Stay Free - Russel Brand - Wait What?! Surveillance Robots Are HERE…Plus Aaron Maté - Stay Free #210

00:00:00.000 So, so

00:00:20.000 so so

00:03:56.000 so brought to you by

00:04:20.000 so I'm looking for a new home.

00:04:21.000 In this video, you're going to see the future.

00:04:32.000 We've got a live shot there.

00:04:38.000 Hello there, you Awakening Wonders, whether it's the 6.6 million of you on YouTube, whether it's the 1.4 million of you on Rumble, or the 11 million or so on ex-formerly Twitter.

00:04:52.000 With all due respect to Elon Musk, the great proprietor there, we've got a fantastic show for you today.

00:04:59.000 Thank you for joining us.

00:05:01.000 I can hardly express my gratitude towards you sufficiently.

00:05:05.000 And thank you for the ongoing support, all of you.

00:05:08.000 I'm incredibly, incredibly moved by it.

00:05:11.000 And I recognise that it's very important that we continue to do our best to convey to you the truth as we understand it, to convey transparently to you the news and evolving world events in the best way we possibly can, inviting your cooperation, your collaboration.

00:05:28.000 That's why it's important you post about this.

00:05:30.000 That's why it's important, if you can, That you follow us and become a member of our Awakened Wonder community.

00:05:35.000 There's a link there if you're not a member yet.

00:05:37.000 If it's within your means, please join us.

00:05:40.000 On the show today we're going to talk about the news.

00:05:42.000 There's a few interesting things.

00:05:44.000 We've got Aaron Maté coming up to talk about the war and we'll be talking about NATO expansion and Ukraine's destruction and significantly how the mainstream media narrative doesn't cover explicit revelations from NATO directly that Putin warned them that if they continued their expansion it would lead to war.

00:06:07.000 This story though is astonishing in this peculiar evolving global news space.

00:06:13.000 Zelensky has visited Canada of course to get more funding for the ongoing war where he has greeted and met and at least saluted an actual literal Nazi.

00:06:27.000 I mean the literal Nazi. 0.70

00:06:28.000 You know the word Nazi is used quite profligately these days in the extraordinary times that we live in but when I say Nazi in this instance I mean you remember Adolf Hitler and that army he had and that National Socialist movement that defined Germany and then the world in the late 30s and up to the mid 40s?

00:06:46.000 You know those Nazis? 0.86

00:06:48.000 One of them.

00:06:52.000 A standing ovation for a Ukrainian veteran of the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today, even at his age of 98.

00:07:09.000 Invited by House Speaker Anthony Rota to witness Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's address to Parliament, Yaroslav Pumka is one of his constituents.

00:07:18.000 He's a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and a Nazi hero.

00:07:23.000 This is extraordinary.

00:07:24.000 I suppose you could ask yourself some pretty profound philosophical questions For example, whether or not there were people within the Nazi movement that had God and light and love in their hearts.

00:07:36.000 It's not an inquiry that we want to undertake, given the obvious impact of the Second World War, the Holocaust, the genocide, the murder, the terror, the horror.

00:07:46.000 But when looking at the current reporting on the current conflict, it's extraordinary to see an actual Nazi Hailed!

00:07:54.000 When we already know that within the Ukrainian fighting forces there are Nazis and of course this is not to diminish Ukrainian efforts, this is not to diminish the real need for humanitarian aid in Ukraine, this is in fact to suggest to you, even though I know you know this because you are awakening and becoming enlightened along with us, That we have to look at the nuance and details in news reporting.

00:08:16.000 That we have a news media that simplifies, reduces, amplifies, exaggerates and sometimes out-and-out lies in order to curate a public space in where telling the truth becomes impossible and implausible and dissent becomes an act that is absolutely verboten.

00:08:32.000 That's a German word that would have been used by our friend there who's getting saluted By Zelensky.

00:08:39.000 I mean, if we're going to celebrate actual Nazis, I remember one Nazi really stood above the crowd.

00:08:44.000 Not literally, he was quite a short guy.

00:08:46.000 But in terms of his contribution to Nazism, I mean, if we're honoring Nazis now, there's one guy that I really think you should investigate for a good old round of applause. 0.86

00:08:55.000 Not my cup of tea, however, because I am against genocide and murder and expansionism and truly believe in unity, love, light and peace and awakening.

00:09:06.000 These are some of the things we'll be talking to Aaron Maté about a little later.

00:09:10.000 I remember our last conversation, I asked Aaron, like, how do you feel about, like, the Second World War, for example?

00:09:16.000 You know, it's very easy to critique these wars if you're sort of inclined towards dissent and Questioning legacy media narratives.

00:09:22.000 Are you not just sort of a de facto oppositionist who opposes this simply because the mainstream are telling us this is how we're meant to look at this conflict and you, because you're sort of a contrarian, are opposed to it?

00:09:34.000 How would you have been in the Second World War?

00:09:36.000 And he's like, well, you know, my father is an actual Holocaust survivor.

00:09:39.000 And that was a heroic conflict.

00:09:42.000 I feel that times are escalating.

00:09:44.000 The world is changing.

00:09:46.000 We're actually losing our contact with reality, with morality, with truth, with justice, with principles.

00:09:52.000 We used to just assume were real principles.

00:09:55.000 Judiciary, that's just discarded now.

00:09:58.000 What we live in is a technological totalitarianism where what we're moving towards is the ability to unperson you, to shut down your finances, to prevent you from communicating, Because if you can control dissent, if you can shut down dissent, then what is there to stop this great trajectory towards technocracy?

00:10:16.000 A cadre of experts with absolute totalitarian power.

00:10:21.000 And just to demonstrate to you that this is not just hyperbole and panic, New York City are introducing friendly, lovable, cuddly surveillance robots for your convenience and safety.

00:10:32.000 Do you know, like, when you're in Manhattan, you might think, Sweet Manhattan!

00:10:37.000 What a glorious city it is!

00:10:39.000 Around every corner, a scene from Goodfellas.

00:10:42.000 Well, not now it ain't.

00:10:44.000 Now it's a surveillance robot spying on you, and just for now, spying on you.

00:10:49.000 Who knows what they'll be doing in a couple of months or years.

00:10:52.000 Well, it seems like something out of a sci-fi movie.

00:10:53.000 Robots appearing in the city's underground.

00:10:56.000 Fox size, Richard G. Kovetz shows us how the NYPD says this new tech will help with public safety.

00:11:01.000 Do you see how the news doesn't have any obligation towards objectivity?

00:11:06.000 The news doesn't say, You're being told that this is for your safety, but we're going to scrutinize that before just telling you it, because in case this is a surveillance robot that will be used to further impede your already eroded freedoms.

00:11:19.000 No, they peddle the conclusion that the state wants you to reach.

00:11:25.000 Here is a lovely robot.

00:11:26.000 Get used to it.

00:11:27.000 When you see this robot, it's a friendly robot.

00:11:29.000 Not like I've got grave concerns about this robot on the subway and how it could be utilized, how like so many things it can metastasize into yet another tool for authoritarianism.

00:11:41.000 It's not possible that could happen, is it?

00:11:42.000 It's not possible that you might introduce measures like temporary passports or temporary 15-minute zones or temporary lockdowns or temporary medicines and then use that to create an authoritarian space where communication and Just becomes very, very difficult.

00:11:58.000 We're honesty.

00:11:58.000 We're openness.

00:11:59.000 We're transparency.

00:12:00.000 All fall by the wayside.

00:12:02.000 We're cherished principles are just discarded.

00:12:04.000 And if you want to oppose this march, then you could have a robot knocking on your door in a pretty clumsy way from the look of them, because they look like an upturned wheelie bin to me.

00:12:14.000 To some strap hangers, it may look like something you'd find wandering around your local stop-and-shop.

00:12:20.000 It's really weird.

00:12:22.000 What is it?

00:12:23.000 Weird, maybe.

00:12:24.000 But this RoboCop, well, it's so much more than that.

00:12:27.000 We're taking existing technology, cameras, being able to communicate with people, and we're placing it on wheels.

00:12:38.000 This isn't anything to worry about.

00:12:40.000 We're already spying on you.

00:12:42.000 We're all ready to communicate.

00:12:43.000 This is just tyranny, but on wheels now.

00:12:47.000 And during the Christmas season, it's tyranny on ice!

00:12:52.000 Behold the NYPD's newest crime stopper, K5 Autonomous.

00:12:56.000 A security robot that will soon patrol the Times Square 42nd Street subway station.

00:13:02.000 Think of your grandparents.

00:13:03.000 Think of your ancestors, your forefathers and foremothers and the values they instilled on you.

00:13:07.000 Trust.

00:13:08.000 Community.

00:13:09.000 Love.

00:13:09.000 Kindness.

00:13:10.000 Unity.

00:13:10.000 Compassion.

00:13:11.000 Open-heartedness.

00:13:12.000 Willingness to listen.

00:13:14.000 Now look at this news item!

00:13:16.000 Actual robots pedal down to the street.

00:13:18.000 They'll tell you it's progress.

00:13:19.000 They'll tell you it's convenience.

00:13:20.000 They'll tell you that it's safety.

00:13:22.000 Unless you're in a state of perpetual fear, you won't tolerate stuff like that, will you?

00:13:25.000 You'll say, no, you're alright.

00:13:26.000 We'll govern our own spaces.

00:13:28.000 We'll govern our own community.

00:13:29.000 We'll have our own communication, thanks.

00:13:31.000 We don't need a media that primarily seems to function as a tool of the state and the powerful.

00:13:37.000 Never questioning state authority.

00:13:39.000 Never questioning corporate authority.

00:13:41.000 Always willing to peddle their lies.

00:13:44.000 Always!

00:13:46.000 We will continue to stay ahead of those who want to harm everyday New Yorkers.

00:13:51.000 Who is that now?

00:13:52.000 Who is it?

00:13:52.000 Like, it used to be terrorists, sometimes it's the Russians, then it's germs, but really, do you know what it is?

00:13:59.000 It becomes actually principles, like freedom and liberty.

00:14:03.000 The very words that are used to rally us into compliance are the principles that they most loathe.

00:14:09.000 Inner space.

00:14:10.000 Your attention.

00:14:11.000 Your ability to decide for yourself.

00:14:13.000 Your ability to run your own lives.

00:14:15.000 Your ability to trade, communicate, worship.

00:14:18.000 Your ability to love.

00:14:19.000 All these things are being challenged.

00:14:21.000 All these things are being inventory turned into data points.

00:14:25.000 Controlled.

00:14:25.000 The police are becoming militarized.

00:14:27.000 Data is becoming militarized.

00:14:30.000 Information is becoming controlled.

00:14:31.000 The ability to openly communicate education.

00:14:34.000 Every single aspect of your life is becoming immersed in a chrome sphere.

00:14:39.000 of dystopian control.

00:14:42.000 But it's on wheels.

00:14:44.000 Mayor Eric Adams unveiling K5 today underground, part of his new push to increase law enforcement technology in the country's largest transit system.

00:14:53.000 The rollout comes, despite crime in the city's subways, down 4.5% compared to last year, according to police.

00:14:59.000 Hmm, we've got it down 4.5% without surveillance robots on wheels.

00:15:03.000 Just imagine how lovely a subway ride is going to be where we can steal all your data!

00:15:09.000 We are taking an expansive camera network in the subway system and adding to it.

00:15:14.000 The 400 pound 5 foot 3 K5 is not- I've already got an expansive camera network!

00:15:21.000 How about more of that?

00:15:22.000 You've only got one decision to make for yourself.

00:15:25.000 Do you trust the state?

00:15:26.000 Do you trust the state's relationship with corporations?

00:15:29.000 Do you trust the judiciary?

00:15:30.000 Who do you trust?

00:15:32.000 And why trust?

00:15:34.000 Why not verify?

00:15:35.000 Don't trust, verify.

00:15:37.000 How about autonomy within your own community?

00:15:40.000 How about democracy?

00:15:41.000 How about they don't get to introduce stuff like that without maybe you vote for it?

00:15:46.000 How about that?

00:15:47.000 How about do you want surveillance robots on the underground?

00:15:50.000 Now admittedly we're living in such a state of panic and anxiety and like heightened flight fight freeze states that it's difficult to remain rational and say what is our vision for America?

00:16:02.000 What is our vision for the United Kingdom?

00:16:04.000 Our vision for our community?

00:16:06.000 What do you see for your children and for your grandchildren and for the planet itself and for your community and the spaces that you love?

00:16:13.000 Can you even think about that anymore?

00:16:16.000 With the energy crisis, with the food crisis, with the ongoing wars, with the Constant threat of pandemics?

00:16:21.000 No, it's very difficult to think straight, isn't it? 0.89

00:16:23.000 But don't worry because there's dystopia on wheels rolling up right next to you as you ride the subway to photograph your face and make sure you're not doing a non-compliant expression while you sit in dumb misery being ferried to a job that you loathe.

00:16:38.000 Nothing short of being high tech.

00:16:40.000 It's equipped with four cameras that will allow it to send back live video to the police department.

00:16:45.000 But some subway riders say they're a bit concerned about their invasion of privacy.

00:16:49.000 Others appreciate another set of eyes.

00:16:51.000 Even if it's in robot form.

00:16:53.000 They're sort of presenting it as if it's amusing and humorous.

00:16:56.000 It's this kind of nullifying of the understandable anxiety you feel as you note that the state is stepping up power.

00:17:05.000 The militarisation of the police force.

00:17:09.000 Technologisation of the police force.

00:17:12.000 The full immersion of surveillance.

00:17:14.000 Remember, there's been no great reckoning on the revelations of Edward Snowden yet.

00:17:18.000 No one's ever sort of gone, hey, we're going to stop doing that stuff.

00:17:20.000 The Patriot Act, that was only for a temporary period, just rolls on and on and on.

00:17:25.000 You have to ask yourself, do I trust this system?

00:17:29.000 Is this system in my service or am I in the service of this system?

00:17:34.000 Let me know in the chat.

00:17:35.000 Let me know in the comments.

00:17:35.000 Remember, only the first 15 minutes will be ubiquitously available.

00:17:38.000 Then we will be on Rumble.

00:17:39.000 If it's within your means, join our community.

00:17:42.000 When we get a little bit back more to normal, God willing, you will be able to comment while we're going along.

00:17:47.000 Plus, you get additional content.

00:17:49.000 There's all sorts of advantages and it's the only way that you can support us continually at a time where your support becomes Absolutely essential.

00:17:58.000 Well, I like that there are, even though they're not human eyes, that there are eyes that are following what's going on on the platform.

00:18:04.000 Um, I think that, yeah, it's an invasion of privacy, because if us, the public, we don't agree to it, it shouldn't be put... You can begin seeing K5 Autonomous as early as tonight.

00:18:16.000 Plus, on the news, he's just doing the bidding of the... Why don't you come out of your home for a brief... You're allowed out this way.

00:18:21.000 Next week, come out for a moment, see if you can spot a robot.

00:18:24.000 But be careful it doesn't spot you, because it may not like you.

00:18:27.000 If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about.

00:18:29.000 But you never know, next week, you may have something to hide, because the rules might just change.

00:18:34.000 We haven't even got time to talk about US Senator Bob Menendez and his wife being charged with bribery in the most sort of old-fashioned, mad, gangster fashion, with gold bullion bars and briefcases full of money and stuff out of a bad 80s daytime film called Corrupto Cops or something.

00:18:50.000 We haven't got time to bring you that.

00:18:51.000 If you're watching us on YouTube or anywhere else, we love you, we appreciate you, we need you.

00:18:56.000 Click the link in the description and join us for our conversation with Aaron Maté.

00:19:00.000 Join us for our analysis of NATO's revelation that they knew they were provoking Putin to a state of war and they continue to do it anyway.

00:19:07.000 Why are the mainstream media not reporting on this?

00:19:10.000 We need you with us now more than ever, you awakening wonders, so click the link in the description and if it's within your means, join our movement.

00:19:17.000 Support us.

00:19:18.000 Become part of this movement.

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00:19:22.000 If you're watching us on Rumble, give us a like.

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00:19:27.000 And press that red button.

00:19:28.000 Become an awakened wonder.

00:19:30.000 Now, we've been telling you for a while, because we've been listening to experts, because we've been trying to pull together information from a wide variety of sources, including Aaron Maté, actually, who will be joining us later, but also Jeffrey Sachs, who's been on the show.

00:19:41.000 That NATO knew they were provoking Putin into a state of war and yet they did it anyway.

00:19:47.000 Why are the mainstream media not reporting on that?

00:19:49.000 Why can't we get transparency and clarity?

00:19:52.000 Let's have a look.

00:19:52.000 Here's the news.

00:19:53.000 No.

00:19:54.000 Here's the effing news.

00:19:55.000 Thanks for refusing Fox News' video. 0.99

00:19:58.000 No, here's the fucking news! 0.99

00:20:01.000 Wait! 0.99

00:20:02.000 NATO just admitted that they were warned that continued expansion would lead to Ukrainian invasion.

00:20:09.000 They did it anyway!

00:20:10.000 So who really caused this war?

00:20:12.000 And why are the media not covering this?

00:20:16.000 Today we are talking about the extraordinary revelation that NATO have acknowledged that they were warned by Putin's administration that continuing to expand NATO would lead to an invasion of the Ukraine and yet they did it anyway.

00:20:30.000 This is not simply to say, oh aren't NATO bad and isn't Russia fantastic.

00:20:34.000 Of course this is a geopolitical issue, it's not that simple.

00:20:37.000 What we're interested in is why are the mainstream media not covering the fact that NATO have acknowledged that they knew that their actions and expansion would lead to this war?

00:20:45.000 Why are we continually told this was an egregious, unprovoked attack?

00:20:50.000 What is the truth behind this war?

00:20:52.000 And why is it that when someone publicly says the quiet part out loud, the legacy media still doesn't cover it?

00:20:58.000 Whose agenda are they pursuing?

00:21:01.000 Is it ours or do they have a different intention?

00:21:04.000 Let's have a look at this story together.

00:21:05.000 Use our innate wisdom to deduce the truth as one.

00:21:09.000 President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021 and he actually sent a draft treaty that he wanted NATO to sign to promise no more NATO enlargement.

00:21:21.000 That was what he sent us.

00:21:22.000 So it seems that had they been willing to sign a treaty to not expand NATO, this war could have been avoided.

00:21:31.000 So what is the advantage of expanding NATO?

00:21:34.000 That's one question.

00:21:35.000 Secondly, of course, many of you are aware that at the climax or indeed conclusion of the Cold War, pledges were made to not expand NATO into former Soviet territories.

00:21:45.000 We all know this now, don't we?

00:21:47.000 It's not something that's broadly covered because, again, it's not favourable to the preferred narrative.

00:21:52.000 Most importantly, as far as I'm concerned, is why are the legacy media, when reporting on the subject of this ongoing war, this drain and strain on human resources and indeed human life, this decimation of Ukraine, half a million people dead so far, why are they not saying, well of course NATO have now acknowledged that they were warned that if they continue to expand, then Putin would invade, and they did it anyway.

00:22:15.000 So who caused this war?

00:22:17.000 What is the reason this war is happening?

00:22:19.000 And significantly, how could we end this war?

00:22:22.000 And that was a precondition for not invade Ukraine.

00:22:28.000 Of course we didn't sign that.

00:22:30.000 The opposite happened.

00:22:31.000 He wanted us to sign the promise never to enlarge NATO.

00:22:35.000 He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe.

00:22:46.000 We should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance.

00:22:50.000 In a sense when you listen to this speech it becomes clear that this war has been a long time coming.

00:22:56.000 Probably with the membership of each of these former Soviet nations, in the case that they were former members of the Soviet Union, it has encroached further on the agreement not to expand NATO.

00:23:07.000 So it's It's not like a war that began all of a sudden.

00:23:11.000 It's part of the ebb and flow of history.

00:23:14.000 And perhaps you will agree with people like Jeffrey Sachs that this war has come about to a degree as a result of the unipolar agenda of centralist American interests.

00:23:25.000 Because they have an agenda to deplete Russia, because they have an agenda to create a unipolar world where Chinese interests and Russian interests are challenged, they were willing to agitate Russia to the point of war.

00:23:37.000 And the reason I mention that is because, of course, we're continually told this is a humanitarian crisis.

00:23:41.000 Remember what you're supposed to believe.

00:23:42.000 This is what you're supposed to believe.

00:23:43.000 Russia, basically for no reason, started to wage war on Ukraine.

00:23:48.000 It's terrible.

00:23:48.000 It's egregious.

00:23:49.000 Putin is the new Hitler. 0.66

00:23:50.000 And again, this is not to advocate for Putin.

00:23:52.000 It's not to advocate for the actions of Russia.

00:23:54.000 This is simply to say, if the intention, the aim, the goal was to end war, these are probably the sorts of things you'd have to take into account, I imagine.

00:24:03.000 We're not a pro-Russia channel.

00:24:05.000 This organisation is not pro-Russia.

00:24:07.000 I'm sure that were we doing this in Russia, we would experience a lot more censorship.

00:24:11.000 Although, hey, who's to say, huh?

00:24:12.000 more NATO presence in the Eastern part of the Alliance.

00:24:15.000 We're not a pro-Russia channel.

00:24:17.000 This organisation is not pro-Russia.

00:24:19.000 I'm sure that were we doing this in Russia, we would experience a lot more censorship,

00:24:24.000 although, hey, who's to say, huh?

00:24:26.000 But what we are saying is that everything this man is inventorying here seem like unwise moves from a diplomatic

00:24:33.000 perspective if the intention was to have a harmonious relationship with Russia, to acknowledge that Russia have

00:24:38.000 their own sovereignty, have their own nation, have their have their own history, have their own trajectory.

00:24:43.000 This seems like, well, hold on a minute, aren't you, like, provoking a nuclear superpower for reasons, again, that don't seem that clear?

00:24:49.000 Because he's not at any point going, of course we have to have all these countries as members of NATO in order what?

00:24:54.000 What happens?

00:24:54.000 Is it going to help global warming?

00:24:57.000 And he has also seen that Finland has already joined the alliance, and Sweden will soon be a full member.

00:25:05.000 Also, we have plans to put cellophane over Vladimir Putin's toilet, so when he go pee-pee, it splashes all over him!

00:25:13.000 I got one of these puzzles!

00:25:14.000 Stop provoking Vladimir Putin!

00:25:15.000 Some of us don't want the world to be destroyed!

00:25:17.000 This is good for the Nordic countries, it's good for Finland and Sweden, and it's also good for NATO, and it demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he's getting the exact opposite.

00:25:32.000 And now we've got a massive war in which half a million people have been killed.

00:25:36.000 Let's have a look at Jeffrey Sachs' perspective so we can understand this with a little more detail.

00:25:40.000 How did we get into this war and how do we get out of it?

00:25:42.000 During the disastrous Vietnam War, it was said that the US government treated the public like a mushroom farm, keeping it in the dark and feeding it with manure.

00:25:50.000 The heroic Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers documenting the unrelenting US government lying about the war in order to protect politicians who had been embarrassed by the truth.

00:25:58.000 A half century later, during the Ukraine war, the manure is piled even higher.

00:26:03.000 According to the US government and the ever-secret New York Times, the Ukraine war was unprovoked, the Times' favourite adjective to describe the war.

00:26:11.000 That is continually what you are told.

00:26:13.000 If you only watch the mainstream media, if you only read the New York Times and someone said to you, what's this war about?

00:26:18.000 Well, it was an unprovoked attack.

00:26:20.000 People don't do unprovoked attacks!

00:26:22.000 People do provoked attacks.

00:26:23.000 That's what this is.

00:26:24.000 This was provoked.

00:26:25.000 In fact, we've just heard NATO.

00:26:27.000 This is not Russian propaganda.

00:26:28.000 This is NATO saying, well, Putin said that if we kept expanding NATO, there would be a war.

00:26:33.000 And so we just like kept expanding NATO, which seems to me to be an extraordinary decision for an unelected body funded somewhat by your nation and my nation to have made on my behalf.

00:26:44.000 I don't remember being asked whether I wanted to provoke Russia into war.

00:26:48.000 Do you remember being asked whose agenda is being fulfilled?

00:26:51.000 Why is it not being responsibly reported on?

00:26:53.000 What kind of cultural curation is taking place that certain ideas are just not allowed to be in the space of public communication?

00:27:01.000 Why is it that the media continue to be so obedient to an agenda that That plainly is bringing us to the edge of an extremely dangerous situation.

00:27:11.000 Let me know in the chat.

00:27:11.000 Let me know in the comments.

00:27:13.000 If you're watching us on YouTube, you 6.6 million Awakening Wonders, we're only putting half the video up here for reasons that are surely obvious to you.

00:27:19.000 The majority of the content will be up on Rumble.

00:27:23.000 If you're watching us on Twitter or X, Elon, thank you.

00:27:25.000 We appreciate you.

00:27:26.000 But we will be doing the rest of the content on Rumble because that is our home and that's where we're looked after.

00:27:32.000 Putin allegedly mistaking himself for Peter the Great invaded Ukraine to recreate the Russian Empire.

00:27:38.000 Last week, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg committed a Washington gaffe, meaning that he accidentally blurted out the truth.

00:27:45.000 This is what a gaffe means these days, an inability to sustain the deceptive narrative that controls the public sphere, that controls the augmented reality that we're invited to live in. This is

00:27:56.000 why independent media is under threat because we can say, hey look at this thing, NATO

00:27:59.000 said that, does that help you to draw a different conclusion? Hey, have you listened to

00:28:03.000 Jeffrey Sachs? He's not a whack job, he's a university professor and director of the

00:28:06.000 Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. They have a different perspective.

00:28:11.000 That's why these things are challenging, that's why it's important to stay with us.

00:28:14.000 In testimony to the European Union Parliament, Stoltenberg made clear that it was America's

00:28:18.000 relentless push to enlarge NATO to Ukraine that was the real cause of the war and why

00:28:22.000 continues today.

00:28:24.000 Here are Stoltenberg's revealing words.

00:28:26.000 Again, the background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021 and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign to promise no more NATO enlargement.

00:28:35.000 That's what he sent us and was a precondition to not invade Ukraine.

00:28:38.000 Of course we didn't sign that.

00:28:40.000 Well, well done you, because now Ukraine is being devastated, half a million people are dead, and the situation shows no sign of improving and actually no one at all benefits from it except for the military-industrial complex and centralist authoritarian systems that want us to be in a perpetual state of fear and unable The opposite happened.

00:29:07.000 He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO.

00:29:10.000 He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure and all allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO.

00:29:17.000 All the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our alliance, introducing some kind of B or second class membership. 1.00

00:29:23.000 We rejected that.

00:29:24.000 Can you see why a figure like Donald Trump who says we'd withdraw from NATO or we'd stop funding NATO is a kind of wrecking ball to globalist infrastructure.

00:29:34.000 NATO members must finally contribute.

00:29:37.000 Over the last eight years the United States spent more on defence than all other NATO countries combined.

00:29:45.000 Because this is the kind of thing that can continue unquestioned.

00:29:49.000 Like, when in your life do you have time to go, hey, I'm not sure if we should be supporting NATO anymore.

00:29:53.000 You're being overcharged for your energy.

00:29:55.000 You're being overcharged for your food.

00:29:57.000 You're working too hard.

00:29:58.000 You're living in a nihilistic culture that has no vision for improvement.

00:30:01.000 You're living amongst fracture fissure thrashed around by bad ideas and bad lies most of the

00:30:07.000 time.

00:30:08.000 When are you ever going to be able to say, hey, is there an alternative way of living?

00:30:11.000 Do we need NATO?

00:30:12.000 Are the WHO actually helpful?

00:30:14.000 How are they funded?

00:30:15.000 Where's all this information coming from?

00:30:16.000 Is there the ability to pose counter-narratives?

00:30:17.000 You've not got time for that, have you?

00:30:19.000 Well, we're going to have to make time, because it seems to me that we're on the precipice

00:30:23.000 of some pretty significant changes.

00:30:25.000 But what we're moving to is a technological dictatorship where there is the ability to shut down your money, shut down your life, un-person you, if you even dare to question the trajectory of global or national events.

00:30:37.000 Or if you want to have a conversation, if you want to have cultural differences.

00:30:40.000 You are going to be able to be eliminated.

00:30:42.000 This seems to me to be the terrain that they're trying to create.

00:30:45.000 And organisations like NATO, WHO, I'm not saying they're entirely malign or malevolent or were created even for the wrong reasons.

00:30:51.000 I'm saying that now the way they're operating is certainly beyond the remit of democracy and you're funding for it and you're not voting for it.

00:30:57.000 That's the opposite of democracy.

00:30:59.000 So he went to war to prevent NATO.

00:31:01.000 More NATO close to his borders. 0.54

00:31:03.000 He's got the exact opposite.

00:31:04.000 I mean, stop provoking Vladimir Putin in the middle of a war.

00:31:08.000 Do you remember when Tucker said that within a year we'll have a hot war with Russia?

00:31:11.000 Does that seem more or less likely?

00:31:13.000 Let me know in the chat right now.

00:31:14.000 To repeat, he, Putin, went to war to prevent NATO.

00:31:17.000 More NATO close to his borders. 0.54

00:31:19.000 When Professor John Mearsheimer and I, and others have said the same, we've been attacked as Putin apologists.

00:31:25.000 So at this point, this is sort of, I suppose, where we get into a degree of complexity.

00:31:29.000 In this video we're not saying to you Russia are really great and NATO are bad, even though I can feel myself getting agitated on behalf of sort of the concept of Russia by the bureaucratic disingenuity of this unelected administrative official, but actually what Sachs is saying, and what he's saying his colleague Mearsheim are saying, is we told you this and we were dismissed as conspiracy theorists.

00:31:52.000 Now think about the last couple of years.

00:31:54.000 How many times have things been said that are true that you're dismissed as a conspiracy theorist for believing?

00:32:01.000 Think of all of the major world events, the pandemic, I mean the litany, it just goes on and on.

00:32:06.000 What is happening in conjunction With very significant geopolitical moves in order, I believe, to create a unipolar globalist world where democracy and sovereignty and community are completely eroded, is the inability even to challenge on any individual issue.

00:32:21.000 Dissenting voices shut down.

00:32:23.000 Alternative voices annihilated.

00:32:25.000 The same critics also choose to hide or flatly ignore the dire warnings against NATO enlargement to Ukraine.

00:32:31.000 Long articulated by many of America's leading diplomats including the great scholar statesman George Kennan and the former US ambassadors to Russia Jack Matlock and William Burns.

00:32:40.000 So it's not all crackpots and whack jobs and people on the internet that are hippies with an axe to grind that believe in community and autonomy and democracy and that love is the answer and you have to find God within yourself.

00:32:52.000 Find God now.

00:32:53.000 It's like actual Diplomats and people that, broadly speaking, are in the general ebb and flow of international geopolitical discourse.

00:33:00.000 It's not like Willie Nelson and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix have decided that we're being lied to.

00:33:06.000 It's like Jack Matlock and William Burns and George Kennan, like some dudes in suits in oak-panelled rooms.

00:33:13.000 This is a really dangerous and unprecedented time.

00:33:15.000 Let me know if you agree.

00:33:16.000 Burns, now CIA director, was US ambassador to Russia in 2008 and author of a memo entitled, NYET MEANS NYET.

00:33:23.000 In that memo, Burns explains as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the entire Russian political class, not just Putin, was dead set against NATO enlargement.

00:33:30.000 We know about the memo only because it was leaked, otherwise we'd be in the dark about it.

00:33:34.000 How many other things do we simply never have revealed to us?

00:33:38.000 How much is clandestine?

00:33:39.000 What do you imagine is behind those walls and doors of secrecy that they claim are there to protect us from terrorists?

00:33:47.000 It's just more information than you can... Oh man, we can't trust this lot.

00:33:50.000 Start dismantling NATO.

00:33:51.000 Get rid of that.

00:33:52.000 Just completely radically re-evaluate all of our democratic systems to first and foremost disable these gargantuan monoliths of horror that are guiding us gently to Armageddon.

00:34:01.000 Let's get rid of them straight away.

00:34:03.000 That's what you would understand if you were to have access to those classified documents, innit?

00:34:07.000 Oh no, these classified documents!

00:34:09.000 It was a surprise birthday party, and you spoiled it.

00:34:12.000 Remember them days, guys.

00:34:13.000 Yeah, why is that?

00:34:14.000 Well, he's abandoned that.

00:34:15.000 How about a treaty?

00:34:16.000 No missiles.

00:34:16.000 Why is that? For the simple reason that Russia does not accept the US military on its

00:34:20.000 2,300 kilometer border with Ukraine in the Black Sea region.

00:34:24.000 Russia does not appreciate the US placement of Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania

00:34:28.000 after the US unilaterally abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty.

00:34:32.000 Well, they just abandoned that. How about a treaty? No missiles. How about fuck your treaty?

00:34:37.000 Russia also does not welcome the fact that the US engaged in no fewer than 70 regime change operations during the 0.99

00:34:43.000 Cold War, 1947 and 1989

00:34:45.000 That regime change was a surprise for your birthday!

00:34:48.000 They've got a country and an institution in the shape of NATO on their borders.

00:34:53.000 Armed, who they know have engaged in regime change 70 times since the last war.

00:34:59.000 They know that they are explicitly their enemy, and they're saying, do you mind not doing that?

00:35:04.000 I mean, it essentially amounts to a polite request eventually followed by what?

00:35:07.000 I know there's a deep and troubling history between Russia and Ukraine that I'm plainly not an expert in.

00:35:11.000 What this is about is, why don't the media simply report accurately on this subject so I can answer my own rhetorical question?

00:35:16.000 Because if they did, you'd make up your own mind.

00:35:19.000 And when you make up your own mind, you will be less compliant and less obedient.

00:35:23.000 And they cannot have that.

00:35:25.000 And countless more since, including in Serbia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, and Ukraine.

00:35:31.000 Yeah, but we're not going to do any more.

00:35:32.000 Nor does Russia like the fact that many leading US politicians actively advocate the destruction of Russia under the banner of decolonizing Russia.

00:35:40.000 That would be like Russia calling for the removal of Texas, California, Hawaii, and conquered Indian lands, and much else from the United States.

00:35:47.000 Imagine that for a moment.

00:35:48.000 Imagine that Hawaii, with good reason these days, said, you know what?

00:35:52.000 The United States haven't been incredibly helpful to us.

00:35:54.000 They're just using us as a missile base when we actually need them.

00:35:57.000 They give us derisory payments while they send incredible sums elsewhere, apparently to support war, that it seems like they, to some considerable degree, participated in the provocation of.

00:36:07.000 And imagine if Texas took their oil. 1.00

00:36:09.000 What's the benefit of the United States?

00:36:10.000 Who benefits?

00:36:11.000 Start asking yourself that question.

00:36:13.000 Love America.

00:36:14.000 Love your history.

00:36:15.000 Love your nation.

00:36:16.000 Love your traditions.

00:36:17.000 Love your forefathers and your foremothers.

00:36:19.000 But who benefits from there being one centralized government that plainly operates in the service of military-industrial complex, big pharma, uses the legacy media to whitewash and bleach the cultural space free of independent thought and independent conversation?

00:36:34.000 Are you benefiting?

00:36:35.000 Is it helping your energy bills?

00:36:36.000 Is it helping your food bills?

00:36:38.000 Is it helping your freedom?

00:36:39.000 Is it helping your children's education?

00:36:40.000 Is it helping your family's health?

00:36:42.000 You let me know in the comments.

00:36:44.000 Even Zelensky's team knew that the quest for NATO enlargement meant imminent war with Russia.

00:36:48.000 Oleksii Arestovich, former advisor to the office of President of Ukraine under Zelensky, declared that with a 99.9% probability our price for joining NATO is a big war with Russia.

00:36:59.000 I think we can say it's 100% now.

00:37:01.000 That remaining percentile.

00:37:03.000 Restovich claimed that even without NATO enlargement, Russia would eventually try to take Ukraine just many years later.

00:37:09.000 Yet history belies that.

00:37:10.000 Russia respected Finland and Austria's neutrality for decades with no dire threats, much less invasions.

00:37:15.000 Moreover, from Ukraine's independence in 1991 until the US-backed overthrow of Ukraine's elected government in 2014, Russia didn't show any interest in taking Ukrainian territory.

00:37:25.000 It was only when the US installed a staunchly anti-Russian pro-NATO regime in February 2014, coup, US inspired, let me know in the comments, that Russia took back Crimea, concerned that its Black Sea naval base in Crimea, since 1783, would fall into NATO's hands.

00:37:41.000 Even then, Russia didn't demand other territory from Ukraine, only fulfilment of the UN-backed Minsk II agreement, which called for autonomy of the ethnic Russian Donbass, not a Russian claim on the territory.

00:37:52.000 Yeah, instead of diplomacy, the U.S.

00:37:54.000 armed, trained, and helped to organize a huge Ukrainian army to make NATO enlargement a fait accompli.

00:38:00.000 I mean, that does seem pretty significant.

00:38:03.000 Okay, option one, diplomacy.

00:38:05.000 Yeah, but what about option two?

00:38:06.000 We arm, train, and organize a huge Ukrainian army.

00:38:10.000 Do you want a war?

00:38:11.000 Putin made one last attempt at diplomacy at the end of 2021, tabling a draft US-NATO security agreement to force still war.

00:38:18.000 The core of the draft agreement was an end of NATO enlargement and removal of US missiles near Russia.

00:38:24.000 Russia's security concerns were valid and the basis for negotiations, yet Biden flatly rejected negotiations out of a combination of arrogance, hawkishness, and profound miscalculation.

00:38:33.000 Can you just talk me through your reasoning here?

00:38:36.000 Yes, I can.

00:38:37.000 Firstly, arrogance.

00:38:38.000 Mmm, good.

00:38:39.000 Secondly, hawkishness.

00:38:41.000 Oh, very good.

00:38:42.000 And thirdly, I, um, what's that word?

00:38:44.000 I miscalculate a lot.

00:38:45.000 Oh, this is gonna go well.

00:38:46.000 NATO maintained its position that NATO would not negotiate with Russia regarding NATO enlargement.

00:38:51.000 In effect, NATO enlargement was none of Russia's business, but it's actually only Russia's business.

00:38:56.000 That's actually all it is.

00:38:57.000 That's all that NATO actually does, isn't it?

00:38:59.000 annoys Russia to the point of war.

00:39:01.000 I mean, what does NATO stand for?

00:39:03.000 I can't work out an acronym, but it seems that primarily what they ideologically stand for is provoking Russia into wars.

00:39:10.000 What else are they doing?

00:39:11.000 The continuing U.S. 0.99

00:39:12.000 obsession with NATO enlargement is profoundly irresponsible and hypocritical. 0.84

00:39:16.000 The U.S.

00:39:16.000 would object, by means of war if needed, to being encircled by Russian or Chinese military bases in the Western Hemisphere, a point the U.S.

00:39:23.000 has made since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.

00:39:26.000 Yet the US is blind and deaf to the legitimate security concerns of other countries.

00:39:31.000 It's extraordinary.

00:39:33.000 They can't be actually blind and deaf yet sure play a mean pinball.

00:39:36.000 They just don't care, do they?

00:39:38.000 Because it's at odds with an explicit, plain agenda.

00:39:41.000 An agenda that sometimes becomes explicit due to saying the quiet part out loud moments like we saw from Stoltenberg there in NATO.

00:39:48.000 But generally speaking, We're told that American foreign interest is to sort of guide the world towards democracy, inadvertently gathering resources and depleting potential opposition.

00:39:58.000 And remember, when I talk about America, I'm not talking about American people, the decent, beautiful American people and the history of America and the great stands they've made against genuine tyranny and fascism.

00:40:08.000 I'm talking about this new corporatized America that plainly operates on behalf of the military-industrial complex and corporate interests elsewhere and against, directly against, the interests of their own people.

00:40:20.000 So yes, Putin went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO close to Russia's border.

00:40:24.000 Ukraine is being destroyed by US arrogance, proving again Henry Kissinger's adage that to be America's enemy is dangerous, while to be its friend is fatal.

00:40:32.000 The Ukraine war will end when the US acknowledges a simple truth, NATO enlargement to Ukraine means perpetual war and Ukraine's destruction.

00:40:39.000 Ukraine's neutrality could have avoided the war and remains the key to peace.

00:40:44.000 The deeper truth is that European security depends on collective security as called for by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, not one-sided NATO demands.

00:40:54.000 You have seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears a NATO representative telling you that they knew that their actions, explicitly continuing expansion, would lead to war.

00:40:54.000 So there you are.

00:41:05.000 They've been told that.

00:41:06.000 You have heard from Jeffrey Sachs that there have been opportunities for diplomatic resolution along the way.

00:41:12.000 Many of you are familiar with Boris Johnson, former UK Prime Minister's visit to Zelensky, particularly and specifically to scupper an intended peace treaty.

00:41:22.000 So when you have those facts at your disposal, I beg of you, ask yourself this question.

00:41:26.000 Whose agenda is being served here?

00:41:29.000 Why are the media not reporting more accurately on this conflict?

00:41:32.000 Who is able to control both the media space and the geopolitical stage to a degree where it is apparently against the interests of Russian people, Ukrainian people, American people, English people, all of the citizenry of the world?

00:41:45.000 Potentially affected by an escalating conflict that has no resolution.

00:41:50.000 It has no resolution.

00:41:51.000 There's not a point where Russia goes, oh well, go on then, expand now. 0.89

00:41:54.000 Unless they're absolutely annihilated and destroyed.

00:41:56.000 And world history shows you what that's likely to mean.

00:42:00.000 It means world war. 0.89

00:42:01.000 Global cataclysm.

00:42:02.000 And for me, we should have the opportunity to electively and electorally determine if that is what we want to participate in, because I don't.

00:42:11.000 I believe in a peaceful solution as quickly as possible, and I believe in a transparent media that will investigate and use their resources to explore and understand what's happening in this war, rather than amplifying the messages of the elites that benefit from situations that to the rest of us are crises.

00:42:27.000 Whether that's a war, an energy crisis, or a health crisis, it seems that they somehow benefit What are we going to do to oppose them?

00:42:34.000 It seems to me we have to remain connected to one another and be willing to rise up in great disobedience together.

00:42:40.000 But that's just what I think.

00:42:41.000 Let me know what you think in the chat.

00:42:42.000 See you in a second.

00:42:43.000 And thank you for choosing Fox News.

00:42:45.000 You're awesome. 0.99

00:42:46.000 Now, here's the fucking news. 0.99

00:42:48.000 Who better to give us a more nuanced perspective on that complex story and why it's not being directly reported 0.99

00:42:57.000 than Aaron Maté, the investigative journalist for the Grey Zone, co-host of the Useful Idiots podcast.

00:43:03.000 I consider this to be an incredible honor.

00:43:05.000 He's wanted on an FBI blacklist.

00:43:08.000 He's the most prolific spreader of disinformation, according to The Guardian.

00:43:12.000 Sir, you're in good company.

00:43:14.000 Welcome to the show, Aaron.

00:43:16.000 Good to be here.

00:43:17.000 Aaron, what do you think about their recent admission by NATO, Stoltenberg in particular, that they knew that continued escalation and infringement on former Soviet territory would lead to war and did it anyway?

00:43:35.000 It's a pretty amazing admission, but it shows that people who've been pointing out from the start that this proxy war was not entirely, but a large part due to NATO expansion, were correct.

00:43:49.000 And when we pointed this out, we were called Putin apologists, Russian propagandists.

00:43:55.000 Now you have the head of NATO admitting.

00:43:57.000 That Russia went to war to stop NATO expansion.

00:44:00.000 And you were allowed to discuss this before Russia invaded.

00:44:03.000 So for many years, there was people in the heart of the U.S.

00:44:06.000 establishment, people like Bill Burns, who is Biden's current director of the CIA.

00:44:11.000 Back when he was the U.S.

00:44:12.000 ambassador to Russia in 2008, he wrote a famous cable that we know of thanks to WikiLeaks warning That NATO expansion to Ukraine was a red line for all of Russia, not just for Putin's faction, but all of Russia, because they recognized that if ever a civil war broke out in Ukraine, that would force Russia to take a side on behalf of the Russia-aligned citizens of Ukraine, which number in the millions, and that would force Russia to intervene.

00:44:39.000 And that was a warning back in 2008, and it came true years later after the 2014 Maidan coup.

00:44:45.000 And Russia, just as the US would not accept Mexico or Canada having offensive weaponry pointed at the US and being part of a hostile military alliance.

00:44:56.000 Russia also could not accept having Ukraine, which is historically tied to Russia, being a part of NATO.

00:45:01.000 And here you have Jens Stoltenberg, the chief of NATO, admitting that, albeit way too late.

00:45:06.000 It's another example of a story Or at least a component of a story that was initially regarded as a conspiracy theory that has been derided.

00:45:18.000 It's probably one of the reasons that you've been so maligned is reporting in the relatively objective way that you have on this particular conflict that has over time become verified.

00:45:30.000 Why do you think, in spite of this ongoing process of verification of information that's regarded as periphery or unreliable, that we are still able to sustain a sort of central narrative that induces a kind of compliance and lack of inquiry, even though we continually recognize that information that's apparently conspiratorial or from the periphery, and certainly is dissenting, is increasingly being proven to be correct?

00:45:57.000 It's a good question, and it's especially salient in light of the experience of the Iraq War.

00:46:03.000 The media was caught red-handed parroting the Bush administration's lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was working with Al Qaeda.

00:46:13.000 Everybody knows now that that was a lie.

00:46:15.000 But yet, no lessons have seemingly been learned because in war after war, the U.S.

00:46:21.000 constantly does the bidding of the establishment and repeats the same narratives that are used

00:46:26.000 to justify going to war and justifying sanctions, even when there's no evidence for them or

00:46:32.000 even when the evidence shows them to be lies.

00:46:35.000 So for example, in Libya, we were told that we had to go in and bomb Libya because Gaddafi

00:46:41.000 was going to commit a genocide.

00:46:43.000 That's been exposed as a lie.

00:46:45.000 In Syria, we were told we had to bomb Syria because the government used chemical weapons.

00:46:51.000 All investigations into this have shown actually that the evidence is not there, including

00:46:55.000 the OPCW's own leaks, which show that to be a lie.

00:47:01.000 In Ukraine as well, again, Jens Stoltenberg admitting that this was actually not about Russia trying to erase Ukraine from the map, but Russia trying to stop NATO.

00:47:09.000 So you have all these examples where you have facts undermining the pro-war narrative.

00:47:14.000 But Western media still goes along and does its job.

00:47:17.000 And I guess the problem there is that people in positions of power in the media don't see their jobs as actually doing their jobs of following the facts.

00:47:25.000 They see themselves as representatives and sonographers of people in power.

00:47:29.000 They hang out with people in power.

00:47:31.000 They want to become The people in power, there's a huge revolving door between people who work in media, people who work in government.

00:47:39.000 If you look at CNN and MSNBC, there's so many people who are former top U.S.

00:47:44.000 intelligence officials.

00:47:45.000 The former White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, hosts a show on MSNBC.

00:47:49.000 Same with Fox News.

00:47:50.000 You have former Republican stenographers now hosting shows.

00:47:55.000 And that's a real problem.

00:47:56.000 So when you have a media that identifies more with power than it does with following the facts, you're going to have these lies being repeated over and over and over.

00:48:04.000 Even in this climate, with the type of reporting that you describe, a recent CNN poll suggests that 55% of Americans don't want further funding of this conflict, but want a peaceful resolution.

00:48:19.000 Given that the United States appears to be in a place of near financial catastrophe, certainly in considerable debt, and there's a lot of opposition to expenditure of this nature, by which I mean military expenditure overseas, as opposed to, for example, the kind of welfare spending that would seem sensible in response to the Hawaiian fire, for example, it's often left At least in the political sphere to figures like Rand Paul to present a counter-narrative and to challenge the ongoing funding.

00:48:55.000 I feel like there's another 24 billion dollars that's meant to go to you know ongoing military expenditure and of course Zelensky's in Canada literally sort of saluting I feel like an actual Nazi at some point over recent days.

00:49:12.000 If there is increasing opposition Can this carry on indefinitely?

00:49:18.000 Or is there simply never going to be a legitimate opportunity to oppose it democratically?

00:49:24.000 Well, the problem is the U.S.

00:49:26.000 is dug in so deep, and before Russia's invasion, they undermined any reasonable opportunity to prevent it.

00:49:33.000 So, Jens Stoltenberg admitted that Russia went to war in part to prevent NATO expansion.

00:49:38.000 There also was the fact that the Ukrainian government, largely under pressure from extremists,

00:49:43.000 far-right nationalists inside Ukraine, did not want to implement the Minsk Accords,

00:49:47.000 which was the 2015 peace deal intended to end the civil war that began the year before after a US-backed coup.

00:49:54.000 And at every turn, the US and its allies inside Ukraine's far right undermined

00:49:58.000 any opportunities for peace.

00:50:00.000 And now they're not going to go back on that now.

00:50:02.000 So what they're looking at is basically perpetual frozen conflict.

00:50:06.000 And yes, public opinion in the US.

00:50:08.000 could make a difference.

00:50:09.000 And you mentioned that poll showing that recently, for the first time, the majority of Americans oppose more funding of this proxy war.

00:50:16.000 But elites don't care about public opinion unless there's people out in the streets trying to really force them into making a change.

00:50:23.000 And we don't see that yet because the anti-war movement in the U.S., as it has around the NATO world, has been so undermined.

00:50:30.000 But that poll showing majority opposition is pretty amazing because Even though most Americans have been denied the basic facts of this war, they still now oppose it.

00:50:41.000 So, for example, imagine how many more people would oppose funding for this proxy war if they knew that after Russia invaded, there was a peace deal reached in early 2022 between Ukraine and Russia.

00:50:53.000 But the West blocked it.

00:50:54.000 Boris Johnson famously came over to Kiev and told Zelensky that if you make a deal with Putin, we're not going to back you up, because right now is the time to fight him, and we feel that we can hand him a crushing defeat inside Ukraine.

00:51:06.000 And that was an order to Zelensky, who was a client of the US and the UK, to keep fighting.

00:51:11.000 No establishment media outlet in the US has reported on this peace deal, except for one journal, Foreign Affairs, which is read by people who Go to fancy fundraisers in Manhattan and Washington.

00:51:23.000 Otherwise, it's not red.

00:51:25.000 So most people do not know about this peace deal.

00:51:27.000 And certainly no one knows that this peace deal was blocked by the West.

00:51:30.000 So imagine how much higher opposition would be if people knew of basic facts like that.

00:51:35.000 The way that reality can be controlled and curated, the way that a kind of public sphere of ideas can be so carefully and cleverly managed, certain ideas and agenda amplified, other information, like the example you've just given of the potential for a peace deal almost a year ago, or the beginning, yeah, over a year ago, that can be sort of extracted and ignored and just sort of lost in the Do you feel that the necessity for independent media is becoming more pronounced and more obvious?

00:52:14.000 What did you learn personally when you're placed, or almost placed, or there was an attempt to put you on an FBI blacklist?

00:52:20.000 attacked in the way that you are personally, you know, called a spreader of disinformation.

00:52:26.000 And how do you connect that to sort of perhaps more nefarious forms of censorship, like grey 0.96

00:52:31.000 zones, GoFundMe being curiously shut down, some of their funding, I think, being directed to other

00:52:37.000 causes. So on a personal level, how do you feel about censorship and the management of the space,

00:52:42.000 you know, not just around the world, but generally? And what do you think about the sort of

00:52:47.000 evident escalation of techniques to control and shut down independent media?

00:52:51.000 Well, look, it's a major problem that we have something called the media.

00:52:55.000 But inside that space, you have people with radically different

00:52:59.000 Approaches to the job of being a journalist.

00:53:02.000 I see journalism fundamentally as being loyal to the facts no matter where they lead and certainly not serving any powerful Center, whether it's the US whether it's Russia or any corporation, but serving the people and serving facts and the problem is so many people inside the Western media establishment, you know, which which I'm in I think have identified with people in power and have internalized their own biases and their own agendas of basically wanting to spread U.S.

00:53:30.000 hegemony.

00:53:31.000 And so don't want to do anything that undermines that.

00:53:35.000 And they're also kept in line by sort of the schoolyard mentality where all you have to do is be called a name like a Putin apologist or a Russian propagandist.

00:53:43.000 And that the fear of that is enough to keep people into being obedient.

00:53:47.000 And end up being stenographers for their own power centers.

00:53:50.000 So basically doing exactly what we accuse Russia of doing.

00:53:53.000 And I don't follow that.

00:53:54.000 And because I don't follow that, the gray zone doesn't follow that.

00:53:57.000 We often get called a whole bunch of names.

00:53:59.000 And there are attempts to de-platform us.

00:54:02.000 In my case, I reported on this and we've talked about this before on your show, as you mentioned, the FBI sent Twitter a list of social media accounts.

00:54:11.000 And it asked Twitter to remove these accounts and also hand over their information.

00:54:16.000 And the FBI wasn't doing this at its own behest.

00:54:18.000 It was doing this on behalf of Ukraine.

00:54:20.000 Ukraine gave the FBI this list and asked them to do this for them, and the FBI complied.

00:54:27.000 And my name was on that list along with some Russian journalists and other voices, some Ukrainians also who had challenged the government.

00:54:35.000 And the rest of the media, when this came out, just yawned.

00:54:37.000 It wasn't seemed to be a big deal that the FBI is getting involved in trying to censor journalists and voices that the Ukrainian government doesn't like.

00:54:45.000 And that's a reflection of how integrated US media has become with the state and identifies with it.

00:54:53.000 And the only thing I can do is just keep doing my job and following the facts where they lead and not worried about these efforts to intimidate people like myself.

00:55:01.000 Because luckily, there are people out there who recognize that US media, Western media has not done its job.

00:55:06.000 And so they're, they're hungry for independent voices.

00:55:08.000 And it's the support of people who want to shine the establishment stenography that allows independent journalism like myself to continue.

00:55:17.000 Are you familiar with the Trusted News Initiative and their apparent attempt to curate media spaces and the explicit acknowledgement that they are no longer competing with one another, and by they I mean New York Post, CNN, BBC, but they are competing with independent media.

00:55:37.000 In a practical sense in terms of for viewers and for an audience but in an ideological sense for control of the space for the media space for the communicative channels which currently because of the kind of work that you do and many of your colleagues and peers We are actually given legitimate, reliable information that's often at odds with the information that's conveyed from within this, let's call it, legacy media sphere.

00:56:08.000 Are you aware of the kind of relationships that now exist between mainstream media organisations?

00:56:14.000 How explicit and overt that it has become?

00:56:17.000 Yeah, especially in the UK, you have all kinds of initiatives like the Integrity Initiative and many other associated programs that are basically designed to spread state propaganda.

00:56:28.000 And they do it in a very clever way.

00:56:29.000 They sort of fund all these different groups around the world and make it seem as if these

00:56:34.000 are independent watchdogs and independent investigators.

00:56:36.000 But really, they're just there to serve the state.

00:56:39.000 One prominent example is Bellingcat, which is billed in U.S.

00:56:43.000 media as this open source website, this collection of digital Sherlock's who are out

00:56:48.000 there just to find the truth.

00:56:50.000 But if you look at their output, it's almost entirely done in the service of their NATO

00:56:55.000 state sponsors because they are funded by programs like the National Endowment for Democracy,

00:57:01.000 which sounds harmless, but it is actually historically a front for U.S. intelligence

00:57:07.000 and accordingly serves the bidding of U.S. intelligence goals, and which is mainly to

00:57:13.000 destabilize foreign countries that the U.S. government wants to overthrow.

00:57:17.000 So if you look at Bellingcat's output.

00:57:18.000 But, uh, They often put out these so-called investigations that serve whatever narrative the U.S.

00:57:24.000 government wants to sustain.

00:57:25.000 And when the U.S. 0.67

00:57:26.000 media reports on them, they never mention that they're funded by U.S.

00:57:31.000 taxpayers.

00:57:32.000 They never mention that they're funded by contractors like Adam Smith International that have made a lot of money off of working in war zones destabilized by the U.S., like Iraq.

00:57:43.000 And that's how it works.

00:57:45.000 And most people don't have the time to go and do research projects and look up who all these various groups are that are being presented to them as credible, non-biased sources.

00:57:55.000 And those of us who do point out that they're funded by the state, we're then marginalized for it.

00:57:59.000 But the facts are there for people who have the time to go find them out.

00:58:04.000 There appear to be a spate of new online safety bills.

00:58:10.000 I mean, I'm speaking specifically of the UK online safety bill, which appears to be a censorship bill offering empowerment to, again, curious agencies to check encrypted emails and messages, often Under the auspices of safety and ideas and subjects that most people would be in agreement of, of hate speech, pornography, in particular pornography of people like minors and stuff.

00:58:38.000 So it seems though that that's not just happening in the UK, it's happening in the United States, in all of the Five Eyes countries, they're sort of demonstrably sharing information on one another's citizenry.

00:58:52.000 Do you ever feel that when something appears to be so highly coordinated, when there appears to be cooperation at the legislative level that goes even beyond national sovereignty and seems to be able to bypass democracy, that voices like yours and even The Grey Zone and maybe even this entire space are going to be limited unless there's a... unless it

00:59:17.000 becomes sort of quite politicized and activated that it can no longer really claim to be like, hey, if you

00:59:24.000 notice this, it has to become a sort of a politicized and it has to become ultimately about

00:59:32.000 opposition to the way that the trend and tendency of authoritarianism of censorship and surveillance.

00:59:40.000 It's not enough, is it Aaron, to just simply draw attention to this stuff.

00:59:45.000 Isn't there a point where we have to do more?

00:59:48.000 No, absolutely.

00:59:49.000 And it's a legitimate fear.

00:59:50.000 I mean, look how broadly society as a whole has sort of accepted the torture of Julian Assange.

00:59:58.000 This is a guy who put out facts to the world to expose state crimes.

01:00:04.000 And for that, he's been harassed, persecuted by the world's most powerful states, confined right now to a prison for many years, now facing extradition to the U.S.

01:00:16.000 And yes, there have been some laudable fights to free him.

01:00:19.000 I mean, you've taken part in the demonstrations to free Julian Assange, but overall in society, people kind of yawn.

01:00:27.000 They don't pay attention.

01:00:28.000 When I go to free Julian Assange rallies in New York City, It's a lot of people who are elderly, young people have been sort of denied the basics of the story and don't realize the implications for them and for their future.

01:00:43.000 And that's a result of early successful demonization campaign against Julian.

01:00:47.000 And that extends to all areas of the media where we sort of normalize this culture where dissenting voices can be censored, can be deplatformed, can be smeared as Russian agents and members of the media.

01:00:59.000 Don't see this as an assault on their own rights because they don't identify with journalists who actually do their job.

01:01:04.000 They identify with the state.

01:01:06.000 And yeah, I don't know what it's going to take, but certainly in the absence of grassroots pressure, it's going to be increasingly normalized.

01:01:15.000 He is held, or at least the extradition is as a result of an attempt to charge him and prosecute him under the Espionage Act that Barack Obama used I feel more than any president in history.

01:01:32.000 And there is this curious, beyond a fissure I suppose, there are almost alternate realities where statesmen are still regarded as heroic in spite of observable, tangible, empirical facts now.

01:01:47.000 And it appears to me that, like, as you say, there's a kind of normalization of a phenomena

01:01:56.000 and abomination like Assange's ongoing imprisonment or Edward Snowden's exile or the numerous

01:02:04.000 whistleblowers in incarceration, you know, before standing up against, in particular,

01:02:09.000 sort of American corporate state interests.

01:02:13.000 And when you say that thing about it's sort of, you know, before you say that it's usually

01:02:16.000 older people, I was thinking you were going to say, like, the usual suspects, the kind

01:02:20.000 of people that will group and corral around any issue, the sort of people that you might

01:02:24.000 have imagined caring about the campaign for nuclear disarmament, the people that are aware

01:02:29.000 that there's this sort of march of history that has sped up with the introduction of

01:02:34.000 technology for all of the opportunities for communication and independent media and dissenting

01:02:40.000 That this new space is afforded, there is plainly a colonial war to manage and control this space.

01:02:48.000 And the normalization of the persecution of Assange or Snowden appears to be something that's difficult to popularize.

01:02:57.000 And like, you know, me and you, we sort of talk about it, but I'm not down at sort of Belmarsh demanding his release.

01:03:03.000 I'm not, you know, I think we're going to speak to Stella Assange's wife in the next few days.

01:03:09.000 But it's, in a sense, when you infer that it's older people that are more schooled in more overt 80s and 90s style, you know, Iraq war disasters and lies and the weapons of mass destruction, do you feel like that almost people are lacking the inner resources to oppose?

01:03:29.000 That there's a generation that Is this generational?

01:03:34.000 Because certainly your answer suggested that it might be.

01:03:36.000 Is there a kind of a lack of understanding or direction or hope?

01:03:44.000 What do you think it is that means that this issue is able to continue broadly unopposed?

01:03:51.000 Well, I think the biggest issue is that younger people lack the material resources. 0.97

01:03:55.000 In the U.S., we don't have healthcare guaranteed for everybody.

01:03:59.000 It's a tough economy.

01:04:01.000 It's a very individualistic culture.

01:04:02.000 There's not much social support.

01:04:04.000 And in that context, people don't have the time to worry about Global problems, but bigger issues.

01:04:10.000 They have to worry about supporting themselves and their own careers and their own lives.

01:04:15.000 And to debunk Western state propaganda, it takes a Herculean research effort because it's very easy to hear the narrative, for example, about the war in Ukraine, like Russia just invaded Ukraine because it wanted to colonize it.

01:04:29.000 You can say that in a few seconds.

01:04:31.000 For me to present a contrary point of view, I need like five minutes to go into like the coup in 2014, the Minsk Accords, NATO expansion, the placement of US missiles in countries surrounding Russia, all these things that require context.

01:04:43.000 People don't have the time for that, at least as much as they used to.

01:04:47.000 So I think there's a direct connection between denying people the basics that they need to survive

01:04:53.000 and their inability then to oppose what the US is doing around the world.

01:04:58.000 The system works really, really well for people in power because you force people to scramble for themselves.

01:05:04.000 And meanwhile, you take their money and spend it on these horrible military ventures abroad.

01:05:10.000 And because people lack the resources to have the time to be able to do their own research

01:05:18.000 and to read and to absorb all the information that they need,

01:05:20.000 while also being denied the information by their state media, that leaves very little room for resistance

01:05:27.000 to change.

01:05:28.000 To to government policies and it works very well.

01:05:31.000 And meanwhile, you also have a constant pool of people willing to go fight in these wars because they need money for college and being in the military offers you college tuition offers you health care so that you have this permanent underclass of people that the US can always draw on to go fight your war.

01:05:48.000 So from that point of view, it works very very well for the elites and leaves very little space for genuine grassroots opposition to develop.

01:05:56.000 I see how centralised power, by dealing in vast territories across huge demographics, is able to orchestrate control.

01:06:04.000 There's a set of interlocking systems right down to the ability to recruit from an underclass that you've just described.

01:06:13.000 Intransigence, somehow, of deception.

01:06:16.000 Churchill's famous quote that, you know, a liar's halfway around the world before the truth's got the chance to pull his trousers up, you know?

01:06:23.000 And a teacher of mine says, you know, like, we live in a world of immersive propaganda and deception, and then just sort of slowly over time, wait a minute, there was that coup in 2014, hang on now, NATO expansion, wait a sec, there's these bio-letters, like, all of this stuff.

01:06:39.000 Meanwhile, there's just a constant tirade of opposition.

01:06:42.000 And I, when I'm listening to you and getting the benefit of your research and experience, I'm also sort of like, the needle of my mind skips wildly to potential solutions and I continually think that only decentralization can present a real can present real opposition.

01:07:04.000 Because as long as you have the ability to marshal entire populations,

01:07:08.000 to control vast economies, to suppress dissent,

01:07:12.000 you're not allowed organic uprising.

01:07:14.000 You're not allowed people to say, well we want to live like this here,

01:07:18.000 we're not going to participate in that, well we don't believe this.

01:07:20.000 It's literally systemic.

01:07:22.000 literally systemic.

01:07:23.000 It is an unconscious, ongoing, very potent system that can only be destabilized by mass opposition.

01:07:32.000 And as you say, the people that are required to participate in that mass opposition are Unable to pay their energy bills, unable to pay their food bills, are kind of weary from poor food and bad pharma and screens continually broadcasting messages of either nihilism or despair or hopeless pursuit of individual desire.

01:07:53.000 The kind of moral and spiritual, in fact, landscape that this takes place in does not provide a lot of opportunity and in particularly there's a sort of a At ontological depth, atomization, a breakdown of almost every reliable unit, whether it's the family or faith or community, all of the components that might be used to build meaningful opposition are facing their own individual threats.

01:08:22.000 And that's why, and I know this ain't necessarily your bag, although we've never really talked about it, So I'm presuming.

01:08:28.000 That's why I continually return to the possibility and, in my view, necessity for an individual personal awakening where I recognize, wait, none of these external things are going to work for me.

01:08:42.000 I need a new vision.

01:08:43.000 I need a new mode of living. We've become just uprooted from the conditions of our origin. We've

01:08:50.000 become uprooted from simple ideals that, you know, gosh, sometimes are adjacent to totemism that could

01:08:58.000 just guide us through, well, we are a tribe and the tribe has these concerns and we have these

01:09:03.000 responsibilities for one another and this is how we handle justice and this is how we, you know,

01:09:09.000 like those kind of things are just lost in an ideological diaspora, you know, and I don't see

01:09:15.000 sort of how to do that, how without some kind of new covenant.

01:09:21.000 To mobilize people again.

01:09:24.000 And that's why I continually, Aaron, think about the necessity for independent media to become a kind of crusade, you know, an inclusive crusade.

01:09:33.000 Well, listen, I'm all for a spiritual awakening.

01:09:35.000 I also don't know how to get there beyond just speaking the truth and giving people information that they're being denied to keep people isolated and fragmented and obedient.

01:09:46.000 Beyond that, I don't know what the solution is, but certainly, I agree, there needs to be a spiritual awakening, and it's very, very hard to do that in this society.

01:09:55.000 But I can point to examples throughout history where people in much worse conditions than those of us broadly in the West face have done extraordinary things.

01:10:04.000 In the poorest countries in the Americas, in Haiti and Bolivia, they're in the last 30 years.

01:10:10.000 There have been grassroots movements that have elected presidents that actually come from the people.

01:10:14.000 Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti and Eva Morales in Bolivia.

01:10:18.000 These are two of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.

01:10:20.000 So if they can do it under much worse conditions, maybe we could too.

01:10:25.000 Maybe we could follow their lead.

01:10:27.000 But I agree.

01:10:28.000 The West is in such a, you know, the North, the UK, US, countries like that.

01:10:34.000 They're such a huge bubble of propaganda and there's so many forces to keep people isolated and hating each other and you know at each other's throats rather than targeting uh and demanding accountability from elites that it's very very difficult.

01:10:48.000 This uh you know post from uh Antony Blinken I think something you're aware of and have maybe commented on it like uh Antony Blinken said democracy on in on a ex post I guess democracy depends on the free and open exchange of ideas including online on this international day of democracy I call on governments around the world to protect citizens' access to information that allows them to make informed decisions.

01:11:13.000 It seems like an extraordinary thing to say in light of what's happening, you know, currently the war that we spoke about at the beginning of our conversation, in light of Assange's ongoing incarceration.

01:11:22.000 It's interesting how the rhetoric of government is detached from any principles.

01:11:32.000 I can't believe the gall of this guy.

01:11:34.000 He is presiding over the persecution of a publisher whose only crime was that he exposed state crimes.

01:11:44.000 That's all Julian Assange did.

01:11:46.000 He didn't steal it himself.

01:11:47.000 He was given cables and war logs, which he released through WikiLeaks.

01:11:52.000 He exposed state crimes, and for that, he gets persecuted, tortured, locked in a cage with no end in sight.

01:11:58.000 Now he's facing extradition to the US. And Antony Blinken has the gall to

01:12:01.000 say he cares about democracy and media freedom and free expression. And you can go down the list.

01:12:07.000 Joe Biden recently spoke at the United Nations and he accused Russia of dismantling arms control

01:12:14.000 between the US and Russia, which is a very, very big problem. And he cited the fact that Russia

01:12:20.000 had suspended some of its compliance with the New START treaty, which is the last treaty limiting the

01:12:26.000 nuclear weapons stockpiles of the US and Russia. What Biden didn't mention is that the US for

01:12:31.000 the last 30 years, 20 years, has been on a crusade to dismantle arms control treaties. John Bolton

01:12:37.000 under the Bush administration.

01:12:39.000 Pulled the U.S. 0.93

01:12:39.000 out of the ABM Treaty, which was a vital treaty that helped prevent nuclear war. 0.93

01:12:44.000 Then Trump came along and brought Bolton back and tore up the INF Treaty, which had eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.

01:12:51.000 And this has allowed the U.S. 0.86

01:12:53.000 to build up more weapons threatening Russia.

01:12:55.000 And Joe Biden goes before the U.N.

01:12:58.000 and somehow says that Russia is at fault, not looking at his own government's role in dismantling all these vital arms control treaties.

01:13:05.000 And that's just what you can do when you don't have a media that does its job, when it doesn't point out the hypocrisies, the glaring hypocrisies right in front of us.

01:13:14.000 And so Blinken can get away with pretending that he cares about media freedom because you rarely, if ever, see him being questioned about, for example, imprisoning Julian Assange.

01:13:25.000 It just doesn't happen.

01:13:25.000 So in that context, when there's no accountability for him, he can say whatever he wants.

01:13:30.000 One of the stories that I think has meant that you've incurred the ire that you have done involved an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria.

01:13:41.000 Am I right in thinking that there's a new inquiry into whether or not there was a cover-up there, Aaron?

01:13:49.000 Well, we've been talking a lot about how the media serves the establishment and parrots its narratives, especially when it comes to war.

01:13:56.000 And this is, to me, You couldn't have a better example than the story of Douma in Syria.

01:14:01.000 Because what you have basically is the US, UK, and France bombing Syria in April 2018 over allegations that Syria committed a chemical attack.

01:14:10.000 And this came shortly after images were released from Douma of dozens of dead bodies, horrific scenes, people foaming at the mouth.

01:14:17.000 And based on that, and based on claims from sectarian insurgents that Syria was guilty, the US government led the way in bombing Syria.

01:14:26.000 And about a year later, the OPCW, the world's top chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, came out with this report saying that basically the U.S.

01:14:37.000 narrative was correct, that Syria was responsible for this attack. 0.99

01:14:41.000 But then we got a whole bunch of leaks from inside the OPCW showing that the investigators who went to Syria to investigate this reached the opposite conclusion.

01:14:50.000 They actually found there was no evidence of a chemical attack.

01:14:53.000 And if you read their reports, their leaked reports closely, you can see that they're leaving open the possibility

01:14:59.000 that in fact this was staged on the ground by insurgents.

01:15:02.000 But all that was censored.

01:15:04.000 And the investigation, as we know from these leaks and from OPCW whistleblowers who have come forward,

01:15:09.000 was compromised and doctored.

01:15:12.000 And the media, despite these allegations and documented allegations of a coverup

01:15:17.000 at a global chemical weapons watchdog, the media has completely censored this story.

01:15:23.000 So now, when they still report on the Douma incident, they don't even acknowledge the existence of the OPCW whistleblowers or their leaks.

01:15:30.000 It's like they don't exist.

01:15:32.000 They've totally been memory-holed.

01:15:34.000 It's a complete erasure of basic facts.

01:15:36.000 And the reason is obvious, because once you acknowledge the OPCW whistleblowers, once you acknowledge the leaked documents that have come out, which I've reported on a lot at The Gray Zone, have also come out from Wikileaks as well, then the facts are overwhelming that there was not evidence of a chemical attack and that the investigation was censored.

01:15:55.000 And so rather than allow people to hear about this, the media just simply erases it.

01:15:59.000 And so now we have a new stage where a group of former diplomats, including Jose Bustani,

01:16:04.000 who is the founding director general of the OPCW, the person who was there at the start

01:16:10.000 of this organization, have submitted a report to the European Parliament going through the

01:16:15.000 Duma cover-up in extensive detail.

01:16:17.000 It's the most thorough look at this cover-up to date, and the facts are just overwhelming.

01:16:22.000 Just to give one example, in the early stages of this OPCW probe, the team went to Germany

01:16:28.000 to meet with some expert German toxicologists.

01:16:32.000 And these toxicologists said, unequivocally, this could not have been a chlorine gas attack.

01:16:37.000 And their conclusions were erased.

01:16:39.000 And even the fact that the OPCW went and met with these German toxicologists, that was erased as well.

01:16:45.000 So in a timeline of the investigation from the OPCW, they erased the fact that these German toxicologists were even consulted.

01:16:51.000 And the reason is clear is because the Germans said that there was no evidence of a chemical attack.

01:16:56.000 And one of them even said, according to leaked minutes of the meeting, that this looks like this was possibly staged on the ground.

01:17:03.000 And so this report from what's called the Berlin Group 21, which is, again, includes Jose Bustami, the founding director general of the OPCW, also Hans von Sponek, who is a former assistant secretary general of the UN, goes through this cover up in detail.

01:17:19.000 And again, no media coverage that I can see in the West of this.

01:17:23.000 It's just too inconvenient to the narrative.

01:17:26.000 But they're an example of people in the West who are determined to see accountability for this cover up, because this isn't just about an international organization being compromised to serve

01:17:36.000 pro-war narratives. This isn't just about the U.S. and its allies bombing Syria on false

01:17:41.000 grounds. This is about dozens of people being killed, and to this date, the investigation into

01:17:46.000 their deaths was censored, and so we still do not know how they died.

01:17:52.000 And so, for their sake alone, there needs to be accountability, and for that to happen, the OPCW whistleblowers need to be heard, the documented acts of censorship need to be accounted for, and these diplomats, these former diplomats, are trying to see that through.

01:18:07.000 And I really salute their efforts, and I'm pretty sure there will be more from them and others who are concerned about this cover-up.

01:18:14.000 It's pretty incredible, Aaron, that you're able to control, or at least observe and contain and describe and delineate all of this information in the light of ongoing, or at least in the condition of ongoing attacks and attempts to discredit.

01:18:32.000 I know sometimes, you know, for myself, I know you've traveled extensively and you've reported from the places that you talk about as well, so it's much more experiential for you.

01:18:41.000 I know sometimes it feels abstract to me, you know, in a sense it's the only way I can handle it is by looking at it as, hold on, this piece of information, that piece of information, look at, you know, and of course what I do is nothing like as deep as what you're engaged in.

01:18:53.000 It's sort of much more a podria of information taken from all over the place.

01:18:58.000 But the fact that you're able to do that so extensively and so optimistically is really encouraging.

01:19:03.000 I don't know, how do you keep yourself together?

01:19:05.000 How do you stop?

01:19:06.000 What do you do when you're not thinking about this?

01:19:07.000 How's your small talk?

01:19:13.000 I don't.

01:19:14.000 I take the work I do very seriously.

01:19:16.000 I don't take myself seriously and I don't I don't think the work has anything to do with my own personality and my own ego.

01:19:24.000 The facts are the facts, and I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can try to do what I can to bring them out.

01:19:30.000 I also feel strongly about these issues.

01:19:32.000 For example, when Syria is accused of chemical attacks, that isn't just used to justify bombings of Syria, like the one that happened in April 2018.

01:19:40.000 It's also used to justify sanctions.

01:19:42.000 And the sanctions, we're told, are just against Assad and his government.

01:19:46.000 In fact, it's the people of Syria exclusively who are targeted by this.

01:19:49.000 Government officials are never, ever harmed.

01:19:51.000 It's the people of Syria.

01:19:52.000 And I saw that firsthand when I was there.

01:19:55.000 So to help expose the truth on these critical matters, it's not just there to bring accountability to a cover-up, which is very serious, it's also to expose the lies that are used to justify torturing entire populations.

01:20:08.000 Who have nothing to do with their government, who just want to be able to live.

01:20:10.000 But unfortunately, because they live in societies controlled by governments that the U.S.

01:20:16.000 and its allies want to overthrow, they have to suffer.

01:20:18.000 And that motivates me a lot.

01:20:20.000 When I went to Syria, it made me very, very angry. 1.00

01:20:24.000 I haven't felt anger like that, except for when I was in Gaza, seeing what it's like for Palestinians living under occupation.

01:20:30.000 And so as a privileged member of the West, I see it as my duty to try to expose the lies uh of western governments that are used to justify sadistic crimes like murderous sanctions on on civilians and none of that has anything to do with me uh i'm just in a position where i can do something about it and so i try to do that just by doing my job oh yeah you're a real journalist i get it i've uh there's not many like you there's not many like you that thing where it's like i keep myself out of it i stay with the facts but i've sort of seen it in matt taibbi and even in sort of old codger like seymour hirsch you know like that people that are like able to sort of go

01:21:05.000 Well, I'm just giving the information.

01:21:07.000 I'm just, you know, hey, what can I tell you?

01:21:11.000 So there's a, what do I want to call that?

01:21:12.000 There's a sort of stoicism in that that is very, very beautiful, very encouraging.

01:21:18.000 Aaron, thanks very much for coming on.

01:21:20.000 Thanks for demonstrating what journalistic integrity looks like.

01:21:23.000 Thanks for Not dramatizing it, but expressing and conveying how serious and at times dramatic it is without becoming attached to it.

01:21:32.000 That's sort of an important lesson in that for me there that I really appreciate.

01:21:35.000 Thanks Aaron.

01:21:36.000 Thanks Russell.

01:21:37.000 Cheers man.

01:21:38.000 You can follow Aaron's writing on his sub stack, of course, and you can support his work at The Grey Zone.

01:21:42.000 Let's go to spot.fund.

01:21:45.000 Again, support the work of The Grey Zone if you bloody well can.

01:21:48.000 Hopefully, yeah, this is by going to Spot because you've got to be careful now how you fund The Grey Zone.

01:21:51.000 That money can go missing.

01:21:52.000 We know that.

01:21:53.000 Spot.fund forward slash defend The Grey Zone.

01:21:57.000 Again, we'll put a link in the description to wherever you're watching this now.

01:22:02.000 Thanks again Aaron, I appreciate this fantastic conversation.

01:22:05.000 Tomorrow we will be joined by Dr Robert Epstein talking about how Google manipulates us and how they apparently shifted millions of votes in favour of Biden.

01:22:15.000 Now let me be clear, we're not saying that there's been any voter corruption but there has been a manipulation and we're going to discuss that tomorrow.

01:22:22.000 If you click the red button on the screen now, you can become an Awakened Wonder, support our community.

01:22:26.000 Obviously, you know how much we need your support now.

01:22:28.000 In addition to supporting us and keeping our voice alive, you'll get guided meditations, extended interviews, Q&As, and so much more, particularly once we get ourselves together.

01:22:36.000 Please join us tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.

01:22:40.000 Until then, if you can, please stay free.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - September 26, 2023

Wait What?! Surveillance Robots Are HERE…Plus Aaron Maté - Stay Free #210

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