TruthArchive.ai - Tweets Saved By @LarryTaunton
reSee.it AI Summary
I experienced a terrifying incident last night when I was SWATed. My German shepherd, Ranger, alerted me to something unusual outside. I saw a silhouette of a man with an AR15 and two others in body armor. After turning on a light and demanding they identify themselves, I learned they were officers responding to a false report of violence in my home. Thankfully, it ended peacefully, but it could have been disastrous had they entered without warning. I’m grateful for their restraint and relieved that no one was harmed.
@LarryTaunton - Larry “Terrorist” Taunton
1/5 I was SWATed last night as you can see in these 3 videos. I was in bed, but noticed Ranger, my German shepherd, was on the prowl, his ears up. I heed his instincts. I then saw a flicker of light on my BR door. Ranger went to investigate, I got my gun…..
Video Transcript AI Summary
It don't look like there's been three or four guys in years. Shot everybody.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: It's really none of my business, but it don't look like there's been three or four guys in years. Shot everybody.
@LarryTaunton - Larry “Terrorist” Taunton
2/5 I saw the silhouette of a man on my deck with an AR15. Given my recent run-in with USAID and the Egyptian secret police in Cairo, I didn’t know what to think. I could hear whispers and saw two other men also in body armor, heavily armed…. https://t.co/xJTu2SWaHm
@LarryTaunton - Larry “Terrorist” Taunton
3/5 I turned on a light and told them to identify themselves. They did as you’ll see, by I kept my weapon. It de-escalated from there. The officers told me they’d received a call from someone claiming to be in my home and hiding while I shot people. These were good guys… https://t.co/hBis9c6oz4
@LarryTaunton - Larry “Terrorist” Taunton
4/5 …just doing their jobs. I doubt any voted for Biden or Kamala. They had approached the house without sirens, in silence. This might have been a bloodbath but for restraint on both sides. This was an attempt to get me and my wife killed. It ended in smiles, handshakes…. https://t.co/7DUuFxH1Im
@LarryTaunton - Larry “Terrorist” Taunton
5/5 But, oh my, what might have happened. One had tried the door to enter the home. I thank God he did not get in. I might have opened fire. You must understand it was pitch darkness. There were 9 police vehicles at the top of my drive. No sirens, no warning. @KatieBrittforAL @SenTuberville @ericmetaxas @GuntherEagleman @DefiyantlyFree @seanmdav @WatchChad @DineshDSouza @LozzaFox @calvinrobinson @VP @elonmusk @realannapaulina
reSee.it AI Summary
I recently left Egypt after a visit to USAID in Cairo, where I uncovered troubling activities linked to human trafficking. My exploration began with a straightforward question about compliance with President Trump's order to shut down operations, which led to a tense encounter with security. Despite being recognized and pressured to exit my vehicle and hand over my phone, I refused. After a standoff involving the Egyptian National Security Agency, I was released without formal charges. This experience raises serious concerns about USAID's operations and their implications for U.S. taxpayer involvement.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
***USAID - CAIRO CORRUPTION*** By God’s grace, I am now out of Egypt. Let me state at the outset of this report: • An X🧵is insufficient to tell the full story. • There are ongoing complications. So you must read between the lines. Last week in a🧵that got 12 million…
Video Transcript AI Summary
They're stopping my driver and demanding my phone, claiming I videoed the USAID facility. I've refused to hand it over. Now, they're ordering my driver to exit the vehicle. I'm keeping the camera rolling, though I'm not sure if I'm aiming it correctly.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: What's he saying? Say it. Hopefully, I'm holding this up properly here and there, go ahead. You're fine. They're, stopping my driver.
They're telling me they want my phone because I have videoed the, the USAID facility and so forth. I've told them they can't have the phone. So now they're telling my driver he has to get out. So I'm continuing the video and I can't see if I'm aiming this correctly. So hopefully Can he see the password?
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
2/ …views, I reported that I made a visit to USAID - Cairo. To those unfamiliar with my work, I have been tracking globalist initiatives at both ends: • At the idea level (e.g., the World Economic Forum in Davos). • Then I go downstream to see how those idea play out… https://t.co/aHc7nOYtKg
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
3/ …in the lives of real people. You see, globalists have insulated themselves from the often awful consequences of their own ideas. For the last 3 years I have attended the WEF where they have promoted open borders and then I went to cartel country & Darién in Central &… https://t.co/Sy9uvRvehF
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
4/ …South America where, as I reported in an interview which prompted an encouraging response from President Trump, USAID was running a massive *human trafficking* op straight to our borders and beyond them. From there I went to Cairo. I had a variety of reasons to be in… https://t.co/TJXOzWxg6U
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
5/ …Cairo. USAID was among them. You will see from Google Earth that USAID - Cairo is a massive military-style compound. People often ask me how I get into things like the WEF. The answer is simple: through the front door. I’m not doing ninja stuff in the dead of night…. https://t.co/EMOhZkCpn8
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
6/ That gives them cause to arrest you. But if I go through your security and you let me in, that’s on you (unless you’re a Jan 6er). Last week, security raised the barrier and let us drive in. I proceeded to walk around the entire massive complex to find the entrance…. https://t.co/1TdxKgBaEd
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
7/ There was no USAID signage of any kind. Finding the door, I spoke briefly with the security guard and entered the building. https://t.co/BafNtvmFw0
Video Transcript AI Summary
Walking around the perimeter wall of USAID, you'll notice the heavy fortifications and new cameras. This is how American taxpayer dollars are being spent here. USAID is part of what's called the smart village, where tech companies are also located. We gained access simply by approaching the gate confidently, and being an American certainly helped.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Walking around the perimeter wall of USAID, you'll see that it's heavily fortified cameras and quite new. This is what American taxpayer dollars want to build here. This is part of what's called the smart village. Tech companies and such are here, but USAID is also located here, and we managed to get in just by just by approaching the gate like we belong there. And the fact that I'm quite obviously an American helped.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
8/ Once inside, I asked them a simple question: Were they complying with President Trump’s (public) order to shut down? This proved to be a dangerous question, and as I explained elsewhere, I promptly left the building, got in the car, and drove away. On Saturday I went… https://t.co/mikGpZ5ql9
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
9/ …back. I didn’t enter the compound. I just wanted to confirm a couple of impressions. Driving by on a public road in a different vehicle, I was nonetheless recognized by security who stopped the car and demanded my Egyptian driver get out. A few important details: I have… https://t.co/B8ti14Zmpv
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
10/ …been on numerous military installations. I was born on one and raised in others. I have been on NATO nuclear bases. I have also been in ~70 countries and all over the Middle East. I’m not a newbie. And while it is true that most buildings of any significance have… https://t.co/UwuRRpR696
Video Transcript AI Summary
They're stopping my driver and demanding my phone because I filmed the USAID facility. I've refused to give them my phone, and now they're ordering my driver to exit the vehicle. I'm continuing to record this situation, though I'm unsure if I'm holding the camera correctly.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: What's he saying? Say it. Hopefully, I'm holding this up properly here and there, go ahead. You're fine. They're, stopping my driver.
They're telling me they want my phone because I have videoed the, the USAID facility and so forth. I've told them they can't have the phone. So now they're telling my driver he has to get out. So I'm continuing the video and I can't see if I'm aiming this correctly. So hopefully Can he see the password?
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
11/ …security in the Middle East—especially post-9/11—this was next level. Remember, this is USAID—United States Aid for International Development—ostensibly a US gov’t version of Samaritan’s Purse. It’s also important you understand the hierarchy here: security at USAID… https://t.co/ADs2tiGdiO
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
12/ …are private & paid with your tax dollars. They have no actual authority outside of the compound. This time they knew who I was and demanded my phone and my passport. I refused to give them either but let them see/photograph, at a distance, my passport. They told me…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
13/ …to exit the vehicle. I again refused. By their own acknowledgement, I had broken no laws and had not breeched their security illegally on my prior visit. If they didn’t like my viral tweet about it, then they shouldn’t have let me in. They demanded the driver bring… https://t.co/V3jYo41sNf
Video Transcript AI Summary
I'm currently being detained by USAID Cairo, right outside the gate. They've seized my driver's license and demanded my passport and phone, even though we haven't entered the facility or taken any pictures this time.
They recognized me from my visit last week, and it seems they were waiting for us. They blocked the car and are now suggesting I'm a terrorist, despite knowing I have no such intentions. They're also aware of my viral tweet from my previous visit. Just wanted to let you know, so if I suddenly disappear, you'll know what happened.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: Alright. I'm being detained by USAID Cairo. I'm outside of the gate. They've taken my driver's driver's license, not mine, his. They've demanded my passport.
They have demanded, gotta put this down. They have demanded, my phone. Again, we've not entered into the, entered into the the facility. We've taken no pictures of the facility on this particular occasion, but they do not did know that who I was, that I was the guy who was here last week. And I decided to come back to just take one more look.
Had no intention of entering, and we didn't. But this time, they were laying in wait for us. They, they blocked the car, and, now they've suggested that I'm some sort of terrorist. Then they know better than that. They know that I I have no such intentions.
I'm quite Google able, and they were very aware of my, my viral tweet, from last time. But, again, that's what's going on here. So, you know, if I go dark, you'll know what happened.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
14/ …the vehicle inside the compound. I told him not to comply. They then told me to enter their blacked-out security office which was also within the compound. I politely refused. This isn’t my first rodeo. There is a pattern these things follow all over the world: the…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
15/ …older, more senior the official handling the situation, the darker your prospects become. Someone inside USAID was calling the shots, and they had summoned Egyptian police who, in turn, handed the situation over the National Security Agency. Egypt’s equivalent of the… https://t.co/hVkrYwghao
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
16/ …KGB—they were developed/trained by them in their early days—they are the rebranded ISS: the infamous state security that killed and tortured their own citizens among others. This man, to quote my translator, arrived and “made it personal.” Belligerent, it seemed to…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
17/ …me that he was trying to provoke a reaction. Again, demands that I exit the vehicle, enter the compound, & hand over my passport & phone. Again, I calmly, politely refused. What started to become clear was that I had embarrassed them by breeching their security…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
18/ …previously & this was payback. But it was also panic about what I might know. I was, they said, a terrorist. But after a while, even they seemed to see this was ridiculous & wouldn’t stick. So, the charge—claim, rather, since they had not formally charged me—was…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
19/ …espionage. I freely admitted it: “I am spying—on my government, not yours.” When they weren’t looking, I fired-off the very videos they wanted deleted to @LozzaFox and others in case I disappeared into a black hole. Perhaps if I let them see my photos/videos folder…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
20/ …they would let me go. So I then deleted them and, in case the officer reviewing them, was savvy, I also trashed them from “Recently Deleted.” Still no formal arrest, they tried to pressure me to sign an “incident report” but they wouldn’t let my translator translate….
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
21/ …it. I refused. “Do you have an Egyptian govt permit to take photos of govt buildings?” “No, but I wasn’t taking photos of Egyptian government buildings.” I pointed in the direction of USAID: “That’s a United States govt building, and I’m a US citizen….”
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
22/ I pointed at the security guard. “My tax dollars pay his salary.” He blanched. While I was holding my phone, he pushed it to my face to unlock it. For this very reason I have never activated Face ID or the thumbprint feature. You need a code. I told him I would unlock…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
23/ …the phone and let him scroll the photos. He called over a guy who looked like Freddie Mercury in leather jacket and sunglasses. Just as I thought he might do, he scrolled, saw nothing incriminating, and then went to “Recently Deleted.” “Nothing.” At that moment, the…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
24/ …NSA guy got a phone call from up the food chain and we were released. Yesterday, NSA showed up at my hotel & were (truthfully) told that I had left the country. They proceeded to search everything, suggesting I was a spy & a dangerous man. This raises questions about…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
25/ …USAID activities. This is how an intelligence agency operates, not aid “from the American People.” The Egyptians were simply working at their direction. Egypt is a huge recipient of USAID funds, & they’ll do anything to keep the tap open. From Prague, Larry Alex Taunton https://t.co/SSZUvahTBC
reSee.it AI Summary
In Necocli, Colombia, a dangerous town for immigrants crossing the Gulf of Urabá to the Darién Gap, hope and hopelessness coexist. The author describes the degradation, encounters with the American Dream, and the Devil's presence. Desperate situations, dangerous roads, and an abandoned airfield are highlighted. The author discusses illegal immigration, the responsibility of the Biden administration, and the use of poor people to reshape America. The author also mentions secret flights and money laundering in Ukraine. The conclusion emphasizes the need to fight against criminal governance.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
#Immigration Update from South America 8: One Night in Bangkok I’m in Necocli, #Colombia, a dangerous cartel town where #immigrants try to get a ferry across the Gulf of Urabá to the #Darién Gap. There’s never been a place of more hope & hopelessness. Human degradation…
Video Transcript AI Summary
These people are desperate to reach the United States, waiting for a crossing to Darien. Chinese migrants take different routes due to having more money. They rely on water to survive the journey through Darien, but it's not sufficient. Desperation is evident in their struggle to cross the border.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: These are all people trying to make it to the United States. They're waiting for a crossing to Darien. This is what desperation looks like. Now if you've been paying attention, you'll notice we're not seeing many Chinese here, and that's because they have more money they're taking different routes than the ones that we're seeing here As I know, they're gonna. See, they get water like this to get them through Darien.
It's not enough. I'll tell you right now. Is it in case that he cross in in the camera, and then
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
2. …in its many forms is everywhere. I hadn’t been in town 15 minutes before I was offered cocaine and sex. Beggars of the authentic variety are everywhere. Street vendors price gouge. Cartel “eyes” are upon you and everyone else. But you also encounter those who are… https://t.co/UXfh5TpK7y
Video Transcript AI Summary
Today, we are heading to Nikko Kli from Cartagena, a spot where illegal migrants traveling through Darien Gap gather in Turbo, Colombia. Like Casablanca, they wait for ferries to take them further. Accompanied by my friend and translator, Geraldo Jerry, it promises to be an emotional and intriguing journey. Stay tuned for more updates.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: On our way down to Nikko Kli this morning from Cartagena. EcoCli is the jumping off point to Darien Gap. It's where all of the illegal aliens crossing the South American continent gather there in a place called Turbo just to the south. Both are in Colombia. So they wait there for ferries that would take them on.
It's it's almost like, you know, what Casablanca is in the, the movie Casablanca where everyone is there as the opening scene says, waiting and waiting and waiting for a flight to take them to Lisbon and then eventually to America. So I'm joined on this trip by my friend and translator, Geraldo Jerry, and, should be a very, very interesting trip today. So, you looking forward to it? Yeah. That's an emotional day.
Yes. Emotional day, I think, is a good way to put it. So it should be interesting. So stay tuned.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
3. …intoxicated with the American Dream. They are sure they are on the cusp of it. These disparate visions coexist in the human quagmire that is Necocli. I’m reminded of Murray Head’s “One Night in Bangkok”: “One night in Bangkok makes a hard man humble. Not much between…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
4. …despair and ecstasy. One night in Bangkok and the tough guys tumble. Can't be too careful with your company. I can feel the Devil walking next to me.” I’ve been in Bangkok, and I’ve seen the Devil. Indeed, he “sifted me like wheat” on a previous encounter. I can… https://t.co/Inxv6Zk4QB
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
5. …state with confidence that he’s in Necocli. Desperate women sell themselves for pesos. Desperate men sell themselves to cartels. Children disappear. Buying passage on a boat to Darién comes at great price. The day started on a private twin-prop from Cartagena. Roads… https://t.co/mvCHPzoiVy
Video Transcript AI Summary
The gendarmes are inspecting us closely at the abandoned airport in the 3rd world. They suspect us of carrying contraband like cocaine. We are used to these delays and wait to see what happens next.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: The gendarmes are looking us over pretty carefully. This is common in the 3rd world, by the way. These, you know, being detained, however briefly. They saw us landing. They made their way out here to the to the airport.
If it can really be called that. I mean, again, it's, it's completely abandoned. And so you just have to expect these kind of delays. But they're looking to plane over pretty carefully. Looking to see if we're carrying cocaine or some other kind of contraband.
And, we wait. We see what happens next. But again, I I've become very very used to these kinds of delays.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
6. …here are too dangerous with militia groups fighting for control of the region and bandits waiting to ambush travelers. I hired a pilot who was willing to go to Necocli even though there is no active airport, only an abandoned one in the jungle. As we approached, cattle… https://t.co/S7KfUUKyH2
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
7. …grazed absentmindedly along the length of the runway. My Han Solo made several low-level passes, pulling hard on the yoke at the end of each one to avoid plunging us into the dense jungle. When I say the airfield is abandoned, I mean there is no one. We taxied to nowhere… https://t.co/XbPPqUGaeI
Video Transcript AI Summary
In the jungle of South America, it's common to see cattle randomly appearing even in lonely airports.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: You know, you're on a lonely airport with cattle just randomly appear. This is the jungle. This is South America. This is common.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
8. …in particular. Soon, police, who had seen us circling in nearby Necocli, appeared on a footpath. Thinking we might be drug traffickers, they inspected the plane and our credentials before offering us assistance. Illegal aliens — yes, they are illegal in every country…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
9. …through which they pass that isn’t their country of origin — get here in a much less direct and dramatic way: they take buses or they walk. All of this is a bit like the annual migrations of the wildebeest. As herds of thousands make their way across the Serengeti,… https://t.co/aqffK5MzoF
Video Transcript AI Summary
People from Colombia are boarding ferries with life jackets to cross to Darien. The journey takes about an hour, but the duration may vary based on financial resources.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: People are being given life jackets and loading up. These ferries take about an hour to get across. Now, again, that depends on how much money you've got. Just ask these women where they were from their, Colombians, but they're making their way through Darien.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
10. …crocodiles wait in the rivers, biding their time until dinner is served. In this case, the croc-infested waters begin at Necocli, go through the Darién Gap, and continue on through Central America. Responsibility for this human tragedy lies with the #Biden… https://t.co/37a1NGiRtq
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
11. …admin that stands on one side of this savage wasteland and bids those on the other to come — and come they do. Every day 2,500 people here board boats bound for Darién. Men, women (some pregnant), and small children take these risks. I spoke with two teenage… https://t.co/M1kos0y34M
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
12. …Colombian girls who boarded one of these boats with the giddiness of children about to ride a roller coaster. You see, having never been out of their own country, they had no idea what awaited them on the other side: bandits, extortion, rape, murder, human trafficking….
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
13. …The Biden administration, via NGOs, the #UN, cartels, and #Facebook, makes cynical use of these poor people to reshape #America. However much you hate #Democrats and the #UnitedNations, it isn’t enough. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Democrats are flying… https://t.co/xIhe7vGBNc
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
14. …illegals into the country. Secretly. To undisclosed destinations, as I reported last week. While they pretend to address the border crisis, they ramp-up illegal immigration with flights from all over this continent. It’s a shell game. While you look in one place, they… https://t.co/dBaO2fL1XS
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
15. …move them to another. And it’s **my theory** that it’s mostly being funded through money laundered in #Ukraine. It’s simply too big, too organized for these NGOs, the UN, and even the cartels. When I began this project 4 years ago, immigration from this continent was… https://t.co/PXh6FT7AeB
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
16. …an ad hoc mess. Not now. The only entity big enough to run this massive human trafficking operation is the government of the #UnitedStates. We are being governed by criminals who must be removed from office. THE END Say a prayer. Fight. Press on. More to come. https://t.co/0WrMeG7PI4
reSee.it AI Summary
In South America, I witnessed a chaotic situation at the border. The Biden administration is allegedly involved in human trafficking through the UN and NGOs, using anonymous social media accounts to encourage illegal immigration. NGOs funded by the US taxpayer provide aid and urge asylum applications. The open border is causing confusion, and people question why criminals are being allowed into the US. Drug cartels profit from migrants, while women face kidnapping and assault. The Biden administration is responsible for this tragedy.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
#BorderCrisis Update from South America:🧵 I’m currently in Colombia. To say that it’s a sh*t show down here is an insult to fine sh*t shows everywhere. The #Biden administration is running a human trafficking op via the #UN, NGOs, and your tax $. They are flying illegals…
Video Transcript AI Summary
The Biden administration is flying migrants from South America to the United States, regardless of documentation, aiding human trafficking. Most lack documentation.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: We just discovered something quite explosive, and that is that the Biden administration isn't just simply offering these migrants as they're going through this particular country, Colombia and other parts of South America. They aren't just simply offering them some kind of humanitarian aid, which is in a sense actually aiding and abetting human trafficking because what is happening to so many of these people. One of the staffers here just told us that they're being flown. That the Biden administration is flying them, not just simply out of Mexico where we knew that they were doing that as well, but they're flying them out of South America to destinations unknown in the United States, whether they have documentation or not. In almost every case, she says they don't have documentation.
That's what's happening here in South America.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
2. …from Central & South America to secret destinations in the US while denying it and media allies obfuscate the facts. NGO personnel tell me off-record that the Biden administration won’t reveal the destination of flights, but that they are, with the use of anonymous… https://t.co/bm1pbzXlxP
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
3. …social media accounts on TikTok, Facebook, & Instagram, urging illegals in Venezuela, Haiti, & Cuba to make their way to the US. These social media accounts give clear directions re: • Routes to the US • Where to find aid • How to apply • And point them to this app: https://t.co/eWFIjEyIjW
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
4. NGOs, funded by the UN — which is funded by the US taxpayer — provide food, shelter, medical assistance, & aid to reach the US. They are urged to apply for asylum status whether they are targets of persecuted or not. It is under this banner that the Biden administration… https://t.co/sVoEZZEi0w
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
5. …is hiding it’s real agenda: to flip Red States to Blue and to reshape America as we know it socially, culturally, & politically. That the US border is wide open is well known here and is a subject of bewilderment. I am constantly asked why our gov’t would do it: “Don’t… https://t.co/VCNyrLKa0b
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
6. …they understand every criminal in Venezuela is making his way to your country?” NGOs are urged not to ask too many questions, but instead to keep the ever-growing queue to the US moving as rapidly as possible. After Democrats, drug cartels are the biggest… https://t.co/hFn9UMKZto
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
7. …profiteers, charging migrants enormous sums ($100 - $5k) to pass through their territory & provide them with a guide through the Darién Gap or, if one can afford it, to place him north of it. Women tell me they have been kidnapped, raped, or threatened if they do not…
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
8. …submit. Men are robbed, beaten, or just disappear. In making it known to the world that the US border is open, the Biden administration is responsible for this human tragedy. What about Chinese migrants? More on that later. I’m hungry. Pardon typos. https://t.co/66ZT9YBYR8
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
It’s rich when actual traitors who have sold out the people of the United States to a globalist — thus, by definition anti-American — agenda are calling #TuckerCarlson… …a traitor. https://t.co/gfbCjT526f
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
I went undercover to the World Economic Forum. There is simply no substitute for being there in person. Watch my new documentary where I give you a peak behind the curtain of the WEF and their agenda. #WEF2024 https://t.co/mux1afPv4P
Video Transcript AI Summary
The speaker attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) to observe and understand its agenda. They believe that the WEF is focused on population control and reducing the global population. The speaker describes the WEF as a gathering of heads of state and corporate leaders who promote corporate fascism and influence policies on various issues. They mention their interactions with attendees and their observations of presentations on topics like human trafficking. The speaker criticizes the WEF's theme of rebuilding trust, stating that the organization itself violated trust during the pandemic. They also discuss the WEF's fear of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin due to their opposition to the globalist agenda. The speaker emphasizes the need for critical questioning and evaluation of the WEF's agenda.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: I was at this year's World Economic Forum meeting because I have learned from vast experience that there just simply is no substitute for being there. At their core, the World Economic Forum is about population control. They wanna reduce the global population. And so I decided I needed to be there. I wanted to mingle among these people.
I wanted to see what those people are about, who are they. And because they just assume that I'm a weffer like everybody else, they talk quite openly. They never say things, so they never use words like say kill. Ladies and gentlemen, I've read Cloud Schwab's books. The carbon they wanna reduce is you.
You're the carbon they want to reduce. I will once again be attending this Here's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Now you may ask, what is the World Economic Forum was founded by the infamous Klaus Schwab, the German engineer in 1971. And since that Time he has been the sole chairman of the World Economic Forum. It's a place where heads of state gather.
It is the global center of corporate fascism. It's some of the policies that you see Affecting the west in a big way on everything from the environment to your own personal freedoms to digital
Speaker 1: Extremity.
Speaker 0: You name it. It's coming out of the World Economic Forum. I'm in Zurich, Switzerland now after a very, very long trip. I had About a 7 hour layover in London after a flight to Amsterdam was canceled. And so it took me a little while to get here, but Here I am and I am, now in a taxi on my way out to the west.
There's Nothing going on this evening. I'll just grab a hotel. It's about 20 degrees here and there's a light snow, but My driver here, he knows what he's doing, so we'll be in touch tomorrow. Gonna get a good night's sleep tonight.
Speaker 2: It's here, Switzerland at the window of my hotel here. And, you catch these trains here, you take them up to Davos. And, not that far away. Time to get
Speaker 0: time to Get ready. Last year, there were, oh, let's see, a 116 billionaires, About 50 heads of state, 600 CEOs of major corporations, and about, oh, 27100 others. And We say the numbers are even higher this year. So if you're of the opinion, the left is irrelevant that you would be mistaken because they have enormous influence On governments around the world, Dean, Elon likes to brag. They have penetrated, governments around the world.
Didn't sleep very well, but I did get some coffee and a good breakfast and, now make my way up Davos, which is about an hour away. The WAF is a kind of,
Speaker 3: Oh, HOA from hell as I like to say.
Speaker 0: These are individuals who are quite certain that it is their right to tell you how to live and what you should do on everything from the way you eat to the amount of energy that you use and the car you drive and even The kind of job that you might have. They are individuals who cannot bear the thought that someone somewhere is free. That someone somewhere their grass might be too high. They might be eating beef. They might be watching a a program that isn't approved by the alphabet mafia, h o a from hell.
The kind of perspective that I wanna give you is a little different from perhaps what others are doing. 70% of the web is online. You can watch it yourself. So what we're doing is we're taking a look at what's taking place away from the major sessions and just engaging with ordinary people.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, it's almost like they were trying trying very consciously to model their after Spectre, after Bond villains. You know, this reminds me, Klaus Schwab, you know, even even kinda looks like Telly Ceballos on her majesty's secret service. And, a like him has his, alpine Fortress,
Speaker 0: and that's where we're going.
Speaker 3: You notice the traffic It's getting a little thicker. The automobiles are getting a little bit nicer as we get closer to the left.
Speaker 0: Right now, making our way up the mountain to Davos, and we are going through a security checkpoint here because you have more than 60 heads of state at this particular event. Now the WEF, again, it is a global Gathering of pretentious pricks.
Speaker 3: I mean, that really is what it is. The as
Speaker 0: I say, the HOA from hell, these are People are all sure that they have the right to tell you how to live. Yeah. We're about to go through the checkpoint right here, right now, but we're Making our way up the mountain. We'll be there in just a few minutes. It should be a very, very interesting day Today today, it's my intention to engage with just web attendees.
Now why would I do that? Well, because those are the people who really buying into what is being sold here at the World Economic Forum. They pay enormous sums of money To be a part of the west, you have to be a member, and then you have to pay conference fees. And those can get up well into 6 figures to do something thing like this. Now now, of course, I'm not doing it.
I just show up and I walk into places like I own them. And so far, that's worked for me. Now how long that Hold out. I don't know. But as I say, just your audacity can often be a replacement for a lack of money when your when your pocketbook just simply isn't up to the task.
So we're working our way up the mountain. We'll be there here shortly, and I'll try to update you
Speaker 3: as soon as I can.
Speaker 0: I just was rejected from one of the buildings that I Tried to enter you know, typically, you can bluff your way into almost anything. Simply, just a little pro tip for you, by acting like you I meant to be there. It's amazing how many places you can get into. But on this particular occasion, the place is so full. They're rejecting Everyone from getting inside, doesn't matter.
We're still gonna achieve what we came here to do. Well, it turned out that that was great blessing in disguise because I walked straight out of that meaning, basically, you know, maybe maybe a Soccer field away and into another big, building where, the former prime minister of Portugal, the former prime minister of the UK, Theresa May, the CEO of Hewlett Packard and her royal Inez, Princess Eugenie for giving a presentation on human trafficking. So I just went straight in.
Speaker 4: I'd like to welcome you on behalf of Gold's House who, of course, are a diverse community of business, political leaders, activists, NGOs, and entrepreneurs who come together and there are significant global moments throughout the year with the mission for driving progress to achieve the UN Sustainable development goals by 2030. That's some of the details of what it's doing, but it's primary. It is to raise the political momentum. As John says, get the sort of people who are here in this room but here elsewhere at Davos to recognize that this is an issue they need to pay attention to. They need to ensure they've got the legislation.
Companies need to take action because the only way we're going to eradicate on savory is by working together.
Speaker 0: I went straight up to Theresa May and introduced myself and was able to ask her a number of very pointed questions, not prudently, but substantive questions about her presentation.
Speaker 5: I understand you you ran to a Theresa May. She seems familiar. I think she was prime minister about 22 minutes once, not that long ago, and you had
Speaker 0: an opportunity to to speak to her. Sat and listened to a lecture on human trafficking from Theresa May and others. And afterwards, I was able to have a conversation with her about her assertions, you know, regarding Ukraine. Ukraine is a big theme here. Zelensky spoke today, and surprising to no one, he asked for from these, you know, 60 heads of state for $54,000,000,000.
That oh, and he also asked them to topple Putin.
Speaker 6: And we need you in Ukraine to build, to reconstruct, To restore our lives, each of you can be even more successful with Ukraine.
Speaker 5: News flash. Zelensky isn't going to win. Zelensky isn't even gonna be there. He'll flee to England or the United States to live for the rest of his life for the whole bunch of the money that we gave him my guess.
Speaker 0: Now something I would want you to understand, about the WEF that you probably don't get when you are at home is that it it feels to me kind of like one of those conferences that you were that you were required by your, employer to go to some kind of continued education, You know, nonsense or a united way meeting or or perhaps just a bad church. I mean, there's there's all these lofty platitudes to some, more fuzzy words that they throw around. And this year's theme is rebuilding trust, which itself is kinda curious given the fact that it was the World Economic Forum's attendees, their members, those people who are at the very top who violated our trust in the first place, specifically, most notably with the pandemic. And yet here they are, the ones who present themselves as the guardians of trust.
Speaker 1: We must rebuild trust, and that's actually the theme of our beating. We have to rebuild trust, trust in our future, Trust in our capacity to overcome challenges, and most importantly, trust
Speaker 0: in Egypt. And then you had, the president of European Commission, Ursula van der Leyen, Saying that, the focus of the web she said this yesterday, maybe it was the day before, that the focus of the web attendees is to address and disinformation.
Speaker 4: The top concern for the next 2 years is not conflict or Climate. It is disinformation and misinformation.
Speaker 0: She went on to say That that's more important to them than the environment, than more than hunger than agriculture. It was addressing this. But, again, what the the assumptions Behind that is that we are the self appointed guardians and the of truth.
Speaker 7: The left has sort of been emphasizing the notion that truth is relative, that you cannot assert absolute truths. And yet suddenly that relativism of the past several decades appears to be chucked out the window and the left is now asserting That this is true. Basically, what we say is true, what they say is true, and any rival view is Either misinformation or disinformation.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly, Dinesh. I think they still are in the business of relativizing truth, all truth except those that are important to them. So The result is that they've recreated in a sense the Roman pantheon. You know, you can believe what you wanna believe.
Hey. We'll we'll put your gods in our In our, God Hall of Fame, yeah, you can worship that too. They they wanna relativize everything, but Everyone must worship the state. That is to say the super state that they would create the the globalist a vision which they have cast for themselves and and so it was in in Roman times, of course, as you well know, relativize all truths, but Everyone must acknowledge the absolute truth of the state and see they see themselves as the arbiters of truth. I mean, for the the year of the Presidents of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to say that they're addressing Misinformation and disinformation, which in and of itself is is Orwellian doublespeak.
It also implies that they're the arbiters of truth. I mean, we're the ones who will decide what is truth and, you know, they're they're not about the protection of free speech. They freeze see free speech as toxic, but they wanna protect their own free speech. Uh-huh. What they What they're really taking aim at in this case is social media, not just any social media because they're all controlled by Waffers with the exception of Twitter.
They wanna shut it down. They wanna shut down they wanna shut down people like me, and they're already doing it in in a number of that I won't get into here, but it is important that you get on our mailing list so that we can communicate with you, independent of Any other social media platform that will make us uncancelable. So we need you we really, really need you to do that. At the left, I say again, it's like going to something that your employer would require you to go to. Way back, you know, when I was in the academic world, I would be saying, you know, once a year, you have to go to some kind of seminar that would be about some kind of topic like, oh, let's say, You know, finding commonality, celebrating diversity.
That was one that I remember attending some years ago. It was complete nonsense. But, again, you have the love lofty slogan. So rebuilding trust is one of them. Another one, sort of a sub slogan or The theme of this year's web was, let's see.
It's transparency, accountability, and consistency, all things that they don't do. I mean, there's no accountability for these people. They're absolutely I've never seen anything like And when elected officials of many of these people are elected, many of them are not. But they show absolute disdain and Disregard for the people who elected them or at least the people who they represent even if they didn't vote for
Speaker 2: them.
Speaker 8: This is a neck and neck race and no one feels very comfortable on the Democratic side of things that Donald Trump isn't gonna be the next president.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think that nobody feels. I think Many of us know that it is impossible, for him to be the president again.
Speaker 0: We're seeing that with the Democratic Party in the United And that's curious to me because that's always a sign that the fix is in. When You're going into an election year, and you're treating your constituents, voters so badly. You would only do that if you knew that the fix was in, and that's the kind of thing that we're seeing here at the WEALTH. And I wanna give you a sense of of of how the week flows and what it's like. I mean, it's interesting because most of the presentations, you have central presentations, But then you have surrounding it loads of other presentations.
And they might be on things like, let's say, farming, or on,
Speaker 3: you know, media
Speaker 0: or on conflict resolution or dealing with stress or Immigration or in the case of Theresa May, human trafficking. I mean, things that for the most part, you wouldn't object to. And that's because it's kinda like that final scene at, Indiana Jones of the last crusades, you know, that you chose poorly, you know, scene where the holy grail is disguised by all of these fake grails. A good thing is surrounded by all of these bad things. The bad things that will kill you and one of them If you like, except in this case, it's the inverse.
It is it is the bad thing that is being disguised by by Relatively good things. And see, the what if is the what if is clever about this because they have lots of presentations
Speaker 2: on loads
Speaker 0: of benign topics, what you wouldn't find particularly interesting, but you wouldn't find particularly objectionable. But that's their way of hiding what they're actually about. And that's because the web again, if you if you understand nothing else from what I'm telling you here, The web is fundamentally anti human. They are not about saving or really even helping humanity. In in spite of all the things that they say, they are about saving the planet.
Depopulation, Does that sound like some sort of wild conspiracy theory to you? Well, listen to these World Economic Forum agenda that contributors.
Speaker 9: So in the session we just attended here at the economic forum, I think there was a sense of relief actually in your frankness. You brought up some issues that that others are realizing
Speaker 2: that. Always.
Speaker 6: All the The religious groups are against me because I'm talking about population. They want more folks. I want less of the planet. It may look like there are many problems, but Actually there's only one problem. We are nice but we're just too many.
This we need to understand. Believe me, it It's much easier to control human population than human aspirations. You cannot control human aspirations. You can easily control human population if everybody is focused on that. The nations, the religions of the world, various community leaders, everybody, If they are focused on seeing how to bring down the population of this planet, human population, so that other populations can live.
Speaker 10: You have some thoughts about population as a driver beneath all of these things that we're talking about. Of, what should be done about population?
Speaker 6: For a
Speaker 11: long time it was considered politically incorrect to even mention it And most of the big, conservation organizations refused to mention it, but I always thought, I mean, You see what happens in the old days. There were cultures in a lot of these indigenous people and you had lots of children because they looked after you in your old age and you shared out the land but now it's different and they know it's different. And that's why there were bare hills all around Gombe. So we we've introduced in our program. We've introduced family planning.
So welcomed by the people because they know that Things are different. And, of course, this administration is cutting family planning around the developing world which is Terrifying to me. And so if you approach family planning right, it's something that's very, very important. And when it was considered politically incorrect to mention it, and I was determined to mention it, I decided to call it Voluntary population optimization. So by the time people worked it out.
Speaker 10: And Research shows educating girls
Speaker 2: is one of the smartest things.
Speaker 11: I meant to say that. Yes. Indeed. Women's education, empowering women, and Scholarships to keep girls in school beyond puberty. Family size then tends to drop worldwide.
Speaker 12: But in one way or another, We are so far globally, we are so far above the population and the consumption levels which can be by this planet that I know in one way or another, it's gonna come back down. So I don't hope to avoid that. I hope that it can occur in a a a civil way. And and and I mean civil enough, you know, especially at peaceful.
Speaker 0: Marxo fascism. That's really what it is. I mean, Marxism at the lowest level of of society and then fascism at the top. Meaning at the bottom, there's, there's a kind of, you know, you will owe nothing and you will be happy. And then at the Where, you have individuals who have strictly regimented the economy and companies and corporations For warfare against the common man.
That's what ESG is. That's what we're seeing in ESG. It is it is pulling in all the reigns of, of various companies from Disney all the way over to, let's say, Coca Cola or, you know, take in Hollywood, universities, you name it. So that they they're all in the hands the reigns of these companies are All in the hands of globalists, and they do their bidding. And their bidding is to make war on the anti globalist people like me now Yesterday and probably you.
Now yesterday, the headliner was Javier Malai, who is the the new president of Argentina. President of Argentina, and I should say just a little bit about that because people are wondering, well, first of all, why would he Go. Well, if you have the invite to go and it speaks to these elitist pricks, I would urge you to Oh, he definitely should go. Try to get in front of them. Give them a piece of your mind.
And that's exactly what he did.
Speaker 1: And, of course, we are all For eager, to listen to you and, again, a very cordial welcome to the world.
Speaker 13: Good afternoon. Thank you very much. Today, I'm here to tell you that the western world is in danger. And it is endangered because those who are supposed to have to defend the values of the west are co opted by a vision of the world that inevitably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty. Unfortunately, in recent decades motivated by some well meaning individuals Willing to help others and others motivated by the wish to be long for privileged cause.
The main leaders of the western world have abandoned the model of freedom Four different versions of what we call collectivism. We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments And never the solution to the problems that afflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause. Do believe me. No one better place than us, Argentines, to testify to these two points.
Speaker 0: Some people suggested silly things like he's controlled Opposition or something like that. I think that's complete nonsense. Malai interesting. You know, he's an economist, and he's He's a guy that they ultimately portray as a nut job, and a clown and a demagogue of of some sort. I don't think he's anything of the kind.
True to his populist roots, he flew to Davos or rather to Zurich, I'm sure on a commercial airliner. So here he is, you know, taking selfies with, you know, to just, you know, your average passengers, you know, on this particular plane, and then he went. He gave his presentation. He treated it with the solemnity of a statesman, but he basically, told them, look. You guys take your globalist, elitist, policies, which by the way have history has shown wrecked half the world and now threatened to wreck the other half of it, taking and stuff it because we don't want it.
Argentina doesn't want it. And and he's become a kind of populous rock star, not just for Argentinians, but elsewhere. But Some people watch this and they go, oh, wow. You know, he really stuck it to the web. Listen.
The wefers got from him exactly what they knew they were going to get. Just as they knew when they invite Elon Musk or they invite Donald Trump, they know what they're going to get. But you see, it's their way of of Trying to give the impression we're listening to dissenting voices because we are, above all else, we are imminently reasonable. But they're they're reasonable in that patronizing, condescending way of a government official at the give me. I mean, they're not listening.
If if that's point number 2. If you get nothing else from what I say here, the web is fundamentally anti human. And secondly, they are listening to no one, but Italy, they are listening to no one but to each other, which is to say that they're just simply, you know, in kind of a vacuum. And yesterday, I was doing an interview with Daily Wire and was asked, a very good question. Do I think do I think the left is aware that they have a oh, a PR problem and that that more and more people are waking up to who they are And what they're about, are they nervous about that?
My answer to that is no. I don't think they're remotely nervous about it, and that's because they see themselves and there's truth in this that the people who are waking up and dissenting with their agenda are generally speaking, not people in power. They're They're commoners. They're common people. It's why they have sought to demonize the word populous.
The The way the media uses the word populist is to suggest that it's fascism, it's Nazism. The irony is they're They're the fascists, not not the populist. Populism is just is just common people. It's just a movement, a grassroots movement of common people. And that can be good or that can be bad.
That can be a rioting or that could be the American revolution. You know? So, it's it's it's a mixed bag, but it just Simply means a movement of ordinary people. And and guys like Georgia Maloney in Italy, women, I should say, like her, Javier Malay and Argentina and Donald Trump all represent populist movements, and there Brothers that are taking place around the world. I mean, as I speak in, all over Europe, you have an uprising of farmers who are Who are standing up and saying enough is enough.
It's like the Canadian truckers. It's like January 6th, which Which has been characterized, mischaracterized as some kind of riot, and an an attempted insurrection, which, of course, it wasn't. They're just people saying, listen. Listen to us. Would you please listen to us?
Speaker 3: We don't like the policies
Speaker 0: that you are implementing and that you are forcing down on the rest of us. And who are those people? They're the kind of people that that I just left behind in Davos at the World Economic Forum. They're so detached From real life, they do not know what life is like for ordinary people. Many of them have been in in government like John Kerry for decades.
So they just don't have any clue what life is like for ordinary people. At worst, they don't care. So So what does the WEF fear? I definitely come away from the World Economic Forum feeling like there are 2 things that they fear, with a kind of mortal danger. They they see as, as the only things that can interrupt their plans.
And and interestingly, those two things have only one thing in common. They are not alike, but they only have only one thing in common, And that's Donald Trump on the one hand,
Speaker 2: and it
Speaker 0: is Vladimir Putin on the other.
Speaker 3: As I sit and
Speaker 0: I listen to the in Davos. They're not offended, not really, by the fact that Vladimir Putin He's a tyrant. He's a dictator. They're not offended by the fact that he rigs elections. I mean, these are all things they do.
They're not offended by any of that at all. They're offended by the fact that he is not on board with the globalist agenda, and that is why they are prepared to fight him to the very last for hating him. And that's what they're that's what they're prepared to do. That's why they feel the need to top because he stands in the way of their plans. Now this doesn't mean you you should be a Vladimir Putin fan.
You shouldn't. He's a Tater. But in this regard, I'm with him. I agree with him on on this point, but Not to the point that I'm I'm on board with Vladimir Vladimir Putin, who is unquestionably a tyrant. But what's fascinating about Putin is that he recognizes in all these weapons, their corruption because It's who he is.
I mean, it's it's a thief recognizing another thief. It's a criminal recognizing another criminal, and they recognize it in him too. And that brings me to Donald Trump. They wanna make him look like he's a criminal. But what offends them about him is that Donald Trump was one of them in the sense that here he is, you know, with his with his background.
He's a he's a billionaire, a New Yorker, New Jersey, A businessman, blue states. At one time, he supported financially candidates like Bill and Hillary Clinton, I'm not particularly pro life in my opinion, although his policies are by far those pro life policies of any president in modern History. None of that stuff offends them about him. Not his not his sex life. They they'll say that it is.
That's not what offends them either. What offends them about him is that he He's not on board with the globalist agenda, and therefore, both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, they fear them both, and they feel the need to destroy them both. That is what's going on. But at the left, because they reasonable above all things. They would happily give a, a session, the stage to a Donald Trump very briefly briefly and to a Javier Malai and a Georgio Maloney to people like this to show just how they are.
So next time I check-in with you, maybe at the airport, probably will in London where I'm hoping it's a much better hotel. I basically stayed in a motel here. Door opened to the outside, but the bubbles were very thin. I can hear everything that was going on Next to me, and I'm sure, you know, nothing else exposed me as a, you know, as a kind of bull in the web. It was the fact that I had to do most My interview my television interviews from my hotel room.
Because there was nowhere else really for me to do it.
Speaker 2: And because the walls
Speaker 0: are thin, I'm sure there were people So let's think to absolutely everything that I would say.
Speaker 3: Just a few thoughts for you as I Reflect on my time at the forum. There are a few things you can only get from the experience By being there, there's I've always found there's no substitute for actually being in a place. As you know, if you
Speaker 0: go to a sporting event For
Speaker 3: concert, the experience is very different than if you were watching it online or just listening to it on your iPhone. Well, in the case of the World Economic Forum, one of the things that you certainly cannot get From watching it online is the fact that the forum has a kind of quality See, that to me, and some will say that this is an extreme comparison, but you you have to be there. It to me feels a little bit what I imagine the nuts and brownies in Nurofen must have felt like in In the 19 thirties, I mean, it has the same kind of, oh, worshipful Neil Pagan ethos, you know, doing my interview with Dinesh D'Souza. He was asking me, you know, is you know, what is the e false like. Well, it is a it is a shared one, and it's pagan in nature and it's completely unified to the point that it's it's almost like Stepford.
It's as though no one really questions the agenda. They've all bought into it on everything from Vaccines to depopulation to the end of industrial farming, all of it. And, and I find that very unsettling because there needs to be people who are asking the hard questions and who We're very seriously evaluating what's going on there, and it feels to me like almost no one really is. Now I should say that there are others there like, say, Rebel News, and I really appreciate their work. Now their approach is exactly the opposite of mine.
They wanna make their presence felt as strongly as Possible at the forum. Their harassment of John Kerry was just simply awesome. I loved it. Now For my own part, I want to go essentially unnoticed at the forum. Ladies.
And, to move really unseen among them, then I might really question the agenda,
Speaker 0: but that's not an easy thing to
Speaker 3: do at a place like Davos. Run it across Piccadilly. Those are just some thoughts for you about the World Economic Forum and the The experience of actually being in that place.
Speaker 0: I wanna thank those of you who are listening or watching, I who are supportive of my work, you make these things happen. You make it possible. So I'm grateful for you, and I'm grateful for your prayers. Listen, all of you take care.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
Is it time to be concerned about mass surveillance? Rather than looking at what's happening, it might help to look at what already happened. Today, I'm joined by Anna Funder as we discuss surveillance. https://t.co/qLcZcnozeL
Video Transcript AI Summary
The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, ending an authoritarian regime in East Germany. Anna Funder, author of "Stasiland," shares her experiences studying in Berlin before the wall came down and her curiosity about the country behind the wall. After the fall of the wall, she traveled to the former Eastern Bloc countries and met people who had resisted the East German Communist regime. Funder interviewed both resistors and former Stasi agents, shedding light on the courage and moral complexity of those involved. She discusses the power of surveillance and the need for regulation in the age of total surveillance by tech giants. Funder also mentions her latest book, "Wifedom," which explores the relationship between George Orwell and his wife.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: The Berlin Wall fell at the end of 1989. And what happened then was effectively, you had this country that had been run by an authoritarian government of old men who'd been in power for a very long time supported by a secret service, which would, arrest, interrogate, persecute, 'ruin the lives of anybody who spoke out against the regime'. So it was a deeply authoritarian regime which had a rhetoric, bizarrely, of human rights and the rights of man and so on. But it was a regime run on fear.
Speaker 1: It is my pleasure to have joining me on the Ideas Have Consequences podcast, Anna Funder, and she is the author of a new book called Wyfedom that I have not read. I, look forward to reading that book, but Actually, I wanted to have Anna on to discuss her book, Staziland. I picked this book up Many years ago when I was in London and I was there to do a big event at Oxford University, I had a lot of time to waste in between filmings. And, and I saw this when I went down to London. I saw this in a, in a bookshop, and I picked it up, and I was just immediately Captivated by it, and I've since gone back to it a couple of times, Staziland, which I think is just simply excellent.
Anna, Thank you for joining us on the podcast today.
Speaker 0: It's my pleasure, Larry. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Let's Let's have a little bit of backstory here as it relates to this. First of all, I like the way and I read a view review of your latest book. And it sounds like you've done the same thing in this particular book where you've made yourself a part of the story. You're you're telling the story from your perspective in your journey On how the story came to be. And that's what you did in Staziland.
Tell us a little bit of that backstory. What moved you To write this book in the 1st place.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So Staziland is actually 20 years old now, even though it's one of those strange books that seems to be becoming more and more current because it's about a surveillance society in East Germany, a kind of pre computers, pre smartphones, a total surveillance society. So funnily enough, I'm getting a lot of interest in it now, but a long time ago, I studied at the Free University in Berlin before the Berlin Wall came down. So I was an undergraduate studying law and English literature and German and I went there and so I was living in Berlin in West Berlin which was a city with a wall around it and outside of that wall was this country that we couldn't really go into except for day visits and that was a blank on the map, in which allegedly under communism people were more equal. And there was no drug addiction and no prostitution and all sorts of evils were being avoided but I wasn't sure that that was the case and I made friends with people in West Berlin who had been kicked out of East Germany.
They were mainly writers and artists who were kicked out in the eighties and I became very curious what kind of a country gets rid of some of its brightest minds by piffing them into the next door country, which was West Germany. So after the Berlin Wall came down, I was able to travel around as everybody else was, the former Eastern Bloc countries including East Germany and I met people who had resisted the East German Communist regime and they were enormously interesting to me. They were people of huge courage who had basically said to this incredibly efficient ruthless surveillance regime. I will not betray my family, friends, colleagues, neighbors to the secret police and therefore they had suffered for it. So I was interested in these stories of courage.
And it's interesting that you talk about the method of telling the story. I was I'm only really in that book and in waifedom, as it's necessary to kind of get the reader into the story so I only feature there as a sort of way in or a framing device or a kind of reaction shot. In the case of Staziland it's you know what it was actually like in the late 90s and in 2000 to be talking to these resistors who'd spent time in prison or been in exile. It turned out to be 4 that I put in the book 4 people who had really heroically, found the moral courage to resist the Stasi Regime and they were a schoolgirl who tried to climb the Berlin Wall called Miriam, a student called Julia who wanted to be a diplomat for East Germany, but it didn't turn out that way. An alcoholic, very famous rock star who modelled himself on Mick Jagger, called Klaus Renft and a woman called Sigrid Paul whose baby was being treated in a hospital in West Berlin the night that the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 and she was separated from him.
So they are the 4 main stories in the book but when I had those stories, from these unbelievably exciting to me interviews with these very brave people. I thought I really better eyeball these men. I need to find some representatives of this surveillance regime, and talk to them. And in the nineties, the Stasi had disappeared. It was a bit like KGB agents going undercover or being snapped up by, companies really and disguising themselves as Westerners.
That was what was going on in East Germany as well. And I met a woman who was trying to write a thesis on STARZ agents and operatives. And and she said to me, they're never gonna talk to you. So I speak German, and I drafted an advertisement for the local newspaper. So we are going back now to the pre digital age in 1997.
For the local newspaper in a place called Potsdam where a lot of ex STARZY agents lived. And I had somebody check my German language because, you know, there are some kind of conventions that you need to have for abbreviations or for advertisements in newspapers or whatever. So I had a fluent native speaker check my advertisement, but What basically ended up in the newspaper in Potsdam was an ad which was put into the personal columns office newspaper, which I hadn't expected and it read, Australian writer seeks STARZY MEN view conversation, I know, right, and my home phone number because this is in the pre mobile age. So I stayed at home in the rather
Speaker 1: Single single white female.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly. Single white female seats. So my phone rang hot and, it was very interesting. I had to sit by the phone and answer it.
And there were a lot of, a lot of men at that time. SDASI was an entirely male organization organized along military lines and it had, a lot of, what were called unofficial collaborators as well. So they were people like you and me who were not visibly, members of the STASI but were informing on our family and friends say. And East Germany, as far as we know, we don't know exactly what the ratio is, say, in North Korea, but East Germany was the or if not one of the most thoroughly surveilled regimes on the planet. There was 1 STARSI agent or collaborator, for every 7 people.
So there was someone in every kindergarten, school, pub, church, workplace and so on. But I wanted to see the these men and, yeah, the phone rang hot and I made a series of assignations as one of them puts me, with them to talk to them about their side of the story and about, I don't know, maybe 10 or a dozen of those the most interesting the most representative or the most hilarious actually, in STARZYLAND.
Speaker 1: You know, it's, it's very interesting. I was Talking to my mom recently, and my father was a career soldier, and they were stationed in Germany In the early 1960s, and she was saying, I was saying, you know, remind me, mom, did any major events take place when you were there, when dad was in the 101st airborne? She said, oh, yeah. You know, the The Berlin wall went up and there was the, you know, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy assassination, all while they were there. Anna said, what were the conversations like?
I mean, this is less than 2 decades after World War 2. What were the conversations like with the German people? And she said, well, they wouldn't go there. That was not a conversation that they wanted to have. Now I have since, I I, have spent a lot of time in my own, graduate study of European history, particularly Russian history.
I've spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe, and even I, so many decades later, Find that sometimes people are very afraid even now to have these conversations. You kind of ran into that, didn't you, when you were First approaching these people to get their stories.
Speaker 0: Yes, there was a lot of reluctance to talk about it. So the Berlin Wall fell at the end of 1989. And what happened then was effectively, you had this country that had been run by a an authoritarian government of old men who'd been in power for a very long time, supported by a Secret Service which would, arrest, interrogate, persecute, ruin the lives of anybody who spoke out against the regime. So it was a deeply authoritarian regime which had a rhetoric, bizarrely, of human rights and the rights of man and so on as if it was protecting it but it was a regime run on fear.
Speaker 1: Well of course don't they all?
Speaker 0: Exactly. And as soon as the Berlin Wall fell, the, was no longer operational. So interestingly, the files, the kept more files on its own population, a relatively small population of 17,000,000 people. So the post this regime existed only post war. So from 1949 to 1989.
In 40 years, it kept more written records on its population than in the rest of German history since the Middle Ages. So these are effectively the stolen biographies of an entire population. And the people who were doing that did not want those stolen biographies which had records of, you know, torture and murder particularly in the early days and massive surveillance and massive betrayal to become known. There was also a lot of collaboration with West Germany and possibly with the US. So there was a case of these files that had to do with foreign espionage.
So the STASI were running agents in West Germany and they were very good at it. They managed to, you know, co opt some West German politicians and get the vote changed in the interests that it wanted in East Germany, in the West German parliament, for instance. It had, you know, people very close to the present prime ministers in in the West and so on. Those files called the Rosenholtz files were taken by the CIA. So the Americans also actually didn't want those files to be opened and become known.
So that's the foreign affairs files. The files on the population itself, the STASI started shredding them in during the demonstrations in 1989 before the wall fell and burning them. So in the 14 regional offices of the STASI throughout the country. You could see smoke, you know, behind the STASI offices as they were burning these stolen biographies and stolen files on the whole population, but a lot of them were saved. So and people now can go along and you can find in your own file who it was, in your family or workplace who was informing on you, why it was you didn't get into university or didn't get job or, were followed in the street or whatever.
So the people who were doing that were really worried that they would be lynched in the streets, you know, there were kind of acts of quite violent revenge in other Eastern Bloc countries. But there weren't so much in East Germany as it turned out. But these men really went to ground. They didn't wanna be found. But when they saw my ad bizarrely enough, I think one of them said to me, I wanted to talk to you because I thought that maybe in Australia people wouldn't be so prejudiced against us and we could get the message of communism out, in another place in the world where it might work.
They were not so happy with my book because that's not the message that Staziland really tells, but it was very interesting to talk to them. Mostly anonymously they didn't want it to be known who they were because they were worried about also legal reprisals, which at that time was still possible. It was possible to still sue them. Now it's not possible anymore. And actually, ironically, the STASI had, you know, they gave themselves degrees.
They had PhDs. They had from STASI universities. They had, work histories of kind of obedience to the regime and so on. So really in aggregate, they have done much better in, the post communist world than the people who resisted them, who were put into prison or, kind of psychologically more broken.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, the Stasi had the reputation for being much more radical, true believers more than the KGB, which, which trained them. Is was that your experience?
Speaker 0: Yes. This is something that actually worried, quite a few of my German, interviewees, you know, and they would say, What is it about us Germans, that makes us do these things? And by that, They meant take these, surveillance regimes or authoritarian totalitarian regimes, the Nazi regime immediately before the Stasi regime and the Stasi regime to the nth degree be so unbelievably thorough in the implementation of, in this case, really inhumane surveillance methods. The implication in that is that there's something in a kind of German character that makes them more thorough than generalizing now
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 0: Their sort of Russian cousins or something. I I mean, Germany was a much richer, more technologically advanced, better organized country, always than, Russia, and with a better educated population, both under the Nazis and under the Stasi. I think that really it's nothing particularly to do with an identifiable national characteristic, and I'd be really reluctant to generalize in that way. I just think that the more agents you have, the more fearful, the population is the more obedient they will be. So I suppose it's not really an act of the kind of chicken and egg answer to your to your question.
Speaker 1: No. But, that's an interesting that's an interesting reply. You know, in in talking with with people who have suffered under Under communism, say, in Poland or in Russia, they will often say that the that the AKGB worked to create this illusion, because they weren't particularly competent or organized, as you say, you know, the The Germans were, but they they sought to create this illusion of omnipresence by simply randomly arresting people, which would sow discord Among people who had done nothing because they would assume someone in their midst had reported the joke they had told over lunch or Over dinner or something. And of course, the KGB knew nothing whatsoever of the particular joke. They were just simply creating This kind of illusion and your guilt or innocence was just immaterial as Solzhenitsyn, points out.
I thought, you know, go back to what you were saying Earlier, Anna, I thought the way you included yourself in the story was was perfect. I thought it was appropriate because you were my guide. You were my you're my Virgil Through this hell. And, you know, I picture you, this lovely woman standing in, as I recall, a subway terminal. Is that where it was?
Or, you know, you're standing and talking with this woman with the smell of the toilets. The smell of that. I mean, I'm smelling that as I'm as I'm reading this and, your music here she is telling you that she's, You know, she knows some royalty or or something to that effect. I've had almost that exact experience in Eastern Europe So many times and I found myself transported there and you as a as a Westerner, I mean, I know you're Australian, but you're Western culture, You're helping us to navigate that and understand it, so I thought you did that perfectly. I also thought it was very poignant and moving.
Tell me a story. Is your name Anna? I'm trying to remember. I'm trying to climb the wall. Yeah.
Miriam, excuse me. The story of Miriam and, wow, what courage. What was she, 16?
Speaker 0: Yeah, exactly. So, Staziland, the book does start, as you say, in this kind of in this underground toilet rather unromantically in Alexander Platts, in the winter of 19 I don't know. I guess it's, I don't know, 88 or something. Yeah. That they used to be I don't know if they're still, they used to be what I think of as toilet madams.
You know, people who looked cleaned the toilets and looked after them and you left a coin in their bowl and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Still are.
Speaker 0: Still are. And she told me, she told me that she had been there during the STARZY time and that everybody used to come over to her toilet and she had a prince in her toilet once, a Western Prince and she was very proud of it. And then, yeah, she said that she wanted to travel now that she was able to leave the country and she thought she might go to China and have a look at their wall, which I thought was hilarious because it was like she'd sort of been living underground right next to the Berlin Wall and just wanted to see this other wall when she got out again. Miriam was one of the most or still is. I'm in touch with her still.
Extraordinary human being I have ever met. And when she was 16, she lived in Leipzig. She was a school at school and the secret well, the regime pulled down a very beautiful church in Leipzig. Leipzig is the city of Bach, you know, and of great music and they pulled down a church without any consultation. And so the girls, Miriam and her friend Ursula took it into their minds to make these little protest leaflets and distribute them around town.
They were arrested for that. All their schoolmates were interrogated until they were given up and found out and put into, prison for a month in solitary with no communication with the outside world and not with their parents either until their trial.
Speaker 1: And told that each had ratted the other out.
Speaker 0: Yeah. Exactly. It's a total Hollywood scenario, you know, written by Hollywood for the stars or vice versa. Who knows? When she got out, she got on a train by herself at 16, the winter of 1968 and went up to Berlin.
And basically, I mean, you had to read it to believe it. You had to be there to listen to this extraordinary and wonderful woman tell me this story many years later, but she basically found a ladder in this gardens that bordered the Berlin Wall, which was one of the most fortified, you know, military installations on the planet and got up and got over the wall the first part and then started making her way across these sand traps and passed Alsatians, trained to kill who were on chains and so on. And I won't say what happens, but She really, really, you know, nearly did it. But doing that then affected the rest of her life and she became someone who had this she must have had it already, like many people who seem like ordinary people. Many, many, many people I think in my life, I have found this thing that I'm so interested in, which is this basic conscience and the courage to stick by it that exists in so many people and I think that it's that kind of, I don't know.
It's almost a holy thing, you know, where people know what's right and wrong and they will not be told and she spent the rest of her life really telling the regime what she thought of them to her great misfortune, but she was never morally bent out of shape by them. That was what was so interesting to me, I think. Just on your other point about the Stasi or the KGB, you know, arresting people willy nilly, to create fear. I'm sure that that did happen. One of the Stasi men that I talked to wasn't, an instructor in the Stasi University, so called in Potsdam.
He was a little creepy actually, you know, he turned all the lights out, at the end of our interview in his house and had me sitting there in the dark and told me that no taxi would come to his house to pick me up and so on. But he and he had at the top of his house, what was called a conspiratorial room where, people used to be taken for interrogations and he'd kept it there a bit like Miss Havisham with its vinyl chairs and so on because he was so proud of it after the regime fell. But he said to me at 1 point, you know, in our law lectures to Stasi recruits, we would say you could just open an investigation into someone, and investigate them. And I said to him because I was trained as a lawyer, so without evidence and he said as soon as we opened the investigation into them, there was cause then to investigate them. So it's very Alice in Wonderland.
You know, we declare an investigation open. Therefore we declare there is something to investigate here before we have any evidence. So it's, it's guilty until proven innocent. You know?
Speaker 1: Absolutely incredible. Did you find in your I'm sure there are probably others that you spoke to that you didn't include in the book who were victims Of the regime. In my own experience of talking with people, be it, you know, Christians who are suffering in Nigeria, Right now, arguably the most dangerous country in the world, whether it's, being in China, I've since been banned from China because people With whom I associated with there or its people who formerly suffered under the Soviet Union, many of them have what I Paul, a kind of depth of soul. It's like this suffering has produced a kind of pearl, that you just simply don't, as a rule, encounter in the west. Did was that your experience?
Speaker 0: Yes. I I think I'm we're talking about really similar things here. And, you know, the language of Christianity is so beautiful about the soul. And I'm talking about conscience and courage and those things are very connected because you are the Stasi wanted to warp people's psyches and their souls out of shape by making them collaborate. So it's very hard to believe in yourself as a decent or good person.
If you're informing on your family and friends and that could cause them harm, that will really twist a person out of shape, but people were really, given brutal choices about informing. So Julia, this brilliant student who's, one of the other characters, real person in Staziland, you know, she was told your sisters will never be able to study piano unless you inform. Your mother will lose her job and so on. So It's present this choice of being warped morally out of shape, is presented to you as if you don't do this, you will be causing more harm to those that you love. But there are people who will just say to a regime effectively.
I don't care what you do to me. I will not let myself be warped out of shape in that way. And I think it's that kernel of our humanity that is so, holy, if you like, that is so extraordinary about human beings. And I actually do see that kind of thing in the west. I do see it, you know, even in acts of physical courage like in Australia we have a lot of bushfires, wildfires and there are people who will literally volunteers who will literally run into them to save strangers, you know.
I think there is something about the human animal that is connected. We are all responsible for each other. And for some people that is really to the forefront of their sense of being and they will do these extraordinary things. And that was what was so, I write from a position of wanting of of admiration really and enormous curiosity about what it is to be human. Yeah.
So so the reason that I'm interested in the Stasi regime, I I I could have written a story about firefighters in Australia or something or or, civil rights activists in the US. You know, it's the same kind of exploration of what it is to be human. It's just that the situation in Nazi Germany, like in my novel or that I am or in, the GDR, like in the nonfiction book, Staziland, is so extreme that it's, it's a very dramatic situation. Your your your goodies and your baddies to put it totally over, over simplistically are really clear. So the amount of courage it takes to resist is enormous and it's a kind of the regime was an experiment on humans, if you like, and it looks as if human beings failed because everybody obeyed and everybody was frightened.
And my point is that's not true. There were people who resisted. There are people who look like ordinary people schoolgirls, loose old rock stars, housewives who actually just said no.
Speaker 1: Everyone's gonna encounter pain in their life. Questions deal with the degree of one's pain and the source of one's pain and how we deal With our pain. In this course, I'm speaking very personally about my own pain and Some of the lessons that I've learned in coping with pain, how we minister to people with pain, and What kind of perspective are we to have on the big questions that surround pain and human Suffering. Why would you take a course like this? Well, presumably, if you haven't suffered In your own life, you will encounter people who do, and undoubtedly, some of them are people who are very near and dear to you.
I think it'd be very helpful for you to take a course like this in order to understand what they're experiencing and the way that you minister to People in those kinds of circumstances. So I'd love for you to take this course of mine. And I wanna tell you this, that when you Subscribe to practical issues in assisting you in living and in flourishing. So where can you get this course? Well, you can't get it at Amazon, you can't get it at Apple, Can't get it at Netflix.
You can only get it at Tome. So I want you to go to tomeapp.com slash pain to learn more about my course. Let's get back to the podcast. Well, your book is, is particularly interesting. It's, you know, history bottom side up.
It's it's not the, the telling of what the the people in power, the decision makers were doing, but the It's telling the story of those people, the stories of those who deserve to have their stories told. And for that reason, it is particularly powerful thinking in terms of the soul and resistance and whatnot. I often think of, often think of Conscience as our conscience, it's the soul's voice, the voice that's, crying out, when a wrong is Committed against us or we see an injustice. And, earlier this year, I was in Romania, to go to an old Soviet prison that is, in Patek, Romania, something called the Patek experiment. And what fascinates me about it is that, of course, these regimes were fundamentally atheistic, and yet they kind of acknowledge the existence Of the soul because the the the purpose of the Peshti experiment was to take these, men, and I think it was exclusively men who were held in this particular prison and to, torture them to such a degree that they're willing to violate their Consciences.
So the idea was to to to torture an individual, they were deliberately imprisoned with their friends Or perhaps with members of their family, and they would be told, given a pair of pliers, for instance, and be told, go and pull your friends teeth out. And under duress, some of them would do this because they had been beaten so Severely, they had reached a point where they no longer wanted to suffer, and so now they were willing to do this. And of course, those who suffered through this, the stories they tell is that your Suffering the real torture was the torture of your conscience because you were willing to do these things that they made you do, or a priest, was Repeatedly beaten and told he would serve human excrement and urine as, as, you know, sacraments To the other, inmates who were in the these kinds of things. So the existence of the soul, you know, it's funny because I have sitting right here, Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray for, for another reason. There's a wonderful line in that book where, Dorian says that he's discovered that the soul Is a terrible reality, and I am sure that many who suffered under these regimes or were the themselves the torturers, Members of the STASI, did did you find that any of them were were they just individuals like this fellow you just described?
He's kind of proud of, You know, his his room of horrors, you know, upstairs, or were some of them tortured souls, individuals who now suffered The guilt for the horrible things that they had done.
Speaker 0: I think one one of the things that's important to remember is that, when East German the East German Stasi regime fell, there were all of these agents who were all of a sudden, had represented the regime, had done terrible things often in secret to their neighbors, friends, family, colleagues, and that there could have been awful reprisals. There actually weren't. I think that people were in general too demoralized or horrified to find that their uncle or boss or brother had informed on them and so on. When I spoke with them, I was very interested in exactly the question that you're identifying which is is it possible to have been a career STARZY person or informer and to have told yourself your whole life I believe in this system. It is important to arrest or torture or control or strike fear into the hearts of people because we need to do that in order to maintain this wonderful communist system.
So they had been trying to justify extraordinarily awful behavior to people, on the basis of an idea or an ideal. And I thought when that's over and it's absolutely clear that the regime was morally socially politically economically decrepit. Do you say to yourself as a former STARZY agent or, employee? Yeah. That was a terrible thing.
I was mistaken or misled, or swept up in it, and I have enormous regrets and remorse. And I thought to myself, how much regret and remorse can a human being manage? And this was for me not a question that I approached with any sense of superiority, you know, I was briefly quite a bad lawyer in a big law firm that represented some quite terrible clients really. And I understood what it is to want to have a safe, well paid career, on the side of the powerful before I stupidly gave that up and became a writer. So I had felt the seduction of this kind of thing and I wondered what these men would be feeling afterwards but except for one of them, they all continued to support the regime after it was over saying effectively, we had to do these things in order to maintain the regime.
You have to break some eggs to make an omelet meaning effectively break some people to maintain our power, then they continued to meet in the nineties. This was the most interesting thing that is very little reported on. The Stasi would get together in groups secretly really still organised often according to rank apparently, and look at the Western media and all of this information that was coming out about them and seek to enact reprisals against people who were speaking out against them even in democratic unified Berlin in and Germany in the 1990s. So there were instances which have been documented of former East German Civil Rights Activists who had their brake leads cut in their cars to kind of reverse engineer an accident or whose children were picked up after school to give them, the terrors you know about what had happened to their child and then returned after a couple of hours. There were really bizarre things that happened quite imaginative for the STASI things like pornography would be delivered to someone's wife as if it had been ordered by the husband somehow to disparage him or in one case even apparently a truckload of puppies delivered to someone I mean really bizarre things but these were this was a kind of chicanery to torment to show that they were still thinking of themselves as powerful even after they'd lost all power and all reputation in secret.
I put those things exactly, which had been reported in the Spiegel, a big German magazine into my book on page, I think 84 and, a group of ex Stasi men who used to be called exactly one of these groups who had been called Das Insider Committee, the Insider Committee and in the nineties, they were becoming more adept at the Western legal language of human rights and they changed their name from the Insider Committee to, the Society For the Protection of Civil Liberty and the Dignity of Man, just kind of very Orwellian. Very Orwellian and they sued, me basically, for having said that groups like them had done those things that I just described to former civil rights activists. And my then publisher, I've now changed publisher in Germany, didn't defend the action very well and took out that I changed publisher and in more recent editions asked that that paragraph be reinstated in the German edition of the book. I mean, so you can read it in the other 25 countries in which the book is published but in the German edition, it's redacted so that the page looks a bit like a STASI file and that paragraph is blacked out, but there's a footnote that says this paragraph is blacked out because of legal action taken by a group of former starting men.
So they still they were used to power and they were getting the hang of a legal system in the West in order to try and maintain it and to continue to strike fear into the hearts of people like me I suppose or people who resisted them, the other thing that I wanted to say to you just in connection with the terrible Romanian experiment that you are describing. Is that in the end, I felt that, Vistazi, possibly like their Romanian counterparts at some level when they were imprisoning or torturing, or ruining the lives of people who were resisting them and refusing to collaborate at some very deep level. I did ask myself whether they thought that they were interacting with people who were morally better than them because they had the courage to resist them. So that's a if you like a kind of monkey grip situation of moral complexity where you are punishing people who you recognize as being brave enough or honest enough or, good enough at some really basic level to resist the evils that you are yourself perpetrating.
Speaker 1: Wow. Did you ever at any point, did did you you feel unsafe? Did you feel threatened?
Speaker 0: You know, I've been asked that a lot, and, There's a certain I I not really. Apart from a kind of creepy guy who did, as I say, turn off all the lights after I'd finished interviewing him in his house, which was in a remote kind of settlement outside of Pots where he said all the taxi won't come and collect you and so on and I just described that scene. But really what we're talking about here is a system of evil and violence to people physical violence but mostly in the end psychological violence. So it was the kind of violence in the 70s 80s that Amnesty International found it hard to track because they were doing things like, you meant you met raise the issue of some of the stories I didn't include in the book. So I didn't include stories of, really famous civil rights activists because I was interested in looking at this courage in stories that hadn't been told and of so called ordinary people people that could be you or me, and, kind of bearing witness to that.
The stories I didn't include were ones of say doping of the athletes or of the use of psychiatry and, psychiatric drugs to there was 1 man who was a Christian and as you say Christianity was banned and disparaged, although the churches were active in East Germany, and also riddled with Stasi agents. It was an atheist state and there there was a, a really lovely Christian man who had his life ruined by having to present every 2 weeks to be injected with a psychiatric drug. Those stories I didn't put in that didn't quite fit in what I was doing and they totally deserved, books of of their own. I didn't feel frightened because this was as at it's really at its base, a regime that did these things to people by committee. So decisions were made by, people very high up and effectively by committees to do these things in a kind of institutional way.
And it wasn't like, the regimes in say Latin America, which were kind of more dramatically bloodthirsty and violent into the seventies and eighties, you know, throwing people out of helicopters and so on. That wasn't really happening. So I felt that I was dealing with rather grey men who had operated behind this sort of so called safety of committees and that they were unlikely to do anything to me and that they no longer had the power to try to frighten me. I mean, obviously, they tried to with the with the lawsuit. It was quite funny actually.
I was in Australia when when I got the email saying that this ex Stasi group is is going to sue you and in my house at the time I worked in the attic and, I was just pregnant with my 2nd child who's now turned 19. So it's telling you how How long ago this was? But I I got this email saying they're suing you. And I thought, wow, I I'm not sure what to do about this. So I went downstairs into my kitchen and I turn on the tap and no water came out.
And I could remember having this flash of kind of paranoid, you know, really making myself feel more important than I than I ever was. But I had this flash of thinking, oh my god, The stars have got this planetary reach, and they are going to thirst me out, you know. Of course Yes.
Speaker 1: That's what I was talking about. Yeah. Is this idea of creating creating you were experiencing what it was like because they were very good at creating The impression of omnipresence, I think it's Hedrick Smith, who, you know, who wrote the book, The Russians in the, 1970s as a bestseller and Then the, the new Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And he was, the Moscow bureau chief. I don't remember if it's for the Washington Post or the New York Times, Doesn't matter.
But he tells this wonderful story of and and I'm going from memory. This is a book I read, you know, 30 years ago, but But he tells this wonderful story. I don't know if it was him or it was a colleague who on New Year's Eve is alone in The the Times or the Washington Post office in Moscow and then leans back and wonders aloud and says, you know, I wonder what the KGB does on New Year's Eve. And then his phone rings and he hears and he hears, champagne pouring and people laughing and the phone hang up, hang up. Now he was convinced in his mind that was the KGB thing who heard him say that and decided to have a little fun with him.
Others said, wow, that was just your colleagues who were out having fun and knew you were sitting in the office Having to work, but it was the same kind of reaction. I mean, there's a kind of terror in that.
Speaker 0: There is. There's a terror in surveillance, and I think that that's something that we need to be really conscious of today because, we really live now in an age of blanket and total surveillance. You know, we carry what Orwell called in 1984 telescreens around in our pockets. We have them with us at all times or on our wrists, you know. We can be tracked, facial recognition software in the streets of China, for instance, and many, many other countries.
Speaker 1: The Uyghurs are being discovered this way. Yes. Hunted.
Speaker 0: Yeah. So the technology is more advanced, but the psychology, of course, of human beings remains the same of those in power, the way power works and of those who will resist the way resistance works. And I think that's, for me the way why Staziland which is a deep dive into particular people's stories of courage, resistance, collaboration in East Germany is current because it's really trying to describe
Speaker 1: It really is.
Speaker 0: Of at.
Speaker 1: Well, and imagine I mean, can you imagine what the Stasi would have done With the kind of surveillance, technology that is available today. Listen, I mentioned that I was I was in China, maybe a decade ago, and, I associated with a variety of people who are resisting the regime in one way or another. I didn't have any encounters with the police. As so far as I know, everything had gone smoothly. However, a few years later, I'm applying for a visa to go back, And the Chinese government replied that I would be allowed in, but only if I signed something promising I would write nothing Negative about the regime.
And of course, I said no because I knew I'm actually quite grateful for that because it was was a bit of a shot across my bow because I realized, you know, they're gonna find heroin in my bag, and I'm gonna be beaten with a rubber hose and, You know, in some red corner somewhere, but then recently I was in Cuba and a very similar experience there. One day, I'm, I'm on my own. By this time, I'm, you know, having been in more than 60 countries, I'm I'm I'm fairly aware of the way these kind of regimes work. So I made sure that everything I did that day was in open. That is to say, I knew that cameras And others were, were surveilling me.
But sure enough, that afternoon, I came back to the hotel and the next thing I know, I was being summoned by the Police the next morning. Now it didn't matter what I had planned that day. If I was flying out, whatever the case may be, at 9 AM, I was summoned to appear at the police station For an interrogation, about what I've been doing that day and who I've been talking to. And you had to be extremely careful. I was in DC, I don't know, maybe a couple of years ago, and a man perhaps you might be familiar with, Robert Epstein.
He's a Harvard PhD and Robert is a friend of mine now, but I I didn't know Robert at the time. And, he and I I don't agree on an awful lot politically, but we're friends nonetheless. Iron sharpening iron, as it were. And here is a guy who is a, you know, very staunchly on the left, and he is speaking to this audience telling them that, he's he does what you do in in some sense, but in a very technological way. He was warning of the surveillance state, and then he made this statement.
He said if you've been using Google For more than 20 years, and he said, and I would wager that most of you in this room have, Google has more the equivalent of 3,000,000 pages Of information on you that can be used against you at any time, but most of you will assume That the state is a benevolent entity that has no desire to do you harm. And then he began to talk About the potential for election rigging and surveilling just about everything you're doing in predictive behavior and, artificial intelligence. Are you alarmed by what you're seeing taking place and the desire of some heads of state to see the creation of it All for our own good, for our own safety.
Speaker 0: Yeah. I am deeply alarmed. You know, and I've written very kind of small things about this a long time ago, 10 years ago. You know, the motto of Google in the beginning was do no evil, which is kind of an admission of the power that they knew that they were having. You know, if you had to tell yourself not to do evil with all of the information that you're getting, it's a it's a kind of crazy slogan.
I felt it was like an admission. I think what's, I think that we live in this age of total surveillance, which is kind of like a you know, the STASI couldn't have dreamed of this. I've seen STASI so called computers which were kept in a copper lined room in Norman Dassa in Berlin so that they, you know, couldn't be eavesdropped in and they were With
Speaker 1: the size of an automobile or something.
Speaker 0: Exactly. They had filing cabinets where you would have your files. I'm just looking at where because it's where my filing accounts are. Your files aligned like this and then they would literally put a knitting needle through to see whether the correlations were, you know, but that's all now, electronic. I think what's different in our time is that, so in Australia for instance, we rely on government to protect us from, the enormously powerful tech titans who control all of this information in private hands like Google, Amazon, Apple and so on.
They have all of this information. We and Facebook. So the Australian government tried to regulate or is trying to and has in some ways regulated Facebook. So we're dealing with, a situation where it's not, the relationship between the state and these tech titans, is where is is the interesting thing, which is different from say East Germany where there was no private business to control. It was all state controlled.
So, your friend, I think is a legislator if I'm right. And so he's interested in how to rein in these, really unregulated kind of cabal of, huge businesses that have all of this information on us that are unaccountable to, to elections. And we need to be really aware of that. I mean, I think it was Obama who who once said, you know, it hasn't had to having so much information so concentrated, has never end in powerful in a powerful hands has never ended well. That story never ends well.
Unregulated use of power and control of information never ends well. So it has we have to have really, profound and effective regulation on those tech titans. The EU is a leader. I'm no expert on this at all, but, in this regard, I think.
Speaker 1: Well, listen, it has been a pleasure for me to have you on this podcast. I thought your book was fabulous. Again, I read it many years ago and I recently I ride my bike quite a lot and listen to a audiobook. So I downloaded it and began, listening to it just prior to this interview. Again, I would highly recommend it To anyone, and I look forward to reading your latest book, Wifedom.
I I have to say Go ahead.
Speaker 0: They're sorry. I was just gonna say Wyftom is about George Orwell and his wife, his wife who no one knows anything about, who helped him enormously create animal farm and who during the war, Eileen, his wife worked at the department of ship in the Ministry of Information in London on which he based the Ministry of Truth in 1984. So even though Wyfdom looks like a book that's very different from Stasi Land. There are some parallels, with the examination of power, but Wyftom also looks at, patriarchal power as well as, government and information power.
Speaker 1: Well, I look forward to reading that book as well. And certainly Orwell relates to this discussion. Interestingly, I was having a conversation With a friend of mine who's an Oxford academic asking him whose vision, whose whose dystopian vision is winning out? Is it is it Huxley Or is it Orwell? And I think we both decided it's a bit of both.
It it seems to be a bit of both. But I also read in one of the reviews on this particular book that you think that term Orwellian has been mis Applied and misused. So I'm fascinated to learn what that's about.
Speaker 0: Oh, I don't know. I don't I haven't I have sort of been only haphazardly reading the reviews. Lifetime is really, is so new. I've just been touring for it all over the UK and Australia. So I haven't actually kept up on all those reviews, but I don't know that I have said Orwellian is misused.
But, yeah.
Speaker 1: I'll just have to see if I can find that. If I do, I'll send it to you. But, regardless, it's been a pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 0: Larry, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
@LarryTaunton - Larry Alex Taunton
World Economic Forum “Agenda Contributor” Dr. Dennis Meadow says we need: • To reduce the global population to less than 2 billion “peacefully” • A global “dictatorship” This is why I went to Davos. #Globalists are dangerous and must be stopped.
Video Transcript AI Summary
The speaker acknowledges that our current population and consumption levels are unsustainable for the planet. They hope for a civil and peaceful decline in population, where conflict is resolved without violence. The speaker suggests that the planet can support around 1-2 billion people, depending on the desired level of liberty and material consumption. They mention that a strong dictatorship with a low standard of living could support 8-9 billion people, but that is not desirable. The speaker hopes for a slow and relatively equal decline in population, where everyone shares the experience, rather than a few rich individuals forcing others to deal with it. These hopes are seen as pessimistic.
Full Transcript
Speaker 0: We are so far, goby, we are so far above the population and the consumption levels which can be supported by this planet that I know in one way or another, it's going to come back down. So I don't hope to avoid that. I hope that it can occur in a a civil way. And I mean civil in a special way. Peaceful.
Peace doesn't mean, that everybody's happy, but it means that conflict isn't solved through violence, through force, but rather in other ways. And so, that's what I hope for, that we can the planet can support something like a 1000000000 people. Maybe 2,000,000,000, depending on how much liberty and how much material consumption you want to have. If you want more liberty and more consumption, you have to have fewer people. And conversely, you can have more people.
We could even have 8 or 9,000,000,000 probably if we have a very strong dictatorship, which is smart. Unfortunately, you never have smart dictatorships, they're always stupid. But if you had a smart dictatorship and a low standard of living, you can have a but but we want to have freedom and we want to have a high sense, so we're going to have a 1000000000 people. And we're now at 7, so we have to get back down. I hope that this can be slow, relatively slow, and that it can be done in a way which is relatively equal, so that people share the experience and you don't have a few rich, trying to force everybody else to deal with it.
So those are my hopes. I mean, these are pretty pessimistic hopes. But, that's that's what lies ahead.