll address the people who come as well and there will be press.
01:13:00.000So it's important to show Julian's support.
01:13:36.000If you want access to additional content and if you want to support our channel and our voice as this movement gains momentum, as it becomes necessarily global, as we take a stand against authoritarianism, As we campaign to free, let's not let him become a martyr, but heroes like Julian Assange, then press the red button and become an awakened wonder and join us.
01:13:57.000We'll meditate together, we'll read together, we will be tight, and we will fight together, like NotInMyName and FightTyranny.