Mike Benz - Government Funding Being Funneled Through USAID | SRS #132
[Music]. Mike Benz welcome to the show thanks for. having me man I have been looking. forward to this for a long time I first. saw you I think on Glenn Beck is that. correct it was yeah I think I first you. first popped up on my radar on Glenn. Beck and then I saw you on Tucker a. couple times and I've been trying to get. in contact with you and finally we got. you so thanks for coming I really thanks.
for having me you have the most epic. Studio I've ever seen so well that means. a hell of a lot thank you you've been. you've been around at some uh really. cool Studios so that I appreciate that I. don't know if you ever pan it but uh. everyone who's watching this you have to. see this it's a museum here only the. guests get to see. it classified then yeah we'll we'll uh. we'll start throwing some of the stuff. out for the the masses to to see cuz. there are some pretty historic stuff in.
here but but um well I'm dying to talk. to you about the stuff that's going on. in Brazil right now and all the. censorship stuff you're the guy to talk. to and um so before we get before we get. into the weeds everybody gets an. introduction and a gift. so here we go Mike Ben previously served. as Deputy assistant secretary for. international Communications and. information technology at the US state.
department from Fall of 2020 through. 2021 served as White House speech writer. for president Trump and advised on Tech. matters served as a speech writer to. Housing and Urban Development secretary. Dr Ben Carson and was a policy advisor. on economic development you're the. author of the unpublished monstrosity. Weapons of Mass deletion today you seek. to provide nonpartisan insights and. assistance to All Peoples taking a stand.
for freedom of speech freedom of. expression and the free exchange of. ideas online through. ffo foundation for freedom online which. he founded in. 2022 why did you found that what what. what prompted. that well I think it was a natural. continuation of the spirit of what um. you know I I felt our federal government. needed to do while I was in it which was.
uh bring to light and try to educate. people around what's really driving. internet censorship the forces behind it. the abuses of government the fact is is. several years ago it was a sort of. unsubstantiated thing in many people's. minds that that the US government was. putting pressure on the tech platforms. to censor speech uh all these open First. Amendment questions about it and I felt. like there needed to be a venue to Prov. provide nonpartisan insights to educate.
people so that they had the language. they had the background they had the. stories they had the ability to. understand the world around them as it. pertains to internet censorship. interesting well I'm glad you're doing. that um so I have a I have a patreon. it's a subscription account they've been. with us since the beginning it it's. grown into quite the community and um. they're the reason that I get to sit. here and and you and so one of the.
things that uh they get the opportunity. to do is ask each guest a question and. so this is from Stephanie Jordan the. first amendment is quickly dying how. much time do we as Americans have in. comparison to countries like the UK and. Brazil well the story of what's. happening in the UK and Brazil is very. tightly connected to our own and we'll. get to this when we talk about some of. the international issues happening right. now but the US state department is. actually putting pressure on foreign.
countries to enact their own censorship. laws so I don't really see what's. happening in the UK or Brazil as being. distinct from the US but in terms of how. much time we have left you know this is. one of these spaces where there's a lot. of two steps forward one step back three. steps back one step forward you can. lose and lose badly even for a number of. years and then begin to make inroads. again there was for the first six years. of me doing this I've been involved in. this space for eight years now just.
dedicated my whole life to it uh and for. the first six years there was no. traction at all it was one loss after. another and you know that does make you. feel hopeless but you just keep putting. one foot in front of the other until you. start to get victories and then we've. had a lot of Victories on on the free. speech space in the past 18 months and. go through them if if folks are. interested but I think it would be good. to go through them just for the. positivity aspect totally totally so.
coming into the year. 2022 you had the you had the censorship. industry was completely invincible and. what I mean by the censorship industry. is this whole of society framework that. our government uses for its counter. misinformation work which ties together. four different stakeholder institutions. government agencies private sector. companies Civil Society institutions so. like universities NOS researchers and. then media institutions and all four. that government private sector civil.
society and media all work together to. achieve a common censorship outcome so. they can each pull their own levers in. order to achieve the censorship of a. narrative or of an account or kill. someone's advertising Revenue whatever. needs to be done in any particular case. and from 2016 when this was all really. getting established in the US until 2022. there was never any piercing of any one. of those four quadrants no government. agencies were under scrutiny most people. didn't even know there was a government.
role all the social media companies were. completely under this pressure and there. was no one willing to break the alliance. you know you had Mark Zuckerberg at. Facebook who was being threatened by the. federal government in terms of. Facebook's bottom line Jack dorsy was. totally pliant to these YouTube was an. avid sensor in that regard uh and so in. 2022 a number of things happened that. began to changed the the turf of this so.
first there was this scandal with the. disinformation governance board I don't. know if folks remember this this was. this ministry of Truth is what people. were calling it at the Department of. Homeland Security you know they made the. mistake for once in their lives of. publicly calling it what it actually was. you when it when the disinformation. governance board happened in April 20122. it was the first time that republicans. in Congress leapt to life and said oh my. God the is a government censorship.
agency it's the ministry of Truth what. they didn't know is that the ministry of. Truth had already existed within DHS for. 3 years before that it was just given a. much more boring mundane name it was. called the cyber security and. infrastructure Security Agency but what. they did is they said that because their. their mission is critical infrastructure. security and elections are critical. infrastructure and covid deals with. public health and public health is. critical infrastructure any tweets that. contain misinformation about elections.
or about covid or about any number of. sensitive policy issues where a cyber. threat actor were a were a Cyber attack. on critical infrastructure and so DHS. had this giant web apparatus to censor. First Amendment protected speech using a. cyber security predicate but at the time. that was almost too Fantastical for. people to believe it wasn't until they. until dhs's censorship operations became. so sprawling and so massive and had so.
many touch points that they needed this. dull boring bureaucratic management. layer the disinformation governance. board to manage what DHS sisa and the. the the intelligence wing of DHS DHS Ina. uh was doing and so it was only then. that you had Chuck rasley and Josh Holly. and all these different Republican. members of Congress say holy wait a. second we've heard rumors about internet. censorship being directed by the US. government maybe they're true but. because look they have this dis.
disinformation governance board in ooc. that same month Elon Musk announced his. intent intended acquisition of x uh and. that he was spending $44 billion to to. set the Bird Free you know to to get rid. of the censorship policies that had. existed essentially from 2016 until. 2022 uh in November of 2022 the. Republicans took control over Congress. in October of 2022 Elon Musk completed.
his acquisition and republicans in. Congress began to break much of this. open as did Elon Musk through the. Twitter files and so there began to be. all these public hearings on government. pressure on Facebook on Amazon on. YouTube on Twitter you Jim Jordan the. chairman of the house weaponization. subcommittee got us the Facebook files. which you know showed that Facebook was. only doing was only censoring covid-19. because they felt beholden to the Biden.
Administration and folded under that. pressure in order to um be receptive to. their their cause to censorship because. they have bigger fish to fry on multiple. policy fronts meaning they needed the. Biden state state Department's help to. defend their rights in Europe they. needed the Biden administration's. protection of their data data rights and. their advertising revenues and so you. start when Elon kicked the door open. with the Twitter files and and there. began to be Congressional support uh in.
in Congress many of these federal. agencies started to clam up and I won't. say close down but they had to. reorganize in ways that added a lot of. friction to what they did and they. became a lot less powerful because now. the public awareness had grown and. anytime they did something they would be. hit with subpoenas people would be. brought in for transcribed interviews. there'd be public hearings there'd be. lawsuits there have been many private. sector lawsuits uh we've had this major. Supreme Court case that just sort of in. my view was wrongly decided but it's.
still a preliminary decision so that may. still play out favorably in the future. but there there's been legal pressure. there's been Congressional pressure. there has been the prying open of. Twitter which is the you know X it's the. largest political thought incubator of. all the social media platforms because. everyone's a Content producer on there. unlike YouTube as soon as you hit the. retweet button uh and that is also given. cover to folks like Mark Zuckerberg to. lessen censorship.
at uh at Facebook and on Instagram uh. and and this is one of the things the. censorship industry has been apoplectic. about is that they accused Mark. Zuckerberg of riding Elon musk's free. speech coattails and removing a lot of. the liaison tentacles that previously. were back channeled by us intelligence. or by you know political operatives. involved in the censorship industry and. so the internet now is much Freer than. it was several years ago in the US so. the blob has a new strategy involving.
bringing International pressure on the. platforms as well as state pressure. within individual states in the US wow. so we did get some wins we're winning at. the level the battle was being fought. from 2016 to 2020 if we had now what we. if we had then what we have now we'd be. in a totally different world the issue. is is as we're winning at the current. level they've moved the battle Upstream. to things that are existentially much.
more terrifying just straight up. International laws Banning First. Amendment speech we're seeing this with. this new EU censorship law the the. Digital Services act which adds a. disinformation compliance component and. that forces X to censor anything NATO. wants to censor or else they lose their. European market which is a larger market. than their US market and so they have a. whole bag of tricks that are the new. frontier for fighting this but if if.
they hadn't escalated that we would be. winning quite dramatically right now. interesting interesting let's get into. the Weeds on all of this I just wanted. the winds to start with but everybody. gets a gift all right can I open it now. you can open it right. now little something for the for the. flight home B Gummy Bears beauti I'm. actually a sucker for Gummy be nice. you'll love those then you'll love those. but um so let's do the.
you had a couple of topics you wanted to. cover and um and that I want to hear. about very much so so let's talk about. the big picture road map of censorship. and Free. Speech the main thing for people to. understand is that free speech is caught. in this proxy war between what I call. the blob and I didn't coin this term. I'll go over it the blob versus populism. so it's not Democrats versus Republicans. it's not right versus left or Li. liberals versus conservatives it is the.
blob and what I mean by that is the. foreign policy establishment of the US. the UK and NATO this was a term that was. coined by President Obama's Deputy. National Security adviser Ben rhods when. the Obama Administration in its final. years was frustrated with this. entrenched immutable alien-like all. powerful form form within Washington. that appeared to be more powerful than.
the White House itself so This this term. The Blob again came from the Obama White. House to describe forces that the White. House felt it couldn't take on and I I I. find it to be a more useful term than. something like deep State because it. really encompasses this whole society. concept that what the government does. stretches its tentacles into the private. sector and into civil society and into. media organizations so the and so the. blob really has its sort of central.
Locus within the diplomacy defense and. intelligence worlds so it's the state. department it's the Pentagon it's the. CIA and the IC and then sort of. spandrels out from there into all the. different political actors on both sides. of the aisle into all the different. universities and Nos and and Allied. media Institutions and it's. transatlantic it's it's the it's the. sort of conjoined foreign policy of the. US the UK and NATO and we have empowered.
this blob apparatus to be able to do. dirty tricks on the world stage to. protect national interests right so. since World War II ended and we set up. these this rules-based International. order we have needed a capacity to. influence the course of events in. foreign countries to make them more. suitable to us interests right in 1948. we had the UN Declaration on human. rights made every country a sovereign.
territory it was forbidden by. international law to do War by military. means you can just militarily I'm sorry. to do territorial acquisition in a. straight military conquest you can just. March into Canada take it over that. would be you know just as a purely. military you know Empire 1.0 type thing. that was done in you know from the. medieval period through the industrial. you know Revolution all the way up until. World War II we had this concept of.
democratic sovereignty so the lust for. Empire never ended after. 1948 we needed a new mechanism to. maintain Empire not by military means. but by political vassalage now this is. often supported by military means or or. it's accomplished at its outset by. military means often times we'll create. a predicate for military activity and. then we will set up our political vassal. State from there but what I'm driving at.
is I'm not anti blob and I want to make. this totally clear at the outset even. though the The Blob this foreign policy. establishment is the antagonist it's. sort of the villain in the internet. censorship. story it's we do. perhaps need it that is we can't make. pencils in the United States without. getting the gum from trees in Malaysia. without getting graphite from in South. America what happens if Malaysia.
nationalizes the gum trees or the unions. go on strike or or the national. government of Bolivia decides to to box. out us corporations well then Americans. don't have pencils so we have this. department of dirty tricks capacity. which spans this inter agency foreign. policy establishment to influence the. course of foreign events to support a. particular political leader to to change. or get past certain laws within foreign. countries and this is why it was often.
called in the 1950s 607s the department. of dirty tricks because we had this. ability to do things to foreigners to. foreign countries to foreign governments. that we that the constitution forbade. from doing to US citizens because it was. supposed to redound to our national. interest even if it's not a national. security threat if it if it supports US. national champions on the corporate side. or it it allows Americans to have cheap. cheap gas so they can afford middle.
class homes and middle class lifestyle. it's possible that our whole you know 20. 20th century magic of of the American. dream was only made possible because we. have this capacity through our foreign. policy establishment The Blob to do. these dirty tricks abroad the issue is. is with the Advent of. populism really starting in 2016 with. the events of the Philippines election. the in 2016 the events of brexit uh in. the events of Donald Trump's election.
followed in short succession by. bolsonaro in Brazil Mato savini in Italy. Marine Le Pen's rise in France the Vox. party's rise in Spain afd's rise in. Germany you had these foreign policy. establishment institutions who felt. threatened that the entire rules-based. International order would collapse. because everyone's pursuing their own. nationalism and so all of these. International entanglements these. International Financial relationships. these the this International influence.
over National events would all fall away. and it was only happening because of. free speech on the internet so they so. they brought to bear this very powerful. censorship apparatus really starting in. 2014 and it started with the military. and the and the intelligence and the. Diplomatic Corps this the these same. blob institutions created this. architecture initially to stop Russian. propaganda uh after Crimea in.
2014 NATO developed this Doctrine called. from tanks to tweets that NATO was no. longer primarily about tank warfare it. was about controlling tweets. because it tweets are how people get. elected and at the time NATO was saying. that the biggest threat to Nato was that. people would vote their way out of NATO. or would vote to not give funds for. Foreign Wars that was a bigger threat. than Russian aggression so what they did. is they said anyone who supports Russ r. or is NATO critical or is against the.
foreign policy establishment at the. domestic level is effectively operating. they're helping Russia and so even if. they're not doing Russian disinformation. we can still use our national security. Powers our national interest powers to. get them censored because they are. helping an adversary State and once that. apparatus was put in place they began to. apply to everything to covid to election. disinformation to climate disinformation. and and it grew to be this very all. powerful tool until you know as I.
mentioned two years ago the tide started. to turn uh both within the US government. through Congress and the US private. sector through new freedoms on Twitter. and and YouTube and the rise of I'm. sorry on Twitter and Facebook and even. the rise of of somewhat. robust anti uh YouTube alternative. ecosystem like Rumble so now they've. escalated that and they're putting. pressure on countries like Brazil and in. regions like the.
EU and all over 140 countries now we. have these counter disinformation. programs which are purely designed to. stop the rise of domestic populace who. might challenge the foreign policy. establishment how how many countries are. falling in line with this so far I mean. it's hard to give a rough rough estimate. um certainly all the countries in the. EU probably about half the countries in. Latin and South America. uh it's I don't have full V Vision into.
much of Africa I know that the. disinformation programs are there and. robust and they're crying for more. funding um but I would. say at least one to two dozen have. fallen under this another one or two. dozen they're frustrated by I'll give. you an example so thanks to US. Government funding many of. these spun out cut out civil Society. institutions who receive funding from.
the Pentagon or the National Science. Foundation the sort of DARPA civilian. arm or through the state department or. USA do these stakeholder conferences. where they will bring together their. Assets in the censorship industry in all. the different countries and a few months. ago they did a a public Zoom call that I. happened to capture where they talked. about how they brought together their. Brazil ecosystem and their Philippines. ecosystem and they were frustrated that. the that the folks in the Philippines.
were not willing to go as far as the. folks in Brazil in terms of the counter. disinformation laws they were lobbying. for the different techniques that they. were willing to apply but they brought. together you know these. multi-stakeholder players from a dozen. different countries censorship. ecosystems all back channeled. essentially through US Aid funding or. through a sort of University front where. they will you know literally get. everyone on the same page like a magnet.
so that they apply these censorship you. know best practices to stop the rise of. populist political candidates in their. region wow and this started in 2014 you. said 2014 is when it is when NATO began. this in Central and Eastern in Central. and Eastern Europe that was. really if you will the the sort of uh. Agent Zero that was sort of. the you know if if the was a sort of. Ebola outbreak that was sort of the lab.
in which it was incubated or the monkey. you know that first bit a human and this. was you know from their. perspective the state department USA the. military pumped $5 billion doll into. Ukrainian Civil Society to topple the. democratically elected government of. Ukraine in in 2014 this is Victor. yanukovich's government and I'm not even. weighing in normatively about whether. that's a good or a bad thing but the. plain fact is is we did over overthrow. that government which was democratically.
elected by the Ukrainian people we did. it through the same means that were done. on January 6 this was just a straightup. riot to take to the main Parliament. building square and overrun it through. violence and seize control over. government it's everything that was. accused of January 6 protesters but our. US Embassy did it Victoria nuland was. handing out cookies and water bottles to. the militias that the state department. and USA and all these different CI back. channels had been funding with billions.
of dollars but they were not expecting. what came next which was this counter. coup the entire Eastern side of the. country declared itself to be a. secessionist breakaway. State militarily back stop by Russia. Crimea voted in an independent. referendum to join the Russian. Federation and so the state department. the Pentagon NATO threw up their hands. and said we pumped $5 billion into. Ukraine and we couldn't budge anyone. living in the Eastern flank anyone in.
Crimea to side with our propaganda over. Russian propaganda and so we needed this. is this is part of the issue with. winning through propaganda at at a. certain point you can't it starts to. backfire you if you can only turn your. knob up so so much on your own. propaganda before people go uh that. hurts my ears I don't trust this so this. new tool had to be developed to turn. down the opposition so there's no way to. create a sort of robust political.
thought leadership uh to spread. narratives to circulate potentially. damning or humiliating diplomatic. incidents that can be exploited for. political purposes we needed a. censorship mechanism at the. technological level and we needed a. censorship ecosystem of of personnel who. could back Channel between the tech. companies and the blob you know the the. Diplomat diplomatic defense intelligence. apparatus and so these were both.
developed effectively in tandem in. 2014 the Pentagon was already working on. these AI censorship super weapons to. stop Isis you know this was a technique. called natural language processing which. is this ability to basically scan the. entire internet all tweets all Facebook. posts all YouTube videos because. everything we say on YouTube since 2019. or whatnot has gone into Clos captioning. at YouTube so there's a transcript well. the AI can read that transcript and can. scan for keywords and they can do.
sentiment analysis to to evaluate. through essentially AI pre- crime. analysis whether or not you support or. oppose the thing you're talking. about and or whether you're talking. about something that's sensitive from. NATO's perspective some Ukrainian. oligarch who's on you know CIA payroll. does something embarrassing in ukra and. you know. Russian Russian YouTube videos or. Facebook posts or tweets are amplifying. that well that can all be turned down so. that nobody knows about the story.
because the AI is now reading that they. developed that in the counterterrorism. space because if you recall beginning in. 2014 in the US there was this threat of. homegrown Isis threats there began to be. these terrorist attacks like the Garland. attack in uh in Texas you which turned. out to have its own quite peculiar. elements but there was this threat that. Americans may be being recruited on. Facebook and on on YouTube and on. Twitter by ISIS propagandists so we.
needed a technique to be able to scan. the internet for all pro-isis. phraseology you know the the terms they. use the prefixes the suffixes the the. slang the hashtags and so that began to. be coordinated out of our something. called a newly setup wing of the US. state department really its first ever. formal censorship subdivision it was. called the global engagement Center and. I bring this up because it plays into. the story later on here and this was set.
up by a guy named Rick stangle who was. the under under secretary for public. affairs you know bragged that he was. Obama's Chief propagandist it's. basically the interstitial between State. propaganda from the US state department. and the media and they began to use. these Technologies to scan and ban Isis. but then after the Crimea incident this. began to be all sort of Russian. propaganda but then anytime a populist. candidate began to win uh or gain. popularity in Europe they said Marine Le.
Pen is is advantaging Russia with the. plank she's running on she wants to get. rid of you know the US sanctions on. Russian energy so we can scan and ban. for all sentiment that supports Marine. Le Pen as well as any. US citizens who amplify uh you know. Marine Leen Marine Leen in the US and. give her political support there so. everyone get caught in the crossfire of. this you know effectively military. complex that that was bent on achieving.
its goals how is the how exactly are we. influencing all these other countries to. to jump on board with this a number of. means so do they know that we're. influencing. them well certainly the the connective. touch points certainly do because I'll. give you an example Brazil so Brazil has. this Tyrant judge demores right this is. the current war between Elon and this. you know the head of Brazil's censorship.
court it's called the tsse it's a subc. court of Brazil's Supreme Court the stf. and so a lot of people see the actions. of this one Tyrant judge who basically. has this ability to issue an edict and. then anything anything posted online. becomes instantly. criminal sitting parliamentarians in. Brazil call this the current president. Lula a thief and the judge says you're. not allowed to say that the person faces.
you know a criminal judgment for for you. know demeaning the current the current. uh president going after journalists. going after politicians going after. ordinary civilians by any edict but. there's a whole censorship substructure. to what demores is involved in there's. you know advisory councils there's. there's a whole Cod of flaggers who who. propose the things to be flagged who do. the technical work of the sort of AI. scanning who do the The Narrative.
Network mapping if they want to say. anyone who challenges the results of. Brazil's 2022 election well they need. these outside institutions to create. this whole narrative Network map well. these are USF funded and us back Channel. institutions who provide the entire. substructure to to the the the the head. the snake you know the the analogy that. I've been giving on this is It's a bra. it's a Brazilian spider but the. spiderweb was laid by the US state. department usaid the national down for.
democracy I can go through all their. roles and the fangs of it are Star. Spangled spangs this is the US trying to. take the US state department trying to. take out its political opposition in. Brazil they went to war with bolsonaro. they called him Trump of the tropics. they're waging the same campaign against. bolsonaro that they did through this. through their own intermediaries to take. out Trump during his term to censor him. him on the internet there and that. they're using to censor Trump today.
through their work with the EU they're. just doing that in Brazil to stop. bolsonaro this story goes back at least. six years to the US state Department's. involvement in censoring Brazil so. almost all bolsonaro supporters in the. runup to the 2018 Brazilian election. where uh were deemed to be populists by. the US State Department you populism. again is this watch word where this.
department of dirty tricks power that I. laid out all hinges on this word. democracy you know we have this concept. that democracy is you know this set of. democratic institutions and that if the. popular will opposes these Democratic. institutions we call that an attack on. Democracy because even if the People. Want it it still does it still violates. these safeguards that are held in place. this is how we say you know we don't let. another Adolf Hitler rise to power is. because we don't allow demagogues.
appealing to the masses to take. democracy outside of the bumper cars of. the bowling lane and so this is our sort. of special set of skills The Blob has if. we can't get them. on terrorism grounds or military grounds. this is part of how we wage the Cold War. you know communism even if a country was. minding its own business we said that. well it's a communist structure that's. depriving the people of their yearnings. from for democracy and so we get to play.
God we get to use our CIA and our state. department and our usaid and our. paramilitary back channels to do a top-. down military coup as we did in Brazil. in 1964 or a bottomup color Revolution. as we did in Ukraine 2014 and dozens of. other. countries but populism is the new. communism populism is the new. counterterrorism you've got only a few. months until the 202 before election. takes place and who knows where the.
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the ranks of the elite Americans who are. ready for what's. coming this is something I think that a. lot of conservatives who may be. listening really need to process because. this CIA State Department us Aid. military apparatus had the support of. the Republican Party throughout the. entire 20th century as it was toppling. left-wing socialist left-wing communist. governments it was not until Trump won. in 2016 or brexit four or five months.
before that and then the the rise around. the world of these right-wing. populist politicians from Ab in Japan to. Modi in India to bolsonaro in Brazil to. that whole you know European access I. laid out that stretches all the way from. France into the. baltics that there began this this flip. the CIA the state department they still. opposed leftwing socialism communism but. the biggest threat that they see is. right-wing populism. neoliberalism the blob's sort of you.
know Financial motto can be flanked from. either side from its left-wing socialist. flank or from its right-wing nationalist. flank and so this is why they went after. bolaro and tried to stop him from. winning in. 2018 bolsonaro supporters were censored. on Twitter Facebook YouTube all the. major platforms between 2017 and 2018 so. they started to take two end to end. encrypted chats in order to to. circumvent that censorship so that's.
WhatsApp and telegram are the main. players there and also for folks who are. familiar with this alternative social. media platform gab which was one of the. sort of early pre- parlor uh you know um. social media Alternatives one of their. first. early demographic bases other than. people in the US were Brazilians because. they they had nowhere to go because they. were censored because of all this. government pressure on them in bra brail. but they took to WhatsApp and Telegram.
and I did a report on this 2 and a half. years ago my my Foundation published it. about this strange web in 2018 that was. established funded to the tune of. millions of dollars jointly by three. government and quasi government agencies. the US state department us Aid and the. national down for democracy you know the. state department is for you know. formally sets you know US foreign policy. for for the region you have us Aid which. is supposed to be this independent. agency but it's essentially logistical.
support for the state department it's. sort of plausibly deniable support for. either the state department the Pentagon. or the CIA you know many times usaid has. been busted as a CIA front uh you and we. can go through that if you know if your. audience is curious it's a it's kind of. an incredible tale of of how much I'm. actually curious if you and your time um. either in the in the seales or as a. contractor ever ran into into USA as a. as a strange player in some of the some.
of the side stories but the fact is is. these institutions pump millions of. dollars into in in the US into Brazilian. institutions so they pump the money into. Brazilian University centers who do. thought leadership on countering. disinformation into legal scholars in. Brazil Who formulate policy and help. develop the legislative anti-. misinformation laws right anti-fake news. laws who who serve on the advisory.
councils who who essentially help make. this consensus decision about who should. be censored by the Brazilian tsse and. even many of the of the partnered. flaggers to actually Target who should. be censored in Brazil are US state. department and US Aid funded ins or us. or US national down for democracy funded. institutions like the Atlanta Council. for example which actually served. on the on as one of the trusted flaggers.
of the Brazilian tsse Court demores his. court has about 70 of these trusted. flaggers in his program and one of them. is the Atlanta Council the Atlanta. Council has seven CIA directors on its. board it receives annual funding every. year from the Army the Navy the Air. Force and the Marines annual funding. from the national down for democracy. which is a CIA cutout it receives. millions of dollars from us us taxpayers. it was also partnered with barisma by.
the way this this NATO Think Tank it has. seven CIA directors on its board and lo. and behold it is serving as the is the. Deputy arm of De mores in Brazil even. creating Network maps of of who to be. censored same thing with institutions. like the Wilson Center same thing with. institutions like the Carnegie Endowment. for International Peace which by the way. is the institution that was run from. 2014 to 2021 by a man named Bill Burns.
you may be familiar with that name Bill. Burns is the current director of the CIA. he left the Carnegie endowment to run. the. CIA and the Carnegie endowment is you. know has its fingerprints all over the. this Brazil censorship situation and it. gets worse than that we have formal. government programs now that that are. essentially coordinated quarterbacked by. the state department but are sort of uh. run at the operational level and funded. by by the state department us Aid and.
the national down for democracy which is. this CIA cut out you know basically. created in 1983 when our then CIA. director was complaining that the CIA. had lost too many Powers after the. church committee hearings in 1976 so we. needed to do CIA work through a non-ci. entity called the National Endowment for. democracy Hunter Biden was on the. Chairman's Advisory board by the way of. the DNC branch of that it's called the. ndi I which plays a major role in the. Brazil censorship situation they created.
this network called the D4 d4d designed. for democracy in Brazil where they. sprawled into a spiderweb dozens of. these highlevel. censorship thought leaders Advocates. activists legal Scholars again this is. back Chown by a CIA cutout in order to. to get these censorship laws passed and. provide this the political and media. support for them to take the. heavy-handed action that they did and. again just to put you know put a button.
on some of this cuz we can go a lot. deeper into this but if folks recall. just ahead of the 2022 election where. bolaro lost in a razor close nailbiter. uh you election very similar to our to. our own in the previous in the 2020. cycle all three all three wings of The. Blob the state department the CIA and. the Pentagon. all went down to Brazil to intermediate.
that election the state department. pulled strings to Taiwan semiconductor. to stop giving semiconductor supplies. stop prioritizing the United States and. give those supplies to Brazil so that so. that essentially Brazilian election. officials could use three to four times. more voting machines than they'd ever. used bolsonaro said I don't trust these. voting machines the state department had. just spent US taxpayer dollars. and deprioritized our access to. semiconductors during a semiconductor.
crisis shortfall to give it to a foreign. country so that they could have. electronic voting machines for their. election why is that in US national. interest why should truck drivers making. 50k a year have to pay their income tax. for electronic voting machines that the. Brazilians didn't even ask. for then Bill Burns the CIA director. went down and personally threatened. bolsonaro not to quote cast out on the. electronic voting machines that the. state department had just rammed down.
their throat and then Lloyd Austin the. head of the Pentagon went down to Brazil. to talk to the Brazilian military to say. if there's a disputed election result. don't you dare side with bolsonaro. because there will be military. repercussions much much of your. Brazilian military supplies and. infrastructure and training comes from. the US so that was just at the the. technical level of the election what I'm. describing is all the censorship that. went into that and that happened in the. aftermath as part of this transitional. Justice campaign to stop bolsonaro's. reemergence who who is the head of all. of this where's this all coming from.
well there's a there's a peculiar. government program that's called the now. again this is all intermediate through. the inter agency right so there's going. to be some National Security Council uh. vision for what to do in the Western. Hemisphere and what to do in Brazil in. particular because you have all these. different elements you have the Pentagon. elements you have the state department. elements you have the USA elements all. these are different permanent seats on. the National Security Council they need. to be coordinated through that NSE. process so technically I would say it's.
you know it's it's the NSE Western. Hemisphere folks. but to to make this sort of really. simple there's there's a formal. government program it's called the. Consortium for elections and political. process strengthening say that again the. Consortium for elections and political. process strengthening how nice how. quaint how understated and you know this. has been a a US government state. department program which is co-funded. and largely funded by us Aid in order to.
help foreign. countries develop more robust election. uh you know election. infrastructure and to make sure their. own internal political systems are. strengthened democratically which which. effectively means to to make sure. they're more of a vassel of the US state. department so that anything that happens. in that country's internal politics do. not under mind the state Department's. vision for the development of that. region now starting in 2021 seps the.
Consortium for elections and political. process strengthening began to really. really add this censorship. disinformation component to its. International diplomacy toolkit this. idea that where we previously said you. know democracy and political process. strengthening meant providing uh voice. to minority uh you know minority. factions in that country's government.
who uh were underrepresented by the will. of majority or protections for the Press. now of course all these things are quite. cynical oftentimes the state department. will be working with those you know. particular identity faction groups or it. will be funding you know usaid funded. Media or US Agency for Global. development funded media to influence. that so we make sure there are press. protections there are civil society. protections again all this is to protect. our own control over that country but. they began to to say that as part of. this political process strengthening you.
have to have robust counter. disinformation counter misinformation. measures in your country in order to be. in line with best practices for. democracy and so seps has this sprawling. Brazil program which coordinates with. the National Endowment for democracy you. know this ndi where Hunter Biden was the. Chairman's advisory committee this. design for democracy Coalition that I. just talking about all these different. University centers all these different. government funded uh uh media. uh ecosystem players all these different. fact Checkers all these different AI.
scan and Banners all these different. disinformation flaggers all these. different legal Scholars are all in this. umbrella Network under seps and this is. playing out as the as the house Foreign. Affairs committee has done absolutely. nothing they had just took out a US. national champion X the state. Department's job is to protect the. welfare of US citizen interests us Us. corporate interests and US national. interest in the region they just see.
starlinks assets that's a major. component of our military uh frankly in. terms of its interface with. telom they just banned our soft power. projection of X into the country but. that is because X is caught in a proxy. war between the state department and. bolsonaro you can bet if bolsonaro had. banned Twitter 1.0 because too many Lula. supporters were using Twitter and and. and were outflanking bolsonaro on on.
Twitter 1.0 in 2021 if he had banned X. how fast Brazil would have been kicked. off the dollar how fast International. sanctions blockades to their trade. supplies uh trade embargos private. sector retrenchment of Investments the. whole Litany of our department of dirty. tricks toolkit would have been crammed. down bolsonaro so fast if he had done. that. but that's because they wanted him to. lose they wanted Lula to win it's as.
simple as that what's happening in X as. in Brazil has really much less to do. with free speech as it has to do with. the state department and the. blobs designs for who needs to win that. election and they also need to do it. cheaply it's very expensive to. constantly manage each new election and. so they have this policy of transitional. Justice and stabiliz ation so that after. the state department overthrows a. country or runs tens of millions of.
dollars to to a political opposition and. they barely win an election we have this. new policy of transitional Justice where. we arrest all the opposition leaders. bolaro right now is under countless. indictments Just As Trump is here and. they censor all the all the forces. around that so they prevent the. mobilization and the coordinate. coordination of that party's Resurgence. they can't get their message out their. media is all banned and so that way it's. cheap to manage you might need to spend.
$50 million $100 million to rig it in. 2018 but in 2020 because after the. stabilization process plays out you. might only need 10 million because. they're pulling so low because all their. all their media is banned and all their. politicians are arrested this is a very. nasty. Playbook do you think the US is more. concerned with with with the censorship. of other countries at this particular. point in time that it is. on the US. itself no both both are happening in.
tandem we we're doing this with with. foreign countries in order to contort. the economics of the US platforms to. force them to put the pr-22 censorship. mechanisms back in place and so you know. I call this the the boomerang tactic. right there's two ways that the blob can. get you one is with a with a knife they. their foreign policy in institutions. State Department is not allowed to. operate at home CIA is not allowed to.
operate at home USA is not allowed to. operate at home the Pentagon is not. allowed to operate at home they are. intelligence their National Security. they're supposed to project outwards for. the benefit of US citizens but they can. knife you in a couple of ways for. example you can totally invert this. intelligence restriction on doing. intelligence work against your own. citizens simply by putting the word. counter in front of it you say it's. Counter Intelligence. this is what they did to Trump this is. the whole you know Peter stro the head.
of Counter Intelligence at the FBI and. all the indictments and and tens of. millions of dollars in legal fees that. that incurred is they say well we're not. allowed to you know we're not allowed to. go after you for what you say but if you. are connected to Russians or we think or. suspect you might be we can open a. counterintelligence probe into you so we. can spy on you just like the CIA spies. on foreign citizens just to see if. you're working with foreign spies. and there's several other of these sort.
of you know knife tactics where they can. get you directly at home but what the. the other weapon they have is they can. fashion a boomerang you Boomerang is a. toy but it's also a weapon you know you. can put the blade on it and you can send. it out and then bring it back and this. is what they're doing in in in all these. foreign countries to bring X to heal and. to put pressure on Facebook to make sure. they continue their their censorship. work which is that in order to because. we're restricted by the First Amendment.
here and there's only so much that you. can do politically there's only so much. leverage that you can actually apply. given the economics of the social media. ecosystem and this is why by the way. they started at this right away right. away after the 2016 election and I've. gone over some of these lectures in my. own subscriber lectures that I've done. where I've gone into these. 2017 consensus building uh meetings that. were being done in early 2017 about how. to stop Trump's uh how to how to kneecap.
Trump politically and stop him from. getting re-elected by changing the. economics of the news industry by making. sure that advertising Revenue can't flow. to unfiltered alternative news websites. and that Tech platforms are held. accountable for misinformation so that. they themselves get hit with billions of. dollars in boycotts or Advertiser. withdrawals or regulatory pressure or. crisis PR uh in order to ban Trump's.
representation in the US on social media. because their whole autopsy was that. Trump only won because of social media. he didn't get a single print media. endorsement you know he was he was you. know 97 to three disfavorable coverage. on TV but David Brock and Sher blue. published this January 2017 autopsy that. that they only lost the election because. of unfiltered alternative news on the. internet and so very quickly after that. you started to have these major blob. figures you know some of them um you.
know like one of the conferences I went. over was a conference that was held in. in in in. Bratislava was it was held in in. Slovakia at the at the Globs Global. Security conference and it involved. Michael cherof and a guy named you know. Christopher Walker um at the time wer. was at the national down for democracy. which is the CIA cutout and is currently. at at usaid which is CIA funding conduit. and state department funding conduit at.
and Michael chto is you know he was the. first head of DHS DHS was the first. government agency to establish this. censorship in infrastructure as I. mentioned at the start of this through. sisa and then the disinformation. governance board and they played the. quarterback of of what the state you. know everything from the state. department to the FBI to the Pentagon. there was this whole hole of government. whole of society thing that DHS. quarterbacked but you had the first. full-term head of DHS by the way Michael. chto was also the head of Freedom House. this major State Department sort of CIA.
Free Speech uh NGO which was doing I. think Noble work up until it switched to. censorship because it would try to pry. openen foreign countries so that us. funded Media or us supportive media. could could flourish there but Michael. chto was also the chairman of BAE. Systems the largest military contractor. in NATO this is a major major major note. of the military industrial complex. teamed up with the soft power arm of the. CIA and they bring into the room with.
them the heads of of public policy so. those censorship policies for Central. and Eastern Europe for from Google and. Facebook and they basically threaten. them in this you in so many words and. sort of veiled cloak terms uh. that that us effectively you know usaid. in the National down for democracy and. DHS in the military complex and this is. the pedigree they're bring to this that. these companies better start censoring. unfiltered alternative news that was the.
literal descriptor they used because it. was giving rise to populism both in the. US with Donald Trump in the UK with. brexit and with the rise of right-wing. populist parties in Western Europe and. most especially at the time in Eastern. Europe where NATO feared that everything. from Ukraine to Georgia to malova to. lvia Lithuania Estonia were all falling. under Russian influence and Russia was. secretly or not secretly you know. supporting or it redounded to their. interest to have these populist parties.
rise to power who didn't want to give. the money to Nato or who wanted to have. cheap energy from Russian gas instead of. expensive LG from North America and so. you have this US Government plot right. out the gate explicitly to contort the. economics of the American News ecosystem. to make it inhospitable to make it. bankrupting to the bottom line for. Facebook not to play ball for Twitter. 1.0 not to play ball for YouTube not to. play ball lest the full force of the US.
government either directly or through. these Cloak and Dagger back channels. that they represented would would make. it economically impossible for them to. avoid falling under the government boot. heel and lo and behold in 2019 Mark. Zuckerberg tried to reverse a lot of. this he was Facebook did a lot of. censorship in 2018 and. 2019 uh 201 2017 2018 in 2019 mark socer. starts giving public speeches that he. thought censorship on Facebook was going.
too far but then he got hit with a $60. billion Advertiser boycott that is. Facebook lost $60 billion in market cap. in 48 hours from this boycott so then he. folded like a lawn chair and gave them. everything they wanted that was five. years before his letter just weeks ago. uh to Chairman Jordan that he regretted. folding to government pressure that's. how long he had misgivings about. this real quick how was the so how is. the government controlling the ad spent. the advertisers well part of this is.
known and part of this can be the full. answer can be easily obtained by our. representatives in Congress I'll give. you one example. this in in 20121 I believe it it's. February 2021 about a month into Biden's. term I mean literally brand new you know. seat barely warm at at the at the at the. state department USA desks there USA put. out this 97 page disinformation primer. about how to coordinate their whole of.
society counter disinformation assets. their their censorship tentacles into. into the whole of society again the. government tentacles into their private. into the the tech platform Personnel the. their tentacles into the Civil Society. organizations their tentacles into the. media and 31 times in this 97 page. document they site advertisers an. external engagement to advertising. companies in Advertiser you know Revenue. spend uh pools and advertising exchanges.
in order to cut off the money flow to. social media platforms and independent. websites who don't take the counter the. the best practices counter. disinformation uh you know codes that. they lay out so you have a now that was. obtained through a through a a lawsuit. from America First legal but that's. that's a formal US government program. dedicated to killing news websites to.
killing their Advertiser revenue and. it's all there in black and white that. you have the US government contorting. the private sector flow of dollars. between independent arms length parties. news websites and Tech platforms and. advertisers and by the way all these. advertisers are almost whol dep I. shouldn't say wholly dependent but they. are hugely dependent on US Government. cont. contracts four of the how so well take.
for example uh you know there there are. four major. advertising uh agency conglomerates. these are places like. publes and um you know omnicron. and and they all have billions of. dollars in government contracts for for. their for their advertising spend uh. that is so one of them has a $4 billion. Pentagon contract to do all the. different advertising spend you know for. US Army recruiting they have they have.
billions of dollars in contracts for HHS. you know to do to to do the government. they have billions of dollars in. programming for you know Department of. Education if they don't play ball with. the government demands on on one side of. government they can potentially lose to. a competitor advertising agency for. those contracts and we know that these. agencies are concerned about this. because and thank thank Jim Jordan for. this Jim Jordan a few months ago got the. the Facebook files the sort of Congress.
subpoenaed equivalent of the Twitter. files that Elon Musk you know disclosed. beginning in 2022 and in the Facebook. files Nick C who is the head of public. policy at Facebook his internal. Communications with the lieutenants at. at uh at Facebook were concerned about. these Biden Administration demands to. censor all Facebook speech about Co or. orins or Co Orthodoxy or or Co you know. uh roll out you know enforcement roll.
out and Nick Cay the head of the head of. censorship policy he is telling his. censorship policy team listen I know we. don't want to do this I know it's ugly. but we need to be receptive we need to. think creatively about ways to be. receptive to the Biden Administration. censorship pressure here because we have. bigger fish to fry with the Biden. Administration on multiple policy. fronts meaning and you know I mentioned. this is because they need the state they. need the state department I got these.
calls when I was when I was running the. Cyber desk at State I got a call one day. from nine Google lobbyists who who told. me all nine of them on a call with me. telling me that the the the EU digital. Service Act and digital markets Act is. the number one existential threat to. Google's business model over the next 5. years and so to represent US national. interest the state department should. consider you know reformulating us. negoti in posture or policy asks to our. EU counterparts in order to protect.
Google's business model this happens in. every region all over the world and it. is Mission critical again Google said. that was the number one existential. threat to their business model and they. needed Big Daddy governments help to. protect them so Facebook is is quelling. the internal Rebellion about losing. sovereignty of their own free speech. policies to the US government despite. our first amendment and and the head of. the of the team is telling telling them. listen we got to do it because we need. their help on multiple policy fronts.
that have nothing to do with covid and. and those are bigger fish to fry so we. will censor this in order to get that. now I don't have for example the. USA uh you know Communications they. actually attach as an appendix in this. in this primer examples of external. engagement to the advertising. companies we don't have that as a public. document hey Jim Jordan if you're. listening hey James comr at oversight if. you're listening hey house Foreign.
Affairs committee who oversees usaid if. you're listening representative Michael. McCall get those documents subpoena them. bring these people in for transcribed. interviews hold hearings the American. people have a right to know about how. their own news is being controlled by. their own F by their own US federal. government despite what we are supposed. to be told is the protection of the. first Amendment do these Representatives. know this is all. happening certainly some of them know.
some of it who knows what well there. have been I think about three hearings. in house weaponization on on. government's role and censorship there. have been I believe two or so hearings. in house oversight there have been two. or three hearings in house Homeland. Security those are all domestic facing. those are about what DHS is doing on. censorship what FBI is doing on. censorship to some extent what the. National Science Foundation is doing on. censorship because that's a Maj major.
funding artery of of this but no one has. yet touched the state department or. usaid or the National Endowment for. democracy or this censorship mercenary. Army of soft power NOS are swarm Army of. The Blob in order to influence the. course of domestic politics in foreign. countries doing it to our own all right. M you're going a little too fast for me. to comprehend I want to go back to the. the advertisers the advertising agencies.
I believe you said there's about four of. them. mhm and so I do I understand Government. Contracting so they own they they they. bid on the government contract to to. advertise for the Army or the Navy or or. whoever whatever. recruiting what about all the other. advertisers that are in there what kind. of advertisers are we talking are we. talking about major corporations like. Walmart Home Depot Lowe's like these. kind of advertisers well it's unclear.
the extent to which individual. advertisers are backchanneling or are or. are behold because these are these are. things for the house Foreign Affairs. committee to turn up what we know is. that many of these Blue Chip. corporations play a significant part in. in the private sector quadrant of the. whole of society so again getting back. to this whole of society frame that's. not my framework by the way that is the. US federal government framework I two. years ago I posted everyone can see this.
on my X account it's Mike Ben cyber. simply Run a search for my name in the. phrase whole society I did like a two. and a half minute super cut of just. government officials citing the whole. society Doctrine sometimes they cite it. so often they apologize at the. conference because everyone's so sick of. hearing this but what it means is. government private sector civil society. and media so they get private sector. Partners to help the government. censorship goal they get you know the. universities to help the sensorship go. and so for example you so all these.
advertisers are on board with what's. happening cuz my question is my question. is is the pool of of how do I how do I. frame this as the pool of content or. whatever you want to call it platforms. content voices that they can advertise. on it it it just gets smaller and. smaller and smaller correct and so you. would think that some of these private.
sector advertisers like. like like some of the companies that I. just called out would. be they got to be tired of this. because they're losing places to. advertise well well this is yes well. this is one of the open questions is how. many of these are willing participants. and enthusiastic how many are completely. against it and only doing it because. they feel economically beholden and how. many are sort of neutral and don't know. but I'll give you some examples to sort.
of fill in the gaps here so the state. department works with these entities. like the global disinformation index who. folks may have heard of you know which. basically does you know ratings of all. the different Independent News sites and. gets them blacklisted from the. advertisers newsguard is a major player. in the space newsguard you know. developed this you know news nutrition. labels to sort of do for uh do for. websites what nutrition labels on milk. cartons do you know they give you the.
breakdown of how much fat and carbs and. protein is and they they they said that. they set themselves up to do news. nutrition labels for uh for for new food. nutrition labels for news so that. advertisers would be able to have uh a. sense of How High information Integrity. this news site was and if it was a. misinformation website or a. misinformation social media account so. that and they and they announced this. before they even launched their first. commercial product is that the intent of.
this was to deprive advertising Revenue. they literally created a for-profit. censorship product of vast. databases over 10,000 websites might. even be 20,000 at this point websites. all ranked by whether or not they are Mi. misinformation or not and you can guess. where that falls literally spin the. globe and I can tell you who in that. which country's media you know is is. going to be have a low you know a low.
rating by news guards simply by who the. state department wins the election. literally run a Google search for threat. to democracy you know uh with the name. Bolivia Denmark you name it and you can. you can see who will be who will be. censored and. newsguard its whole business model is. selling censorship Whit list labels to. the advertising conglomerates to stop ad. izing revenue from flowing to websites. like Breitbart or oan or you know or any.
number of prot trump websites here in. the US or Pro brexit websites in the UK. or Pro Vox party websites in Spain or. Pro Matteo salvini websites in Italy you. can the afd party what you can go. through the list it is as predictable as. a clock now but who's who's on newsg. guards Board of advisers let me give you. a list General Michael V Hayden former. head of the CIA former head of the NSA. former fourstar General Anders fog.
Rasmus the former head of NATO from 2009. until Crimea in 2014 during the Obama. Administration Rick stangle the guy who. founded the global engagement Center at. the state department that I just that I. just uh you know mentioned earlier this. this beig this start of the censorship. spider web at the state department and. Tom Ridge the former head of DHS so on. the board of advisers of of this key. Institution who is get who is doing the. the white label censorship database to. so that advertisers can't provide.
advertising Revenue to to you or to. anyone who who they Dain you know. effectively a. populist it's being back chandel by the. head of the CIA the head of the NSA. fourstar General the head of NATO the. head of DHS and the head of the state. department censorship uh web back in the. day we used to call this operation. Mockingbird and by the way a few years. ago they got a 750 Pentagon Grant now. nominally that was for foreign facing. work but they're Pentagon.
contractor they have the apex predators. of the CIA the NSA the state department. DHS and NATO itself and they are. determining whether or not Breitbart or. Gateway pundit can. get can get access to a arms length. independent transaction with a random. Advertiser but again if you understand. it through the lens of The Blob and. again just go back to what I just said. about 2017 when representatives from.
usaid National down for democracy. DHS uh NATO military contractors were. all lining this up and saying this has. to be done to preserve the liberal. rules-based International order because. if populists rise in the in in the EU. we're going to have brexit's going to. give rise to fit and greit and it'll. exit and spit so the EU is going to come. undone so NATO is going to come undone. and as I've said it's they described it. like if unless this CIA Pentagon State.
Department back channeled sprawling. censorship apparatuses set up it would. be like the ending scene in Fight Club. where the credit card companies all come. come crashing down and everything's. reset to zero because none of the. international institutions are supported. by any of the countries who are formerly. a party to it how far along are we. here we're in the late adolescence stage. when I started crying about this in late. 2016 early 2017 it was the ba it was the.
infant stage and there were things that. could have been done now to stop this. that would prevent it from having taken. the maturity that it did and it grew. from that infant stage into this. sprawling Network as it became funded by. the Pentagon as it became funded more. and more by NATO and by the state. department and USA and by all the. different domestic government agencies. and it and it grew to this adolescent. size and now it's getting push back you.
know there's there's a little bit of a. rested development domestically right. now since Elon acquired it since there's. been Congressional pressure since. there's been civil legal legal pressure. and since there's been media pressure. with more and more people being educated. about some of these drivers but uh as I. said they have these they're trying to. Usher it along to full maturity by going. beyond the four bounds of the. continental United States they are now. bringing in their Global pressure.
ecosystem in order to stop these global. social media platforms from being able. to operate internationally unless they. bend the knee Give an example this EU. Digital Services act which NATO has been. the main thought leader behind um. because NATO thought the biggest threat. to Nato was the wrong people winning. elections within NATO countries and so. they pushed the EU to pass this through. they have. this they have this sort of uh Safe.
Harbor if you will to get out of the. existential punishment to X and Facebook. and YouTube and Tik Tok and and all any. social large social media platform that. operates there because the punishment is. if you do not go through with our. stipulated disinformation. compliance you either are forced out of. the EU we will ban your app from the you. know from from the people won't be able. to use it there or you have to pay 6% of.
your Global Revenue to the to the global. global Revenue Global Revenue yes now. you know most S&P companies don't. operate at a 6% profit you can imagine. what a what a you know or barely operate. at that uh so you can imagine what a 6%. tax on global revenue does you it's. bankrupting mhm and so you either have. to pay the the bankruptcy the fee that. bankrupts you or you have to do. disinformation compliance well how what.
does the disinformation compliance. component look like well one of the safe. harbors is by providing essentially. delegating it to these independent. experts independent researchers uh you. know who are all counter disinformation. experts and. academics I probably don't need to tell. you if folks have been following you. know to this point um who those people. are and who they are connected to and. whose interest they represent this is. why you see so many CIA analysts when.
they leave the agency there's now a. brand new career track for them you know. they used to go on to be University. professors or maybe they'd you know. um let's go through for the people that. haven't been following well this field. of of counter of disinformation studies. is what what they call it because the. main point that I'm driving at here is. Elon Fire. you know everyone said Elon you fired. 85% of the company how is it still.
working just as well in fact even better. than it worked How can any major company. fire 85% of its Workforce and actually. do better than it was doing before let. alone not suffer any sub set setbacks or. hiccups well the answer is because so. much of the ranks of Twitter 1.0 were. all of these back channels all these. trust and safety filter mechanisms all. these different touch points to all. these different stakeholder interests. for influencing the algorithm and it. turns out if you're just a free speech.
company you don't need them but the. problem is is and in their own words and. my Foundation ffo you know published a. huge report on this a few months ago. where five of the major censorship. industry insiders were all on a zoom. call and they they complained that when. E when Elon took over X and then. Zuckerberg filed to some extent with. some of the changes he made at Facebook. and and IG that they lost the. relationships it took years for them to. develop they lost the hooks into those. companies to make sure that this.
narrative about mail and ballots get. censored this narrative about covid gets. censored this narrative about climate. gets censored this narrative about the. Ukraine war gets censored Personnel is. policy whatever the your you know a. social media company says its policy is. it it doesn't matter if they don't have. the Personnel to enforce it in even the. policies themselves are set by the. personnel and so this is why you see so. many former CIA you know uh agents or.
analysts in the ranks of the of these. content moderation things because part. of what the CIA does is counter. disinformation part of what the Special. Forces why you see so many you know. former military people or former State. Department people is controlling the. information environment and again that. used to be primarily through propaganda. turning up the knob but since this El. Dorado Gold Mine of soft power influence. through censorship as opened up to the. IC and to the state department to the.
military this is now you know where the. game is because you win by default you. don't need to you don't need to worry. about whether you win or lose because. the other side can't even can't even. print a media story let alone get a. million people to see it so this is why. you have folks like you know Aaron. Burman at Facebook you know huge ciig. this is why you have you know so much. this all across it's and you know even. all the way down to Reddit you have the. the content moderation teams being run.
by Atlanta Council people which again. seven CIA directors on its board dhs's. disinformation Flagger for both uh uh. the 2020 election and co9 was was the. Atlantic Council one of these core four. the Atlantic Council again with seven. CIA directors and annual funding from. the state department Pentagon Graphica. is a huge player in this space was also. partnered with DHS $7 million in in. Pentagon funding is actually incubated. in the manura initiative which is the. psychological operations research center.
of the Pentagon so you have this whole. back channel that took years between. 2016 2014 2016 and 2022 for the Pentagon. for the CIA for the state department to. all get in place so that the right. people could be trusted to to censor the. right narratives or to adjust the. algorithm in the right way and bit by. bit in the past 18 months they have been. losing all that but the EU is their is. their savior here and this is why again.
I my Foundation published this several. months ago they said they'd be they'd be. in full-blown panic um for for what's. happening right now between Congress and. the legal pressure and Elon Musk but. they can Panic responsibly because they. have a trick up their sleeve which is. that the EU Digital Services act will. force the restaffing of those fired. Representatives it will make sure that. the back Channel stays in place unless. the whole company gets bankrupted and. shut down and this is what they're doing. in Brazil the state department the CIA.
the Pentagon they don't want to kill X. this is not like Wikileaks they don't. want to just shut down the. operation Twitter X is an essential. instrument of us statecraft for US. Government us Aid US state department. funded proxy groups or political groups. to mobilize across the world but they. need to destabilize it because Elon is. not playing ball they need to. existentially threaten its business. model they need to balkanize the world. and so it loses its its place as this.
you know world you know multinational. company it gets confined to the tiny. Island that stretches between California. and Florida whereas all the other. platforms are international who play. ball so they lose market share and the. whole thing goes into crisis the whole. thing goes into. bankruptcy Elon is a triple- digigit. billionaire at least for now and so he's. been able to sustain more VIs ites than. Mark Zuckerberg who folded as soon as. the first $60 billion Advertiser boycott. hit him but they are doing this death by.
a th000 paper cuts this same. destabilization strategy they do when. they want to financially bankrupt a. authoritarian government while pumping. up the assets that will take its place. so they want to corporate regime change. musk they want to regionalize the. conflict by going after starlink assets. in Brazil and potentially going after. Tesla assets in Germany I would not be. surprised if something like that comes. next until elon's will is broken or.
until they can regime change him and put. someone else in the platform and then. just like that the advertisers will come. rushing back Brazil will let X back into. the country the EU will stop sending. threatening nasty grams because the back. channel will have been reestablished and. all is well now in the world of The. Blob how are the people of Brazil. reacting to this. well. um I think that much much of this still.
needs to be articulated you know I have. had some reticence about publishing some. of of this and doing a the some of the. video details with the technical with. the technical information. because you know there's about this this. is something that the house Foreign. Affairs committee should be taking lead. on and I've been trying to popular. popularize this drop as as much as I can. without sort of showing everything. because I'm afraid that I mean imagine.
if the FBI announced 6 months before. they you know seiz someone's electronic. devices whose devices they were going to. seize I have had this happen multiple. times where DHS and the National Science. Foundation will delete evidence they'll. take down videos now I archived all of. it. but this is something that should be. Pride open by house Foreign Affairs and. there's a process I think right now and. could be weaponization it could be any. number of members of Congress this is. really something Congress needs to take. the lead on and so I have been you know.
I flash these Network maps all over. social media I have been describing it. in general terms I've been naming these. agencies uh and I've been sort of hoping. that this would be popularized through. that but I think to date a lot of people. in Brazil don't know that this is. happening because the the media and the. legal and the. Congressional investigation has not yet. been robust but I believe that that will. change in the month after this episode.
airs have you been have you been in. touch with the house of Foreign Affairs. committee I have not do you need contact. I've been hoping I you know I mentioned. Elizabeth baggley the US ambassador to. Brazil on the Tucker Carlson interview. that I did and I did 200 tweets naming. the US Embassy in Brazil and all this as. it's breaking out but this should not be. on the civilian class to carry this. torch the house Foreign Affairs. committee the house intelligence.
committee frankly needs to understand. this because this is soft power you know. a lot of this is State Department USA. but I have no doubt I don't have a. security clearance I can't prove this. but I I know the CIA cutout Outlets who. are all doing this and I know that they. have perview to to coordinate with the. IC but a lot of this is control over the. information environment is you know it. is this counter disinformation work that. is bread and butter of the CIA house.
intelligence should should have ongoing. investigations into the role of of this. blowback on American free speech on. American platforms House Appropriations. needs to get involved the fact is is the. censorship industry would be shut down. in a day if the the the hundreds of. millions of dollars in Government. funding subsidizing this the government. funding from the Pentagon the government. funding from the National Science. Foundation the government funding from. DHS the government funding from the. justice department the government. funding from the state department the.
government funding from. usaid and about a dozen others. collectively are providing hundreds of. millions of dollars to subsidize a. censorship mercenary Army and if you. don't have those mercenaries you don't. have those operations which means you. don't have that censorship the American. people are subsidizing their silence and. this goes away the moment. our Congress under or or a or a court. should should the Supreme Court case go.
up and all this is adequate adequately. explained to nine. justices that so much of what we're. seeing is really not ideological it's. it's just it's operational and it's. operated through money because since. this is why I always call it the. censorship industry it is a censorship. industrial complex that's true and you. can understand it as such or just call. it the whole of society the whole. society counter disinformation the whole. society censorship framework but more. than emphasizing the complex side of it.
I emphasize the industry side of. it before 2016 you could not get a. full-time job getting paid hundreds of. thousands of dollars to censor what. other people say on the. internet the content moderation jobs. were about getting rid of spam and child. porn and a little bit of compliance for. other countries that had like hate. speech laws. but it has become an industry it has. become a career track and it is. supplanting other career tracks that.
used to be soft power influence jobs if. you wanted to work you know at the the. heart of the action a generation ago. you'd go to Georgetown and you would. study political science uh political. scci science or international relations. and you'd get on job on the hill and. you'd work your way up through NOS or. Civil Society institutions or uh or you. you know tag your star to a a member of. the house or the Senate and you'd. quietly work your way up the ladder.
until 10 so 10 years later you're in the. action well with this new advent of. disinformation studies and it's folded. under so many different programs it'll. make your head spin the communications. departments have this the Applied. Physics departments have this for the AI. censorship soft software component the. sociology uh departments have this the. psychology departments have this the. computer science partner uh programs at. universities have this the Linguistics. uh programs have this this broad field. of disinformation studies is now an.
advanced track golden ticket to be at. the heart of the action in terms of high. level high impact foreign policy blob. positions because it doesn't just put. you at the heart of Washington and in. its own secular interest it puts you. right at the heart of a big government. big big business and big Tech big Tech. is a is surpassed Big Oil a DE ago in. terms of the most moneyed lobbying. interests in Washington Google is the. largest lobbying firm the the the.
wealthiest companies in the world are. all what Trump called magga something I. had to fight against when I was in the. in the Trump White House I'm saying. these they're they're they're censoring. the people who voted for this government. how can this government continue to. support these private sector companies. with all these contracts and and uh you. know just no accountability well at the. time Trump was calling and I'm not. knocking this just this could have just. been not knowing what's going on but.
magga was Microsoft Apple Google and. Amazon because that was driving the. stock market that was a lot of what. Trump I think was re-electing on I don't. know I just sort of saying this from the. outside that I suspect maybe that was. one of the reasons there was less. pressure on them but the fact is is you. get fast tracked right at the heart of. this right at the heart of the Pentagon. the state department the CIA the you. know the Washington DC Beltway Insider. and Google and and Facebook you know.
which number five or seven by market cap. and and YouTube second most traffic. website on the on the entire internet. and Twitter and Amazon and twitch and. you get FastTrack right at the Harvest. so so this is now something that is a. career track and you invest your career. in it which means it's you need you want. it to be an expanding pie you want more. and more power to dis counter. disinformation work more and more. funding because hey how are you going to.
afford a mortgage that you want to. advocate for more funding you want to. advocate for more delegated U delegated. functions of these outside Civil Society. institutions you want to advocate for. more of these CIA cutouts and state. department granes and and and Pentagon. contractors to encounter disinformation. work to do it you hitch your star to the. future of the field and so a message has. to be sent now it had should have been. sent 6 or seven years ago because if.
this field reaches full maturity it will. become a lobbying arm as powerful as the. military-industrial complex itself where. you need war or else how are you going. to afford private. school. wow if. you have you had any Headway on this in. Congress yes yes on on on many aspects. of it who's helping you well who are the. good guys you know what I would say. is places like house weaponization and.
house oversight and house Homeland. Security have have done very good honest. efforts within their own secular foms. about. abuses uh you know abuses from DHS or. the National Science found Foundation or. whatnot they've done now weaponization. is a very very Noble committee you know. it was it was set up to I I from what.
I've heard is sort of a church committee. 2.0 you know abuses by the government. but you know that was the church. Committee in 1975 1976 went after the. CIA the FBI the NSA and the IRS those. are the four main but it was you know. was. mostly set up because the CIA was busted. doing things like infiltrating left-wing. student movements to stop the domestic. anti-war movement that's exactly what's. happening right now on the other side of. the political aisle it was left-wing.
populists who the CIA and the Pentagon. and the state department wanted to quell. because they were undermining Vietnam. War funding they were changing the minds. of Representatives who were who were. getting skittish on the Vietnam War and. so in order to avoid losing the. political domain of of War we subverted. our you know are those political. populist factions from the left wi who. undermined that war effort and now this. is Just Happening from the other side of. the equation you know it's not political. if I mean you can bet if you know if if.
Donald Trump gave him everything they. wanted on foreign policy how quickly so. much of this would dry up you know it's. and this is why I think for example. Ronda santis does not get tarred with. the same the same IC Pentagon you know. dirty Diplomat fervor that Donald Trump. does because even though Miranda Sanz he. goes harder than Trump in many ways on. certain domestic leftwing issues you. know going after wokeness and Dei and. all these sort of somewhat partisan. issues he his foreign policy Vision as.
he's articulated is much more in line. with The Blob so so it really does come. down to that but this is where I'm. getting at with weaponization has its. hands somewhat full I think with. everything it's taking on with the. justice department which by the way. there's this whole justice department. element to this blob activity if we time. for Kentuck touch on but what I'm. getting at is you know weaponization is. taking on you know everything from you.
know this ongoing covid inquiry to. abuses by the FBI to abuses by the. justice department to abuses by a. different dozen different government. agencies and they all have to be. educated on on the layout the. constellation architecture of the the. dark heart of it all which is the. foreign policy establishment so this is. really something that we should have had. a dedicated committee on six years ago. but the issue is is. you know it's I I do think that there. could be an element of capture here if.
you've seen the movie Big Short you're. familiar with that scene where uh you. know the person is talking at the pool. to someone from Moody's or S SMP you. know the bond rating agencies and the. person's saying hey have you looked at. these AAA ratings being given by the. banks on these mortgage back Securities. and the person who's supposed to who's. tasked with oversight and accountability. I guess at the SEC uh of those of those. debt instruments is saying uh we don't. really look at those anymore actually. I'm floating my resume to uh you know to.
these Banks and the person says. shouldn't this be illegal you're. supposed to be oversight and. accountability of the. banks uh so it's sort of are you rubber. stamping these garbage mortgage mortgage. back Securities and giving them a. perfect AAA rating because your own. financial future is hitched to the star. of this financial. Network I have concerns about that. relationship between the people who are. supposed to be overseeing the blob and. the people who are funded by The Blob.
and who are invited to the blob cocktail. parties and who do their Aspen Ski. Retreats with fellow blob compatriots I. understand it is a delicate delicate. tango dance because what you're talking. about is something that has potential. huge diplomatic blowback so much of us. diplomacy hinges on Free Speech because. this is our cudle to pry other countries. countries open with this is our open. Society Doctrine one of the reasons that. George Soros and the open Society.
Foundation is such an active and an. effective co-sponsor of state department. or USA activity this notion of open. Society is what allows our our US. national interests to penetrate the. region and influence the internal. politics and I'm I'm not even say I. don't there's different schools of. thought on that I'm not weighing in on. whether that's good or bad I want free. speech on the internet and I and I want. Americans to be able to determine our. own elections and our own social and. cultural and political discourse and I.
don't want to be caught in a proxy war. any longer between this foreign facing. Department of dirty tricks and our. domestic speech at home but what what. I'm getting at here is I think what. needs to be offered to to people who who. are who mean well on both sides of the. political aisle I'm not just talking. about Republicans although they happen. to be predominantly the ones who have. taken this issue up. is you have to be able to articulate a. firewall between the capacity to do this.
in other countries and it's blowback on. American citizens here and in American. platforms that are used internationally. because I don't think you can get the. political will to do heavy surgery to. this at least in the beginning because. we have this Moody's. S&P Goldman Sachs problem where the. people people who are tasked with. accountability and oversight are all in. good standing with these institutions. they don't want to embarrass their.
friends they don't want to cause a. diplomatic incident that prevents us. from you know overthrowing a dictator in. bellus or or you know stopping. infringements on women's rights in Iran. or Afghanistan I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to have the elephant. trample you know the whole you know the. whole wheat field here yeah um but this. specific network has to be stopped this. specific aspect I mean isn't propaganda.
enough what really changed in. 2016 brexit happened Trump won the. election did what else called for such a. dramatic change in our diplomatic. toolkit to tack on censorship as an. entire subfield of democracy promotion. that can be taken out now without too. much structural damage to our soft power.
work that's not going to dramatically. undercut for the time being what special. forces is doing dramatically undercut. you know what voice of America is doing. or you know or or internews or any of. these other giant spiderwebs of us. propaganda but it is getting to that. point as these censorship institutions. develop the the tree roote of of. linkages with all the different. University centers we have over 60 us. University centers getting hundred.
million from from the US Government. funding their disinformation studies. programs so already this tree route is. vast you cut off the National Science. Foundation funding 60 universities are. going to have people saying oh my God. what am I going to do about my mortgage. oh my God what about my uh you know what. about my college fund for my kids I've. hitched my career to this. and and it's and it's tied into our. computer science program and our Applied. Physics program and our Communications. and our sociology programs and this is.
going to make it difficult for judges to. want to rule in favor of the First. Amendment because they're going to be. peripherally aware of the collateral. damage they're doing economically I saw. this again when I was at State and I. remember seeing a stakeholder memo. arguing at the time Trump was you know. not even really peripherally aware of. all this censorship in industry. ecosystem but he was aware of censorship. generally and he was trying to pass. through reforms to section 230 if you.
remember this this is this liability. Safe Harbor for for Tech platforms where. if you are a neutral platform instead of. a publisher like the New York Times. you're not subject to defamation or. liable lawsuits so you're not. responsible for what every person does. you know basically the thing that pav. durov the telegram founder got arrested. for you they said he's he's liable for. everything thing on the platform this. section 230 protection has protected. Facebook and YouTube It's what allows us. to have social media and Trump was uh.
trying to get changes done through that. you know he would do these all caps. tweets repeal section 230 and I remember. seeing a stakeholder memo arguing that. there were about 100,000 jobs in content. moderation at that time in 2020 um in in. the content moderation space and the. economic impact of repealing section 230. or doing dramatic changes to uh you know. to the content moderation industry.
ecosystem would be like shutting down a. coal mine in West Virginia you know even. even if you're trying to switch to Green. energy look what you're going to do to. Appalachia that's the argument they were. making in 2020 four years ago about the. censorship industry so it's a lot worse. now and and so it but you have to Sunset. these programs fine you want to pass. something that say all right it's. already so vast we already have so many. inprocess regulation okay you got 18. months find a new career in 18 months.
we're phasing it out there's any number. of solutions that can be pitched but. this education process has to start and. I'm I'm grateful to being able to talk. to you and your audience to help advance. that because this is going to take a. long time for those interest to all be. represented within the the Republican. Party within the wing the elements of. the Democrat Party that are that are. amenable to this I think Robert F. Kennedy and the Democrat faction he. represents is is very much on board with. this but they all are going to have you.
know one faction is going to say well. listen my donors are primarily coming. from military contractors and you know. we love our military we do we don't want. the military to be hand handcuffed. because the counter disinformation work. it does there is essential to shaping. the information environment okay so. there might be some concessions you need. to make there around the sunset period. or the funding or the firew walls the. state department the the IC the the the. private sector companies are all going. to have their own stakeholder input but.
these these talks the Strategic. imperative has to. be airtight agreed to in in the process. that may take months or you know a year. and a half or something for it to. finally you know get ironed out because. this because it's it's everywhere Now. The Roots are in all these government. agencies all these Civil Society. institutions so it's it's a huge task. that we have before us but if I can. offer a sort of white pill a sort of. good news on this is I remember so.
vividly in early 2017 when this tone. that I have now is the tone that they. had when they set this up when you had. these USA administrators and these. National Endowment for democracy folks. and these major NATO military. contractors and these us ambassadors and. all their private sector and Financial. stakeholders all in room saying how are. we going to how are we going to put this. censorship apparatus in place what we're. up against is so big these tech.
companies are so powerful they're you. know they're practically their own. private Empire they have this culture of. free speech you know they have this. culture of libertarianism we're helpless. and you would have the US you know these. us ambassadors talking to people in. Greece and in Spain and in Germany and. these German regulators and these GRE. Regulators are saying Google's bigger. than us we can't stop and the US. ambassadors are reassuring them to say. listen it's going to be a long road it's.
not going to happen overnight but we. need to begin to take the steps we're. we're building our consensus we're doing. it multi-stakeholder it's whole society. it's you know we don't need to you know. win the war in a day but there's but. everyone can do their part pull their. lever secure the buyin and we can bring. these tech companies to heal they will. fold to us with our powers combined we. just need to start the process of. combining them and the rest you will. fall into place or we will call in. audible as we go and I watched that.
process they were doing that in. 2017 talking about how they might not be. able to and you know we really need to. make this urgent we need to pour all our. effort into it and it did take years it. did take three years for them to put in. place between 2017 and 2020 the. apparatus they would use for the 2020. election and it didn't all happen at. once a little bit of it in 2017 a lot of. it in 2018 the 29 2019 stuff was built. on that architecture from 2018 it's the.
same process for dismembering it we need. to do the same thing they did to put it. in drive to put it in reverse and it can. be done but it will be slow and painful. do. you do you have any idea who you need to. talk to I've never seen anybody unveil. it like this before I do who do you need. to talk. to I can perhaps. uh let's go for a beer after this and. I'll give you I'll give you the full. list of names. perfect let's take a quick.
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we left off man it was like drinking. from the fire hose here but um but what. I I do want to ask are you how many. people are going to lose internet in. Brazil due to this this attack on Free. Speech censorship Brazil has 200 million. people and um X is the most popular News. app in the country even now after the. band came down because of how many. people are using you know using a VPN.
despite the threat of of fines if you. speak misinformation while while using. the VPN well reason I'm asking is. because I. mean part of the problem that starlink. was trying to solve was all the people. that live in rural communities. throughout the world that don't have. internet correct mhm. well so what's going to happen when all. these people lose internet and there's. no other provider. well there's a very.
strange. ominous case scenario which I've talked. about a little bit just on my ex account. which is that China is has just launched. this new SpaceX. competitor that uh just recently put its. first constellation of its of its. satellite Mega project in in play. and this. starlink competitor starlink you know. Market killer um is something that I.
would not be surprised if Brazil pursues. as a starlink substitute Lula hitched. his star to CH to China bolsonaro was. very hostile to Chinese soft power and. Chinese investment in Brazil and Lula. who again was backed by the US state. department they wanted him to win they. they sck the state department the CIA. and the dod on bolsonaro to you know to. warn him against questioning the.
election they didn't do that to Lula and. again this whole censorship apparatus. was set up by the state department in. USA to kill bolsonaro's political. support so they wanted Lula to win and. Lula has reversed Decades of of uh China. hostilities and immediately as soon as. he got into office declared that. effectively China is the Lynch pain of. Brazil's New Economic Development plan. that they're going to be a you know a. longdistance part of China's belt and. Road initiative and they're uh they so.
they are now hitching their star at. China which means they're going to need. China's they're going to need do favors. for China for China to do favors in kind. I would not be surprised if part of. what's happening right now with t with. with taking out starlink is an attempt. to do either a fa. uh directly or indirectly for uh their. their new Chinese partners and or to. supplant starlink alt together with the.
this new Chinese competitor who is. looking to get Market reach and. capturing you know the 10th largest. economy in the world would be incredible. as a as a beach head not just in Brazil. but also in all of South America um but. this also begs very strange questions. about why it is the the US State. Department so vociferously backed Lula. when Lula so V vociferously backs China.
I mean that. this wow that's. even that makes this even more alarming. than it already is. if with China and all the data. collection that they're doing. and so do you think we're going to start. to see this the Chinese do what's the. name of the company I forget everyone. can look it up if you just literally. Google China starlink competitor you'll. see I don't want to butcher Butcher it. but I I think it actually even sounds.
similar to starlink but so if they get. if they get more countries to do this. they're all going to start using Chinese. internet yeah it's the it's the Huawei. strategy you know which you know with. capturing the it and the 5G market so. that's how bad the US wants to censor us. is our number they would they would. rather have the entire world on Chinese. internet our number one our number one. adversary rather than right than let. people have free speech and use starlink.
and X it's very strange at a moment when. Tim Waltz was just selected as the vice. presidential candidate of our current. vice president running for office. meaning if kamla were to win and. something were to happen to her uh Tim. Waltz would be the president the United. States the commander-in-chief and Tim. Waltz has been to China over 30 times. he's been G he you know there's an. article from him in college where he. said he brought so many gifts home from. China he couldn't couldn't carry them. all uh you know he frequently speaking.
at these friends of China events and you. know his whole his whole since college. has has been tied to these Chinese. networks seven ways from Sunday and then. you have the state department literally. sicking the CIA the state department. usaid the Pentagon and and a a hundred. US government funded soft power swarm. Army uh influence institutions in order. to pull the strings to soft rig the.
election for uh for Lula when Lula. pre-announced you know how China was. going to be the Lynch pin the strategy. has completely reversed uh Brazil's. diplomatic posture and and giving them. everything and is now kicking out. starlink at the exact moment that that. starlink Chinese competitor comes online. makes you. wonder um if the blob's. Diplomatic apparatus in that we use both.
to influence foreign countries and also. as a department of dirty tricks against. our own citizens if that is if there's. an element. of it not being just organic. evil very interesting let's talk. about the Atlanta Council Cooperative. agreement. agreement yeah so this institution we've. now mentioned a couple times this is the. Atlantic council is NATO's think tank is.
what it's known as and uh but that's. really the best way to understand it is. it's sort of. the uh plausibly deniable civilian. consensus. building. apparatus for for NATO's. geopolitical agenda so if the if the US. Military and the UK foreign office and. Brussels and the CIA want to do. something in a certain region but the.
civilians there need to pass they need. to pass laws to make that happen or it. would help the effort or the the. different Civil Society players uh you. know would can help in some way it's. intermediated by the at the Atlanta. Council this is why the Atlanta Council. gets annual funding every year from 11. different US government agencies. including the US Department of State the. Department of Defense including separate.
separate allocations from the the Army. the Marines and the. Navy as CIA cutouts like the national. down for democracy and it has seven CIA. directors currently as we speak on its. board of directors you know I say this a. lot but a lot of people don't even know. that seven former number one heads of. the CIA are still alive let alone all. clustered on the board of a sing single. entity that also happens to be this. primary coordinator of Internet. censorship in in you know all over the.
world effectively from the US to Brazil. to the EU um but but another strange. aspect of this is you have to understand. how this diplomatic defense intelligence. apparatus interacts with Chamber of. Commerce companies and energy companies. in particular energy companies are. highly dependent on the battering ram of. the Pentagon. to secure and protect gas pipelines or. oil resources Wars for oil folks may be.
familiar with that sort of theme song. that Democrats you know complained about. during the during the bush era so the. Pentagon often is is this sort of. battering ram of oil and gas companies. the state department often has to play a. role in um in negotiating or brokering. energy deals uh and and the CIA plays a. high active role in order to do the sort. of political subversive work or the soft. power in plausibly deniable soft power. influence work that goes into shaping.
those political outcomes in terms of. conceding to the state Department's. demands or potentially destabilizing a. country so that the military can um Can. can secure those energy resources and so. it's not unusual for the Atlantic. Council to have these relationships with. energy companies in fact they are funded. by many energy companies but what you're. referring to here is on January 19th. 2017 one day before Donald Trump took. the oath of office in 2017 there was a.
very. peculiar uh partnership Inked between. the Atlanta Council and and an energy. company because that Energy company was. barisma the famous uh private largest. private gas company in. Ukraine and I've been making the point. now for for many years that the the. reason Hunter Biden is Untouchable uh. and the barisma Scandal could not be. brought to light and the FBI interfered. in the 2020 election and told Mark.
Zuckerberg not to publish anything about. a leaked story about Hunter Biden and. barisma remember the FBI specifically. mentioned Mar barisma to Mark Zuckerberg. in the context of that laptop story is. because barisma is at the dark heart of. the grand Ukraine Energy. play I mean we could go really deep on. this I mean the the the the the short. version of of it is it has been a. essential plank of us statecraft in.
seizing Eurasia which has trillions of. dollars in in natural resource Russia. alone it sits on $75 trillion doar worth. of Natural Resources for context the us. only sits on 45 trillion gross so and. then you have you know usbekistan you. know you have the whole Caspian Sea you. have the whole Central and Eastern. Europe Arc of Eurasia it it is it is the. where most of the world's resources are. and so it that has been the longrange. plan since the Cold War of politically.
acquiring those companies those. countries and the expansion of NATO has. solidified that you know since. 1990 you know and the early 90s when we. told gorbachov NATO wouldn't expand one. each one in inch to the east but we. we've acquired all those territories. over time sorry I'm going with the long. version now just because we're just. going to do it but stop me at any time. in the 1990s Russia was basically a US. vassal state it was it was our it was.
like greater Alaska Boris yelton was our. puppet he was literally giving real-time. updates to the National Endowment for. democracy our our big CIA cutout in 1993. when uh he was bombing his own. Parliament building who were filled with. nationalists who were opposing yelton. for going through with the shock therapy. privatization to Western stakeholders. you had $2 trillion worth of wealth held. held by the government of the Soviet. Union when they turned into a capitalist.
State you know when they transitioned. from the Communist uh government to a. democratic one with elections and you. know of of yelton and then. Putin as part of that becoming a. democracy the state department the. Harvard endowment uh Wall Street Banks. the George Soros Financial firms the the. bill Browder Financial firms all these. different whole of society um uh you. know International financiers and.
business interests descended on Russia. to buy up at fire sale prices all of. these previously state-owned assets this. is a big part of our diplomatic toolkit. when we transition authoritarian an. authoritarian government we will. privatize their gas companies their oil. companies their diamond mines their. copper their whatever it is that's being. held in trust for the people. so that whatever grows out of the you. know whatever grows out of their soil. whatever flows from their Nile whatever. is in their their caves and mountains.
it's no longer for those people it. belongs to Exon Mobile it belongs to. deers it belongs to Monsanto and and so. those companies work with the state. department they are part of these. stakeholder negotiations within the blob. and so privatization is always always. always on the table whenever we top a. look government and we work we many back. channels to accomplish that might be a. little bit outside the scope unless. you're super interested but effectively.
in the 1990s Russia was was our vassel. in fact we even you can watch a movie. called spinning Boris it's a Hollywood. movie with Jeff gold blo you know from. Jurassic Park but it was this this movie. was about basically the US efforts and. the US government efforts to rig the. 1996 election for Boris yelton because. his own people hated him so much for. giving their country to the United. States and selling them out and handing. it all over to you know George Soros and. the Harvard endowment uh and Wall Street.
and London banks that they wanted him. out so the US had to send in a Hollywood. team had to send in political. Consultants had to send in you know TV. advertisements had to fund all these. Civil Society institutions to. AstroTurf uh some sort of of political. semblance for their puppet yeah this is. a problem we ran into it in Afghanistan. for for you know for example with people. upset Hamid carai this is a very common. thing is we you know invade a country or. we take over political control the. people have nothing and they're unhappy.
this is why we want people to have. nothing but be happy when they're. unhappy they they go against us and they. they might depose us from power. but effectively when when the Russian. stock market crashed and finally there. was no gas left in yelson Putin Rose to. power and the big way that he reasserted. Russia's emergence reemergence on the. world stage was through what our state. depart Department called Energy. diplomacy or or basically soft power. influence using Europe's dependency on.
Russian oil and gas particularly the gas. because a couple decades ago 100% of. Europe's natural gas practically 100% of. it almost came from Russia and this is. just the natural uh result of the. economics of of gas natural gas is very. cheap you take it out of the ground you. put it in a pipeline you take it to the. other point and the other country is gas. the only real alternative to that is. something called liquefied natural gas. LNG something folks you know may have.
heard a lot about because it's a major. major part uh you know it's it's this. you know much more new technique than. simply gas pipelines but essentially. what involves is you can do it over much. longer distances you can do it you can. do pipelines over whole oceans uh. because or not pipelines because it. doesn't require a pipeline you liquefy. the gas when it comes out of the ground. you store it in a in a container you. ship it to any point on Earth or to Mars. hypothetically and then you deify it but.
that's very expensive it's much much. more expensive and so countries. naturally wanted to buy Russian gas. rather than much more expensive North. American. LNG and because of their dependency on. Russia for that when when Putin took. power and began to rest himself off of. the sort of yelt andite um sort of NATO. friendly relations he used Europe's.
dependent on Russian dependence on on. Russian gas to trade that for for favors. to get more Russian political influence. over Central and Eastern Europe to. increase trade ties to increase. political ties to create this sort of. Russian soft power influence over the. internal politics of countries. stretching from Germany you know all the. way into into the into the. baltics and around 2005 2006 this be. begins to be a problem for the state. department because you at that point.
Russia was using a lot of Hardball. tactics you know in Georgia they they. turned off the gas they you know it was. going to be a cold winter in these uh. Central and European countries unless. they gave Russia what it wanted on its. on its trade terms and its security. terms and its political influence terms. because they were dependent on Russia. for gas and so when this started. happening time and again the state. department developed a counter strategy. again this is 16 years ago the state.
department with assistance from CIA and. Pentagon and the whole diplomatic. toolkit of energy Nos and things like. this and in order to get off of get. Europe to get off primarily hydrocarbons. at the time that was the main advantage. that that Europe had is this is sort of. before the fracking Revolution really. took off but also to go through what it. called Energy. diversification which meant that as part. of America's security guarantees for.
Europe as part of our diplomatic and. financial support and guarantees for. Europe they would have to buy more. expensive uh gas from the West than gas. from the East now you can only do so. much before a country goes broke unless. they have an alternative gas supper and. this is where BMA will come back into. the picture. but so these countries went through. about a decade of. diversification milestoning you know. they went from 100% to 80% to to 70% to.
60% Russian gas as the state department. continually applied pressure for them to. give their their taxpayer dollars to. Americans and and British companies like. shell instead of from the Russian. Federation via gas prom so the state. department has seen gas prom as an. instrument of statecraft for Russia. again for 16 years now and there was a. time when gas prom was the the largest. company in the world in the early 2000s. just to get perspective for how. influential this was before this energy.
diversification program you know uh cut. back on a lot of their profits but the. the key to this was Ukraine CU all of. this gasline gas pipeline architecture. is already pre-existing you know you you. there's there's the there's the natural. gas pipelines that go directly from. Russia into Ukraine and then on into. Europe and then there's an alternate. pathway that was established years ago. called nordstream 1 which was directly. into Germany and then Germany you.
know the folks know the tale tried to. develop nordstream 2 with. Russia and what happened to that. happened to that but this this state. department CIA Pentagon strategy of. killing gas prom and and replacing the. gas market with American. Canadians Brits has been this long range. plan that has been the bane of American. statecraft because their inability to.
get it down to Zer their inability you. know there's it's two steps forward one. step back three steps back as as. different Rising politicians in Central. and Eastern Europe want what's best for. their people want they are responsible. to their constituents their people want. cheaper energy Russia's offering the. cheaper energy so absent the ability to. provide a cheaper commodity product the. people organically have wanted that. Russian gas and so they had to. constantly suppress populist political.
groups in Central and Eastern Europe who. might run on a platform or who are. running on a platform of buying energy. from Russia as you know countless of. these have and so this has been part of. the state department manipulation of all. these different elections in order to. kill the right-wing populist party who's. running on buying buying Russian energy. now where where BisMan comes into the. picture. is actually if I can lay out one quick. thing first which is you have to also. understand the what was the John McCain.
quote about how Russia is just a you. know a gas station with a standing army. or it's just a gas station with a. military it's this you know famous quote. that Russia doesn't have a robust. technology sector or retail sector or. you know they're basically just a giant. economy built on the fact that they're. the world's number two and three. respectively resource for oil and gas. they export that for profit and they use. that profit to build up a giant military. that you know that can rival NATO and so.
they're a gas station with a military. well what happens if you kill the gas. there's no military which means all of. Eurasia Falls bit by. bit take Ukraine you know take the whole. Caspian Sea take the whole Black Sea you. know take tostan usbekistan take take. take Africa I mean Africa Russia and and. the United States are and as well as. France are locked in this proxy war uh.
you know China's also a player over over. Africa this is a point that I made on. you know Tucker Carlson recently is that. you have just in the past. year you know you've had the Ivory Coast. Mali Chad Niger all of these you know. frankophone countries that have have. been split the baby between us interest. and French interests in those colonial. regions have all been toppled in coups. military coups backed by the Russian. army where they are burning French flags.
and raising they're raising Russian. flags and Russia is providing the Small. Arms Munitions if you remember Obama. tried to invade Syria why did he get. repelled because Russia militarily. backstop Assad and gave them the. anti-aircraft missile defense systems. that prevented us from doing a Bombs. Over Baghdad strategy so all over the. world Russia is militarily. backstopping the the folks in the. crosshairs of the Pentagon and all of. that comes crumbling down if you kill.
gas prom and Ros the the oil company but. all of this can be done by simply. killing the nordstream pipelines in. Germany and killing Russia's control. over two the two regions in Ukraine the. donbass and the Crimea Black Sea region. and this is what they were doing in the. years before the 2014 coup you know that. our Embassy did in Ukraine between 2011.
and 2013 Chevron signed a A10 billion. deal with the other major player in this. with barisma and I'm apologies for the. long version but I think it'll all makes. sense at the end barisma is the largest. private sector gas company in uh in. Ukraine NAFTA gas is the is the big. state-owned one and NAFTA gas collects. all the trans from all this all this all. the Russian gas that goes through into. the rest of Europe SO naft gas has this. this spider-like gas P pipe architecture. that goes all into all into Europe and.
barisma essentially feeds then into into. NAFTA gas is the way the easiest. simplified way of thinking about it now. barisma held these Mining rights in the. donbass and these Mining rights in the. Black Sea Crimea. region this is important because those. are the precise two places that fell to. Russian control in the post 2014 coup. but in the runup to that all of these. NATO energy stakeholders bet the farm on.
be on this Grand Ukraine Energy play of. kicking Russia out that was part of what. the coup in 2014 was because you you get. yanukovich was a was a was dragging his. feet on privatizing NAFTA gas and. dragging his feet over signing this this. you know trade deal with the US and the. IM F and he went with this Russian. Customs. deal and you had all of these us and. British energy companies in in the in.
the two threee span before that sign. multi-billion dollar deals with the with. naagas burisma's what barisma feeds into. because they were skating to where the. puck was going Chevron signed a $10. billion deal with NAFTA gas uh uh shell. the which used to be Royal Dutch Shell. but now it's just London base so it's sh. signed a matching $10 billion deal with. naagas halberton Dick Cheney's company. where he was the chairman and CEO owns. the owns the refining rights to it all.
and if if all of these major. stakeholders were set to make huge. windfall profits the moment NAFTA gas. was privatized so they got all the. profits coming through and to and to. extract all of the Shale that was. sitting in the mountains of the donbass. and in the in offshore in uh in the. Black Sea so we overthrew the government. of Ukraine but then in the counter coup. all of those assets were lost so these. billions of dollars of. Investments were now sitting in Russian. territory so the only way to get them.
back is to have us taxpayers pay the CIA. and the Pentagon and Ukrainian. paramilitaries to take the the to take. that military uh territory back by force. and if I can just say you know one one. more thing on this. is barisma was part of this one of the. reasons Hunter described what he was. doing with barisma as a patriotic you. know he was serving his country by. making what 50 Grand 60 Grand a month on.
the board of a Ukrainian private gas. company is because he was pitching we. now know as of a few months ago this. came out in in um in documents that were. that were publicly published that Hunter. Biden's own Law Firm was pitching to the. state department that barisma was an. essential instrument of us statecraft. and so the State Department should take. action to secure its licenses to protect. it from prosecutors to uh you know to to. basically bulk it up because it was a.
beach head against Russian gas and we. know that Hunter Biden was putting. pressure or or that he the state. department actually published this a few. weeks ago you was having conversations. with the US ambassador in Italy so that. the to so that the US ambassador in. Italy could put pressure on the Italian. government for for rights that are. shared between Italy and Greece what I'm. saying is is there was this Pentagon CIA. plan to kill gas prom and and put the. substitute supply of the gas supply.
coming from two different sources LNG. from North America and from and from. from Britain so like you know Houston is. one of the reasons that the Dick Cheney. George Bush Mafia hated Trump you know. the part of this was this Houston LNG. was going to ship out to and and it was. going to be a NAFTA gas you it was it. was going to basically be the new supply. chain for for Europe as we're seeing it. now is uh in in the past few years just. why they've all made record profits as. this war has gone on but Donald Trump's.
neutrality and threatening to withhold. Military Support remember that's what he. was impeached over in 2019 threatened to. throw a monkey wrench in this private. profit cabal so there are only two ways. to to get that gas supply to where. Europe needed it one is LG coming from. North America but the other one is. building up Ukraine's endogenous gas. supply because Ukraine sits on Europe's. third largest unexploited volume of. shell so and and then add to that all. the all that in the black Black Sea so.
so Ukraine could have a very robust. independent like sort of Ukrainian. version of gas prom if they could simply. be weaned off of it and the expensive. Investments were all made by the. companies to get it off the ground and. rolling but that means you need to make. sure the Ukrainian government does not. do this. the you know this is this is a hard. process that's much more expensive than. simply going with Russia because you. have to set up with this new. infrastructure you have to transfer all. the ownership ukrainians don't make.
money from it these are not going to be. held by Ukrainian companies they're held. by American stakeholders and and Wall. Street in London so they're the ones. mining the gas but their people are not. the ones who are getting the profits I. mean this is like you know if if you. this was the people the problem people. had in the Panama Canal in the 90s you. know the panaman. we have this Panama Canal but you know. it's owned. by this is just a common problem people. have against is it good is.
it this makes a lot of. sense well so the the goal was to build. up. barisma and and and and at the same time. you're privatizing NAFTA gas because. that. alleviates the otherwise diplomatic. torture you need to do to countries from. buying all this expensive LG from North. America you have an endogenous cheap gas. supply that you can just take out of the. dabass and Crimea and so it's a very. elegant solution to the Diplomatic.
problem but the problem is is you need a. diplomatic Department of dirty tricks to. kick Russia out to make half of. Ukraine's population which is which are. Russian ethnics and Russians speaking go. along with it so you need to overthrow. the Ukrainian government if yanukovich. equivocates which he did and which they. did and it when Russia back stops it. with little green men you need the. Pentagon you need NATO you need British. Special Forces you need Canadian Special. Forces to take the country back and if. if Russia then doubles down by.
militarily invading well now you need. basically a full-scale proxy war and the. problem is this is a trillion dollar. market and these are companies that have. already made multi-billion dollar. investments in neutrality with Russia As. Trump was talking about throws a monkey. wrench in all of it it's already a. fragile sensitive operation that only is. a 50% chance of of working it Trump. could ruin the bush. Dynasty.
wow this makes a lot more sense than it. did and the Soros Dy Soros is an. investor in halberton and a major part. of this uh this NAFTA gas privatization. effort this is one of the reasons that. foreign policy synchronized in 2014 with. um on Russia after the crime crime. annexation so I just want. to for the audience so basically the. portion that everybody's fighting over. is the big it's big.
gas yeah that's that's the main that's. the main art now look there's there's. you know trillions of dollars in in. other sort of critical minerals there's. a whole sort of wheat agriculture. element of it but the main but it. disrupts it disrupts Russia's pipeline. into Europe because now it be com CH and. Niger we can invade Syria. you know The World Is Ours if you simply. now of course you know this is part of. where China comes back into this because. everyone expected Russia to die when we.
did this you know when when we kicked. them started this process of kicking. them out and sanctioning everything but. they're evading the sanctions by going. through India and now they just set set. up this giant power of Siberia Pipeline. with China so CH so the routing from. Europe to China so it doesn't solve this. military objective um but you know which. again gets back to the Str strange. question of why are they not trying to. stop the power of Siberia pipeline are. they beholden to the are there other. conversations being had with had had.
with the Chinese why is China not being. threatened with sanctions uh if they. really mean you know what they say about. uh about sanctions evasion uh on Russia. well why do you think I mean probably. because we can go after Ukraine or China. what what's the easier Target well I. that's the best case scenario you know. the worst case scenario is that there. are Financial interlinkages between our. political class and and the incredible.
economic lever that China has that is. influencing. policy um but I do want to say one a few. more things about barisma because um I'd. feel remiss if I didn't it's important. to keep in mind that Hunter Biden as I. mentioned was on the Chairman's Advisory. Board of the ndi the national Democratic. in Institute which is the DNC branch of. this prolific CIA cutout the National. Endowment for democracy which again was. created 1983 because the CIA wanted an.
NGO constellation to do the kinds of. soft power influence work that it used. to do as a clandestine operation but by. doing as a public facing democracy. promotion operation you can scale it. much better it doesn't seem like it's a. big infraction on civil liberties it's. not a diplomatic incident if someone. gets caught because the US just up an. ounces we're promoting democracy in the. region and that may mean funding the. political opposition that may mean. funding media that that you know goes.
against one candidate and for another so. this is this is a this is a CIA cutout. that Hunter Biden is on the was on the. Chairman's Advisory Board while he was. doing this Baris work you don't get on. the Chairman's Advisory Board of ndi. unless you have some sort of at least. informal uh relationship with or. linkages to intelligence because you are. doing intelligence work through a. through this intelligence back Channel. NGO and literally both the founders of.
of the national down for democracy have. outright come and said that they they. formerly do now what the CIA used to do. and lost its license to do then you have. the fact that we have the CIA. interfering in Hunter. Biden's uh IRS case if you remember when. uh when the when the doj tried to talk. to the guy who paid Hunter Biden's taxes. for the past 5 years the entertainment. lawyer in La at least according to the. Congressional whistleblower uh you know. with a formal sworn affidavit the the.
CIA intervened and told the justice. department not to question Hunter. Biden's Chief Finance year so you have. the so you have you have these CIA. interlinkages directly with that. affiliation you have the CIA waving the. justice department off of who's funding. Hunter Biden who was on the board of. directors at barisma right next to. Hunter Biden if you recall there was. another person from the United States it. was kofer black kofer black spent 30. years in the CIA and also won a state.
department that distinguish medal award. but he was 30 years in the CIA and in. fact you can read all about this he was. Mitt Romney's Sherpa to the CIA to the. intelligence Community when Mitt Romney. ran for president against Barack Obama. in 2012 so he was the guy that the the. Presidential nominee in 2012 turned to. get the support of the CIA from the. inside and by the way who's Mitt Romney. on the board of directors of the iri the. international Republican Institute the.
GOP branch of the National Endowment for. democracy the GOP branch of the CIA so. you have this onew punch of the Democrat. wing of the CIA and the Republican wing. of the CIA both represented on this tiny. little board of directors of the exact. private gas company that is literally. being pitched to the state department as. an instrument of statecraft against. Russia well by the way what is the cia's. job it's to do plausibly deniable soft.
power influence work that advances the. state department agenda so the moment. the state department agrees yeah it is. an instrument of. statecraft you bless all of these CIA. activities to do the corporate Espionage. to to to broker deals to do money. laundering in order to make these things. happen CIA calling people off of the. justice Department to avoid looking into. the sources of those. funding this is why Hunter has been. protected at least until now is he was a.
where's Waldo figure in this in this web. of intrigues around around the. perception of Russia as an instrument of. statecraft and the serendipitous. windfall profits that comes from using. the battering ram of our Pentagon and. CIA and state department to secure. lucrative energy deals for Chamber of. Commerce energy companies on the. Atlantic Council signed a a deal with. them the day before Trump was sworn into. office so you can imagine how those. seven CIA directors felt you know when. uh Donald.
Trump was. uh making that phone call to zalinsky. about potentially holding up military. aid and of course they played a very. active role in uh in setting up the. censorship industry in the first place. it was actually Atlanta Council meetings. where many of the very first Global. disinformation conferences were run out. of it was the uh the Eurasia Center out. of the Atlantic Council specifically and. the brench scowcroft center as well as. what was called the digital forensics. research lab the digital forensics.
research lab at the Atlantic Council was. actually one of the first movers in the. whole censorship industry before the. 2016 election even it was it was NATO's. sort of one of their first spawn of. architecture censorship institutions. after Crimea in 2014 I think they were. set up in like 2015 essentially and. began sort of doing this network mapping. of uh pro-russia political movements and. these sorts of things and then all this. was was added on but again what is an. institution getting Pentagon funding in. State Department funding with seven CIA.
directors doing intermediating this. whole this whole network I do have a. question and. um this could obviously go really bad. and take us into World War III which. we'll get into in just a second. but I'm trying to think this through but. oh man i'. I've I got to be honest i' with the.
way as messed up as it is it seems like. if that plan would have actually worked. it would have been in our best interest. this is because we're selling what did. what what was it liquid natural gas. liquid liquified natural gas liquefied. natural gas we would be exporting it to. Europe mhm in conjunction with Europe no. longer getting their gas from Russia yep. which if I remember correctly Trump.
actually warned Europe mhm about getting. all of their gas from Russia. so which would which would potentially. maybe not destabilize. but it would be a major punch to to. Russia's bottom line yep and so. why is this a bad thing I don't get into. the question of whether it's a good or a. bad thing because I can see both sides. you know I can see people saying well.
this is great for us interests in theory. our major oil and gas companies you know. make these big profits you know that's. going to spill into our economy it's. going to this trickle down you know. economy impact so that people will be. able to buy more homes and afford make. College more affordable and have you. know 401ks and pensions and that's. that's one argument you know the other. argument is is you are sub you know the. sort of left-wing Anti-Imperialist.
argument is this is NATO playing God. over the the Democratic sovereign states. in Central and Eastern Europe you're not. achieving this plan because you're. offering a better gas product you're not. offering to sell Europe the energy the. commodity energy meaning it doesn't. matter really the quality of the product. gas is gas you're not offering it at a. cheaper price you know these these. companies aren't taking a haircut on the. profit margins they're they're selling. to them in fact if they're forcing.
Russia off they can hike the price way. up which they've done because now. they're completely dependent so so their. argument is is this is basically you. know us imperialism and it's a it. renders you know American democracy. promotion a total you know HP. hypocritical joke because you don't. believe in democracy if anyone over if. anyone challenges you in enacting the. grand Ukraine Energy play you coup them. out of office just like you did to. yanukovich in Ukraine in 2014 and just.
like you're threatening to do in. Slovakia and Serbia and all these other. countries so well then on top of that. you also have all of Europe because you. you had mentioned that it would be under. us companies control right Crimea so. then you have all of Europe beholden to. us company's natural gas on top of our. own exports right which does it. so so I I avoid the question of whether.
it's a good or a bad thing to P to. pursue the grand Ukraine Energy play. because I can see both sides of it and. that's not my fight my mission is free. speech on the internet M and the problem. is is they believed because of how. sensitive this was because of how much. money was at stake because of how much. was at stake geopolitically and. militarily and diplomatically and and. and in terms of intelligence work and. how it impacted reconstruction Banks and.
major Chamber of Commerce. companies it and because there was. already so much resistance from the. Central and European countries and from. Russia it was already a plan that did. not have a. guaranteed certainty of success so you. have to stack the deck in its favor as. much as possible and and they believed. beginning in 2016 and you can go back. and listen to Andrew frog rasb and the. former head of NATO or or Michael cherof. or any of these other folks who were.
involved in this whole thing and the way. they were talking about in 2016 just go. back and run a Bo a Boolean search to. time box this to the contempor. contemporaneous um you know YouTube. searches or Google results from this. time and they were complaining that the. problem was is people were not believing. NATO propaganda they were believing. Russian propaganda all over from Germany. to Latvia Lithuania Estonia Georgia. malova the whole region was was falling. under the Ambit of Russian propaganda.
they weren't believing NATO and also. it's not just Russian propaganda anyone. who supports the. political party in power or opposition. party who wanted Russian gas could also. be contextualized as being a Russian. puppet so free speech got caught in this. proxy War because in order to stack the. deck to increase the odds of this thing. being able to be pulled off they had to. censor the internet they had to censor. the internet first in Central and.
Eastern Europe which if it had been. confined to there you may have never. heard my name when this started off you. know in in Ria lvia you know with these. centers of nat NATO stratcom centers of. excellence and these NATO censorship. centers that sprawled out from there and. into Lithuania and Germany I would have. I would have been stay a corporate. lawyer but the fact is is when brexit. happened in 2016 they said oh my God. it's hit Western Europe we need to the.
state department has to start funding. london-based censorship firms we have to. start spun funding a sprawling web of. London Nos and London universities from. Ox Oxford and and Sheffield and. Cambridge we need to start funding these. censorship mercenary firms in London we. need to start working with London. members of parliament in order to censor. misinformation anything that supports. the brexit party or supports any sort of. dayon with with with Russia after the. sanctions push in in the UK and then the. Trump election happened in the US in.
November 2016 a few months later and the. the idea that this was just a sort of. military operation confined to. controlling the information environment. all the way out in central eastern. Europe everything dropped out US. citizens US News companies us social. media. platforms we all got caught in the. crossfire and now how much is the grand. Ukraine Energy play worth is it worth. the first amendment is it is it worth.
having the government control the why. weren't they just. honest honest to who you're the only one. I've heard talk about this you should go. to the YouTube channel they they they. talk about it more plainly than I. do this is one of the things that was so. funny when I was when I was getting. involved in in 2016 2017 is I would be. watching 8 hours worth of these. censorship industry conferences they La. between energy conferences I'm not. talking about the censorship I'm talking. about the gas I'm talking about the.
reason we're there I've not heard. this. everybody it's never. discussed. well. uh if you spend a minute in their world. in their own conferences. at at their own meetings I mean you can. go to their YouTube page right now just. go go to the Atlant council's YouTube. page go to go to glob sex YouTube page. uh you know go to the Carnegie Endowment.
for international pieces YouTube page go. to the Wi any of uh even in in Putin's. statements he's not talking about the. gas is. he he. was talking about the US taking ca for. gas he talks about that stuff I mean he. talks about this play of them trying to. you know go through with this energy. diversification somewhat frequently I.
feel this I mean he they they said that. we were the ones who blew up the. nordstream pipelines but then you know I. believe he told Tucker Carlson well. because Tucker Carlson asked hey why. don't you talk about the nordstream. pipeline if you think we we blew it up. why don't you make your case on the on. the world stage and if you remember what. he said is he said the US owns the. propaganda apparatus it's basically. feudal you know we have diplomatic. Communications and everyone knows what's. up but we can't compete with the media. so you know what can we say that you. know they the the US did it we said that.
with what infrastructure you know can we. amplify that that message other than. Russia today which is under sanctions. and as to register in far and all this. and so so they do but you know part of. the issue is. is there's less hollering about it from. Russia than you might expect because. Russia has actually recently and this is. another bane of the blob's existence is.
that Russia has actually gotten around. these sanctions and some of these Cloak. and Dagger moves by our foreign policy. establishment by rerouting the the gas. into Europe through places like India. this is one of the reasons the state. department has such a big censorship. operation against Modi in India if you. may remember from the Twitter files why. it was that the Atlanta Council was. flagging like 35,000 accounts of prooi. accounts on Twitter what was that about. they want to get rid of Modi they.
consider Modi to be you know a sort of. economic Lifeline to Russia among a few. other reasons involving nationalism. populism but so Russia is still in fact. I don't know if this is still the case. but as of a couple months ago they. actually retook the us as the largest. natural gas exporter to Europe because. of because all these different countries. that were rerouting the gas and that the. sanctions weren't being enforced about. that's why there's this constant. sanctions whacka uh against countries.
but the problem is they're doing it with. large countries like India and China who. we don't have the kind of sanctions. clout we do against a country like Iran. or Venezuela because these are large. huge. economy huge population huge forces on. the world stage alongside us so part of. the reason that you know you may not. have heard as much about it from Russia. side it's because they are it hasn't. hurt them all that much they had to pay. a markup when they go to China they had. to pay a markup having to go to India. because you're rerouting it um but.
they've been offered a deal that they. can that they can live with and um you. know it's mostly the countries that are. getting hurt are actually the. ones now that that are NATO countries. who are funding Russia's War this this C. this play to kill nordstream and to kill. cheap Russian gas to Germany has killed. Germany's economy has killed Germany's. industrial sector has killed their. ability to even fund you know the the.
Ukraine the the war so but remember a. lot of this started before The Invasion. this this has been in play now for for. for a long time so um yeah if that's. helpful. wow you put a lot of things into uh A. New Perspective for me but you know what. what do you think the probability of. this is going to turn into World War. II it's hard to say because I think we. may flirt with World War I ever more on.
the in in a deliberate attempt to avoid. World War II and what I mean by that. is we have this technique called. destabilization when we're trying to. negotiate with the foreign government. and they're being uncooperative or we. sense they're willing to make a deal but. they we don't have leverage and so you. can only get leverage through carrots or. through through sticks offering them. something or or hurting them with. something and threatening to make the. the pain go away and I suspect that.
what's happening right now with. Ukraine's escalation against Russia uh. you know this new incursion into into. Russian territory and long-range missile. attacks against targets hundreds of. miles into Russia proper is one way to. look at it is it puts us on the path of. World War II I actually suspect there's. something a little bit more moderate. happening in the background which is. that I my sense of it and and I don't.
have any insid knowledge whatsoever this. is just my speculation based on public s. you know things I I read is that the. NATO senses that we are that that. Ukraine is losing by more and more by. the day inside of Ukraine and the. political frailties around standing the. funding level are very difficult but the. problem is is they don't want to strike. a peace deal that includes giving the. donbass or Crimea back to Russia they. would be okay if the war ended and we.
simply reset back to early. 2014 and and just wound back the clock. but the problem is is Russia will not. agree to that given how much they're. winning by on the battlefield and the. the perception that in the long run um. time is on their side when it comes to. uh consolidating that political control. over eastern Ukraine and. Crimea and so the ISS so in order to.
bring Russia to the negotiating table to. to have a peace I call it a peace fire. it's sort of a combination of a peace. deal and a ceasefire but the emphasis is. on fire because I I I believe that even. after the state department strikes this. hypothetical deal we will continue to do. CIA or plausibly deniable Special. Operations work to to take eastern. Ukraine back and take Crimea back just. by having par Rogue paramilitaries do it. who happen to be trained by you know.
Pentagon advisers the same thing we were. doing in from 2014 you know onward where. it was Ukrainian paramilitaries from. Kiev who were going into you know going. into eastern Ukraine and taking back. these these uh Shale regions but they. were funded by the US they were trained. by the Canadians yeah face right but we. want to re reset it to that to this sort. of MX you know peace peace period but. Russia won't agree to it so we are. trying to present the threat that World.
War III might happen that your you know. the daughters of your highlevel. officials may be assassinated you know. as they're riding in their car you know. we will be striking at your. infrastructure inside Russia if if if a. 100,000 Russians die in Moscow or St. Petersburg there that could foam an. anti-war movement within Russia to. strike that peace deal on favorable. terms to us interest and so I think they. have felt that simply playing defense.
and grinding down Russia's economy has. not worked as Russia has done the. sanctions of asan that we just talked. about so now they are trying to to do it. the other way which is by causing enough. Russian casualties that that a that this. steading back to 2014 will happen. because Russia will want to make the the. the blood the blood flow. stop. wow I could talk to you all day Mike I'm.
having fun me too um well I I hate to. close it out but you've got a flight to. catch we got about 8 minutes before you. got a jet so man do you have any uh any. closing remarks or anything that you. that you want to get out there I would. just encourage people people to be. optimistic in this in in a lot of ways. because as much as it feels like we're. up against the way of the world and some. of these forces are so dark and powerful.
and nefarious in so many ways um this. was the world before you could read. about it you know this was this was this. was the United States in the 20th. century too you just you know didn't. have access to Twitter accounts or. Facebook posts or YouTube videos to. learn about it and we have of Freedom. currently uh because of Elon Musk and X. because of you know what the folks over. at Rumble are doing because of you know. some of our our champions in in the in.
Congress and in the legal world and you. know the the the new sort of media. architecture who's able to you know. amplify all this there is a moment to to. truly have the you know the will of the. people respected in this but you you. just so don't get depressed when you. read about this go it you if you're new. to this you will go through your five. stages of grief you know you will have. your you know your denial and your anger. and your bargaining and then your. depression and then you will finally get. to the point of acceptance and things.
might still piss you off but you can. sort of see this as our inheritance you. pointed this out when you said well. maybe some of this is a good thing maybe. it's the reason we had cheap gas and you. know and a and affordable homes because. this is so this this is our inheritance. so it's more like getting to know an. uncle than it is about you know trying. to Vanquish some Arch Enemy but you can. follow my work uh online I'm on X at. Mike Ben cyber my Foundation is.
foundation for freedom online it's the. same name foundationfor Freedom. online.com and uh Sean you're doing the. Lord's work and I appreciate you taking. the time to talk to me today thank you. brother all those links will be below. and uh one last thing if you had three. recommendations for the show who would. they be oh. and have you talked to Chris pavlowsky. from Rumble no I would say Chris. pavlowsky from Rumble Linda Yaro would. be really interesting from.
X um and I would. say a member of Congress like like Dan. bishop or or Jim Jordan if you if you. haven't had him on um uh from my. perspective all three of those people. would be really interesting for their. take on what they're doing against and. about censorship issues you know from. the Independent platform side from the. sort of you know ex leadership side and. from the Congressional side um because. we need these stakeholder conversations.
on the side of Freedom they can't just. be on the censorship side we'll Reach. Out Mike that was that was a fascinating. interview and um ton of information and. and uh man I really hope I really hope. to see you again here likewise thank you. thank you I'll come back to museum. anytime all right. Cheers Cheers thank. [Music]. [Applause].
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