1
00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,800
Speaker 1: Folks has often said that history may not repeat itself,

2
00:00:02,840 --> 00:00:08,600
Speaker 1: but it does rhyme. George Lucas. That's George Lucas. Yeah,

3
00:00:08,600 --> 00:00:11,119
Speaker 1: the same one from Star Wars or different George's one.

4
00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:12,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I bet you. There's some.

5
00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:16,840
Speaker 1: There's some other, probably more than one. There's probably a

6
00:00:16,920 --> 00:00:20,520
Speaker 1: group of people named George Lucas, and that just haunts them.

7
00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:24,160
Speaker 2: I'm more of a fan of Lucas George myself. There's

8
00:00:24,200 --> 00:00:28,000
Speaker 2: probably several Lucas. Georgie's out there is Georgia. It's a

9
00:00:28,080 --> 00:00:29,200
Speaker 2: viable last name.

10
00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:30,520
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, I know.

11
00:00:30,760 --> 00:00:33,640
Speaker 2: I know a guy with last name George. Several Actually,

12
00:00:33,680 --> 00:00:36,920
Speaker 2: like it's weird. He's cool, he's cool. He used to

13
00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:38,160
Speaker 2: rap with me. Oh cool?

14
00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:40,080
Speaker 3: Who was his first name? Boy?

15
00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:44,080
Speaker 2: No, no different George. I wonder a great example.

16
00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:47,920
Speaker 1: Also a great example. And here's an example of what

17
00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:55,080
Speaker 1: we argue is history repeating itself or rhyming with itself. Possibly.

18
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:59,800
Speaker 1: This is our episode from twenty twenty on Russia's can

19
00:01:00,080 --> 00:01:03,800
Speaker 1: your raittorial involvement with the US Civil Rights movement?

20
00:01:04,160 --> 00:01:07,040
Speaker 3: It sounds crazy, but we made a whole episode about it.

21
00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:07,440
Speaker 2: It's real.

22
00:01:08,480 --> 00:01:12,920
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is

23
00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:17,320
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

24
00:01:17,400 --> 00:01:20,360
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

25
00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:22,160
Speaker 4: production of iHeartRadio.

26
00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:35,000
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

27
00:01:35,200 --> 00:01:36,000
Speaker 3: my name is Nolan.

28
00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:37,080
Speaker 4: They call me Ben.

29
00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:40,640
Speaker 1: We're joined as always with our super producer Paul. Mission

30
00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:45,119
Speaker 1: control decands, most importantly, you are you. You are here,

31
00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:49,360
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.

32
00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:53,840
Speaker 1: We're coming to you somewhat live from a dark, stormy

33
00:01:53,960 --> 00:01:59,400
Speaker 1: mid morning here in Atlanta, Georgia. And you know, one

34
00:01:59,400 --> 00:02:02,080
Speaker 1: of the things I think we've all been thinking about

35
00:02:02,480 --> 00:02:07,480
Speaker 1: in our crew is that history is a disturbing thing.

36
00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:08,200
Speaker 4: Right.

37
00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:11,560
Speaker 1: Some things are further away than they seem. Others are

38
00:02:11,639 --> 00:02:15,760
Speaker 1: much more recent than people, governments, and institutions would like

39
00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:19,480
Speaker 1: to admit. I mean, just think about this. You know,

40
00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:24,960
Speaker 1: April nineteen ninety was more than thirty years ago, and

41
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:30,160
Speaker 1: as recently as the nineteen sixties, black citizens in the

42
00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:35,680
Speaker 1: United States were legally prevented from voting. This struggle against

43
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:42,200
Speaker 1: institutionalized discrimination, racism, oppression. It continues today, and this struggle

44
00:02:42,280 --> 00:02:46,360
Speaker 1: is often collectively referred to as the Civil Rights Movement.

45
00:02:46,639 --> 00:02:51,720
Speaker 1: The story of amazing people struggling against massive systemic forces

46
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:54,840
Speaker 1: hell bent on making sure the practice of the law

47
00:02:54,919 --> 00:02:58,800
Speaker 1: did not measure up to the promises it made. And

48
00:02:58,840 --> 00:03:01,560
Speaker 1: there is something else to this story about civil rights

49
00:03:01,639 --> 00:03:03,920
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. It's a twist you won't find

50
00:03:03,919 --> 00:03:07,160
Speaker 1: in most history books. But first things first, here are

51
00:03:07,160 --> 00:03:07,720
Speaker 1: the facts.

52
00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:10,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, so, I mean, just a little bit on what

53
00:03:10,560 --> 00:03:13,480
Speaker 5: the civil rights movement is. I think probably most people

54
00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:16,079
Speaker 5: are very familiar with this, but just to lay a

55
00:03:16,080 --> 00:03:18,680
Speaker 5: little bit of groundwork in context the civil rights movement,

56
00:03:18,800 --> 00:03:21,920
Speaker 5: it's generally referred to a series of strategies and activities

57
00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:24,840
Speaker 5: taken up by many different groups in the United States

58
00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:27,920
Speaker 5: between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty eight in order

59
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:33,720
Speaker 5: to end racial segregation and discrimination in the country, while

60
00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:38,720
Speaker 5: also acquiring legal recognition for the rights that are already

61
00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:43,400
Speaker 5: guaranteed under the Constitution. And again, as we can see

62
00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:46,720
Speaker 5: just by turning on the news today, we've still got

63
00:03:46,760 --> 00:03:50,000
Speaker 5: a ways to go before those things are really and

64
00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:55,040
Speaker 5: truly accomplished. But it's crazy how between nineteen fifty four

65
00:03:55,040 --> 00:03:59,800
Speaker 5: and nineteen sixty eight so much work was done and

66
00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:03,360
Speaker 5: progress was made in a relatively short period of time.

67
00:04:04,040 --> 00:04:04,440
Speaker 2: And while the.

68
00:04:04,440 --> 00:04:06,840
Speaker 5: Aims of the movement centered on justice for the African

69
00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:10,320
Speaker 5: American community. They also push for equal rights for people

70
00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:11,200
Speaker 5: of all races.

71
00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:14,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's astonishing when you think about it. Despite centuries

72
00:04:14,840 --> 00:04:20,240
Speaker 1: of oppression through institutions and through physical violence and more,

73
00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:26,480
Speaker 1: a single generation was able to influence crucial legislation, was

74
00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:32,280
Speaker 1: able to profoundly shift attitudes of a prejudice culture. And

75
00:04:32,640 --> 00:04:35,520
Speaker 1: when this generation is doing it, they didn't have the Internet,

76
00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:38,520
Speaker 1: they didn't have social media or any of the modern

77
00:04:38,600 --> 00:04:42,520
Speaker 1: tools of communication that most people listening use every day.

78
00:04:42,680 --> 00:04:46,599
Speaker 5: Yeah, we can't really overstate how important and crucial the

79
00:04:46,640 --> 00:04:49,720
Speaker 5: Internet has been in so many modern uprisings, from the

80
00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:52,599
Speaker 5: Arab Spring to what we're seeing now with the protests

81
00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:55,400
Speaker 5: in the United States and across the world. So much

82
00:04:55,560 --> 00:05:00,000
Speaker 5: sparked and proliferated by social media Twitter and in stace

83
00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:04,799
Speaker 5: Facebook videos, you know, live streams, the access to information instantly,

84
00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:07,680
Speaker 5: that just wasn't the case in these days. So it's

85
00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:12,839
Speaker 5: extra impressive and just really astonishing at how much was

86
00:05:12,839 --> 00:05:15,599
Speaker 5: accomplished without those tools.

87
00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:19,240
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really shows the importance of anyone who had

88
00:05:19,279 --> 00:05:22,360
Speaker 3: a camera, who was willing to use that camera. You know,

89
00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:25,320
Speaker 3: from fifty four to sixty eight people who were willing

90
00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:29,640
Speaker 3: to write words and release them in a publication about

91
00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:33,000
Speaker 3: what was happening the struggles of the civil rights movement.

92
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:36,920
Speaker 3: Then they were going up against some intense issues. And

93
00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:40,000
Speaker 3: just some examples of those if you look at what's

94
00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:43,040
Speaker 3: known as the Jim Crow laws that existed in a

95
00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:46,520
Speaker 3: lot of Southern states within the US. These were laws

96
00:05:46,560 --> 00:05:52,080
Speaker 3: that blatantly reinforced and propped up white supremacy within those

97
00:05:52,120 --> 00:05:58,039
Speaker 3: Southern states, and in particular, there's legislation that existed that

98
00:05:58,200 --> 00:06:03,400
Speaker 3: did things like kept schools and other public places racially segregated.

99
00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:08,039
Speaker 3: Laws that tried to or attempted and were effective in

100
00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:11,720
Speaker 3: preventing black people from voting. There were things like pulling taxes,

101
00:06:11,800 --> 00:06:16,120
Speaker 3: literacy tests and you know, think about that, a literacy

102
00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:18,760
Speaker 3: test in order for you to be able to cast

103
00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:21,520
Speaker 3: your vote as a citizen of a country.

104
00:06:21,800 --> 00:06:25,039
Speaker 1: And by literacy test, that's not like the quick red

105
00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:27,760
Speaker 1: fox jumps over the lazy brown dog or whatever that's

106
00:06:28,000 --> 00:06:34,279
Speaker 1: that's saying, hey, read this mandarin, this thing literally written

107
00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:35,840
Speaker 1: in mandarin, or you can't vote.

108
00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:39,640
Speaker 5: And honestly, even if it was more basic than that

109
00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:43,719
Speaker 5: or something, you know, not obviously completely set up for

110
00:06:43,800 --> 00:06:46,640
Speaker 5: someone to fail. I mean, you know, the folks that

111
00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:49,880
Speaker 5: were being forced to take these tests didn't.

112
00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:51,920
Speaker 2: Have access to the same level of education.

113
00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:56,040
Speaker 5: That you know, people of other races did, so it

114
00:06:56,080 --> 00:06:58,200
Speaker 5: was set up to fail even if you didn't push

115
00:06:58,200 --> 00:06:59,960
Speaker 5: it to those egregious levels.

116
00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:03,600
Speaker 3: You know, yes, and you know, as egregious as that is.

117
00:07:03,680 --> 00:07:08,560
Speaker 3: There were also laws that would prevent you possibly from

118
00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:10,800
Speaker 3: marrying the person that you love or that you wanted

119
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:13,320
Speaker 3: to marry, if that person was not of the same

120
00:07:13,480 --> 00:07:14,280
Speaker 3: race as you.

121
00:07:15,240 --> 00:07:17,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, misigenation, right.

122
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,560
Speaker 3: Yes, and it is just you know, it's unthinkable in

123
00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:25,200
Speaker 3: these days, those kinds of laws. But that wasn't the

124
00:07:25,240 --> 00:07:28,200
Speaker 3: only these were And by the way these laws were

125
00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:30,440
Speaker 3: struck down through the efforts of all of these people,

126
00:07:31,440 --> 00:07:34,080
Speaker 3: or at least to the most part, the laws were stricken.

127
00:07:34,120 --> 00:07:37,520
Speaker 3: But it doesn't mean attitudes fully changed, right, And it

128
00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:38,920
Speaker 3: wasn't the only thing they were up against.

129
00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:45,120
Speaker 1: Right, And there are you know, now here in twenty twenty,

130
00:07:45,280 --> 00:07:50,559
Speaker 1: we as a species are seeing the same patterns enacted again,

131
00:07:51,400 --> 00:07:53,200
Speaker 1: like violence against citizens.

132
00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:53,480
Speaker 2: Right.

133
00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:58,400
Speaker 1: The galvanizes communities and organizations to push for change.

134
00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:00,239
Speaker 2: Consider the case of.

135
00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:03,920
Speaker 1: Emmitt Till, fourteen year old boy a black child who

136
00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:08,240
Speaker 1: was from Chicago traveled down to the town of Money,

137
00:08:08,280 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 1: Mississippi to visit relatives. He was forcibly removed from his

138
00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:16,520
Speaker 1: relatives home. He was brutally beaten, he was tortured, he

139
00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:20,520
Speaker 1: was ultimately murdered. And when this case received national attention

140
00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:24,320
Speaker 1: in the media, it galvanized the movement. It got people

141
00:08:24,520 --> 00:08:29,720
Speaker 1: out into the streets and into their communities. Then there's

142
00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:33,199
Speaker 1: the issue, of course, like you mentioned Matt school segregation,

143
00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:36,920
Speaker 1: specifically cases like Brown versus the Board of Education. And

144
00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:39,520
Speaker 1: these are just a few cases. There are many, many more.

145
00:08:40,040 --> 00:08:43,560
Speaker 1: These are just like some of the notable incidents that

146
00:08:43,679 --> 00:08:48,040
Speaker 1: children are taught about, hopefully taught about in school today.

147
00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:49,920
Speaker 5: Well, and not to mention things like the ku Klux

148
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:57,160
Speaker 5: Klan were essentially just so enmeshed within these power structures.

149
00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:01,400
Speaker 5: Like police officers in the South were often also members

150
00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:04,719
Speaker 5: of the ku Klux Klan, and their agendas would be aligned.

151
00:09:05,679 --> 00:09:08,600
Speaker 5: You know, they certainly wouldn't necessarily wear their you know,

152
00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:12,200
Speaker 5: ku Klux Klan hoods while on duty, but then they

153
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:15,720
Speaker 5: would go carry out whatever maybe they didn't feel comfortable

154
00:09:15,760 --> 00:09:19,280
Speaker 5: doing in their officers' uniforms after hours.

155
00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:21,760
Speaker 2: You know, they would take the law into their own hands.

156
00:09:22,720 --> 00:09:24,360
Speaker 5: And you know, I've talked about this in the show before,

157
00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:28,480
Speaker 5: but the Watchmen series on HBO really does a fantastic

158
00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:30,080
Speaker 5: job of even though it's like a you know, sci

159
00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:33,160
Speaker 5: fi comic book based type series, it does an incredible

160
00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:36,520
Speaker 5: job of painting a picture of what this dynamic was like.

161
00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:44,800
Speaker 1: And of course, these laws, these power structures, that's what

162
00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:48,920
Speaker 1: they are. They're power structures, right, They're they're meant to

163
00:09:50,400 --> 00:09:56,079
Speaker 1: mandate the way an individual is treated by a society

164
00:09:56,160 --> 00:10:00,320
Speaker 1: and mandate the way an individual inner society treats other

165
00:10:00,520 --> 00:10:05,880
Speaker 1: members of their own society. These are white supremacist power structures,

166
00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:10,800
Speaker 1: and they are older than this country. The white supremacist

167
00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:13,280
Speaker 1: here in the US and the time of civil rights

168
00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:17,800
Speaker 1: initially had a massive advantage. They controlled the media at

169
00:10:17,800 --> 00:10:22,600
Speaker 1: the time, they controlled vast swaths of industry because originally

170
00:10:22,960 --> 00:10:25,160
Speaker 1: they were the only people who could own the land

171
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:28,640
Speaker 1: right and who could own the businesses, and that naturally

172
00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:33,920
Speaker 1: leads to them owning the government in practice, even though

173
00:10:34,040 --> 00:10:37,160
Speaker 1: that's not what it's supposed to be on paper. If

174
00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:40,160
Speaker 1: you read the legal documents found in this country, and

175
00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:45,240
Speaker 1: these forces opposed to the push for equality during the

176
00:10:45,240 --> 00:10:48,320
Speaker 1: Civil Rights movement, they did use all the levers of

177
00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:51,679
Speaker 1: power at their disposal, legal and criminal. They wanted to

178
00:10:51,720 --> 00:10:55,280
Speaker 1: squash the movement, and when possible, they wanted to terrify

179
00:10:55,559 --> 00:11:00,600
Speaker 1: or vilify any allied, non black groups that may empathize

180
00:11:00,640 --> 00:11:04,520
Speaker 1: with people seeking equality. I mean not just talking about

181
00:11:04,920 --> 00:11:08,640
Speaker 1: other like groups that were out marching. We're talking about

182
00:11:08,720 --> 00:11:12,640
Speaker 1: people who were listening to the radio or watching television

183
00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:15,920
Speaker 1: at their house. They would be you know, bombarded with

184
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:22,680
Speaker 1: headlines about the dangers of unrest, right and it makes

185
00:11:22,679 --> 00:11:24,840
Speaker 1: me think a little bit about like workers' rights, you know,

186
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:27,760
Speaker 1: struggles like with you know, union busting and things like that.

187
00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:30,240
Speaker 1: And I only mention that because it's another example of

188
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:34,840
Speaker 1: if people in power have something to lose by some

189
00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:38,720
Speaker 1: level of organization, they will do whatever they can to

190
00:11:39,120 --> 00:11:43,240
Speaker 1: squash that by any means necessary. And obviously this is

191
00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:46,559
Speaker 1: much more of a human rights you know, like it's

192
00:11:46,559 --> 00:11:49,080
Speaker 1: so much more deeply entrenched thing. It's more than just

193
00:11:50,160 --> 00:11:53,960
Speaker 1: controlling money and power. There is a deep seated hatred

194
00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:57,880
Speaker 1: and racism in those in power that really fueled a

195
00:11:57,920 --> 00:12:00,120
Speaker 1: lot of this behavior as well. Not just the money

196
00:12:00,160 --> 00:12:03,680
Speaker 1: and not just the idea of controlling you know, workers

197
00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:04,600
Speaker 1: and things like that.

198
00:12:04,679 --> 00:12:05,959
Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know.

199
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:10,240
Speaker 5: I just I'm inherently distrustful often of any anybody that

200
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:14,480
Speaker 5: has so much to lose, you know, by people asking

201
00:12:14,559 --> 00:12:15,559
Speaker 5: for the right thing.

202
00:12:15,559 --> 00:12:16,160
Speaker 2: To be done.

203
00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:19,199
Speaker 5: So, I don't know, it's a little easy to get

204
00:12:19,200 --> 00:12:22,040
Speaker 5: disenchanted with all this kind of stuff, but it's also

205
00:12:22,080 --> 00:12:25,400
Speaker 5: incredibly inspiring to look into the history of some of

206
00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:30,280
Speaker 5: the groups and the individuals that really took this movement

207
00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:33,559
Speaker 5: to the next level and created this, you know, blueprint

208
00:12:33,679 --> 00:12:35,800
Speaker 5: for where we are now, at least in terms of

209
00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:39,920
Speaker 5: activism and not accepting this kind of status quo.

210
00:12:40,640 --> 00:12:42,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. One of the first groups you could look at

211
00:12:42,760 --> 00:12:47,319
Speaker 3: were called the Freedom Writers. It was a group that

212
00:12:47,440 --> 00:12:51,839
Speaker 3: got together on May fourth, nineteen sixty one, group of

213
00:12:51,880 --> 00:12:57,680
Speaker 3: people from varying walks of life, different races, who left Washington,

214
00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:00,360
Speaker 3: d C. On a bus. They were headed toward New

215
00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:04,200
Speaker 3: Orleans and along the way there were actions taken on

216
00:13:04,280 --> 00:13:10,439
Speaker 3: the bus that seem you know, it seems very strange

217
00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:15,320
Speaker 3: to talk about it today in twenty twenty, but literally

218
00:13:15,440 --> 00:13:18,040
Speaker 3: changing where they were sitting on the bus became a

219
00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:22,360
Speaker 3: revolutionary act. There were white freedom Writers who moved to

220
00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:26,400
Speaker 3: the blacks only section on that bus and black writers

221
00:13:26,400 --> 00:13:28,360
Speaker 3: who moved to the whites only section on the bus.

222
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:34,960
Speaker 3: And it was it was something that angered people who

223
00:13:35,480 --> 00:13:39,800
Speaker 3: who knew that these meet these norms that were in place,

224
00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:43,319
Speaker 3: and these regulations were in place, and they knew what

225
00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:47,120
Speaker 3: they were doing was violating the norms, right, the the

226
00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:53,640
Speaker 3: you can't really call them regulations, but the rules that

227
00:13:53,720 --> 00:13:56,920
Speaker 3: were put forth on that particular bus and in buses

228
00:13:57,040 --> 00:14:01,679
Speaker 3: everywhere in especially the South. They knew what they were

229
00:14:01,679 --> 00:14:05,480
Speaker 3: doing was perfectly legal according to a recent Supreme Court

230
00:14:05,559 --> 00:14:08,960
Speaker 3: case or several Supreme Court cases. But they also knew

231
00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:12,600
Speaker 3: that there would be people who would be so angry

232
00:14:12,960 --> 00:14:15,840
Speaker 3: that this action was being taken. They were just hoping

233
00:14:16,080 --> 00:14:18,280
Speaker 3: that the government or they were testing to see whether

234
00:14:18,400 --> 00:14:22,320
Speaker 3: or not the government would respond to help them just

235
00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:25,640
Speaker 3: prove that these things. You know, it does not matter

236
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:27,480
Speaker 3: where anybody sits on the bus.

237
00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:34,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because again, an eloquently written line or two

238
00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:38,680
Speaker 1: of legal ease feels good, right, it feels good to

239
00:14:38,760 --> 00:14:41,880
Speaker 1: know that's real. But how much does it matter. It

240
00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:45,760
Speaker 1: matters when it is enforced, right, it matters when it

241
00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:50,080
Speaker 1: is upheld. So the freedom writers, you know, we're mentioning

242
00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:53,800
Speaker 1: some groups, notable individuals. There are many, many, many more

243
00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:56,120
Speaker 1: stories were just giving you a high level look at

244
00:14:56,120 --> 00:15:00,320
Speaker 1: civil rights in the nineteen sixties. These people, like you said, Matt,

245
00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:02,280
Speaker 1: they knew what they were doing was legal, but they

246
00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:06,160
Speaker 1: did not know whether it would be enforced or whether

247
00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:09,640
Speaker 1: the people who were supposed to enforce the law would

248
00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,160
Speaker 1: indeed do their jobs. They knew their lives were on

249
00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:16,600
Speaker 1: the line, and they were beaten. The buses were you know,

250
00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:19,800
Speaker 1: people were throwing stones at them, their tires were slashed.

251
00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:23,640
Speaker 1: More than three hundred Freedom Writers were arrested during the trip,

252
00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:28,200
Speaker 1: and it never finished its trip to New Orleans ultimately.

253
00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:31,040
Speaker 1: So that's that's one group. Maybe we can talk about

254
00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:36,360
Speaker 1: some of the notable individuals associated with the movement.

255
00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:39,400
Speaker 5: Where we record in Atlanta, Georgia is often kind of

256
00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:42,800
Speaker 5: referred to as one of the cradles of the civil

257
00:15:42,880 --> 00:15:46,720
Speaker 5: rights movement. That's largely because of doctor Martin Luther King Junior,

258
00:15:46,800 --> 00:15:49,440
Speaker 5: who was a Baptist minister and the first president of

259
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:54,840
Speaker 5: the Southern Leadership Conference or the SCLC, and you know,

260
00:15:55,000 --> 00:16:01,440
Speaker 5: considered probably the most prominent leader. There's even discussion of

261
00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:03,720
Speaker 5: her where he wouldn't have considered himself a leader, like

262
00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:06,080
Speaker 5: he was jumping off of work that had been done

263
00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:10,280
Speaker 5: by others as well, but he is, you know, history

264
00:16:10,360 --> 00:16:12,480
Speaker 5: has sort of crowned him as being the leader of

265
00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:13,880
Speaker 5: the civil rights moan. We just wanted to put that

266
00:16:13,880 --> 00:16:16,320
Speaker 5: out there that there were many leaders of the civil

267
00:16:16,400 --> 00:16:19,280
Speaker 5: rights movement and he was just probably the most front

268
00:16:19,280 --> 00:16:24,240
Speaker 5: and center one. But doctor King was incredibly instrumental in

269
00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:29,400
Speaker 5: executing nonviolent protests that sort of followed the practices of

270
00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:33,720
Speaker 5: Mahama Gandhi and the idea of not meeting violence with

271
00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:37,720
Speaker 5: violence and doing things like sit ins and peaceful marches

272
00:16:38,040 --> 00:16:40,840
Speaker 5: and all of that. And some of the most famous

273
00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:45,920
Speaker 5: events that he organized were the Montgomery bus boycott and

274
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,920
Speaker 5: the nineteen sixty three March on Washington, which is where

275
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:52,880
Speaker 5: he delivered, of course, his incredibly powerful and iconic I

276
00:16:52,920 --> 00:16:57,360
Speaker 5: Have a Dream speech, and he was in car it

277
00:16:57,400 --> 00:17:01,600
Speaker 5: was locked up many times and for an extended period

278
00:17:01,640 --> 00:17:04,720
Speaker 5: of time. When he was incarcerated for civil disobedience in

279
00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:09,000
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty three, he wrote one of his most famous texts,

280
00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:12,800
Speaker 5: which should be the Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he

281
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:15,919
Speaker 5: included the famous quote injustice anywhere as a threat to

282
00:17:16,240 --> 00:17:20,200
Speaker 5: justice everywhere, and then in nineteen sixty five, he began

283
00:17:20,240 --> 00:17:23,800
Speaker 5: to speak out against America's involvement in the Vietnam.

284
00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:27,680
Speaker 3: War, and then in early nineteen sixty eight, Martin Luther

285
00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:31,520
Speaker 3: King Junior made his way to Memphis, Tennessee. It was

286
00:17:32,160 --> 00:17:34,119
Speaker 3: you know, you can get into the full story of this,

287
00:17:34,359 --> 00:17:37,200
Speaker 3: and it's probably an episode for another day. I believe

288
00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:40,240
Speaker 3: we've talked about it on this show before the day

289
00:17:40,280 --> 00:17:43,040
Speaker 3: of his assassination. I know he made a video about

290
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:45,600
Speaker 3: it back in the day. But he went to Memphis,

291
00:17:45,640 --> 00:17:48,879
Speaker 3: Tennessee in support of sanitation workers there in the city

292
00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:53,199
Speaker 3: who know their safety was at risk every day they

293
00:17:53,240 --> 00:17:56,439
Speaker 3: were work, and they were being severely underpaid for the

294
00:17:56,440 --> 00:17:59,160
Speaker 3: work they were doing, and he went there to support them.

295
00:17:59,720 --> 00:18:02,960
Speaker 3: He gave a speech on April third, nineteen sixty eight.

296
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:05,960
Speaker 3: He was at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple there in Memphis,

297
00:18:06,640 --> 00:18:11,520
Speaker 3: and this is where you get his mountaintop speech. I

298
00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:16,119
Speaker 3: would read a quote here, but it's actually his words

299
00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:19,000
Speaker 3: are very tightly controlled, so we probably should not include

300
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:22,080
Speaker 3: it in this. But you can look up the Mountaintop

301
00:18:22,119 --> 00:18:25,960
Speaker 3: speech and find all of the text there. What is

302
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:28,840
Speaker 3: important to say here is that he seemed to at

303
00:18:28,880 --> 00:18:32,840
Speaker 3: the end of that speech signal that he was not

304
00:18:32,920 --> 00:18:36,280
Speaker 3: going to make it to the end of the struggle

305
00:18:36,320 --> 00:18:39,120
Speaker 3: of the civil rights movement and all of these movements

306
00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:42,440
Speaker 3: that essentially he is a part of, signaling that perhaps

307
00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:45,560
Speaker 3: he wasn't long for this world. And the next day,

308
00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:50,439
Speaker 3: on April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, he was shot on

309
00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:54,360
Speaker 3: the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel there in Memphis, Tennessee,

310
00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:59,480
Speaker 3: a single bullet, shot in the face. And you know,

311
00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:02,600
Speaker 3: I think it's needless to say here, but that assassination

312
00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:07,320
Speaker 3: is highly contentious in a lot of places, and for

313
00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:08,160
Speaker 3: very good reason.

314
00:19:09,480 --> 00:19:12,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, highly contentious is about the most diplomatic way to

315
00:19:13,040 --> 00:19:16,320
Speaker 1: phrase that. A couple of points here. One thing that

316
00:19:16,359 --> 00:19:23,399
Speaker 1: would be a profound, provable factual illustration of institutions and

317
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:26,600
Speaker 1: power structures at play and how they work is that

318
00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:31,440
Speaker 1: many of the same companies that fought against civil rights

319
00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:37,840
Speaker 1: definitely vilified leaders like doctor King, especially while he was alive,

320
00:19:38,960 --> 00:19:44,400
Speaker 1: and government agencies too. Now they're the same institutions, the

321
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:49,960
Speaker 1: very same institutions that will cherry pick quotes and put

322
00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:56,760
Speaker 1: them up because they want to appear to be doing

323
00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:01,760
Speaker 1: the right thing. But don't forget you know it wasn't

324
00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:05,879
Speaker 1: that long ago that those same institutions were trying to

325
00:20:05,960 --> 00:20:11,320
Speaker 1: shut this person and this community and this movement down.

326
00:20:11,640 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, The FBI broke the laws

327
00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:20,320
Speaker 1: that it made multiple times with doctor King, And you

328
00:20:20,359 --> 00:20:23,280
Speaker 1: know that brings us to another notable.

329
00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:23,520
Speaker 2: Figure, right.

330
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:28,520
Speaker 1: El Haj Malik el Shabaz born as Malcolm Little, better

331
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:32,960
Speaker 1: known today as Malcolm X, spent ten years in prison,

332
00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:36,000
Speaker 1: and while within the prison system, he converted to the

333
00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:39,679
Speaker 1: Nation of Islam. When he was released in nineteen fifty two,

334
00:20:40,160 --> 00:20:43,840
Speaker 1: he became a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, and

335
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:47,440
Speaker 1: today he's credited for increasing the group's membership from four

336
00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:51,960
Speaker 1: hundred to an estimated forty thousand over just the course

337
00:20:52,000 --> 00:20:52,920
Speaker 1: of eight years.

338
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:57,680
Speaker 5: Yeah, and many of Malcolm X's messages were a good

339
00:20:57,720 --> 00:21:03,440
Speaker 5: bit different than those of MLK because he didn't embrace

340
00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:07,680
Speaker 5: the whole peaceful protest thing nearly to the same degree.

341
00:21:08,119 --> 00:21:14,600
Speaker 5: He saw violence as absolutely a legitimate response to violence

342
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 5: being done on his community. And you can kind of

343
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:19,440
Speaker 5: sum it up in this quote where he says, if

344
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:23,440
Speaker 5: violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If

345
00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:25,600
Speaker 5: it is wrong to be violent defending black women and

346
00:21:25,640 --> 00:21:28,280
Speaker 5: black children, and black babies and black men. Then it

347
00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:30,879
Speaker 5: is wrong for America to draft us and make us

348
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:33,679
Speaker 5: violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is

349
00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:35,919
Speaker 5: right for America to draft us and teach us how

350
00:21:35,960 --> 00:21:37,840
Speaker 5: to be violent and defense of her, then it is

351
00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:40,200
Speaker 5: right for you and me to do whatever is necessary

352
00:21:40,200 --> 00:21:43,080
Speaker 5: to defend our own people right here in this country.

353
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:45,920
Speaker 5: He said those words in November of nineteen sixty three

354
00:21:46,119 --> 00:21:49,280
Speaker 5: during a speech in New York City. A year later,

355
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,400
Speaker 5: he left the Nation of Islam and converted to traditional

356
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:56,719
Speaker 5: Islam while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to Mecca.

357
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:01,359
Speaker 5: And when he returned to the US, he had sort

358
00:22:01,359 --> 00:22:04,239
Speaker 5: of ideologically shifted a bit and was a little more

359
00:22:04,280 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 5: optimistic towards the idea of a peaceful resolution to the

360
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 5: fight for civil rights. And you can sum that up.

361
00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:14,520
Speaker 5: And another quote that he made in February of nineteen

362
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:16,000
Speaker 5: sixty five, he.

363
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,719
Speaker 3: Said, it is a time for martyrs now, and if

364
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 3: I am to be one, it will be for the

365
00:22:20,640 --> 00:22:23,640
Speaker 3: cause of brotherhood. That's the only thing that can save

366
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:27,440
Speaker 3: this country. And on February twenty first, only two days

367
00:22:27,480 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 3: after he said those words, he was at a New

368
00:22:30,160 --> 00:22:35,119
Speaker 3: York City ball or a place called the Audubon Ballroom,

369
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:38,840
Speaker 3: and he was about to give a speech, he was

370
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 3: preparing for that, and you know, according to the official story,

371
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:47,639
Speaker 3: some members of the Nation of Islam again, according to

372
00:22:47,640 --> 00:22:51,919
Speaker 3: the official story, shot and killed him. And there you know,

373
00:22:51,960 --> 00:22:54,720
Speaker 3: there are a ton of documentaries you can watch, in

374
00:22:54,720 --> 00:22:58,920
Speaker 3: books you can read about this assassination. And again, same

375
00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 3: kind of deal. The official story is very contentious.

376
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 1: That is extremely diplomatic of us to call it highly contentious.

377
00:23:10,840 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: I when I recommend the autobiography of Malcolm X, which

378
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:18,439
Speaker 1: was published in nineteen sixty five. It's Malcolm X with

379
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 1: Alex Haley. This this is a book that should be

380
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 1: in your local school system.

381
00:23:24,800 --> 00:23:27,439
Speaker 3: And you know, if you wanted to watch Netflix, there

382
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:31,439
Speaker 3: is currently in twenty twenty, as we're recording this in June,

383
00:23:32,760 --> 00:23:35,119
Speaker 3: a series you can watch called Who Killed Malcolm X?

384
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 1: And again, you know, for many of our listeners in

385
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 1: the audience today, this this is hopefully stuff that was

386
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 1: already already very well known, right, but it turns out

387
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 1: that there is more to the story of civil rights.

388
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 1: It's something here in the US. It's something that doesn't

389
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:58,880
Speaker 1: get reported in a lot of school textbooks, doesn't really

390
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:03,199
Speaker 1: get mentioned almost first. Almost every single concept we have

391
00:24:03,359 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: just mentioned has conspiratorial aspects of its own, and some

392
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:13,520
Speaker 1: of these, like the death of doctor King, have been

393
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 1: covered in previous episodes that we have done, and there

394
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:19,200
Speaker 1: are tons of resources out there.

395
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 2: Uh, there are clear there are clear.

396
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 1: Uh contradictions in the official story, and then things that

397
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,439
Speaker 1: we know to be facts, and we can't make any mistake.

398
00:24:31,480 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 1: You know, Matt, you mentioned that that idea about doctor

399
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:41,399
Speaker 1: the speech that doctor King gave before the assassination. You

400
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:43,679
Speaker 1: know you could interpret that also as saying, you know,

401
00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:47,119
Speaker 1: this is bigger than one person, right, this is this

402
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:51,479
Speaker 1: is bigger than me. And that's correct because many people

403
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: have died. But this movement, make no mistake, it continues,

404
00:24:55,760 --> 00:25:01,120
Speaker 1: and racism is still shockingly apparent to end who bothers

405
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 1: to explore modern statistics. But the civil rights movement had

406
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: another ally. It was a foreign group halfway around the world,

407
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:17,120
Speaker 1: and they let us know if you think they wanted

408
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: to help, because they wanted to at least appear to

409
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:24,680
Speaker 1: assist this struggle for equality, not because they necessarily cared

410
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:28,919
Speaker 1: about the concept of justice, but because they saw in

411
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: the US civil rights movement an opportunity to attack their

412
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: greatest rival, Russia, you see, had hatched a movement all

413
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: its own.

414
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 3: And we'll talk about that right after a word from

415
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:42,920
Speaker 3: our sponsor.

416
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Let's call this the Russian angle.

417
00:25:55,960 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 1: The Soviet government then, as the as the Russian government

418
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: does today, excelled in what are known as covert influence campaigns.

419
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 1: You see, when you look at the global context here,

420
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: the beginning of the Civil War coincides with the beginnings

421
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: of what we've referred to as the civil rights movement today,

422
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:29,439
Speaker 1: and the two became intertwined, both in how the USSR

423
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: sought to exploit racial strife and how the Cold War

424
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:38,920
Speaker 1: itself propelled the cause of civil rights forward. This is

425
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:44,440
Speaker 1: a fascinating story that should should be told more often.

426
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: As far back as nineteen twenty eight, the USSR saw

427
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 1: the stark racial inequality and divisions in the United States

428
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:58,640
Speaker 1: as an opportunity to weaken their primary rival in what

429
00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:00,520
Speaker 1: we know of as the Cold War today.

430
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:01,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.

431
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:05,640
Speaker 5: As far back as nineteen twenty eight, the USSR really

432
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 5: looked upon this divide, this racial inequality, and the struggle

433
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 5: that it led to as an opportunity to weaken US

434
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 5: as a nation. So initially, like they had a plan,

435
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 5: and they had sort of like a I don't know,

436
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 5: kind of a smokescreen, sort of altruistic cause that they

437
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,280
Speaker 5: were hiding behind or at least using it as bait,

438
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 5: which was the notion of pushing for self determination in

439
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 5: what they're called the Black Belt. In order to do this,

440
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 5: they would recruit Southern individuals of color who would be

441
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 5: all about these aims, and a lot of this work

442
00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 5: came from something known as the Common Tern or the

443
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:52,680
Speaker 5: Communist International, which sought to spread the Communist revolution around

444
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 5: the world. And in nineteen thirty, the Common Turn escalated

445
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 5: these goals the goals of its covert and decided to

446
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 5: work towards establishing an entirely separate black state in the

447
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,280
Speaker 5: Southern United States, which would kind of give them like

448
00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 5: a base camp and a base of operations to spread

449
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,560
Speaker 5: that Communist revolution to North America.

450
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. The USSR deployed a

451
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 1: tactic that is still still viable today and still used today.

452
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: Starting from an understandable point like let's create it. Let's

453
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: have a racially equal society. That is, who would have

454
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: a problem with that, But then take take that movement

455
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: and co opt it, begin to push it to become

456
00:28:45,280 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: a vehicle for the aims of the USSR in the

457
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 1: Cold War.

458
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 3: And this is.

459
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: You know, this is like kind of a high level

460
00:28:55,520 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: origin story, but there are notable, real concrete actions that

461
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: this program took.

462
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are things here. It just seems it seems

463
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:09,800
Speaker 3: like it's out of a comic book or something to me,

464
00:29:10,440 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 3: the actions that were taken by the USSR in this time.

465
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 3: And then some of them feel like, oh, well, that's

466
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 3: just a good or right thing to do. But then

467
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,040
Speaker 3: there's this underlying wave of you know what we keep

468
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 3: saying here, of what the true intentions were. And by

469
00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:30,880
Speaker 3: the way, we learned about this part here from an

470
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 3: article in The New Yorker that was written by Jilani

471
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 3: Cobb in twenty eighteen. It's called the enduring Russian propaganda

472
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 3: interests in targeting African Americans. And if you look at

473
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 3: that article, you're going to hear a couple of stories,

474
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 3: or a bunch of stories of specific actions taken. And

475
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 3: one of those was in nineteen thirty two, when the

476
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,200
Speaker 3: Soviet government invited a group of black American artists, including

477
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 3: the poet Langston Hughes to go to Russia and to

478
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 3: make a movie, to make a movie that could then

479
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:07,720
Speaker 3: be used as propaganda, both internally within the United States

480
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 3: and externally, to be sent out to other countries and

481
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 3: used by the Soviet Union to show how terrible and

482
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 3: wrong the United States was.

483
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 2: And it's so.

484
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,960
Speaker 3: Tough because it was, I mean it was the situation

485
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 3: was dire and terrible, and it was going to be

486
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,720
Speaker 3: used against the country as a whole and the government

487
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:29,719
Speaker 3: in particular.

488
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:34,600
Speaker 1: And you said the magic word, Matt, propaganda, right, there

489
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: was something we know from the evidence that the motivations

490
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: of the Soviet government at the time were also based

491
00:30:47,400 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 1: on what they perceived as propaganda value, and they were

492
00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 1: based on exploiting people for the economic benefit of the USSR.

493
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: No follow the money. We have to remember again, like

494
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: when when this stuff is initially happening in the nineteen

495
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:08,240
Speaker 1: thirties are the height of what I find myself increasingly

496
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: referring to as the First Great Depression. The Soviet Union

497
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: advertised itself in real slick, real slick ads, We're a

498
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 1: worker's utopia, we are free evil that ethnic, national, and

499
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: religious division. History, of course, would prove that this was not.

500
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 5: True, but the propaganda worked, so in addition to luring

501
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:38,960
Speaker 5: thousands of white American workers, the program brought over African

502
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 5: American workers as well, and also sharecroppers with the promise

503
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 5: of the freedom to work and live unburdened by the

504
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 5: violent restrictions of Jim Crow. So in return, they were

505
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 5: expected to help the Soviet Union build their cotton industry

506
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 5: in Central Asia. Several hundred individuals answered this call, and

507
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:09,120
Speaker 5: though many eventually went back or here's you know, the

508
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 5: kicker died in imprisonment and in the gulags because they

509
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 5: weren't cooperating to the extent that they were expected.

510
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: Because again, this whole thing is not altruistic.

511
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 5: It's a tool for you know, capitalizing on people's misfortune

512
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 5: in an effort to just you know, screw over the

513
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 5: United States. It's the most opportunistic, kind of just callous

514
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 5: thing I could really imagine during a time like this.

515
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 3: I'm just going to give you another article here to

516
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 3: read if you choose to do so. It's from The

517
00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 3: New York Times, written by Jennifer Wilson in twenty seventeen,

518
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 3: titled When the Harlem Renaissance Went to Communist in Moscow.

519
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: And they're approving conspiracies here too. One particularly illuminating example

520
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: comes from September nineteen fifty. The governor of Arkansas at

521
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:06,400
Speaker 1: the time with I don't want to make fun of

522
00:33:06,440 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: him for his name, but his name was Orville Fabus.

523
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: That's it's just a weird name. He deployed the National Guard,

524
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: the National Guard to keep nine children from integrating the

525
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: central High school they're in Little Rock. This standoff was

526
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 1: covered by newspapers around the world, and many of these newspapers,

527
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: to their credit, pointed out this massive discrepancy, right, not

528
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: just the discrepancy between what the law says and what

529
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: the people who are supposed to be the law keepers do,

530
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:44,560
Speaker 1: but they noted the discrepancy between the values America was

531
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: expressing and spreading, in some cases forcing around the world

532
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: versus how it behaved at home, you know what I mean.

533
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: And this was a great point the Soviet the Soviet

534
00:33:57,360 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: factions take advantage of this opportunity. In Komsomolskaya Pravda, the

535
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: newspaper of a communist youth organization in the USSR, it

536
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: ran this story that had a lot of photographs that

537
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: were actual photographs, you know, and this wasn't photoshopped or anything,

538
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 1: and they were about this conflict, and they said with

539
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 1: the headline troops advance against children. That's just one but

540
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:25,680
Speaker 1: we wanted to give you a specific source and a

541
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: specific story.

542
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 2: That sounds terrible. Ben if I saw that headline, I

543
00:34:29,680 --> 00:34:30,360
Speaker 2: would be shocked.

544
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:36,719
Speaker 5: Troops it's like mean politicians murder old lady, you know,

545
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 5: like that's the equivalent.

546
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 2: It's definitely shocking.

547
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:40,359
Speaker 4: Awe.

548
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 3: Right, Well, yeah, and I'm just gonna make a reference

549
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 3: to headlines that are circulating today as we're recording this

550
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 3: that are just as bad with the violence that's being

551
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:57,319
Speaker 3: carried out against protesters. But let's you know, let's just

552
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 3: remember that that is happening now, that is our current situation.

553
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 3: And let's jump back to the situation. And here the

554
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 3: propaganda push. You know, by the way, that was just

555
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,320
Speaker 3: one of the stories. Right, this is a common occurrence.

556
00:35:10,320 --> 00:35:14,879
Speaker 3: It's happening over and over and over again as other

557
00:35:14,960 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 3: events unfold, and the propaganda push led to international consequences

558
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 3: for the United States. There were things that actually happened

559
00:35:21,920 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 3: to us because of the reporting. And again it's the

560
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 3: same deal that it's right to report on that, but

561
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 3: how it's used then can be called into question. So

562
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 3: according to a legal historian, Mary Dudziak, and this is

563
00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 3: a quote here, the Russian objective then was to disrupt

564
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:45,760
Speaker 3: US international relations and undermine US power in the world

565
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,600
Speaker 3: and undermine the appeal of US democracy to other countries.

566
00:35:50,360 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 3: And the propaganda was working.

567
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:57,759
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because because again it started to impact the

568
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:02,799
Speaker 1: people in power. They were directly impacted. They started to

569
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: care too. Diplomats and you know, visiting countries across the globe,

570
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: US diplomats noticed that they were being increasingly questioned on

571
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:16,359
Speaker 1: the hypocrisy of the US, Like, yes, ambassador, I see

572
00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 1: your arguments about capitalism and about you know, democracy, but

573
00:36:24,040 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: everybody in the world knows about your your country's record

574
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 1: with this profound violence against people who want the same

575
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: thing that you're saying you're going to give to us.

576
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,600
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a moment that history hinges upon.

577
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 2: Here.

578
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: There was a tour of Latin America. Richard Nixon was there.

579
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:47,640
Speaker 1: He was the vice president at the time, he wasn't

580
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: yet president, and he was he was, you know, going

581
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: out for like a photo op, shake some hands, make

582
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: nice internationally geopolitically, but he was greeted instead with protesters,

583
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 1: all of whom were screaming little rock at him because

584
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:07,240
Speaker 1: they knew about this story.

585
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:12,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles complained that

586
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 5: the situation was killing foreign policy.

587
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:17,800
Speaker 2: It was just really bad business.

588
00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,640
Speaker 5: And that the effect that it was having on Asia

589
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:25,080
Speaker 5: and Africa would ultimately be worse for US, the United

590
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 5: States than Hungary was for the Russians. Ben, with your

591
00:37:28,520 --> 00:37:31,000
Speaker 5: international affairs background, can you unpack that for us a

592
00:37:31,000 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 5: little bit?

593
00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanted to ask I wanted to ask you

594
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:38,319
Speaker 1: all about this, and like you said, well, that is

595
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:41,359
Speaker 1: an actual quote from the Secretary of State at the time.

596
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: It sounds like their concern is much less, Hey, maybe

597
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: we should change something and much more. Well, this is

598
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,240
Speaker 1: this is making the Cold War tougher for us.

599
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, we need to start controlling this narrative a little

600
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 3: more tightly. Guys.

601
00:37:57,840 --> 00:37:58,239
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.

602
00:37:58,480 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: They're talking and you know, they're talking about domestic violence

603
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: in Hungary and how it played. Essentially, they're saying everything

604
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 1: but bad pr It feels like that's what they were

605
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: worried about, more so than the actual hypocrisy. But also,

606
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 1: unless we make the mistake of thinking that this operation,

607
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: the series of operations, was entirely altruistic. I think we

608
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 1: pointed out earlier that it wasn't. A lot of people

609
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: also don't know this, doctor Martin Luther King was the

610
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 1: target of a KGB campaign as well. You know, the

611
00:38:37,680 --> 00:38:44,279
Speaker 1: FBI tried numerous things to intimidate, to discredit, desmear, to depower,

612
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: to kill Martin Luther King. Yes, yes, exactly exactly, to

613
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:53,600
Speaker 1: turn Martin Luther King. But the KGB wanted to exploit

614
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 1: him as well. They wanted to turn him into a

615
00:38:56,400 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: political insurgent against DC. And when he refused to play ball,

616
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,360
Speaker 1: he found himself in a terrible situation. Both the FBI

617
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: and the KGB were after him, they were trying to

618
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: undermine him at the same time.

619
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 3: I can't imagine being in that situation. And again, like,

620
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,440
Speaker 3: go back and listen to our episode on cointelpro Do.

621
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 3: We have other numerous episodes where you can get more

622
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:26,280
Speaker 3: information just about some of that. You know, the FBI

623
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 3: and other intelligence agency's involvement in the in the civil

624
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 3: rights movement.

625
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 5: Well yeah, and then like like you know, I mean,

626
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 5: this stuff is unequivocally real. These organizations are ruthless and

627
00:39:37,360 --> 00:39:41,560
Speaker 5: we'll stop at nothing to exploit their quote unquote targets

628
00:39:41,680 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 5: or you know, their assets or whatever. And they were

629
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 5: both like kind of jockeying for uh, you know, turning

630
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 5: King and making him kind of like a tool for

631
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 5: their ends. And then you know, as as you said, Matt,

632
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:57,440
Speaker 5: when he wouldn't play, then he made powerful, powerful enemies

633
00:39:57,440 --> 00:39:59,520
Speaker 5: on both sides. And I just you know, it just

634
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:04,320
Speaker 5: seems like an absolutely rock in a hard place type situation.

635
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,440
Speaker 2: Just you know, wouldn't wish that of my worst enemy.

636
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:12,880
Speaker 5: But all of this was moving towards a bigger picture

637
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:15,880
Speaker 5: kind of end game, and we're going to talk about

638
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 5: what that was and how things turned out.

639
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 2: After a quick word from our sponsor, we've returned.

640
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,800
Speaker 1: Here's a dilemma for those of us in the crowd

641
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:39,960
Speaker 1: who might consider, you know, consider themselves staunchly anti Russian, right,

642
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:44,040
Speaker 1: not even anti ussr but anti Russian in general. While

643
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:49,760
Speaker 1: this massive propaganda conspiracy was not created, let's be honest,

644
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 1: not created out of altruistic or noble reasons, it played

645
00:40:54,080 --> 00:40:59,600
Speaker 1: a huge part in the positive change that occurred in

646
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,560
Speaker 1: the in the US, I mean in the fifties and sixties.

647
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 1: The international pressure created by these propaganda campaigns motivated US

648
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,319
Speaker 1: politicians to push through things like the Civil Rights Act

649
00:41:13,360 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 1: and the Voting Rights Act and this, And do you.

650
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:18,359
Speaker 2: Know why they did that.

651
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: Didn't do it because they said, Hey, that's right, this

652
00:41:21,160 --> 00:41:24,680
Speaker 1: is the right thing to do. These politicians and policymakers

653
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: did this because they thought it was an issue of

654
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: national security. It was a military motivation.

655
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,760
Speaker 3: American leaders made refuting the Soviet narrative about American racism

656
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 3: a national security issue critical for maintaining US international leadership

657
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 3: and promoting relationships with what was then called the Third World.

658
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 3: And it wasn't a small impact either.

659
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got a specific quotation here. This is on

660
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: the legal record. The US literally admitted what you said,

661
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: mat It wasn't a backdoor congress. In their amicus brief

662
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,839
Speaker 1: for Brown versus Board of Education, which we mentioned at

663
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,880
Speaker 1: the top of the show, they said the following.

664
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 5: Quote, racial discrimination has an adverse effect upon our relations

665
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:16,239
Speaker 5: with other countries. Racial discrimination has furnished grist for the

666
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:21,760
Speaker 5: communist propaganda mills, and it raises doubts even among friendly

667
00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 5: nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the

668
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:27,720
Speaker 5: democratic faith.

669
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a lot to unpack.

670
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: Sounds kind of fanatical too, doesn't it.

671
00:42:34,680 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 5: I never heard it referred to as the Democratic faith.

672
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 5: That's like very cultish sounding, and it's very much saying, hey,

673
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:46,560
Speaker 5: the only reason we should maybe calm down some of

674
00:42:46,600 --> 00:42:50,319
Speaker 5: this systemic racism is because of the pr stuff that

675
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:51,720
Speaker 5: Matt was talking about earlier.

676
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 3: If you really think about it, these moves against the

677
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 3: United States, the government and the system as a whole,

678
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:05,120
Speaker 3: like in an attempt to weaken hurt the power of

679
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 3: the US. The end result here was that the Soviet

680
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 3: Union improved the United States. It made it a better place.

681
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 3: Even if it was just incremental, it was noticeable and

682
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 3: measurable the positive change that their propaganda campaigns had on

683
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:24,320
Speaker 3: the US.

684
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: So, when you think about it, by attempting to weaken

685
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: or destroy the United States, the USSR actually made it

686
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: a better place. That is one of the strangest, most

687
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,320
Speaker 1: important points to take away from this, right.

688
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, you know, whatever the motivation, right, we

689
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,440
Speaker 5: talked about the pr ness of the whole thing, and

690
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 5: how oops, we better do a better job because it's

691
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:54,640
Speaker 5: making us look bad to other countries. But then whatever

692
00:43:54,680 --> 00:44:00,080
Speaker 5: the reasoning behind it is, it did affect some change.

693
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 2: Does that cheapen it? I don't know.

694
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 5: It's hard to even look at it in those terms,

695
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 5: because any positive change in something as important as race

696
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 5: racially charged laws is going to be a positive net

697
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 5: result no matter what the people in powers and motivations

698
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 5: actually are.

699
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 2: It's like we're going to change the hearts and minds.

700
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 5: It's more like affecting something that's going to affect them

701
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 5: and their bottom line or the perception of you know,

702
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:29,760
Speaker 5: the government.

703
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:30,440
Speaker 4: Well.

704
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, and while while this international pressure certainly forced the

705
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:41,279
Speaker 3: hand to some extent of you know, the power structures

706
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:45,479
Speaker 3: within the United States to at least acknowledge a few

707
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 3: things and you know, make a few changes, it doesn't

708
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:54,720
Speaker 3: mean that it fixed everything. You know, the international pressure

709
00:44:54,760 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 3: was helpful, and I think it is in every instance

710
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 3: where other countries is especially countries that are so closely

711
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 3: aligned or allied with, you know, a place like the

712
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:08,240
Speaker 3: United States or are going to force them at least

713
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 3: to an extent to take action. And it again, it

714
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that it's all fixed now, because I mean,

715
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:19,759
Speaker 3: look what is happening in our world today as we're

716
00:45:19,800 --> 00:45:23,799
Speaker 3: recording this on June fifth, twenty twenty. You know, the

717
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:27,839
Speaker 3: recent stories that have been coming out as we were

718
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,359
Speaker 3: I'm just a little peak behind the curtain when we

719
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 3: were preparing to record this, when we were writing this episode,

720
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 3: the shooting of a maud arbery had just happened, and

721
00:45:39,960 --> 00:45:44,959
Speaker 3: you know, look at what's happened over just the course

722
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:47,520
Speaker 3: it was. It was a course of a few days,

723
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 3: I believe, yes, or it was a week's well, it.

724
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 2: Was a week or so. I don't know the exact timeline.

725
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 5: But time has been filling very compressed and or expanded lately,

726
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 5: depending on the day. And then stuff like this just

727
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 5: adds to it, and in terms of like what even

728
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 5: is time? But yeah, it got to the point where, too,

729
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 5: when I was seeing the George Floyd story pop up,

730
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:15,200
Speaker 5: I almost was confused. I thought it was referencing the

731
00:46:15,280 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 5: other I can't breathe story, the gentleman who was held

732
00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:24,839
Speaker 5: down for selling loose cigarettes in New York. And then

733
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:29,280
Speaker 5: I realized, oh no, this is brand new, and that's

734
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 5: and then everything changed.

735
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 1: I think that's a very good point. I also think

736
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: another way to look at it is you could say

737
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,520
Speaker 1: that nothing had changed, you know, right now, covert influence

738
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:48,239
Speaker 1: campaigns continue to date, the USSR is gone right, debatably.

739
00:46:48,280 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: We have an episode on that. But people will always

740
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 1: use a tactic so long as it works. I believe Matt,

741
00:46:54,760 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 1: you had pointed out you would point out that the

742
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: New Yorker verified this just a few years back.

743
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 3: That's correct. Just got a quote from the article from

744
00:47:04,960 --> 00:47:07,320
Speaker 3: the New Yorker, and this is the article we mentioned before,

745
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 3: the enduring Russian propaganda interests in targeting African Americans. And

746
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 3: here's just a piece from that article. It just says

747
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 3: the Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports on attempted Russian

748
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:22,439
Speaker 3: interference in the twenty sixteen presidential election, which highlighted how

749
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:27,319
Speaker 3: those efforts targeted African Americans. And if you continue reading through,

750
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,960
Speaker 3: it discusses how half of the Facebook advertisements that were

751
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:35,840
Speaker 3: created by this organization called Internet Research Agency or IRA,

752
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 3: and these you know, at least according to the article

753
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,320
Speaker 3: and according to intelligence, they were backed by the Kremlin,

754
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 3: and they were said to be influencing Americans around the

755
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,880
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen presidential election. And what they were referencing in

756
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:55,680
Speaker 3: attempt to change the way people were thinking about that election.

757
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:57,640
Speaker 3: They were referencing race.

758
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 1: And again, whenever, whenever you run into an organization that

759
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: has like a bland beij wallpaper kind of name, like

760
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:17,399
Speaker 1: Internet Research Agency or you know that's the same as

761
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: like people for things, right, Uh, you have to you

762
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 1: have to watch out. But of course the answer is obvious.

763
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: This the goal if if your goal is destabilization, or

764
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: if you want to if you want to push a

765
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 1: large group of people in a specific way, you go

766
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 1: with what works. And the Internet Research Agency, the FSR,

767
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:48,240
Speaker 1: the Federated States of Russia. Really, if we're being honest,

768
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:55,279
Speaker 1: does this because it works and because it is true,

769
00:48:55,480 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: it is true that there is enormous inequality. It's not

770
00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: like somebody over in Saint Petersburg just had a light

771
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:04,839
Speaker 1: bulb moment and made this all up. And you know,

772
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 1: as that old meme says, modern problems require modern solutions. One,

773
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: there are noticeable differences between the old campaigns and the

774
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: new propaganda conspiracies. Nowadays, your friendly secret Russian correspondence on

775
00:49:20,239 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: social media are likely to play both sides, by which

776
00:49:24,680 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: we mean the same people that are pushing out anti

777
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 1: Clinton messages in twenty sixteen. At the same time those

778
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:37,879
Speaker 1: same organizations were pushing out anti Republican messages, they were

779
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:38,880
Speaker 1: doing it on purpose.

780
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 5: It's the same way that giant corporations often donate equal

781
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:47,800
Speaker 5: amounts of money to different political parties.

782
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 2: Depending on who can help, you know, because it.

783
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 5: Depends from day to day who's going to be in

784
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 5: power and who can help them and which thing is

785
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 5: actually going to sway positive change for them.

786
00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:58,360
Speaker 2: So it's like hedging your bets.

787
00:49:58,440 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 4: You know.

788
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:01,319
Speaker 2: There's really no ideological cole reasoning behind it.

789
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 3: I would just say that the instances of corporations uh

790
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 3: splitting donations in that way you're right, is to maintain

791
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 3: their own power no matter who else is in power.

792
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 3: In this case, it is to equally erode the trust

793
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:20,399
Speaker 3: that you know, American voters or American citizens have in

794
00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:24,799
Speaker 3: the system that supports them and the system that you

795
00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 3: know they pay taxes to. And and that seems to

796
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 3: be why it's so effective in making everyone just feel

797
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 3: like there's something wrong. However, in this instance, there is

798
00:50:37,520 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 3: something wrong. So it's odd. It's it's just odd to

799
00:50:43,400 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 3: think about all of this, every everything that we've talked

800
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:49,919
Speaker 3: about today. It is is a strange thing to wrap

801
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 3: your head around.

802
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:54,520
Speaker 1: And you know, I know a lot of us listening

803
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: today are thinking about about the book Foundations of Joe

804
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:04,760
Speaker 1: Pauls right this. You know, there's a lot of debate

805
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:10,840
Speaker 1: about how relevant or irrelevant the author is right now,

806
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 1: how much people are reading Tea leaves here. But one

807
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:18,359
Speaker 1: of the things we have to remember here is this

808
00:51:18,600 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 1: is literally a conspiracy. It is a technique, It is

809
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,319
Speaker 1: a tactic, and it has an aim, and it is continued,

810
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:30,080
Speaker 1: it is continued, renovated for nearly a century, the idea

811
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:34,960
Speaker 1: of this propaganda. And make no mistake you, regardless of

812
00:51:35,000 --> 00:51:38,840
Speaker 1: where you live, regardless of what you believe, regardless of

813
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: which social media platform is your favorite, you are the target.

814
00:51:43,880 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 5: Also, it's possible to say that the aims of these

815
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:50,280
Speaker 5: programs have become even more if it was even possible,

816
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:54,799
Speaker 5: even more cynical. At least, the Russian conspiracy of the

817
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:56,120
Speaker 5: civil rights movement was.

818
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:57,760
Speaker 2: Somewhat ideologically sound.

819
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:02,360
Speaker 5: They had a flavor of of positive ideological spin in it.

820
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:06,000
Speaker 5: They wanted to create a black state and they wanted

821
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:09,719
Speaker 5: to empower workers. But I don't know, man, I still

822
00:52:09,719 --> 00:52:11,839
Speaker 5: feel like a lot of that was smoking mirrors as well,

823
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,759
Speaker 5: just to like bait people into supporting their cause, to

824
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 5: destabilize the United States. But whatever the case might be,

825
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:22,360
Speaker 5: whatever you may think about that. Inequality is in theory

826
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:27,279
Speaker 5: the enemy of the communist revolution, and yet, like democracy

827
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:32,400
Speaker 5: in the United States, communism and practice fell far short

828
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:36,200
Speaker 5: from the ideas that they set out on paper. Communism

829
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:38,760
Speaker 5: in theory, we always say, sounds pretty great. Oh, everyone

830
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:40,959
Speaker 5: gets a piece, you know, you work hard, you get

831
00:52:41,040 --> 00:52:42,320
Speaker 5: you know, your fair share.

832
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:44,040
Speaker 2: That sounds great. What could go wrong?

833
00:52:44,600 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 5: Well, I think it's the ultimate corruptibility of human.

834
00:52:47,880 --> 00:52:50,480
Speaker 2: Beings that goes wrong. And that's the same thing that

835
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 2: we see with democracy.

836
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:55,200
Speaker 5: Sounds real great, Constitution's all well and good, but you

837
00:52:55,239 --> 00:52:59,919
Speaker 5: can't change everybody's worst instincts as human beings, and power

838
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:02,360
Speaker 5: a corrupts people, and that's what we see time and

839
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:02,880
Speaker 5: time again.

840
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:06,240
Speaker 2: But I do think this is a fascinating story.

841
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:09,399
Speaker 5: And I actually want to thank Lauren Bright Pacheco, who

842
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:12,040
Speaker 5: I worked with some other shows and continue to work with.

843
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 5: She's the one who turned us on to this topic.

844
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 5: It was something that her son had been really into

845
00:53:18,400 --> 00:53:20,160
Speaker 5: and told her a lot about and I'd never heard

846
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:22,840
Speaker 5: of it, and we discussed it as a team and

847
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:24,800
Speaker 5: decide we wanted to check it out. So thanks Lauren

848
00:53:24,840 --> 00:53:25,720
Speaker 5: for the for the tip.

849
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's certainly more to discuss here, but for

850
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:31,880
Speaker 3: today we're gonna have to end off here. We would

851
00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 3: love to know what you think about all of this.

852
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:37,799
Speaker 2: Are there? You know?

853
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 3: Are there articles or books or movies or facts or

854
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:45,839
Speaker 3: anything else that you want to alert your fellow conspiracy

855
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 3: realists too. You can check out our Facebook group. It's

856
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 3: called Here's where it Gets Crazy. You can share all

857
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,720
Speaker 3: of that information. Links there that are going to be helpful.

858
00:53:57,200 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 3: You can reach out to us. We are on Twitter

859
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 3: and Facebook and Instagram. On Twitter and Facebook we are

860
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 3: conspiracy Stuff and Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. If you

861
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:10,719
Speaker 3: don't want to do that, you can always give us

862
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 3: a call.

863
00:54:11,440 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 1: That's correct. You can reach us any time. We are

864
00:54:13,719 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 1: one eight three three st d WYTK. We look forward

865
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 1: to hearing from you. You have three minutes let us know.

866
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:25,760
Speaker 1: If you do not want your name or your comments

867
00:54:25,800 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 1: revealed on air, and if you hate the phone, then

868
00:54:30,360 --> 00:54:33,399
Speaker 1: we have one more way. You can always reach us,

869
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:36,839
Speaker 1: regardless of the day, the time, or the place. You

870
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:38,720
Speaker 1: can send us a good old fashioned email.

871
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 5: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

872
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:01,800
Speaker 3: If they don't want you to know, is a production

873
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:06,439
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

874
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 3: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.