#1684 - Abby Martin

[0] Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

[1] The Joe Rogan Experience.

[2] Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.

[3] Hello, Abby Martin.

[4] How are you?

[5] I'm great.

[6] How are you?

[7] You're my favorite hardcore lefty.

[8] Thank you.

[9] Thank you very much.

[10] Yeah, because at all, you know, all the podcasts that I ever do, whenever I do a podcast with you, I'm like, okay, this one's going to be interesting.

[11] It's going to be some shit that's going to disturb me that I don't know about.

[12] Hell yeah, man. That's how I like to do it.

[13] Well, a lot of this stuff is depressing, and it's not for everyone, but, you know, you try to, you try to just go balls deep because I grew up in the YouTube generation, and I learned so much, and I want to be that source for a lot of people.

[14] You know, I want to, I want to guide people through the journey of learning about real education and all the sinister shit your government's doing.

[15] Sinister shit, all governments are doing.

[16] You know, I remember one of the first times, not one of the first times, but one of the, one of the biggest times that I got blowback from having you on was your, your, your, your.

[17] personal experience interviewing people in Israel interviewing Israelis and interviewing Palestinians and and trying to sort through like what is really going on over there what is the real attitude about people over there and I remember it goes fucking can't it must be an email campaign it must have been a campaign because it was like the same letter over and over and over again I was receiving in my inbox must have been like a website you could go and then sign it and then send it to me but that don't you think that like the the tide is shifted in that subject where now people are realizing, like, they're going, hey, like, this is not as simple as the mainstream media wants everybody to look at it.

[18] The way the mainstream media was portraying it in this country, it was always that Israel's the good guys, the Palestinians of the bad people.

[19] That's how it was.

[20] But the mainstream perception now has very much shifted, don't you think?

[21] Like with this last, when you see like that iron dome and you've seen these rockets being fired out of Palestine and they're all getting detonated in the air and then you realize like, oh, this is this is a kind of a crazy situation.

[22] Like one side has this insane technology and the other side is kind of in an open air of prison camp in a way.

[23] Like you can't go anywhere.

[24] Right.

[25] You're kind of stuck.

[26] 25 % of American Jews now, after the latest onslaught in Gaza, believe Israel's an apartheid state.

[27] And that shows you how dramatically the narrative has completely flipped on its head.

[28] Because for the last 20 years, Israel's been losing control of dictating the narrative.

[29] I mean, that was really what they relied on for so long, that we're acting in self -defense, that we're surrounded by people who hate us and hypothetically will commit genocide against us to basically defend the fact that they are committing de facto.

[30] genocide in Gaza, that is the erasure of Gaza residents.

[31] It's the erasure of a culture.

[32] It's not just the extermination.

[33] That's according to the UN.

[34] But yeah, the tide has changed, Joe.

[35] They can no longer say that they're acting in self -defense over the last 20 years with the bombardments, with the invasions, with the colonization outside of their borders.

[36] I mean, we're talking about Lebanon, Syria, and the Golan Heights, and just constantly bombing and open air prison.

[37] It is an open air prison there's two million people trapped there they cannot leave without permits by the Israeli government or the collaborative government in Egypt those people are trapped and then you look at Israel they're living they're they're living high high you know they're on the they're on a live in a great life I mean I saw some crazy ass ad from Dior like of people you know basically just having this very ritzy time you know living in Tel Aviv living in Jerusalem and completely just separate from the fact that there is this besieged ghetto of two million people denied basic access to things like water and electricity.

[38] I mean, the right to have human mobility, I think, is like the most basic right that you can have as a human being, like to leave and freely travel.

[39] And these people can't do that.

[40] And that media has completely painted it forever.

[41] The media is totally controlled, right?

[42] The media acts as an arm of the state.

[43] And for the longest time, the media has been.

[44] basically just said, Israel is right.

[45] They've only depicted the Israeli side of the story.

[46] And it doesn't matter anymore because with the advent of social media, Palestinians are able to film their own reality for the first time.

[47] So they're filming the home demolitions.

[48] They're filming the ethnic cleansing.

[49] They're filming themselves getting bombed relentlessly for no reason other than collective punishment and torture of this area.

[50] And that is convincing the world and actually bringing more people to their side.

[51] The sympathy is now going to Palestinians where even Democratic voters, a Gallup poll has taken every single year of Democratic Party voters and where they're at on the Israel -Palestine thing.

[52] And this year, for the first time in the history of the poll, more Democratic Party voters say that the pressure needs to be put on Israel than Palestine.

[53] And it's just because of this.

[54] It's because the narrative's changing, Joe.

[55] And they've lost the moral high ground here.

[56] They have targeted.

[57] munitions that the U .S. supplies to them, they choose to target entire family's homes.

[58] They choose to kill 14 members of one family sleeping in their bed at night because maybe one person has ties to Hamas.

[59] Hamas has indiscriminate rocket fire because they don't have targeted munitions.

[60] Wrap your mind around that.

[61] One side has all the armaments in the world supplied by the world's empire and they actually direct these missiles towards sleeping families and civilian infrastructure and AP buildings.

[62] Don't they let them know in advance when they're doing something like?

[63] Don't they drop leaflets and let them know that?

[64] So that's what they claim that we're the most moral army in the world because we warn people in advance.

[65] I have contacts on the ground in Gaza that said that is not true.

[66] And also this was happening at night.

[67] You're sleeping in bed.

[68] But they can use that and say, oh, no, we sent a 10 minute warning.

[69] And even if that were true, your entire home.

[70] You know, you're in type, like some guy lost his whole, like a bookstore that he's, you know, his family has passed down from generations.

[71] That's all gone.

[72] All of these businesses gone.

[73] You know, it's not just about people's lives tragically lost.

[74] It's about their livelihoods.

[75] And their counter is that Hamas is attacking them and they're simply counter attacking, right?

[76] That is what they say all the time.

[77] And they have used Hamas governing the Gaza Strip as a reason.

[78] since Hamas pushed Israeli settlers out back in the day 15 years ago as a reason to enact this medieval siege and tighten the noose every year, allow less and less people to leave, allow less and less water, bomb more and more factories, you know, all of these things that basically make life harder and harder.

[79] But the thing is, if you look at actually the history, the Israeli government facilitated Hamas to rise to power.

[80] They wanted Hamas to take control of the Gaza Strip.

[81] so then they can use Hamas as this eternal enemy to collectively punish everyone there.

[82] And it's actually a war crime upon war crime upon war crime because this is indiscriminate bombing.

[83] 50 % of people who live in Gaza are children, innocent children.

[84] That's 70 kids who just died in the last bombing campaign.

[85] These people are innocent.

[86] They have nothing to do with Hamas.

[87] But Joe, it doesn't even matter what Gazans do, what Palestinians do to reason.

[88] resist.

[89] Look at the Great March of Return.

[90] The documentary that I actually came on last time and talked about, it's now up for free.

[91] Gaza fights for freedom.

[92] Everyone can check it on YouTube.

[93] YouTube's throttling it, but please check it out.

[94] This is what happens when Palestinians resist peacefully.

[95] Everyone says, where's the Palestinian Gandhi?

[96] Why don't they peacefully resist?

[97] They are.

[98] They have been.

[99] They've largely abandoned violent struggle or armed resistance, which is actually internationally protected right for colonized people.

[100] But when they resist peacefully.

[101] In the tens of thousands, they were mowed down by Israeli snipers, Joe.

[102] And it doesn't matter what they do.

[103] In the tens of thousands?

[104] Tens of the, not mowed down dead, but shot.

[105] Shot with exploding bullets from these snipers.

[106] 200 people died.

[107] 500 people were shot in the head.

[108] A lot of them did survive.

[109] We interviewed several of these people, medics, journalists, children.

[110] I mean, all of these people are protected categories under the Geneva Conventions.

[111] They were targeted and shot by Israeli snipers and they were peacefully protesting and that just shows you it does not matter what they do they will get met with the same brutality and violence so do you think it's a part of their culture is something been ingrained in them that there's like this us versus them mentality and that they are the other and that they don't they don't think of them as the same yeah i mean 73 percent of Israelis wanted the bombing to continue You know, this was a completely indiscriminate bombing campaign that was leveling civilian infrastructure.

[112] We all saw those buildings fall like 9 -11.

[113] I mean, this was a huge media tower that was leveled for no reason.

[114] There was no proof that Hamas was even in the building.

[115] This is part of a subtler colonial attitude.

[116] You look at, you know, U .S. institutions like our justice system and police force, you know, there's no doubt that there's racism when it comes to the disproportionality of people who are in prison, for example, in terms of African -American.

[117] imagine if the U .S. were colonizing native land and, you know, had just subjugating these people today.

[118] That is what's happening in Israel.

[119] So Israel is built upon ethnic cleansing and it continues to ethnically cleanse and colonize people every single day.

[120] This is an ongoing project.

[121] What do you think they're trying to do?

[122] Do you think they're just trying to take over Palestine and just completely occupy it?

[123] Yeah.

[124] They're trying to take over the land.

[125] That is why all of the Israeli authorities have abandoned the two -state solution a long time ago.

[126] Hamas even actually said that they would accept a two -state solution.

[127] In their latest charter, they said that they're willing to accept a two -state solution, but no Israeli authority has actually given that, you know, credence.

[128] They said that they've laughed off the notion.

[129] Could you lay that out for people?

[130] Yeah.

[131] The two -state solution?

[132] So what you're essentially saying is that Israel and Palestine at one point in time did not want to accept the existence of each other, right?

[133] Well, so Israel was founded on top of Palestine, you know, but the original partition, which is the 1948 borders, that Israel has continued to take more than that.

[134] And so the West Bank is here.

[135] Gaza is a totally separate area.

[136] Gaza was kind of a surplus area for refugees that were basically expelled during the original foundation of Israel.

[137] And then you have Jerusalem.

[138] which is this international city center where people are supposed to coexist.

[139] So ever since 1948, Israel has continued to take more and more and more.

[140] And that's why you see that famous, like, you know, the quadrant of the four maps of Palestine and more and more land has been atomized over time.

[141] In 67, they, yep, exactly.

[142] In 67, they committed, you know, they went on a huge war of aggression and took, occupied the West Bank in Gaza under military occupation.

[143] and the West Bank today continues to be occupied under an Israeli military dictatorship where you cannot do anything.

[144] For the people that are just listening, Jamie pulled up this map of Palestinian loss of land from 1946 to 2014.

[145] So it shows before Israel was decided, before it was called Israel, it shows Palestine, and then it shows Jewish land in Palestine.

[146] It's like these tiny little pockets.

[147] And then it shows, shows the UN plan from 1947, which Israel takes over a big chunk, but then it gets much bigger in 1949, in 1967, and then in 2014, most of Israel is white, and the Palestinian part, which was green in the original map, which all green, is now just a tiny few pockets.

[148] And those little pockets of land is basically where the West Bank is.

[149] So when people say, we want the two -state solution.

[150] And I'm not Palestinian.

[151] I advocate BDS, which we can talk about, because I, BDS is the boycott divestment sanctions movement.

[152] And it's what American allies and, you know, allies of Palestinians can do to try to advocate that human rights are restored.

[153] So international law must be applied.

[154] Refugees must have the right to return.

[155] The occupation must end.

[156] And human rights must be distributed equally, which means apartheid must fall.

[157] So those little specks of land that are dotted throughout the territory, that is what they say should be the Palestinian state.

[158] How could the Palestinian state exist if it's already taken over and atomized by settlements?

[159] And when I was on the ground in the West Bank, it's like it's hard to wrap your mind around the reality of it until you're there and you have to go through these military checkpoints.

[160] People hear, oh, it's under military occupation.

[161] They think of like, oh, there's a base, there's soldiers milling around.

[162] This is like fuck in the U .S. military in Iraq.

[163] This is dehumanizing, subjugating, humiliating occupation on a daily basis that you have to endure as a Palestinian going from one place to the next.

[164] They set up giant concrete barricades, blockading you just to make your life miserable.

[165] If they find something on you that can be construed as a weapon, you go to prison.

[166] You don't have a right to, there's a 99 .9 % conviction rate.

[167] You don't have a freedom.

[168] 99 .9 % conviction rate.

[169] If you're an Israeli settler, because people say, oh, the PA controls parts of the West Bank.

[170] That's true.

[171] So they point to the fact that there is some sort of Palestinian authority throughout some of this territory.

[172] It's a very small amount.

[173] If you're an Israeli settler and you kill a Palestinian, you can't even get arrested.

[174] There's no direction that the PA could have to even arrest an Israeli settler.

[175] Settler just has all the rights.

[176] And they're sanctioned by the state to do whatever the fuck they want.

[177] and they can walk around with guns, point a gun to your head, expel you from your home.

[178] And Joe, I don't know if you saw that crazy -ass video that basically paints the picture of what I'm talking about right now of a settler from New Jersey or Long Island saying, hey, if I don't take your home, someone else will.

[179] He's literally moving into a Palestinian's home in Jerusalem, which is supposed to be the shared center.

[180] How can we find this?

[181] Check it out.

[182] Just look up.

[183] Yeah, dude, it's unbelievable.

[184] This fucking guy who's just an American.

[185] dude literally squatting in some Palestinian's house and he's just like, hey, sorry, if I don't do it, someone else will.

[186] It's not my problem.

[187] And the people are just like, get out of my goddamn home.

[188] So how does an American settler get to do that in Israel?

[189] What is it?

[190] Here, let's see.

[191] This Israeli settler is trying to take over a Palestinian family's home.

[192] You know, this is not your house.

[193] Yes, but if I go, you don't go back.

[194] So what?

[195] What's the problem?

[196] What are you yelling at me?

[197] I didn't do this.

[198] I didn't do this.

[199] But this is...

[200] It's easy to yell at me, but I didn't do this.

[201] You are stealing my house.

[202] Whoa.

[203] This neighborhood is home to 3 ,000 Palestinians, many of whom were descendants.

[204] Now Israel during the ethnic cleansing of 1948, Israel's been ordering the eviction of Palestinian families who've lived in...

[205] How do you say that?

[206] Sheikh Jada.

[207] Sheikh Jada.

[208] Yeah, fast forward because there's a part where he's just like...

[209] If I don't take it, someone else will.

[210] I don't know if it shows.

[211] He did say that.

[212] Oh, right here at the end.

[213] You are stealing my house.

[214] And if I don't steal it, someone else will.

[215] If I don't steal it, someone else will.

[216] So, Sheikh Jada is a flashpoint right now.

[217] So is Silwan.

[218] There are two flashpoints in Jerusalem.

[219] Basically, they're just expelling hundreds of Palestinians from their homes in order to maintain an artificial majority of Israeli Jews.

[220] I mean, it's not just Israeli Jews.

[221] It's, as you can see, American Jews who come and squat.

[222] and they're actually backed by NGOs.

[223] This guy's being paid to do that.

[224] He's being paid by U .S. organizations and NGOs to go and squat in a palisians home.

[225] What is an NGO?

[226] What's an NGO?

[227] Like a non -governmental organization, like just an organization that's backed by rich people who just say, okay, I'm going to pay you.

[228] You go squat in this person's home and force them out.

[229] So how are they reinforcing this?

[230] Like, how does this guy get into there?

[231] What are they saying?

[232] Like, how is this, how are they trying to get these families to leave their house?

[233] So there's a, this is the problem is that there's a court order that's just totally fallaciously concocted by the Israeli court system because everything is discriminatory against Palestinians and everything is disenfranchised geared toward pushing Palestinians out.

[234] So they have this kind of these concocted documents that they can use to be like, look, we have this court order, so therefore we need to push you out.

[235] The Palestinians are fighting it, but who's going to win at the end, Joe?

[236] I mean, this is a demographic law that's in place, which means.

[237] means that 70 % of Jerusalem needs to be Israeli Jews.

[238] So what happens when you have 31 % who are Palestinian Arabs?

[239] They need to be expelled to maintain that artificial majority to maintain that demographic.

[240] There's incredible twins, brother and sister Muhammad and Mona Al -Kurd, who are filming their reality.

[241] They live in Sheikh Jada.

[242] They're filming real -time settlers like in their home, trying to take it over forcibly.

[243] So these people just show up.

[244] and just move into your house.

[245] Yeah.

[246] Is that?

[247] Yes.

[248] That's accurate?

[249] And how do they not get killed?

[250] They, well, Palestinians aren't allowed to have weapons and they are.

[251] So when they come with the barrel of a gun to your head.

[252] So they come with a gun and they say, this is my house now?

[253] Yes.

[254] It's really that simple?

[255] I mean, it's, it is.

[256] And they're being paid to do this.

[257] They are being paid to do this.

[258] And they have the state sanctioning and backing them.

[259] So you have the state show up.

[260] I mean, of course Palestinians are resisting.

[261] You saw thousands of Palestinians.

[262] Palestinians protesting.

[263] And you actually saw pogroms, which are violent mobs, acting against Palestinian businesses, homes, lighting homes on fire, all armed, you know, going throughout these neighborhoods.

[264] Imagine if there was like, you know, a violent like Trump mob that was armed with weapons going and forcing out like immigrant homes on the border of Texas.

[265] I mean, it is that crazy.

[266] You know, it is that crazy.

[267] And the media.

[268] just covers it in the most absurd way where they obfuscate like a very plain reality.

[269] I mean, this is the violence of colonialism.

[270] This is what's going on on a daily basis.

[271] And Palestinians, of course, are resisting it.

[272] They're of course trying to stop this.

[273] This is their family home.

[274] But they are made homeless, Joe.

[275] There's nowhere for these people to go.

[276] And in Sil Juan, they're trying to expel these people for an amusement park, some sort of, like, biblical amusement park.

[277] Yeah.

[278] It's not just to build homes for Israeli settlers, like in, Sheikh Jara.

[279] So they have these homes in Sheikh Jara that these people are living in and then they pay people to just move into these people's homes and force them out.

[280] Yes.

[281] And what is the what's the official government stance on this?

[282] Like what do they say when confronted about this?

[283] Well they say that this is, I mean this is what Israel is.

[284] Israel is an artificial Jewish majority state.

[285] So their end goal is to push all Palestinians out and they want to make it unlivable.

[286] But they claim that they have these, you know, court orders that force these mass evictions, which really don't hold up in any sort of fair system.

[287] So they just decide the boundaries have been pushed back and this is now our territory.

[288] And so all these people that live in these homes, they have to abandon these homes because if it's our territory, you can't live here.

[289] Yes.

[290] Because you're Palestinian.

[291] Yes.

[292] And in Silwan, they're actually charging people to demolish their own homes.

[293] Can you imagine?

[294] Here it is.

[295] In October, the Israeli magistrate court of Jerusalem ruled to evict 12 of the 24 Palestinian families in Sheikh Jara and to give their homes to Israeli Jewish settlers.

[296] The court also ruled that each family must pay $70 ,000 shekels, $20 ,000 in fees to cover the settlers' legal expenses.

[297] Wow, so not only do they have to cover the settlers' legal expenses, but they also have to, in some cases, in Silwan, pay to demolish their own homes.

[298] Well, it seems like they're saying they have to pay for the legal expenses that these guys had to sort of fight them to take their homes.

[299] So not only did they get to give up their homes, but they have to pay for the legal expenses, the people that are stealing their homes.

[300] Imagine, Joe, as someone, you know, Americans, you know, were all about property rights and stuff like that.

[301] And imagine if a mob of armed extremists came and put a barrel of gun to your head and said, you need to leave this home.

[302] And you're with your family.

[303] And you're with your family.

[304] And there's no, it's not like they have another place for you to live even.

[305] They're not giving you another option.

[306] No. Which is even insane by itself.

[307] Like say, you can't live there.

[308] You have to live here.

[309] That's insane already.

[310] But they're not even doing that.

[311] They're just forcing people out.

[312] And this is happening every single day.

[313] But I think that because Sheikh Jada is a flashpoint in Jerusalem, it's become like a shocking thing for the media.

[314] to cover.

[315] I mean, this is happening all the time in the West Bank where people are, you know, their homes are getting demolished for just the minor of things that they maybe build an extension to their kitchen or something like that.

[316] And then they get demolished, right?

[317] And they're made homeless.

[318] But in Sheikh Jorah and Silwan, it's in Jerusalem, which is supposed to be this shared center place where Israel touts, you know, all these holy sites are there.

[319] And Israel touts it as we all live in peace and harmony within this area, but it's not true at all.

[320] And even within the 1948 borders, you saw.

[321] mass mobs going, pulling people out of taxis saying, are you Arab, beating the shit out of people in the streets?

[322] It was an ugly, ugly thing.

[323] And all of this preceded Hamas firing the first rocket in the latest onslaught.

[324] All of this preceded that.

[325] You had Alaksa Mosque, which is the third holiest site in Islam, on fire.

[326] And thousands of Jewish Israeli settlers chanting death to Arabs and burn their memory, looking at this ancient, incredible mosque in flames.

[327] And the new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, actually, is part of this extremist settler movement who wants to basically take over Al -Axa and build a Jewish temple.

[328] And again, just imagine if thousands of Muslim extremists were chanting in front of an ancient synagogue, death to Jews.

[329] I mean, it's just, you just can't wrap your mind around it.

[330] Look at all the fucking hubbabaloo over Notre Dame on fire.

[331] People were throwing tens of millions of dollars and everyone was up in arms about it.

[332] But when Al -Oxas on fire and when they're attacking it with stun grenades and smoke bombs during Ramadan, no one cared.

[333] Now, what was that about?

[334] Why did they attack, were they trying to find the people who did something?

[335] Like, what was the idea behind the smoke bombs and all that?

[336] So they were attacking worshippers during Ramadan, which is a very very, holy time.

[337] And it was all in part of this onslaught in Sheikh Jada and these home demolitions, but the forced expulsions in Jerusalem and all the pogroms.

[338] You saw like, you know, thousands of people marching throughout the streets chanting death to Arabs.

[339] And it was a very, very scary time.

[340] So Palestinians rightfully were protesting.

[341] And they were protesting around Al -Axa.

[342] And that's when the Israeli police attacked and started firing not live ammunition at that time, but they were firing smoke bombs and grenades and a hundred worshippers or something had to go to the hospital.

[343] And so they did this into the mosque, but the people in the mosque weren't in the middle of protesting.

[344] They were just worshipping.

[345] And that's when Hamas fired the rocket.

[346] So is it accurate to say that it's independent journalism that sort of forced this issue to be recognized the way it is now?

[347] 100%.

[348] 100 % because I remember when you had those interviews, when you went over to Israel, you interviewed these people that had this very nonchalant attitude about just kill them all and you know a lot of there was a lot of pushback about that i remember that but i remember thinking bolt you'd be hard pressed to find uh rational looking people in america that would have that attitude about any group of people like just go kill them kill them all like it would be very difficult but you found a lot of people that were talking like that it wasn't just one or two people look at that and people can check that out on reporting from palestine our playlist on empire files people should check that out because a lot of people will look at that and they'll say you cherry pick these interviews you made these people look bad look not only did we not cherry pick the interviews but like you just said joe if you go to the deep south in the most racist areas of the united states sure you'd find people who believe similar types of things but how quickly would you find enough people all at once saying kill all the black people, right, exterminate them, nuke them.

[349] I mean, that's a real genocidal rhetoric.

[350] There was even people laughing about it and gleefully telling an American documentarian knowing on camera.

[351] I mean, if that's what you're willing to say on camera, what are you willing to say behind closed doors?

[352] So is this like just a, do you think this is a culturally accepted perception of the the way they view Jewish people versus Palestinian people.

[353] And this is something that's been passed down.

[354] Yeah.

[355] I mean, racism is palpable because of the situation that they're in.

[356] They are conditioned, born and bred hating Palestinians, other rising Palestinians.

[357] You have forced, you know, segregation in schools.

[358] There's so many elements and layers to the racism, the deep -seated racism that exists in Israeli society.

[359] But really, ultimately, you have to, in order to accept the fact that you are a colonizer, that you are an oppressor and subjugating people just right across the way in this open air prison, subjugating basically five million Palestinians either live in Gaza or the West Bank.

[360] And they are being tortured and subjugated and oppressed every single day.

[361] And you have to be okay with that to a certain extent to be a proud Zionist.

[362] You know, I mean, that's that's the problem.

[363] Did you find anybody over there that was either any Israelis over there that were opposed to this line thinking, opposed to this perception, opposed to the actions of Israel against the Palestinians?

[364] There are definitely leftists in Israel, and I don't mean to say that there are not.

[365] Of course, there are people trying to push back against the government.

[366] Of course.

[367] You know, I don't know how many anti -Zionists there are, because why would you live in Israel?

[368] I know a lot of Israelis who have, like, you know, emigrated to Europe or America because it's just, it's just too much to live there and kind of be surrounded by this kind of mentality.

[369] But, I mean, yes, simple answer is, yes, there are plenty of people there who disagree with the occupation, who maybe want the siege to be lifted on Gaza because it's too much.

[370] But I would say at the end of the day, the vast majority agree with the whole premise of the colonial project.

[371] And I do know that, you know, it's kind of dangerous to be in out.

[372] If I lived there, I would be in danger.

[373] Even Bet Salem, which is a human rights organization that has openly declared Israel to be an apartheid state.

[374] They operate in Israel and they are in danger.

[375] Well, you probably can't even visit there anymore.

[376] No. That's why I had to direct Gaza Fights for Freedom outside of the country.

[377] I mean, I would have loved to be within Gaza, but I was told I was an Iranian spy and that I was a propagandist and I was banned for life.

[378] And so I can't even go there.

[379] And so I had to work through this.

[380] blockade and get files every couple weeks and sort through this data.

[381] And it was really unfortunate.

[382] And it's very scary, especially for the people who worked with us because they know that they could be penalized and punished for having their name on the documentary.

[383] But Joe, this is reflected in polls.

[384] I mean, it's very extreme.

[385] The fascism is extreme.

[386] Look no further than Naftali Bennett.

[387] This dude who's the new prime minister who's said openly, bragged, I've killed a lot of Arabs in my life, and there's nothing wrong with that.

[388] He has openly declared there should be no Palestinian state.

[389] He's actually more right wing than Netanyahu himself.

[390] And you see the U .S. politicians pointing to Netanyahu and being like, look, Netanyahu's an extremist.

[391] These settlers are extremists.

[392] They don't represent the mainstream current of Israeli society.

[393] But that isn't the case.

[394] They are outgrowths of a lot of true things about Israel, just like Trump was a true manifestation of a lot of where American society was at.

[395] But the liberals, you know, they want to sanitize this reality from us.

[396] They don't want us to hear from what, they don't want us to hear from Israeli citizens.

[397] Right.

[398] That's the thing that's disturbing is when you talk to American intellectuals who are very bright people, but either are supporters of Israel or are American Jews, and they have, um, sort of a blind allegiance towards Israel in a lot of ways and that was in a lot of ways that was what you had to have in those circles for a long time right you supported Israel like everybody supported Israel but I think seeing some of the things that you uncovered in in your work and seeing some of those interviews and to recognize it this is a it's a very disturbed place very very disturbed like this is there's no clear there's no there's no like clear moral high ground for these people when they're we you're talking about shooting people that are just working as press or shooting people that are medics and it's it's one of those things too where if you ask someone like how do you fix this how does how does one resolve the conflict in the middle east that that might be like the biggest problem in all of world politics like ask someone how do you resolve the the crisis in the middle east how do you resolve that boom go so I mean, I have an answer.

[399] Wasn't that, was not an AOC, like, gotcha question?

[400] Remember that?

[401] Yeah, and she backpedaled and said she didn't know enough to, yeah.

[402] Well, guess what, no one knows enough?

[403] How the fuck do you fix that?

[404] There's not a goddamn solution.

[405] Like, what would you do?

[406] Like, imagine if you're a, imagine you are in the middle of a presidential debate, right?

[407] Abby, what would you do to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine?

[408] I would condition, and first of all, this is just my political.

[409] political face talking.

[410] I think no aid should go to Israel.

[411] But pulling the Bernie Sanders card, he said he would condition all aid in accordance to international law, which goes back to the BDS thing, right?

[412] We want the occupation to be lifted, which flies in the face of international law, we want the right to return, and we want apartheid to fall.

[413] And once those things happen, once we have equal rights for everyone, then we can see where we're at.

[414] So what is that?

[415] What does that mean, like occupation, occupation lifted?

[416] So there's a brutal Israeli military dictatorship that's been imposed on the West Bank, and it has been since 67.

[417] And this is preventing people from organizing politically.

[418] I know people who've been in jail for years and years with no trial because they were an organizer.

[419] You know, they were politically active.

[420] You can't have weapons.

[421] You can be thrown in jail if you have anything on you that can be construed as a weapon.

[422] You can't convene in groups.

[423] saw plenty of footage that came out of the last onslaught and the last stuff that was going on of people simply raising a flag, which is illegal under the Israeli military dictatorship.

[424] You cannot hold up a symbol of your culture and you will get arrested.

[425] You saw plenty of people getting attacked.

[426] You even saw like a six -year -old boy, like getting arrested by the Israeli military.

[427] I mean, it is for having a Palestinian flag.

[428] For holding a Palestinian flag.

[429] It's wild stuff.

[430] So Joe, I don't know if you knew this, but I just won a lawsuit.

[431] This is fucking insane.

[432] I mean, this, this goes along with the whole BDS thing, but there are 30 states in the U .S. that have passed legislation that says you cannot make money at a state institution as an independent contractor unless you sign a contract saying that you will never advocate the boycott of Israel.

[433] and never engage in the boycott of Israel.

[434] Really?

[435] 30 states in the U .S. This is the ultimate censorship.

[436] This is the black hand of the state coming down and enacting laws that says you cannot speak or advocate for this issue.

[437] This is a totally passive action.

[438] BDS is what brought down Jim Crow apartheid in the south.

[439] BDS is what brought down apartheid in South Africa.

[440] and BDS will inevitably bring down apartheid in Israel, but I was given such a contract.

[441] I was supposed to speak at Georgia Southern University, and I was given a contract that says you can never boycott the state of Israel, you can never advocate the boycott of Israel.

[442] And I was just like, this is fucking mind -blowing because this is what I do.

[443] I mean, this is in part, you know, bringing attention to these issues, advocating BDS.

[444] And the whole conference fell apart.

[445] and I ended up suing Georgia.

[446] The state of Georgia.

[447] And you won?

[448] Yeah.

[449] So you can go back?

[450] Talk some shit.

[451] Isn't that amazing, though?

[452] It is amazing.

[453] And this is amazing that that's written into law.

[454] It's written into law.

[455] Now, is this because is a state institution and is it other laws like that about other countries or other?

[456] No. No. Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be if.

[457] Putin, and by the way, Israeli government officials have gone and advocated and lobbied these state legislatures to pass these laws.

[458] It is like the most direct admission of foreign interference I can think of.

[459] Meanwhile, we hear ad nauseum about Russia buying Facebook ads and somehow flipping the election to Trump.

[460] No, this is Israel going advocating these laws to be changed at 30 state legislatures and them doing it.

[461] I mean, can you fucking imagine if Putin did this that actually had the law of the U .S. changed to flagrantly violate our First Amendment.

[462] This is a free speech issue.

[463] This is a boycott issue that was constitutionally enshrined by the Supreme Court during the Montgomery bus boycotts.

[464] This is our fucking civil liberties.

[465] So it's the idea is that Israel's our ally and that's why it's okay.

[466] Because if someone said something, like if, like here's an example, if there was new laws on the books that said you could not advocate to boycott products from China.

[467] Right.

[468] And if you did, you can no longer make money, you're banned from the state or whatever.

[469] Like, if they tried to institute some laws like that.

[470] Can you imagine?

[471] Imagine.

[472] Remember the blowback just for John Sina?

[473] Yeah.

[474] Apologizing people freak the fuck out about some silly movie?

[475] Yeah.

[476] Yeah.

[477] Or Russia.

[478] I mean, you actually can't wrap your mind around it because it's totally incomprehensible and flies in the face of logic that actually they would alter our, like, laws.

[479] But when you see things like the John Sina thing, or when you see.

[480] things like the NBA, like kowtowing to China and even the World Health Organization, I'm sure you saw that spokesperson who wouldn't even recognize that Taiwan was a country, wouldn't say it.

[481] He was on a Zoom call with this lady who was asking him questions about Taiwan's response to COVID -19.

[482] And he refused to even discuss that Taiwan as a country, so he disconnected the phone and then came back and when he came back he said well i think china's doing a really good job so let's just let's just move on like he just glossed it you ever see that i did yeah yeah it's wild right because it but it shows you the crazy influence that one country can have and we sort of accept it with some countries but with other countries we're deeply disturbed by it countries that we don't think are our allies were deeply disturbed by it but like this china thing but this this idea that these institutions or these countries can have any effect whatsoever on our First Amendment rights, that's very disturbing.

[483] And it should be something that raises people's hackles.

[484] It should put people up in arms because that's a precedent.

[485] And if that gets set because we are, we're allies with a country and we allow it to happen because we're allies, you can't talk badly about, you can't advocate for, you know, whatever you're advocating for, if you're advocating for, or not visiting or you know the sanctions against them that that's a super slippery slope that all we'd have to do is have these kind of relationships with a lot of different countries where you have the same and then now you can't talk about anything anymore yeah yeah yeah that's how it works like I mean this is cancel culture like like it is so it's so unbelievable that this has happened under the radar you know and and you have actually a foreign leader bragging about it I mean Netanyahu took to Twitter and he was like we've worked really hard to lobby these states to pass these I think they're throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks because they know it's unconstitutional when they've been challenged before in a couple of states I think four states they've faced legal challenges and they've all been ruled unconstitutional because they are clearly they're so flagrantly in violation of our free speech so does Georgia now change the law that's on the books so it's unenforceable as of now because of my lawsuit but they are trying to change the law to render my case moot.

[486] So they're now trying to make it so that the law can be on the book still.

[487] And now it will just apply to people who are making a higher amount of money.

[488] Oh my God.

[489] Yeah.

[490] So they don't want to get rid of the law because it's a huge coup for Israel.

[491] I mean, you should see the kind of shit that they've done.

[492] They tried to sue a Palestinian woman named Sue Hare for $20 million for defamation because she put a Facebook post online.

[493] But they purposefully waited until the statute of limitations for libel was up in the U .S. And then they can use.

[494] use Israeli law.

[495] And under Israeli law, libel is just anything that criticizes the government.

[496] It doesn't have to be untrue.

[497] Oh, God.

[498] And so they were trying to make that stick.

[499] Luckily, that case was thrown out.

[500] But it just shows you.

[501] Is she an American citizen?

[502] She's an American.

[503] Is it in America?

[504] Yeah.

[505] And so they were trying her in Israel.

[506] They were trying her in American courts with they were trying to do it under Israeli law in American courts.

[507] Yeah.

[508] Yeah.

[509] We had the whole story on Empire Files.

[510] It's unbelievable stuff.

[511] man. I mean, one more case of just how crazy this is, because it's not just people who are advocates of Palestine.

[512] I wasn't even going to talk about Palestine when I gave this lecture when I was going to give this lecture.

[513] This is all, this happened to hurricane relief workers in Texas after Hurricane Harvey.

[514] They could not get money for infrastructure unless they signed this pledge, unless they signed a contract pledging that they wouldn't have boycott Israel.

[515] Why does that have anything do with hurricane relief?

[516] It's anything.

[517] It's any state contractors in any of these states so any state contractor has to sign this thing saying you can never boycott Israel and you can never advocate and that's the only way you can get money from the state right what that is so bananas that's so fucking crazy that extends to hurricane relief substitute teachers construction workers I mean really any so if you're a substitute teacher and you're making money from the state you can't criticize Israel yeah holy shit is it you can't criticize them or you can't advocate for boycott you can't advocate for boycott so you can't criticize them to the point where it's somehow another financially affect them which is a slippery slope because it's like that's kind of one and the other I mean if you are saying Israel's an apartheid state that is essentially saying implying that you are boycotting them in some way so it is like a very gray area it's wild dude We don't have a relationship like that with any other country.

[518] No. Why do we have a relationship like that with Israel?

[519] Well, Israel serves as an important outpost in the Middle East, just like Uganda does in Africa.

[520] Uganda's neighbors with Somalia and Sudan, the two countries that Wesley Clark said they wanted to topple during the Bush administration.

[521] So Uganda serves as that point in Africa.

[522] Columbia serves as our outpost in Latin America, neighboring Venezuela.

[523] We pour tens of millions of dollars to, you know, militarize them and do all this shit there in the region.

[524] And Israel is our outpost in the Middle East as well as Saudi.

[525] We should probably play that clip because that clip is very important.

[526] It's unbelievable.

[527] It's right.

[528] See if you can find that Wesley Clark's U .S. plan.

[529] What year was that?

[530] Oh, my God.

[531] Yeah, just look up seven countries in five years.

[532] Yeah.

[533] It was somewhere in the early 2000s.

[534] Wesley Clark, who was a general, decorated general.

[535] Yeah, high -ranking general.

[536] was discussing what he knows of the world's plan.

[537] And, I mean, basically, Israel serves as an important strategic partnership with the U .S. military because we can manage operations.

[538] We can use them as a battering ram and a military garrison out there.

[539] There's a video of it, Jamie, where you can hear Wesley say he's doing some sort of interview.

[540] He may be doing a recap.

[541] Yeah, I think talking to Amy Goodman or something like that.

[542] But look, it's a resource -rich region.

[543] You're right, that's it right there.

[544] Yeah, let's check it out.

[545] I saw Secretary of Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz.

[546] I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the joint staff who used to work for me. And one of the generals called me and he said, sir, you got to come in, you've got to come in and talk to me a second.

[547] I said, well, you're too busy.

[548] He said, no, no, he says, we've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq.

[549] This was on or about the 20th of September.

[550] I said, we're going to war with Iraq.

[551] Why?

[552] He said, I don't know.

[553] He said, I guess they don't know what else to do.

[554] So I said, well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al -Qaeda?

[555] He said, no, no. He says, there's nothing new that way.

[556] They've just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.

[557] He said, I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments.

[558] and he said, I guess if the only two you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.

[559] So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan, I said, are we still going to war with Iraq?

[560] And he said, oh, it's worse than that.

[561] He said, he reached over on his desk, he picked up a piece of paper.

[562] He said, I just got this down from upstairs, me in the Secretary of Defense's office today.

[563] And he said, this is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years.

[564] starting with Iraq and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and finishing off Iran.

[565] Wild.

[566] So, yeah, I mean, this is a resource -rich region.

[567] You know, the Middle East is highly resource -rich.

[568] We wanted to stake our claim in the region, and Israel's the perfect outpost for that.

[569] And, you know, when Israel went on that war of aggression in 67, I think the U .S. was like, hey, we can fucking use you.

[570] You've done well.

[571] And which actually is interesting, because a lot of people, think the tail wags the dog, oh, Israel controls the U .S.?

[572] No, it's very obviously that the U .S. is using Israel for its military goals and regional domination, which means that it can be untenable, which means that we can make it inconvenient for the U .S. to care about subsidizing Israel.

[573] They don't give a shit.

[574] You know, if enough pressure is mounted, they will abandon the project.

[575] They have similar goals, but not congruent goals and interests.

[576] They don't care.

[577] If Israel takes over all of Palestine, that doesn't really matter to the U .S. political establishment.

[578] Do you think that part of the way this is all playing out is because of the fact that they're backed up by the United States and the United States gives them like these crazy laws, like what you faced in Georgia, and they have these sort of the attitude over here that like this is our guard dog over there.

[579] Like we'll let this thing loose.

[580] We'll do whatever we can to support them because we need them.

[581] We need them to protect our assets over there.

[582] And so we empower them in a wild way, like in not ever talking about these atrocities and really kind of glossing over the things that you've highlighted.

[583] Oh, 100%.

[584] I mean, it's totally subsidized by the U .S. And that's why during the Great March of Return, you saw these toothless resolutions passed by the U .N. being like, we condemn Israel.

[585] And the U .S. has veto power on the world stage.

[586] There's something called the Hague Invasion Act that says if you even try to indict U .S. officials for war crimes, you can fucking be invaded by the U .S. I mean, there is so much power and domination from the U .S. as the supplier and backer of these states like Saudi Arabia and Israel that no one can do anything about it until we act here.

[587] Is there propaganda that the Israeli people are exposed to that gives them this perspective?

[588] Like, is there a concerted effort to try to?

[589] try to demonize the people that live in Palestine?

[590] Do they try to do this to make it so that they do accept these sort of dehumanizing tactics?

[591] Oh, hell yeah.

[592] I mean, absolutely.

[593] You know, it'd probably be the same propaganda that was given to Americans during Jim Crow.

[594] It's like, you don't, you know, you don't have the other side of this story.

[595] Or to the Germans.

[596] Oh, my God, yeah, of course.

[597] And that's really, it's a dark truth, but it is very similar.

[598] You know, one of the smears against me is that I compared Israel's tactics to Nazi Germany and that's actually no longer controversial anymore.

[599] I mean, you just have to look at what they're doing today and it, even Holocaust survivors have said that this is, these are very similar mentalities and similar atrocities being carried out.

[600] But it was controversial at the time because there wasn't the kind of media coverage in mainstream media, which is where everybody was getting their news.

[601] So these controversial, small, independently operated media units like yours that would go over there and report things, they were sort of dismissed and marginalized, right?

[602] Is that fair to say?

[603] 100%.

[604] Part of the manufacturing of consent.

[605] Did you get, yes, right?

[606] Did you get anybody from any mainstream, whether it's MSNBC or whoever, who wanted to talk to you about your work?

[607] Not one person, Joe, and I think we know why.

[608] I'm persona non grata because of of multiple reasons, the Russia media stuff.

[609] I worked for Russia today.

[610] So right off the bat, I'm a Russian disinformation agent, no matter how long I'm out in the field independently operated and grassroots funded.

[611] I'm done.

[612] Well, you were working for Russia today, and I think the way I was describing this to a friend, I said, I bet they thought that if you got this woman who talks a lot of shit about American imperialism and you hire her for Russia today, that would be a pretty good scoop.

[613] You got this very articulate American woman.

[614] woman who's talking shit about the American Empire.

[615] Whoops, what is she saying about Crimea?

[616] Oh, no. And they're like, oh, no, this bitch hates all imperialism.

[617] Fuck, I thought she was on our side.

[618] Like, when you started going against what Putin was doing in Crimea, and then they invited you to go to Crimea and put shoes in the ground, you're like, get the fuck out of here.

[619] You knew your time there was over.

[620] It was over.

[621] Yeah, it was up.

[622] I mean, what's funny about it is that my boss cared so much about just aesthetics.

[623] He was just obsessed about, like, the set.

[624] And he didn't even like, he didn't even really care about, like, the politics.

[625] But what was interesting is that he got so much heat from what I did from, I don't know, I think the higher ups, I think half of them really liked what I did because I was, you know, I was trying to assert my editorial freedom and being like, look, this isn't just a Russian propaganda network.

[626] You need people out there who are criticizing Russia.

[627] So I think half the people were like, yeah.

[628] let's do it and the other half the people were like fuck no you're done and so what happened was it just became impossible for me to do my job and you know um i i wasn't stepped on in terms of my editorial freedom but uh but i think my boss never forgave me for making his job harder and well up until that point though that what was interesting and i remember talking you about this job they did not tell you what to do never you you had a lot of editorial freedom a lot of freedom to express yourself You had freedom for your own opinions to be broadcast on RT, and that's what you had.

[629] You had an opinion show.

[630] 100%.

[631] And people have this kind of false perception that they think.

[632] And this is like with everything, right?

[633] It's politicians, it's journalists.

[634] They think that you get a job and then you're bought out and told by the bosses what to do and say.

[635] Sure, there's self -censorship.

[636] But they buy into your agenda.

[637] you don't get paid by RT to start talking shit about America, you know, I knew my place.

[638] I knew, obviously, I served the editorial line of the broader network, you know, just like Chris Hudges does, just like Lee Camp does.

[639] A lot of these people are radical leftists, and they talk a lot of truth, and they are not stepped on at all.

[640] They are completely untouched by management.

[641] Is Lee Camp still at RT?

[642] He is.

[643] Yeah, he's still doing his show.

[644] But, you know, it's just the same thing.

[645] if you're working for the Atlantic, you know, like, you know your role.

[646] You are hired because you know your role and you agree with the editorial line of the network.

[647] And so when it comes to like Israel Palestine, like a lot of these people are hired at these institutions because they believe in American exceptionalism because they tacitly think that the U .S. should be a global empire because they are Zionist.

[648] So you're not going to step on the toes of management.

[649] And that, again, the whole manufacturing consent model, it's like that's just the way.

[650] way the media operates, you know, and that's, I think a lot of people are, have the perception that, you know, politicians get paid by lobbying groups and then they are, they do their bidding.

[651] Look at someone like Marco Rubio, when the Parkland kids were talking to him, they're like, will you stop accepting donations from the NRA?

[652] And he was like, they buy into my agenda.

[653] I don't get paid by the NRA to tout or gun advocacy.

[654] They know that I'm good on the issue and they pay me. So it's the same with the media, you know, and part of the model of control of the media is flak, where you basically discredit and undermine anyone who's going against what the corporate dictated narrative is.

[655] And that means Israel Palestine, you know, she's a Russian agent, she's an anti -Semite, right?

[656] She's a truther because of shit that I said 15 years ago that I stand by today.

[657] We don't know the truth about 9 -11.

[658] But, you know, it's unbelievable the lengths that they will go to make you obsolete from the entire discussion.

[659] When you say we don't know the truth about 9 -11, what do you mean?

[660] I mean that there's so many unanswered questions.

[661] The fact that we think that the Bush administration told us the truth, I mean, it's just laughable, you know.

[662] I mean, the fact that they waited over a year to even start an investigation, the Warren Commission looks like the fucking Bible compared to the 9 -11 commission.

[663] I mean, it was a setup from the start.

[664] Even the commission members quit in protest because they said this is a joke.

[665] We're not learning the truth.

[666] Henry Kissinger was the first person that was supposed to be administering the commission.

[667] It decorated war criminal where you had family members in horror saying, how the fuck is this guy supposed to administer the investigation?

[668] This is unbelievable.

[669] They didn't even want an investigation.

[670] So I think that starting there, you know, trying to reopen how, how.

[671] How there was such a massive failure that day?

[672] How was there such a massive failure of intelligence to let that happen?

[673] The one that drives me the most crazy was the fact that there was a simulation that was taking place at the exact same time.

[674] You know, they were simulating, right?

[675] Yeah.

[676] What was the exact thing they were doing?

[677] They were simulating a specific kind of attack.

[678] Remember?

[679] Yeah, no. I mean that where they had all the NORAD interface you know like the jets that were supposed to intercept so there was confusion as to whether or not this was part of that right yeah that's why NORAD was flying around the air for two hours not able to intercept the jet I mean according to the official story you know when you hear about things that are orchestrated when you hear about like FBI people that are involved inside organizations that instigated things and help plan things and then the rest of people that they're doing it with.

[680] You always wonder, like, how much, how much of that exists, how much of that exists across the board in all sorts of big events that happen?

[681] You know, I was reading this thing, let me find out if this is true.

[682] I was reading this thing, I just saw the title of it.

[683] What was the woman's name that there was a kidnap attempt on her?

[684] I was just Google.

[685] Who?

[686] There's like, supposedly 12 informants.

[687] or done the FBI plot to kidnap Gresh and Clark.

[688] I was already Googling it before you started saying it, so I don't know.

[689] Jamie's on the ball, you fucking psychic.

[690] Look at this shit that's going on like Cuba.

[691] Like, good God.

[692] I mean, these declassified documents.

[693] Oh, yeah, yeah, sure, sure, sure.

[694] This Whitmer thing.

[695] Yeah, what is this?

[696] The title of the article I read was that 12 of the 15 people that conspired to kidnap.

[697] Whitmer, right?

[698] Is that how you say it?

[699] Whitmer.

[700] Governor Whitmer.

[701] 12 of the 15 people that conspired to kidnap her were FBI informants.

[702] Holy shit.

[703] So if that's true.

[704] Yeah, right.

[705] If that's true.

[706] Like the FBI, at what point, even if it's seven, right?

[707] Even if it's one.

[708] But like if you have 15 and you have seven, even if it's not even half, wouldn't you see the FBI is conspiring a kidnapper?

[709] No. Okay.

[710] If it's eight, it's more than half, is the FBI conspiring?

[711] Nope, still not.

[712] What about if it's 12 out of 15?

[713] Well, you're not going to get 12 out of 15.

[714] Yeah, you are.

[715] If that's really the case, if that's really true of 12, and we've highlighted the story before about the kid who was a 19 -year -old Muslim kid from, he was an immigrant, and the FBI tricked him into detonating a fake bomb with a cell phone.

[716] They gave him the bomb.

[717] They talked him into doing this.

[718] They radicalized him, gave him a cell phone, gave him this fake bomb, and then he presses the button to do it and then they arrest him.

[719] Yeah, right.

[720] Here it is.

[721] The FBI allegedly used at least 12 informants in the Michigan kidnapping case.

[722] Defense attorney said they will argue that the FBI induced or persuaded the defendants to go along with the violent scheme.

[723] That is crazy.

[724] Could you imagine if you're one of the three dopes that's not in the FBI?

[725] And you're like, man, we've got a fucking well -organized machine here.

[726] These radicals that I'm with it, they got their shit together, man. Look at this equipment.

[727] This is like U .S. military stuff.

[728] How'd you guys get all this shit?

[729] How'd you guys get all this shit?

[730] We got it from the FBI, man. Like, oh, yeah, you're funny, bro.

[731] I mean, how many of these, like, foiled terror plots that then the FBI comes out and releases these press releases to the media?

[732] Oh, we foiled this.

[733] We foiled this.

[734] I mean, I would say, like, 90 % of them have some sort of FBI government.

[735] It's a lot, but what I was going to get to is, does that exist in Palestine?

[736] Is it possible that there are nefarious entities?

[737] that are, that are attacking Israel to instigate these attacks on Hamas and the attacks on Palestine.

[738] Is that going on there?

[739] Because we know that.

[740] I mean, that's a really interesting point, dude.

[741] That's a really interesting point.

[742] But I do feel like, you know, when you push people into a corner like people are in Gaza, it's like that is kind of, you know, resistance is like a natural human inclination.

[743] But if you were trying to do that, right?

[744] I mean, listen, I am not making any.

[745] But what I'm saying is if you look at military strategy, if you just look at the strategy that they employ in America with agent provocateurs like they did with the World Trade Organization when they had that massive protests and then these agent provocateurs came in and started smashing windows and lighting things on fire and then all of a sudden now you have a violent protest.

[746] So then you can send the police in and start arresting people and they set up a no protest zone.

[747] Remember that?

[748] Where at the World Trade Organization, you couldn't even have a pin on your backpack that had a WTO.

[749] with a red line through it.

[750] They were taking pins away from people.

[751] You couldn't walk in with a t -shirt that said no world trade organization.

[752] You couldn't do that.

[753] They would say this is a no protest zone.

[754] They violated people's First Amendment rights to ensure that the World Trade Organization got to do their little thing in Seattle and have it done completely without protests.

[755] So they just start smashing things.

[756] That's what they do.

[757] That's an agent provocateur.

[758] And it's a common strategy.

[759] It's existed throughout history.

[760] Nero -Burn Rome.

[761] Hitler burned a Reichstag.

[762] I mean, they did this to make sure that they could implement their strategy and their plans.

[763] And you see this on a small scale.

[764] Like, I mean, shit, just in the last two years, there's so many videos of people, you know, dressed in all black.

[765] I don't know if their agent provocateurs or not, but sure as hell looks like some cops to me, like smashing windows and then lighting things on fire.

[766] I don't know what's...

[767] We don't know who.

[768] Yeah, I don't know who they are.

[769] George Soros.

[770] It is just very suspect.

[771] Let's just say that.

[772] Yeah.

[773] I don't know.

[774] I think there are certain people in this world that are capable of shit that you and I can't imagine a rational, caring, logical human being doing.

[775] And they've been doing it most of their lives.

[776] Well, and a lot of these people who get into positions of power are sociopaths.

[777] Yeah.

[778] You know, you kind of have to be.

[779] Well, if you're, you know, if you're dropping bombs on country, especially if you're, like, do you remember when Clinton was in the middle of the Monica Lewinsky thing?

[780] and then you just started launch some bombs.

[781] Remember that?

[782] I was like, well, I'm going to take some of the heat off me here.

[783] What's the best way?

[784] Exactly.

[785] Just launch some bombs.

[786] Exactly.

[787] Yeah, I mean, doing things like that, doing things like any time you're, imagine, I mean, this is, I'm not accusing anybody of this again, but imagine if you want to distract someone from one thing you're doing, and the way you do it is invade a country.

[788] Invade a country, prop up some rebels.

[789] launch some rockets, do something, and while all that's going on, you're over here and fucking shoveling money and doing this, doing a little of that.

[790] That's gone throughout history.

[791] People have done that.

[792] It's a part of strategy.

[793] It's a part of propaganda.

[794] It's a part of how people implement a thing that they want to do that's unpopular with the people.

[795] Of course.

[796] I mean, and when the military industrial complex plays such an interwoven role in our politics, It's hard to separate the two, really, you know?

[797] It really is.

[798] And these things are administered with such extreme levels of cognitive dissonance.

[799] Like the Yemen War, I mean, it's unbelievable how that was started.

[800] And Obama's a war criminal for that alone, you know?

[801] And no one actually gives him the credit for starting that.

[802] And it's still going on and it's absolutely horrifying.

[803] Can you explain what happened there?

[804] Yeah, without getting into the depressing nature, because I know I tend to go too hard, you know.

[805] This isn't for everyone.

[806] You know what I mean?

[807] Like what I do at Empire Files, it's not for everyone.

[808] It's for people who want to go down the rabbit hole with me. Take the red fucking pill and come down the journey with me. That word's been co -opped.

[809] Unfortunately.

[810] It has, sadly.

[811] Too bad.

[812] It's kind of true.

[813] They stole it.

[814] The Matrix still holds up, man. I just watched that the other day.

[815] It's unbelievable.

[816] It's an unbelievable movie.

[817] And eerily, like, it's eerily foreshadows what may be to come.

[818] Like, I think there's a very real chance that 100 years from now, 200 years from now, whatever it is, we could be living like that.

[819] You could just have a fucking bolt clubbed into the back of your head.

[820] And that is how you interface with this amazing world where you're a superhero.

[821] Well, as long as we can forget what we once were, then sign me up.

[822] I want the steak.

[823] You be like Joey pants.

[824] I want to feel the stuff.

[825] I want to be an important person.

[826] I want to taste the steak again.

[827] think it's real.

[828] But no, I mean, Yemen, I'll just explain how it started.

[829] It was basically the Iran nuclear deal, which 100 % all political theater Iran was never trying to develop nukes.

[830] It was always peaceful.

[831] 100%.

[832] Really?

[833] 100%.

[834] I've heard people push back against that.

[835] I've heard that Iran was looking to develop a nuclear weapons program forever and they were trying to steal U .S. secrets and hire spies to create these different weapons.

[836] systems.

[837] Concocted by D .C. and Tel Aviv because they want to contain Iran, you know, it's not about actually nuclear weapons.

[838] What were they doing?

[839] It was about nuclear power?

[840] Yeah, nuclear power.

[841] Everything was under the proper levels of 100%.

[842] Look at Gareth Porter's reporting Scott Horton, an incredible anti -war libertarian guy who editor -in -chief of anti -war .com.

[843] They have extensively laid out the evidence for this.

[844] How could they know, though?

[845] Because they were open about it.

[846] They were so transparent about the process, which is the Iran nuclear deal was basically saying, our doors are open to you.

[847] We are so, you know, we are so willing to be extremely transparent about this to prove that this is all peacefully developing nuclear weapons.

[848] Everything's within the legal limits set by you guys, right?

[849] Because they don't want to, they don't want the threat, right?

[850] Iran wants to just follow the rules, man. I mean, you really believe that?

[851] 150 percent.

[852] So you're 150 percent.

[853] My perceptions of Iran are my knowledge of Iran is very limited.

[854] But I do know that they murdered, they executed a famous Iranian wrestler for appearing in a peaceful protest.

[855] And the UFC tried to get behind a campaign to have him released.

[856] Oh, there's horrific.

[857] Oh, no, I'm not trying to absolve the Iranian regime.

[858] No, I know you're not.

[859] But I mean, the kind of regime that would do that, I would imagine they would want nuclear weapons.

[860] I would imagine that they would want them considering that their look at the only thing that basically makes us not invade and do regime change in North Korea is the nuclear deterrent.

[861] I mean, I would imagine that any country would want nukes if they're trying to be undermined and overthrown by the U .S. and its allies for sure.

[862] But the Iran nuclear deal, despite whatever you think about Iran developing nuclear weapons, the Iran nuclear deal was a tremendous step to put whatever, you know, containment in order and to basically prove to the world that they are complying.

[863] with the development of peaceful nuclear energy and nothing more.

[864] And so basically Saudi Arabia got irked.

[865] They didn't want their influence waning in the region.

[866] And so Obama literally said, this is a quote from him, he said he wants to placate Saudi Arabia.

[867] And that is why he agreed to get into the Yemen war.

[868] A war of outright genocidal bombing.

[869] Grain silos, sheep herding.

[870] I mean, it's absolutely horrific what the U .S. has done, and it's not just Saudi, it's the U .S. there every step of the way.

[871] It's the weapons.

[872] It's the targeting.

[873] They were refueling up until a couple years ago.

[874] I mean, it is an all -out genocidal war.

[875] And one of the people on Obama's security team before we got into the war, he said this war is going to be long, bloody, and indeterminate, meaning we have no fucking clue how it's going to end, nor do we care.

[876] it is disgusting because people kind of fly into the cover like, oh, it's the Saudis and, oh, the U .S. is just supporting Saudi.

[877] No, the U .S. is responsible for that.

[878] And what's disgusting about it is it's all about Iran.

[879] It's basically all about, in their mind, containing Iran because the Houthis they see are an extension of Iran because they're Shia.

[880] But really, they don't really have anything to do with Iran.

[881] But it basically strengthens Iran.

[882] This is the most amazing thing about the war on terror is it strengthened all of our alleged enemies.

[883] It's done the opposite of what they've told us they wanted to do.

[884] You know, I mean, why would we in, look at Afghanistan for Christ's sake.

[885] The Taliban controls more territory now than they did when we invaded.

[886] And the whole last 20 years was all about, we can't let the Taliban take over.

[887] Well, we can't leave now because the Taliban will take over.

[888] The Taliban's going to gain strength.

[889] then the whole time you're risking life and limb for 20 years.

[890] And now they're just like, well, we're out.

[891] But guess what?

[892] The Taliban's going to take over.

[893] I was reading the story about Afghan interpreters and people that have helped the troops while they were over there.

[894] And that a lot of the veterans are very concerned for these people's lives if we pull out of Afghanistan.

[895] Absolutely.

[896] I mean, this is the reality that the U .S. is constructed, going back to the dirty war trying to bankrupt.

[897] the Soviet Union back in the 80s.

[898] I mean, this, it's blowback to the most, to the endth degree.

[899] Do you think this is a part of a strategy of ensuring constant conflict and that, you know, this is what Eisenhower warned about, right, with the military industrial complex speech.

[900] He warned that we are involved with a giant machine that's goal is to make war because that's how they make money.

[901] So they can stir up conflicts.

[902] They're moving chess pieces around.

[903] If I move my rook here, they're going to take it because the queen is in position and it's a free and this is how you start conflict right you make sure that things are happening so that you can justify military buildup you can justify all these expenses you can justify these contracts well like Wesley Clark said which I think is a really accurate thing he said when you look at every when you're a hammer you look at every problem like a nail and when you're a global empire you don't look at how can we cooperate how can we peacefully negotiate things you look at how can we contain people people by military force, which is what imperialism is.

[904] How can we extract and subjugate, you know, extract wealth, subjugate nations and keep them under our thumb to maintain our domination?

[905] And I think that a lot of these people who get into these positions of power, it's really short term.

[906] They want to make super profits.

[907] They're all tied up in the MIC.

[908] They don't have long -term strategic goals of like, well, what's going to happen in 10 years if, you know, this and this happen?

[909] I mean, you look at somewhere like Yemen or Afghanistan, the Houthis' dire enemy is al -Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

[910] Yet we are waging a genocidal campaign in Yemen to bomb the Houthis.

[911] Meanwhile, al -Qaeda is there.

[912] You know, we have this policy.

[913] We're also bombing them.

[914] But it's just like, it's just a complete mess, which really makes me think that it's a lot of just short -term bad decisions to just continue making that cash.

[915] Jesus.

[916] And then the next administration comes up and tries to clean up the mess, but they look at every problem like a nail also.

[917] Also, like, how would you ever put the brakes on all the shit that we're doing right now in more than a hundred different countries?

[918] Like, how do you...

[919] Yeah, man. I mean...

[920] Like, that was the Bernie Sanders approach, right?

[921] Right.

[922] Well, also, I mean, many politicians have discussed this, but no one's ever got in a position to try to implement something like this where they're trying to...

[923] pull us out of any interventionist foreign policy, any foreign wars, like, let's get out of all that stuff.

[924] I mean, because it's tacit tacitly accepted as just a reality.

[925] Yeah.

[926] Even environmentalists, and we're making a new documentary called Earth's Greatest Enemy.

[927] You can check it out at earth's greatest enemy .com.

[928] But it's basically about the environment, and it's about how the U .S. military is one of the largest polluters in the world.

[929] And it is the largest polluting industry.

[930] And why don't environmental organizations talk about this?

[931] The U .S. military is one of the most, they, they, they, what do they do to pollute?

[932] Like, explain.

[933] All right.

[934] So, um, so our trailer's up.

[935] I don't know if you, let's watch it.

[936] Yeah.

[937] It's cool.

[938] It's only two minutes.

[939] Earth's greatest enemy.

[940] Jamie's on that shit.

[941] So hard.

[942] Earth's greatest enemy isn't Godzilla?

[943] That looks like Godzilla.

[944] I know.

[945] That shit was crazy.

[946] Dude, that was a lot of Mexico.

[947] When, when, how does that?

[948] ocean catch on fire.

[949] All right, let's play this.

[950] There's no longer any debate to be had.

[951] What a voice.

[952] Our planet is on a collision course with disaster.

[953] Urgent warning.

[954] Dangerous record -breaking heat.

[955] We're now living in the early stages.

[956] Terrifying signs of things to come.

[957] Mass displacement, deaths, and extinctions are already here.

[958] Whether the planet can remain habitable for human beings has become a haunting question.

[959] Climate change protests happening right now.

[960] Part of a global call for action.

[961] We know there are many culprits, corporations, policymakers, mass consumption.

[962] But what if there was one single entity that by itself will bring planetary collapse?

[963] One single organization, one single enemy, that not only produced enough toxic destruction to destroy the planet on its own, but was also subject to virtually no regulations, no oversight, no accountability, and as of yet, no blame.

[964] If there was a monster like that, shouldn't it be dragged out of the dark and into the center of the struggle to save the planet?

[965] Here's the awful truth, even if every person, every automobile, and every factory suddenly emitted zero emissions, the Earth would still be heated, headed towards total disaster for one major reason.

[966] This is heavy.

[967] Earth's greatest sound to me. So this is going to be all completely grassroots funded.

[968] I'm working with Darje Mal.

[969] He was one of the first embedded reporters in Iraq, an incredible investigative journalist who's on the tip of the spear of climate change research.

[970] So here's the pitch real quick.

[971] That quote is from Barry Sanders, who wrote The Green Zone, through his extensive research in 2009, he found that even if all of those things were halted, the U .S. military alone as an institution would still cause enough carbon emissions to cause a lot of the climate change that we're seeing.

[972] What percentage of the climate change, the carbon emissions are caused by the U .S. military?

[973] I don't know the actual percentage on the planet, but it's like a hundred and something countries put together.

[974] But it's so much bigger.

[975] Like, for example, a B -52 bomber produces as much carbon emissions as one car driving for seven years.

[976] Like, it's just fucking outrageous.

[977] Think about it.

[978] We have 800 military bases plus the lily pads we don't know about.

[979] What are those places doing to pollute?

[980] And it goes so far beyond emissions, though.

[981] So far beyond emissions.

[982] But you can just, like, look at just the equipment, you know, the equipment at these bases, not to mention what war does.

[983] One of the things I found out from my friend Evan Hafer from Black Rifle Coffee, when he was overseas, he was telling me about these burn pits.

[984] And I didn't know about the burn pits.

[985] I didn't know that that's how they got rid of their garbage.

[986] They just had this massive 24 -7 fire going where they would throw everything into it.

[987] Tampons, garbage cans, like whatever the fuck you had, whatever waste they had, they would throw in there.

[988] and that all these soldiers were forced to breathe in the toxic fumes because the wind would blow, it would go through the camp, and everybody would be breathing the smoke from this toxic burn pit 24 -7.

[989] Yeah.

[990] And that they all, like, a lot of them got sick.

[991] A lot of them have really fucked up health repercussions because of this.

[992] And they're denied claims.

[993] Yeah.

[994] Just like Gulf War Syndrome.

[995] Look, a lot of movies have been done about the environment.

[996] A lot of people are focused on climate change.

[997] This is a huge issue in politics, mass movements, all of this.

[998] The media acknowledges it.

[999] But no one has tackled what I see is the elephant in the room.

[1000] And if you were to pull out 100 people from the streets, how many people would say the U .S. military is one of the largest contributors of not only climate change, but just pollution?

[1001] Is there a stat?

[1002] Like, how much does the U .S. military contribute to the carbon emissions versus agriculture?

[1003] Yeah, it's all in Barry Sanders book.

[1004] Here, the global greenhouse gas emissions amount to 593 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent from 2010 to 2018, an annual average similar to the annual GHG emission output of 14 million passenger cars.

[1005] So what the U .S. military does is essentially the average emissions output of a large city.

[1006] No, no, no, no. It's way bigger than that.

[1007] You're not going to find this on...

[1008] The 55th ranked if it was a country.

[1009] But here's the thing.

[1010] We're talking about as an institution, it is the largest polluting organization on the planet.

[1011] But by saying that, what said in that quote...

[1012] So that's Barry Sanders' research, but I'll explain why, because it's not just about CO2 emissions.

[1013] Right.

[1014] But the CO2 emissions, that's what they are saying, though.

[1015] That's what...

[1016] The average is approximately a 14 million city.

[1017] 14 million passenger cars, which is probably more than 14 million people in the city, right?

[1018] Because it's not like everybody has a car.

[1019] Well, we're going to outline, the climate change research is very, it's hard to elucidate because it's very scientific.

[1020] And we're going to be with the cutting edge science, with scientists in Alaska.

[1021] We're going this summer and we're going to be documenting that.

[1022] But this goes so far beyond carbon emissions.

[1023] This is about stuff like you're talking about.

[1024] I mean, the U .S., again, the U .S. military is the largest polluter on the planet as an institution, not even just the U .S. government.

[1025] Like, this is crazy, right?

[1026] It pollutes more than the biggest chemical companies, the top five chemical companies combined.

[1027] You know, if you're to ask people like who should we fight if we're trying to save the environment, people will say like oil companies or mining or animal agriculture, all that shit.

[1028] But really, it's this.

[1029] This is the elephant in the room, Joe.

[1030] and people don't want to address this because they want access.

[1031] A lot of these environmental organizations have access and grants from the U .S. government.

[1032] It's controversial.

[1033] It's controversial.

[1034] And I want to give you a couple examples that go far beyond what we just saw.

[1035] Camp Lejeune, Jacksonville, North Carolina.

[1036] There was so many chemicals that were poured into the water by the U .S. military 60 years ago that people in the tens of thousands were dying.

[1037] There's actually a graveyard called baby heaven because of how many children under the age of five have died because of these pollutants.

[1038] The government denied it for decades and they're still denying pain people for the water contamination.

[1039] Somewhere, Coldwater Creek, Missouri, nuclear dumping from nuclear waste.

[1040] I mean, this is radioactive compounds that have the shelf life of billions of years.

[1041] It's permanent pollution, right?

[1042] This is also has these toxins have polluted tens of thousands of people that played in these creeks.

[1043] This is what the U .S. military is doing to their own people, their own soldiers, their own personnel at these military bases.

[1044] You know what a superfund site is, right?

[1045] No. A superfund site is a site that the EPA has designated a highly toxic, very polluted site in the United States that's on the national priorities list because it's so fucking toxic that it is causing extreme devastation to people's health and the environment.

[1046] 900 out of 1 ,300 Superfund sites in the United States are either military installations or have previously hosted military needs.

[1047] And there's hundreds more being considered.

[1048] And places like Camp Lejeune, places like Coldwater Creek, look at the uranium dumping in Navajo land, all of these things that have benefited the U .S. military, and they've just, with callous disregard and criminal negligence have dumped their pollutants and chemical runoff in these areas, hundreds of areas in the United States.

[1049] And we're just talking about the U .S. Think about what the 800 bases are doing around the world.

[1050] Think about what war does, landmines still in Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos, Agent Orange still causing birth to it.

[1051] I mean, all of this really, really heavy stuff.

[1052] D .U. In Syria and Iraq.

[1053] It's not just even about human health.

[1054] What does it do to the environment?

[1055] It prevents you from being able to have sustainable agriculture.

[1056] It creates desertification.

[1057] It destroys habitats for millennia.

[1058] And we should explain DU's depleted uranium is what you're talking about.

[1059] And that was considered by many people to be the cause of the Gulf War syndrome that a lot of the soldiers experienced and birth defects.

[1060] and cancers and all sorts, because they were using depleted uranium rounds, because apparently that when they use them as rounds, it just goes right through tanks.

[1061] It's like an insanely effective ammunition.

[1062] Yeah, and this, yeah, exactly.

[1063] And this wasn't, this is not just stuff that was done during the Cold War and World War II, even though a lot of this shit is still sadly being felt today.

[1064] And again, being denied the claims, just like the first responders on 9 -11.

[1065] I mean, how callous do you need to be to use and exploit these people and then to deny them health care?

[1066] Yeah, that's the scariest thing about all this shit is that there's so many patriotic people that really do think that they're doing the, they want to support their country.

[1067] And so they do enlist and they risk their life to go over there and do the things that they have to do that they feel they're doing to support freedom to make America a better, safer place.

[1068] And then if they get wounded or if something happens, they don't even get taken care of.

[1069] Or if they do get taken care of, it's very poorly, and they have to fight for it.

[1070] And things like the depleted uranium poisoning that caused Gulf War syndrome or things like these burn pits.

[1071] It's really treasonous.

[1072] It's horrific.

[1073] No, it is.

[1074] And it's not just this relic of how our military used to be before we knew better.

[1075] The burn pits just happened in Iraq, man. I mean, and I just read this story yesterday of this chemical foam that was used to basically stop fires is now being incinerated in hundreds of sites.

[1076] across the U .S. This is like some goddamn X -Files episode.

[1077] It's like a sinister, covert program to burn this highly, highly toxic foam.

[1078] It's called a forever chemical because it never actually goes away.

[1079] It's going to be an error.

[1080] Why they're burning it?

[1081] Because they want to get rid of it.

[1082] That's the only way to get rid of it?

[1083] Well, that's what's so funny is that experts have said, you can't incinerate something that was supposed to prevent incineration.

[1084] Like the chemicals are going to permeate somewhere.

[1085] And a lot of these Superfund sites, it's all about the water.

[1086] contamination because they seep into the ground and kids man I mean kids are are the most affected you know I don't want to go into how horrific these statistics are but it's it's it's bad you know and and it's not just human health like I said I mean this is biodiversity this is a base construction in places like Jeju Islands in South Korea that the whole island is opposed to this base it's totally unnecessary and it's just expanding and it's just expanding and expanding and it is threatening nine geoparks which is like an exceptionally unique biodiverse area you know they just built a base on okinawa okinawa is basically an entire base like 70 % of the island is a military base but they're building another fucking one that threatens a rare blue coral reef i mean it's mad it's lunacy it's madness and it's lunacy and i get a lot of people are patriotic and i i get that a lot of you know we fetishize the military we worship the military we worship the military We're born and bred to think that this is necessary to have a global empire.

[1087] But I want to make people shift their consciousness and say it doesn't have to be this way.

[1088] I think what people are worried about, the people that are pro -military in particular, is they're worried about some nefarious government, like whether it's China or Russia or whoever, that builds up a global military that rivals, the U .S. that surpasses it, and they become the dominant world power, the dominant world power, not just economically, which you could argue China has already done, but militarily.

[1089] I hear that a lot.

[1090] You know, I hear that a lot.

[1091] If the U .S. wasn't on top, someone else would be, and there's no actual basis to that, because what other country would be mad enough to do what we've done.

[1092] It's totally counterintuitive.

[1093] But what China does is very different than we do, right?

[1094] Yeah, of course.

[1095] They treat their citizens is very differently.

[1096] The way they treat dissent is very differently.

[1097] Like, look what's going on in Hong Kong now.

[1098] They're arresting journalists.

[1099] They're imprisoning people for writing blogs and making posts.

[1100] It's a different approach to the way they handle people.

[1101] Ours is not perfect, but it is better than China.

[1102] But you would agree that freedom is not protected by what we're doing around the world.

[1103] No, but we're terrified that if we don't keep up, like this is, I mean, I'm not making excuses for anybody, but this is like, if you're going to play devil's advocate, you say, okay, we have to do horrible things because the world's a horrible place.

[1104] This is what devil's advocate would be, right?

[1105] We have to make sure that we keep our strong military, despite all the dangers it presents, because if we don't, and if we let China take over the world, we're going to be treated the same way Chinese citizens are treated in China.

[1106] Like if the Communist Party somehow or another gets a foothold in America and conquers it, like people say that's impossible.

[1107] That's impossible.

[1108] Well, that's history.

[1109] Like, history is filled with empires taking over the other countries.

[1110] The idea that it could never happen to America.

[1111] Like, every fucking empire has always thought that it could never happen to them.

[1112] I'm sure Rome, they were running around, you know, drinking wine, partying for everything.

[1113] We got this.

[1114] Same thing with ancient Greece.

[1115] Same thing with the European or the UK.

[1116] Like, the way England was running the world back in the day, you would have thought that England was going to be the superpower forever.

[1117] we have a legitimate concern on our hands globally about some governments and I think they have a legitimate concern about us but we want to think this is again this is rose -colored glasses we want to think better us than anybody else which is a really sad way to accept this mass murdering earth destroying machine isn't it I mean to basically put this hypothetical scenario that's based on nothing today yes in the past empires were warring, but the U .S. has dominated the entire planet.

[1118] You can look at someone like China.

[1119] China has one military base in Djibouti.

[1120] One.

[1121] We actually think that China's threatening us for putting ships in their own waters, the South China Sea.

[1122] I mean, it's ridiculous the kind of news that comes out basically pretending that China is a threat militarily, when literally it would just be like us having a ship in the Gulf of Mexico and China saying they're threatened by that.

[1123] it's very disturbing.

[1124] If you're looking at China trying to be a counterweight to, you know, global capitalism, yeah, that's definitely happening.

[1125] They're offering countermeasures to development in Africa and stuff like that and you can argue about the benefits of that.

[1126] But it's definitely not the same as what the U .S. is, you know, putting the barrel of a gun to someone's head and saying do this or you're fucked and will sanction you to death, literally to death.

[1127] Do you don't think China employ similar tactics?

[1128] So look, China, you can argue all day about totalitarianism, thought control, mass censorship, right?

[1129] Those things are like - But what do we do here, Joe?

[1130] I mean, I hate to be like, you know, bring it back to America, but I do think that you have talked extensively about big tech and the insidious nature of like censorship online.

[1131] I find that kind of similar in a really eerie way, you know, where corporations.

[1132] Corporations have just taken upon themselves to censor, sanitize our reality, curate what they want us to see working on behalf of government institutions like the Atlantic Council and stuff like that.

[1133] These fact checkers that that censor what we see on social media and change the algorithm.

[1134] Google, change the algorithm.

[1135] We don't see news that I'm talking about when you just Google things anymore.

[1136] That to me is just as creepy.

[1137] I would rather be a Chinese citizen and know exactly how the censorship model works than have, that actually herald the First Amendment as somehow working in this country.

[1138] If I want to know something now, I stopped Googling things.

[1139] I started using either the Brave search engine or I started using Duck, DuckGo.

[1140] Yeah.

[1141] Because you get an uncurated, you know, if you Google very specific things, you'll get an uncurated version of it.

[1142] But it's shocking when you compare the difference, like with certain controversial subjects, the difference between using Duck, Duck Go and using Google.

[1143] And you go, well, here's all the articles.

[1144] And you use Google and like, I can't find shit.

[1145] I'm trying.

[1146] I'm going.

[1147] I'm looking.

[1148] I'm looking.

[1149] Look, we're living in a Panopticon here.

[1150] We are in a surveillance state that is undoubtedly so.

[1151] Edward Snowden revealed that, right?

[1152] Everything is being data -mined, collected, and surveilled if you are powerful you you joe you are a powerful influential person do you really think that you are not being watched well i mean i'm on the internet i'm watching right now i mean your emails there's nothing in them yeah i'm smart i'm like if you fucking look through my email you ain't finding shit there's nothing in there isn't that a scary but yeah it is but yeah i can't talk too much crazy shit on emails i assume right all my emails are monitored.

[1153] And we're, I mean, this is a police thing.

[1154] Have you seen the new thing about SMS text messages to stop COVID vaccine misinformation?

[1155] Have you seen this?

[1156] No, good God.

[1157] Good God.

[1158] Get ready for this because Sager sent me this.

[1159] And we were talking, Saga from breaking points sent me this.

[1160] We were talking about this recently.

[1161] They are monitoring SMS texts for dangerous misinformation about COVID.

[1162] vaccines.

[1163] Now, look, misinformation's not good, right, with anything, but who's deciding?

[1164] Who's deciding?

[1165] I mean, how long ago was it where Facebook was banning people if you talked about the lab leak hypothesis, which is now widely accepted.

[1166] But eight months ago, they were banning you.

[1167] When Trump was in office, if you brought that up, that maybe this shit leaked from a lab, you were labeled a racist, you were a terrible person and a Trump supporter.

[1168] Now, mainstream scientists are talking about it openly.

[1169] It was on the cover of Newsweek.

[1170] It's been reexamined now that this polarizing asshole is out of the White House.

[1171] We can speak about the truth.

[1172] How creepy is that that the intelligence community and the political establishment, along with the political establishment, also the mainstream media, notoriously untrustworthy entities are telling us what reality is acceptable or not.

[1173] Like, for example, they're oddly behind this new UFO rollout, which we can talk about.

[1174] Oh, we're going to talk about that.

[1175] Meanwhile, they are saying Q and on should not exist on the internet.

[1176] Who gets to decide?

[1177] What about critical thinking and media literacy?

[1178] That's what I would rather have.

[1179] The tools given to us so we can sift through and determine what is disinformation and what is not.

[1180] Sam Harris has a great, and I know you don't like Sam Harris.

[1181] I do.

[1182] He called me a fire hose of bullshit, but you know what?

[1183] But challenge me. Is that what it was?

[1184] A fire hose?

[1185] Fire hydrant.

[1186] Yeah.

[1187] But Sam, let me say something.

[1188] Okay.

[1189] Tell me about Sam Harris and I'll say one thing about him too.

[1190] Well, he has a great speech that if you go to my Twitter, I retweeted it, I think yesterday, about the importance of free speech and how important it is, whether you like it or not, whether you agree with someone or not.

[1191] It is what we do.

[1192] It's everything.

[1193] It's the reason why we know truth.

[1194] you cannot keep people from discussing things let's play this and start it from the beginning you're going to love it you're going to hear his voice you're going to get excited we do as individuals and as a species to navigate in the space of all possible experiences together the only way we have to correct course the only way we have to to notice our errors and correct for them is to talk about everything, right?

[1195] I mean, we have to exchange ideas.

[1196] I mean, the software we have cognitively and behaviorally is always a matter of persuasion and criticism and error detection and complaint.

[1197] We have to be free to talk to one another and to not merely think things in private and remain terrified over expressing these things for the possible reputational damage we may incur.

[1198] And so insofar as our environment, you know, the environment we create with each other, you know, society becomes stifling of free expression insofar as we're hemmed in on all sides by taboos and blasphemy tests and the persistent threat of excommunication and de -fenestration, it's we get worse and worse at detecting our own errors and and collaborating with one another great with that yeah i mean so you think sam harris is awesome now i totally agree with the notion that we need to have freedom of expression i i'm a free speech absolutist i think that um close to it yeah me as well you know i i think that it's very very important and that and especially with the anti -BDS laws, it's like, I know how important this kind of speech is, you know.

[1199] And the thing that I disagree with Sam Harris, first of all, a million Iraqis did die.

[1200] But I think the other thing that he really gets wrong is that he kind of is an apologist for U .S. Empire, where he thinks that the U .S. just has good intentions.

[1201] And so anything that happens as a result of those good intentions, well, it's not our fault and we can wash our hands clean.

[1202] And I sound a direct quote from him?

[1203] No, no, no, but in theory, and he's advocated for the Iraq war.

[1204] and such.

[1205] And yeah, I mean, I think that that couldn't be further from the truth.

[1206] I think that there is no like moral high ground that these actions are being done in our name.

[1207] And if there's anything that can prove that it's the last 20 years of U .S. foreign policy.

[1208] I mean, it's a complete joke to actually pretend like any of this is being done for our sake, you know, and to protect our freedom.

[1209] So you think all of it is being done for profit or control?

[1210] Yes.

[1211] And it's not about protecting freedom.

[1212] No, absolutely not.

[1213] And, you know, and going back to the Earth's greatest enemy thing, it's like, it's not just about the U .S. military.

[1214] It's about the structure of imperialism.

[1215] And it's about the web that works with our junior collaborators.

[1216] It's also European nations.

[1217] It's NATO.

[1218] It's all of these junior partners that also act to secure these interests and keep, you know, these countries poor and extracting all their wealth and putting their boot on the neck of so many people in preventing their self -determination.

[1219] And that's a huge problem, Joe, because I believe in freedom to the point where I feel like everyone around the world can pursue their own freedom and their own freedom of thought.

[1220] And that's without U .S. interference.

[1221] And we need to really take a step back and think of what kind of world do we want to live in?

[1222] Do we want to live in a world where we are preparing for nuclear war as an inevitability for preparing for war with China as an inevitability or do we want to work in a world of cooperation negotiation experimentation how can we pursue and confront these problems that are systemic and global together with other countries yes is that possible to do with russia and china and these what we could call would call nefarious empires yes you think it's possible yeah to work in absolutely that china is not thinking just about china that they would go okay we'll cooperate i think that i think that if the u. I think a lot of things are done in reaction to the U .S., like, for example, when, and I think this, we can get into the UFO stuff, but I think that, you know, Space Force, for example, after the U .S. declared that branch of the military and is now violating the outer space treaty and all this stuff to militarize space, Russia was just like, I'm completely against this, but now we have no choice, but do our own program.

[1223] So you see kind of things like that where there's a reaction to this hyper -militarized state from these other.

[1224] global powers.

[1225] Like, for example, Biden declaring that he's going to invest fucking $100 billion in nuclear weapons.

[1226] It's like all of that triggers all these other countries.

[1227] Is that what he declared?

[1228] He probably didn't even know what he was reading.

[1229] He was given a placard.

[1230] For sure.

[1231] Read this.

[1232] For sure.

[1233] Or he's got an earpiece in.

[1234] They tell him what to say.

[1235] Yeah.

[1236] I mean, I do think that we have a lot of power and if we used it for good, I think the world could be a much better place.

[1237] And we don't have to live in an empire and we don't have to live in fear of other country is becoming an empire.

[1238] I think that we need to look at how what kind of world do we want to live in, Joe.

[1239] And, you know, China, I mean, there was an agreement.

[1240] There was a, there was an agreement between corporate bosses and Chinese bosses to make super profits in the late 80s to ship and export a lot of U .S. capital and production over in Asia.

[1241] And that has led to a lot of shit that's gone on today.

[1242] You know, we have to look at the context of how this all happened.

[1243] It's amazing that that is not being discussed more by our politicians when you talk about the difference between pre -pandemic and post -pandemic America when they recognize that so many things were being manufactured overseas.

[1244] So many things are difficult to get, including like so many computer chips, so much medicine, so many different things are being manufactured outside of the United States.

[1245] Why is that?

[1246] Because they sacrificed long -term stability for short -term profit.

[1247] And this was something that, you know, I was watching, I'm watching this, it's an amazing documentary series about boxing called The Kings, and it's all about Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, and Tommy Hurons, and about what they were like boxing against each other in the 1980s.

[1248] And it talks about Detroit, and it shows what Detroit used to be like, because Tommy Hurons came from Detroit, and it shows what Detroit used to be like when the U .S. manufacturing, was of automobiles was all taking place there and how all these union workers had great wages.

[1249] You didn't even have to graduate from high school.

[1250] You could get a union job and have an amazing life and have, you know, be able to take care of your family and educate them and you had money.

[1251] Like you could live well because the unions had made it so that these people working in these factories, highly profitable factories, right?

[1252] They're making these amazing cars.

[1253] They made money.

[1254] This is like during the 1950s, the 1960s, and then 20 years later, after the government has changed, or after these organizations, rather, after these corporations have decided to move their manufacturing overseas, source parts overseas, do a lot of the, because they've saved money this way, Detroit is a wasteland.

[1255] I mean, it's a wasteland.

[1256] And they highlighted the extreme poverty.

[1257] They show all these different people that are waiting in line for food.

[1258] It's wild shit to think.

[1259] And Roger and me is a great example of that, too.

[1260] West Virginia, all of these industry towns.

[1261] All these industry towns devastated by these decisions for looking at profitability over long -term stability.

[1262] Pay Chinese workers one -tenth of the price, export all the pollution industry.

[1263] Like, think about all the goddamn electronics we buy.

[1264] I mean, everybody who's a social justice warrior and who's tweeting from an iPhone about anything, like, just do you understand what you're, me too, I've got one, here it is.

[1265] You know who's making that?

[1266] It's not some union guy who's got a nice house and a boat, you know, was doing rail and sending his kids off to college and super happy about his life.

[1267] No, it's someone who's working in a factory that has nets around it to keep people from jumping off the fucking roof.

[1268] That's how crazy it is.

[1269] There's literally nets around the Foxconn buildings to keep people from jumping because so many people hated their lives working there, they were jumping off the roof in such numbers they had put nets up.

[1270] That's horrific.

[1271] Yeah, it's horrific.

[1272] Did you imagine?

[1273] Could you imagine if the Apple store had nets around the roof?

[1274] Yeah, so much to do an art installation of like showing, you know what I mean, just showing how the...

[1275] It's crazy.

[1276] No, it's horrific.

[1277] I had a conversation with Shane Smith about this once where he was talking about in every cell phone is this stuff called Coltan.

[1278] And that if you go to where they're making Coltan, it's probably an underaged worker in Africa digging it out of the ground with a stick.

[1279] and that underage worker in Africa, that child labor is getting into your cell phone that's allowing you to self -righteously tweet about things.

[1280] What about the banning plastic straws just kills me?

[1281] It's like, you think that that's going to be the fucking, I mean, good God, what are we talking about here?

[1282] One turtle head of straw up his nose.

[1283] You know, like, let's get this straw.

[1284] You ever see that video?

[1285] No. You never saw the video?

[1286] This is the reason why we banned plastic straws.

[1287] No bullshit.

[1288] Oh, God.

[1289] Look, plastic is horrific.

[1290] In the plastic garbage patch, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a horrific thing.

[1291] And Boyon Slot, who's been on the podcast a couple times, has done amazing work to develop this machine that's scooping up this plastic and converting it into actual goods and recycling it and using it.

[1292] That's amazing.

[1293] When he invented this, he was 19.

[1294] I mean, the guy's a genius and a really wonderful person.

[1295] He's doing this.

[1296] But the plastic that's out there is, it's so.

[1297] Go to John Joseph, John Joseph's Instagram.

[1298] John Joseph is a friend of mine.

[1299] He's a lead singer of the Crow Mags, and he's also like this hardcore vegan activist guy, and he'll post good shit on his Instagram.

[1300] John Joseph Crow Max, and he's got this thing about the Great Pacific Garbage Pack.

[1301] Oh, God, this is so horrifying.

[1302] Look at that fucking image.

[1303] Just look at that image.

[1304] But here it says, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers 1 .6 million square kilometers.

[1305] 60017 ,000 square miles.

[1306] It weighs more than 43 ,000 cars, and much of it is single -use plastic, water bottles, and industrial fishing nets.

[1307] That's horrific.

[1308] Well, and a lot of it's like micro pieces, right?

[1309] So you can't net it out.

[1310] What breaks down.

[1311] It breaks down.

[1312] Right.

[1313] But you can scoop it up.

[1314] What he's willing to do, what Boyon is able to do with his, this thing, it's like, it skims the water.

[1315] and scoops up all this plastic, and then they're pulling this plastic out.

[1316] See if you've, yeah, this is the turtle.

[1317] Oh, God, I don't know like I watch the shit.

[1318] This sea turtle, you can watch it.

[1319] I guarantee you can watch it.

[1320] You're going to watch it.

[1321] Here we go.

[1322] He's got a, somehow I know they found out that he had this straw stuck all the way up into his fucking brain, it looks like, this poor turtle.

[1323] Jesus.

[1324] And this is rough.

[1325] I mean, normally I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for turtles.

[1326] Jesus.

[1327] I'm not really much on.

[1328] Views it has.

[1329] Yeah, 85 million.

[1330] That's all you needed.

[1331] Yeah.

[1332] That's all you needed.

[1333] But this is how they decided to ban plastic straws.

[1334] Because we still have plastic caps for water bottles.

[1335] We stopped using water bottles in here and we shifted to metal cups for conservation.

[1336] But it's just so, but it kills me that it's all like individualistic.

[1337] It's like you need to just drive a hybrid and you need to drink out of, you know, non -platist.

[1338] And it's like, dude, look at these corporations.

[1339] You're telling us that that's going to solve the environmental crisis when we have a global empire and all these corporations.

[1340] just willing -nilly like producing all this shit with no regulation like god i mean plastic bag should have been banned fucking decades ago like why are we even the individualizing the problem is so depressing because it takes away from the structural nature and the systemic nature of pollution and how it's not about the person taking less showers and drinking out of a metal straw that's just to make you feel better right right it's a propaganda campaign that you're doing your part.

[1341] Yeah, you're doing your part.

[1342] Don't worry about the government.

[1343] Don't worry about these corporations.

[1344] Don't worry about how all of this fits together under our economic system.

[1345] It's all just about, no, you're good.

[1346] Take one shower a day or one shower a week and drink out of your metal straw and you're good, dude.

[1347] Like, don't think about anything else.

[1348] I've talked about this way too many times, but I'm going to talk about it again.

[1349] We had Dr. Shanna Swan on to talk about how the plastic.

[1350] plastics that are in our system because of whether it's, you know, plastic that our food is contained in, that we're reheating in microwaves or, you know, leaching from plastic that gets in our, from water bottles.

[1351] And these things called phthalates are affecting our reproductive systems.

[1352] It's a crazy podcast that we had where she was basically saying, fucks our book call again, total collapse.

[1353] Is that what it's called?

[1354] Countdown.

[1355] That's right.

[1356] Yeah, we don't know how these things affect, like, biodiversity and the ecosystems around.

[1357] Well, we know how it's affecting people.

[1358] There's a direct correlation between, there it is.

[1359] It's crazy.

[1360] Countdown.

[1361] How our modern world is threatening sperm counts, altering male and female reproductive development, imperiling the future of the human race.

[1362] It's one of the most disturbing podcasts I ever did.

[1363] Because in the middle, first of all, she's a wonderful lady.

[1364] She's such a sweetheart.

[1365] And in talking to her, she's really actually funny, too.

[1366] So, like, she has, like, a thing on her Instagram called The Jiz Quiz.

[1367] and you would not expect it from this lady who's like, you know, she's probably like in her 60s and she's an academic and she's an epidemiological environmentalist.

[1368] Like, no, what is her exact environmental epidemiologist?

[1369] That's what she is.

[1370] So she's examining the effect that the environment has on biology.

[1371] And she's found this horrific connection between the advent, the invention and the use of petrochemical products and the lowering of sperm counts and the increase in miscarriages.

[1372] And also, this is where it gets really weird, the shortening of the taint, the human taint.

[1373] Like it's one of the best ways, biologically, when you look at animals, one of the best ways to tell males versus females is the size of the taint.

[1374] It varies by 50 to 100 % in males and females.

[1375] And with males, it's shrinking.

[1376] And it's getting closer and closer to female size.

[1377] Penises are shrinking.

[1378] Testicles are shrinking.

[1379] Sperm count is shrinking.

[1380] And males are becoming more feminized because of these things called phthalates.

[1381] And it's spelled with a P -T -H -A -L -E -T -E -E -E.

[1382] These thalates that are in plastics, they've proven with animals that when you introduce these to animals, it directly affects the male reproductive system and deletes, or depletes their ability to form sperm, it shrinks their taint, it makes their penis small, and it's happening to people, too.

[1383] And when you see, like, so many people that are confused about their sexuality and so much weird shit with sexuality in this country, and then you look at this, and you go, hey, there's a fucking culprit here.

[1384] Like, there's something that's happening to human beings, like a real direct correlation between increased miscarriages, decreased sperm counts.

[1385] It's a lot of it is because of environmental toxins, pesticides, plastics, all these things that, whether we like it or not, we're consuming and we're consuming now.

[1386] And the thing is about these things being consumed by people who are pregnant, and then it's going to have an impact on their children.

[1387] It's going to have an impact on their babies because they've got it in their system.

[1388] It's going to be in the child system.

[1389] And this is all, like, irrefutable science.

[1390] Do you think that there's also, like, less of a stigma on sexuality, though, like, helping facilitate a lot of the people who are coming out as, you know.

[1391] Oh, there's a lot of factors.

[1392] It's not just that one factor.

[1393] But no doubt that this, what you're talking about now, like the leaching plastic is, good God, who knows what that's doing long term.

[1394] The stigma about sexuality is one thing, but the decreasing of the human taint, the fact that they can measure that human taints are shrinking.

[1395] It's unbelievable.

[1396] And that we know that this is directly connected to Thalates.

[1397] Like you can't ignore that.

[1398] Like even if you want to look at this as a social issue and as, you know, like we're more open now to all sorts of ideas about sexuality, that's all great.

[1399] You can look at things, but to me that's, this is a comprehensive, like, to look at what is actually going on with human beings.

[1400] You have to look at all the factors.

[1401] You have your positive factors, more openness, more acceptance.

[1402] Those are the positive factors.

[1403] The weird one is chemicals.

[1404] The fact that chemicals might be changing what it means to be a human being.

[1405] You know, I have always had, and we can get this into aliens right here.

[1406] Because I have always had this weird theory about what aliens are.

[1407] And my feelings, when I look at them and they have, like, if you look at the classic alien.

[1408] Classic gray.

[1409] Classic gray.

[1410] They have these little tiny bodies with no sex organs and these giant fucking heads.

[1411] And I'm like, well, if we keep going, The way we're going now.

[1412] Well, what is holding us back?

[1413] If you look at war and thievery and assault and all the aggressive, horrible things that people do, right?

[1414] If you look at just war alone, what is that?

[1415] It's territory.

[1416] It's like animals taking over other animals because of their resources, right?

[1417] That's what human beings are doing.

[1418] It's a very animalistic thing.

[1419] How do you, how would you stop that?

[1420] Well, one way to stop that is to completely eliminate sexual reproduction.

[1421] to have no instincts towards acquiring of resources, no instincts towards acquiring of sexual partners.

[1422] All sex is eliminated because you can have immensely pleasurable experiences without having any sexual intercourse.

[1423] You don't even need sex organs.

[1424] We will reproduce through genetic engineering only.

[1425] We will reproduce through some sort of yet -to -be -invented process that's far superior.

[1426] It eliminates any kind of birth defects, any kind of mishaps that happen in the genetic code, and it creates uniformity amongst the species.

[1427] So there is no more prejudice, there is no more racism.

[1428] Everybody looks exactly the same.

[1429] They all look exactly the same.

[1430] It sounds crazy, right?

[1431] But if you think about it, what would be the alternative?

[1432] Well, the alternative, you keep allowing this biological chaos.

[1433] You keep allowing this tooth and claw approach.

[1434] You keep allowing dominators and victims and everyone's fighting for the position on the top of the hill.

[1435] If we are to advance to what Carl Sagan would describe as a species that is capable of interplanetary travel and no longer commits war or genocide, what would be the best way to do that?

[1436] Well, the best way to do that would be to stop being people because people are some sort of a weird fucking animal.

[1437] And if you look at our approach in terms of our adoption of technology, well, what are we doing exactly?

[1438] When you talk to someone that needs their phone on them all the time, what are they doing?

[1439] Well, they're connected to some electronics.

[1440] Well, now they got it on their wrist.

[1441] Well, and soon with Elon Musk's invention, with Neurlink, it's going to be in your fucking head.

[1442] How long before we are some sort of a symbiotic thing where we're no longer a biological entity, We're a biological entity that interfaces constantly and inextricably with technology, inexorably, rather, with technology.

[1443] You can't take the two apart from each other.

[1444] We are technology.

[1445] The same way, a person who lives in Alaska in the winter has to have clothes.

[1446] There's no options.

[1447] You are connected forever to your fucking clothes until you get to a warm environment and you can take your clothes off.

[1448] If it's 30 below zero outside, you're not walking outside naked, right?

[1449] We've already accepted that a human being is no longer just a biological thing.

[1450] You need shoes or you're going to fuck your feet up, right?

[1451] You need clothes or you're going to freeze to death.

[1452] How long before our inventions surpass merely clothes and shoes and housing and comfort and it becomes something that is a part of our biology?

[1453] And maybe that would be the only way we would be able to leave this planet.

[1454] Maybe that would be the only way we would be able to avoid war and avoid rape and avoid murder and avoid theft and conquering maybe we just eliminate those instincts and maybe we look at things in terms of what's the correct logical approach without any of the weird monkey instincts that we all harbor i mean as someone who just had a kid that's such a terrifying concept because i've never felt so animalistic and primal and like this is everything around me is in a state of reproduction every aspect of nature yeah and then when you become become that vehicle of reproduction and have an entity growing inside of you.

[1455] And then, you know, the fourth trimester is just them linked to you still to grow.

[1456] And it's such a fascinating thing.

[1457] And your brain is completely reconfigured after birth.

[1458] You lose 4 % of your brain mass as a woman because everything is reprioritized to center on the baby.

[1459] 4%.

[1460] Up to 4%.

[1461] And the oxytocin that's released that makes you bond.

[1462] and there's also so many other chemicals and hormones that, you know, it's all about reproduction.

[1463] And then you realize this is why I exist.

[1464] This is what humans are.

[1465] We are reproduction machines.

[1466] And it just kind of dawns in you because our mind occupies so much of everything else and we have technology like you're saying.

[1467] And so it's very disturbing to think that that primal instinct could be completely removed and you could just be an world where humans are created maybe it's blissful you know Marsha McLuhan had a great quote you said human beings are the sex organs of the machine world it's amazing I think about it all the time because I think the way I've described it um is like we're sort of like some really strange biological caterpillar that gives birth to the electronic butterfly and we don't even know what we're doing we're just making a cocoon we're just making a cocoon we're just making a And whether it's artificial intelligence or whether it's some sort of a symbiosis, which is something that you, where the electronics or the technology gets into your body somehow or another, because it makes it better.

[1468] Now, if you think, like, if you think if there was a thing that you could have that would make life way better for everybody, you just had to get it in your body, you just have to accept it as being a part of your body, it'd be, you'd be rude to not do that, right?

[1469] Even if it was dangerous to you a little bit.

[1470] that it wasn't tangibly real like you know what way like what do you mean that there's not talking about like the matrix yeah no i'm talking about electronics like oh right right right like this neurolink idea the idea of neuralink is the way elin described it to me and again i'm a monkey so i'm going to do a shit job of paraphrasing this but the idea behind it is it's going to radically increase your your bandwidth the way you can interface with information You're essentially going to have much more access to information, and it's going to be, you're going to be able to access it far faster.

[1471] And one of the things that Elon said that haunts me to this day, he said, you're going to be able to speak without words.

[1472] You're going to be able to speak without words.

[1473] So you're going to be able to communicate with people without using words with this electronic interface.

[1474] That's what these fucking aliens are.

[1475] If they have these little tiny slits for mouths and, you know, they have these fucking weirdo bodies because they don't need any mum.

[1476] muscles anymore and they don't need sex organs anymore because no one's having sex.

[1477] Like, if we accept that, how long before it becomes that?

[1478] Is it 50 years?

[1479] Is it 100 years?

[1480] Is it a thousand years?

[1481] If we just keep accepting this introduction of technology into the biological human body, how long before it becomes what these fucking things are, these iconic, classic gray aliens that we see, literally, if you went from what we used to be, right?

[1482] We used to be these hulking chimpanzee -like creatures, right?

[1483] And we're covered in hair.

[1484] And now, what are we now?

[1485] Like, look at a, go to Starbucks and see these fucking nerds on their laptops.

[1486] This is, there's a, I don't know why I call them.

[1487] Sorry.

[1488] You know what I'm saying?

[1489] Like, there's like a complete, if you look, think of someone who's just locked in a cubicle doing programming all day and they don't do any exercise.

[1490] Your muscles wither away, your body atrophies, you have this tiny little, this shell that you carry your head around with and you know it's just you just need enough energy and enough physical strength to lift up off your chair and walk over to the other chair and sit down and drive and then you get home you get up and you walk over to the food and you eat that and then you walk over to the TV and you sit in front of it or you walk over to the computer that's but that's where does that go where does that go that goes to the fucking aliens you have no muscles now and you have a giant ass head because you've allowed Elon to drill a hole in there and stick some new wires and he's like, oh, we've got to make the brain larger because the head's got to be bigger to fit the new equipment.

[1491] And then next thing you know, it's this giant fucking head.

[1492] I feel like, yeah, I mean, that...

[1493] It's our future.

[1494] That's our future.

[1495] That's really creepy, man. We're freaking out because it's probably encoded in us that we see where the end of this thing is.

[1496] We probably subconsciously or somewhere if we're doing an extrapolation, we're just thinking about where this goes.

[1497] So do you think that that's when these people see these visions and when we see UFOs or people have documented them do you think that that is what's happening that it's actually aliens projecting themselves or physically here it could be many things yeah they could be time travelers that could be us in the future going back to check maybe maybe we've fucked everything up and we need fresh genetic code and we need to come back and get fresh genes from all these people because we've replicated so much it's like a puppy mill that makes fucked up dogs with the eyes too close together right I had a friend who got a chocolate lab And I went over her house And I was looking at the dog And the dog was like His eyes are like way too close together I'm like where did you get this dog And she's like Yeah I got it from this really shitty puppy mill This dog was fucked up This dog would like eat All kinds of things around the house And chew on the walls It was a fucked up dog But like maybe that's what happens If they don't source genetic material I mean or maybe Maybe they've gone past that and they just want to do experiments on people.

[1498] Maybe they're from another planet.

[1499] Maybe they're drones.

[1500] Maybe those things that we're looking at, those grays, are really just some sort of an artificial intelligence drone.

[1501] I mean, why send biological material?

[1502] Right, because it seems kind of like a human construct that we're projecting what we think that they would do.

[1503] Travel here in a craft and be here physically.

[1504] Yeah.

[1505] My brother and I just did a whole tribute to UFOology and lore on Media Roots Radio and attributed a lot of it to your show, Joe, because I was floored by some of the shit that I saw.

[1506] I mean, the Zimbabwe mass...

[1507] From the phenomena?

[1508] Yes, but also I first heard about it on your show and then, yeah, watching the movie phenomenon and the Tic Tac craft from David Fraver.

[1509] I mean, all of these things are just so...

[1510] They really do alter your reality.

[1511] The Commander Frazier one is amazing.

[1512] Yeah, and my brother, Robbie Martin, but I mean he's really into this too and we've it was just mind blowing to go through these cases and I as I told you before we started this I was so cynical you know and it's easy to just kind of like look at one debunking video and you're like yeah yeah or like you don't believe these people's testimonies and shit because I remember seeing so many documentaries on YouTube back 10 years ago of all these military officers high ranking people talking about how or listening to coast to coast AM you know fucking driving throughout the desert Art Bell and George Norrie talking about these UFOs that went over military installations and all of these strange unexplained things and so I just became such a cynic that I was like oh yeah like whatever none of that's real just one guy saying this or whatever but I'm I'm I'm full in now man I'm back whoa I'm back what brought you back honestly these stories these stories I for people who didn't you know who didn't hear your show of the guy talking about this Mimbabwe mass vision that was shared by 62 schoolchildren.

[1513] I believe them.

[1514] I believe these kids or the Melbourne incident that they talk about in Phenomen.

[1515] I watch several videos of those people.

[1516] 200 fucking people in Melbourne Australia.

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] That's a wild one too.

[1519] That felt that that that landed a woman's feet and she felt a heat emanating off of this.

[1520] I mean, it is just how and everyone describes a. same thing.

[1521] And, you know, 50 years later when these people are interviewed, you would think that with the advent of drones and all of these things, they'd be like, well, now I can explain it.

[1522] It was advanced military technology then, because now I see the technology that we have, you know, like, but they don't say that.

[1523] The Zimbabwe one is interesting, but there is a problem with it.

[1524] What?

[1525] And one of the problems is John Mack.

[1526] John Mack and, I'm not going to make any accusations, but there are people that believe that hypnotic regression is a very problematic way to get evidence because through hypnotic regression and John Mack he wrote an amazing book I think I think he did two books he was a Harvard psychologist who I think it was abducted and maybe was there was another one but a friend of mine who wasn't even really into UFOs at all my friend Maura gave me that book and she's like, you got to read this.

[1527] This is crazy.

[1528] So everyone has the same story.

[1529] That's how the kids, they were through hypnotic...

[1530] He talked to them.

[1531] John Mack talked to them.

[1532] Like the day after it happened?

[1533] Was he there?

[1534] I don't know.

[1535] I don't know exactly the timeline, but the problem was these people that are involved in hypnotic regression, oftentimes, whether they're aware they're doing it or not, they introduce ideas into people's heads and they give them false memories.

[1536] It's a common an issue.

[1537] And it's one of the main complaints that I've heard critics say about John Mack's work.

[1538] I'm interested in that.

[1539] I'm very interested in that.

[1540] And I'm not saying those people are lying.

[1541] And I'm not saying that John Mack introduced ideas into their heads.

[1542] But what I am saying is the real evidence, the real evidence like the video of that thing, whatever the fuck that Tick -Tac was taking off at what they estimate to be thousands of miles an hour instantaneously from a standstill and jetting off to the cat point where they were initially supposed to meet like this the coordinates that the jets had where they were supposed to scramble to doing this exercise this fucking Tick -Tac went to that spot almost like to tell you hey bitch I know where you're going it went from they tracked it on radar going from 80 ,000 feet above sea level to 50 and less than a second these are with known visual visible propulsion system flipping 180 degrees which is you know and physically possible with the technology that we know exists no heat signature right no propulsion no known visual visible propulsion system they don't know what the fuck these things are so if these are super advanced u .s. military craft wow holy shit have they been working holy shit did they create something that defies all known physics that we have today in terms of like what's available for propulsion because everything else is you got to push something out the back whether it's flames and that makes things go fast forward this is not doing that the same way even back in the 50s and 60s it was all described as similar types of things that would disappear or shoot off that doesn't seem physically possible but now what's so weird about it now why are like former CIA directors like Brennan, Woolsey, even Obama has like made like a joke about like, yes, we don't know what these things are.

[1543] What do you think it is?

[1544] Why is the intelligence community coming out and actually like putting their stamp of approval on this when for the last 70 years it's been so under the radar they, you know, they've been putting this under wraps.

[1545] But now they're kind of toying with the idea like we actually don't know what these are.

[1546] And then they also say we know that they're not from our military.

[1547] So they're hinting toward adversaries, right?

[1548] China, Russia with the hypersonic weapons technology that they're claiming that they can develop weapons five to ten times the speed of sound.

[1549] And I don't know what that looks like when you apply it, but that's strange to me that you see this rollout in the mainstream media talking about this now with the disclosures that the Pentagon has put out.

[1550] Now, you are a cynical person, especially when it comes to the U .S. military and the intelligence agencies.

[1551] What's your perspective?

[1552] Like, I'm sure you're not just saying, oh, well, they're looking out for us.

[1553] Yeah.

[1554] They want us to know about these amazing things.

[1555] Like, what's your cynical perspective?

[1556] Well, when I look at these things, a lot of these people, I believe these people.

[1557] And especially watching that documentary, Joe, it was a real mind fuck.

[1558] And a lot of this is bone chilling because I believe, especially when 62 people see something or people, 200 people in Melbourne, Australia, or all of these high -level military people who you could tell are scared shitless, recounting what they saw.

[1559] I believe them.

[1560] I really do because it's hard to act, right?

[1561] But my mind tends to go toward what is physically possible.

[1562] Is it mass hallucinations?

[1563] Is it some sort of DMT weapon that can elicit some sort of mass hallucination where people are susceptible to a delusional mindset and told something like you just said?

[1564] Is it the hypersonic weapons technology?

[1565] Is it something that is a drone being projected holographically?

[1566] Is it something that we can explain by, you know, the realm of quantum physics that we actually don't understand, like the Schrodinger's cat phenomenon?

[1567] Like, is there something that is within the realm of physics, but we don't understand and can't comprehend it yet?

[1568] So that's where my mind goes in terms of what is it.

[1569] If it is something from another planet, is it holographically, like, projected onto us?

[1570] You know, is that what's happening?

[1571] But in terms of the intelligence community and people like Marco Rubio with that PBI, special that came out or the 60 Minutes special and Marco Rubio at the end of it is just like we don't know what these are man they might not be from our planet and I'm like what the fuck like one of the most hardcore neoconservatives yeah is going out there and and cutely toying with the idea that this could be from another world and knowing that this has been so under wraps that whatever is happening and I believe something is happening has been completely censored and covered up by our government but now they're coming out and saying it's okay to talk about this this is no longer some fringe kooky conspiracy theory this is happening of course the cynic in me goes to what better way to kind of pull on our deep -seated psychological fears of something that we can't explain this kind of supernatural element to whatever is going on going back to the the the UFO lore of everything from x -files something that i grew up on you know the abyss like this notion that if there's something that greater than our government and our technological capabilities, then we need to kind of like just acquiesce toward our institutions to be like, you just do whatever you need to do, whether that be militarizing space, like these things are a threat just because they exist and we don't know what they are.

[1572] So my mind goes to, there's a reason why this rollout is happening and it's not for the betterment of humanity and it's not because of the curiosity of these officials and terms of learning or wanting to find out what UFOs are.

[1573] It's about going back to what I said before, it's about militarization and, you know, Space Force was basically part of the neocon blueprint back from PNAC, the Bush administration, and Trump fulfilled that dream.

[1574] And I do think that this is part of that.

[1575] And look, I don't know, but I think that we need to ask questions.

[1576] Why is our reality being sanitized?

[1577] Why are things like QAnon being purged from the internet?

[1578] As ludic as it may be, but we're also simultaneously being told that UFOs are something that are real and they're concerning, they're potentially a threat to national security.

[1579] We don't know what they are and it's okay to talk about that now.

[1580] That is a curious thing to me, Joe.

[1581] It is curious.

[1582] And I appreciate your perspective because I think it's good to look at this from a bunch of different angles because it's real tempting to say, well, I'm finally at a point in history.

[1583] It's amazing.

[1584] I'm here where the government is admitting that there are alien crafts that are off -world vehicles, not from this earth.

[1585] You know, that was like one of the quotes, that we're admitting that we are being visited.

[1586] But are we?

[1587] Because why would the fucking government finally start telling us without motivation, without some sort of end game, without what's in it for them to tell us about these things, unless they're so frequent and so bizarre and so many military people are talking about them that they feel like their back is against the wall and they have to say something about it because otherwise they're going to lose credibility, that there's so many of these things.

[1588] And there's so many of like the Go Fast video, the FLIR video, there's so many of these encounters that these very reputable people like Commander David Fravor have had with these crafts that behave in a way that is impossible as far as we know with any known technology on Earth in 2021.

[1589] And the David Fraver one is from 2004.

[1590] What's disturbing about it is no matter what it is, I don't think we're going to find out the truth.

[1591] And I think it's going to be exploited for certain means that we're not going to know.

[1592] It's not going to be overt.

[1593] but there is definitely something going on because it doesn't make sense and if it's oh there's so many people seen it shit this has been going on for 70 years I mean yeah that movie I mean there's people like every day one thing that I find really interesting though is now everyone has cell phones that film in 4K Google Earth satellites all over the world that can zoom in on someone walking down the street so if these things are flying over the ocean like someone you know part of the David Fravor special on on 60 Minutes was saying, I saw this shit like this every day.

[1594] That was a literal quote from him.

[1595] Why are we only seeing these grainy satellite images of these UFOs?

[1596] Well, Christopher Mellon, who used to work for the State Department, told me that they have way more shit, way more footage.

[1597] They're just not releasing it.

[1598] But why?

[1599] Why roll out this one and where it's this grainy filming of a satellite?

[1600] They're not rolling it out.

[1601] It's soldiers.

[1602] It's sailors.

[1603] It's fighter pilots.

[1604] It's people are releasing.

[1605] releasing these videos and photographs, they're leaking them because they want.

[1606] But how come they're not getting in trouble for like leaking them?

[1607] You know, like we had, like this is a whistleblower leaking these.

[1608] Because it's, I think it's a different kind of a leak.

[1609] It's not like they're leaking something the United States is doing, right?

[1610] They're not like, you remember that kid that got arrested for taking a photograph inside of a submarine?

[1611] Remember that?

[1612] That's a different kind of leak, right?

[1613] That's you're leaking out U .S. military secrets.

[1614] This is not U .S. military secret.

[1615] This is a strange, unidentified.

[1616] what they call a UAP now because UFO's got a bad rap.

[1617] Right.

[1618] It's like red pill.

[1619] I've got taken over by assholes.

[1620] You know, so now there, these, a lot of these people that have seen these things are frustrated at the lack of transparency.

[1621] I mean, this is the narrative, right?

[1622] I don't know if this is true, but my friend Jeremy Corbell, who's been the guy who's released most of these, most of these videos like those pyramid shaped crafts that they were watching with night vision that were in the middle of the fucking ocean floating around over this, um, destroyer or this aircraft carrier they don't know what the fuck those things are these these are videos from people that are there the one the the the one that was a um transmedium vehicle that was flying over the ocean and then went into the ocean they don't know what the fuck that is they filmed that thing with night vision they don't know what it is and this was soldiers that were filming it enlisted people who were filming it and you could hear them saying like what oh yeah no they're no they're splashing down it's in it's in the water now and the water yeah like It's wild.

[1623] Yeah, the water to air stuff doesn't make sense either without compromising the function of like one or the other.

[1624] It's very fascinating.

[1625] But what I guess my point is, if they're seeing the shit every day, you think that they would try to film it like, you know, not on satellite.

[1626] This is what the point.

[1627] They don't have the ability to film it on satellite.

[1628] They only have access to their cell phones.

[1629] They have access.

[1630] If you're going to leak it.

[1631] So it's filming on their cell phone.

[1632] But they are filming some of these things.

[1633] Like that one that went into the ocean, that's, I mean, that's the best thing.

[1634] can do with filming something off of night vision, the ones that were floating around above that UFO, or above the aircraft characters, shaped like pyramids, about the, you know, the go fast video.

[1635] I mean, they're using the cameras that are on these fighter jets that are designed to track enemy craft, and that's what they're designed for.

[1636] They're locking in on this thing with their tracking systems.

[1637] This thing's moving in the same rate to speed and they're following it.

[1638] This is the best that they have in that application.

[1639] Now, that doesn't mean that the government doesn't have some satellites that could zoom in on those coordinates and get that thing and get a very detailed high -resolution video of that.

[1640] They probably have that.

[1641] If these things really are real, if they aren't bullshit, if this isn't just some sort of a mass siop, if that's true, they probably have some really high -resolution shit that will curl your toes.

[1642] And that's what Christopher Mellon says.

[1643] But there's no reason for them to release that stuff for two reasons.

[1644] One, why would they tell, why would they give away the actual capability of these satellites in, like, an undeniable way?

[1645] Like, if you could see, like, the fucking bolts on this UFO from, you know, however many miles in the sky these satellites are.

[1646] And then everybody would be like, Jesus Christ, like, what else are they watching?

[1647] What else can they see?

[1648] You know, they can watch you take a shit through your bathroom window.

[1649] What are they doing?

[1650] You know, if they can see that, like, they can read a license plate from space.

[1651] That's what's been reported, that it is possible now through these satellites that you can get such a high -resolution video that you can clearly see a license plate from space and read it clearly.

[1652] There's also something called claytronics, which is like a programmable matter, like microcomputers that can create a holographic cloud.

[1653] That's actually a tangible hologram.

[1654] I mean, there's so many things that seem.

[1655] like it's centuries off.

[1656] This is what they're saying that they're working on, developing, where you can have a series of microcomputers program themselves into different visual entities into one giant hologram.

[1657] That was a Spider -Man movie.

[1658] Yes, no, I know.

[1659] You know?

[1660] The recent Spider -Man movie?

[1661] No, this is crazy shit, man. I mean, Chris Carter, the creator of X -Files, says that he had like a CIA guy, like feeding him information for the show.

[1662] I mean, I do think that art imitates reality.

[1663] in a lot of ways.

[1664] And when it goes back to the 60 Minutes special, which was one of the only mainstream institutions that was taking this seriously, my whole thing is like there was no skepticism at all.

[1665] There was no attempt to debunk these people, which seemed like a change in tone from these institutions.

[1666] So that, that blows my mind.

[1667] It's like usually you would have people have the debunker, have the guy saying that he saw UFOs.

[1668] But this one was just like glued in being like, this is happening.

[1669] Well, the New York Times is the first.

[1670] to break it in 2017, that really shifted the perception.

[1671] When you see the New York Times has an article talking about these unexplained vehicles and taking them seriously, and then interviews with like high -ranking military officials, people from the Pentagon, all that kind of shit.

[1672] When you see that stuff starting to make it into the mainstream, it just changes everything.

[1673] The New York Times for sure changed everything.

[1674] That 2017 article changed.

[1675] The people that would never take UFO seriously, they're seeing that in the New York Times, and they're saying, Like, holy shit.

[1676] This is in the times.

[1677] Yeah.

[1678] These are the same people who discredited Dennis Kucinage at the 2007 presidential debate because they were like, you saw a UFO.

[1679] Like, you fucking idiot.

[1680] And that was one of the questions.

[1681] And he was like, yeah, yeah, like I saw a UFO.

[1682] And it's like, dude.

[1683] Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, all of them saw UFOs too.

[1684] You know, and it was such a discrediting fringe thing.

[1685] But no, I mean, it's not at all.

[1686] But, yeah, there's so many bizarre things.

[1687] I mean, if they were developing like BZ hallucinogenic weaponry back during the Cold War, my mind goes to something about, you know, if you take enough DMT, you visit aliens.

[1688] You know that.

[1689] Yeah.

[1690] Could this be some sort of DMT weapon?

[1691] Well, if you could figure out a way to get someone to have an unintended psychedelic experience, if there was a way to do that.

[1692] Like, you know what I go to?

[1693] You know those attacks in Havana where they couldn't figure out?

[1694] Yeah, right, the electromagnetic.

[1695] Do they know what that is?

[1696] They're claiming, this is another bizarre thing, is like something that seemed to science fiction a decade ago is now being told that it's real, like microwave weapons.

[1697] That's what they're saying that they are.

[1698] So they can aim it at you.

[1699] Yeah.

[1700] So, like, you're in your office, you're working in your office, all of a sudden you lose your equilibrium, you start throwing up, can't think.

[1701] Tonitis, yeah.

[1702] Permanent brain damage for some of these people, allegedly.

[1703] They're calling it Havana syndrome.

[1704] It sounds like some film noir thing.

[1705] And then they're pointing to, oh, this must be China or Russia, because we wouldn't morally do anything like this.

[1706] The red flags in my mind go off right there.

[1707] Like, what the fuck is this?

[1708] Right, for sure.

[1709] Did the red flags go off when you see what's going on in Cuba right now in terms of like all the chaos?

[1710] Yeah.

[1711] It seems like instantaneous and, you know, all of a sudden the Cuban people are fed up.

[1712] Yeah.

[1713] Who's involved in this?

[1714] Yeah.

[1715] So, I mean, whether it be Cuba, Venezuela, multiple other countries, Iraq, there's a policy by the CIA to starve people into submission and then to overthrow their governments.

[1716] It's never worked in the history of the world.

[1717] No one does that, right?

[1718] But it doesn't stop the policy from sanctioning people to death.

[1719] There's a 62 -year criminal embargo that has been in place on Cuba just for the fact that they wanted to go a different route.

[1720] They wanted to pursue a communist state, and the CIA never forgave them.

[1721] And so there's been hundreds of assassination attempts against their leaders.

[1722] The CIA has spent $25 million every single year trying to foment regime change, funding these institutions on the ground.

[1723] They created a fake Twitter account called Zunzunio one year to try to foment.

[1724] to like generate like people you know to radically try to undermine the castro regime there was operation mongoose where they actually wanted to blow up ships of refugees and actually blame it on a castro yeah there's been multiple terrorist attacks of CIA backed agents inside cuba in Miami to try to foment all of this hostility against the castro regime and the embargo it doesn't just prevent trade from the u .s it prevents and basically puts in place place, this pressure valve where any state in the world knows their place, knows that if they try to trade with Cuba, they will be penalized.

[1725] So by proxy, they don't want to fuck with that because they will be threatened by the U .S. Like, you cannot do this.

[1726] So Cuba has been isolated, this tiny island nation that has somehow done these incredible medicinal advancements like eliminating HIV transmission from mother to child.

[1727] Despite the criminal embargo, this is preventing medicine from getting in.

[1728] This is preventing food from getting in.

[1729] This is a devastating thing that's cost them tens of billions of dollars.

[1730] During COVID, Trump added like a hundred plus sanctions on top of the embargo.

[1731] And every single year, every country in the world in the United Nations General Assembly votes to lift the embargo, except the U .S. and Israel.

[1732] They vote to uphold it every time.

[1733] Everyone in the world realizes this is a criminal thing.

[1734] If we want to see what Cubans can do and if they're fed up, they need to change their own system from within.

[1735] But right now, the media is painting this as, oh, my God, Cubans are starving.

[1736] Cubans don't have medicine and food because of communism.

[1737] Now, lift the goddamn embargo and then let's figure out what's going on, right?

[1738] You cannot look at this country in isolation and say, oh, this is due to the communism?

[1739] No. This is a crippling economic blockade.

[1740] And when I was there, I went on the ground and did some reports for breaking the set.

[1741] And I talked to many people.

[1742] There's incredible advancements.

[1743] There's housing for all.

[1744] You don't see homeless people there.

[1745] There's a lot of great things about Cuba, despite the hardships that they're living under, and despite the control of and domination of the U .S., they're still managing to do a lot of great things.

[1746] And a lot of the people were very open.

[1747] You know, they said, look, you know, some people loved Castro.

[1748] Some people didn't like the communist government, but they said, look, please tell your government to give us medicine.

[1749] We are dying and we don't have access to medicine because of the criminal blockade of the United States government.

[1750] Please tell your government to stop.

[1751] And then we'll sort out our own problems.

[1752] If we have critiques, if we want to figure out some other political system, that's on them.

[1753] But we can't judge them.

[1754] And you really see how the media is controlled.

[1755] when Haiti's been protesting for three years straight against a U .S.-backed dictator and no one gave a shit and then one day spontaneous protests erupt, right?

[1756] And all of a sudden the media is all over it.

[1757] We need to intervene.

[1758] We need to offer some sort of humanitarian chain, just like we did to Venezuela, which is also under crippling sanctions.

[1759] All of these things are hoisted up by the U .S. media as we need to save Cuba, right?

[1760] You even have the mayor of Miami on TV on Fox News saying, we need to bomb Cuba right now.

[1761] This is our chance.

[1762] We need to do what George Bush did in Panama and what Clinton did to Yugoslavia.

[1763] We need to bomb the shit out of Cuba and remove the president.

[1764] I mean, this is sick stuff.

[1765] And when you look at the actual terrorism that the U .S. is sponsored to try to overthrow this tiny island nation's economic system just because they didn't want to go along with capitalism, it's unbelievable.

[1766] So, yeah, when I see protests erupts spontaneously and when the media is actually desperately showing the pro -communist protests as anti -communist protests, there's actually dueling protests right now.

[1767] A lot of people.

[1768] A lot of people.

[1769] A option that needs to be discussed, says Miami mayor.

[1770] Can you imagine advocating that?

[1771] No, it's sick, man. And I think that a lot of Americans get one side of the story because a lot of Cuban exiles are of course against what's going on there.

[1772] But you just go.

[1773] Just go for yourself.

[1774] It's hard now.

[1775] The U .S. had a travel ban on Cuba forever because they don't want you to see with your own eyes.

[1776] Seeing is believing.

[1777] But it was lifted for a while, right?

[1778] It was lifted for a while.

[1779] Trump put it back.

[1780] And COVID has completely devastated the economy even more so.

[1781] And the sanctions that Trump put on place have completely debilitated beyond, you know, beyond belief.

[1782] There's no doubt that people are being assassinated now because of these uprising there's no doubt that the military's killing people you don't believe it's happening really i don't believe that people are getting assassinated for protesting so these people when you see people getting dragged away by the police and all that stuff what do you think is happening i have not seen videos of people getting dragged away from the police no i haven't seen that you haven't seen videos of the police shooting at people or so they're i have not we're getting these reports right we're getting these reports of assassinations and and that people are being slaughtered do you think this is is propaganda?

[1783] I absolutely think that we need to question everything that's coming from our media, especially when I was on the ground in Venezuela, when they were saying the same thing about Maduro.

[1784] And I was there.

[1785] I was in the opposition protest during the deadliest time.

[1786] And I looked through the death records.

[1787] I was walking with opposition protesters.

[1788] I saw what was happening with my own eyes.

[1789] And it's not what the media says, man. So let me ask you this.

[1790] If you are a person and you are on a network, we don't even have to name the name of a network.

[1791] How does this work?

[1792] Do you get a message?

[1793] Do you get talking points?

[1794] Is there a discussion with some intelligence agency that gets together with the head executives?

[1795] And they sort out what the narrative is going to be.

[1796] And then this gets filtered down to the talking heads that are on the network.

[1797] Going back to the model of like how does consent, how is it operated and how is it manufactured?

[1798] It's like, yeah, so media ownership, right?

[1799] Who owns the giant corporate conglomerates?

[1800] A small few amounts.

[1801] A small, like five or six corporations control 90 % of everything that we see here in Reed.

[1802] Then it goes to media owners, media elites.

[1803] So who dictates the policy and how do you know how you get access to politicians?

[1804] I lived in D .C. for a couple of years.

[1805] I know exactly how this shit works.

[1806] You don't get access to people unless you play the game.

[1807] If you ask questions that are unsavory, you will not get invited back to the press conference.

[1808] Then you go to the whole issue of flack, undermining the messenger who counters whatever.

[1809] So it's marginalizing and discrediting people who don't go in line, which goes back to the hiring process, which goes back to self -censorship.

[1810] If you are working at these media outlets, chances are you agree largely with the orthodoxy of the media network.

[1811] You agree with the fact that the U .S. is an empire that it necessitates this kind of subjugation around the world.

[1812] You're a capitalist.

[1813] You're a Zionist.

[1814] You think that these countries need to be, you know, that are despotic and whatever.

[1815] You believe in this, you believe in the mythology, right?

[1816] That's put out there by our media.

[1817] Otherwise, you would not get hired.

[1818] And if you somehow change your mind, you're going to face a wall.

[1819] You're going to face a wall internally.

[1820] And you see this time and again.

[1821] For example, this woman who was just in a Students for Justice for Palestine chapter in her university.

[1822] woman named Emily.

[1823] She joined AP as an intern and she was fired from a pro -Zionist lobbying campaign because they said she was too biased to work at AP.

[1824] Meanwhile, you have a former IDF prison guard, the Israeli military.

[1825] He was a prison guard in the Israeli military managing the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg.

[1826] I mean, that's the kind of disproportionality that we're talking about.

[1827] So, yeah, it's also advertising, of course.

[1828] Right?

[1829] That's who subsidizes media.

[1830] Defense contractors, pharmaceutical industries, big banks, oil companies.

[1831] You know who pays your pocketbooks, right?

[1832] You know who's stuffing the cash.

[1833] And 80 percent, this is according to Peter Phillips, the author of Giants Who Really Rules the World.

[1834] And it's really transnational corporations that have interlocking boards of directorates.

[1835] And really you can fit them all in a studio no bigger than this giant apparatus.

[1836] But he says that 80 percent of corporate news is pre -packaged by PR firms that work for governments or corporations.

[1837] 80 % of the news that's delivered through this filter is pre -packaged for us.

[1838] That's a pretty scary concept.

[1839] That is wild.

[1840] 80%.

[1841] I've seen it firsthand, Joe, when I was in Venezuela, when I was in Colombia, I've been to Guantanamo Bay.

[1842] I have talked to journalists in these institutions.

[1843] They believe.

[1844] They believe.

[1845] And a lot of them sit in their hotels.

[1846] They just sit in their fucking hotels and do their journalism behind.

[1847] They don't go out and speak to people.

[1848] Whenever I'm in a country on the ground, I'll go and get a snapshot of what people are thinking.

[1849] And I'm honest about it.

[1850] And beyond that, I don't have the veil and facade of objectivity where a lot of these people in the corporate news will say, oh, no, I'm an objective journalist.

[1851] I'm an unbiased journalist.

[1852] And that's what's hammered in your head during journalism.

[1853] school, that doesn't exist.

[1854] Objectivity does not exist.

[1855] You are always couching your opinions in establishment entities, authority figures, and think tanks.

[1856] And who funds those think tanks?

[1857] Who's behind?

[1858] You know, what ideology is driving the figures that you're citing?

[1859] So what I do with my journalism, I just come out and talk about what my opinion is.

[1860] And if you want to follow my journalism, that's great.

[1861] But I don't hide who I am.

[1862] I don't hide who I am and I don't hide what I think.

[1863] And I uplift the people that are obscured and erased from corporate media.

[1864] I highlight what Israelis think.

[1865] I highlight the Palestinian voices.

[1866] I'll highlight the Maduro supporters.

[1867] I'll highlight the Cubans who are Castro supporters and supporters of communism.

[1868] Because we never hear their perspectives, Joe.

[1869] It's one -sided and it's curated and carefully crafted for an American audience.

[1870] And we have to take a step back and ask who's putting this story together, what interests lie behind the story and apply our own critical thinking because we're living in a highly polarized highly politicized society right now and it's never been worse we're siloed off into our own echo chambers we only see what we want to see because the corporations have insidiously curated what our reality should be and that is not the way that we need to be that's not how we're ever going to get an understanding that's not ever how we're going to figure out where our similarities lie, right?

[1871] How we can actually change things for the better.

[1872] I believe that we can.

[1873] I do.

[1874] But it has to start with talking to each other.

[1875] And we can't do that if we're being constantly manipulated and if we're being censored.

[1876] We're given the illusion that we have free speech, but when it comes to the overall narrative, it's very curated.

[1877] And I forgot one key element of Chomsky's model the common enemy there's always a common enemy Joe and who is that it's Cuba it's Venezuela it's Russia it's China it's China that's China that's an imperative that's a necessity to manufacture consent for people to be distracted what is this other person doing not what are we doing and as an American citizen that's all I can do I can't do anything about China you know Chinese people are working to curb their carbon emissions they're working to change their society as best they can all I can do as an American citizen is do as much as I can here in this country because I feel like dissent is the highest form of patriotism and I need to speak out use my platform use my voice as much as I'm being you know as much as our videos throttled on YouTube as much as the algorithms have censored my work I need to do whatever I can to put this information out there because I think it's important, you know, and a lot of people are interested in it.

[1878] I never learned true history or the nature of our government in school.

[1879] My education was sanitized for me. So it's important for me to be that vector, to be that vehicle for other people who want to go down, down, down, down.

[1880] Well, never is the propaganda been clear than the adoption by the military of woke ethics.

[1881] Oh, my God.

[1882] Like these commercials that they're putting out with a show.

[1883] I had two mommies and now I'm in the army and like...

[1884] The CIA the Latina, like I'm dude, I think that's talk about a sci -op.

[1885] It's a sci -op.

[1886] It's wild because they're basically trying to connect themselves to woke ethics because they recognize they've licked their finger, they found out which way the wind's blown and they're like, yeah, go that way.

[1887] Yeah, propaganda.

[1888] Let's go with it.

[1889] I mean, there's nothing.

[1890] They have nothing to do.

[1891] with diversity.

[1892] Nothing to do with that.

[1893] They have to do with bombing the shit out of people.

[1894] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1895] That's their business.

[1896] Well, the CIA had such a bad rap, I think, before 9 -11, and they've been able to rebrand themselves so many times.

[1897] And then, of course, through Trump, all these intelligence communities, agents have been able to rebrand themselves as like resistance people and all this shit.

[1898] But let's go back to what we knew the CIA was doing before 9 -11, because they're still doing that shit today.

[1899] Yeah.

[1900] They're running death squads in Afghanistan for 20 plus years.

[1901] Death squads are hard.

[1902] happening.

[1903] Right now, they will outlive the U .S. occupation.

[1904] That shit's happening.

[1905] So it's no longer the old CIA.

[1906] What did they used to do?

[1907] It's what are they doing?

[1908] And how are they, how are they changing their PR strategy to adopt this woke ideology to basically trick young kids into recruitment models and whatever?

[1909] And to try to wipe their hands clean of their sinister, horrific, bloody legacy that continues today.

[1910] What can break this cycle?

[1911] What?

[1912] if anything what if anything can make our society a more balanced more accurate in terms of its portrayal of what what really is going on in the world and a place where we're not doing the same shit in a more complicated way decade after decade I think that well first of all demilitarization is is key I think that we don't need 800 military bases around the world.

[1913] We need to be honest about who we are and what we do, right, and take accountability for what this country is doing in our name.

[1914] That has to start with the consciousness shifting.

[1915] That has to start with conversations that are uncomfortable, right?

[1916] When it comes to Israel -Palestine, it's happened.

[1917] We're now on the other side of the coin.

[1918] People know it's an apartheid state.

[1919] Now the conversation becomes, what do we have to do about it to make apartheid fall markedly different than the way it was when you were on my podcast five what is it five years ago or so so controversial joe now it's the tide has shifted you have sitting congress people talking about apartheid you have human rights watch talking about apartheid we need to address the elephant in the room i know it's controversial and i know it's hard and everyone knows someone in the military my partner mike prisner who i do the empire files with he was in iraq war he is an iraq war that people may have seen doing winter soldier testimonies.

[1920] But he joined 9 -11 before 9 -11.

[1921] I'm sorry, he joined the military a month before 9 -11.

[1922] And he got shipped to Iraq.

[1923] And now he is incredibly committed anti -imperialist veteran who now helps soldiers get out of the military.

[1924] And when we were on the precipice of war with Iran, he was there coaching people through 24 -7.

[1925] You don't have to go.

[1926] You don't have to go.

[1927] And you don't have to be a part of this.

[1928] So it starts with conversations, Joe.

[1929] I would recommend people get off Twitter and get in the real world and start talking and engaging in dialogue because nothing will ever change.

[1930] We're just going to keep reinforcing these structures and we're going to keep reinforcing the most horrible habits and falling back on ideologies that are based on myths and nothing more.

[1931] And it's really unfortunate because the biggest myth of all is the fact that we need to be an empire.

[1932] And we need to really address that.

[1933] And we need to start figuring out how can we live in a sustainable world?

[1934] How can we cooperate and face the challenges that are coming?

[1935] Climate change.

[1936] You know, the world is going to shrink, right?

[1937] There is something also optimistic, though.

[1938] You know, we don't have to worry about college for our kids.

[1939] I don't think that that's a thing anymore.

[1940] We don't have to get in debt.

[1941] I mean, it's all about like learning skills.

[1942] and not falling into these debt traps that don't really apply to what the future is going to be.

[1943] Well, college is such a sinister death trap.

[1944] That's horrible.

[1945] It's a debt trap because it's subsidized by the government and you can't get out of the loans.

[1946] Exactly.

[1947] You keep those loans forever.

[1948] They're passed on actually to your next of kin if you die.

[1949] That's the only form of debt that stays in.

[1950] If you have a student loan, your kid has to pay it?

[1951] Yeah.

[1952] What?

[1953] Yep.

[1954] it's the only form of debt so my parents have student loans and if they die they die they come knocking on my door they come knocking on my door how is that possible that's what i'm saying man i mean but that's real this is actually weird relics this is actually weird relics of like that's so creepy it's actually kind of cool to think of what our children will do because i'm trying to look at this yeah there's so many things to be negative about and harp about but i think that the future could be a really amazing one because i have faith that the creativity and ingenuity of people embracing the vastly different reality that we grew up in and abolishing all these old relics of, you know, the nuclear family and the fact that you need to just put in this $100 ,000 into a college fund and then go to college and get a degree and then slave away in some, you know, thing that none of that is going to apply to them.

[1955] And so it's actually a really beautiful thing that we can develop.

[1956] And if we cooperate and if we work together and if we figure out a way that we can actually manage our resources in a sustainable way and in a harmonious way with nature and I truly believe that we can, I think the world would be a very, very different place, Joe.

[1957] And I think that because we've done it for so long, we've done these horrible things for so long that we just feel like that's normal.

[1958] It doesn't have to be that way.

[1959] The status quo is dangerous.

[1960] I think we're worried about other countries.

[1961] I think that's one of the reasons why most people, including myself, support the military, is because we think that other countries are up to no good.

[1962] They have nefarious intentions.

[1963] It's us versus them.

[1964] They're trying to be what the United States is, the military leader of the world, and it's better to have us than to have them.

[1965] This is like the, that's really the prevailing narrative, right?

[1966] What evidence is there that any other country is trying to do militarily what we are doing?

[1967] What are they doing?

[1968] Well, they have bases all over the place.

[1969] There's one base in Djibouti.

[1970] That's it?

[1971] That's what that's it.

[1972] The only base they have outside of China.

[1973] Well, they do do things in terms of like using corporations to give loans to places that they know can't do like the same shit we do.

[1974] Extract resources.

[1975] So this is all like the military is inexorable from the government, right?

[1976] The government and corporations, they all work together.

[1977] There's no such thing as like individual corporations that are independent of the military in China, right?

[1978] Or of the government in China?

[1979] I don't know that.

[1980] Yeah, I don't know.

[1981] This is the narrative, right?

[1982] What I've been told is that everybody who's working for whatever corporation you're working for, the mandates get brought down from the Communist Party.

[1983] And that's why they're involved in, whether it's road building in parts of Africa or, whether they're developing minds, all these things they're doing, they're doing with the interest of the Communist Party.

[1984] But even if you were to take that narrative at face value and say, okay, so we do that with the IMF and, you know, and the World Bank.

[1985] We do the same thing, right?

[1986] So basically we have to do that to stave off Chinese influence in those regions and to offer counterweight to U .S. egemony.

[1987] But that's like a side, yeah, it's kind of intertwined with the military, of course, because it's acting as an alternative to subjugate entire nations into debt traps and stuff like that.

[1988] But still, that's like aside from what I'm talking about, this giant global military empire.

[1989] It's unmatched.

[1990] And I don't think that it has to be that way.

[1991] And I don't think any other country like China or Russia would become that.

[1992] It's madness.

[1993] It's lunacy.

[1994] So you think that it's established this way because of what Eisenhower warned about, that the military industrial complex has become this overwhelming beast of, of a system that is just controlled the United States government for so long and controlled the way we interact with foreign governments for so long that we think that it has to be this way, but it doesn't.

[1995] It does not.

[1996] And it starts with demilitarizing our mind, our consciousness, Joe.

[1997] It doesn't have to be this way.

[1998] It's a good way to end.

[1999] It doesn't have to be this way.

[2000] Abby, you're a bad motherfucker.

[2001] I always appreciate you.

[2002] You're a very unique person, and you've got a lot of courage.

[2003] Thanks, John.

[2004] And it's always great to see you.

[2005] That's great to see you, too.

[2006] Thank you for having me on.

[2007] Tell everybody how to get a hold of all your content and everything you're doing.

[2008] Yeah, so check out Gaza Fights for Freedom .com.

[2009] Check out our documentary about that.

[2010] Check out earth's greatest enemy .com.

[2011] Join the journey there.

[2012] And check out Empire Files in general and Media Roots Radio, the podcast I do with my brother.

[2013] And also I have an art website I'm painting a lot lately It's helping me Get through all all this shit Joe Abbey martin .org is my art So check that out Yeah, psychedelic art Thank you so much Joe It's always great to see you Much love to all right Much love to everybody out there Keep it together bitches Bye