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How the Epstein Network Is Privatizing The Government & Building Out The Surveillance State (w/Whitney Webb) | TCHR
August 6, 2026
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Whitney Webb explains how Leslie Wexner privatized Ohio’s state government, and is using his position between the markets and the state to help the Thielverse build out the ‘Silicon Heartland.’
Under the radar, the billionaire class is building the infrastructure and models necessary to create a dystopian future in which cities become billionaire fiefdoms – completely privatized, governed by dictatorial CEOs and financed by subservient taxpayers. The buildout of data centers is one essential part of the effort to construct a totalitarian capitalist society, which is already advancing.
In this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, Hedges interviews investigative journalist Whitney Webb, the author of “One Nation Under Blackmail,” who unravels the complex relationships between elected leaders, the National Security State, the state of Israel and Big Tech. Webb discusses the methods being used in the Silicon Heartland, the area around Columbus, Ohio, where Les Wexner, who has ties to organized crime and was Jeffrey Epstein’s most notable benefactor, and other powerful billionaires such as Peter Thiel of Palantir, have made significant headway in creating a privately-run city — New Albany. She describes their use of innocent-sounding front groups, such as Jobs Ohio, private development corporations and political bribery to enrich themselves and create what they are marketing as Smart Cities.
Hedges and Webb expose the connections between the billionaires behind this effort and the State of Israel. Webb argues that Israeli startups have been promoted to Big Tech “so that US technological infrastructure on multiple levels would be so intimately enmeshed with Israeli interests that they could never meaningfully boycott Israel.” The same technological infrastructure is also being fused with the National Security State – intelligence and the military – to also make it dependent on the private sector.
The ideology underlying this new model of feudalism originates from the Neo-Reactionary Movement. Beyond that, Webb explains, the billionaires involved believe fervently in a transhumanist future where “the end goal of humanity is to have humanity merge with AI in some capacity” such that there are two classes, the wealthy and a large underclass that is either exploitable or expendable, and obedience is enforced through technology. There is still time to prevent further development of this dystopian future by, among other actions, unplugging from the very technology being employed to create it.
Host
Chris Hedges
Executive Producer:
Max Jones
Intro:
Margaret Flowers
Transcript:
Margaret Flowers
Crew:
Diego Ramos
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