Stay Free - Russel Brand - WAIT…Elon Prevented THIS From Happening In Ukraine?! - Stay Free #204

00:00:00.000 I'm gonna make you pay for this. 0.97

00:00:28.000 I'm all, I'm all for the steal.

00:00:30.000 In this video, you're going to see the future.

00:00:43.000 Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.

00:00:45.000 Thanks for joining me on our mutual voyage to truth and freedom.

00:00:49.000 Together, we can create new systems, new communities.

00:00:53.000 We can analyse these extraordinary times together, independently.

00:00:58.000 Those of you watching us from the United States of America, take this This is a great opportunity to reflect honorably with you on the lives of those lost on September the 11th in particular, as someone who behaved so astonishingly at the time.

00:01:10.000 That's what I was a crazy young man back then.

00:01:12.000 Some of you will be aware of my mad behaviour on MTV way back in those days and now I'm able to

00:01:19.000 share with you in acknowledging the horror of those events and actually look at them from a

00:01:25.000 new perspective. How it changed history, how it altered our perception of the world, how it was

00:01:31.000 utilised, how the Patriot Act was mobilised, how the war in Iraq came about as a result of those

00:01:38.000 tragic events.

00:01:39.000 We're looking also today at the new revelations that Musk prevented a Ukraine attack on Russia last year because of his... What's it called?

00:01:47.000 Skylink, Skynet?

00:01:48.000 Starlink. 0.59

00:01:49.000 Starlink. 0.59

00:01:50.000 Sounds too much like a train.

00:01:52.000 I struggle to accept it as such a significant technological advancement.

00:01:56.000 Sounds like Starlink.

00:01:57.000 I also think he's going to tuck on Crimea, which is a clear distinction there.

00:02:00.000 You know, as in, Musk's point is that when Crimea's a red line of Putins, that could lead to nuclear war.

00:02:07.000 Then he's got a bit of a bigger point there.

00:02:09.000 Let us know in the chat if you agree with Musk's actions.

00:02:13.000 If you're watching us on YouTube, give us a like, give us a comment.

00:02:16.000 If you're watching on Rumble, you can't rumble us no more.

00:02:19.000 Our rumbling days are over.

00:02:20.000 It's like the like has usurped the rumble.

00:02:24.000 As the way of acknowledging your approval and registering your content with us.

00:02:30.000 We'll be talking in more detail about the, like, Musk's actions in preventing an attack on Crimea.

00:02:37.000 And later in our item, here's the news, we'll be talking about Fauci being questioned by CNN on masks and a new take on some of the data that emerged from that period, which I will not discuss with you.

00:02:48.000 You 6.5 million awakening wonders on YouTube because you know how that platform is regulated and we love you and we adore you.

00:02:54.000 But in a few minutes, we're going to want you to click the link in the description to join us for a conversation with Max Blumenthal, who will be talking to us, presumably at length, about that conflict and revealing stuff that simply wouldn't be safe to talk about in heavily regulated mainstream spaces.

00:03:12.000 But first, it's time for Moderna's Shot of the Day.

00:03:17.000 Now, if you sponsor Shot of the Day in a major tennis Grand Slam tournament, there's one man who I'd be pretty keen to see bypass.

00:03:26.000 I wouldn't even want to see him as a contender.

00:03:29.000 But, the fact is, this guy's good at tennis. 0.98

00:03:31.000 For some reason, he's a rat! 0.98

00:03:33.000 His heart just keeps on pumping! 0.92

00:03:36.000 Almost as if he's healthier than the other tennis players that he has some sort of advantage that is indescribable and difficult to discern, particularly within mainstream science.

00:03:45.000 Let's have a look at Djokovic's shot of the day and the extraordinary hypocrisies around that.

00:03:52.000 The dirtiest shot of the day and it was... The match point to get to number 24.

00:03:57.000 There were a lot of shots that were highly impactful.

00:04:01.000 But here's the final one.

00:04:03.000 Relief and release there.

00:04:10.000 Sometimes it's not in the moments of high analysis and great exposés and brilliant

00:04:15.000 investigations where you see the reality of our system.

00:04:18.000 just the normalization of Moderna's shot of the day, showcasing the brilliance of Djokovic.

00:04:28.000 It's extraordinary and inconvenient. Those of you that have been following these stories

00:04:31.000 closely know that if you're from the UK and let us know in the chat if you are and if

00:04:35.000 you're watching us on Rumble, press the red button right now and join us in the locals

00:04:37.000 community. There's a fantastic chat going on in there right now. Some of you mentioning

00:04:41.000 like no Dugganoku. Is this a pun, Moderna shot of the day?

00:04:44.000 I mean, I think it is a deliberate pun. I think it definitely is. And yet that pun is placed

00:04:49.000 in a new framework by Djokovic's victory and the excellence of his shot.

00:04:54.000 And of course, us still being on YouTube, we have to be cautious about what we say.

00:04:58.000 But you'll remember, of course, that Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, look at his investment strategy prior to becoming Chancellor and then Prime Minister.

00:05:06.000 You will remember.

00:05:07.000 What's his name again, Jonathan Fantam?

00:05:09.000 Van Tam.

00:05:10.000 Van Tam, government advisor, making all sorts of suggestions during the pandemic period.

00:05:14.000 And he went on to get a job at, I can't remember where it was, wasn't it, Dr. Bernardo's charity for children?

00:05:19.000 No, it was Moderna.

00:05:20.000 That's where he went on to get a job.

00:05:22.000 You'll remember some of the booster shots that were recommended after clinical trials on just eight mouses.

00:05:28.000 And they call it science.

00:05:30.000 It's an extraordinary day to look at Shot of the Day.

00:05:32.000 Shot of the Day also seems to suggest that it's going to be one shot every day.

00:05:37.000 That's the old name.

00:05:39.000 This will be effective... Well, what time is it?

00:05:42.000 I'm afraid we're going to need another one.

00:05:43.000 What we can do is we can thwack them at you from across a net and they'll end up where they may.

00:05:49.000 Isn't it also incredible that... The thing about having Shot of the Day and Moderna is how normalised it's become that a pharmaceutical company can be one of the main sponsors of a massive tennis event.

00:05:59.000 Gareth, you make an incredible point there, because it's the normalisation of the system that makes it kind of invisible to us.

00:06:06.000 That it's gone from something where we're like, what?

00:06:08.000 You want us to do what?

00:06:09.000 Are you sure this is effective?

00:06:10.000 Hold on a minute, indemnity for perpetuity.

00:06:14.000 The drug companies that we used to somewhat vilify.

00:06:17.000 Moderna, shot of the day.

00:06:18.000 You're quite right, it's in the innocuousness, it's in its banality that that's where the true creeping tyranny will be seen.

00:06:26.000 This is not the authoritarian dictatorships of the last century in bold primary colours and military uniforms with Evident gulags, executions and genocides.

00:06:37.000 The visible, evident, appalling horrors of the last century.

00:06:40.000 No, this is a much more sanitised version of control.

00:06:45.000 Where you feel afraid to speak freely.

00:06:47.000 When you do not know when you will be persecuted.

00:06:50.000 When you do not know what's safe to say anymore.

00:06:52.000 A society extracted of all but data and only convenient data.

00:06:57.000 Where there is no accountability for some organisations.

00:07:00.000 I'm probably straying into that.

00:07:01.000 Allegedly.

00:07:02.000 That kind of territory by about now on and there's so much more to talk about particularly on this sort of historic week for particularly for those of you watching from the great continent of North America.

00:07:12.000 It's a great nation of North America.

00:07:13.000 Also the way in which Djokovic was vilified you know I mean again the great irony of all of this is that he's he's won a tournament that he was banned from for two years for not doing something that now we have new information around.

00:07:25.000 I mean it's just perverse really.

00:07:27.000 There's no in the chat Guys, now, the vilification of Djokovic.

00:07:33.000 He wasn't allowed to compete in competitions.

00:07:36.000 The US Open.

00:07:37.000 Do you mind if I don't do that, Medicine?

00:07:39.000 What?!

00:07:42.000 Already, I'm outraged all over again.

00:07:45.000 It seems unfeasible, the way that the framing can shift, fluctuate, and alter.

00:07:51.000 When they are wrong, it just disappears into the mist.

00:07:55.000 It just vaporizes into nothing.

00:07:58.000 Where is Where is the mea culpa?

00:08:00.000 Where is the explanation for the events of the last few years?

00:08:03.000 Where is the examination into the role of organisations of that scale, their ability to manipulate and control political processes?

00:08:11.000 Astonishing.

00:08:12.000 Extraordinary.

00:08:13.000 And this is exactly why Moderna does sponsor events like this.

00:08:16.000 This is the whole point.

00:08:17.000 You are normalising your product.

00:08:20.000 Any controversies like surrounding the vaccines at the moment are whitewashed, aren't they?

00:08:25.000 I had a fantastic conversation earlier today with Max Lugavere.

00:08:31.000 Can you say it for me?

00:08:32.000 Is that right?

00:08:32.000 Say it over the thing because it's a name that I've never seen written down.

00:08:35.000 Lugavere.

00:08:36.000 Lugavere.

00:08:37.000 Max Lugavere has done some unique research into Alzheimer's and the medications around Alzheimer's that, again, we possibly can't discuss here.

00:08:44.000 But once again, you can see how there are likely dietary factors that are early markers and indicators and causes, in fact.

00:08:54.000 allegedly of Alzheimer's, then there are unaffected medical solutions that are offered and this

00:09:01.000 sort of normalisation, the presence of pharma, in the same way that sort of years ago, in

00:09:07.000 somehow more sane times, it would be remarked upon as ridiculous that Coca-Cola and McDonald's

00:09:13.000 would be able to sponsor the Olympics because we all know that sugar, fat and salt to that

00:09:18.000 degree, immersive as it is, readily available, cheap and eaten too readily and likely with

00:09:25.000 appalling consequences.

00:09:26.000 And given to you free during the pandemic.

00:09:28.000 Have one of them, as long as you get your shot of the day, and then do you want fries with that?

00:09:33.000 And now, it's Big Pharma.

00:09:37.000 It becomes impossible to morally adjudicate because we're being stripped of the, almost of a reliable context, it seems, and just in an innocuous and not-inoculating event like that.

00:09:48.000 like that is an indication of how far we've come. Let's learn in the chat if you agree

00:09:55.000 with that. Coming up is Max Blumenthal. He'll be, as always, I call him the grey zone's

00:10:00.000 favourite son. He'll be exposing truth in radical ways to all of us. But before that,

00:10:05.000 we're going to talk a little more. Let's have a look, because actually this is a historic

00:10:09.000 time for America. When is it not? Joe Biden gave a speech in Hanoi in Vietnam. I don't

00:10:15.000 know if it was related to the previous military conflict between Vietnam and America. Imagine

00:10:22.000 that's another episode in American history. If you had the philosopher's friend, the time

00:10:28.000 machine, go, shall we have this war with Vietnam? Well, probably not actually. Probably just

00:10:33.000 leave that alone, shall we? Well, here is Joe Biden giving a speech in Hanoi. Let's

00:10:40.000 Let's have a look at that.

00:10:41.000 We talked about, we talked about at the conference overall, we talked about stability, we talked about making sure that the third world, the, uh, excuse me, third world, the, uh, the, the, uh, the Southern Hemisphere had access to change, had access.

00:10:58.000 That's the kind of thing.

00:10:58.000 That doesn't look good, does it?

00:10:59.000 You can't say third world and southern hemisphere as interchangeable terms, can you?

00:11:03.000 Is that allowed even?

00:11:05.000 Again, how can we be having these sort of charged conversations about the problems within the libertarian, the independent, even RFK as a potential candidate for the presidency?

00:11:19.000 When this is what has been normalised, when this is what's become normal for us, we've been sort of, I think, marched onto a bizarre peninsula where it's just ordinary to say, Moderna's shot of the day, here's Joe Biden in Hanoi saying that the southern hemisphere is the third world.

00:11:36.000 The guy can hardly sort of speak.

00:11:38.000 How has this become normal?

00:11:40.000 Well, especially when we're in a culture now, aren't we, of always having to say the right thing, you know?

00:11:45.000 And again, not one that I'm criticising in any way, but when people's pronouns and things are so important, and that's the culture that we're all told that is the right one that we should be following, for then the President to be making remarks like that, Third World rather than Southern Hemisphere, it's like, well, hang on, what's he doing then?

00:12:04.000 We don't need to legislate for kindness.

00:12:07.000 We can all find kindness within us.

00:12:09.000 We can find basic principles, I'm certain of it, around which we can reorganise society.

00:12:14.000 But when you have someone that's held up as an emblem, I remember when, about two days ago, Kamala Harris said that thing, and here is the champion of Big Pharma.

00:12:22.000 And again it was a sort of an extraordinary carnival of doublespeak where we were told

00:12:27.000 that Big Pharma had been reined in, attacked, neutered and castrated when it amounted to

00:12:33.000 a handful of drugs that have no generic competition, that have already been on the market for nine

00:12:37.000 years, will from 2026 be available to senior citizens.

00:12:41.000 So you sort of told it as it like, you know, like Martin Luther King at the pulpit.

00:12:46.000 Billie Jean King in the administration.

00:12:48.000 I don't know if there's anything really wrong with Billie Jean King, but I thought, you know, it's a good contrast, I suppose, because, let's face it, tennis is not administrating politics, unless you're Djokovic, in which case you better watch out, as he used to say.

00:13:01.000 Let's have a look at the rest of Biden's... what should we call it? Oratory?

00:13:06.000 It wasn't confrontational at all.

00:13:08.000 Thank you everybody. This ends the Calum Press.

00:13:11.000 That's enough of that about the Southern Hemisphere, old man.

00:13:14.000 Get out the way! 1.00

00:13:16.000 Okay, thanks everyone.

00:13:18.000 He just sort of takes it.

00:13:19.000 I don't know, man.

00:13:20.000 What do you guys think about this?

00:13:21.000 Are we at the point where it's sort of cruelty?

00:13:24.000 Elder abuse?

00:13:25.000 Is that what it is at this point?

00:13:26.000 Get ready for another six years!

00:13:29.000 This guy's got years in him!

00:13:31.000 He's nowhere near the periphery of his talents.

00:13:34.000 If this is him now, imagine in 2024!

00:13:38.000 It's astonishing.

00:13:39.000 It's astonishing that it can even be discussed in any sane society and perhaps we'll never know because we don't live in one.

00:13:45.000 Here's CNN attacking Elon Musk for trying to prevent nuclear Armageddon.

00:13:53.000 Another bizarre news story.

00:13:54.000 This is Jake Tapper talking about Skynet, SkyLink, Stardust, Starlight Express.

00:14:00.000 Let's have a look at Jake Tapper criticizing Musk.

00:14:04.000 Is that actual Anthony Blinken?

00:14:07.000 And what's he saying?

00:14:08.000 I can't criticise Elon.

00:14:09.000 Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:10.000 Well, he does, because they're in a very difficult position, because they're having to rely on a private company, which, you know, all the ways in which the government relationships with private companies, it's really not that convenient in this case.

00:14:23.000 Right, because it's difficult to have a cohesive policy if private entities are required to enact policy.

00:14:30.000 Exactly, but those private entities in other ways are very useful to you, you know, and so they'll have massive military contracts with Amazon providing a service.

00:14:38.000 Microsoft.

00:14:39.000 Microsoft, all of these.

00:14:40.000 They're very useful when we need them.

00:14:42.000 When it comes to being put in a position of being critical of them, they have to be careful at that point.

00:14:47.000 Let's see how the mainstream media want you to think about this.

00:14:50.000 SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has recently confirmed a report that's in Walter Isaacson's new biography of Musk that last year Musk blocked access to his Starlink satellite network in Crimea in order to disrupt a major Ukrainian attack on the Russian Navy there.

00:15:08.000 In other words, Musk effectively sabotaged a military operation by Ukraine, a U.S.

00:15:15.000 ally, against Russia, an aggressor country that invaded a U.S.

00:15:21.000 ally.

00:15:22.000 Should there be repercussions for that?

00:15:27.000 Jake, I can't speak to a specific episode.

00:15:29.000 Here's what I can tell you.

00:15:31.000 Starlink has been a vital tool for the Ukrainians to be able to communicate with each other.

00:15:36.000 Jim Earthsea calls him Black Rock Blinken there in the chat.

00:15:40.000 And particularly for the military to communicate in their effort to defend all of Ukraine's territory.

00:15:40.000 Curious.

00:15:47.000 It remains so, and I would expect it to continue to be critical to their efforts.

00:15:51.000 So what we would hope and expect is that that technology We'll remain fully available to the Ukrainians.

00:15:58.000 It is vital to what they're doing.

00:16:01.000 I don't know that you can't speak to it.

00:16:03.000 You won't speak to it.

00:16:04.000 Musk says he was reportedly afraid that Russia would retaliate with nuclear weapons.

00:16:12.000 Reasonable concern.

00:16:13.000 Legitimate, I would say.

00:16:14.000 What about a nuclear war, though?

00:16:15.000 It's one of those problems people seem to have put aside lately.

00:16:19.000 Yeah, Crimea.

00:16:20.000 I mean, literally a red line of Putins.

00:16:22.000 He said that.

00:16:23.000 He's been pretty plain about it.

00:16:24.000 I mean, so if you owned a company and you thought that your company was potentially facilitating a nuclear war, don't you have the right, as an owner of a private company, to make a call on that, would you not say?

00:16:36.000 I think it's actually, as I understand, in the terms and conditions.

00:16:39.000 And often you look at terms and conditions and it says things like, we will not let you use our technology to start a nuclear war or an international conflict.

00:16:47.000 Well, I'm hardly likely to do that.

00:16:49.000 But in this case, that was precisely how it was going to be used.

00:16:52.000 This is from a post of Musk's on air.

00:16:54.000 X. The onus is meaningfully different if I refuse to act upon a request from Ukraine

00:16:59.000 versus made a deliberate change to Starlink to thwart Ukraine. At no point did I or anyone 0.90

00:17:04.000 at SpaceX promise coverage over Crimea. Moreover, our terms of service clearly prohibit Starlink

00:17:10.000 for offensive military action as we are a civilian system.

00:17:14.000 So they're again asking for something that was expressly prohibited.

00:17:18.000 SpaceX is building Starshield for the U.S.

00:17:21.000 government, which is similar to, but much smaller than, Starlink, as it will not have to handle millions of users.

00:17:27.000 That system will be owned and controlled by the U.S.

00:17:30.000 government.

00:17:31.000 How astonishing the relationship between big tech and the government literally could intervene as surely as it could facilitate nuclear conflict.

00:17:40.000 Yeah, it's a tricky relationship that they have, the government and big tech now, because

00:17:46.000 as we've seen, I mean, we've got Max coming on later, but the Twitter files revealed so

00:17:50.000 much about the collusion between the government and big tech.

00:17:54.000 So they're in a position where they can't be condemnatory of Musk necessarily, because

00:17:59.000 they need him for all sorts of things in the same way that they need Facebook.

00:18:03.000 Hence why they've allowed all these companies, for example, Facebook, for years to violate

00:18:08.000 your personal freedoms, to violate your privacy, because of the need that they have for these

00:18:14.000 companies.

00:18:15.000 How can you ever regulate big tech companies when there is such an over-reliance on them?

00:18:22.000 When there seems to be a pretty porous revolving door, would that work?

00:18:25.000 A porous revolving door between big tech and the deep state with CIA and FBI operatives

00:18:31.000 revealed to be working within numerous social media organizations, as well as within conventional

00:18:37.000 media, how can there be any trust in these organisations?

00:18:41.000 How can there be any ability for these new titans of the globe to respond to the will of ordinary people?

00:18:49.000 These are just some of the questions I'd like you to ask and possibly answer and we'll ask Max Bluth or possibly Possibly.

00:18:54.000 Over here in the UK, Daniel Khalif, a former Royal Signals soldier and terror suspect, has been arrested after his escape.

00:19:04.000 Daniel Abded Khalif has been subject to a nationwide manhunt, having finally been captured 75 hours after outwitting the guards at a London prison.

00:19:11.000 and let's have a look at some news footage of that event.

00:19:17.000 It's the news headlines.

00:19:21.000 No, it's not.

00:19:21.000 We're going straight to me.

00:19:22.000 This is breaking news.

00:19:23.000 That's right.

00:19:24.000 Now, GB News, that's their style, isn't it?

00:19:26.000 Yeah.

00:19:27.000 They're sort of a bit like us.

00:19:28.000 All right, here's the news.

00:19:30.000 We're coming straight to me, yeah!

00:19:30.000 What's now?

00:19:32.000 It's fast happening.

00:19:35.000 Because, as we just said, we... It's happening.

00:19:38.000 News, yeah, a bit of news just then.

00:19:40.000 The app... The Terror Man...

00:19:43.000 Terror Man!

00:19:44.000 Terror Man!

00:19:45.000 Don't glamorise him!

00:19:47.000 The guy's a jailbreaker!

00:19:49.000 He's already got fantastic eyebrows.

00:19:51.000 The last thing you want to do is give him a moniker that's going to catch on and allow him to have T-shirts and mugs and stuff.

00:19:56.000 It's all gone wrong.

00:19:59.000 It's here.

00:20:00.000 Chip Chapman.

00:20:01.000 We have him coming up soon on the arrest of the terror suspect.

00:20:06.000 He escaped from Wandsworth Prison and he's been apprehended.

00:20:09.000 It's all coming up in GB News.

00:20:11.000 We've got our first guest.

00:20:13.000 Wow, it's an interesting place over there on GB News.

00:20:19.000 In a sense, are they new media or old media?

00:20:22.000 Are they traditional?

00:20:22.000 Are they straddling?

00:20:23.000 Where are they funded by?

00:20:24.000 I mean, it's sort of like, I know they do a lot of stuff online that's pretty interesting, but that was amazing.

00:20:29.000 I guess it's sort of just like it's hard to do breaking news sometimes.

00:20:32.000 Yeah.

00:20:33.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:20:34.000 Let's see if he gets it back.

00:20:36.000 He's escaped.

00:20:37.000 They've arrested prisoner Daniel Khalif.

00:20:39.000 Beg your pardon, we're getting the autocue in the right place.

00:20:41.000 This story is just happening.

00:20:43.000 Joining me now for the latest is GB News home security editor Mark White.

00:20:46.000 Are you there Mark?

00:20:50.000 We have Chip Chapman.

00:20:52.000 Chip?

00:20:52.000 Chip Chapman!

00:20:53.000 It's Chip Chapman.

00:20:54.000 Chip Chapman.

00:20:55.000 Terror man.

00:20:56.000 I'm going to watch more of this station.

00:20:57.000 It's amazing over there.

00:20:58.000 It's sort of like Be No News.

00:21:00.000 It's a wonderful, it's like a Pixar film.

00:21:02.000 The kind of characters that are turning up.

00:21:02.000 Yeah.

00:21:04.000 It does feel like it's been made by like school kids or something.

00:21:06.000 Audio!

00:21:08.000 You can't keep saying Chip Chapman.

00:21:15.000 Oh no, here's the Prime Minister man again, Moderna man as we call him. 0.95

00:21:20.000 Hold on a minute, we're still on YouTube.

00:21:22.000 You can't call him that there just because he was the founder of a hedge fund that invested 500... Co-founder, Ross.

00:21:28.000 Come on, come on. 0.99

00:21:30.000 We even have a like button now instead of a rumble button so you can like us like it's 1999.

00:21:33.000 We'll be talking to Max Blumenthal who's the editor and journalist at the Grey Zone.

00:21:36.000 Hey listen, if you're watching us on YouTube now, why don't you click the link in the description

00:21:39.000 and join us over in the home of free speech. We even have a like button now instead of a

00:21:44.000 rumble button so you can like us like it's 1999. We'll be talking to Max Blumenthal who's the

00:21:50.000 editor and journalist at the Grey Zone. He's got some interesting stories around censorship and

00:21:57.000 what seemed to me like the forces turning against him.

00:22:00.000 They're starting to meddle with the money.

00:22:01.000 You know, it's getting serious when it gets to that point.

00:22:03.000 Click the link in the description and join us over there.

00:22:05.000 If you're already on Rumble, why not press the red button now?

00:22:07.000 Become an Awakened Wonder.

00:22:08.000 Get some Awakened Wonder Pants.

00:22:11.000 The first thousand of you that join us in our Locals community get an astonishing pair of Underpants.

00:22:18.000 Is that in any sense an incentive?

00:22:20.000 I'm not sure.

00:22:21.000 We do question, let us know yourselves by simply joining us.

00:22:25.000 As Max Blumenthal, and I'm not suggesting that he's in Wonderpants, Awakened Wonder, though he surely is, he's joining us now.

00:22:32.000 Max, hello mate, thanks for coming on.

00:22:35.000 Great to see you.

00:22:36.000 How are you doing?

00:22:37.000 Thanks.

00:22:37.000 Yeah, you know, man, we're operating in a beautiful space.

00:22:42.000 I'm sure you'll agree that working in this independent media space is free from consequences.

00:22:48.000 It's a giddy, buccaneering affair, and you never get the sense that the forces of evil are co-aligning and coalescing to, for example, shut down your GoFundMe.

00:22:57.000 Can you tell us a little bit about that story, mate?

00:23:00.000 Yeah, well, it's a giddy buccaneering affair for independent swashbucklers like ourselves and our ship was targeted by...

00:23:11.000 Apparently national security state pirates.

00:23:14.000 We have no idea who they actually are because they hide behind the veneer of the supposedly private Silicon Valley based companies like GoFundMe.

00:23:26.000 As you said, you were saying before in the run up to this interview, the FBI has honeycombed its places like Facebook or Meta and Twitter with its own operatives.

00:23:37.000 You even have former CIA people there.

00:23:39.000 But these crowdfunding sites do the same thing, and it's poorly understood.

00:23:46.000 So I'll just tell you what happened to us, and I think your audience will better understand how dangerous it is for them to try to raise money for anything remotely political.

00:23:59.000 When you have the national security state operating behind the scenes telling them that they may have to sanction people if their political views go against their own objectives.

00:24:10.000 So we launched a crowd funder for three of our contributors.

00:24:14.000 You've had one of them on named Kit Clarenberg.

00:24:18.000 Three of our most dedicated contributors to provide them with long-term positions.

00:24:22.000 And so for our audience, it was a chance to just support independent media that they like.

00:24:26.000 We went through GoFundMe.

00:24:27.000 People are now calling me naive.

00:24:31.000 And GoFundMe was failing to transfer the money.

00:24:35.000 We had raised about $90,000 in three weeks.

00:24:40.000 And I went over to GoFundMe's That's all I heard from her.

00:24:45.000 and what happened to the money.

00:24:47.000 And it took a while.

00:24:49.000 And I finally received a message from a trust and safety officer, only named Sabrina.

00:24:55.000 I had no idea who she was.

00:24:56.000 And she said that due to some external concerns, they have frozen the money and they're not

00:25:03.000 transferring it to us because they need to verify it.

00:25:07.000 That's all I heard from her.

00:25:09.000 And so our donors didn't know that this had happened.

00:25:13.000 So eventually I had to announce it.

00:25:16.000 Which means that I was basically, when you announce this and go public, you're sabotaging your own fundraiser because no one's going to want to donate if the money's being frozen.

00:25:24.000 But they wouldn't explain why.

00:25:27.000 And eventually we had to force GoFundMe to refund all the money to everyone and move to a different fundraising site called SpotFund, which has been much more trustworthy and responsive.

00:25:40.000 We were able to get their chief technology officer on the line who promised us that they would transfer the money immediately, and they've done so.

00:25:47.000 But with GoFundMe, it's obvious.

00:25:50.000 That they're working hand-in-glove with the national security state and applying financial sanctions on outlets and causes that threaten the imperatives of the powers-that-be.

00:26:00.000 And I'll point directly to the Canadian truckers, the Freedom Convoy.

00:26:04.000 You know what happened there.

00:26:05.000 Back in early 2022, GoFundMe froze their $10 million that they had raised, $10 million US dollars they'd raised, and then announced that they were transferring it to, quote-unquote, established charities.

00:26:19.000 So they were stealing the money from donors to the Canadian truckers protesting Justin Trudeau and the Liberal government's vaccine mandates and the lockdowns, and just giving it to charities of their choosing.

00:26:32.000 And they eventually had to relent because this was a violation of U.S.

00:26:35.000 law.

00:26:36.000 Several attorney generals in the states were going to investigate them.

00:26:40.000 But they wanted to steal the money.

00:26:42.000 And why were they doing that?

00:26:43.000 Because that liberal government of Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland had declared emergency law in Canada, had told GoFundMe to do that, and they were telling the banks to basically Take people's money who are donating to this because the protest was threatening their policy.

00:27:00.000 And so that's what we think happened with us, and we weren't going to let them reroute the money somewhere else, so we just shut it down.

00:27:07.000 And the crazy thing is, now they're telling journalists, like our friend Matt Taibbi, who actually called them at GoFundMe, that this was a totally normal procedure and that we voluntarily shut it down, as though we were just going to sit there and allow them to continue this complete Banking fraud forever.

00:27:28.000 It's astonishing.

00:27:30.000 You know, like Lee's story, we're talking about the relationship between Elon Musk and the American government and how Elon Musk is able to intervene in the military imperatives of the, you know, in this case, the Ukraine.

00:27:45.000 I know your views on that war have been pretty well and widely expressed.

00:27:51.000 And here we have a story where, once again, the relationship between big tech and the government

00:27:56.000 becomes quite curious.

00:27:58.000 It's interesting and exciting when there's an obvious adversarial component,

00:28:02.000 such as in our last story.

00:28:04.000 But when you see this kind of cohesion, this kind of collaboration, like you cite with the Canadian

00:28:10.000 trucker story, and obviously now you've been a personal, I guess, should we say, victim of it,

00:28:15.000 you've certainly experienced it, it makes you realize that, ultimately, what we're

00:28:20.000 sliding towards are more and more normalized, centralized, authoritarian models, centralized currency,

00:28:27.000 ability to close down people.

00:28:29.000 We're hearing more and more stories about the intervention in people's financial affairs.

00:28:34.000 It's something that's becoming more prevalent.

00:28:37.000 And I'm not surprised that you're a prominent and high-profile organization

00:28:42.000 to be subject to that kind of obvious corruption.

00:28:47.000 And what does it make you feel about the future of the gray zone and your ability to report independently,

00:28:53.000 for example, on the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia?

00:28:57.000 Does it make you feel that you are being persecuted?

00:29:00.000 Does it make you feel that it's kind of a threat?

00:29:03.000 Or do you think that in this sort of new space everything is sort of sanitized, technocratic, I mean that sort of literally, and yet a digital tyranny kind of pervades invisibly like a sort of a binary gas where there's no sort of baddie to locate but just an ideal that can be conveyed and a new type of oppression without clear villains, you know?

00:29:27.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:29:27.000 I interviewed an author and satirist who's based in Germany, who's American, named C.J.

00:29:33.000 Hopkins, who you might know.

00:29:35.000 He did a book called The New Normal Reich, which is just a send-up of the Covidian regime that prevailed in Germany, across Europe, and across the West.

00:29:45.000 And his book cover features—it's a play on William Shire's The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich.

00:29:51.000 It features a swastika embedded within a mask.

00:29:55.000 And for that book cover, Germany, a German court has found him guilty of glorifying a national socialist organization and sentenced him to 60 days in prison or $4,000 fine.

00:30:08.000 And the way, I mean, he's facing kind of a jackboot in the face, the hard censorship.

00:30:12.000 Germany doesn't really have freedom of speech, although it pretends to be a liberal democracy.

00:30:18.000 But what we're facing in the U.S., which has a First Amendment, is kind of the national security state, which we never elected, a

00:30:25.000 bunch of faceless individuals who are able to meddle in elections across the world, including

00:30:30.000 in our own, meddle in politics, is this kind of soft totalitarian model. Sheldon Wolin, the

00:30:39.000 late sociologist, called it inverted totalitarianism, where liberal democracy

00:30:43.000 is used as cover for a more authoritarian project.

00:30:47.000 And you can get quietly shadow banned from behind the scenes by some operative in an air-conditioned office and disappeared or suppressed or censored without having any recourse or due process because it's being done ostensibly through a private corporation, which just is saying, hey, we're just enforcing our terms of service.

00:31:09.000 And so that's insidious.

00:31:12.000 It's dangerous.

00:31:12.000 It's deeply anti-democratic.

00:31:15.000 And the public, whether it's us or anyone else who's been censored financially, like our friends at Mint Press News or Consortium News, they never know who actually pulled the trigger and censored them.

00:31:27.000 So who's responsible for this?

00:31:29.000 Was it the U.S.

00:31:30.000 government?

00:31:31.000 Or could it have been the Ukrainian government?

00:31:34.000 Because we know For a fact, because of the Twitter file that my colleague Aaron Maté obtained, that the Ukrainian security services, known as SBU, called the FBI, sent them messages containing a list of Twitter accounts they wanted banned.

00:31:53.000 And the FBI went to Twitter and told them to ban these accounts.

00:31:58.000 And these accounts included Americans and Canadians, Like Aaron Maté.

00:32:03.000 And it was solely on the basis of their political views that they were disrupting the official narrative that Ukraine was just fighting this glorious war for democracy.

00:32:11.000 And Twitter, this is in the pre-Elon regime, actually refused because it was too extreme for them to just ban Americans and Canadians on the basis of a foreign government telling them to do so.

00:32:23.000 But who told GoFundMe to do that?

00:32:25.000 Who were these external concerns?

00:32:26.000 Was it the Ukrainian government?

00:32:28.000 Was it the British government which detained And interrogated our contributor, British citizen, Kit Clarenberg.

00:32:36.000 I know you've interviewed him about that.

00:32:37.000 Or was it the U.S.

00:32:38.000 government?

00:32:39.000 We will probably never know.

00:32:41.000 And so we're existing in this inverted totalitarian model behind the guise of liberal democracy, where most of the public still believes that they have due process and free speech.

00:32:55.000 They don't, as long as we're relying on these private companies managed by the national security state as our digital commons, as our kind of speaker's corner.

00:33:03.000 God, man, there's so many points I want to pick up on there.

00:33:06.000 There were sort of Orwellian images, of course, with the boot on the face of the man who used that image in a mask in a plainly satirical way, and sort of when satire and comedy gets challenged to that degree, you know, bloody hell, Germany, they should be encouraging. 0.96

00:33:19.000 Robin Williams' famous line, why are Germans so unfunny? 1.00

00:33:25.000 And he said, because he killed all the funny people.

00:33:27.000 But I'm also minded of Huxley, like being the sort of sanitized version of tyranny,

00:33:35.000 this inverted tyranny that you describe, as well as the kind of Kafka-esque idea,

00:33:41.000 which I'm sure, I guess, was more of a critique of Stasi-style, Soviet-style, communist oppression,

00:33:49.000 bureaucracies that were masked, and are oddly diaphanous, and impossible to locate.

00:33:57.000 This now seems to have migrated to our countries, the United States, the UK.

00:34:04.000 As well as when you were talking about this inverted tyranny, I'm sort of minded of a moment in my conversation with Sam Harris last week.

00:34:10.000 It was a point that the great philosopher and friend of the show, actually, Brad Evans first made, I believe, that we've been sort of trained to regard jihadist violence or certain type of violence as extreme.

00:34:23.000 And of course, you know, I'm not sort of obviously endorsing any type of violence, but like he made the point that he imagined jihadists to be in ecstatic states and sort of That, for him, made the violence all the more nefarious.

00:34:36.000 But the kind of violence that's carried out, for example, under Obama, who we made a really

00:34:41.000 good item about earlier today, are these sort of sanitary, as you say, air-conditioned rooms

00:34:46.000 where either your funds are shut down or a wedding adjacent to a potential terror suspect

00:34:51.000 is bombed, where progress, technology, rationalism themselves are used to mobilize a type of

00:34:58.000 tyranny that, to misquote Wilde, dare not speak its name, tells us that it's liberal

00:35:04.000 and democratic, all the while gently closing in on our freedom.

00:35:09.000 And in one more Orwellian tag, Max, what do you feel about the war, good, peace, bad NATO

00:35:17.000 members' concerns that any opposition to a proxy war might drive Ukraine to pursue, oh

00:35:24.000 no, peace talks with Putin?

00:35:28.000 Well, there are a number of obstacles to peace talks, because it's obvious now that Tony

00:35:38.000 Blinken, the U.S.

00:35:39.000 Secretary of State, was recently in Kiev for a more extended period than usual to probably put the idea of negotiations on the table.

00:35:49.000 And this is because of the colossal failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which the U.S.

00:35:55.000 has been heavily involved in.

00:35:58.000 They failed to capture any real territory.

00:36:00.000 They were supposed to cut off the land bridge between Russia and Crimea.

00:36:05.000 It's not going to happen, and soon there's going to be rain in the eastern regions, the eastern plains of the Donbass region, and it's going to be impossible to get armor through there.

00:36:16.000 So it was a total failure.

00:36:19.000 Why can't they negotiate?

00:36:20.000 Number one, why should Russia negotiate at this point when the West has just stabbed them?

00:36:26.000 It just completely cut off the possibility of negotiations and sabotage negotiations at every turn leading to this proxy war.

00:36:33.000 Back in April 2022, the U.S.

00:36:36.000 cancelled negotiations between Zelensky and the Kremlin and said, keep fighting.

00:36:42.000 And they sabotaged the Minsk Accords before that, so why trust the West? 0.69

00:36:46.000 And why negotiate when you could actually start capturing more and more territory, given this terrible state of Ukraine's military and the hundreds of thousands of casualties they've suffered?

00:36:57.000 They don't have much left, apparently.

00:37:00.000 So there's that factor.

00:37:01.000 Then there's the factor of, like, Tony Blinken himself.

00:37:04.000 This guy has major skin in the game when it comes to continuing this war.

00:37:09.000 He founded a firm called West Exec Advisors, which finesses contracts for the arms industry and big tech through the Pentagon and the State Department.

00:37:20.000 And him and his former colleagues from the Obama administration got together and started

00:37:25.000 this firm to basically profit off their connections with the major winners of the Ukraine proxy

00:37:32.000 war, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Palantir, all the Beltway bandits, as we call them here

00:37:37.000 in Washington.

00:37:38.000 And so, if Tony Blinken leaves government, he could make a lot of money off of this war,

00:37:44.000 as long as it's still continuing.

00:37:46.000 And that could be either through a kind of frozen conflict, where Ukraine is transformed into what Zelensky has called a big Israel, and it's just constantly at war with Russia, and its entire society is securitized and mobilized.

00:37:59.000 The tech industry will love that as well, because everyone's going to be under surveillance, you know, drones and cameras everywhere.

00:38:08.000 Uh, and so, you know, you have all these people who, why would they want to end this conflict?

00:38:12.000 It's doing, they're the real winners of this war. 0.60

00:38:15.000 And then finally, you have the ideological investment, just the hatred of Russia that prevails, particularly among the Democratic Party foreign policy elite, but also within the Republican Party.

00:38:28.000 The idea that we just can't lose this war and that this is about democracy.

00:38:34.000 So there are all these obstacles to negotiations, but obviously the war isn't going.

00:38:39.000 There's no progress for Ukraine in this war.

00:38:42.000 They should have negotiated over a year ago, but they've been drunk off of these delusional fantasies spun out of Washington that they can somehow win when victory is never even defined.

00:38:52.000 Oh man, those are the kind of home truths that you do not want being funded under any circumstances.

00:39:00.000 Do avoid going to spot.fund forward slash defend the grey zone again and donate in to

00:39:08.000 Max Blumenthal's incredible endeavours there at the grey zone.

00:39:11.000 We'll post the link in the description.

00:39:13.000 Now they've got to do it all over again precisely because the news they convey is a threat to

00:39:18.000 mainstream narratives and look what happens.

00:39:21.000 Astonishing, astonishing the price you pay for telling the truth.

00:39:25.000 Max, that's exceptional.

00:39:26.000 Thank you so much for that.

00:39:29.000 We're always grateful to spend some time with you.

00:39:31.000 Thanks for your contributions.

00:39:33.000 I'm going to make a donation myself.

00:39:34.000 It's a GoFundMe, right?

00:39:35.000 A couple of hundred pounds.

00:39:37.000 Guy, just give it to someone.

00:39:39.000 Give it to someone you think I'd like.

00:39:41.000 I don't know what I want. 1.00

00:39:42.000 I'm an idiot. 1.00

00:39:43.000 You decide for me who I should support. 1.00

00:39:45.000 Well, none of it's going to me.

00:39:46.000 Not one dollar is going to me.

00:39:49.000 It's going to The three of our bravest, most dedicated contributors.

00:39:53.000 Wyatt Reed right now, our managing editor, he is in the Donbass region.

00:39:59.000 He's in the conflict zone right now, and he's been cut off from Venmo and PayPal for his reporting.

00:40:04.000 He's basically financially sanctioned.

00:40:07.000 It's going to kick Klarenberg, who you've interviewed before, and his bombshell expose on 9-11.

00:40:13.000 which it is 9-11 today, on how the CIA actually recruited two of the hijackers,

00:40:19.000 completely factual report based on public court documents, recruited two of the hijackers

00:40:24.000 and then refused to tell the FBI about their plot as it developed. He was interrogated about that

00:40:30.000 article by British counter-terror police when he arrived to his home country in London.

00:40:36.000 So, I mean, these are the people that deserve to be supported.

00:40:39.000 These are the journalists that deserve to be supported, and that's who our fundraiser is for, to provide them with long-term support.

00:40:44.000 Amazing.

00:40:45.000 That is a way to fund Real News, Real Truth.

00:40:49.000 We'll post that link.

00:40:50.000 You guys there should support that.

00:40:51.000 Thanks once again, Max, for joining us.

00:40:53.000 It's fantastic to see you, as always.

00:40:55.000 I'm sure your donation is not anonymous, because we'd love to have it up there.

00:40:59.000 All right, let's leave a donation under my name.

00:41:02.000 I'm looking around, like if someone's going to solve that for me, like The Dog or Gareth or someone.

00:41:06.000 I will, I'll leave a donation.

00:41:07.000 We'll do it.

00:41:08.000 Someone nodded.

00:41:08.000 Young Putin, of course.

00:41:09.000 Of course he would nod!

00:41:11.000 Of course he would!

00:41:12.000 He's a sympathiser!

00:41:14.000 Thanks Max.

00:41:15.000 Cheers for joining us, mate.

00:41:15.000 appreciate the support. Hey, guess who we got coming on tomorrow? Max Lugavere. Max Lugavere. Look at him. That

00:41:23.000 handsome. He's beautiful. He's another what I call boy band academic. Absolutely. This is what I call him. Saladino.

00:41:29.000 We're getting some of the most beautiful people telling you how to live forever, how to avoid Alzheimer's, the way

00:41:34.000 we're being lied to by Big Pharma. He's he's a fantastic conversation that I reckon you are going to love. Um Gareth,

00:41:42.000 I think we've just delivered yet another fantastic slice of

00:41:45.000 truth to these people.

00:41:47.000 Well done, you did really well.

00:41:49.000 I liked some of the stuff you said about Djokovic.

00:41:51.000 Let's have a look at the poll about masks that we did.

00:41:55.000 What did we ask our beloved audience?

00:42:00.000 If face mask mandates were reintroduced, would you wear one again?

00:42:04.000 Some of you say no, never again.

00:42:06.000 Some go, yeah, I would!

00:42:09.000 There you go, and you're all welcome here, and we love every single last one of you.

00:42:13.000 Also, it's not an if question, they are being reintroduced in various places.

00:42:17.000 Well, there you go, 91% of you are going to be in a great deal of trouble.

00:42:19.000 Certainly don't wear ones such as was described in that German or that American comedian there.

00:42:25.000 Those we would have to go against.

00:42:27.000 That's a satirical leap too far.

00:42:30.000 Now, do you remember in Sweden during lockdown?

00:42:34.000 Well, I'll tell you, they didn't have a lockdown.

00:42:36.000 That's what they did.

00:42:36.000 They went, oh, look, we'll work it out.

00:42:37.000 We'll trust you as adults and citizens of a democratic country to do what you want until we have a better understanding of how this deal is gonna go down.

00:42:47.000 And did you see CNN talking to Fauci?

00:42:50.000 This bug-eyed dude is giving Fauci hell, but Valtteri ain't taking none of it.

00:42:56.000 Note the way that he talks about the difference between sort of individuals and a whole population and the significance of such an observation in a pandemic.

00:43:04.000 In a pandemic!

00:43:05.000 Here's the news.

00:43:06.000 No baby, here's the effing news. 0.99

00:43:12.000 Here's the f**king news! 0.98

00:43:14.000 Mask mandates are back! 0.98

00:43:17.000 Are lockdowns coming back?

00:43:18.000 And can that ever be justified when Sweden's no lockdown stance appears to have been verified?

00:43:24.000 Would it have been better all along if we'd done nothing?

00:43:27.000 We're talking about the return of mask mandates, Trump's new perspective on vaccines and lockdowns and

00:43:36.000 Did Sweden get it right all along by being non-interventionist? 0.85

00:43:36.000 Sweden. 0.85

00:43:41.000 Now, we can't revise the past, but we do have to remember it.

00:43:44.000 We do have to learn from it.

00:43:46.000 Now, Donald Trump, and I know a lot of you guys love him, was very proud of those vaccines, right?

00:43:50.000 That's probably one of the things you're like, oh, but he does like the vaccine.

00:43:52.000 Well, let's see what Donald Trump is saying about the vaccines, lockdowns, and potential pandemic policies going forward.

00:43:58.000 The left-wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fear-mongering about the new variants that are coming.

00:44:09.000 Gee whiz, you know what else is coming? 0.67

00:44:10.000 An election.

00:44:12.000 They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship.

00:44:17.000 I do believe in the general analysis that first there is an appetite to achieve something and then they reverse engineer the way to achieve it.

00:44:26.000 The legacy media is falling apart.

00:44:29.000 The ability to control the narrative and control the people is starting to change.

00:44:33.000 The suggestion is, we need new systems and new models.

00:44:36.000 There should be more democracy, not less.

00:44:38.000 Less authority, not more.

00:44:40.000 And Donald Trump, whether or not he delivers, and you can let me know in the comments what you think about this, he knows the language, he knows the rhetoric, he knows the questions, he knows how to frame these arguments. 0.95

00:44:49.000 And because what we're offered as an alternative to Donald Trump is such inept Innocuous, vacuous, deceptive politics.

00:44:57.000 People claiming that there's a new farmer bill. 0.98

00:44:59.000 You look at the details. 1.00

00:45:00.000 It's bullshit. 0.99

00:45:01.000 The Hawaii fires. 1.00

00:45:02.000 Well, let's look after our own.

00:45:04.000 We care about diverse people. 1.00

00:45:05.000 It's bullshit. 0.99

00:45:06.000 Because of that, this kind of language, this kind of rhetoric is much more powerful. 0.99

00:45:11.000 And because we were all, generally speaking, so compliant in the lockdown era, and then you learn Sweden, who basically said, oh, go about your business.

00:45:19.000 We'll work it out.

00:45:20.000 We're trying to cross-reference it with The economic impact of lockdowns, the impact on cancer, heart disease, diabetes, medical health, addiction.

00:45:27.000 We're looking at it and we're thinking probably a non-interventionist approach.

00:45:30.000 Plus we're a genuinely liberal democracy who don't secretly crave as much authoritarianism as possible.

00:45:36.000 Because of that, they had a different approach to the pandemic.

00:45:39.000 Now we can see the results.

00:45:40.000 Stay awake, stay aware, keep educating yourself, and remember events of just six months ago.

00:45:45.000 Then you'll be better equipped to have conversations.

00:45:47.000 That's what we're trying to do.

00:45:48.000 Arm you with the facts so that when they come to you with the next pack of lies and pack of suggestions that are going to impede your freedom and curiously not affect the globalist corporate state, you can say, but what about last time?

00:45:58.000 You said X and Y turned out to be true.

00:46:00.000 Let's have a look at those X's and Y's. 0.95

00:46:02.000 And maybe the Y naughts. 0.76

00:46:04.000 We will not shut down our schools, we will not accept your lockdowns, we will not abide by your mask mandates, and we will not tolerate your vaccine mandates.

00:46:14.000 They rigged the 2020 election and now they're trying to do the same thing all over again by rigging the most important election in the history of our country, the 2024 election, even if it means trying to bring back COVID.

00:46:30.000 But they will fail because we will not let it happen.

00:46:34.000 When I'm back in the White House, I will use every available authority to cut federal funding to any school, college, airline, or public transportation system that imposes a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate.

00:46:47.000 Thank you very much.

00:46:47.000 So I suppose the conversation has radically changed because Donald Trump, at the height of the pandemic, of course, declared that the vaccines were a tremendous success and he was in a different position then and there was different information available now.

00:46:58.000 But let's just take the temperature of our current moment.

00:47:00.000 Donald Trump has assessed the situation and has decided, wow, it's now going to be more effective to say, in government, I would make mask mandates illegal or I'd do anything within my power to prevent them, rather than, you know, we have to deal with this pandemic.

00:47:14.000 So that's a significant change.

00:47:15.000 Now, stay with us to the very end.

00:47:17.000 Firstly, what we're going to assess is what's being proposed right now.

00:47:19.000 And then we're going to look at the results of what happened in Sweden.

00:47:22.000 And hopefully this is OK to discuss on the YouTube platform, because, of course, the WHO guidelines are what determine the community guidelines on YouTube, which amount to their ability to censor this type of information.

00:47:32.000 Let me know in the comments if our videos are still appearing in your feeds, for example.

00:47:35.000 Despite very low numbers of people with serious illness, a recent rise in COVID cases has led to a return of mask mandates in a number of institutions.

00:47:43.000 In Hollywood, the movie studio Lionsgate issued a requirement for masks, as have several colleges and universities, along with hospital systems in California and New York.

00:47:50.000 Some medical Health professionals have even demanded a return of mask mandates in schools.

00:47:54.000 So is it a health issue or is it a political issue?

00:47:57.000 Was it ever a health issue?

00:47:58.000 Was it always a political issue?

00:47:59.000 Now at the very beginning I think we were all scared and concerned and it was an entirely novel thing but the conversations about the measures began pretty swiftly didn't they?

00:48:06.000 And it became politicized and divisive rather than unifying pretty quickly.

00:48:10.000 Let me know at this point is the pandemic or any potential variant of it a political or health issue?

00:48:15.000 Let me know below.

00:48:15.000 The return of required face coverings, of course, echoes official masking guidance and policies that were enacted in many contexts from spring 2020 through early 2022.

00:48:23.000 Universal masking was part of a broader pandemic response beyond vaccinations that was based on mandatory non-pharmaceutical interventions that also included quarantining healthy people who were potentially exposed to an infected person, banning gatherings of healthy people in churches and other locations, and long-term preemptive closures of schools and businesses.

00:48:40.000 It'll be very difficult for those in power not to conclude from the events of 2019 to 2022 that if required you can control people, you can control people's behaviour, you can massively influence their spending habits, their eating habits, their Their social habits, their habits of worship, their most enshrined values can be altered by government edicts.

00:49:00.000 I don't think they've ignored that information.

00:49:03.000 And I wouldn't be surprised if we saw attempts to utilise that knowledge, if not through coronavirus pandemics, where there is obvious and explicit resistance in various forms, including us here on this channel, I would have to say, through wars, through climate.

00:49:16.000 Significant, important issues that have to be addressed, but I would contest in ways that affect powerful institutions, not ordinary people.

00:49:23.000 Let me know in the comments if you agree with that.

00:49:25.000 Mask mandates and these other interventions were and are premised on a basic idea.

00:49:29.000 A large proportion of healthy people may unknowingly be infected with COVID and could transmit the virus to others.

00:49:34.000 The results from a unique new study, however, call this logic into question.

00:49:38.000 The paper published in the August issue of the journal The Lancet Microbe found that infected people pre-symptomatically, that is before they develop symptoms, very rarely had the ability to infect others.

00:49:48.000 Have you heard that information before?

00:49:50.000 I am not claiming that it's entirely true.

00:49:52.000 I'm asking if you have seen those studies.

00:49:54.000 Let me know in the comments.

00:49:55.000 What this means is that compelling people without COVID symptoms to wear masks in any number of environments, including most controversially, schools, along with quarantining healthy people, closing schools and other social distancing measures, likely yielded far, far less societal benefit than we're told.

00:50:08.000 If something doesn't have a rational scientific basis, its qualities are essentially apotropaic.

00:50:13.000 A good luck charm, have that word.

00:50:15.000 Let's see what Fauci, who advocated for masks more strongly than anybody, even though he privately expressed doubts about their efficacy numerous times, that's a matter of record, let's see what he's saying about this new data.

00:50:26.000 Brett Stevens in the Times talked about Cochran, put that on the screen.

00:50:29.000 As a side note, watch how many times this bloke intensely stares and let me know if that would freak you out if you were chatting to him.

00:50:35.000 Or worse.

00:50:36.000 The most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illness, including COVID-19, was published last month.

00:50:46.000 Its conclusions, said Tom Jefferson, the Oxford epidemiologist who is the lead author, were unambiguous.

00:50:52.000 There is just no evidence that they, masks, make any difference, he told the journalist Mayan Damasi.

00:50:59.000 Full stop.

00:51:00.000 But wait, hold on.

00:51:01.000 What about the N95 masks as opposed to the lower quality surgical or cloth masks?

00:51:06.000 Makes no difference.

00:51:07.000 None of it, he said.

00:51:08.000 Bloody hell, New York Times and CNN took their time, didn't they?

00:51:11.000 I remember when it was all, watch out for the horse paste and shame the unvaccinated. 1.00

00:51:16.000 Seems like, you know, get to near on 2024.

00:51:18.000 Oh, it's time to talk about the truth.

00:51:20.000 Must be another hustle coming.

00:51:22.000 Can you imagine how hard it is for us to go to Pfizer after a thing like this and say, get some money, will you?

00:51:27.000 We'll advertise Pfizer.

00:51:28.000 It's impossible.

00:51:29.000 Can you imagine the challenges we have that the legacy media don't have?

00:51:32.000 We care about you.

00:51:33.000 We care about truth.

00:51:34.000 But we've got to keep this movement running.

00:51:36.000 That's why we have commercial partners like these.

00:51:38.000 Support them if you can.

00:51:39.000 And I'll try and make the advert funny by being silly throughout it, even though I respect our commercial partners.

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00:51:56.000 Oh, look at that one.

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00:52:15.000 Now let's go back to this horrific, terrible, unnecessary, dreadful, bloody war that can't be won because Russia are a serious country that will not stop. 1.00

00:52:24.000 Maybe we could offer them some stickers.

00:52:26.000 Maybe that'll cheer them up.

00:52:27.000 Putin, would you like this crow?

00:52:29.000 Would that put a smile on your face?

00:52:31.000 Joe Biden, do you know who this is?

00:52:32.000 I don't know.

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00:52:40.000 Well what about the studies that initially persuaded policy makers to impose mask mandates?

00:52:45.000 They were convinced by non-randomized studies, flawed observational studies.

00:52:50.000 How do we get beyond that finding of that particular review?

00:52:54.000 Now he's already starting with the staring.

00:52:56.000 He's trying to stare into Anthony Fauci's innermost thoughts.

00:52:59.000 And really what we all want to hear from Anthony Fauci is why did you advocate so strongly for mask mandates when you yourself questioned them?

00:53:05.000 Why did you query the lab leak theory when you yourself thought it was plausible?

00:53:08.000 Why did you promote the wet market theory so aggressively?

00:53:11.000 Because some people thought that might be because that would lead to the conclusion that science itself would generate this problem and therefore should clear up the mess and that there were financial ties between the... There's so many bloody questions and you know all of them.

00:53:21.000 Let me know if there's any I've missed below.

00:53:23.000 But have a look at how Antony Fauci turvicuscates and provericates in order to avoid telling us the simple truth.

00:53:28.000 I was wrong.

00:53:29.000 I was wrong about that and it's unfortunate I make so much money.

00:53:32.000 Yeah, but there are other studies, Michael, that show at an individual level for individual, when you're talking about the effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole.

00:53:43.000 That's so extraordinary, isn't it?

00:53:44.000 Because a pandemic and an epidemic by its nature is about populations.

00:53:47.000 Start saying, yeah, but as an individual.

00:53:49.000 Well, if it's for individuals, maybe don't mandate it.

00:53:52.000 Maybe have a individual choice or liberty or freedom.

00:53:56.000 It's almost as if there's an appetite to curtail and control individual freedom.

00:54:00.000 That's the starting point.

00:54:02.000 And then ways to legitimize controlling individual freedom.

00:54:05.000 freedom are introduced, even if they're seemingly insignificant things like, would you mind wearing

00:54:09.000 this mask or would you mind standing two meters away? Two examples which increasingly under

00:54:14.000 scientific scrutiny are looking to be arbitrary, unaffected, and that means that the recommendations

00:54:19.000 and in some cases mandates were untrue. When you're talking about the effect on the epidemic

00:54:25.000 or the pandemic as a whole, the data are less strong. Do you see the true expertise of Antony Fauci?

00:54:31.000 Do you remember when he used to say, I am science?

00:54:33.000 Now, what we have to say is, he's just a skilled prevaricator and communicator.

00:54:37.000 The science over populations is less strong is another way of saying, that isn't true at all.

00:54:42.000 Less strong sounds better, doesn't it?

00:54:44.000 Because you've got the word strong in it.

00:54:46.000 Almost like, oh, it's sort of right, and it's sort of OK.

00:54:49.000 When really, what this dude should be saying right now on the news, if he had any integrity at all, is, I was completely wrong about that.

00:54:54.000 But then you wouldn't have the ability to censor people.

00:54:56.000 Then you wouldn't have the ability to control people.

00:54:58.000 Do you see how this works now?

00:54:59.000 now, because I'm beginning to.

00:55:00.000 When you took it to broad population level like the Cochrane study, the data are less

00:55:06.000 firm.

00:55:07.000 Oh, it's less strong, less firm, not there at all.

00:55:11.000 With regard to the effect on the overall pandemic.

00:55:14.000 This being 2023 and all, we now have a pretty significant study.

00:55:17.000 Sweden had an entirely different approach to the pandemic based on looking at the various factors, economics, other diseases, mental health issues, etc.

00:55:25.000 Let's have a look.

00:55:26.000 The reigning narrative of Sweden during the pandemic is that the Swedish government took a brazenly hands-off approach to COVID-19 and suffered mass avoidable deaths as a result.

00:55:33.000 During the spring and summer of 2020, Sweden bucked the international trend by not issuing emergency stay-at-home orders, mask mandates or school closures.

00:55:41.000 With the exception of restrictions on nursing home visits and large gatherings, the country stayed open during that time.

00:55:47.000 The concurrent spike in Covid deficit experience, particularly in comparison to its Scandinavian peers, was all the proof politicians and much of the press needed to dismiss its liberal... There's a word that used to mean something.

00:55:57.000 Approach as inferior to Chinese-inspired lockdowns that swept the rest of the globe. 1.00

00:56:01.000 Chinese!

00:56:02.000 Those are the guys to emulate when it comes to democracy.

00:56:05.000 The New York Times called the country a cautionary tale.

00:56:08.000 Well, that turned out to be peculiarly perspicacious because, here's the caution, don't trust the government, don't trust the legacy media, trust yourselves, trust independent media.

00:56:18.000 Then-President Donald Trump denounced the country's approach on Twitter.

00:56:21.000 Trump, like most of the establishment, favoured coercive measures early on.

00:56:25.000 On April 30, 2020, Trump tweeted, Yet, this interpretation of Sweden's COVID-19 performance as disastrous and deadly is likely wrong, argues Johan Norberg in a new paper for the Cato Institute.

00:56:38.000 The data that's accumulated over the past three years suggests that Sweden's laissez-faire approach seems to have paid off, writes Norberg.

00:56:45.000 It seems likely that Sweden did much better than other countries in terms of the economy, education, mental health and domestic abuse, and still came away from the pandemic with fewer excess deaths than in almost any other European country, and less than half that of the United States.

00:56:59.000 Hmm.

00:57:00.000 So all of those other factors, as well as less excessive deaths.

00:57:04.000 Well, what does that point to?

00:57:05.000 That's extraordinary.

00:57:06.000 So now you have to look at the motivations.

00:57:08.000 But unless Sweden is the land of the geniuses, and I thought their greatest achievements were the Volvo, the Sauna and Abba, but we can now add to that freedom, liberty, common sense, which I think were Abba's names.

00:57:18.000 No, Benny, I think.

00:57:19.000 I don't know.

00:57:20.000 Sweden has largely been dismissed as a failure on COVID-19 because its COVID death rate was middle of the back of the list when compared to other European countries and much higher than other Scandinavian countries that had harsher restrictions.

00:57:31.000 Sweden did get hit harder earlier in the pandemic and it's on this earlier performance that much of the commentary about the country's pandemic failures came from.

00:57:38.000 That snapshot is misleading.

00:57:40.000 Well, of course it's misleading.

00:57:41.000 That's what the mainstream media do.

00:57:43.000 Sweden's comparatively dismal performance at the start of the pandemic was mostly a result of other countries having managed to delay cases and deaths rather than having prevented them, writes Johan Norberg.

00:57:53.000 Sweden suffered most of its deaths in 2020 while the Nordic neighbours and many other countries got them in 2022.

00:57:59.000 The Cato paper cites one Norwegian public health official as saying, other countries managed to delay some deaths but now three years after we end up at around the same place.

00:58:07.000 My god.

00:58:08.000 So you have to think about it.

00:58:09.000 Was it worth it?

00:58:10.000 Let me know in the comments what kind of outcome would you have preferred, particularly if you're watching this in America, and I know the majority of you are.

00:58:16.000 Would you have preferred a Swedish approach?

00:58:18.000 Let me know in the comments below.

00:58:19.000 Norberg's paper repeats a common practical argument against lockdowns, that they're unnecessary because people will voluntarily restrict their interactions with others in response to rising risk of the virus.

00:58:29.000 You as an individual are capable of making decisions yourself.

00:58:32.000 Can you see how ontologically profound, how ideological it becomes at its genesis?

00:58:36.000 When you look at it at the truly molecular level, you are making a case for freedom.

00:58:40.000 You're making a case for what is your relationship with your government?

00:58:42.000 Who does your government work for?

00:58:44.000 How is your government funded?

00:58:45.000 What kind of decisions does your government make?

00:58:47.000 Does it seem like your government loves you and cares for you based on their actions historically and even currently?

00:58:52.000 Are they telling you the truth right now about a whole host of issues?

00:58:55.000 Bearing all that in mind, Who do you want making decisions for yourself and your family?

00:58:59.000 You or them?

00:59:00.000 That people adapt voluntarily when they realize that lives are at stake.

00:59:04.000 Swedes quickly changed their behavior and mostly followed the recommendations, writes Norberg, citing data showing a rise in remote work arrangements and a collapse in public transit ridership early in the pandemic.

00:59:14.000 So in a sense, what we're discussing is the role of government, the nature of government. 1.00

00:59:18.000 Obviously, America and countries like mine and other anglophonic and Western nations assume, no, people are stupid. 0.99

00:59:23.000 People have to be controlled. 0.99

00:59:25.000 You can't say to people, you voted us in to help you guys out, right, and to run your institutions and agencies.

00:59:29.000 Look, here's some of the data, here's a variety of opinions.

00:59:32.000 We're advocating for staying at home, particularly if you're at risk, or you spend time with people that are at risk, and we'll keep you informed, but we're going to leave it to you guys.

00:59:40.000 That actually sounds like the type of government I want.

00:59:42.000 Let me know in the comments if that's what you want, and if you think we should move in that direction.

00:59:45.000 Particularly when authoritarianism is so often wrong.

00:59:49.000 He suggests that the reliance on voluntary compliance meant Swedes were more willing to comply with pandemic precautions for longer.

00:59:55.000 Mandatory COVID restrictions in other countries bred backlash to any countermeasures, leading to a greater number of deaths later on.

01:00:01.000 Perhaps that's true, but if it is, it doesn't seem any of it made much difference in the deadliness of the pandemic.

01:00:06.000 Again, Sweden ended up in basically the same place in terms of overall mortality as its Nordic peers, and in a much better place than many other rich countries.

01:00:14.000 Tell me if at the time you were saying, but how's this going to affect the economy?

01:00:17.000 How's this going to affect community?

01:00:18.000 How's it going to affect our children's learning ability?

01:00:20.000 How's it going to affect diabetes, cancer, mental health, addiction?

01:00:23.000 You can add to that list, I'm sure.

01:00:25.000 Add infinitum.

01:00:26.000 Add to that list below.

01:00:27.000 Swedish students suffered no learning loss during the pandemic, whereas half of US students did.

01:00:32.000 The country's economic growth outperformed the Eurozone and the United States.

01:00:36.000 It avoided other countries increased suicide rates and deteriorated mental health.

01:00:40.000 All things that could have been prevented, all things that were discussed at the time.

01:00:42.000 This is not a 2020 hindsight situation.

01:00:44.000 To be sure, Sweden's COVID-19 policies weren't completely anarchic.

01:00:48.000 Some of the restrictions the country adopted during the winter of 2020 and spring and summer of 2021 were comparable or even stricter than what many US states had in place.

01:00:55.000 The country was nevertheless much more respectful of people's individual choices during the pandemic than other European countries and most US states.

01:01:03.000 That additional freedom doesn't appear to have proven more deadly in the aggregate.

01:01:06.000 Instead, it seems to have helped Sweden avoid many of the asocial knock-on effects of banning or restricting public life for months or years at a time.

01:01:14.000 There you have it.

01:01:15.000 An entirely different perspective.

01:01:17.000 An entirely different approach.

01:01:18.000 One that seems based on the principles that we hear discussed so often.

01:01:21.000 Freedom.

01:01:22.000 Liberty, compassion, kindness, people being able to make their own decisions for themselves and their community, an admission from Antony Fauci that mask mandates don't work across a population, they're a decision that should be left to an individual.

01:01:34.000 Do you sense that a theme is developing?

01:01:35.000 Individual freedom?

01:01:36.000 Localised democracies?

01:01:38.000 Less centralised authority?

01:01:39.000 Stop subsidizing and funding media organizations and big pharma companies that seem to benefit from lying to you and backing the government in their desire to control you.

01:01:48.000 To me, Sweden's approach makes a lot more sense.

01:01:50.000 But that's just what I think.

01:01:52.000 Let me know what you think in the chat.

01:01:53.000 Come see me live if you want.

01:01:54.000 There's a link in the description.

01:01:56.000 But more important than any of that is that you please, if you can, stay free.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - September 11, 2023

WAIT…Elon Prevented THIS From Happening In Ukraine?! - Stay Free #204

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