Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump guts white collar crime agencies, DEI hypocrisy on antisemitism task force, Israel's AI robot killing machine.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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Speaker 2 (00:33):
We talked to you recently about Mark Andresen and then
Zuckerberg going on with Joe Rogan and being like, you know, we.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Gotta deal with this.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This d banking Elizabeth Warren's d banking agency, the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, which actually is basically like the anti
scam Agency, is sort of like the best way effectively
to think about that. This is no surprise, but Rohit Chopra,
who's been the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
and a very effective one at that, who, by the way,
has a posed debanking people for political ends. He has
(01:03):
now officially been fired and in addition put the next
piece up on the screen. Apparently the billionaire Hedgemund Treasury
Secretary Scott Bessant has been put in for as acting
director of the CFPB, and he immediately sends out a
memo to staff saying you need to halt movement on
(01:23):
any proposed or final rules guidance, suspend effective dates of rules,
don't advance investigations or enforcement actions, no material agreements, no
public communications or reports, seemingly giving Mark Andrews and Mark
Zuckerberg and a lot of other people exactly what they
were looking for here.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah. That I mean, yes, this is what.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Grod to hear to say, thank you, help people understand
what is the import of this particular agency and just
remind them why the Mark Andrews and the Mark Zuckerbergs
of the world were irritated at it in particular.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Yeah, So the CFPB was dealing with, you know, scams
and fraud and consumer protection questions, and so they would
they were going after you know, there was this there's
this company called Synapps which was like which was one
of these fintech companies, and it sort of appeared like
a bank and then a bunch of people lost their
life savings in it. And the CFPB was investigating doing
(02:26):
things to try to deal with with syn apps. Marc
Andreesen was a big investor in synapps. This is true
for a number of different investments.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That he made.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
He doesn't like that the CFPB is wasn't was enforcing
the law. I think that's my general view. But this
is also you know Wall Street generally. There are there
are different parts here because there's some things that the
CFPB was doing that Wall Street did like. So they
were looking into big tech owned payment systems. Banks are
afraid of that open banking rules that some fintech companies
(02:59):
liked that banks don't don't. Particularly, there's there's elements around
FICO and credit reporting that some mortgage bankers don't like.
So there's there's some industry splits, but by and largely
what you find is that Wall Street and like hates
any kind of anyone that tells them no, right, and
that the CFPB and Roach Choper was saying, no, you
can't steal everything. You can only steal a lot, right,
(03:21):
and and so yeah, I know, how dare you right?
And the Silicon Valley, you know, was getting and has
been getting into payments and banking style arrangements, especially especially Meta.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
One himself is interested in this for Twitter as well.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yes, the original you know vision of Confinity and X
is literally PayPal.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
That's what he's a sign of what he thought it was.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
He made his original money from PayPal, right, so that
was a big, a big part of it. But yeah,
metas into it. Amazon is hugely into it too. I
mean there there's Meta tried to start their own currency
like Libra, right, and I know, and everyone's like, you know,
how dare how dare Biden be so mean to Meta?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And it's like that was blocked under Trump right right?
Speaker 5 (04:07):
First Trump, So we got to come up with a
nomenclature for first Trump and now Trump Trump Trump.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Trump two point Oh I love what I do. Yeah,
that's what I've been turning with as well. Trump the return.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I don't know, let's also talk let's let's go to
let's see see four. This is sort of more directly
related to the CFP B. You've had a similar order
go out at the SEC that's Security Exchange Commission, which
looks at sort of like you know, insider trading and
other white collar banking crimes. So they say that this
(04:38):
change has not previously been reported made under new leadership,
they are tightening oversight of probes, basically making it so
that you have to go through the political appointees. If
you want to, you can start an investigation, but if
you're actually going to launch an official probe, you've got
to go through the political appointees. You know, how should
we understand this shift matter?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Is this common?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
What does this?
Speaker 6 (05:00):
So?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
This is? This is actually a big deal.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
It's one of these annoying things that annoying people like
me paytential attention to. When you're an investigator, if you
have you know, if you have to get permission from
your boss to look into something, you're going to look
into less stuff, right, and a bunch of agencies. Sometimes
they delegate authority to staff to look into stuff, and
sometimes they don't. This is actually true in Congress too,
(05:25):
Like Congress has investigative authority. Sometimes they let the chairman
issue subpoenas. Sometimes the whole committee has to vote on subpoenas.
It's a very different arrangement. If you have one guy
who can just issue a subpoena if he wants to,
And that's basically what they're saying here is there.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
What they're now saying is if you work.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
At one at the SEC, you have to go you
have to get permission from the Republican Commissioners about whether
to investigate something. And so that just provides a much
tighter level of control over what the SEC is doing
and means that the SEC is not going to be
doing as much.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Has it worked like that in the past, do you know,
is this like a reverse of guidance or Biden or
I think the true?
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Well, so what that article said and I'm just going
off with that, right, you know, article on screen set
is that it's traditionally the SEC gives wide latitude to
to its people to just investigate. I know that the
Federal Trade Commission better. They in the consumer branch of
the Federal Trade Commission, They've historically allowed staff to just
kind of I got a hunch that there's that vitamin
supplement guys scamming people. I'm going to go investigate. I'm
(06:24):
not going to bug the commissioners every time. On the
competition side, So for antitrust, they traditionally did have to
get permission to investigate companies.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
A couple of years ago.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
The FTC changed that and said, actually, now on the
competition side, if you if you smell something that's off,
you can go and investigate. And so that's a way
of just kind of saying we're going to let you
do more.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
But you know, it has there are.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Implications to it, right, so if things are going through
the you know, staff doesn't always have a good political sense,
and so sometimes they can issue investigative demands that are
intimidating or scary or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So it's not like a completely outrageous.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
Proposal, but in the context of the SEC, in the
context of these of what Trump is doing more broadly,
it really is about, you know, shutting down investigation of
corporate crime. And that that I mean, there's we're essentially
in the moment of the white collar purge, right, all
crime is legal, right, and that that is kind of
true I think for the next six months, year or
(07:29):
something like that. I mean, also the DJ. You know,
a lot of the shake ups that are going on
in government. I don't think there's a lot of investigations
of crime going on right now at the FBI or DJ.
And you know, you're seeing a CFPV shut down. You
see the SEC basically same sort of very similar. You're
seeing i think a rollback at the consumer protection side
of the FCC, not the competition side. So what you,
(07:51):
I think broadly are going to see is that there's
going to be a wide latitude for pushing the law
or just violating the law.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
If you have a suit and tie.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Can you respond to some of the Some of the
discourse online that I've been watching spectating is there's this
analysis of you know, you people got your way, You
anti trust people got your way under Biden, and the
public voter for Trump anyway, and so you know, you
have this stuff you care about your whole competition and
(08:25):
going after white collar criminals like it's not all that popular, right?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
What is your view of that?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And of because I do think that Biden, because he
was an old man who couldn't really articulate much of
anything about anything, did fail to enlist the American people
in a project that was pissing off the tech barons
and the Wall Street people, and is part of why
they decided to completely throw in with Trump. So it
(08:55):
ended up in a sense, I mean, I'm glad that
the enforcement actions happen. I think that stuff is important
and hopefully has lasting riverbding impacts. But in a sense,
you know, you got four years of a better approach.
You pissed off powerful people, but you didn't enlist the
American people and help them understand what you were doing
to create a sort of like popular understanding of why
(09:17):
these things are important, which makes it easy for Mark
Andrewes and to go on Joe Rogan's podcast and be
like the cfp B they're d banking conservatives and loop
it all into some you know, culture bullshit culture war umbrella.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Yeah, so there's I think there's two. There's two ways
to understand what happened. Okay, So one, I think we
can go into ways that the INtime monopolist sort of
things that they we didn't do enough of. I'll say
we because I consider myself this sort of a movement
and stuff that's kind of our fault, right. And then
I think there's the broader dynamic. So it's just let's
just divide it into those into two different things. I think
(09:51):
the broader dynamic is far more impactful. So just to
give you a sense of how much power the INtime
monopolist had. So if you take the CFPB right, the
anti trust enforcers which are in the Federal Trade Commission,
and the Anti Trust Division, total budget right of all
three of those is less than a billion dollars. Okay,
(10:11):
the rest of the government, I don't know what is
that five trillion dollars something like that. So you know,
you're talking about a very very very small part of
the government. Now, it was I think important, and people
noticed it because they were the only ones doing something
that was actually different and articulating. Maybe not a new agenda,
but a traditional agenda that the Democrats would have recognized.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
In the nineteen thirties or nineteen sixties or something like that.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
But the rest of the government, right, you know, Javier
Basera at Health and Human Services, right, when was the
last time we heard his name?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Right, do anything? Right?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
And so how much can you really accomplish out of
a couple of regulatory agencies when the Federal Reserve and
we don't nobody is like, oh man, that j Powell
at the Federal Reserve. That's the reason Democrats lost it
is because nobody is nobody. That's just the water was
swimming in. Oh Man, that Jenny Yellen at Treasury Department.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Oh man, that.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Well, Pow probably had more to do it with anybody, right, yeah,
out of anybody else, that's.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Probably Oh yeah, No one's thinking that.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
That they should.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
You know, in twenty twenty two, Democrats overperform in the
midterms at the height of inflation.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
In twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Got crushed, Yes, because people didn't want high interest rates.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
It was a high interest rate election.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, right, I mean that's what it's.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
It's so so that I think that that people noticed
the inti monopolists because that was different, right, but it
wasn't dominant in the administration. That The other thing is
there was no alignment between the politics and the policy
of the entire so, like, yeah, what you said is right.
Biden didn't articulate it. But I think if you talk
(11:47):
to most Democrats in Congress, right, they didn't know what
the anti trust people were doing. They couldn't articulate any
of this stuff. So it was sort of this orphan
agenda over here. And I only think it's totally fair
to say, oh, you know, you made powerful people mad
but didn't bring in any political benefits. Therefore it made
it worse. I think those powerful people. I think what
(12:08):
happened is the people voted. My guess is people voted
for Trump because costs went up, wages went down, and
Democrats were obsessed with stupid things, right, And that's not
you know, Lena CON's fault. That's a broader political dynamic.
I do think though there are some things that the
anti monopolists.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
The other thing is when candidates were running, they were
running on things like Inhaler's right, getting cheaper, right, and
you know, Epipen's getting cheaper and junk fees and a
whole like the arguments that basically the only thing Democrats
had to run on in twenty twenty four that was
economic was the stuff the anti monopolists had done. It
(12:46):
didn't necessarily work, although I think in some races it
probably did. You saw it like in Las Vegas or
in Nevada and in other states there were normy Democrats
that were running on opposition to the Kroger robertson merger right.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And does this stuff work?
Speaker 5 (13:04):
I don't know, but I'm not a political person, but
it's like, if that's what they're if that's the only
thing they're running on, you know, they're not running on
the first you know, non bare binary undersecretary of whatever.
They're running on you know, food prices, so that and
the things that the Biden administration had done. The fact
that the only people who did anything where the anti monopolists,
(13:25):
is not our fault. But I do think this stuff
takes way too long. Right, so you launch something like
you launch a Trump launched a Facebook suit in a
Google suit in twenty twenty. The Facebook suit isn't even
going to trial until you know, later this spring. So
that's five years from them filing the complaint, six seven
years from the investigation to even going to trial. It's
(13:48):
not talking about appeals and everything. And that's just broadly
true across the board, the suit against Ticketmaster, the suit
against Google, suit against Apple suit. People don't feel the
effects because it takes way too long. And then the
other part of it is I think I think the
agencies did a great job. You know, you can't issue
a rule and it takes three years to issue a
rule tapping overdraft fees.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
That's ridiculous. We gotta, you know, we gotta hurry this
stuff up.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
We also have to do something about the courts who
just block everything that's nice, you know, which is which
is kind of crazy, you know, the non compete rules,
stuff like that. So there are a number of institutional factors.
And then I think, you know, this is the first
time that any of these people, you know, that we
had ever had any levers of government to pull. And
so what you're seeing more broadly is the generational dynamic
(14:33):
and a Democratic Party which was basically overlooking or actively
helping oligarchs under Bill Clinton, under Barack Obama, and now
some of the younger people with no mentorship at all. Right,
we're saying maybe we should try something different. And nobody
in our lifetime has done anything like this before. So
of course it's not going to be perfect, but it
(14:54):
is the outline for a party that's going to advocate
for the working class or all. And I don't mean
that the Democratic Party, I mean either party that wants
to do this is going to have to do some
of these anti corporate things, and that's going to upset
powerful people one way or the other.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh, I'm all in favor of upsetting the powerful people.
I just think I mean, I think you articulated all
very well, and I've thought more about it and have
a certainly more granular understanding than I do. But if
you were pissing off the powerful people, but you aren't
like an FDR explaining like I welcome their hatred and
here's why they hate me and here's how it's still
nobody knows about it, then you're just going to have
(15:36):
a lot of powerful people mad at you and hold
that on your destruction and you're not going to have
the you know, on the other side, you need to
have the people behind you to back you up.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
You just have this joke when I would talk to
someone who was, you know, we're going an anti trust case,
I would, you know, they would say something about what
they were doing, and I would just be like, a
voter might hear you?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, Like that's really I mean if you look that.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
I looked system sort of semi systematically at what the
White House Press Secretary was would say, right, and they
were asked about a Ticketmaster suit or a Google or
whatever it was, and she would always say, I can't
comment on pending litigation. And then people would be like,
but it's Ticketmaster. They couldn't sell tickets to the Taylor
Swift conference or a conference concert or.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
God man, I am such a nerd. The jacket, it's
really good.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I was a victim of Ticketmaster. Well I couldn't get
a ticket, It's true, and we happened.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
So, you know, she made fun of the reporters for answering,
for asking a question. And so it's like, if that's
your framework, right, if you just mock the idea that,
if you mock your own administration's agenda, that's a.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Little that's a little bit. That's pretty weird.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Right, And I mean you saw, like anyway, I don't
want to get into the Democratic Party. There's a I've
been thinking a lot about it. But there's a basic
problem that they have, which is, you know the street
lamp issue. Right, So the street lamp the parable about economists.
So a drunk guy is looking for his keys, yeah, right,
and the guy and the cops says, why are you
looking here? And he's like, where'd you lose your keys?
(17:04):
He said over there? Why are you looking here? He said, Oh,
well that's what the light, that's where the light is.
He's looking under the lamp. Yeah, And I think that's
kind of what what democrats do is they are, you know,
they're trying to figure out what what a problem. What
to do about a problem that voters are complaining about,
But they always look under the lamp post instead of
where the problem is, even though they know it's not
(17:24):
right right, And that's that's a that's a dynamic party wide.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Well, I always love talking to you, man, really appreciate
you joining us.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Just when you thought DEI was out of the federal government,
it is back with a vengeance. Let's put this up
on the screen. We got a new task Force to
combat anti Semitism announced by the Justice Department. They say
in this anti Semitism is any environment in any environment
is repugnant to this nation's ideal. Certainly, said Senior counsel
(17:54):
Or Assistant Attorney General with Civil Rights. We'll be heading
this task force. Apartment takes seriously our response ability to
eradicate this hatred wherever it is found. Task Force to
Combat anti Semitism is the first step in giving life
to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti Semitism in
our schools.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Of course, everybody here a poorse.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And poses actual anti semitism. But we know that the
definition that is embraced right Trump and has also been
embraced on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress also
includes things like daring to criticize Israel. Trump has also,
you know, moved to put in place procedures to deport
anyone from any students who are here on foreign visas
(18:37):
who are pro Palestine and engage in protests there as well.
So even Christopher Ruffo took a principal stand on this
one and said it was inconsistent with the push against AI.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Got a hand tool.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Put this up on the screen, He says. Supporters of
this initiative should ask themselves, how is it reasonable to
support a task force on anti Semitism while opposing an
Ebrahm Kenny style task force on anti Black racism DEI?
By the same principle, how is it reasonable to support
a task force on anti Semitism without also supporting a
task force of anti Wait racism and a task force
(19:09):
on anti Asian racism, both of which are widespread on campuses.
How is it consistent for the administration to abolish DEI
than establish a special task force for one rather than
all of these groups.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I think that is very well.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So I think he's totally right, And of course there's
always a huge blind sprout whenever it comes to all
of this.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I haven't seen much push I mean maybe you're more
tuned in, but haven't seen much pushback nice against this.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, let's all be real, like you know, like it's
always been obvious it's fake. Uh, you know in terms
of where you had Ron remember when he created literally
affirmative action for Jewishness.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So and these are state resources. He's like, anybody who
feels unsafe and across the United States is welcome to
come to Florida. We'll give you tuition assistance. And I
was like, uh, are we understanding this? Or powerlunteer if
we'll recall was like, oh, anybody who uh, well, it's
actually not his company, but I mean he's an investor
or whatever. But but my only point is Peter, for
(20:10):
some reason, is always socially the paltants like it's Joe
Lonsdale and Alex cart it's a really Alex Carp's company,
so he should get the smoke if people are looking
at it to get it out there. He's a multi
billionaire too, so there you go, you can attack him.
My point around it is that it's obviously been a
blind spot. It's one which is wholly focused on by
these donors, and it has become extremely important because this
(20:35):
is the literal Department of Justice, the arm of the
government now adopting this anti semitism definition from Congress.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The IHR a definition around anti Semitism, instituting it in law,
which is an obvious and direct threat to the First
Amendment rights of all American citizens. Baby, that's I mean,
that's my beef.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
They basically want to like make it illegal to criticize Israel.
I mean, it's insane. Glenn makes this point all the time.
You can criticize America till the cows come home. You
say anything about this country, and you should be able to,
But you can't say anything about this foreign country that
we ship billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to. Like,
that's insane. That is a grave infringement on our rights.
(21:19):
And anyone who claims to be, you know, in favor
of color blindness and you know, in favor of merit
against DEI, anyone.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Who claims to be in favor of free speech.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Should be wildly opposed to this particular direction. There are
a couple other things that I just wanted to get
into the show to keep an eye on as well.
In terms of that attack on free speech. You know,
Ryan laid this out really well. Trump has basically adopted
this new tactic where he sues a media organization or
(21:48):
like an Sells or or whoever truly for buying large,
frivolous lawsuits that in any normal time would either be
thrown out or he would lose on the merits. But
these media organized media organizations, which are gigantic conglomerates, which
want various things from the federal government and want to
avoid let's say, antitrust scrutiny in whatever new merger deal
(22:10):
that they have floated or you know that they just
were able to accomplish. They want to keep in Trump's
good graces, so they basically decide to settle and pay
him off in what amounts to effectively a bribe to
leave them alone. That's happened a couple of times. But
now we also have the FCC going after a number
(22:32):
of different media organizations.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
This is pretty wild. It could put D three up
on the screen.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So CBS has been forced to hand over the unedited
transcript from that Kamala Harris interview that Trump and other
Republicans didn't like how it was edited.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I mean, like I mean, to be fair, they did
edit it dishonestly because from in terms of the way
they put it out or not.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Okay, well, Fox News dishonestly edited a Trump town hall
and edited out his stuff. If the Biden administration, you know,
if Kamala had been elected and the SEC was going
after Fox News because they didn't like how the interview
was edited, we should be opposed to that as well.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I don't disagree. I think that, I mean, the difference
between Fox and CBS is about the network status in
terms of their I forget exactly what it is about
the fair something doctrine under because it's a network versus
an actual channel on cable.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's the pretext that they're giving.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I actually think was more egregious are all of these
media companies which are settling with Donald Trump totally because
that is literally like as you and I know, because
we have similar insurance policies and others, it is the
bar for having to pay out on defamation is you
have to do what CNN did in the case of
that guy who they defamed down in Florida. They were
(23:47):
like lied about him. They literally had recordings that were
revealed where they're like, I hate that guy. I want
to screw him over, didn't issue a timely retraction and
caused financial harm to an individual, and he wasn't a
public figure like you have to check like nine all
of those boxes to be able.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's why it's so rare that anything like it even happens.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
I think it's much crazier that they are settling with
the president literally paying I think all.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Of us crazy.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
They're also going after the FCC is also going after
NPR and PBS, saying he's concerned that they could be
violating federal law by airing commercials. In particular, they say
it's possible NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting
announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements. Again, obviously,
what how do you feel about NPR PBS? This is
(24:35):
like an ideological attack on them that doesn't really have
anything to do with whether or not they are taking
appropriate commercial money. And then the other piece that kind
of falls into what you were saying, Sager about the
like capitulation and the bending of the knee. This is
not an overtbride but you guys will remember before the election,
the Washington Post, the Bezos Washington Post and the La
(24:57):
Times both decided, even though they're at a real staff,
had prepared endorsements of Kamala Harris, but they were just
not going to endorse at all. Well, the La Times
tried to cloak this at the time and like, oh,
it's because we don't like her policy on Gaza. I
think at this point it's pretty clear that that was
not really what was going on. We now have this
is just absolutely agree. Just put this up on the screen.
(25:18):
So they picked up an op ed from a contributor
that was very critical of RFK Junior and his approach,
and it was actually an interesting op ed talking about
his thesis was basically like the reaction to Luigi Mangioni
and the support for RFK Junior in some ways comes
from the same place of like, discussed with the healthcare
(25:39):
system and its failures, and we're getting sicker and we're
getting fatter, and you know, our life expectancy is dropping,
and but he goes on to make, you know, very
critical argument about RFK Junior. So its its Originally the
closing line said, although RFK Junior and Luigi Mangioni. Are
both responses the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption.
(25:59):
There's a major difference between them. One allegedly operated outside
the law to kill one person in defensive millions, whereas
the other, via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence, seeks
to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.
Very critical of RFK Junior. The headline was supposed to
be critical. Well, the LA Times before they published, stripped
(26:20):
out all the sentences that were critical of RFK Junior,
flipped the headline to be the polar opposite of what
this op ed contributor intended it to be and published
it that way.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
And the owner of the La.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Times, the dude who blocked the endorsement previously, tweeted it
out to, you know, celebrate this support of RFK Junior,
which the author han't had intended in the total opposite direction. So,
you know, another instance obviously of the media just like
wanting to be on Trump's good side, et cetera, et cetera,
that we're seeing almost almost across the board in various ways.
(26:58):
And I think that you're right. The pieces perhaps the
wildest direction.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
By the way, if anything ever like that happens and
somebody doesn't quit and that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well he doesn't actually what he's a contributor. He doesn't
actually like work for them, I'm sure. And he said
he will never publish with that us. But you can't.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I mean, it's just.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
If somebody ever did that to me, I'm like, okay,
it is outrageously ethical.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So between the time, you know, you work with an
editor of course, and he proved, okay, this is you know,
this is where we are and this would you agree to,
and then before it's published, like imagine if you know
our producers after you recorded your monologue went in and
completely flipped on its head, changed the like insane.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
You know, I almost imagine it to a previous company.
Oh we'll just leave it there. Let's get to uh
Anthony Lowenstein.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
We are fortunate to be joined this morning by Anthony Lowenstein,
who is an independent journalist. He's author of the global
best selling book The Palestine Laboratory, also a podcast with
drop site News, our friends Ryan and Jeremy and just
released a documentary series with Al Jazeera English on the
Gaza Laboratory.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Great to see you Anthony, welcome, good to see you.
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Thanks for having me guys, thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, of course I watched The Dark yesterday evening. You
did a fantastic job. Let's just give your viewers a
little bit of a taste of what is in that
new documentary.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
The Farmbra Air Show one of the largest in the world.
Global weapons giants like Bae Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Airbus
come to show off their latest military hardware. Billions of
dollars of civil and military deals are done here every year.
(28:44):
Standing shoulders to shoulder with these global military giants. Israel's
top weapons manufacturers like Israel Aerospace Industries and missile makers Raphael.
In the main hall, Israel's largest private weapons company, Elbert,
has a huge stand They needed to showcase their world
(29:06):
class drones and missiles. Despite its tiny population, Israel is
the world's ninth largest weapons producer. This high budget promo
is for the Trophy anti missile system made by Israeli
company Raphael. It's the kind of advanced technology Israel specializes
(29:29):
in and makes the Israeli MIRKF tank one of the
best on the market.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Automatically activated only when enemy fuyer the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
Both tank and anti missile systems sell around the world
to undisclose clients. Overall, Israel exports more than thirteen billion
dollars of weapons and surveillance equipment a year. And with
adverts like this for the Spike firefly, Israeli company's hint
that their products may have been battle tested in Palestine.
(29:58):
So how does being a mad who to armed supplier
impact Israel's diplomatic position? Could it give the country a
measure of impunity when it wants to undertake its own wars?
Speaker 2 (30:12):
So, Anthony, why did you think this particular aspect of
the conflict was important for people around the world to understand?
Speaker 6 (30:18):
When I started writing the book I came out in
mid twenty twenty three, I felt that it was an
issue that actually was largely of course, this was before
October seven, an issue that had been largely ignored. I
must say, no one else had ever covered it. They had,
of course in the media here and there. But the
Israeli arms industry explains so much about how Israel operates
in the occupied Palestinian territories and also in the region.
(30:41):
I don't stay in the book or the film or
the podcast that Israel's occupying Palestine simply to make money
from weapons. That would not be true. But instead of
a self perfetual wedding industry where you have a massive
number of Israelis who of course going to the army,
the IDF, they spent many years there, They're in intelligence,
they're in various other units, and they take that experience
into the private sector once they'd left. And that's why,
(31:04):
as we say in the film, it's now the ninth
biggest arms still are in the world for a country
which is a tiny, tiny population. And we thought that
the reason to make the film, which has been we
sort of start as working with a British production company,
Blackley Films, and the director Dan Davies since twenty twenty two,
although it really ramped up last year, was to explain
(31:26):
to people who maybe hadn't read the book called listen
to the podcast that this issue I think explains so
much about how Israel is using, particularly in the war
in Gaza, as a way to showcase huge amounts of
new tech, including AI, despite the fact that on October seven,
all the tech around Gaza failed. People failed, the military failed,
(31:46):
the government fail. Everyone failed. Is from the Israeli perspective,
of course, and despite that, the Israeli arms industry has
never been better now might say better more profitable in
the last fifteen sixteen months.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, Anthony, it's really interesting to think about both Gaza
and Ukraine as the forefront of what warfare looks like
in the future. So one of the things that you've
touched on in your documentary is specifically this new use
of artificial intelligence. So can you lay out some of
what that looks like. I think the world really got
a taste of that with that famous drone footage several
months ago of following that man and assassinating him even
(32:24):
though he prepared to be doing npolutely nothing wrong.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
One of the things that Israel has been doing before
October seven was using AI, but since October seven there's
been a huge expansion. There's a various tools that they
use called lavender Where's Daddy really dystopian names, essentially finding
so called legitimate targets in the Israeli playbook to kill
people in Gaza. Now in theory in years past, it
(32:48):
was senior Hamas militants, senior Hamas leaders. What's happened since
and we discussed this in the film in great depth
is that the way that targets are selected is primarily
done through AI, through a system of massive data collecting
that Israel has been doing four years. There's about two
going three million civilians living in Gars, that's been the
(33:11):
case for many years, and Israel controls all aspects of
that land, that territory, or communication in and out, all
information about personal details, et cetera. So all that data
is fed into a machine and it essentially spits out
information which is deemed to be legitimate targets. But the
key point here is that, as Israel calls it legitimate
(33:34):
targets to kill civilians has been massively increased. So whereas
in the past, if Israel would kill the Hummas militant
alleged harmas militant, maybe five or ten civilians could be killed,
now we're talking about one hundreds, and particularly in the
first three or four months of this war after October seven,
where the death toll escalated into the tens of thousands
(33:55):
very quickly. It's important to say that I'm not arguing,
in no one's saying that AI is not making all
these decisions. This ultimately is made still by people, by humans,
and the ultimate problem here is the dehumanization of Palestinians
is so paramount within Israel that if they kill twenty
thirty forty fifty sixty thousand Palestinians deemed to be apparent terrorist,
(34:18):
that's legitimate. And what the fear I have is that
film talks about this is there are many other countries
that look to what Israel has been doing in Gaza
as a model as stagam as you say, what Ukraine
has been doing in their own wall, in their own country,
essentially backs by the US their models. They're testing grounds,
and the war has been used as a testing ground
(34:40):
for every Rak and Afghanistan were as well. But the
difference I think here is that the Israellies have a
captive Palestinian population on their doorstep indefinitely. And I fear that,
and I've heard this from people. I was doing work
on the film last year, spending time in Israel and
Palestine across the world, and a lot of countries look
(35:02):
to Israel with deep admiration, deep admiration because Israel gets
away with it and they have to this day. No
one is stopping them. This wasn't happening under Trump. On
the bottom, I should say or frankly won't happen under Trump. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I think that was one of the most chilling moments
of the documentary, is talking about how this is something
that many countries want. They want the sort of tech
that allows them to get away with it, and I
think it's important for people to understand this isn't just
about battlefield technologies. You spend a good amount of time
on surveillance tech as well, which is extensive beyond belief.
(35:39):
Particularly hit home for me at a time when Trump
just announced this big Stargate five hundred billion dollar boondoggle.
One of the people involved, Oracles Larry Ellison, has been
out bragging about how AI is going to make sure
that all citizens are on their quote best behavior because
of the implementation of the surveillance tech.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Talk a little bit about that aspect of it.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Well, it's actually a quote in the film by a Palestinian,
a digital rights campaigner called Mona Shtaie, who literally uses
those words that Palestinians have to be in inverted commas
on their best behavior, both in real life and online
because the surveillance is so ubiquitous, and a lot of
people have seen the film and only came out less
than a week ago. The first part. The first part
(36:22):
said in Israel Palestine, and the second part we go
globally where I go to the US Mexico border, India,
Sri Lanka, not South Africa, and Greece and only show
how Israeli surveillance and repressive tech is exported globally. And
one of the things I think that many people don't
(36:42):
realize is how ubiquitous the surveillance is within Palestine. A
lot of people compare it to Black Mirror, the British
program which talked about a very believable near future where
surveillance is utterly everywhere. So when Larry Ellison or anyone
else says to be on your best behavior, who is
making those decisions? What's best behavior? And it comes in
(37:03):
in terms of Palestine. It means people who, for example,
can't express their honest opinion because they worry they'll be
deemed as security threats, terrorist threats. And one of the
things that AI is doing, and we talk about this
extensively in the film, is actually trying to document every
single citizen in Palestine with a certain almost like a
(37:26):
traffic light, So you are deemed as a threat if
you have certain political views, and we're saying to viewers as,
despite what Israel and supporters might say, this is not
about going after so called terrorists. The argument has not
been for years. Israel's killing all the terrorists in Gaza.
Has Anthony Blincoln himself said in the last days of
(37:49):
the Biden administration, Hamas is essentially regrouped and recruited huge
amounts of people during the last war. Now, Hamas has
been bloodied and beaten in certain ways, of course they have.
It's been a fifteen month war. But Hamas is still standing,
whatever we might think about them. That's the reality. So ultimately,
the question is what has Israel actually achieved here. They've
(38:09):
achieved the decimation of Gaza. Yes, they've achieved the massiveveillance
of many of the Ghazan population and a massive increase
in violence in the West Bank. So that's what many
countries look to with admiration, and we show a lot
of that in the second episode of the film.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah, I think that that extends also now to Prime
Minister Netanyah, who's visit to Washington. He's actually literally here
as you speak, speaking with President Trump. All indications are
that he wants to scuttle quote phase two of the deal.
How does your documentary fit within that?
Speaker 6 (38:42):
Look. One of the things that's very clear is that
within Israel itself, the country is split in a way
that there are many Israelies who want all the hostages out,
these rally hostages, which is a very reasonable demand, but
there's a huge pressure on Netanyahu within his coalition to
continue the war to essentially even destroy Gaza even more. Obviously,
I can't predict exactly what the outcome of that meeting
(39:03):
between SnO and Trump will be, but I think I
suspect that there'll be pressure onto to try to continue
the negotiations to get more hostages out. There are many
many who remain in under Hamas control, so it seems
to me unlikely that Trump will simply allow that to happen.
(39:23):
The danger, to me is not just about the hostages question.
The broader question is a Trump himself said, literally a
week ago, very few days after we came into office,
how about Jordan or Egypt just taking one and a
half million Palestinians Like, hang on a minute, the idea
of removing them from Gaza so Gaza can be rebuilt
(39:44):
to whose dictates Jared Kushna his real estate mates. I mean,
we can set of joke about that, but that's literally
what Trump said, while at the same time the West
Bank is on fire. And I think there is a
real kind of accelerationist in Israel. And I've been saying
this for years, long before October seven. There are obviously
the is Raleigh Jews who oppose what's going on. Of
(40:06):
course they are, and some of them are in the film,
particularly in the second part. Gideon Levy is one good
example of that. But there is a sizeable proportion of
the Israeli population that believes it occupation is legitimate. The
dehumanizing Palestinians forever is okay, is necessary, is needed, is justified.
And when you have the world's biggest superpower, the US,
(40:26):
whether it's Obama or Biden or Trump, basically saying go
for your life. Here's more weapons. Israel's coming to Trump
today asking for at least eight billion dollars of more weapons,
and it's a good chance Trump will say yes to that.
So what the outcome of the meeting will be, of course,
it is the possible to predict. But the bigger picture
(40:47):
here is what the so called vision is for Palestine
and the fear of many Palestinians and many, I would say,
decent people around the world, is that the ultimate vision
here is endless occupation, dehumanization, which never, by the way,
brings peace to his relis. Yeah, none of it does.
In fact, life for them is never being more insecure.
In my view, never being more insecure. And I say
(41:09):
that as someone who's Jewish mussel.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Go ahead, guys, and put E two up on the screen.
To this point.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Trump was asked yesterday if he would support West Bank annexation,
and he said he wouldn't really say whether he supports
it or not. He said, I'm not going to talk
about that. It's certainly a small country in terms of land.
Talking about Israel, he then took out his pen and said,
you see this pen, this wonderful pen. My whole desk
is the Middle East, and the top of the pen
(41:36):
is Israel. That's not good. It's a pretty big difference.
It's a pretty small piece of land. And it's amazing
they've been able to do what they've been able to do.
As you mentioned, part of the project here of continued occupation, subjugation,
and assault of the Palestinian people has been a long
term project of dehumanization. You know, to bring it back
(41:58):
around to your documentary, how does the tech help to
facilitate that ongoing process of complete dehumanization.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Well, hugely, because one of the things we investigate in
the film, particularly in the second episode when we travel
the world, is there are multiple examples the US Mexico border, India,
the EU and Greece's detention, surveillance of migrants coming from
Turkey and elsewhere. The reality of South Africa today and
particularly when to South Africa, look at the connection in
(42:29):
the past between apartheid South Africa and Israel, but also
today between both countries, and so much of the surveillance
and repressive tech that Israel's testing and using in Palestine
is deeply attractive to those countries. And obviously we could
have chosen many other examples. This is what is partly
fueling Israel's seeming impunity. India, for example, is the world's
(42:51):
biggest population country emoting it are very good friends and
there's a massive example and we detail this in the
film of India being inspired by how they is inspired
by Israel's repressing Palestinians and they want to use that
against the Muslim population, of which there are roughly two
hundred million people in India. So to see that tech
(43:13):
first use in Palestine now appearing, for example in India
on the US Mexico border at Greek detention centers backed
and funded by the EU. Mexico we visit, which is
the world's biggest and most obsessive user of Israeli spyware.
I mean, let's be clear, Mexico, whether it's controlled by
the right or left, they're equally obsessed with Israeli spyware.
(43:35):
This is the reality of I guess, the seeming appeal
of Israeli repressive tech. So when Trump talks about it
in his kind of weird explanation about the West Bank,
which to me sort of suggested that he supports Israel
having more land, therefore supporting annexation, I mean, let's be clear,
(43:56):
Israel as quasi annexed the West Bank anyway, I mean
we talk about I mean, it's important to say that
it hasn't been officially annexed, but having spent time there
in any Palestinian will say, I mean, Palestinian life in
the West Bank is deeply problematic, hard, and incredibly challenging.
Long before October seven. But certainly since so the fear
(44:16):
I have that many other nations are seeing what Israel
is doing in Gaza and the West Bank and also
in Israel proper, and they see it as attractive and
as the right and the far right increases its influence.
It's worth saying globally, places like France, Germany, Sweden, much
a lot of Europe. Now parts of the US parties,
(44:39):
particularly in Europe, but traditionally were literally neo Nazis view
Israel as a model. Now that might seem insane when
Israel is a Jewish state and there are quasi forma
or current groups and parties in Sweden, in France, in
Germany the traditionally how connected to the neo Nazis who
(45:01):
see Israel as a model. Why because they loathe multiculturalism,
they loathe Muslims. They believe in this concept of ethno nationalism.
And the film touches on that. In say India, which
is in my view and many others, becoming an ethno
nationalist Hindu state, and Israeli tech is fueling that. Now
India is doing what it's doing for its own reason.
(45:22):
It's not doing it because of Israel, but Israeli tech
is central to that and we document in the film
how that impacts Indian population in reality, and that's a
scary fact. As the right and the far right grows
in popularity around the world.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Anthony to tell people where they can watch the film.
The first part of the series is out now, next
part comes out when so.
Speaker 6 (45:47):
It's available on YouTube for free. It's our Dazira English.
It's available. Part one came out last week. It's on YouTube.
You can google it easy to find. It's on social media.
It's on YouTube on our DEASEIIR website. Part two comes
out on februy the CIA. That will also be available
on YouTube. It's been seeing now hundreds of thousands of times,
and I encourage people to see because it will hopefully
scare you and push you into some kind of action
(46:09):
and not be paralyzed by fear. That's the idea. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Yeah, it was interesting talking to you.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
Thank you, Thank you, Anthony.
Speaker 6 (46:15):
Great to see.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Take care, thank you, Thank you guys so much for watching.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Great counterpoint show for you tomorrow. We'll see you then.
Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
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and we are so excited about what that means for
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Speaker 3 (00:08):
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We need your help to build the future of independent
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dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
We talked to you recently about Mark Andresen and then
Zuckerberg going on with Joe Rogan and being like, you know, we.
Speaker 4 (00:39):
Gotta deal with this.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
This d banking Elizabeth Warren's d banking agency, the Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau, which actually is basically like the anti
scam Agency, is sort of like the best way effectively
to think about that. This is no surprise, but Rohit Chopra,
who's been the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
and a very effective one at that, who, by the way,
has a posed debanking people for political ends. He has
(01:03):
now officially been fired and in addition put the next
piece up on the screen. Apparently the billionaire Hedgemund Treasury
Secretary Scott Bessant has been put in for as acting
director of the CFPB, and he immediately sends out a
memo to staff saying you need to halt movement on
(01:23):
any proposed or final rules guidance, suspend effective dates of rules,
don't advance investigations or enforcement actions, no material agreements, no
public communications or reports, seemingly giving Mark Andrews and Mark
Zuckerberg and a lot of other people exactly what they
were looking for here.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah. That I mean, yes, this is what.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Grod to hear to say, thank you, help people understand
what is the import of this particular agency and just
remind them why the Mark Andrews and the Mark Zuckerbergs
of the world were irritated at it in particular.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Yeah, So the CFPB was dealing with, you know, scams
and fraud and consumer protection questions, and so they would
they were going after you know, there was this there's
this company called Synapps which was like which was one
of these fintech companies, and it sort of appeared like
a bank and then a bunch of people lost their
life savings in it. And the CFPB was investigating doing
(02:26):
things to try to deal with with syn apps. Marc
Andreesen was a big investor in synapps. This is true
for a number of different investments.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
That he made.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
He doesn't like that the CFPB is wasn't was enforcing
the law. I think that's my general view. But this
is also you know Wall Street generally. There are there
are different parts here because there's some things that the
CFPB was doing that Wall Street did like. So they
were looking into big tech owned payment systems. Banks are
afraid of that open banking rules that some fintech companies
(02:59):
liked that banks don't don't. Particularly, there's there's elements around
FICO and credit reporting that some mortgage bankers don't like.
So there's there's some industry splits, but by and largely
what you find is that Wall Street and like hates
any kind of anyone that tells them no, right, and
that the CFPB and Roach Choper was saying, no, you
can't steal everything. You can only steal a lot, right,
(03:21):
and and so yeah, I know, how dare you right?
And the Silicon Valley, you know, was getting and has
been getting into payments and banking style arrangements, especially especially Meta.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
One himself is interested in this for Twitter as well.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yes, the original you know vision of Confinity and X
is literally PayPal.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
That's what he's a sign of what he thought it was.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
He made his original money from PayPal, right, so that
was a big, a big part of it. But yeah,
metas into it. Amazon is hugely into it too. I
mean there there's Meta tried to start their own currency
like Libra, right, and I know, and everyone's like, you know,
how dare how dare Biden be so mean to Meta?
Speaker 1 (04:04):
And it's like that was blocked under Trump right right?
Speaker 5 (04:07):
First Trump, So we got to come up with a
nomenclature for first Trump and now Trump Trump Trump.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Trump two point Oh I love what I do. Yeah,
that's what I've been turning with as well. Trump the return.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
I don't know, let's also talk let's let's go to
let's see see four. This is sort of more directly
related to the CFP B. You've had a similar order
go out at the SEC that's Security Exchange Commission, which
looks at sort of like you know, insider trading and
other white collar banking crimes. So they say that this
(04:38):
change has not previously been reported made under new leadership,
they are tightening oversight of probes, basically making it so
that you have to go through the political appointees. If
you want to, you can start an investigation, but if
you're actually going to launch an official probe, you've got
to go through the political appointees. You know, how should
we understand this shift matter?
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Is this common?
Speaker 1 (04:59):
What does this?
Speaker 6 (05:00):
So?
Speaker 1 (05:01):
This is? This is actually a big deal.
Speaker 5 (05:02):
It's one of these annoying things that annoying people like
me paytential attention to. When you're an investigator, if you
have you know, if you have to get permission from
your boss to look into something, you're going to look
into less stuff, right, and a bunch of agencies. Sometimes
they delegate authority to staff to look into stuff, and
sometimes they don't. This is actually true in Congress too,
(05:25):
Like Congress has investigative authority. Sometimes they let the chairman
issue subpoenas. Sometimes the whole committee has to vote on subpoenas.
It's a very different arrangement. If you have one guy
who can just issue a subpoena if he wants to,
And that's basically what they're saying here is there.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
What they're now saying is if you work.
Speaker 5 (05:41):
At one at the SEC, you have to go you
have to get permission from the Republican Commissioners about whether
to investigate something. And so that just provides a much
tighter level of control over what the SEC is doing
and means that the SEC is not going to be
doing as much.
Speaker 3 (05:56):
Has it worked like that in the past, do you know,
is this like a reverse of guidance or Biden or
I think the true?
Speaker 5 (06:02):
Well, so what that article said and I'm just going
off with that, right, you know, article on screen set
is that it's traditionally the SEC gives wide latitude to
to its people to just investigate. I know that the
Federal Trade Commission better. They in the consumer branch of
the Federal Trade Commission, They've historically allowed staff to just
kind of I got a hunch that there's that vitamin
supplement guys scamming people. I'm going to go investigate. I'm
(06:24):
not going to bug the commissioners every time. On the
competition side, So for antitrust, they traditionally did have to
get permission to investigate companies.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
A couple of years ago.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
The FTC changed that and said, actually, now on the
competition side, if you if you smell something that's off,
you can go and investigate. And so that's a way
of just kind of saying we're going to let you
do more.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
But you know, it has there are.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
Implications to it, right, so if things are going through
the you know, staff doesn't always have a good political sense,
and so sometimes they can issue investigative demands that are
intimidating or scary or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So it's not like a completely outrageous.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
Proposal, but in the context of the SEC, in the
context of these of what Trump is doing more broadly,
it really is about, you know, shutting down investigation of
corporate crime. And that that I mean, there's we're essentially
in the moment of the white collar purge, right, all
crime is legal, right, and that that is kind of
true I think for the next six months, year or
(07:29):
something like that. I mean, also the DJ. You know,
a lot of the shake ups that are going on
in government. I don't think there's a lot of investigations
of crime going on right now at the FBI or DJ.
And you know, you're seeing a CFPV shut down. You
see the SEC basically same sort of very similar. You're
seeing i think a rollback at the consumer protection side
of the FCC, not the competition side. So what you,
(07:51):
I think broadly are going to see is that there's
going to be a wide latitude for pushing the law
or just violating the law.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
If you have a suit and tie.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Can you respond to some of the Some of the
discourse online that I've been watching spectating is there's this
analysis of you know, you people got your way, You
anti trust people got your way under Biden, and the
public voter for Trump anyway, and so you know, you
have this stuff you care about your whole competition and
(08:25):
going after white collar criminals like it's not all that popular, right?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
What is your view of that?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
And of because I do think that Biden, because he
was an old man who couldn't really articulate much of
anything about anything, did fail to enlist the American people
in a project that was pissing off the tech barons
and the Wall Street people, and is part of why
they decided to completely throw in with Trump. So it
(08:55):
ended up in a sense, I mean, I'm glad that
the enforcement actions happen. I think that stuff is important
and hopefully has lasting riverbding impacts. But in a sense,
you know, you got four years of a better approach.
You pissed off powerful people, but you didn't enlist the
American people and help them understand what you were doing
to create a sort of like popular understanding of why
(09:17):
these things are important, which makes it easy for Mark
Andrewes and to go on Joe Rogan's podcast and be
like the cfp B they're d banking conservatives and loop
it all into some you know, culture bullshit culture war umbrella.
Speaker 5 (09:29):
Yeah, so there's I think there's two. There's two ways
to understand what happened. Okay, So one, I think we
can go into ways that the INtime monopolist sort of
things that they we didn't do enough of. I'll say
we because I consider myself this sort of a movement
and stuff that's kind of our fault, right. And then
I think there's the broader dynamic. So it's just let's
just divide it into those into two different things. I think
(09:51):
the broader dynamic is far more impactful. So just to
give you a sense of how much power the INtime
monopolist had. So if you take the CFPB right, the
anti trust enforcers which are in the Federal Trade Commission,
and the Anti Trust Division, total budget right of all
three of those is less than a billion dollars. Okay,
(10:11):
the rest of the government, I don't know what is
that five trillion dollars something like that. So you know,
you're talking about a very very very small part of
the government. Now, it was I think important, and people
noticed it because they were the only ones doing something
that was actually different and articulating. Maybe not a new agenda,
but a traditional agenda that the Democrats would have recognized.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
In the nineteen thirties or nineteen sixties or something like that.
Speaker 5 (10:36):
But the rest of the government, right, you know, Javier
Basera at Health and Human Services, right, when was the
last time we heard his name?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Right, do anything? Right?
Speaker 5 (10:45):
And so how much can you really accomplish out of
a couple of regulatory agencies when the Federal Reserve and
we don't nobody is like, oh man, that j Powell
at the Federal Reserve. That's the reason Democrats lost it
is because nobody is nobody. That's just the water was
swimming in. Oh Man, that Jenny Yellen at Treasury Department.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
Oh man, that.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Well, Pow probably had more to do it with anybody, right, yeah,
out of anybody else, that's.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Probably Oh yeah, No one's thinking that.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
That they should.
Speaker 5 (11:12):
You know, in twenty twenty two, Democrats overperform in the
midterms at the height of inflation.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
In twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5 (11:19):
Got crushed, Yes, because people didn't want high interest rates.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
It was a high interest rate election.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, right, I mean that's what it's.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
It's so so that I think that that people noticed
the inti monopolists because that was different, right, but it
wasn't dominant in the administration. That The other thing is
there was no alignment between the politics and the policy
of the entire so, like, yeah, what you said is right.
Biden didn't articulate it. But I think if you talk
(11:47):
to most Democrats in Congress, right, they didn't know what
the anti trust people were doing. They couldn't articulate any
of this stuff. So it was sort of this orphan
agenda over here. And I only think it's totally fair
to say, oh, you know, you made powerful people mad
but didn't bring in any political benefits. Therefore it made
it worse. I think those powerful people. I think what
(12:08):
happened is the people voted. My guess is people voted
for Trump because costs went up, wages went down, and
Democrats were obsessed with stupid things, right, And that's not
you know, Lena CON's fault. That's a broader political dynamic.
I do think though there are some things that the
anti monopolists.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
You know.
Speaker 5 (12:26):
The other thing is when candidates were running, they were
running on things like Inhaler's right, getting cheaper, right, and
you know, Epipen's getting cheaper and junk fees and a
whole like the arguments that basically the only thing Democrats
had to run on in twenty twenty four that was
economic was the stuff the anti monopolists had done. It
(12:46):
didn't necessarily work, although I think in some races it
probably did. You saw it like in Las Vegas or
in Nevada and in other states there were normy Democrats
that were running on opposition to the Kroger robertson merger right.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
And does this stuff work?
Speaker 5 (13:04):
I don't know, but I'm not a political person, but
it's like, if that's what they're if that's the only
thing they're running on, you know, they're not running on
the first you know, non bare binary undersecretary of whatever.
They're running on you know, food prices, so that and
the things that the Biden administration had done. The fact
that the only people who did anything where the anti monopolists,
(13:25):
is not our fault. But I do think this stuff
takes way too long. Right, so you launch something like
you launch a Trump launched a Facebook suit in a
Google suit in twenty twenty. The Facebook suit isn't even
going to trial until you know, later this spring. So
that's five years from them filing the complaint, six seven
years from the investigation to even going to trial. It's
(13:48):
not talking about appeals and everything. And that's just broadly
true across the board, the suit against Ticketmaster, the suit
against Google, suit against Apple suit. People don't feel the
effects because it takes way too long. And then the
other part of it is I think I think the
agencies did a great job. You know, you can't issue
a rule and it takes three years to issue a
rule tapping overdraft fees.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
That's ridiculous. We gotta, you know, we gotta hurry this
stuff up.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
We also have to do something about the courts who
just block everything that's nice, you know, which is which
is kind of crazy, you know, the non compete rules,
stuff like that. So there are a number of institutional factors.
And then I think, you know, this is the first
time that any of these people, you know, that we
had ever had any levers of government to pull. And
so what you're seeing more broadly is the generational dynamic
(14:33):
and a Democratic Party which was basically overlooking or actively
helping oligarchs under Bill Clinton, under Barack Obama, and now
some of the younger people with no mentorship at all. Right,
we're saying maybe we should try something different. And nobody
in our lifetime has done anything like this before. So
of course it's not going to be perfect, but it
(14:54):
is the outline for a party that's going to advocate
for the working class or all. And I don't mean
that the Democratic Party, I mean either party that wants
to do this is going to have to do some
of these anti corporate things, and that's going to upset
powerful people one way or the other.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh, I'm all in favor of upsetting the powerful people.
I just think I mean, I think you articulated all
very well, and I've thought more about it and have
a certainly more granular understanding than I do. But if
you were pissing off the powerful people, but you aren't
like an FDR explaining like I welcome their hatred and
here's why they hate me and here's how it's still
nobody knows about it, then you're just going to have
(15:36):
a lot of powerful people mad at you and hold
that on your destruction and you're not going to have
the you know, on the other side, you need to
have the people behind you to back you up.
Speaker 5 (15:44):
You just have this joke when I would talk to
someone who was, you know, we're going an anti trust case,
I would, you know, they would say something about what
they were doing, and I would just be like, a
voter might hear you?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, Like that's really I mean if you look that.
Speaker 5 (15:54):
I looked system sort of semi systematically at what the
White House Press Secretary was would say, right, and they
were asked about a Ticketmaster suit or a Google or
whatever it was, and she would always say, I can't
comment on pending litigation. And then people would be like,
but it's Ticketmaster. They couldn't sell tickets to the Taylor
Swift conference or a conference concert or.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
God man, I am such a nerd. The jacket, it's
really good.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
I was a victim of Ticketmaster. Well I couldn't get
a ticket, It's true, and we happened.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
So, you know, she made fun of the reporters for answering,
for asking a question. And so it's like, if that's
your framework, right, if you just mock the idea that,
if you mock your own administration's agenda, that's a.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Little that's a little bit. That's pretty weird.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Right, And I mean you saw, like anyway, I don't
want to get into the Democratic Party. There's a I've
been thinking a lot about it. But there's a basic
problem that they have, which is, you know the street
lamp issue. Right, So the street lamp the parable about economists.
So a drunk guy is looking for his keys, yeah, right,
and the guy and the cops says, why are you
looking here? And he's like, where'd you lose your keys?
(17:04):
He said over there? Why are you looking here? He said, Oh,
well that's what the light, that's where the light is.
He's looking under the lamp. Yeah, And I think that's
kind of what what democrats do is they are, you know,
they're trying to figure out what what a problem. What
to do about a problem that voters are complaining about,
But they always look under the lamp post instead of
where the problem is, even though they know it's not
(17:24):
right right, And that's that's a that's a dynamic party wide.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Well, I always love talking to you, man, really appreciate
you joining us.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Just when you thought DEI was out of the federal government,
it is back with a vengeance. Let's put this up
on the screen. We got a new task Force to
combat anti Semitism announced by the Justice Department. They say
in this anti Semitism is any environment in any environment
is repugnant to this nation's ideal. Certainly, said Senior counsel
(17:54):
Or Assistant Attorney General with Civil Rights. We'll be heading
this task force. Apartment takes seriously our response ability to
eradicate this hatred wherever it is found. Task Force to
Combat anti Semitism is the first step in giving life
to President Trump's renewed commitment to ending anti Semitism in
our schools.
Speaker 4 (18:11):
Of course, everybody here a poorse.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And poses actual anti semitism. But we know that the
definition that is embraced right Trump and has also been
embraced on a bipartisan basis by members of Congress also
includes things like daring to criticize Israel. Trump has also,
you know, moved to put in place procedures to deport
anyone from any students who are here on foreign visas
(18:37):
who are pro Palestine and engage in protests there as well.
So even Christopher Ruffo took a principal stand on this
one and said it was inconsistent with the push against AI.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
Got a hand tool.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Put this up on the screen, He says. Supporters of
this initiative should ask themselves, how is it reasonable to
support a task force on anti Semitism while opposing an
Ebrahm Kenny style task force on anti Black racism DEI?
By the same principle, how is it reasonable to support
a task force on anti Semitism without also supporting a
task force of anti Wait racism and a task force
(19:09):
on anti Asian racism, both of which are widespread on campuses.
How is it consistent for the administration to abolish DEI
than establish a special task force for one rather than
all of these groups.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I think that is very well.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So I think he's totally right, And of course there's
always a huge blind sprout whenever it comes to all
of this.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I haven't seen much push I mean maybe you're more
tuned in, but haven't seen much pushback nice against this.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, let's all be real, like you know, like it's
always been obvious it's fake. Uh, you know in terms
of where you had Ron remember when he created literally
affirmative action for Jewishness.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
So and these are state resources. He's like, anybody who
feels unsafe and across the United States is welcome to
come to Florida. We'll give you tuition assistance. And I
was like, uh, are we understanding this? Or powerlunteer if
we'll recall was like, oh, anybody who uh, well, it's
actually not his company, but I mean he's an investor
or whatever. But but my only point is Peter, for
(20:10):
some reason, is always socially the paltants like it's Joe
Lonsdale and Alex cart it's a really Alex Carp's company,
so he should get the smoke if people are looking
at it to get it out there. He's a multi
billionaire too, so there you go, you can attack him.
My point around it is that it's obviously been a
blind spot. It's one which is wholly focused on by
these donors, and it has become extremely important because this
(20:35):
is the literal Department of Justice, the arm of the
government now adopting this anti semitism definition from Congress.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
What is it?
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The IHR a definition around anti Semitism, instituting it in law,
which is an obvious and direct threat to the First
Amendment rights of all American citizens. Baby, that's I mean,
that's my beef.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
They basically want to like make it illegal to criticize Israel.
I mean, it's insane. Glenn makes this point all the time.
You can criticize America till the cows come home. You
say anything about this country, and you should be able to,
But you can't say anything about this foreign country that
we ship billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to. Like,
that's insane. That is a grave infringement on our rights.
(21:19):
And anyone who claims to be, you know, in favor
of color blindness and you know, in favor of merit
against DEI, anyone.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Who claims to be in favor of free speech.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Should be wildly opposed to this particular direction. There are
a couple other things that I just wanted to get
into the show to keep an eye on as well.
In terms of that attack on free speech. You know,
Ryan laid this out really well. Trump has basically adopted
this new tactic where he sues a media organization or
(21:48):
like an Sells or or whoever truly for buying large,
frivolous lawsuits that in any normal time would either be
thrown out or he would lose on the merits. But
these media organized media organizations, which are gigantic conglomerates, which
want various things from the federal government and want to
avoid let's say, antitrust scrutiny in whatever new merger deal
(22:10):
that they have floated or you know that they just
were able to accomplish. They want to keep in Trump's
good graces, so they basically decide to settle and pay
him off in what amounts to effectively a bribe to
leave them alone. That's happened a couple of times. But
now we also have the FCC going after a number
(22:32):
of different media organizations.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
This is pretty wild. It could put D three up
on the screen.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
So CBS has been forced to hand over the unedited
transcript from that Kamala Harris interview that Trump and other
Republicans didn't like how it was edited.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I mean, like I mean, to be fair, they did
edit it dishonestly because from in terms of the way
they put it out or not.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Okay, well, Fox News dishonestly edited a Trump town hall
and edited out his stuff. If the Biden administration, you know,
if Kamala had been elected and the SEC was going
after Fox News because they didn't like how the interview
was edited, we should be opposed to that as well.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
I don't disagree. I think that, I mean, the difference
between Fox and CBS is about the network status in
terms of their I forget exactly what it is about
the fair something doctrine under because it's a network versus
an actual channel on cable.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
That's the pretext that they're giving.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I actually think was more egregious are all of these
media companies which are settling with Donald Trump totally because
that is literally like as you and I know, because
we have similar insurance policies and others, it is the
bar for having to pay out on defamation is you
have to do what CNN did in the case of
that guy who they defamed down in Florida. They were
(23:47):
like lied about him. They literally had recordings that were
revealed where they're like, I hate that guy. I want
to screw him over, didn't issue a timely retraction and
caused financial harm to an individual, and he wasn't a
public figure like you have to check like nine all
of those boxes to be able.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's why it's so rare that anything like it even happens.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
I think it's much crazier that they are settling with
the president literally paying I think all.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Of us crazy.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
They're also going after the FCC is also going after
NPR and PBS, saying he's concerned that they could be
violating federal law by airing commercials. In particular, they say
it's possible NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting
announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements. Again, obviously,
what how do you feel about NPR PBS? This is
(24:35):
like an ideological attack on them that doesn't really have
anything to do with whether or not they are taking
appropriate commercial money. And then the other piece that kind
of falls into what you were saying, Sager about the
like capitulation and the bending of the knee. This is
not an overtbride but you guys will remember before the election,
the Washington Post, the Bezos Washington Post and the La
(24:57):
Times both decided, even though they're at a real staff,
had prepared endorsements of Kamala Harris, but they were just
not going to endorse at all. Well, the La Times
tried to cloak this at the time and like, oh,
it's because we don't like her policy on Gaza. I
think at this point it's pretty clear that that was
not really what was going on. We now have this
is just absolutely agree. Just put this up on the screen.
(25:18):
So they picked up an op ed from a contributor
that was very critical of RFK Junior and his approach,
and it was actually an interesting op ed talking about
his thesis was basically like the reaction to Luigi Mangioni
and the support for RFK Junior in some ways comes
from the same place of like, discussed with the healthcare
(25:39):
system and its failures, and we're getting sicker and we're
getting fatter, and you know, our life expectancy is dropping,
and but he goes on to make, you know, very
critical argument about RFK Junior. So its its Originally the
closing line said, although RFK Junior and Luigi Mangioni. Are
both responses the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption.
(25:59):
There's a major difference between them. One allegedly operated outside
the law to kill one person in defensive millions, whereas
the other, via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence, seeks
to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.
Very critical of RFK Junior. The headline was supposed to
be critical. Well, the LA Times before they published, stripped
(26:20):
out all the sentences that were critical of RFK Junior,
flipped the headline to be the polar opposite of what
this op ed contributor intended it to be and published
it that way.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
And the owner of the La.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Times, the dude who blocked the endorsement previously, tweeted it
out to, you know, celebrate this support of RFK Junior,
which the author han't had intended in the total opposite direction. So,
you know, another instance obviously of the media just like
wanting to be on Trump's good side, et cetera, et cetera,
that we're seeing almost almost across the board in various ways.
(26:58):
And I think that you're right. The pieces perhaps the
wildest direction.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
By the way, if anything ever like that happens and
somebody doesn't quit and that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Well he doesn't actually what he's a contributor. He doesn't
actually like work for them, I'm sure. And he said
he will never publish with that us. But you can't.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
I mean, it's just.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
If somebody ever did that to me, I'm like, okay,
it is outrageously ethical.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
So between the time, you know, you work with an
editor of course, and he proved, okay, this is you know,
this is where we are and this would you agree to,
and then before it's published, like imagine if you know
our producers after you recorded your monologue went in and
completely flipped on its head, changed the like insane.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
You know, I almost imagine it to a previous company.
Oh we'll just leave it there. Let's get to uh
Anthony Lowenstein.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
We are fortunate to be joined this morning by Anthony Lowenstein,
who is an independent journalist. He's author of the global
best selling book The Palestine Laboratory, also a podcast with
drop site News, our friends Ryan and Jeremy and just
released a documentary series with Al Jazeera English on the
Gaza Laboratory.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
Great to see you Anthony, welcome, good to see you.
Speaker 6 (28:10):
Thanks for having me guys, thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, of course I watched The Dark yesterday evening. You
did a fantastic job. Let's just give your viewers a
little bit of a taste of what is in that
new documentary.
Speaker 6 (28:20):
The Farmbra Air Show one of the largest in the world.
Global weapons giants like Bae Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Airbus
come to show off their latest military hardware. Billions of
dollars of civil and military deals are done here every year.
(28:44):
Standing shoulders to shoulder with these global military giants. Israel's
top weapons manufacturers like Israel Aerospace Industries and missile makers Raphael.
In the main hall, Israel's largest private weapons company, Elbert,
has a huge stand They needed to showcase their world
(29:06):
class drones and missiles. Despite its tiny population, Israel is
the world's ninth largest weapons producer. This high budget promo
is for the Trophy anti missile system made by Israeli
company Raphael. It's the kind of advanced technology Israel specializes
(29:29):
in and makes the Israeli MIRKF tank one of the
best on the market.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Automatically activated only when enemy fuyer the vehicle.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
Both tank and anti missile systems sell around the world
to undisclose clients. Overall, Israel exports more than thirteen billion
dollars of weapons and surveillance equipment a year. And with
adverts like this for the Spike firefly, Israeli company's hint
that their products may have been battle tested in Palestine.
(29:58):
So how does being a mad who to armed supplier
impact Israel's diplomatic position? Could it give the country a
measure of impunity when it wants to undertake its own wars?
Speaker 2 (30:12):
So, Anthony, why did you think this particular aspect of
the conflict was important for people around the world to understand?
Speaker 6 (30:18):
When I started writing the book I came out in
mid twenty twenty three, I felt that it was an
issue that actually was largely of course, this was before
October seven, an issue that had been largely ignored. I
must say, no one else had ever covered it. They had,
of course in the media here and there. But the
Israeli arms industry explains so much about how Israel operates
in the occupied Palestinian territories and also in the region.
(30:41):
I don't stay in the book or the film or
the podcast that Israel's occupying Palestine simply to make money
from weapons. That would not be true. But instead of
a self perfetual wedding industry where you have a massive
number of Israelis who of course going to the army,
the IDF, they spent many years there, They're in intelligence,
they're in various other units, and they take that experience
into the private sector once they'd left. And that's why,
(31:04):
as we say in the film, it's now the ninth
biggest arms still are in the world for a country
which is a tiny, tiny population. And we thought that
the reason to make the film, which has been we
sort of start as working with a British production company,
Blackley Films, and the director Dan Davies since twenty twenty two,
although it really ramped up last year, was to explain
(31:26):
to people who maybe hadn't read the book called listen
to the podcast that this issue I think explains so
much about how Israel is using, particularly in the war
in Gaza, as a way to showcase huge amounts of
new tech, including AI, despite the fact that on October seven,
all the tech around Gaza failed. People failed, the military failed,
(31:46):
the government fail. Everyone failed. Is from the Israeli perspective,
of course, and despite that, the Israeli arms industry has
never been better now might say better more profitable in
the last fifteen sixteen months.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, Anthony, it's really interesting to think about both Gaza
and Ukraine as the forefront of what warfare looks like
in the future. So one of the things that you've
touched on in your documentary is specifically this new use
of artificial intelligence. So can you lay out some of
what that looks like. I think the world really got
a taste of that with that famous drone footage several
months ago of following that man and assassinating him even
(32:24):
though he prepared to be doing npolutely nothing wrong.
Speaker 6 (32:27):
One of the things that Israel has been doing before
October seven was using AI, but since October seven there's
been a huge expansion. There's a various tools that they
use called lavender Where's Daddy really dystopian names, essentially finding
so called legitimate targets in the Israeli playbook to kill
people in Gaza. Now in theory in years past, it
(32:48):
was senior Hamas militants, senior Hamas leaders. What's happened since
and we discussed this in the film in great depth
is that the way that targets are selected is primarily
done through AI, through a system of massive data collecting
that Israel has been doing four years. There's about two
going three million civilians living in Gars, that's been the
(33:11):
case for many years, and Israel controls all aspects of
that land, that territory, or communication in and out, all
information about personal details, et cetera. So all that data
is fed into a machine and it essentially spits out
information which is deemed to be legitimate targets. But the
key point here is that, as Israel calls it legitimate
(33:34):
targets to kill civilians has been massively increased. So whereas
in the past, if Israel would kill the Hummas militant
alleged harmas militant, maybe five or ten civilians could be killed,
now we're talking about one hundreds, and particularly in the
first three or four months of this war after October seven,
where the death toll escalated into the tens of thousands
(33:55):
very quickly. It's important to say that I'm not arguing,
in no one's saying that AI is not making all
these decisions. This ultimately is made still by people, by humans,
and the ultimate problem here is the dehumanization of Palestinians
is so paramount within Israel that if they kill twenty
thirty forty fifty sixty thousand Palestinians deemed to be apparent terrorist,
(34:18):
that's legitimate. And what the fear I have is that
film talks about this is there are many other countries
that look to what Israel has been doing in Gaza
as a model as stagam as you say, what Ukraine
has been doing in their own wall, in their own country,
essentially backs by the US their models. They're testing grounds,
and the war has been used as a testing ground
(34:40):
for every Rak and Afghanistan were as well. But the
difference I think here is that the Israellies have a
captive Palestinian population on their doorstep indefinitely. And I fear that,
and I've heard this from people. I was doing work
on the film last year, spending time in Israel and
Palestine across the world, and a lot of countries look
(35:02):
to Israel with deep admiration, deep admiration because Israel gets
away with it and they have to this day. No
one is stopping them. This wasn't happening under Trump. On
the bottom, I should say or frankly won't happen under Trump. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I think that was one of the most chilling moments
of the documentary, is talking about how this is something
that many countries want. They want the sort of tech
that allows them to get away with it, and I
think it's important for people to understand this isn't just
about battlefield technologies. You spend a good amount of time
on surveillance tech as well, which is extensive beyond belief.
(35:39):
Particularly hit home for me at a time when Trump
just announced this big Stargate five hundred billion dollar boondoggle.
One of the people involved, Oracles Larry Ellison, has been
out bragging about how AI is going to make sure
that all citizens are on their quote best behavior because
of the implementation of the surveillance tech.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Talk a little bit about that aspect of it.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Well, it's actually a quote in the film by a Palestinian,
a digital rights campaigner called Mona Shtaie, who literally uses
those words that Palestinians have to be in inverted commas
on their best behavior, both in real life and online
because the surveillance is so ubiquitous, and a lot of
people have seen the film and only came out less
than a week ago. The first part. The first part
(36:22):
said in Israel Palestine, and the second part we go
globally where I go to the US Mexico border, India,
Sri Lanka, not South Africa, and Greece and only show
how Israeli surveillance and repressive tech is exported globally. And
one of the things I think that many people don't
(36:42):
realize is how ubiquitous the surveillance is within Palestine. A
lot of people compare it to Black Mirror, the British
program which talked about a very believable near future where
surveillance is utterly everywhere. So when Larry Ellison or anyone
else says to be on your best behavior, who is
making those decisions? What's best behavior? And it comes in
(37:03):
in terms of Palestine. It means people who, for example,
can't express their honest opinion because they worry they'll be
deemed as security threats, terrorist threats. And one of the
things that AI is doing, and we talk about this
extensively in the film, is actually trying to document every
single citizen in Palestine with a certain almost like a
(37:26):
traffic light, So you are deemed as a threat if
you have certain political views, and we're saying to viewers as,
despite what Israel and supporters might say, this is not
about going after so called terrorists. The argument has not
been for years. Israel's killing all the terrorists in Gaza.
Has Anthony Blincoln himself said in the last days of
(37:49):
the Biden administration, Hamas is essentially regrouped and recruited huge
amounts of people during the last war. Now, Hamas has
been bloodied and beaten in certain ways, of course they have.
It's been a fifteen month war. But Hamas is still standing,
whatever we might think about them. That's the reality. So ultimately,
the question is what has Israel actually achieved here. They've
(38:09):
achieved the decimation of Gaza. Yes, they've achieved the massiveveillance
of many of the Ghazan population and a massive increase
in violence in the West Bank. So that's what many
countries look to with admiration, and we show a lot
of that in the second episode of the film.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Yeah, I think that that extends also now to Prime
Minister Netanyah, who's visit to Washington. He's actually literally here
as you speak, speaking with President Trump. All indications are
that he wants to scuttle quote phase two of the deal.
How does your documentary fit within that?
Speaker 6 (38:42):
Look. One of the things that's very clear is that
within Israel itself, the country is split in a way
that there are many Israelies who want all the hostages out,
these rally hostages, which is a very reasonable demand, but
there's a huge pressure on Netanyahu within his coalition to
continue the war to essentially even destroy Gaza even more. Obviously,
I can't predict exactly what the outcome of that meeting
(39:03):
between SnO and Trump will be, but I think I
suspect that there'll be pressure onto to try to continue
the negotiations to get more hostages out. There are many
many who remain in under Hamas control, so it seems
to me unlikely that Trump will simply allow that to happen.
(39:23):
The danger, to me is not just about the hostages question.
The broader question is a Trump himself said, literally a
week ago, very few days after we came into office,
how about Jordan or Egypt just taking one and a
half million Palestinians Like, hang on a minute, the idea
of removing them from Gaza so Gaza can be rebuilt
(39:44):
to whose dictates Jared Kushna his real estate mates. I mean,
we can set of joke about that, but that's literally
what Trump said, while at the same time the West
Bank is on fire. And I think there is a
real kind of accelerationist in Israel. And I've been saying
this for years, long before October seven. There are obviously
the is Raleigh Jews who oppose what's going on. Of
(40:06):
course they are, and some of them are in the film,
particularly in the second part. Gideon Levy is one good
example of that. But there is a sizeable proportion of
the Israeli population that believes it occupation is legitimate. The
dehumanizing Palestinians forever is okay, is necessary, is needed, is justified.
And when you have the world's biggest superpower, the US,
(40:26):
whether it's Obama or Biden or Trump, basically saying go
for your life. Here's more weapons. Israel's coming to Trump
today asking for at least eight billion dollars of more weapons,
and it's a good chance Trump will say yes to that.
So what the outcome of the meeting will be, of course,
it is the possible to predict. But the bigger picture
(40:47):
here is what the so called vision is for Palestine
and the fear of many Palestinians and many, I would say,
decent people around the world, is that the ultimate vision
here is endless occupation, dehumanization, which never, by the way,
brings peace to his relis. Yeah, none of it does.
In fact, life for them is never being more insecure.
In my view, never being more insecure. And I say
(41:09):
that as someone who's Jewish mussel.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
Go ahead, guys, and put E two up on the screen.
To this point.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Trump was asked yesterday if he would support West Bank annexation,
and he said he wouldn't really say whether he supports
it or not. He said, I'm not going to talk
about that. It's certainly a small country in terms of land.
Talking about Israel, he then took out his pen and said,
you see this pen, this wonderful pen. My whole desk
is the Middle East, and the top of the pen
(41:36):
is Israel. That's not good. It's a pretty big difference.
It's a pretty small piece of land. And it's amazing
they've been able to do what they've been able to do.
As you mentioned, part of the project here of continued occupation, subjugation,
and assault of the Palestinian people has been a long
term project of dehumanization. You know, to bring it back
(41:58):
around to your documentary, how does the tech help to
facilitate that ongoing process of complete dehumanization.
Speaker 6 (42:07):
Well, hugely, because one of the things we investigate in
the film, particularly in the second episode when we travel
the world, is there are multiple examples the US Mexico border, India,
the EU and Greece's detention, surveillance of migrants coming from
Turkey and elsewhere. The reality of South Africa today and
particularly when to South Africa, look at the connection in
(42:29):
the past between apartheid South Africa and Israel, but also
today between both countries, and so much of the surveillance
and repressive tech that Israel's testing and using in Palestine
is deeply attractive to those countries. And obviously we could
have chosen many other examples. This is what is partly
fueling Israel's seeming impunity. India, for example, is the world's
(42:51):
biggest population country emoting it are very good friends and
there's a massive example and we detail this in the
film of India being inspired by how they is inspired
by Israel's repressing Palestinians and they want to use that
against the Muslim population, of which there are roughly two
hundred million people in India. So to see that tech
(43:13):
first use in Palestine now appearing, for example in India
on the US Mexico border at Greek detention centers backed
and funded by the EU. Mexico we visit, which is
the world's biggest and most obsessive user of Israeli spyware.
I mean, let's be clear, Mexico, whether it's controlled by
the right or left, they're equally obsessed with Israeli spyware.
(43:35):
This is the reality of I guess, the seeming appeal
of Israeli repressive tech. So when Trump talks about it
in his kind of weird explanation about the West Bank,
which to me sort of suggested that he supports Israel
having more land, therefore supporting annexation, I mean, let's be clear,
(43:56):
Israel as quasi annexed the West Bank anyway, I mean
we talk about I mean, it's important to say that
it hasn't been officially annexed, but having spent time there
in any Palestinian will say, I mean, Palestinian life in
the West Bank is deeply problematic, hard, and incredibly challenging.
Long before October seven. But certainly since so the fear
(44:16):
I have that many other nations are seeing what Israel
is doing in Gaza and the West Bank and also
in Israel proper, and they see it as attractive and
as the right and the far right increases its influence.
It's worth saying globally, places like France, Germany, Sweden, much
a lot of Europe. Now parts of the US parties,
(44:39):
particularly in Europe, but traditionally were literally neo Nazis view
Israel as a model. Now that might seem insane when
Israel is a Jewish state and there are quasi forma
or current groups and parties in Sweden, in France, in
Germany the traditionally how connected to the neo Nazis who
(45:01):
see Israel as a model. Why because they loathe multiculturalism,
they loathe Muslims. They believe in this concept of ethno nationalism.
And the film touches on that. In say India, which
is in my view and many others, becoming an ethno
nationalist Hindu state, and Israeli tech is fueling that. Now
India is doing what it's doing for its own reason.
(45:22):
It's not doing it because of Israel, but Israeli tech
is central to that and we document in the film
how that impacts Indian population in reality, and that's a
scary fact. As the right and the far right grows
in popularity around the world.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Anthony to tell people where they can watch the film.
The first part of the series is out now, next
part comes out when so.
Speaker 6 (45:47):
It's available on YouTube for free. It's our Dazira English.
It's available. Part one came out last week. It's on YouTube.
You can google it easy to find. It's on social media.
It's on YouTube on our DEASEIIR website. Part two comes
out on februy the CIA. That will also be available
on YouTube. It's been seeing now hundreds of thousands of times,
and I encourage people to see because it will hopefully
scare you and push you into some kind of action
(46:09):
and not be paralyzed by fear. That's the idea. Anyway.
Speaker 3 (46:12):
Yeah, it was interesting talking to you.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
Thank you, Thank you, Anthony.
Speaker 6 (46:15):
Great to see.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
Take care, thank you, Thank you guys so much for watching.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
Great counterpoint show for you tomorrow. We'll see you then.
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