20. AZK: James Corbett: “Middle East conflict and digital central bank money – an absolute horror scenario”

12.08.2024 | www.kla.tv/30107

Ivo Sasek: Wow, wow, what a day! Now we move on. We come to the next luminary. We are now concentrating on the Middle East conflict in the next round and are allowed to ask our explosive questions to another intelligence giant who lives in Japan. And he is being interviewed by our fantastic Kla.TV correspondent Dan from the USA. Japan, USA, us here in Switzerland, this time we are dealing with a time difference of 15 hours between these two men and a time difference of seven and eight hours to us in Switzerland. We thank you for your valuable services and first take a look at whose biography? Of James Corbett. James, we need you! Biography: James Corbett was born and raised in Canada. He graduated from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, with a Master of Philosophy. After moving to Japan, James Corbett founded the website "The Corbett Report" in 2007 as a platform for independent critical analysis of politics, society, history and economics. At the time, he ran the website in parallel to his work as an English teacher. About four years later, he became a full-time investigative journalist. Since then, he has received numerous awards for his journalistic work and has been a sought-after speaker at various universities, at TEDxGorningen [initiative for spreading ideas] and before independent investigative committees such as the National Citizens Inquiry in Canada. Over the years, James Corbett has released many investigative documentaries, such as 9/11: The Suspects, A Century of Slavery: The Story of the Federal Reserve and Who is Bill Gates? His in-depth research is publicly available on his website and numerous channels in hundreds of episodes of podcasts, interviews and other formats. He has over 300,000 subscribers on his social channels alone. In 2018, he launched the annual Fake News Awards, which he uses to document the most distorted news stories in the mainstream media. James Corbett is speaking today on the topic of "Middle East conflict and central bank digital money: an absolute horror scenario!" Interviewer: James Corbett, thank you for being here again. James Corbett: No problem. Interviewer: Today we're going to talk about the war in the Middle East and CBDCs [central bank digital currencies]. So if you're ready and our listeners are ready, we'll get straight to the point. Dear viewers, are you ready? Interviewer: Let's start with this: You referred to October 7 as Israel's Nine-Eleven [the initiation of the Gaza war by the Islamic Hamas terrorist attack on Israel]. How come? How do these two things fit together? James Corbett: Well, obviously I'm not the only one who has used that phrase. In fact, the mainstream media used that phrase immediately after the October 7 attacks. And of course they use the phrase in the context of a spectacular, large-scale terrorist attack that was not what we were told it was and that justifies an ongoing, probably never-ending war on terror. I use the analogy in a very different way because, as those familiar with my work know, I have dissected the 9/11 false flag terrorist attacks from many different angles, including looking at the money trail and the war games that were going on on 9/11 and also looking at some of the suspects and people around 9/11, the intelligence operatives and agencies that actively worked with and in many ways created Al-CIAda, also known as Al-Qaeda. So when I say that October 7 was Israel's 9/11, I mean it in that context, as a staged or provoked false flag event that was used as justification for a military and political agenda that was already set in advance. Interviewer: Now, when you say that the war will never end, I take it to mean that Israel has intentions in Gaza. Do you see a way to end this war in Gaza? How will it end? Should it end? I mean, the infinity is that if they continue to have enemies around them, they will constantly be tapping the US Treasury to keep the arms flowing. But speaking of Gaza, do you foresee an end to this situation? James Corbett: I can see how it could end, unfortunately. And unfortunately, most of the alternatives to that are not pleasant. They involve the extermination of the Palestinian people from Gaza. This has been alluded to by numerous ministers in the Israeli parliament, whoe have talked about the obliteration of Gaza or the elimination of the Palestinian people. And unfortunately, of course, these people are dismissed as, "Oh, these are the extreme fringe groups of the far right. They do not represent the majority of the Israeli government." But it is interesting to note that Netanyahu's political coalition depends on exactly these people right now. So the idea is not such a small fringe in Israeli politics that this could actually end with the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And then, of course, there is the issue of the West Bank, where for years it has been the open and concerted policy of much of the Israeli political class to continue and expand the illegal settlements. That is what is happening in the West Bank. Just last week, the International Court of Justice [ICJ] ruled in a preliminary ruling that the Israeli occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal. This confirms once again that this is an illegal occupation and that Israel must make every effort to end what it is doing as soon as possible. But what does that look like then? And unfortunately, as I said, I see many possibilities...  I can imagine many ways this could end, particularly in Gaza, such as the complete annihilation of the Palestinian people, or at least the displacement of enough people to make the continued survival of Palestinians in Gaza untenable, or at least to open up new avenues and new areas for Israeli settlement in Gaza. But anything that resembles a military perspective, such as that Hamas would really fight in a war against the Israeli government and that there really were two forces fighting each other and that it could go either way, I think is a false narrative that has been implanted. What is happening there is not a war. It is a slaughter, a great slaughter that is taking place right now. Interviewer: And if we look beyond Gaza into the West Bank, we see Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, every single one of those places. So we could extrapolate and say that the goal is potentially the extermination of Palestinians from all of Israel, couldn't we? James Corbett: As I said, this is not an extrapolation or a theory. This is something that has been actively and openly talked about, at least by certain members of the Israeli parliament. And when they do this, when these ministers come out and make these statements, Netanyahu will typically come out and make some kind of statement: "Oh, this is going too far, oh, we don't support this idea." But, as I said, the political coalition that holds Netanyahu's government together depends on the ministers making these kinds of statements. And there are many of them. I'm in the process of documenting this for an upcoming podcast episode. So I'm looking at this data right now and I can say that there is a lot of documented evidence of statements by a lot of Israeli politicians calling for the extermination of the Palestinian people. So it's not a fringe idea that's being expressed by just a few people. It's being expressed by people in positions of power. And that's at least one way, as I said, that we can imagine an end to this conflict, but in the worst possible way. Interviewer: Yes. Well, and Netanyahu will tone down his statements depending on who's listening to him. I mean, he'll try to downplay the idea, but another day he'll equate the people of Gaza with Amalek, who need to be eliminated. James Corbett: Yes. And of course, this also has to do with Israeli domestic politics and political cycles. And there is a documented pattern in Netanyahu's career that he has made the most provocative and blunt statements about the most aggressive policies toward the Palestinians at times of hotly contested political elections. He will essentially be courting the votes of the right that keep him in office. But then there is also the danger of blaming Netanyahu for everything. Certainly he is a dominant force in Israeli politics. And he has been for decades. But he is not the only force. And we run the risk of assuming that if we just got a more level-headed Israeli prime minister like Naftali Bennett or Ehud Barak, who was a confidant of Jeffrey Epstein, or somebody else in power, then everything would be fine. But I think that is a false narrative that has been planted in this conversation. It is aa fundamental question that has been at the heart of Israeli politics since the founding of the Israeli state through the terrorist attacks that led to the founding of the Israeli state. We know about that. Again, these are not conspiracy theories. This is documented history. For example, the attack on the King David Hotel in 1946, which was the largest terrorist attack in history at the time and shocked the conscience of the world, killing dozens, hundreds of people and injuring many, many more. It was an absolutely brazen attack. And a targeted terrorist attack, carried out by those who would later become essentially the Israeli political establishment, as part of their plan to drive the British out of Palestine. And unfortunately, it was very successful. So the foundations of the Israeli state from the very beginning were based on terrorism and violence against Palestinians. And unfortunately, nothing has changed in that regard in the last 75 years. Interviewer: When you say that this terrorist group became the political establishment, do you mean the Irgun? [Zionist paramilitary underground organization in British Mandate Palestine before the founding of the Israeli state] James Corbett: Yes. And indeed, the name escapes me now. But I documented this in my recent podcast episode, “Meet Benjamin Netanyahu, War Criminal,” that specifically the Irgun leader who was responsible for the King David Hotel operation was not only lauded by Netanyahu as an example of the founding of the Israeli state—he was one of the founding fathers of the Israeli state—but even in 2006, on the 60th anniversary of that deadly bombing, not only was a plaque unveiled by the Israeli government, to which the British ambassador at the time said it was absolutely remarkable that a free, liberal, democratic state would literally put up a memorial to a horrific, deadly terrorist attack. But who was there to unveil the plaque and once again commemorate the Irgun and praise them for their role in the founding of Israel in that deadly event? None other than Benjamin Netanyahu. Interviewer: Is the Netanyahu government somehow connected to Hamas? James Corbett: Yes, they are. And again, I've documented this in my work. A few months ago, I wrote an article called "The Secret History of Hamas," which talks about the founding of Hamas, what it is, where it came from, and the extensive Israeli government and intelligence connections between the Israeli government and Hamas. And I think it would be too simplistic to say that Hamas is just a complete fabrication, a total puppet of the Israeli government. But it's been proven that it was aided, abetted, funded and abetted by the Israeli government. In fact, at a Likud party meeting in 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu explicitly said that his strategy was to support Hamas to keep the Palestinians in Gaza politically and ideologically separated from the Palestinians in the West Bank to ensure that they could never unite and never pose a real threat to creating a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. So again, that's obvious, we don't have to speculate on that. Interviewer: James, speaking of the need to keep fighting wars in general, I saw your probably most recent video, and you mentioned an article in CovertAction Magazine. And I looked at CovertAction Magazine. I don't know if I read the right article, but it was by a guy who said that's been the United States' modus operandi from the beginning: to keep the wars going. Would you say that this is the case in the Middle East in general, that this is the case in Ukraine today, and that this is true of the United States as well? James Corbett: I would say that this is the general operating mode of the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower identified when he left office as President of the United States in 1960, and it is even more in force today than it was then. This has been the modus operandi of this military-industrial complex since, well, since its inception. War is the health of the state, but war is also the health of every industry, every subsidiary agency, every intelligence agency, and all these other organs of the larger Deep State that actually determines policy. And so they not only have a vested interest, butnot just a hidden interest, but their interest is synonymous with the interest of waging war and continually creating reasons for military action. So yes, that is certainly part of the strategy. I think that at certain times and certain places, that is more true for certain strategic reasons. We can look at that historically. For example, in the 1980s, the explicit reason for the funding - in fact, it was the largest at least admitted CIA operation in history - was to fund the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1980s as part of their jihad war against the Soviets - specifically and precisely because the Deep State of the Carter administration decided in the late 1970s that the best way to bleed the Soviets dry was to put them in a meat grinder, give them their own Vietnam. So that was what they did explicitly and explicitly. And they tried to keep that war going as long as possible. That was the strategy behind it. The conflict in Ukraine, I think, is an exact parallel because in this case the target is clearly Russia, and the United States is happy to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian, and they will continue to send money, aid, and weapons to keep this conflict going as long as possible to suck the Russians dry. Interviewer: Well, I think Trump has said recently that he wants to end this war. If he stopped the war, then the meat grinder would stop. But I think he has other reasons for stopping the war. We'd like to talk a little bit about your thoughts on the current state of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine. And let's think about the main people responsible for starting and continuing the war against Russia. What do people like Victoria Nuland and Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, what do they want? What is their goal over there? James Corbett: You know, that's a good question. And I think it's a question of how far back in geopolitical history you want to go. I think certainly that the strategy of the empire, the British empire at the end of the 19th century, the American empire in the 20th, was for a very long time to keep the Russians and the Germans separated and to keep them essentially at war with each other. Because if they were to unite, not even politically or economically, even just having good relations with each other, that would be a serious threat to the ability of, say, the British or the Americans to control the European continent. And as was noted more than a century ago, since the times of Mackinder, Halford Mackinder [founder of the Geographical Association, Department of Geography and Environment] and the emergence of geopolitics as we know it today, this area is the heartland of the so-called global chessboard. And any power that controls it essentially has control of the planet. And that has been understood for over a century, and that is precisely why there has always been a need to drive a wedge between Russians and Germans or Europeans in general. And I think that is still relevant today. That's still part of the strategy. Interviewer: Yes, I did an interview with the guy who runs the Antiwar.com website. He does the great anti-war podcast. Horton, yes, Scott Horton. And he said the last thing the West wants is a German-Russian unity. And he says the worst thing would be if Germany and Russia ever went to war with each other again. And we've seen what happens when that happens. James Corbett: Yes, we have. Interviewer: Back to Trump's statement that he's going to end this war. What do you know about his good friend Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, who happens to be an advisor on Ukraine reconstruction and is in charge of Ukraine's development fund? James Corbett: Yes. It's exactly as you described. BlackRock, by the way, is the largest investment firm in the world, owning, if not the majority, then at least a large portion of the stocks of virtually all of the Fortune 500 companies [the 500 largest companies in the world by revenue]. And BlackRock, particularly Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, is also heavily invested in the Ukrainian reconstruction, which of course has been placed in the context of a digital transformation. This process was already underway before the current conflict, but it has certainly been expanded. And Larry Fink has spoken openly about how this presents a perfect opportunity for the complete digital transformation of a government and economy. So this is exactly whatthey are trying to do. And of course, this is a boom and a corrupt deal in the form of billions of euros, billions of dollars for whoever can stick their snout in this particular pie and eat the most of it. Interviewer: I was looking into the background of Larry Fink and his involvement in Ukraine and his interference there and I came across a conference that was held in New York City a few years ago. Have you ever heard of the “Dealbook Summit” sponsored by the New York Times? James Corbett: I have heard of it, yes, but I didn’t follow the proceedings. Interviewer: Well, I read the fine print. It said: “Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, META chief Mark Zuckerberg, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and BlackRock chief Larry Fink will also speak at the summit.” All these people together at a New York summit. What do you say about that? James Corbett: Just that it doesn't surprise me in the least. I would say these are exactly the people we would expect to gather to talk about this and try to benefit from it in every way, both financially and geopolitically. And militarily as well. And of course every actor at this table has their own reasons for being at this table, but they can certainly agree on the agenda of sucking the lifeblood of Ukraine to fight the Russians - something that a lot of different people at this table would like to do right now. Interviewer: Well, James, you didn't seem very confident about the potential outcomes of the current crisis in Israel. What is, optimistically, a halfway reasonable scenario for the outcome of the war in Ukraine without BlackRock taking over the country? James Corbett: Yes. Well, as I said, that's extraordinarily difficult now. And I think everyone has played their cards to the point where it's difficult to imagine there's a way to step back from that precipice now. Because I think the Russians cannot now withdraw without having achieved at least some kind of face-saving measure in Donbas in terms of the alleged geopolitical goals. But at the same time, Ukraine has now been very firmly set on a path towards Western integration, including NATO membership. And at the recent NATO conference, there were assurances that Ukraine's path to NATO membership is irreversible. It's not going to happen tomorrow, but it will happen. That, of course, was the red line that the Russians have drawn for a very, very long time. Even before Putin. The idea of ​​NATO in Ukraine was that red line. So it's difficult to imagine any face-saving measure that would be possible at this point that wouldn't at least, as you say... Even if the conflict ended tomorrow, we have a government in Kyiv that is committed to digital transformation, the acquisition of BlackRock, Palantir and other companies that are getting into this game. Right now, it's hard to imagine that they could be thrown out of a government in Kyiv. Interviewer: That's right. Good. Well, James, we're going to move on to our second topic, which is CBDCs. And I want to kick things off with a little news story from last weekend, which started the week before last. You know, I was busy, I was screwed into the workday and I wasn't thinking about things and not really researching and checking my Twitter feed. So I didn't know much about this whole CrowdStrike thing. I didn't even know what CrowdStrike was until someone told me today that it was a software security company. But something happened on Friday, and that was I couldn't access any digital records at my bank for some reason. I have an app on my phone that lets me see my bank account and my transactions. And it said, "unavailable over the weekend." And then my buddy said, yeah, that could very well be because of the CrowdStrike thing. He mentioned that hundreds of flights were canceled. He mentioned that YouTube was down for three hours this morning, banks were closed and so on. And my thought was, if we're talking about CBDCs, that this should be a black eye for the idea of ​​moving everything to digital. Don't you think people are worried about losing their access to cash and not having a way to spend without being 100% dependent on this digital money that they're trying to introduce? James Corbett: I'm glad you put this discussion in that contextlen, because right now there are tens of thousands, maybe even more, whose trips have been cut short, whose bank accounts have failed, etc., because this once-in-a-century event has arrived, this terrible disruption that has just started to unfold. But at least people should be prioritizing right now whether it's a good idea to make our entire lives, our economic existence, dependent on this digital technology that is vulnerable to at least random glitches and false updates, not to mention actual attacks, carried out by real outside scapegoats or as false flag attacks generated in some way or maybe just by an Act of God. We know this. The EMF [electromagnetic radiation], the solar radiation, the Carrington event [massive geomagnetic storm in 1856]. We know the kinds of things that can destroy or disrupt our electronic life as we know it in an instant. In a sense, it was almost encouraging to see what happened with the CrowdStrike issue, how boarding passes for airline passengers were being handwritten on paper because they couldn't be printed electronically. You couldn't use the QR codes. You literally filled them out by hand. And it makes you think at least how immersed we are in this digital matrix that in this day and age it's shocking to see a handwritten boarding pass. But yes, you used to do things with pen and paper. Why did we give that up? What vital, pressing problems did we solve by putting our whole lives into this digital matrix? Interviewer: I think you could apply that to so many things that have a new solution, and the first question we should ask is: Well, what's wrong with what we have here? For example, I got pretty good reception, at least when I was in Japan, with the old 3G network. Why do we need 4G or 5G? And they keep building it up and telling us that this is absolutely necessary for our continued existence. But I don't need to download a movie in 19 seconds instead of 53 seconds. James Corbett: Let me make a reference here to Neil Postman, the author of books like Amusing Ourselves to Death. He was a very interesting and very prescient writer who was prolific and active in the 1980s and 1990s. He wrote about the Internet when it was just emerging. And he gave a series of speeches on questions about technology. I don't remember the name of that speech, but if you look up Neil Postman "questions about technology" you'll find it. I think he formulated four questions that we should be asking about any new technology that is proposed. One of them is: What is the problem that the proposed technology is supposed to solve? And is it really a problem? And is it really a solution? And he breaks this down in a great way that I think is even more relevant today than when he gave that speech three decades ago. Interviewer: That sounds interesting. James, I know we covered this topic in our last interview, but we have a lot more viewers following this in the AZK conference. And I think some people still want to know what the difference is between CBDCs and, for example, Apple Pay or other digital payment systems. And why are 93% of all central banks suddenly actively involved in developing these CBDCs? James Corbett: The digital payment infrastructure as it exists now and that you are now tapping into is based on the form of money that we have become accustomed to. That is, retail money in the commercial banking circuit. There is a lot to understand about the monetary shenanigans and nonsense that the would-be wizards of Wall Street have been doing, the blanket that they have been pulling over the eyes of the general public for many, many centuries. But the idea is that there is a two-track monetary system in most countries today. One is the wholesale monetary system, that is for the banks themselves, the commercial banks, which themselves have reserve accounts at the central bank, and whether that is the ECB or the Bank of Japan or the Federal Reserve in the United States, these commercial banks store reserves and transact with each other within this wholesale circuit. We, you and I and everyone else listening to this, we have our funds with these commercial banks, and that is the retail circuit, those are two completelydifferent things, the money that banks use in the wholesale circuit is technically different from the money we use in everyday life. So when we pay with Apple Pay or something similar, we are using retail money. That is money created by the retail bank. The commercial banking system in general. Most money is created from debt owed to the commercial banks. They have the right, through the magic of their banking contract, to create that money by lending it to us. They don't go into the bank's vault and pull out a bunch of cash every time they lend you money, they create the money that you then owe them - including interest! ‒ a wonderful idea if you happen to be a banker, by all means. What CBDC is is the idea that we will have direct access to central bank money for the first time. Of course, there is already central bank-issued money today. If you take out one of the bills, no matter what country you live in, if you take out one of the paper bills, if you even have one left in your wallet because most people are cashless, it will say something like: here in Japan the “Bank of Japan”, in the United States the “Federal Reserve” note, because that is an expression of the liability of the central bank. That banknote is actually issued by the central bank itself. So that is the only way the central bank has to put money directly into the economy, and that is only a fraction of the economy. But in the CBDC universe, they will be able to put their expression of central bank liability directly into your digital wallet because you will have an account now, depending on how they set it up, but one way or another, you will have an account with the central bank itself. And these will be able to not only verify and control your transactions, but also look inside your transactions, and potentially, as has been pointed out by many, including politicians in the UK and elsewhere who are very enthusiastic about this possibility, they can program what can and cannot happen with that money. So, for example, if they set a restriction that you can only buy a certain amount of meat this month, because we know that meat consumption angers the weather gods. If they set a restriction, they can enforce that restriction by preventing you from buying more than the amount of meat allotted with their central bank digital currency. And that will be an automatic thing that cannot be bypassed by you if they decide to implement it that way. Or any other number of restrictions that one can think of could be put into effect in real time with the flick of a digital switch, which is an absolutely nightmarish amount of control over the economy directly by the central bankers. Interviewer: Yes, and you just answered my next question, which was, what do you think would be the most attractive thing for the government? And I would say it's the ability to closely monitor our wealth and our spending and if necessary to control how we use it. James Corbett: Absolutely, and I should make a distinction because, as I've laid it out, the way the banking system currently exists, commercial banks are sandwiched between the central bank and ourselves. So the commercial banks are an important part of it, and they obviously exert incredible control over the economy right now. They're not going to give up that control easily. So we can imagine lots of ways the CBDC system will be set up. One of them could be that the central bank delegates its ability to hold and verify accounts to commercial banks or at least to verified financial institutions. So they'll be acting as middlemen here too. So that would put central banks, at least on the face of it, just an arm's length away from the process of, "Oh, we don't control any of this. This is done by the commercial banks.” Given the political and economic realities of how the banking system is structured, the question naturally arises as to who regulates these commercial banks and tells them what they can and cannot do. It is the central bank and government regulators. And we have seen how this power has been abused in the past. For example, the Justice Department under the Obama administration instructed commercial banks in the United States to freeze the accounts of people who were providing perfectly legal, if disreputable, services, such ase porn stars, ammunition dealers, payday lenders, and other people in sectors of the economy that the government didn't agree with. It required the banks to get rid of these customers. The banks themselves were the ones who complied. They were the ones who closed the accounts of these customers, but they did it because the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], one of the regulators of the banking system in the United States, said, "We're not going to protect your deposits. We might take you off the list if you don't comply with our demands to get rid of these people." So from this example we can see how this kind of system can be set up. Again, this is not going to look exactly like the nightmare scenario of the central bankers directly controlling their purse strings, but it will pretty much amount to the same thing. Interviewer: Yes, I can imagine how they're going to try to sell it to us. And this is one of those "when they got the communists..." situations. [Quote from Martin Niemöller: "...I kept quiet, I was not a communist"] First they came because of the moneylenders in Skid Row [a district in central Los Angeles, one of the districts with the highest permanent homelessness rate in the USA]. Well, we don't like those people. We don't like the porn stars either. They're going to make it attractive. So how close are we to a CBDC system? And does this mean the end of cash? James Corbett: They can certainly coexist and probably will for a while. That doesn't necessarily mean that there will no longer be such a thing as cash. But we have already seen how the cashless society has developed and how quickly that has happened. We are at the point where in Japan the economy is still largely based on cash, even if that is changing. But I remember attending a conference in England last year and it was really shocking, even though I am aware of it and I have researched and spoken about it. It was really shocking to even go into numerous cafes and restaurants and retail stores that literally didn't accept cash. It was literally just cashless. And that was a shock to my system too, but it's already a reality. So you could imagine that as CBDCs roll out, there will be a period of coexistence. But you could very well imagine that due to some false flag financial event or some other justification for an emergency, cash could be abolished. And most people probably wouldn't even bat an eyelid these days. Interviewer: That's right. Now, if you go to the local supermarket, how many people do you see using their iPhone, using a card, using an Easy Pay card instead of using cash? I mean, isn't that quite common? James Corbett: Unfortunately, yes. And I say "unfortunately" because I was very pleased with the fact that Japan is still largely a cash-based economy to the point where you can buy a car with cash and it's not even something out of the ordinary. But that's really changing, and very quickly, because cashless payment systems are not only being introduced here, but are being actively promoted more and more. And unfortunately, it's much more common for people to pay with their mobile phone or card than it was in the past. Even here in Japan, which has been one of the few exceptions in the developed world as a cash-based economy, that's changing. And I would imagine that in a few years we'll get to the point where cashless payments will be more common than cash payments. Interviewer: What can we do about that, other than paying with cash as much as possible? What else do we have up our sleeve? James Corbett: Well, I would say that's a very, very good starting point. And I think this is one of the problems that is clearly a societal problem that no one person can solve on their own, but we all have to do our part. And our role is boycotts and conscious purchasing decisions. And not just avoiding stores that are cashless, but of course supporting the stores, companies, retailers or people you know that are willing to offer services not only for cash, but also for precious metals, cryptocurrencies, in exchange rings or other versions of community currencies, whatever it is. I'm not here to judge what you should use. I think you should use everything except CBDCs. And that's one of the things: As long as we flex those muscles and continue ton build a community that will at least support that transition, so that when the cashless rollout happens and more and more people go down that path, there are still people who are willing to even make a detour, to put up with inconvenience if they have to, to pay with cash or precious metals or something else, then at least that economy can continue. Certainly most people will go along with cashless to get ahead, but the opportunity for people to support that community will be there. But if we don't exercise those muscles, but just say, "Oh, this is kind of inconvenient, I just want to go to the supermarket and buy this thing. I guess I'll have to pay cashless this time." The more we do that, the more we'll be absorbed by the cashless world. In the end, it's about our system of habits, and we have to get used to putting up with inconvenience to support the world we want, to avoid the world we don't want. Interviewer: Amen to that, James. We're coming to the end of our time. I'd like to throw in something personal that's on my mind and a little off script. I want to describe a hypothetical situation to you, James, and see how you would react in that situation. I know there's so much banter on this topic and speculation is getting out of hand in a way that might bother you if we go off track and go down the rabbit hole on all sorts of levels. But I need to ask you about the alleged July 13 assassination attempt [physical attack on Trump], would that be OK? James Corbett: Sure, yes. Interviewer: So, let's say you're chairing a conference and the question of the alleged July 13 assassination attempt [physical attack on Trump] comes up. People get upset, there's all sorts of speculation about what really happened, and you kind of get off course. You take your hammer and you restore calm. What do you do to keep people on track in a situation like that, what would you say? James Corbett: I think by the point where people have expressed interest in it, it's too late to just hammer it away. I would never presume to tell people what they should be thinking about or what they should be spending their time or attention on, or at least to tell them not to spend their time or attention on this or that. And even if I did, who would listen to me and why? I could certainly say, however, that the significance of such an event to me as someone who does not believe in the political system and the process that has been given to us with the four-yearly "slave proposal box" is not relevant without the overarching issues of central bank digital currencies and the conflict in Israel and Ukraine and other things that we've talked about today. The real significance of this has nothing to do with this or that political candidate. It's about what the people who control this system want us to believe happened and why they want us to believe that. So if I could say something in such an imaginary situation, I would just say that maybe it would be more useful to look at: what does this event mean, why are we being steered to think and talk about this event in a certain way, in whose interest is that? If we accept this narrative as it is being forced upon us, where does that lead us and to what outcome? And if no other reason is found, then maybe just to pull us back into the political discussion and get everyone back focused on which side of this controlled left-right raptor you want to support politically. If only to pull people back into this sideshow circus, that could be the real meaning of such an event. So I would at least put that up for discussion. Interviewer: Very good, very good. Okay, last, last question, James, last question: Were you surprised when Julian Assange was released? James Corbett: I think so, if only because of the long-term narrative like in the Ukraine conflict or the Afghanistan conflict or whatever. It seems like at a certain point it becomes the real goal to keep it in this endless process, in this status. I don't want to say it would have been interesting to see how that would have played out in court, but I'm not sure I would have wanted to see how that would have turned out in court. In any caseIn any case, it surprised me. I didn't expect that. I don't see it as a wonderful win for free speech, if only because all that was really decided was, "Yeah, guilty, I'm guilty, now let me out." And that doesn't really help the fundamental problem that a precedent has been set that normal journalistic practices are illegal. And that's essentially what's been established here. Thankfully, because it could have been worse. There could also have been an actual court ruling that what he did was illegal, which would have set an even worse precedent. But it could have been better, too, because it would have been much better to declare someone innocent who was just doing a journalistic job. Interviewer: Absolutely, absolutely. We could say that maybe we should celebrate his release, but our celebrations should be somewhat muted because it came about as a result of a deal. James Corbett: We should, as always, continue to point out the facts and the issues surrounding this case rather than dwelling on the personalities of the people involved. Interviewer: Agreed, absolutely right. Now, dear AZK conference participants, how about a nice round of applause for James Corbett?

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