Charlie Robinson on understanding propaganda wars | Jerm Warfare

0:30Charlie Robertson, thank you for joining me in the trenches. Well, thanks for having me. I'm excited to get weird with you. There's so much to talk about. I don't even know where we start. Oh my God. Well, let me start by correcting myself. It sounded, I heard in my headphones, it sounded like I said Roberts and it's Robin and I apologize. Yeah? No, it sounded good to me. I have, when people Google me in America, my name is very similar to a country music singer. I'm just off, it's Robinson without the end in there. And so sometimes people look for me and they go, oh, I found it was some country guy. Well, that's not me. That is great. Actually, that's great for getting people into your work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, accidentally red-pulling country music fans. Yeah. I know I did this country sing a question, things.

1:35That's funny. Now, musically, musically untalented, so unfortunately, I'm, yeah, I always, I always look, you know, I always look at everybody who's, you know, musically gifted. It's like magic to me, you know? I, I, I just, I don't have that, that gift, but I certainly do appreciate it when I see it and others. I've got a fender strata Costa behind me and it's a USA edition, so it was made in the States. I was having a conversation with a phenomenon a couple days ago that what actually does the US export other than, you know, propaganda and the CIA and forms, terror sanctions, but, but fender strata cost is one or all one of those things, as well as us, I think, cause and a few other things, and we were going to say Apple, but then we found out that Apple

2:35is actually made in China, yeah, yeah, and I've got a good slap. I've got a great picture of me with Mark Knothler speaking of fender strata casters, guitars, he made that thing popular, my guitar hero, God had a chance to meet him and take a picture with him. Oh, wow. I have an interesting bit of trivia about him, although now that I've promised it like that it's not given away the punchline, but okay, I was going to ask you, do you know what the very first song on MTV was? Well, the very first song on MTV ever was video killed the radio star by the Bougals. His, no, no, no, that was MTV Europe. Oh, and MTV Europe was the, that was, oh, oh, the first one on America was his. Yeah, it was die straights and, you know, I was, money for nothing.

3:37And I was 15, I would, no, I must have, it was earlier than that. I was 13. I was in Australia and I, and with my family and we were catching a flight early, early in the morning, there was nobody in the airport except us and the entire band dire straights. And I would, and it was on their money for nothing tour and, and the only two cassettes I had with me was Boy Joel and dire straights. And I was two chicken to go talk to him. I was, I was two chicken to go and I was like, hey, would you sign my cassette tape, like, you know, and then, and then like 20 years later, my buddy was running the Greek theater in Los Angeles. And he said, uh, you want to go backstage at Mark Nothler? I was like, yes. And so I saw him there and I said, I have to come to, I just have to come talk to you because I, I chickened out when I was a kid and I didn't want to go through life being to, you know, having that regret.

4:38So if I ever saw you again, I was going to come up and say that, uh, that, uh, you know, that, that, that, anyway, I went over and talked to him and wound up in, in, in a, in a totally insane, like parallel universe rock star conversation that accidentally broke out around me because while I was talking to him about, you know, just running into them in the airport in Australia, Jackson Brown and Bonnie Rate walked up because they had been performing with him and they started talking to me and Mark Nothler and I just stood there like an idiot. Just not, I was like, I'm just not going to say anything. And the four of us just kind of stood there and had a conversation and I walked away feeling like I had had a, like a, a mild out of body experience after that. And I still have the picture of me with Mark Nothler too from that night. It's crazy, man. I just kind of like, I was like, uh, and I called my mom afterwards. I was like, I just had the weirdest thing in the world happen, but I am now officially off the hook cosmically for not, you know, for chickening out when I was a kid.

5:39She's like, good for you. I need to correct myself. You were correct. I was wrong. I had the wrong, the wrong way around. The first song on MTV was video killed radio store and die straights was the first one on MTV Europe. Well, well, then they were, they dominated MTV America though because where I was, you couldn't get away from them. And it was, it was just that perfect time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And, and, and most people don't know that staying is singing back up on that. Yeah. A lot of people don't know that. Yeah. I would tell my wife like, they're all mates. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I love that, that genre of music was like when I was a kid, you know, at the right time, you know, how, how sometimes music catches you. Sometimes there's great albums that you're just a little too old for and it goes over your head. But that one at the right time, a, a, a, a, a, dire straight. It's an, and anything really, anything that was coming out of the UK at that time, like

6:40the Smiths or the cure or pet shop boys, any of that, like, euros, like 80s, first wave stuff. Pull. Pull. Do you remember them? I love it. Who? Pull. P-I-L. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he, he, did you ever hear the interview that he did? Uh, he did on a radio show and he was talking about Savile, Jimmy Savile. He says, I know what Jimmy Savile is. I know what Jimmy Savile is. Yeah. I think I know the one. It was in like the, it was like 1979, I think was the interview. So it wasn't like after the fact it was right when they were in the middle of it all and he was talking about, I know who Jimmy Savile is, like, maybe I should, maybe I, you know, maybe someone should do something really bad to him, you know, things like well, like I think, I think those guys knew what was going on in that whole scene.

7:42Well, funny you say that because I think that a number of musicians knew and know, I'll give you an example. I think Michael Jackson knew and all of us got him wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you know, you know, who, you know, who set me, you know, who set me straight on Michael Jackson, because I was, I had him wrong as well. But to, to be fair, I was working off of really bad information. That was all we see here in the States, but Richard Willett, who is David Ike's, uh, director, producer, uh, Rich Willett and I have taught, he said, you got Michael Jackson all wrong. Let me explain. He, he sent me down a rabbit hole and, uh, Rich Willett is so far down that Michael Jackson rabbit hole. I can't even see his ankles anymore. I mean, he's, he's head first down there, but there's a lot more to it.

8:42I, I 100% agree with you. That's a, that's a really interesting, uh, it's a really interesting story. I remember when, when he, when Michael Jackson died, I remember that day, it was a big, big news day. That was a, well, and, and now we're going to ask questions, did he just die? Um, exactly, exactly. I mean, he knew, he knew, he, I mean, this is why he sold his shares in Sony, yeah, called Tommy Matola, the devil, yeah. And then those leaked phone calls, oh, but then, but not Charlie, the Segway here, um, and this is a really, really good Segway. How do you then filter? How do you disseminate between the propaganda and the actual information?

9:47It's like learning another language, you know, I, I, I don't speak, uh, uh, uh, foreign language. I always speak English, but sometimes when I read the words of these propagandists, it's, it's like you have to kind of decipher the code when they talk about things a certain way. You get, you can get good, good at it and you, you hear an official statement that say the government puts out. In the past, I would just kind of look for the statement and, and listen to it and go in my head. And now I try to pick apart the way they deliver the, the, the message as an example, they'll say something like, sources close to the president's thinking said he intends to bomb around tomorrow. You go sources close to the president's thinking, what, what does that even mean?

10:49That sounds like nonsense. That's, that's, so it's like cross that out and it's like the CIA says, you know, and so you, you start to, you start to recognize things like that. When you're watching television news, you start to notice patterns, you start to notice not even, not even so much the information itself, but how it's delivered. The, the, the, the, the audio tones, dun, dun, dun, breaking news, storm watch, 20, 26, dun, dun, dun, dun, you know, it's like designed to really terrify people. And, and I did some work on this with regard to the media companies that climate works was financing and like the weather, like just the local, your television news weather is being the, the graphics that they use, the map where they show the different colors. Those colors have all changed in the last 20 years.

11:50They used to be like green and blue and that, like, reasonable, that's right now, it's like, no, it's red and pink and bright red and orange and it's like, oh, are we on fire? It's like, well, no, and then, then they'll show, you know, then you can pull up images from 20 years ago and show them side by side and they're the same numbers. It's just with different colors. So you can see that like, oh, they're trying to create this sense, this narrative that like the earth is on fire, the climate is hotter, they're, you know, we, we have to be more mindful of our carbon footprint, right? So there's like an agenda going on there. So I'll see, and like, and all of that is non-verbal, right? It's not even so much the story that they're telling you, it's, it's the visual presentation of it. Then there's a good propaganda campaign and in America, something happened over a decade ago, something called the Smithmont Modernization Act of 2012.

12:51And what that did was it modernized the old Smithmont Act. And that was in 1948, it was right after World War II. And the US said, all right, look, propaganda was really dangerous in World War II. We saw what it did. We know because we did it and we were doing it to Europe and Japan and we were making the Japanese to look like monkeys and we see how, how awful that is. And so what we're going to do is we're going to say, you cannot use propaganda in America on Americans. We'll still do it to the rest of the world, of course, because we're the American Empire and we hate everybody. We were trying to conquer them. But to ourselves, we're not going to use it. And so that law stayed an effect until 2012 when Obama said, you know what we need to do? We need to legalize propaganda to be used inside America on Americans and everything changed after that. And so now the nightly news is legally allowed to be propaganda. It is like any good lie, 90% truth, 10% lie, and who knows how much omission, right?

13:59And there's the information that either didn't make it into the story or the story that didn't make it onto the news. And because of this, it does a couple things. First of all, it just overtly propagandizes anybody who's watching it into believing a certain set of ideals. But then it also doesn't talk about stories that it rightly should talk about. And because people don't ever hear these stories, they have the faulty assumption that there's really not a problem out there, right? As an example, this is something in the States and in the medical industry that people really get. Vaccines are extremely dangerous, and anybody who talks out about vaccines is deemed to be a threat by the media, by the pharmaceutical industry, by the government.

14:59And so the media never runs stories that are showing how dangerous vaccines are. They just never do. And so the vast majority of mothers or people who are getting going down that path, they're going, well, if vaccines really were a problem, surely I would have heard about it on my nightly news. And since I have never seen a story about it on my nightly news, it's probably not a problem. That's the kind of, it's not even an unreasonable thing to think. You just don't ever see it talked about as being a problem. And so you think, well, maybe it's just a conspiracy. Well, you know, it's actively being suppressed and not being allowed to be put on the news to show that side of the story, because the news gets 60% of its ad revenue from the pharmaceutical industry, which is allowed to advertise on TV in the United States and in New Zealand. And nowhere else in the world, right? So our media is totally controlled, and that's the problem that we face in trying to come

16:04to an agreement on anything here in the States. It's like, we can't even agree on the information. We can't even agree that this is what we're being told is the truth. And now, you know, it's just, it's a confusing time to be paying attention, because you don't know where to go for your news. It used to be the television now to move online, but now you look at these online, you know, these mainstream alternative media, as David I could call them, and you go, yeah, it's online, but it doesn't mean it's any better than what was on TV, right? So you're still having to make these calculations about where to go for news. I have a rule of thumb, and it's not, it's not, it's not rock solid, but it is a guide. And that is, I tend to put more faith into those who have more to lose. So in other words, you, for example, have more to lose if you get things wrong because

17:08then I'll just stop listening to you. But Fox or CNN, they can make loads of mistakes, and it doesn't affect them. They don't have skin in the game. Yeah, they don't, they don't pay a price. Yeah, with their reputation doesn't, doesn't take a hit collectively. People are so trained to go and seek their information in front of a television. It's very, it's very unusual. And, you know, the television channels here do the craziest things to try, to pretend like they're relevant. If you've ever gone through an airport in a major US city, they don't do it anymore. They'd stop doing it a couple of years ago, but for like 20 years, the televisions that would be playing as you're waiting to get on your airplane or as you're walking through the terminal somewhere, the TVs on, it would be set, set to CNN news and CNN, it wasn't

18:09there by accident. It was there because CNN paid the airports to put the television news on the channels, paid them like millions of dollars a year, depending on how big the airports were. And then they counted everybody that went through that airport as a viewer. So dishonest, just deeply, deeply dishonest, so like, that's how they're like, viewership is up. It's like, you're counting the airport people that are hostage that don't have a choice that are, that aren't even necessarily watching the TV that's up there. They're counting them, they're counting them as people as viewers and they're selling advertising based on that. So it's like, their whole business model is fraudulent. CNN tried to launch something called CNN Plus in the United States. They spent $250 million to do it. It lasted three entire weeks.

19:11They went off the air. They spent $250 million for three weeks and they just went, nobody wants CNN for free. They certainly aren't looking to pay for it. So we have to like, do a write down. But guess that was, I think like four years ago, guess what CNN is working on right now? A paid service here in the United States. Again, they're working on another one, they cannot learn, they cannot learn. It is, and so I actually look at all of this as frustrating as it is as a good sign. I say, keep talking. Keep talking CNN. You keep doing Fox News, MSNBC, Sky News, BBC. You keep talking, you keep lying to your audience. They're waking up to this. Just you guys keep doing it because that's all we have to do is stand back and say, as you said, I think it's a really, I think it's a really brilliant way to look at things.

20:12Who's got something to lose? Yeah. If I come out someday and I get something wrong, which I do all the time, and I don't address it, and I don't say, oh, you know what, guys, I believed that at that time. But I later got better information. I got new information. It was better than the information I had, and I have evolved on my thought. I think that's, I think people are fine with that. I think as long as you're straight up with them and you're changing your mind for a reason that's logical and fact-based, not because somebody's paying you, obviously, or not because somebody's threatening you, I mean, of course that could happen, right? But it's longer somebody works it out to you and says, you know what, I think this, this and that. And you go, I can kind of see where you're going with it, or you just straight up get something wrong from time to time. You know what, guys, I got that one wrong. Sorry, I didn't meet you. I think that goes a long way with the audience.

21:13They don't do that. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. I like Alex Jones, but he's entertainment, and I don't think he has skin in the game. You know, he can get, he does, get loads and loads and loads of things wrong. But he's got a pretty big support base, so it doesn't really matter that much. Yeah. I've found that the guys who have, who felt like they had skin in the game working with Alex have left Greg Rees, David Knight, Owen Shroyer. Those guys have left and taken a chunk of the audience because I think they, they kind of thought, well, hey, man, you got to own some of this that you're getting wrong and you're not doing that. And now it's making me look bad because I, you know, like Owen Shroyer is a super great guy. And he's a, he's a good dude.

22:17So and I, and I, you know, I, I, I think that sometimes those guys just need to peel off and do their own thing to maintain sort of where they're comfortable with their integrity, you know, and that's not necessarily where Alex is with his, I would say. This is the weird thing about Alex is that he gets, I think, a lot of serious stuff. Right. I think, I mean, if we think back to 9-11, I think he was the first person on any kind of broadcasting network who actually went against the official narrative. I mean, he called out the thing very, very, very quickly, I think even on the same day. And then the Sandy Hook thing, I actually think that he, I think he was largely on point. And that billion dollar lawsuit is just theater. Totally. I agree. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. I mean. But then I, I, I, I, I, yeah, but then, yeah, then it goes on and on.

23:18But then he says stuff like, they're turning the freaking frog's gay. Yeah. It's, it's, you have to appreciate him for, for what he's done for, for the, the work that he did, the Sandy Hook thing. I'm, I'm in agreement. I've written about it in my first book. I've detailed, I just, um, entire chapters on it and we just bullet point after bullet point that people have never heard that if they, if they took a look at that, they would go, oh my God. Oh my God. This is again, and that was coincide to happen right, uh, right with Smithmont Modernization Act 2012. So that was a, um, a test run for a bunch of stuff. And Alex got railroaded on that. And I think they threatened him. And I think that, I think that there's a, you know, I mean, I think there's different iterations of Alex. It's like, you, you, you, and I personally love the comedy component of Alex of what, what it is to be the showman and do it and spang your fists on the table and scream

24:22about turning the frogs gay and all of that, like the theater of that is fantastic. And I appreciate it. And I can, and I can certainly respect his, his ability to draw in, um, a, a, a crowd of, of viewers who are maybe sort of new to the information or maybe need it delivered in a way that kind of feels like professional wrestling and, in some form or fashion. And they, they, you know, so whatever he's doing to reach that crowd, I'm appreciative of that. And I think then there's other, I think sometimes people kind of graduate from that on other things. And they, or they, they, they look for, you know, they find a topic that's more interesting out of all the stuff he's, he's talking about. And they find a guy that specializes in that. And they sort of drift off and go, so, so he does a lot of, of starting people up. And my friend, uh, Sam Tripoli with tinfoil hat, uh, he's the same way. He talks, he's, he's like the, the, the, he's conspiracy lubricant, you know, he kind

25:25of gets you into it by, by doing it in a funny way with, with his, you know, as a stand-up comedian. And he brings humor into it. And his audience, who I know, because I, I met them out in public, uh, are, are just a little bit more like rough around the edges and new to the information. Maybe don't have all the full retention. They may be understand some of it, but they're enthusiastic and they're, they want to know more. And I think it's, I think there's a little bit, you know, there's a little bit for everybody, wherever you are on your conspiracy journey, you know, the, the, everyone's kind of waking up at different stages. And for some people, it was 9.11 and some people was JFK, you know, and, and for, for others, maybe a new generation, it's COVID. And everything that's come in the aftermath of that, or maybe it's Gaza, and that's waking people up to. And they're going, oh boy, like, wait a second, our government isn't acting in our best interest here, and we're starting to do some things that I don't feel very good about. And so like wherever you are in that awakening, there's some content out there that, you

26:30know, can grab your attention. And Alex is, Alex has been that for a long, long time. And, and so I appreciate him for the work that he's done over the years, for the entertainment that he's brought and, and all of that. But I fully understand that he said a wall at some point, you know, I think he's the only, he's the only guy out there who in the year 2026 can, can stand in front of a camera and go, what are we about to tell you? Come closer. And the camera goes closer. You could only do that in the 1980s. It's just great. I mean, I, I appreciate the showmanship of it all. My friend does this show called our big dumb mouth, our OB-DM. And in that, they do that show twice a week. And on the Wednesdays, they do a segment called Alex Jones Clips of the Week. And they've got some fan who listens all week long out every Alex Jones episode and cuts

27:32like just the funniest parts and strings them together on it on like a compilation of the day. And they just run them back to back. And I mean, when you hear it broken down like that, you realize he just has four hours where he is saying crazy things. And totally disjointed, you know, when they put it together in a, in these run-on non-sequitors, it's extra funny. So yeah, I appreciate Alex for, for what he is, but, but I also, I also hope that people will understand that there's others out there that have a more detailed or maybe less biased opinion on some events that aren't really, I mean, he's very, he's very pro-Trump. Yeah. Yeah. Why? And he thinks that Trump is bringing down the deep states. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. I forgot. He's just, he's just getting, he's just, he's just getting the deep state. Yeah. As he partners with them and does, in bombs, countries and smithereens and, you know, it's so disgusting.

28:36I don't know. I don't know how you can, I don't know how, that's the thing that's frustrating about anybody who's been doing this for a long time. It's like, can't you, even if you liked Donald Trump a whole lot, can't you at least be objective and say there's some, maybe I like what he's doing, but not how he's doing it. Can we at least agree on that? It's like, no. So many people are just, no, it's either he's doing everything right or you, what did you want? It's like, I know, but like, can we at least discuss like the tactics, the image, you know, the, the, the way this is shown to the rest of the world, we look like monsters. This is crazy. What are we doing here? So, and I think it's important that, you know, I think something that doesn't get brought up and I tried to do this any, anytime I'm, I'm speaking with people outside of the United States is just to remind people like, hey, this is the American government that is doing this.

29:38It's not Americans. Like, none of us, nobody that I know wants this. This is not, this is gross and disgusting empire. I wrote a book with Jeff Burwood called the control demolition of the American empire. I mean, we are in favor of the American empire going, going away. Yeah, Jeff, we are, we are no cheerleaders here. I'll hold it up for you. We are no cheerleaders for the American empire in any way, shape or form. It's disgusting and I just want me, I want to make sure that, you know, and I try to do the same thing when I'm talking about the behavior of the state of Israel and also saying, I understand it's not everybody who lives in Israel that feels, you know, the same way as their government, much in the same way that, that there's not, not everybody in America feels the same way about our bloodthirsty psychopathic government. No, we're looking at it the same way you're looking at it and going, this is disgusting. What are we doing? Why are we murdering people on behalf of our greatest ally in the Middle East?

30:42I mean, we, we see what's going on. A lot of Americans can see through it, but it's such a gigantic machine controlled by external forces that we just don't have any say in it. Oh, you're going to vote your way out of it. No, we cannot. We cannot do it. We're, we're, we're not is, we're not is, we're more helpless than we would like to think. That, unfortunately, that's, that's the, the reality. And Americans like to think we're very independent and we don't need anybody and we're good. We're about to be not good. And, and it's, it's, and, and I don't know if, if people understand like where things are headed, but it's, it's, it's, it's a very weird time. My country is the only, is the only one that attempted to hold Israel accountable, as you might know. And although nothing will come off that, of that proceeding, it's nonetheless symbolic. But why is Israel America's quote unquote biggest ally?

31:45I don't get it. Well, they are, they have terrified the government structure. They were, so it started in 1963 when they were behind the murder of an American president and brought daylight and pinned it on a guy and got away with it. And nobody ever talked about it. And, and once you do that, and once you are, you participate in the attacking of, on a false flag event, attacking the USS Liberty, and you get away with that, I almost don't blame the control group from Israel that has taken control of the United States. I almost don't blame them for feeling that they're untouchable because they've been able to pull off some pretty amazing feats.

32:46And nobody's held them accountable for it. Then you, you wind up getting into 9-11, you understand what happened with that. And that was a joint venture between a faction of the American government and a faction of the Israeli government in conjunction with Saudis and Pakistani intelligence. And you go, oh, hang on a second. Wait a second. If they can take down two buildings, three buildings in lower Manhattan and blame it on... With two planes. With two planes. And blame it on a bunch of guys and caves in Afghanistan were really screwed. And I think for some people, the light bulb went off at that moment and they thought, this is a brazen attack on US soil by a group that is disguised itself as being somebody else. And we are now setting about to reimagine the Middle East because of this. And then you get the memo, the seven countries in five years, and you start to go, America's foreign policy is actually Israel's foreign policy.

33:54When people come to this realization, it's always been very suppressed. In the last several years, it's become undeniable. And what's happened is that with what's going on in Gaza, it's freed people up to talk about their criticisms of the Israeli military. And in doing that, you saw how the Israeli government responded to that. Social media attacks, buying TikTok, doing things like that. Even people that were sort of on the fence and not really carrying one way or another saw that and they went, this is kind of crazy behavior. Now, if you can't even talk about Israel and TikTok, they'll just ban your account. So you go, oh, okay. You know, the lady doth protest too much, me thinks. You know, they're just out here talking about how they're certainly not manipulating public opinion and doing all this stuff. And it's having the exact opposite effect. In America, I've never seen it.

34:54So I almost, I've never seen people feel so comfortable talking about their criticism of the Israeli government as they are right now. I'm not, it's still not directed at Jewish people or the Jewish religion. Still, as far as I can see, you know, without the exception of some people, of course. But the bulk of it has really been just directed at, they just want the military to stop. And they want the government to tell the military to stop. But it's not taking, it's not like spreading into like, now we have a problem with your culture too. It hasn't gotten to that point yet. But so that's where we are sort of in the awakening inside the United States, which is something I never thought I would see. And it's happening with the younger generation. The baby boomers don't get it yet. They still fiercely defend Israel and watch Fox News and our Christian Zionists and they buy the whole story. They'll never figure it out. But they're dying off.

35:54And that younger generation that's moving forward is going, we don't like your behavior with Gaza. And we have some questions about some of the other stuff. And then they're finding videos and they're going, yeah, what about 9-11? And it's like, uh-oh. What, when did you have your Damascus moment? In 2003, when the American government was trying to make the case through the media to the American people that we needed to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. What was that goal's name? Nariah. Nariah. Yeah, that was, uh, she was, uh, she was a, um, that was, that was actually the first, that was, that was the first Gulf War.

36:55That was, um, the one that happened in the 1991. They take the babies out of the incubator. But you, but again, back to, back to the point of propaganda. They were doing it back then, you know, trying to sell you into, into a war. But what really did it for me? And I, and by the way, when they were doing that, the first Gulf War, I was a freshman in college. And so I was thinking, am I going to get drafted? Am I going to have to go fight in some? I mean, we didn't have a draft, but are they going to institute a draft? And are we college freshmen who are like 18 years old? Are we going to be the first ones that get drafted into this? If they do it, like, are we going to have to fight this? So it was on my radar. I do remember watching that. I do remember that war being the first war that was really televised in 1990, January of 1991. And CNN was a part of that. And they were showing like, you know, Peter Arnet and some other guys. They were in the, in this hotel.

37:55And they were seeing anti-aircraft fire and tracers and bombs are going off and sirens. And you're like, holy shit. This is like a real war. And they're under the beds and they're reporting from under the, I mean, it was crazy. And you go, oh, this is, this is an actual war. So in 2003, 9-11 had happened. I lived through that. I watched that, like, on the couch with my roommates. I was in my late 20s. And didn't understand what was going on till two years later when they started to try and sell the Iraq war. And they talked about weapons of mass destruction. And I thought, yes, it sounds kind of dumb to me. But then they said, you know, they said, why do we have to get Saddam Hussein? They said, well, you know, 9-11, too. And I went, what? Come on. Now it's 9-11. Like that. I was like, that feels like I don't have any other answers. Let's just say 9-11 because then you'll, then you'll, then you'll go along with it.

38:56So right then, I knew they're lying about this. There's no reason to go into Iraq. We don't need to be doing this. And of course, we did go in and we killed him. I said, we, not me. I didn't, the American Empire, not my idea. I didn't do it. The American Empire went in and killed a million Iraqis. And they used depleted uranium that gives multi-generational birth defects. And they just did unspeakable things. And they stole their gold. And they robbed their museums. And they did the shitty things that we are told only other countries do. Because they're third world savages. And we're so much better than everyone else. We wouldn't ever just loot the country as well. Well, we did that as a nation and it was disgusting. And so I had, I watched that. And it was just one of those things. Like if this is a lie, what else is a lie? You know, if this is a lie and they're using 9-11 as the justification of what else is like. And right about that time, you start to get introduced to things like the movie loose change.

40:00You start to start hearing about Alex Jones or David Ike. And you start to, you know, you have questions. And they have some potential answers here. And so you start to go down that path. And so that's what it did it for me in 2003. But that was only like the, that was only just a small part of the puzzle. It wasn't until 2007. I was on a trip. I was just getting ready to go on a 10-day trip to Thailand to go scuba diving. I was so excited. And my friend said, take this book. And he just handed it. He goes, you will like this book. And I read it while I was on a dive boat. And it was Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins. And it changed my entire understanding. He was on my show too. Great. I mean, and I've told him this multiple times. Like, hey, you know, like, that was the light bulb moment for me.

41:03Because in the reason it was because I was working in Las Vegas in real estate. And it was the second hottest market in the world second only to Dubai. And we were given loans to people. We'll give it, we'll give a 30-year loan to a 90-year-old man. You know what I mean? Like, it didn't matter. Like, given loans to people that were making $10 an hour to buy a house that was $400,000. You could tell it was going to be a catastrophe, right? And I knew things were going to end badly with the loans. But I had no idea that what John Perkins was talking about of countries borrowing money from the World Bank and the IMF and them loaning money to countries that can't afford it for projects that aren't ever really going to pencil out like a hydroelectric power plant

42:03that they say is going to generate this much revenue, pay itself off in 20 years. But you fall behind in the payments to these predatory global bankers. And they start extracting things from you like privatize your lumber industry and sell it to our friends or vote our way in a UN resolution or let the U.S. put a military base there. Some bad deal, right, that some country gets himself into because they fell into a debt trap. And I'm thinking to myself, this is what we're doing to these poor bastards that are buying houses because I work for a big national builder and we had a mortgage department who would get anybody qualified, you know? Oh, this is bad. They're going to lose their house. And I was told, what do we care? We're not even sitting on the loan. The day after they closed, we're packaging it all up and selling it to Wall Street. And I was like, oh, so diffuse responsibility, right? Nobody felt bad about this. And I didn't understand the finance and then everything collapses.

43:05And then I had to learn about money. And so it was like John Perkins book, you know, the sales pitch for the Iraq war that we shouldn't have had and then living through that real estate collapse in Las Vegas in America in general but Las Vegas in particular where I was where everything just crashed. And working in the business and not being able to see the big picture, I just felt so incredibly stupid, you know? And I lost two houses and I just was like, how do I not ever feel this dumb again? Like how do I not be the sucker at the card game, you know? And so I just, I was like, I don't think I understand what money is. I don't really think I get it. And that just kind of leads you down like Mike Maloney's secrets to money, money magic or whatever and you go, oh my god. And then the creature from Jekyll Island by G Edward Griffin who's, you know,

44:10who flash forward 10 years later, he's sitting next to me on a flight to Mexico and we're going to speak at a narca polco. And I'm like, I read your book, it changed my life, you know? So it's been incremental, you know? It's like the one big lie that kind of woke me up was 9-11, you know? But it didn't happen on 9-11, it took a little bit, it took a little bit of time. And then that made me think if this is a lie, what else is a lie? And after that, you just, you just go. I think if I would answer that question. I remember in the late 90s, I read one of David Ick's books. I think it was called Children of the Matrix. And I was kind of into it for a while, year or two. And then, you know, then I went back to Normieville. And 9-11 happened and I thought it was legit. And I think around 2009, I watched a documentary called The Great Global Warming Swindle.

45:17And that was when I started wondering about the global warming thing. That was my catalyst. And then I got into it and I stumbled across a whole bunch of sort of dissident scientists. And then I realized, wait a minute, there's global warming thing is nonsense. And then it took years and years and years before I started thinking about other stuff. And questioning other stuff, maybe even a decade. And I think only around 2018 or 2019, before COVID, did I start thinking about stuff like, did NASA tell the truth? Did those guys really bake golf up there? NASA was one for me as well. My mother told me that I was named after Charlie Duke, one of the astronauts from some mission. I was like, I don't know. And I would tell her about, you know, that whole moon thing is totally fake. She goes, I don't want to know all about that.

46:18I was like, I know, I'll let you have your moon story. But I'm going to, you know, everything else, I'm going to red pillion. The moon one was a tough one. It's a tough one for me. Because it is a tough one. Yeah, yeah. Just because even if you just try to be as objective as possible, you say, well, how come everything else in the world, the technology gets better, better, better, easier, easier, easier. And yet with this one, we supposedly went 69 through 72. I was born in 72, so I know how long ago that was. And we just never bothered to go back. We just said, that's fine. That doesn't sound, that's incompatible with logic. You burn the telemetry tapes. You would never do that. They talked about how they recorded over, I mean, I have in my octopus of global control book, they put out in 2017. I have for the NASA thing, I just, it was easier for me to just put bullet points

47:22because there were so many holes in their story. It's just pages of bullet points. And I actually, because there's so many flaws in it. And I'd love to believe it. It's a great, great story, especially, you know, Americans have this whole thing about like first go the moon and all that. Exceptionalism. Exceptionalism. And it's a, it's a great sales pitch. And I believe maybe it's a good idea to have things to aspire to, but this idea that we're exceptional, we're exceptional storytellers. That is 100% true. We have told a very big story. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, hold on, hold on. I think that's not, I don't think that's fair. You don't need to kick yourself like that. I mean, I think the U.S. is pretty great in many ways. And I think a lot of the criticism is leveled not at Americans, but at the state and the state infrastructure.

48:25Yeah. The American people, you know, there's a segment of them who understand what's going on. And they see through it. And they're frustrated and ready to do something. But unfortunately, there's a much larger segment of the American public who have had their brains turned off recently. And they're just not able to think for themselves. And they're talked about this in a great quote in my octopus book from Dr. Russell Blalock, who's a neurosurgeon. He was talking about why governments exist. It's funny because he works on brains. But he also knows a thing or two about governments. And he was talking about how the vast majority of people are stuck in this malaise.

49:26You know, the bulk of the population. They're unable to excel at anything. And the state needs that. They don't discourage that. They need that population because that population needs them. And he says, and then there's a small segment of society of higher IQ that's elevated above that can see a much bigger picture because of the way that they're, you know, they're just, they're able to see that. And they can see what else is, everything that's going on. But he said that there's just a large group that they're never going to get it. And they're only going to do what they're told to do. And they're going to be told to do that by the state. And so, you know, it's like a mutually parasitic relationship. The state remains relevant as long as they take care of these people. These people get handouts. And, but they're not allowed to really have much of a thought.

50:27They just do what they're told because it's contingent upon the handouts. So, so they're happy to get free stuff. They didn't really have many thoughts anyway. They don't really care if the government controls their thoughts because they weren't doing much thinking. And the government gets an obedient class of people that they can tell what to do and they'll do it for them. So, they all get something out of this situation. But it's very frustrating to be in the small minority that can see what's going on because you want to see it. I think it was. Yeah, I think it was Yuri Besmanov. I think it was ironically the year 1984 where he did an interview in the states with Geodor Griffin. An entity spoke about how the US was imploding without even a bullet being fired. Four steps to ideological subversion. Yeah. And he talks about that. You know, the first stage is demoralization,

51:32a five-year campaign, destruction for the next 15 to 20 years. You basically, it takes a generation. You know, give me control of them for a generation. I can change the way they think. The irony is that he's from when that video was recorded with G. Edward Griffin, who is the great author from Jekyll Island, having those amazing conversations with him. They had enough time to run it twice and probably have. You know, and I think a case can be made that the American public is demoralized. I mean, they've thrown their hands up and given up on a lot. And it was happening for a long time, but COVID really did it. I mean, it really broke a bunch of people. And some people are, and that goes to step three. In Yuri's four-step plans for ideological subversion,

52:33is that step three, introduce a crisis. It must last six weeks. But after that time, he said, I can, quote, shower them with authentic information. It won't change their mind. They've been demoralized. So he talks about how it's permanent for some people. If you introduce that crisis, you break them. Because in his world, you know, coming out of the Soviet Union, that was, you know, what do we do? Do we put tanks on every corner? You know, or do we do this nonviolently just through mind control and draft architecture, brutalist architecture, and, you know, bread lines and things like that? Can we just demoralize the hell out of the population to get them to just give up? Because if we do, then we own them. We can control them. But they're not going to be worth damn. But they'll do exactly what you want them to do. But they're not going to be great. This is end of empire behavior, where we are right now.

53:33It's the, it feels like the end. The sad thing, though, is, and I can't help it, but this is the reality, is here. So I'm on the African continent right, as you know. And we don't really have much to offer. Okay, so we can certainly talk about everything that is useless here, right? We have broken infrastructure, high crime. I mean, it's a complete mess. But even on top of that, when people here talk about Americans that don't speak about Americans in high regard, we are a deeply unserious country these days. Yeah. And we see it too. I mean, I see it. I'm not proud of the image of the United States, of the empire and the military and all of that. I'm not proud of the image of the United States socially. It's just dummies who are just consumers, who do that. That image exists for a reason. It's true.

54:34You know, there is a lot of that. I wish it wasn't the case. I wish I could say, oh, that's all just the media. Unfortunately, there is a segment of that. It's not everybody. It's not great. It doesn't look good. We are not proud of that. But I also know that, you know, they're not talking about me. I mean, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, but the average person in the United States is very much captured by the media. They are captured by trends. They get on these weird trends, you know, that you just kind of shake your head. We're very, the problem is, this is the problem, with the general American viewpoint, is we're very arrogant, but misinformed, which is the worst, because we're loud and stupid at the same time,

55:37which is like, you go, like, be one. Like, it's okay if you're wrong, because we all get things wrong. But don't, don't be loud about it. You know, like, we, we, we're very, it's propaganda. I mean, it's propaganda on us. But that, I'll give you an example of, of, of, of it happening to me, and it just made me want to scream. I was working in Las Vegas, and I was selling a high rise, a high rise condo building that was going to be built in Las Vegas. And we were going all over the world to talk to people about it. China, Hong Kong, L.A., Miami, Chicago, and we're in New York. And I just got done doing a presentation of all these brokers, and we're in the cocktail party afterwards, where we're taught, we're schmoozing. We're trying to make deals with brokerages that can help us sell our units in Las Vegas.

56:39And this lady says to me, she was like European and, but living in New York, and she says, I need, she goes, I need more. And I go, how so? And she goes, I need more. And I go, more what? You know, talking about the building. And she goes, I don't know, I just need more. I go, okay, more what? She goes, you know, just more everything. And I go, okay, well, I need to know what that means. She goes, look, she goes, look, I just don't know how else to say this. If it's not happening in New York, it's not happening. And she walked away, and I was like, oh my god, the arrogance made me want to just like recoil. So like, if that is the perception that America is giving off to the rest of the world, like that is disgusting, okay? And I had that done to me in New York, and I would, and so I see that as like,

57:39boy, I wish the, you know, the people that I know, the people that I hang out with and interact with in the United States, see what's going on, I'm not going to be able to be completely disgusted about it. We understand that we don't have as much control as we think. We have, we can talk about it. We can get the message out to people, and we do. But in terms of like, is there a political solution? No. Are we going to be able to reach everybody and convince them that it's all like? No, there's some people that you just, you're not going to get to. So, you know, we see the flaws, you know, we're still smiling and laughing, we're going to be fine, and we're going to, we're going to make sure that we get our audiences to not, you know, doom and gloom about anything that's going on like, be honest, be reasonable about what you see come in, like be prepared, be proactive, but don't, don't be scared,

58:39and don't act like, you know, you know, I don't, I don't subscribe to the Alex Jones, to scare the hell out of people, to get them to do things. I would love for people to be informed about what's going on, and maybe that's scary, but, you know, but just be informed. And, but then say, what can I do to be less susceptible, like be proactive, start thinking about your bank situation, right? I think everybody should relate to that, anybody that is worried about that, like, have yourself some storeable food, and the, you know, I don't know, have yourself some golden silver. Like, I don't know, do something to make yourself a little bit more resilient, and in doing that, you go, oh, I feel less fearful, and so I think that, I think there's ways to approach this, where we can, we can see the wheels coming off, but we don't have to scare everybody about it. You can do it in a way that's like, informative, but not overly dramatic,

59:39and three theatrical, and we're all going to die. You got to get your storeable food today, at InfoWoreStore.com, or something like, I don't really want to do that. I do have a storeable food sponsor, and I'll be like, go there and get food, but also, just go to the grocery store, and get extra food. You know, like, do that too, like, you don't have to, there's solutions here. I think if we, I think if we get, if we come at it with, like, a solution mindset, all these big, big problems, they seem less scary because you're doing something about it, and then doing something, you just make, you're just in a different mindset. And just a, it's way more positive. Well, so, as a foreigner, I'm aware that the U.S. is, I believe this year, 250 years old, and my hope is that, Americans will pull themselves together because whether, the world likes it or not, the U.S. is still a powerhouse, and although countries like China are getting stronger, and that's great, because competition's a good thing

1:00:39it holds other countries accountable, I would hate to see the U.S. implode. Yeah, it would be a bad sign to the rest of the world. I hope that, you know, we have a nation that has a drug problem, not kind of drugs that most people think. We have a prescription drug problem. Most Americans are very unhealthy physically, and when you're unhealthy physically, it affects your mind, the fixed your ability to function properly and to understand what's going on. It's a really dark cycle. And, you know, most Americans are on multiple prescription drugs, and that is not a recipe for health. So, you know, I think that we need to, we need to be honest about where we have drifted to over the 250 years since America has been a country, and look in the mirror,

1:01:39like, you know, like you do when the new year comes, and you go, I might need to make some health decisions. I might need to make some different choices in the new year. I think America is in that, but we need to make some different choices. We need to stop being the world's policeman and this empire mentality of having a thousand military bases around the world, and the petrodollar arrangement seems very fragile these days, and I wonder what that will look like in a multi-polar world with bricks, which of course you guys are part of, and how that works as a balance, and is that just two drunken lunatics at the same party? I think it's a scam. I think it's a scam. Yeah, but it might be just a scam, too. You know, there's two factions of the new world, New World Order plotting to come together at some point. I don't know. But there's a, for once, there seems to be a bit of a balance on America's aspirations internationally,

1:02:39which is good, good, in that regard. And, you know, we would love, we in America would love for the United States to be a priority for once. We're not. Everybody else is, the money goes elsewhere. It goes to Israel, it goes to NATO, it goes to subsidizing oil companies, it goes to transgender research in Uganda, it goes everywhere, but where we need it, and we need it. And that's another part of the demoralization is that people living in America are going, we need help, and the American government is saying, yes, but let me tell you first about Israel. And it's like, God, you know, it's like, it's tough to keep that going. And so, you know, I've never seen America this divided. I don't think that's a good thing. It does set the possibility that, you know, that something unusual could happen here.

1:03:39And the social engineers are trying to talk that into existence, a lot of talk about civil war. We should look at your country to understand, like what happens when you allow things like that to come into existence, you know. Hey, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Our country is an example of what not to do. And Europe, Europe had better be watching very closely because in 20 years' time, the entire continent of Europe, or the way of Western Europe is going to look like us. Yeah, it's been, it's been sad to watch that. But there's still beautiful stuff, like we have amazing wildlife. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, my wife has been, I don't know, three or four times, over the course of her life, and to South Africa, to South Africa. To South Africa. So far. Oh, yeah. Travel, travel luxury family.

1:04:40Oh, you know. You're all over. They wind up over. Have you been? Have you been? I have not been. I've been to, at the only time I've been on the African continent was Cairo. So, you know, this sort of. Well, that's not, I mean, that's technically, technically Africa, but it's not really Africa. It doesn't count in my, in my mind, I always think, that's Middle East. It's not really that. It's not, it's already. I know. I'd really like, I'd really like to go. I'd really like to go for, you know, for, for the, for the, for the nature, for the animal component, I would love to. It's on my, it's on my list. You know, obviously, I'm a, I'm a, you know, I've, I've got that traveling bug, though. So, I buy it a, my mother was a, was a panam, international panam, flight attendant out of New York in the 60s, back when it was cool, when you'd go everywhere. And, and that's actually kind of how I first started to, to, to get into, to, you know, learning about what was going on around the world was, was finding the places on the map where my mom had gone

1:05:40and, and asking her questions about what it was like back then. You know, what was the most beautiful city in the world? Where, where, where was the most beautiful place she'd ever been? That didn't take, that, that was a universal answer. Beirut, most beautiful city I've ever been. That's what she said. Tell, tell those, tell those, she said, tell those bastards bombed it. That's like, well, came on. How can my audience follow you? Macro Aggressions, obviously. Macro Aggressions is my podcast. It goes out twice a week. I do an interview on Sundays. I do a, I do a monologue on Wednesdays. I think I might have the best intro. If you got a minute and a half, you can listen to my intro. You'll, you'll know if you're in, into my, uh, flavor of insanity if you hear that intro. Uh, also, fantastic. Yeah. I think, I think, uh, people kind of appreciate how chaotic it is. Uh, but I also, in the, uh, the first day of January, 2025,

1:06:41I became the new owner of activist post. That's an independent news website. It's been around for 15 years. It's part of the disinformation. 200, along with WikiLeaks and zero hedge that was banned and had all their advertising stripped away. I, I took over ownership of that in an all Bitcoin transaction in the first day of 2025. And so now, if you're interested in getting news from, uh, from journalists that are fearless, writing about important information when it matters most, go to activistpost.com and check it out. And we up to, I put 10 articles on there a day. And, uh, I think there's a little bit of something for everyone. Podcast, crypto, empire, economy, health, solutions, solutions, solutions. We've always got solutions there. So, check it out, activistpost.com, macroaggressions.io. Thanks for having me. But listen, yeah, before you go, Charlie, I'm going to have a bit of a boxing match. You guys,

1:07:41I'm, I'm going to make the argument that my intro is the best. Okay. All right. We're going to have, we're going to have a facel. This is, this is, this is what I am here for that. That is, that's good. I, this is going to raise, we're going to raise both, both boats here. So my audience, I'm going to have, have my audience go check out your intro and you have your audience check out my intro and then we'll, we'll have a dance off or something. Thank you for joining me in the trenches. Thanks for having me. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you.