1 00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:13,440 Speaker 1: All the media. Woo all right, guys, I did my job. 2 00:00:14,040 --> 00:00:16,720 Speaker 1: That could happen here a podcast that I just opened 3 00:00:16,760 --> 00:00:17,799 Speaker 1: by saying, woo ha. 4 00:00:20,079 --> 00:00:20,119 Speaker 2: Me. 5 00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:22,479 Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna throw to you. Now what are we 6 00:00:22,520 --> 00:00:23,440 Speaker 1: talking about today? 7 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:27,080 Speaker 3: Boy? So, yesterday we did I guess, the sort of 8 00:00:27,160 --> 00:00:30,760 Speaker 3: intro legwork to the kind of stuff that you need 9 00:00:30,800 --> 00:00:33,760 Speaker 3: to know to understand the sort of new crop of 10 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:38,600 Speaker 3: right wing Palestine grifters. And today we're actually gonna get 11 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:41,800 Speaker 3: into who these people are and how their politics developed, 12 00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:45,560 Speaker 3: and how the sort of trajectory of this has shaped 13 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:52,440 Speaker 3: a lot of the left. And to do this, unfortunately, 14 00:00:52,600 --> 00:00:57,160 Speaker 3: we need to introduce one of the main characters of this, 15 00:00:58,200 --> 00:01:02,280 Speaker 3: for better or for worse, probably for worse, Max Blumenthal. 16 00:01:06,319 --> 00:01:07,240 Speaker 4: I just woke up. 17 00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:11,480 Speaker 1: We're talking about Max Blumenthal and I'm just barely starting 18 00:01:11,520 --> 00:01:12,679 Speaker 1: my coffee for the morning. 19 00:01:12,959 --> 00:01:13,840 Speaker 4: Son of a bitch. 20 00:01:15,319 --> 00:01:21,440 Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. I apologize to everyone, But unfortunately, unfortunately 21 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:22,959 Speaker 3: this needs to be done. 22 00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:26,240 Speaker 1: Yeah, he's the human equivalent of soap scum. 23 00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:31,040 Speaker 3: Yeah, so, okay, I think the place to start with Max. 24 00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:33,800 Speaker 3: Bluementhal is a thing that's pretty common among most of 25 00:01:33,840 --> 00:01:36,880 Speaker 3: the kind of new crop of these Palestine grifters is 26 00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:40,520 Speaker 3: that he used to be a pretty normal progressive. Now 27 00:01:40,880 --> 00:01:42,759 Speaker 3: for some of the people we're going to be talking about, 28 00:01:42,880 --> 00:01:44,920 Speaker 3: pretty normal progressive was the thing they were in like 29 00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:48,480 Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. For Max Blumenthal, like he was a pretty 30 00:01:48,520 --> 00:01:53,400 Speaker 3: normal progressive in like the two thousands and in nine was. 31 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:56,960 Speaker 5: A real journalist at some point, right yeah, yeah, Like 32 00:01:56,960 --> 00:02:01,440 Speaker 5: like he wrote this book called republic Gomorrah, Inside the 33 00:02:01,480 --> 00:02:03,480 Speaker 5: Movement that Shattered the Party, which is a pretty good 34 00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:05,400 Speaker 5: book about the rise of the Christian right and how 35 00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:06,720 Speaker 5: they seize the Republican Party. 36 00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:09,920 Speaker 3: And this is very funny because the place he is 37 00:02:09,960 --> 00:02:11,920 Speaker 3: going to end up at the end of this story 38 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,840 Speaker 3: is going on Tucker Carlson and being aligned with like 39 00:02:15,960 --> 00:02:18,760 Speaker 3: the exact forces he was talking about like a decade 40 00:02:18,760 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 3: and a half ago. So before we really started get 41 00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:25,800 Speaker 3: into him, we need to talk about his family. Garrett, 42 00:02:25,800 --> 00:02:27,760 Speaker 3: Do you know who Sid Blumenthal is? 43 00:02:28,960 --> 00:02:32,320 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the name sounds familiar, but it's not ringing 44 00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:33,520 Speaker 2: any specific. 45 00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:33,640 Speaker 4: Bells for me. 46 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:37,000 Speaker 1: Yea Clinton staffer, right. 47 00:02:37,360 --> 00:02:40,280 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. He was like Clinton's hatchet man basically, Like 48 00:02:40,320 --> 00:02:42,919 Speaker 3: this is mostly originally with Bill Clinton, but like later 49 00:02:43,040 --> 00:02:45,760 Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton too. He's like the guy who does the 50 00:02:45,800 --> 00:02:49,079 Speaker 3: Clinton's like political dirty work, and he was like, here's 51 00:02:49,080 --> 00:02:52,359 Speaker 3: a big guy in the nineties. The most impactful thing 52 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:54,760 Speaker 3: that he did for modern politics is that he is 53 00:02:54,840 --> 00:02:59,560 Speaker 3: the guy who invented birth rhythm is slightly too strong 54 00:02:59,560 --> 00:03:01,480 Speaker 3: of a word, but he's the guy who pushes like 55 00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:06,440 Speaker 3: Obama birth rihsm like into the mainstream because like as 56 00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:09,360 Speaker 3: an attempt basically to kill Obama's campaign so that Hillary 57 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:10,240 Speaker 3: could win the nomination. 58 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:12,720 Speaker 2: How well did how old did that turn out? 59 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:13,720 Speaker 4: Well? 60 00:03:14,280 --> 00:03:18,880 Speaker 3: Gave us Donald Trump, So you know, things going great, 61 00:03:20,320 --> 00:03:22,919 Speaker 3: and you know, so so this is Max Bluementhal's dad, right, 62 00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:24,640 Speaker 3: like Max, And this is I think I think that's 63 00:03:24,720 --> 00:03:26,839 Speaker 3: kind of important about him is that he grows up 64 00:03:27,320 --> 00:03:30,600 Speaker 3: very sort of proximal to power. Like he goes to 65 00:03:30,840 --> 00:03:33,480 Speaker 3: Georgetown Day School, which is a forty thousand dollars a 66 00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:37,600 Speaker 3: year prep school that has like multiple Supreme Court justices, 67 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:40,240 Speaker 3: Like I've sent their kids there now. But he's so 68 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:43,400 Speaker 3: he's like kind of a normal progressive journalist for a 69 00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:47,720 Speaker 3: long time. But in the early twenty tens, he takes 70 00:03:47,760 --> 00:03:53,680 Speaker 3: a genuine, a very principled stand on Palestine that gets 71 00:03:53,760 --> 00:03:55,560 Speaker 3: him kind of kicked out of a lot of progressive 72 00:03:55,560 --> 00:03:59,400 Speaker 3: circles because in twenty Twelvey thirteen it was and still 73 00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:01,400 Speaker 3: is to this day, it was very hard to take 74 00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:05,480 Speaker 3: pro palesigme positions. And he like he just ends up 75 00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:08,000 Speaker 3: in this sort of spiral where like he loses most 76 00:04:08,000 --> 00:04:10,000 Speaker 3: of his friends, his girlfriend breaks up with him, like 77 00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:12,800 Speaker 3: he's not getting work from the usual places he's been 78 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:15,520 Speaker 3: getting work from because he's been sort of like kicked 79 00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:19,839 Speaker 3: out and isolated for taking this stance. And the product 80 00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:23,280 Speaker 3: of this is that he goes he takes this meeting 81 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:30,360 Speaker 3: that is very very weird. So in twenty fifteen, Russia 82 00:04:30,400 --> 00:04:33,680 Speaker 3: today has this like week long gala thing that's for 83 00:04:33,720 --> 00:04:36,920 Speaker 3: its tenth anniversary. If you're like a Mueller investigation fan, 84 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:40,200 Speaker 3: this is very famous. If you're a Nova person, almost 85 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:42,680 Speaker 3: no one has ever heard of this thing. Yeah, so 86 00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:44,800 Speaker 3: this this gala thing is this in twenty fifteen. It 87 00:04:44,839 --> 00:04:49,320 Speaker 3: has a bunch of very very important like Russian officials. 88 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:52,919 Speaker 3: Gorbachev is there, Like, there's a bunch of like senior 89 00:04:53,760 --> 00:04:57,960 Speaker 3: like like senior officials. Very famously, Mike Flynn gets paid 90 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:02,640 Speaker 3: forty five thousand dollars to speak there. Jill Stein, who's 91 00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:04,520 Speaker 3: the Green Party can in twenty sixteen. 92 00:05:05,120 --> 00:05:08,920 Speaker 2: This is where running again for the Green Party this year? 93 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:11,440 Speaker 3: Technics. Yeah, I don't know if they're gonna be this year. 94 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:14,359 Speaker 4: I think they got it. I think they got it on. 95 00:05:14,440 --> 00:05:18,240 Speaker 3: Lock Now, Jill jill Stein twenty four? Would she beat 96 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,400 Speaker 3: Howie Hawkins? Is he not running again? 97 00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:23,720 Speaker 2: I believe, I believe it's her. That's last last night 98 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:26,440 Speaker 2: I heard Jill Stein is banking is making another run 99 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:30,640 Speaker 2: for it? Goddamn all right, yeah, yeah, she has one 100 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:34,520 Speaker 2: month ago she launched her twenty twenty four presidential bid. 101 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:38,839 Speaker 3: Oh boy, So yeah, okay, so so Jill Stein. This 102 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:40,960 Speaker 3: is where if you ever heard the conspiracy stuff that's 103 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:44,400 Speaker 3: like Jill Stein is like a Russian agent. It comes 104 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:46,359 Speaker 3: from the fact that she was at this meeting and 105 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:50,960 Speaker 3: then started running for president. Now, what's interesting about Max 106 00:05:51,000 --> 00:05:55,040 Speaker 3: Bluman thought going here is at this point he's a 107 00:05:55,279 --> 00:05:58,680 Speaker 3: pro Syrian revolution guy. He writes, he writes a bunch 108 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:01,720 Speaker 3: of articles like criticizing Western leftists for supporting Assaud, and 109 00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:05,320 Speaker 3: I want to read from a little bit of them 110 00:06:05,320 --> 00:06:10,719 Speaker 3: because it's a really interesting look into who he was 111 00:06:10,800 --> 00:06:13,680 Speaker 3: before and the fact that he knows exactly what the 112 00:06:13,720 --> 00:06:18,719 Speaker 3: playbook that he's going to be using is. Besides exploiting 113 00:06:18,720 --> 00:06:22,160 Speaker 3: the Palestinian cause, the Assaud apologists have eagerly played the 114 00:06:22,200 --> 00:06:26,600 Speaker 3: al Qaeda card to stoke fears of his Islamic takeover Assyria. 115 00:06:26,760 --> 00:06:29,000 Speaker 3: Back in two thousand and three, a Saud accused the 116 00:06:29,080 --> 00:06:31,640 Speaker 3: US of deliberately overstating the strength of Alkaida in order 117 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:34,560 Speaker 3: to justify it so called war on terror. But now, 118 00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:37,279 Speaker 3: in a transparent bid for sympathy from the outside world, 119 00:06:37,320 --> 00:06:40,440 Speaker 3: Assad insists that the Syrian armed opposition is controlled almost 120 00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:43,840 Speaker 3: entirely by al Qaeda like jahattists who have come from 121 00:06:43,920 --> 00:06:48,400 Speaker 3: abroad to place the country under Islamic control, and is 122 00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:50,840 Speaker 3: addressed to the Syrian People's Assembly on June third, the 123 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:53,080 Speaker 3: dictator tried to hammer the theme home by using the 124 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:57,120 Speaker 3: terms terrorists or terrorism, a whopping forty three times. That 125 00:06:57,279 --> 00:06:59,960 Speaker 3: is a full ten times more than George bush Digit 126 00:07:00,160 --> 00:07:03,320 Speaker 3: speech to Congress in the aftermath of nine to eleven, 127 00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:07,360 Speaker 3: enjoying the Asade regimes campaign that you legitimize the Syrian 128 00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:11,120 Speaker 3: opposition by casting it as a bunch of irrational Jahatis. Ironically, 129 00:07:11,160 --> 00:07:14,200 Speaker 3: they seem to have little problem with Hesbelah's core Islamist values. 130 00:07:14,480 --> 00:07:18,520 Speaker 3: Assad's apologists have unwinningly underwritten the War on Terror lexicon 131 00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:21,480 Speaker 3: introduced by George Bush, Ariel Sharon and the Neo Khon 132 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:26,320 Speaker 3: Cabal after nine to eleven. So this is pre twenty fifteen, 133 00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:31,200 Speaker 3: like twenty fifteen, like pre this meeting Max Blumenthal. So 134 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:37,000 Speaker 3: he goes to this meeting and then after that founds 135 00:07:37,160 --> 00:07:40,080 Speaker 3: grey Zone and all of his positions suddenly flip. And 136 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:41,920 Speaker 3: this is the thing you can actually if you want to, 137 00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:43,600 Speaker 3: if you go back and trace. So graizone is this 138 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:47,200 Speaker 3: sort of media outlet thing that Max Blumenthal found it. 139 00:07:47,240 --> 00:07:49,320 Speaker 3: And it's interesting because there's a lot of like Aaron 140 00:07:49,360 --> 00:07:51,440 Speaker 3: Batte too, Like if if you go through the journalist 141 00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:53,760 Speaker 3: in this outlet, the moment they start working for Grezone, 142 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:56,560 Speaker 3: all of their positions on stuff like Syria just immediately flip. 143 00:07:58,360 --> 00:08:01,800 Speaker 3: There's okay. So there's a conspiracy version of this, where 144 00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:05,480 Speaker 3: like if you read Liberal Accouncil with gray Zone, they 145 00:08:05,520 --> 00:08:08,160 Speaker 3: will argue that maxlely Wental went to this meeting, got 146 00:08:08,160 --> 00:08:10,280 Speaker 3: paid off by the Russian government and that gray Zone 147 00:08:10,440 --> 00:08:14,400 Speaker 3: is like a Russian asset. I I don't know, I 148 00:08:14,440 --> 00:08:16,960 Speaker 3: don't think that's true. Well, the thing I can say 149 00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:20,080 Speaker 3: was nobody knows where Grayzone gets his money from right, 150 00:08:20,120 --> 00:08:23,160 Speaker 3: they're very they're very sort of like like there's Patreon stuff, 151 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:25,400 Speaker 3: but other than that, they're very sort of sketchy about it. 152 00:08:25,920 --> 00:08:29,520 Speaker 3: There's no evidence, like directly that he's been paid by 153 00:08:29,520 --> 00:08:32,320 Speaker 3: the Russian government to do Grayzone. The thing that I 154 00:08:32,360 --> 00:08:34,280 Speaker 3: can say is that he has taken a bunch of 155 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:36,280 Speaker 3: money from the Russian government to go on RT like 156 00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:38,760 Speaker 3: all the fucking time. That's the part of it that 157 00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:39,360 Speaker 3: I can say. 158 00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:40,080 Speaker 4: I don't know. 159 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:42,360 Speaker 3: This is one of these things that's it's such a 160 00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:44,960 Speaker 3: sort of like confluence of like all of these people 161 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:46,240 Speaker 3: were in the same place at the same time. It's 162 00:08:46,280 --> 00:08:48,319 Speaker 3: one of these things that generates trilling conspiracy theories. I'm 163 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:51,280 Speaker 3: gonna say that I don't think that this is like 164 00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:56,120 Speaker 3: a giant Russian conspiracy. But he does flip all of 165 00:08:56,120 --> 00:09:00,400 Speaker 3: his positions almost immediately after going to this meeting. And 166 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:03,719 Speaker 3: the thing that the position that he starts taking is 167 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:05,680 Speaker 3: is the exact same position that he was he was 168 00:09:05,720 --> 00:09:08,839 Speaker 3: writing about like before this in twenty fifteen. He starts 169 00:09:08,880 --> 00:09:12,319 Speaker 3: talking about how like anyone who opposes a sad is 170 00:09:12,320 --> 00:09:15,440 Speaker 3: a quote head chopper, and he starts he starts selling 171 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:17,280 Speaker 3: like one of these big things is selling this line 172 00:09:17,280 --> 00:09:19,840 Speaker 3: that like ASAWD is the defender of serious ethnic minorities, 173 00:09:19,880 --> 00:09:21,960 Speaker 3: which is like a thing that I think would be 174 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:25,120 Speaker 3: used to them. And you know, and he's he starts 175 00:09:25,120 --> 00:09:28,320 Speaker 3: a podcast on moderate rebels, which is a joke about like, ah, 176 00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:30,720 Speaker 3: like the US is funding moderate rebels, but all those 177 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:35,400 Speaker 3: people are actually like Al Kaita supporters, And I don't know, 178 00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:38,280 Speaker 3: like I think. I think it's interesting comparing his pre 179 00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:41,040 Speaker 3: twenty fifteen writing to his post twenty fifteen writing, because 180 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:48,160 Speaker 3: he very clearly understands what he is doing, Like he 181 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,200 Speaker 3: wrote an analysis of the thing that he's going to 182 00:09:51,200 --> 00:09:51,560 Speaker 3: be dealing. 183 00:09:51,679 --> 00:09:53,640 Speaker 4: There's no plausible deniability with him. 184 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:57,800 Speaker 3: Yeah, and a big part of this whole deal is 185 00:09:57,840 --> 00:09:59,040 Speaker 3: like and this is one of the things that Max 186 00:09:59,080 --> 00:10:02,679 Speaker 3: Blinthalf figures out out is that there are there is 187 00:10:02,840 --> 00:10:06,200 Speaker 3: a very large market in selling a palatable form of 188 00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:10,520 Speaker 3: Islamophobia to the left. You're gonna see this in This 189 00:10:10,960 --> 00:10:12,600 Speaker 3: is one of the things that he doesn't shing John, 190 00:10:13,520 --> 00:10:15,680 Speaker 3: where there's he's he's part of this whole sort of 191 00:10:16,400 --> 00:10:18,640 Speaker 3: sphere of people who are like, there's nothing happening in 192 00:10:18,720 --> 00:10:22,560 Speaker 3: Chan John, Everything's actually great. And with both that and Syria, 193 00:10:22,600 --> 00:10:25,120 Speaker 3: there's exactly the same playbook, which is to go all like, 194 00:10:25,200 --> 00:10:27,280 Speaker 3: you know, all of the resistance to this government is 195 00:10:27,480 --> 00:10:31,320 Speaker 3: CIA back Wahabi terrorists. You can find like some people 196 00:10:31,400 --> 00:10:34,600 Speaker 3: who suck and go oh hey, like these guys are 197 00:10:34,640 --> 00:10:38,280 Speaker 3: all jahadists, and you know, in Syria this is sort 198 00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:40,680 Speaker 3: of bleakly funny because if you know your war on 199 00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:43,599 Speaker 3: terror history, like Bashar al Assad like tortured people with 200 00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:46,959 Speaker 3: the CIA and the US like held some Weiger guys 201 00:10:47,360 --> 00:10:50,520 Speaker 3: for the CCP in Gitmo for allegedly being part of 202 00:10:50,520 --> 00:10:54,439 Speaker 3: a separatist group. But this is an important part of 203 00:10:54,480 --> 00:11:00,319 Speaker 3: how people sort of launder these right wing dictators. And 204 00:11:00,679 --> 00:11:03,040 Speaker 3: this is something that there's a very old sort of 205 00:11:03,080 --> 00:11:05,480 Speaker 3: tradition of this on the left that these these a 206 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:07,880 Speaker 3: lot of people are able to sort of raft onto. 207 00:11:10,120 --> 00:11:12,240 Speaker 3: And I'm going to take an example of this because 208 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:17,080 Speaker 3: I think it's important because one of the the er 209 00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:20,760 Speaker 3: sort of moments of all of this politics is the 210 00:11:20,800 --> 00:11:24,199 Speaker 3: collapse of Yugoslavia and the sort of left wing defense 211 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:28,960 Speaker 3: of Melosovic. So I'm going to read from to take 212 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:30,840 Speaker 3: an examples like what this shit looks like. I'm going 213 00:11:30,920 --> 00:11:33,760 Speaker 3: to read from an article that Jeremy Skahill wrote, which 214 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:37,320 Speaker 3: is I think the worst article about Melosovik I've ever seen? 215 00:11:37,360 --> 00:11:38,960 Speaker 3: This is this is a Huffington Post piece. This is 216 00:11:38,960 --> 00:11:40,640 Speaker 3: I think the worst thing I've ever seen written about 217 00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:45,160 Speaker 3: Molosovic in a mainstream outlet. Here is Here is Jeremy's 218 00:11:45,200 --> 00:11:49,760 Speaker 3: Gayhill quote. Little attention therefore, has been paid to Melosovic's 219 00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:52,280 Speaker 3: long term efforts, which pre date nine to eleven, the 220 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:55,520 Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine NATO bombing and his own trial to 221 00:11:55,640 --> 00:11:58,400 Speaker 3: expose the presence of al Qaeda and the Balkans from 222 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:02,000 Speaker 3: Bosnia to Kosovo. With nine to eleven, Melosovics talk of 223 00:12:02,040 --> 00:12:05,880 Speaker 3: Al Kaida was easily dismissed as laughable pathetic opportunism. But 224 00:12:06,040 --> 00:12:09,680 Speaker 3: those who followed Melosovic's career and importantly the events of 225 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:12,600 Speaker 3: the nineteen nineties at Yugoslavia, no, it was none of these. 226 00:12:13,480 --> 00:12:16,200 Speaker 3: The those allegations were based on true events the US 227 00:12:16,240 --> 00:12:20,160 Speaker 3: does not want discussed in an international court. Following the 228 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:23,240 Speaker 3: defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan in the eighties, many 229 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:26,280 Speaker 3: Musha Hadeen eventually turned their sits at Yugoslavia, where they 230 00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:30,680 Speaker 3: went to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Orthodox Serbs 231 00:12:30,679 --> 00:12:34,600 Speaker 3: and Catholic Croats. Once again, the US and bin Laden 232 00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:37,120 Speaker 3: were on the same team. To this day, there are 233 00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:40,719 Speaker 3: reports of trading camps in Bosnia, which remains under occupation. 234 00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:44,200 Speaker 3: It is also likely a training ground for future blowback. 235 00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:49,199 Speaker 3: So that's like nonsense, Like there are not there are 236 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:52,160 Speaker 3: not al Qaeda training camps in Bosnia, Like what the fuck? 237 00:12:52,480 --> 00:12:56,000 Speaker 3: Like it's just it's complete nonsense. And you know, it 238 00:12:56,040 --> 00:12:57,960 Speaker 3: relies on a lot of the other sort of like 239 00:12:59,160 --> 00:13:04,319 Speaker 3: weird things that leftists like believe and don't believe about this. 240 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:08,680 Speaker 3: There's there's a very if you want to actually read 241 00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:13,360 Speaker 3: about these sort of like transnational Islamist networks, there's there's 242 00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:16,240 Speaker 3: a very good book by the anthropologist Darryl Lee called 243 00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:19,520 Speaker 3: The Universal Enemy, Jihad and Jihada Empire and the Challenge 244 00:13:19,559 --> 00:13:23,439 Speaker 3: of Solidarity. But like, okay, I want I want to 245 00:13:23,480 --> 00:13:27,080 Speaker 3: ask the audience a question, right, why would members of 246 00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:30,760 Speaker 3: the Musja Hadeen be in Bosnia in the nineteen nineties, 247 00:13:31,160 --> 00:13:33,160 Speaker 3: And I want to suggest that it might have something 248 00:13:33,160 --> 00:13:35,240 Speaker 3: to do with the fact that Melosivic was trying to 249 00:13:35,360 --> 00:13:39,480 Speaker 3: kill every Muslim in the fucking country. He almost did it. 250 00:13:39,520 --> 00:13:43,600 Speaker 3: He was pretty close to actually doing it, you know, 251 00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:46,640 Speaker 3: but the sort of the sort of like left conspiracy 252 00:13:46,679 --> 00:13:48,520 Speaker 3: solutions like no, no, it must have been the CIA. 253 00:13:48,640 --> 00:13:52,080 Speaker 3: There's no plausible reason why ex Musja Hadeen guys would 254 00:13:52,160 --> 00:13:54,120 Speaker 3: have gone to a country where someone was trying to 255 00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:57,319 Speaker 3: kill the entire Muslim population, Like what the fuck do 256 00:13:57,360 --> 00:14:00,600 Speaker 3: you like? It's it's it's all stuff us like this. 257 00:14:02,480 --> 00:14:05,640 Speaker 3: Then you know, he also talks about how like Belosovic 258 00:14:05,679 --> 00:14:08,640 Speaker 3: would have like testified about the CIA institution of a 259 00:14:08,679 --> 00:14:13,480 Speaker 3: neoliberal government in Kosovo, and like what like Belosovic is 260 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:16,160 Speaker 3: the guy who presided like he was one of the 261 00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:19,880 Speaker 3: architects of of decollectivisation in Yugoslavia, like he is like 262 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:22,280 Speaker 3: before before he was this, before he was the butcher 263 00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:25,920 Speaker 3: of Belgrade. He was the butcher of the Yugoslavian social estate. 264 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:27,880 Speaker 3: But you can you know, and so and he was. 265 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:31,200 Speaker 3: He was just a hardline right wing Serbian nationalist. But 266 00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:35,160 Speaker 3: you can sell him to a Western audience by using Islamophobia, 267 00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:37,680 Speaker 3: by exploiting, you know, by by by doing this thing 268 00:14:37,720 --> 00:14:40,400 Speaker 3: where you're like, oh, well, actually like all of these 269 00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:44,840 Speaker 3: people were uh, they were all al kaeda. You can 270 00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:49,720 Speaker 3: use this to sell the guy who destroyed Yugoslavia as 271 00:14:49,960 --> 00:14:52,720 Speaker 3: like the left to savor of Yugoslavia. And you know, 272 00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:54,840 Speaker 3: I think that the part about this that really sad 273 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:57,400 Speaker 3: is like, you know, there was you know, the sort 274 00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:00,960 Speaker 3: of last true believers of the old Ego Slavin working class, 275 00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:06,240 Speaker 3: right were these the Yugoslavian anti war protesters. And these guys, 276 00:15:06,520 --> 00:15:09,520 Speaker 3: you know, they they're they're they're protesting to stop the war. 277 00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:12,200 Speaker 3: They see coming that the Serbians are about to win, 278 00:15:12,280 --> 00:15:17,840 Speaker 3: leash and they just get murdered in the streets by Melosovic. 279 00:15:18,680 --> 00:15:20,960 Speaker 3: You know, well because seven years later, the US society 280 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,280 Speaker 3: that they didn't like him, like he's become this like 281 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:25,680 Speaker 3: hero of a bunch of these like a bunch of 282 00:15:25,720 --> 00:15:28,720 Speaker 3: Arxis Leninists like see this guy as a hero, and 283 00:15:29,080 --> 00:15:31,120 Speaker 3: this is you know, this is this is just this 284 00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:35,400 Speaker 3: is their big sort of like political trick is using 285 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:39,120 Speaker 3: the threat of like terrifying Muslim like terrorists to just 286 00:15:39,200 --> 00:15:41,359 Speaker 3: legitimize right wing dictators. 287 00:15:42,160 --> 00:15:46,840 Speaker 1: I mean, you know, speaking of right wing dictators. Yeah, 288 00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:50,320 Speaker 1: there's this non zero chance there's an ad for someone 289 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:52,040 Speaker 1: who will be one in the future. 290 00:15:52,360 --> 00:16:05,920 Speaker 4: Uh right now, and we're. 291 00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:10,480 Speaker 3: Back, so we're back to this stuff and Syria and 292 00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:13,880 Speaker 3: specifically the way people think about Syria plays a huge 293 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:18,000 Speaker 3: role in the sort of development of the left. And 294 00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:21,280 Speaker 3: one of the reasons that the sort of new gray 295 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:23,520 Speaker 3: zone line, which is that the entire opposition is composed 296 00:16:23,520 --> 00:16:26,400 Speaker 3: of Islamists and that a SOD is the only person 297 00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:29,760 Speaker 3: who can stop them, is that, like, you know, part 298 00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:31,320 Speaker 3: of the reason this works is that like, yeah, like 299 00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:33,560 Speaker 3: they're and this this is the gap that these people 300 00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:35,800 Speaker 3: always sort of come in through, is that like a 301 00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:38,920 Speaker 3: lot of the Western media was not covering Syria very well. 302 00:16:39,040 --> 00:16:42,000 Speaker 3: They weren't covering the rise of like job out on 303 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:47,720 Speaker 3: news Row very well. And you know, they use this 304 00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:50,560 Speaker 3: gap to sort of like come through and rehabilitate a 305 00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:52,440 Speaker 3: SOD by going like the media is lying to you 306 00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:54,640 Speaker 3: a sad who again, I need to mention like ten 307 00:16:54,720 --> 00:16:56,760 Speaker 3: years earlier, this guy was torturing people for the CIA, 308 00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:00,600 Speaker 3: But you know, now like a saw it as actually 309 00:17:00,680 --> 00:17:04,119 Speaker 3: Nancy imperialist. And this works. This works enormously well. This 310 00:17:04,240 --> 00:17:07,000 Speaker 3: is the sort of breach through which Blueminthal enters the mainstream, 311 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:11,360 Speaker 3: and this this discourse about Syria like reshapes everything about 312 00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:15,040 Speaker 3: the left. This is where this is where American Marxist 313 00:17:15,080 --> 00:17:17,480 Speaker 3: Leninism like comes from right, like a huge portion of 314 00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:20,199 Speaker 3: ideas from the people who back and saw it all. 315 00:17:20,320 --> 00:17:22,679 Speaker 3: And this is it's actually really weird. Like almost every 316 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:25,360 Speaker 3: big sort of like leftist like podcast or media thing 317 00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:27,679 Speaker 3: like came out of the Syrian Civil War in some 318 00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:31,359 Speaker 3: way or another. Like the whole Grazo Versus Belling Cat 319 00:17:31,359 --> 00:17:33,679 Speaker 3: thing is a like is a thing that was originally 320 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:38,080 Speaker 3: about the Syrian Civil War Tropo trap House, which is 321 00:17:38,119 --> 00:17:39,480 Speaker 3: like I guess if people who don't know it's this 322 00:17:39,560 --> 00:17:45,000 Speaker 3: massive like social democratic podcast also like sort of came 323 00:17:45,040 --> 00:17:47,080 Speaker 3: out of there, like it was partially about like came 324 00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:49,080 Speaker 3: out of like Turkish politics. But those were very very 325 00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:53,440 Speaker 3: similar circles like on Twitter at the time, and you know, 326 00:17:53,480 --> 00:17:55,560 Speaker 3: and one of their big things is like Felix Peterman's 327 00:17:55,600 --> 00:17:57,919 Speaker 3: like The Truth about Syria, which is a sort of 328 00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:02,560 Speaker 3: slightly softer like version of supporting ASAD that also supports 329 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:05,399 Speaker 3: like the revolution in Rojeva. Like I came out of 330 00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:07,400 Speaker 3: this because I was on the pro ro Java side 331 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:08,920 Speaker 3: because like I'm an anarchist and I have a bunch 332 00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:13,399 Speaker 3: of Kurdish friends. So there's this giant fight about what 333 00:18:13,520 --> 00:18:16,119 Speaker 3: the Syrian Civil War is and what the sides are 334 00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:18,399 Speaker 3: and what it means, and this is one of the 335 00:18:18,440 --> 00:18:23,679 Speaker 3: things that comes to define what the left is and 336 00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:27,639 Speaker 3: the grey zone people sort of win. And the result 337 00:18:27,720 --> 00:18:30,359 Speaker 3: of this is that this pro asod like nominally anti 338 00:18:30,359 --> 00:18:34,479 Speaker 3: imperialist position becomes the default position of a bunch of 339 00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:37,359 Speaker 3: sort of like people who aren't like hardline Marxislenis who 340 00:18:37,359 --> 00:18:40,159 Speaker 3: are just sort of like like kind of edgy Bernie 341 00:18:40,359 --> 00:18:43,600 Speaker 3: like Birdie supporters. And this is something that like you 342 00:18:43,640 --> 00:18:45,840 Speaker 3: can see the effect of this, like to this day 343 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:47,080 Speaker 3: if you look at Left, if you look at like 344 00:18:47,119 --> 00:18:50,040 Speaker 3: leftis meme culture, like you can see people who are 345 00:18:50,080 --> 00:18:53,640 Speaker 3: otherwise mostly normal making line of Damascus jokes about how 346 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:57,920 Speaker 3: like Asad is like the line of Damascus, people still 347 00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:00,280 Speaker 3: make jokes about barrel bombs, which is you know this 348 00:19:00,480 --> 00:19:01,679 Speaker 3: thing that Asad would do. 349 00:19:02,560 --> 00:19:02,679 Speaker 2: Uh. 350 00:19:02,880 --> 00:19:04,920 Speaker 3: There's the whole like the one that I see the most, 351 00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:07,040 Speaker 3: it's like still very very common, is there is this 352 00:19:07,240 --> 00:19:10,199 Speaker 3: whole meme of like Hillary Clinton says asd must go, 353 00:19:10,320 --> 00:19:12,360 Speaker 3: and then there's like the second panels like who must 354 00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:14,520 Speaker 3: go and Hillary Clinton's gone, and people still do this 355 00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:15,560 Speaker 3: like to this day. 356 00:19:15,480 --> 00:19:18,080 Speaker 1: The other really common one, there's this little girl named 357 00:19:18,480 --> 00:19:22,320 Speaker 1: Bana a Labet who was a Syrian girl who got bombed, 358 00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:26,240 Speaker 1: and there's like a video of her, you know, reacting 359 00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:29,320 Speaker 1: in the way a small child would to being bombed, 360 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:32,480 Speaker 1: and like there's a meme that's basically taking her words 361 00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:36,760 Speaker 1: and twisting it into like please America, you know, come 362 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:40,320 Speaker 1: and intervene in Syria, like turn it basically like this 363 00:19:40,320 --> 00:19:43,440 Speaker 1: this girl is CIA propaganda trying to like justify US 364 00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:46,160 Speaker 1: intervention in the war. Like that's the that's the bit 365 00:19:46,240 --> 00:19:49,280 Speaker 1: you see it posted. A lot people repurposed it after 366 00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:53,760 Speaker 1: the Russian invasion of Ukraine to make fun of Ukrainians. 367 00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:56,480 Speaker 1: It's like it's like pretty fundamentally cruel. 368 00:19:57,000 --> 00:19:59,119 Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's that's how a lot of this stuff 369 00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:01,760 Speaker 3: worked because it was it's stuff that fits into the 370 00:20:01,800 --> 00:20:04,080 Speaker 3: social values of that part of the left at that time, 371 00:20:04,520 --> 00:20:06,639 Speaker 3: which is that both the Marxist Leninists and what was 372 00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:10,040 Speaker 3: called the dirtbag left around Trapo was completely irony poisoned, 373 00:20:10,040 --> 00:20:12,159 Speaker 3: and like, I get it. I was around then, like 374 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:14,520 Speaker 3: I did my time in the army trenches. Like it's 375 00:20:14,560 --> 00:20:17,879 Speaker 3: really hard not to react to the world's with ironic 376 00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:22,840 Speaker 3: detachment when it's so fucking terrible. But you know the 377 00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:27,720 Speaker 3: other side of that was like these people started like 378 00:20:27,760 --> 00:20:30,080 Speaker 3: we're doing these Assagnians because they were like because they 379 00:20:30,119 --> 00:20:34,840 Speaker 3: were edgery and contrarian, and because you know, like the 380 00:20:35,000 --> 00:20:36,480 Speaker 3: like this is like the stuff with the bond. This 381 00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,199 Speaker 3: is one of the things with the Bonum stuff is 382 00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:43,240 Speaker 3: like deliberately demonstrating that you don't have any empathy is 383 00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:47,440 Speaker 3: something that's edgy and contrarian, and like like the performance 384 00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:52,640 Speaker 3: of that was this very sort of like powerful emotional 385 00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:57,200 Speaker 3: pull that that serves to legitimize a bunch of this stuff. 386 00:21:00,200 --> 00:21:03,560 Speaker 3: And you know, originally, and part of the everything here 387 00:21:03,560 --> 00:21:06,560 Speaker 3: too is like everyone everyone in all of these circles, 388 00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:08,800 Speaker 3: They're big thing is trying to own the Libs. And 389 00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:12,280 Speaker 3: this is something that like the Libs cared about and 390 00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:14,640 Speaker 3: doing this thing of like how much you don't care 391 00:21:14,640 --> 00:21:17,880 Speaker 3: about it and how much you think it's like them 392 00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:21,240 Speaker 3: falling for propaganda. That was you know, that was something 393 00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:26,639 Speaker 3: that was heavily incentivized by the structure of housings like 394 00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:31,919 Speaker 3: Twitter work and how like retweets work, and you know 395 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:34,880 Speaker 3: this is I mean, it's bleak in and of itself, 396 00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:38,080 Speaker 3: but it leads to stuff that's worse because the only 397 00:21:38,160 --> 00:21:44,840 Speaker 3: other people who support Asad are like white supremacists, and 398 00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,040 Speaker 3: this leads to a bunch of very very weird cross 399 00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:51,159 Speaker 3: pollution that normally you wouldn't expect to be happening between 400 00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:54,560 Speaker 3: these circles and people who are just Nazis. One of 401 00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:58,320 Speaker 3: the most common sources about Syria for both sort of 402 00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:01,159 Speaker 3: Marxist Leninists and like social democrats Twitter uses is this 403 00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:03,800 Speaker 3: person named Partisan Girl who's, like I still to this day, 404 00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:07,800 Speaker 3: like a very big media figure. So she is a 405 00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:12,040 Speaker 3: Syrian Australian quote unquote Syria expert. We don't really have 406 00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:13,280 Speaker 3: time to get into all of her. 407 00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:18,480 Speaker 1: Stuff on munch, I think, yeah. 408 00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:23,400 Speaker 3: Yeah, she's been on David Duke's podcast Davids. 409 00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:23,120 Speaker 4: A former podcast. 410 00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:25,520 Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, the former Grand Wizard of the KKK. She 411 00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:30,240 Speaker 3: was on Richard Spencer's podcast like she is just a Nazi. 412 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:34,280 Speaker 3: The last post that I saw from her was her 413 00:22:34,359 --> 00:22:36,919 Speaker 3: responding to another guy who's just a straight up hardline 414 00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:39,280 Speaker 3: anti semi who posted this beam that was like maybe 415 00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:41,359 Speaker 3: this is why all conservatives support Israel and has a 416 00:22:41,359 --> 00:22:45,040 Speaker 3: bunch of faces of conservatives with like us stars of 417 00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:49,000 Speaker 3: David on them, like including Max Blumenthal and partisan girls 418 00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:50,840 Speaker 3: response to this is not to object to the fact 419 00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,440 Speaker 3: that it's unbelievably anti Semitic, but to be like, no, no, no, 420 00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:56,880 Speaker 3: Max Blumenthal is actually an anti Zionist, so you shouldn't 421 00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:58,480 Speaker 3: include him with all of the rest of the people 422 00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,000 Speaker 3: who you've included on here because they're Jewish, even though 423 00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:02,679 Speaker 3: some of them aren't. He's just accusing random people of 424 00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:05,280 Speaker 3: being Jewish who aren't. But that's the thing, Like, she's 425 00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,960 Speaker 3: straight up an anti semi just actually a fascist. I like, 426 00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:12,879 Speaker 3: I literally, like we could sit here for ten minutes 427 00:23:12,920 --> 00:23:15,160 Speaker 3: listing the names of all of the fascist podcasts she's 428 00:23:15,200 --> 00:23:18,960 Speaker 3: been on. And this is one of these things that 429 00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:21,680 Speaker 3: people knew, Like, people knew that she was a fascist, 430 00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:24,040 Speaker 3: and I had arguments with people where I would be like, hey, 431 00:23:24,040 --> 00:23:26,880 Speaker 3: this person is a Nazi, Like she's been on David 432 00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,080 Speaker 3: Duke's podcast, and people would be like, well, yeah, she's 433 00:23:30,119 --> 00:23:35,439 Speaker 3: a fascist, but I like her Syria analysis, and this is, 434 00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:38,919 Speaker 3: you know, one of the things that happens, and this 435 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:42,159 Speaker 3: is this is I'm gonna kind of defer to you 436 00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:44,520 Speaker 3: on this, Robert, because this is something I know a 437 00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,159 Speaker 3: lot less about. But one of the things that the Grayson. 438 00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:52,320 Speaker 3: People become really heavily involved about is the doing a 439 00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:56,320 Speaker 3: bunch of weird denialism stuff around chemical weapons attacks and duma. 440 00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:57,119 Speaker 4: Yeah? 441 00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,760 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's that's it. That's a lot of 442 00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:06,119 Speaker 1: the nexus of the kind of asshole Left takes on 443 00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:11,000 Speaker 1: Syria revolve around is because if bushahah Asad was dumping 444 00:24:11,040 --> 00:24:15,040 Speaker 1: chemical weapons on civilian populations and mass which we know 445 00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:20,520 Speaker 1: he was, then there's absolutely no way you can justify 446 00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:22,440 Speaker 1: or defend him. It doesn't matter how many of his 447 00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:26,200 Speaker 1: enemies were quote unquote Islamists. He was pumping chemical weapons 448 00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:30,280 Speaker 1: into civilian neighborhoods. So the answer has to be that 449 00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:34,560 Speaker 1: that never happened, right, that that was the CIA faking 450 00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:37,920 Speaker 1: it or the CIA deploying chemical weapons and it got 451 00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:41,320 Speaker 1: blamed on a sad. A lot of it comes down 452 00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:44,520 Speaker 1: to there's this group. These guys are civil defense people. 453 00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:47,760 Speaker 1: This is there are civil defense units in any city 454 00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:50,760 Speaker 1: being bombed, made up of civilians in the area. When 455 00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:52,560 Speaker 1: I was in Mosul, i was embedded with a lot 456 00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:54,359 Speaker 1: of the Iraqi version of these guys. They go in 457 00:24:54,359 --> 00:24:57,680 Speaker 1: and they pull people out and bodies out of wreckage 458 00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:01,480 Speaker 1: after bombings. Right, they're usually locals they provide some emergency 459 00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:03,879 Speaker 1: medical care to the extent that that's possible. There's people 460 00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:08,639 Speaker 1: doing this right now in Gaza and in Syria. It 461 00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:11,720 Speaker 1: was the White Helmets, and you know, the White Helmets 462 00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,840 Speaker 1: were in large part formed by a dude named James 463 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:17,040 Speaker 1: Messia I believe it's the way his name is pronounced. 464 00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,480 Speaker 1: He died under mysterious circumstances in Turkey not all that 465 00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:25,399 Speaker 1: long ago. But a big part of this chunk of 466 00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:28,240 Speaker 1: the left's line on Syria is that because these guys 467 00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:30,560 Speaker 1: are the first responders and they're getting in after these 468 00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,920 Speaker 1: chemical attacks and providing a lot of the initial evidence 469 00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,080 Speaker 1: in the wake of them, it's that these guys, the 470 00:25:37,280 --> 00:25:40,000 Speaker 1: White Helmets, are a CIA front and they're the ones 471 00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,560 Speaker 1: who are kind of planting all of the evidence of 472 00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:43,320 Speaker 1: these attacks. 473 00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:48,000 Speaker 3: Yeah, and this stuff gets really really out of control 474 00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,480 Speaker 3: very quickly. I mean, this is one of the you 475 00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:52,480 Speaker 3: suddenly see all of these people doing the stuff that 476 00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:55,200 Speaker 3: the Alex Jones supporters are doing about Sandy Hook. Were 477 00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:58,320 Speaker 3: like they're like taking pictures of like dead bodies and going, oh, 478 00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,400 Speaker 3: this is like a man can or like these are 479 00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:05,119 Speaker 3: crisis actors, and it's it's it's it's insane because it's 480 00:26:05,160 --> 00:26:07,639 Speaker 3: like this is all the stuff that like the Israelis 481 00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,399 Speaker 3: are doing now, where like they're taking pictures of a 482 00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:12,919 Speaker 3: dead baby and going like this is a doll. But 483 00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:17,399 Speaker 3: so many people were doing this with like with the 484 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,000 Speaker 3: shit in Syria, and it really struck me as like 485 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:25,520 Speaker 3: I was kind of observing it from the outside because 486 00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:27,720 Speaker 3: like I don't know, like I the period this was 487 00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:29,600 Speaker 3: happening as the period where occupied Ice was starting, so 488 00:26:29,680 --> 00:26:33,480 Speaker 3: I was not super involved in this stuff, but you 489 00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:35,879 Speaker 3: could just sort of see like the kind of the 490 00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:41,080 Speaker 3: level of conspiratism just like skyrocketing to the point where 491 00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,520 Speaker 3: like all of the stuff that's like the modern like 492 00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,880 Speaker 3: conspiracy canon is just getting embedded in there. 493 00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:51,399 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's where you see a lot of the stuff 494 00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,680 Speaker 1: that has been the norm on the right for twenty 495 00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:59,760 Speaker 1: years start to take hold in the left default reality 496 00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:05,840 Speaker 1: kind of fragmenting conspiratorial angles on verifiable things that are 497 00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,600 Speaker 1: happening right where you have what's obviously occurring based on 498 00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:16,320 Speaker 1: the evidence, and the completely errant reality fragment that that 499 00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:20,240 Speaker 1: is how you have to perceive events in order to 500 00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,760 Speaker 1: stay ideologically consistent. That's when a lot of that st 501 00:27:24,080 --> 00:27:27,280 Speaker 1: starts to infect the left in a way that is 502 00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:31,000 Speaker 1: now you know, pretty widely prevalent. 503 00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,919 Speaker 3: Yeah. And one of the things that, you know, one 504 00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:36,240 Speaker 3: of the things that he's able to do with this 505 00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,200 Speaker 3: that becomes one of the staples of a lot of 506 00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:42,560 Speaker 3: the left is this this line about color revolutions, where 507 00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,800 Speaker 3: every single time a protest starts in a country that 508 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:48,119 Speaker 3: he doesn't like, or like the US doesn't like, like 509 00:27:48,320 --> 00:27:50,680 Speaker 3: everyone on Twitter would suddenly be like, Oh, it's a 510 00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:53,399 Speaker 3: color revolution. It's a CIA op. All the protesters are 511 00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,159 Speaker 3: being paid by the CIA. And I could pick like 512 00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:58,879 Speaker 3: a thousand examples of this from everywhere from like Lebanon 513 00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:01,120 Speaker 3: to Hong Kong. Like every time mass protests would start, 514 00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:03,400 Speaker 3: these people would be like, it's a it's a color revolution. 515 00:28:03,760 --> 00:28:06,440 Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna pick one that I think, I 516 00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:09,120 Speaker 3: genuinely think is the most egregious piece of slander they've 517 00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:11,720 Speaker 3: ever fucking printed, or at least like like slander of 518 00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,920 Speaker 3: a leftist group, which is so Ben Norton wrote a 519 00:28:16,040 --> 00:28:18,920 Speaker 3: piece that was about Ecuador because there been there have 520 00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,439 Speaker 3: been a bunch of like Ecuador has periodic mass protests, 521 00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:26,280 Speaker 3: they also had elections, and Ben Norton, who's another Gray 522 00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:28,959 Speaker 3: Zone guy who eventually, like we wouldn't even have time 523 00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:30,760 Speaker 3: to cover this, but he's gonna break with the Gray 524 00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:32,840 Speaker 3: Zone people when they take their hard right pivot because 525 00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,440 Speaker 3: they start doing like anti vax shit that's too much 526 00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:36,160 Speaker 3: even fain. 527 00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:38,560 Speaker 1: Which has been at least a little bit of fun 528 00:28:38,640 --> 00:28:39,280 Speaker 1: to watch. 529 00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,240 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, watching watching them all fighting each other has 530 00:28:42,280 --> 00:28:46,080 Speaker 3: been all gone some one of the few pieces of 531 00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:49,040 Speaker 3: satisfaction we've gotten out of this. But Norton, so he 532 00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:51,120 Speaker 3: one of the one of the people he's targeting is 533 00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:54,920 Speaker 3: the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador and so we've 534 00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:59,680 Speaker 3: talked about them on this show before. They are one 535 00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,920 Speaker 3: of the most radical indigenous organizations on the planet. Like 536 00:29:03,560 --> 00:29:07,920 Speaker 3: they you know, they they they have been literally in 537 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,080 Speaker 3: the case of Ben Norton, they have been overthrowing near 538 00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:13,680 Speaker 3: liberal government since before Ben Norton was born. Like their 539 00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,400 Speaker 3: big thing is doing is is they do these days 540 00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:18,560 Speaker 3: where like they call an uprising and it uprising happens, 541 00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:20,480 Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands of people go into the streets and 542 00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,560 Speaker 3: try to bring down the government and sometimes it works 543 00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,600 Speaker 3: and sometimes it doesn't. But you know, this is this 544 00:29:25,720 --> 00:29:27,640 Speaker 3: is one of their big things and gray zone, like 545 00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:32,120 Speaker 3: like Norton calls these people uh anarchists inspired ultra leftists 546 00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:36,080 Speaker 3: back by the US, which is just you. 547 00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:38,080 Speaker 2: Know, you're in for a good political analysis when someone 548 00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:39,880 Speaker 2: uses the term ultra leftists. 549 00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:43,440 Speaker 3: Yeah, I love it as an insults like what, oh, no, 550 00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:45,800 Speaker 3: I've been ultra leftists and my politics are too good 551 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:49,040 Speaker 3: you my takes are too based, like this is supposed 552 00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,680 Speaker 3: to be an insult like baffling stuff. Yeah, but like 553 00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,160 Speaker 3: and like, in the span of two years, they went 554 00:29:55,240 --> 00:29:59,520 Speaker 3: from like praising the from praising the Confederation if it 555 00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:01,479 Speaker 3: they just now noll Is of Ecuador to calling them 556 00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:05,160 Speaker 3: a cia op like again within two years. And and 557 00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:07,240 Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of this stuff is based 558 00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:11,880 Speaker 3: on the work of this guy named William Engdaw. I 559 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:13,400 Speaker 3: don't know how aproounce this lastson. I think I think 560 00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:17,080 Speaker 3: it's William Engdahl, So he's he's a Laruchite. We've talked 561 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,200 Speaker 3: about the Laruchites on this podcast before. They're famous for 562 00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,840 Speaker 3: like beating up leftists on college campuses in the seventies. 563 00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,920 Speaker 3: They're also like the most fetted up motherfuckers in the 564 00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,440 Speaker 3: entire world. Like they are they are snitching on leftist 565 00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:32,080 Speaker 3: groups to like federal agencies you've never heard of before, 566 00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:35,160 Speaker 3: Like they claim to have worked with the CIA, the FBI, 567 00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:39,200 Speaker 3: the Devents Intelligence Agency directly cooperated with Reagan's National Security Council, 568 00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:43,120 Speaker 3: like they have. They are like the biggest sniches in 569 00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:49,520 Speaker 3: the entire world. And you know, Bluementhal's like copying their stuff, right, 570 00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:51,200 Speaker 3: Like he's this, this is where a lot of his 571 00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:55,120 Speaker 3: stuff about what color revolutions are comes from. And eng 572 00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,240 Speaker 3: daw is I'm gonna I'm gonna turn to some research 573 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,800 Speaker 3: by Emmy Bevincy is anti fascist researcher. So eng Da 574 00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:06,920 Speaker 3: thinks that BLM was a color revolution because he is 575 00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:11,720 Speaker 3: just a a really really hard line like right worker. 576 00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:13,960 Speaker 3: This is actually like a pretty common thing in these 577 00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,000 Speaker 3: circles of people who think that b M was color revolution. 578 00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,040 Speaker 3: People who think that like occupies a color revolution. And 579 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:22,560 Speaker 3: that's sort of like the far right of these of 580 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:27,920 Speaker 3: these sort of circles. And uh, I guess speaking of 581 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,400 Speaker 3: the far right of these circles, uh, do you know 582 00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,720 Speaker 3: what is the by far the right choice for you to. 583 00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:41,760 Speaker 2: Use to use your consuming power of the of the 584 00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:45,640 Speaker 2: purchasing dollar. That's right, These these ads great job. Yeah 585 00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:59,640 Speaker 2: that was That was wonderful, and we are unfortunately back 586 00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:02,959 Speaker 2: well high wallet is later and I've never felt happier. 587 00:32:06,440 --> 00:32:10,960 Speaker 3: Yeah, So okay, so we The reason we're covering this 588 00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,200 Speaker 3: in the first place is the sort of right wing 589 00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:19,000 Speaker 3: pivot that this circle does. But before we talk about that, 590 00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,640 Speaker 3: we need to talk about one more thing that is 591 00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,719 Speaker 3: incredibly bleak, which is the time he accused a sexual 592 00:32:25,760 --> 00:32:30,440 Speaker 3: assault victim of being a co intel pro op. So 593 00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,120 Speaker 3: this is a story I don't think most people know. 594 00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:38,000 Speaker 3: I only know about it because I was there in 595 00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,800 Speaker 3: the DSA at the time this is happening. In twenty seventeen, 596 00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,200 Speaker 3: the DSA has its first as its first elections after 597 00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:50,680 Speaker 3: the giant surgeon membership from both like Trump winning and 598 00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,560 Speaker 3: also Bernie and they have his first elections to its 599 00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:56,600 Speaker 3: governing body. And one of the people who's elected is 600 00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,680 Speaker 3: this guy named Arl Stevens. Arl stephens Is. He's a 601 00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:02,000 Speaker 3: very popular left leftist at the time he does this 602 00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,480 Speaker 3: whole podcast circuit. He's very charismatic. He gets the third 603 00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:08,280 Speaker 3: most votes of anyone elected to the National Political Committee. 604 00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,040 Speaker 3: But it turns out he is also an abuser. A 605 00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,640 Speaker 3: woman publishes an anonymous letter about Steven's sexually assaulting her. 606 00:33:15,880 --> 00:33:20,200 Speaker 3: It is fucking brutal. Ben Norton, who's one of his 607 00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,080 Speaker 3: coworkers that we've talked about before, makes a giant thread 608 00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:29,280 Speaker 3: accusing the victim of being cointelpro Max Blumenthal quote tweets 609 00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,680 Speaker 3: it and says quote can't help but be reminded of 610 00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:35,120 Speaker 3: co intel probe while reading this thread, and even people 611 00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:37,880 Speaker 3: who are normally Max Plumenthal supporters were like, what the 612 00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:43,720 Speaker 3: fuck are you doing, and like the full story of 613 00:33:44,280 --> 00:33:48,120 Speaker 3: Norton and Max Blumenthal's involvement, and this is actually worse 614 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,480 Speaker 3: than I can talk about on air. So after the 615 00:33:51,560 --> 00:33:54,120 Speaker 3: first thread where he where Ben Norton calls it a 616 00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:57,160 Speaker 3: coen Tel for up, he deletes that one because it's 617 00:33:57,560 --> 00:33:59,840 Speaker 3: just not obviously not sure if people are yelling at him, 618 00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,680 Speaker 3: So he makes a second thread that that threat is 619 00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,080 Speaker 3: still up to this fucking day. You can find the 620 00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:11,120 Speaker 3: thread of Ben Norton talking about how a DSA faction 621 00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:15,000 Speaker 3: called Momentum had like manufactured the sexual assault thing to 622 00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,359 Speaker 3: like destroy its opposition. And I want to make something 623 00:34:18,480 --> 00:34:21,400 Speaker 3: very clear because I was there when but when like 624 00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,960 Speaker 3: during the in this fight inside the DSA whitween Momentum 625 00:34:24,000 --> 00:34:26,160 Speaker 3: and everyone else in the fucking org. And I was 626 00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,480 Speaker 3: on the anti Momentum side. Right. Momentum was basically the 627 00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,120 Speaker 3: right wing of the DSA, not exactly the right wing, 628 00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:32,560 Speaker 3: like there's there were some other people who were further 629 00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:33,680 Speaker 3: right than them, but they were they were like the 630 00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:36,160 Speaker 3: center right of the DSA. They were electoralists. The only 631 00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,840 Speaker 3: thing they ever wanted to do was canvassing, like I 632 00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:41,720 Speaker 3: was on and Arl Stevens was on the other side, 633 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,960 Speaker 3: like opposing them, and I was on Like politically, I 634 00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:47,000 Speaker 3: was in the in like on the same side as 635 00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,000 Speaker 3: Arl Stevens here right, Like I fucking hate the Momentum people. 636 00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:52,800 Speaker 3: I think they destroyed the DSA one one day I 637 00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,640 Speaker 3: will do a whole thing about them, Like these these people, 638 00:34:56,760 --> 00:34:59,000 Speaker 3: like the Momentum people literally purged my friends for the 639 00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:01,840 Speaker 3: York Right and Arles Stevens is one of their enemies. 640 00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,279 Speaker 3: And that's not what this shit was fucking about. Like 641 00:35:04,440 --> 00:35:08,919 Speaker 3: Arl Stevens is just a rapist. But you know, Max 642 00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:13,160 Speaker 3: Blumenthal and Ben Norton came in and we're like, oh shit, 643 00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,799 Speaker 3: this Arl Stevens guys like an anti imperialist, So we're 644 00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:18,640 Speaker 3: going to accuse the survivor of being a co intel 645 00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:23,640 Speaker 3: pro op. Oh and it's fucking it's so fucking bleak. 646 00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,600 Speaker 3: Max has deleted his tweet, but you can find it 647 00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:30,160 Speaker 3: if you. You know, I have screenshots of it and 648 00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:32,080 Speaker 3: I have wayback machine things of it because I was 649 00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:35,080 Speaker 3: there when this was happening, and none of these people 650 00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,600 Speaker 3: ever suffered any professional repercussions for this. They were just 651 00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:39,960 Speaker 3: fucking allowed to do this shit and nothing ever happened 652 00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:40,200 Speaker 3: to them. 653 00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:41,200 Speaker 4: I don't know. 654 00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:43,760 Speaker 3: It makes me just incredibly deeply angry. 655 00:35:44,320 --> 00:35:47,600 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I mean it's it is like there's that 656 00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:51,200 Speaker 1: piece that goes around regularly about how like misogynists make 657 00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:55,760 Speaker 1: the best informants, and it remains a pretty durable fact 658 00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,560 Speaker 1: about organizing. Like if you run into people who are 659 00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:06,680 Speaker 1: immediately attacking the victim of sexual assault as some sort 660 00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:09,880 Speaker 1: of an informant because the person who committed it is 661 00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,960 Speaker 1: on the quote unquote right ideological side, that might tell 662 00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,960 Speaker 1: you something about the people who are doing that. 663 00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,120 Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, and this is this is this, 664 00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:22,640 Speaker 3: I mean, this is the thing that like, like to 665 00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,959 Speaker 3: this day, there were like really shitty left wing groups 666 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:26,920 Speaker 3: who still do this stuff. 667 00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:28,200 Speaker 2: You know. 668 00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,320 Speaker 3: Okay, so we're going to move on from that to 669 00:36:31,560 --> 00:36:34,360 Speaker 3: some very okay, so this is, you know, all of 670 00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:36,919 Speaker 3: the stuff that Max Blumenthal had been doing until that point, 671 00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,759 Speaker 3: that was all inside of the bounds of what was 672 00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,200 Speaker 3: considered acceptable on the left, and that sucks, right, like 673 00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:48,880 Speaker 3: that's not good. But by about twenty twenty one, he 674 00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:53,160 Speaker 3: is I found the exact I'm pretty sure I found 675 00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:56,600 Speaker 3: the exact bunth with this happened. We're in twenty twenty one, 676 00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:01,760 Speaker 3: like Bluementhal just loses it like it is its specifically 677 00:37:01,840 --> 00:37:06,920 Speaker 3: August twenty twenty one, he very specifically starts like tacking 678 00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,080 Speaker 3: right really fast. And what he starts doing is he 679 00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,360 Speaker 3: starts he starts doing anti lockdown stuff, and so he 680 00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:16,560 Speaker 3: starts ranting about how like Australian lawmakers or proposing fians 681 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:19,480 Speaker 3: for sharing information about anti lockdown protests and like fans 682 00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:23,200 Speaker 3: for finans for attending rallies, and he just gets more 683 00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:27,120 Speaker 3: and more into hardcore anti lockdown stuff and then into 684 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:31,680 Speaker 3: stuff that's effectively just straight up anti vax stuff. One 685 00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,360 Speaker 3: of the things that he ends up doing is he 686 00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,320 Speaker 3: writes an article about like if people back remember in 687 00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:40,560 Speaker 3: COVID there was the whole thing about flattening the curve 688 00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:42,319 Speaker 3: and trying to get less people to die. And there 689 00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:44,160 Speaker 3: was this whole debate over whether you should just like 690 00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:47,320 Speaker 3: not have lockdowns and let everyone get COVID and that 691 00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,360 Speaker 3: would give you like quote unquote herd immunity and everyone 692 00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,680 Speaker 3: would be safe. And that's like like Sweden tried that 693 00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:55,480 Speaker 3: and it fucking killed almost other people. So it was 694 00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:59,399 Speaker 3: a terrible idea. But like the whole sort of Gray 695 00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:01,640 Speaker 3: Zone crew starts, well except for Ben Norton, who leaves. 696 00:38:02,080 --> 00:38:06,200 Speaker 3: It starts like rallying around this stuff. And it's really 697 00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:08,600 Speaker 3: weird because like like in twenty twenty when China was 698 00:38:08,640 --> 00:38:11,600 Speaker 3: doing the lockdowns, Ben Norton was really really pro lockdowns, 699 00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:16,640 Speaker 3: but as as twenty twenty one goes on, he starts 700 00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:21,160 Speaker 3: pivoting into this anti lockdown stuff. And so I first 701 00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:23,880 Speaker 3: saw the stuff from this journalist named Walter Bragman back 702 00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,440 Speaker 3: when he goes on Twitter is he starts like, he 703 00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,920 Speaker 3: writes an article that has a bunch of claims from 704 00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,040 Speaker 3: this thing called the Great Barrington Declaration. Do you if 705 00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:33,600 Speaker 3: you remember that? 706 00:38:34,719 --> 00:38:35,839 Speaker 4: Uh no, not really? 707 00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:39,200 Speaker 3: Yeah, So so this this was this giant anti lockdown 708 00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,440 Speaker 3: like declaration that a bunch of right wingers were pushing 709 00:38:41,480 --> 00:38:44,560 Speaker 3: around that was it's this giant anti lockdown's creed that's 710 00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:46,680 Speaker 3: basically saying, like, the way to stop COVID is you 711 00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:49,560 Speaker 3: have to like open all the all the businesses again 712 00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,600 Speaker 3: forced when to go back to work, and then people 713 00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,520 Speaker 3: will get like infected with COVID and that will get 714 00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:59,479 Speaker 3: the immunity to COVID, which is a terrible idea because 715 00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,200 Speaker 3: if you get infec did with COVID, there's you know, 716 00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:02,359 Speaker 3: the chance that you die. 717 00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:05,759 Speaker 4: Right, it's yeah, yeah. 718 00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,600 Speaker 3: But the interesting thing about the Great Barrington Decorations is 719 00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:11,400 Speaker 3: so it's created by the Economic the American Institute for 720 00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:15,239 Speaker 3: Economic Research. So we should ask who these people are. 721 00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:18,399 Speaker 3: So they are a right wing libertarian think tank, which 722 00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:22,480 Speaker 3: Bloominthal should hate, right he's supposed to be a leftist, 723 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,520 Speaker 3: he should hate these people. They received sixty eight thousand 724 00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,440 Speaker 3: dollars from the Koch Brothers to do an economics conference, 725 00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:31,560 Speaker 3: a thing that they are very mad about anytime. So 726 00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:33,680 Speaker 3: everytime someone tries to bring it up and to talk 727 00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:35,719 Speaker 3: about how they're coke funded, they're like, well, we only 728 00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:38,319 Speaker 3: took sixty eight thousand dollars one time to do one 729 00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:42,440 Speaker 3: economics conference. You can't call us Coke funded. But then 730 00:39:42,520 --> 00:39:45,080 Speaker 3: like all their website they admit that they like quote 731 00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:51,000 Speaker 3: for the record, Aier received sixty eight thousand dollars in 732 00:39:51,080 --> 00:39:53,399 Speaker 3: Coke funding over the last ten years. And that's someone 733 00:39:53,520 --> 00:39:55,720 Speaker 3: was used entirely the offset the conference of a single 734 00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:59,040 Speaker 3: economics conference in twenty seventeen with no links to the 735 00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:01,560 Speaker 3: Great Bearrington decoration. But like you know, obviously, so the 736 00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:03,680 Speaker 3: reason the Coke's fun this thing is because these guys 737 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,000 Speaker 3: have the same economics like politics as they do. And 738 00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:09,920 Speaker 3: you know, as someone who has taken zero dollars for 739 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:12,600 Speaker 3: the Coke Brothers, I could safely say that it's bullshit 740 00:40:12,680 --> 00:40:14,160 Speaker 3: to say that we only took money for the Coke 741 00:40:14,239 --> 00:40:18,920 Speaker 3: Brothers once. So what what happens basically is the American 742 00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:23,040 Speaker 3: Institute for Economical Research has a like conference for a 743 00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:26,640 Speaker 3: bunch of weirdo hacks who are also technically scientists, to 744 00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:30,440 Speaker 3: put out this report saying the lockdowns that happened immediately 745 00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:33,480 Speaker 3: like after like the disease like COVID really started spreading 746 00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:35,840 Speaker 3: in the US. They said that that was a mistake 747 00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,880 Speaker 3: and they're advocating ending lockdowns, reopening businesses. And this was 748 00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:41,080 Speaker 3: an overtly pro business campaign to get a bunch of 749 00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:44,080 Speaker 3: people killed. Like that's what these people were trying to do. 750 00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,920 Speaker 3: But MaTx blumcdal suddenly is like pushing this stuff, like 751 00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:53,200 Speaker 3: in pieces that he's writing for grey Zone. It's very 752 00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:56,239 Speaker 3: deeply weird and this stuff just and as as like 753 00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:58,760 Speaker 3: twenty twenty one goes on, this stuff gets like worse 754 00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:02,120 Speaker 3: and worse and worse. By twenty twenty one, the Blue 755 00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:06,480 Speaker 3: Wenthal was writing articles about an impending attempt to implement 756 00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:12,000 Speaker 3: social credit alongside Jeffrey Lofredo. So, okay, we need to 757 00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:13,680 Speaker 3: take this in two parts. We'll get to the social 758 00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,279 Speaker 3: credit stuff at a second. First we need to talk 759 00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,719 Speaker 3: about who Jeffrey Lefredo is because this guy, so, this 760 00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,560 Speaker 3: guy used to work at Rebel News, which is this 761 00:41:23,760 --> 00:41:26,200 Speaker 3: like I mean, like Garrison, I know, you know this 762 00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:28,000 Speaker 3: is you know, you two know what Rebel News is. 763 00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:32,359 Speaker 2: It's the Canadian Yeah, basically yeah, yeah, Canadian right part. Yeah, 764 00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:34,880 Speaker 2: it's like a bright bart info wars type thing. They 765 00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,320 Speaker 2: have like podcasts, no online sight. Yeah, they're like a 766 00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,920 Speaker 2: Canadian far right news source. Essentially, they also engage in 767 00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:41,960 Speaker 2: a lot of like activism. 768 00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:45,480 Speaker 1: It's one of the few relatively few Canadian far right 769 00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,200 Speaker 1: websites that also regularly goes viral in the US. 770 00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,120 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like, I think it's also quite popular in 771 00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,080 Speaker 2: Australia or they have a in Australia. 772 00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,920 Speaker 1: They played a significant role in if you remember the 773 00:41:57,640 --> 00:41:59,640 Speaker 1: basically Caravan that drive. 774 00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:00,719 Speaker 3: We're gonna get to that. 775 00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,279 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're geting to that. 776 00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:07,759 Speaker 3: Yeah. So so Bluementhal is writing like an article with 777 00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,640 Speaker 3: Jeremy Lafredo, who is a guy who like wrote like 778 00:42:10,719 --> 00:42:12,839 Speaker 3: a million articles for Rebel News. In fact, as best 779 00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:15,560 Speaker 3: I can tell, he was still working for Rebel News 780 00:42:15,840 --> 00:42:19,200 Speaker 3: when Bluementhal starts like directly linking to Rebel News articles 781 00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:23,160 Speaker 3: about this stuff. Now it turns out he was actually 782 00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,960 Speaker 3: fired from Rebel News after a bunch of tweets surface, 783 00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,520 Speaker 3: which like, okay, the kind. 784 00:42:28,440 --> 00:42:31,560 Speaker 2: Of how hard it is to get fired from Rebel News. 785 00:42:32,000 --> 00:42:35,799 Speaker 3: I tracked down these tweets. It is I'm not even 786 00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:37,799 Speaker 3: gonna read any of them. There there, there are. There 787 00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:41,000 Speaker 3: are seven different tweets where he talks about how how 788 00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:43,320 Speaker 3: he wants to rate people. There's one where he's confascinating 789 00:42:43,600 --> 00:42:47,239 Speaker 3: that's just about him being a pedophile. There's a bunch 790 00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:49,800 Speaker 3: of him saying the N word. There's a bunch of 791 00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:54,239 Speaker 3: like incredibly racist, like Chinese anti Chinese stuff, which is 792 00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,080 Speaker 3: very funny because Max Weementhal presents himself as like the 793 00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:00,560 Speaker 3: big pro China guy, and here he is like writing 794 00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:03,719 Speaker 3: articles with this deranged gi anti Chinese racist and again 795 00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:08,240 Speaker 3: like this this got him fired like from Rebel News, 796 00:43:08,960 --> 00:43:11,040 Speaker 3: and the Max Blue went Thaw article with him is 797 00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:16,200 Speaker 3: still up now, So that that's insane enough, right. But 798 00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,360 Speaker 3: the part I wanted to talk the reason that was 799 00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:20,080 Speaker 3: a rabbit hole that I fell down while I was 800 00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:22,000 Speaker 3: looking at this article. The reason I want to talk 801 00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:23,680 Speaker 3: about this article in the first place is because he's 802 00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:29,560 Speaker 3: writing about social credit. Now. For people who don't recognize 803 00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:33,480 Speaker 3: the social credit stuff, here's the title of this article. 804 00:43:34,239 --> 00:43:37,200 Speaker 3: Quote the title is the subtitle. The Titans of global 805 00:43:37,239 --> 00:43:40,720 Speaker 3: capitalism are exploiting the COVID nineteen crisis to institute social 806 00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:45,920 Speaker 3: credit style digital idea sisms across the West. So what 807 00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:48,800 Speaker 3: is this social credit thing? This is like a this 808 00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:51,440 Speaker 3: is a very big right wing conspiracy theory thing, like 809 00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:54,320 Speaker 3: Alex Jones is a huge pusher of this. And basically 810 00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,680 Speaker 3: what they're saying is that they're going to import this 811 00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,879 Speaker 3: system from China that they say exists called social credit, 812 00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:02,640 Speaker 3: where like if you say something bad about the government, 813 00:44:02,719 --> 00:44:05,000 Speaker 3: you won't be able to like use your credit card 814 00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:10,680 Speaker 3: to buy food. And this is not how things work 815 00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:15,359 Speaker 3: in China. But it's very interesting because you know, these 816 00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:17,600 Speaker 3: right wingers are absolutely convinced that social credit is coming 817 00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:19,120 Speaker 3: to the US, Like this never happened, it was never 818 00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:21,520 Speaker 3: going to happen. But what's interesting about it is that 819 00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:25,480 Speaker 3: Gray Zone is specifically writing about this, which is insane 820 00:44:25,600 --> 00:44:27,680 Speaker 3: because again, this is this whole thing is an anti Chase, 821 00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:31,719 Speaker 3: an anti China conspiracy theory, and like all the sort 822 00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:34,280 Speaker 3: of Marcist Leninism's like whole one of their whole pitches 823 00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:37,120 Speaker 3: was that they are the like they they support China 824 00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,399 Speaker 3: against American imperialism, and then like within about a year, 825 00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:42,720 Speaker 3: like in like a one year span, they've just pivoted 826 00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:45,800 Speaker 3: to publishing like full on right wing social credit stuff, 827 00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,080 Speaker 3: and you know, by twenty twenty two it's gone even further. 828 00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:51,520 Speaker 3: This is this is this is where we get at 829 00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:58,640 Speaker 3: the Trucker's Convoy. So Garrison covered this extensively on the show. Yes, Yeah, 830 00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:00,640 Speaker 3: do you want to do like the really short version 831 00:45:00,719 --> 00:45:04,759 Speaker 3: of what that was. This A few kind of. 832 00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:09,040 Speaker 2: Quanon influencers, most of them based in Alberta, and then 833 00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,719 Speaker 2: a few other kind of conservative influencers tied to some 834 00:45:12,960 --> 00:45:14,560 Speaker 2: of whom were tied to rebel news kind of who 835 00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:17,759 Speaker 2: were based more throughout Canada, organized this event where a 836 00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:21,440 Speaker 2: whole bunch of truckers but mostly just regular people would 837 00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:26,320 Speaker 2: drive to the capitol and park outside until Justin Trudeau 838 00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:30,640 Speaker 2: would meet their demands or something like that. They were 839 00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,760 Speaker 2: out there for a few weeks. It really started getting 840 00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,360 Speaker 2: shut down by Canadian law enforcement when they started to 841 00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:43,960 Speaker 2: block one of the big trade border crossings between the 842 00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:46,120 Speaker 2: US and Canada. At that point it became enough of 843 00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:48,040 Speaker 2: a problem that the government was like, Okay, we're just 844 00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:50,080 Speaker 2: gonna like make you guys leave. 845 00:45:51,040 --> 00:45:51,520 Speaker 4: And that was that. 846 00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:55,279 Speaker 2: It caused kind of chaos in Ottawa for a few days. 847 00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:57,279 Speaker 2: It was compared a little bit to like it's like 848 00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:00,600 Speaker 2: Canada's January sixth, Not really, I mean it had a 849 00:46:00,719 --> 00:46:04,280 Speaker 2: very large mobilization of people, which was unique for Canada. 850 00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:06,480 Speaker 2: And we've started to see some of like the the 851 00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:09,879 Speaker 2: tactics and stylings of this of this trucker convoy get 852 00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,520 Speaker 2: adopted both in Canada and the States. We've we've had, 853 00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,920 Speaker 2: you know, versions of this tried to get started in 854 00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:17,600 Speaker 2: the States. Never they never reallycross Oh my god, there's 855 00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:20,480 Speaker 2: been there's been people have tried to do organize it 856 00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:22,600 Speaker 2: again in Canada. Hasn't really taken off the same way. 857 00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:25,680 Speaker 2: But but yeah, that is kind of the gist. I 858 00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:28,719 Speaker 2: I did a few episodes as this was ongoing, and 859 00:46:28,800 --> 00:46:32,800 Speaker 2: then I did a larger kind of piece about the 860 00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:35,880 Speaker 2: whole thing that was that was more scripted towards towards 861 00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:38,000 Speaker 2: the end of it. You can find those, I think 862 00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:40,120 Speaker 2: in like if you go back to like February of 863 00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:44,760 Speaker 2: twenty twenty two, you'll you'll find some some of those pieces. 864 00:46:46,440 --> 00:46:47,799 Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think I think the other thing that's 865 00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:49,920 Speaker 3: important to emercise about this is these guys are right wingers. 866 00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:53,200 Speaker 3: Like I have pictures of these guys waving Gustaci flags. 867 00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:56,000 Speaker 3: What if you saw your like the guys you did 868 00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:58,279 Speaker 3: the Holocaust in Croatia, Like, yeah, there. 869 00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:00,600 Speaker 2: There was a mix of like con servatives to like 870 00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,080 Speaker 2: actual fascists with like Nazi flags there like that. That 871 00:47:04,160 --> 00:47:06,520 Speaker 2: it was. It was pretty there was a pretty wide 872 00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:10,680 Speaker 2: ideological spectrum that's present now some conservatives weren't happy that 873 00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:13,719 Speaker 2: they're not that, yeah, trying to get them to leave. 874 00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:17,880 Speaker 2: You know, others are more ambivalent. But yes, there was 875 00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:23,239 Speaker 2: there was a large variety of of ideological representation at 876 00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:24,280 Speaker 2: the trucker convoy. 877 00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:28,200 Speaker 3: Yeah. So here's Max Blumenthal's response to it. The lock 878 00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:31,360 Speaker 3: down Left spent the last weeks about academic theory to 879 00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:35,160 Speaker 3: undercut support for a trucker strike. Looks on with silent satisfaction. 880 00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:38,920 Speaker 3: Is the imperial Trudeau regime imposes the Emergency Act, freeze 881 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:43,680 Speaker 3: bank accounts. They wanted this, So he's just fully like 882 00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:45,920 Speaker 3: fully spends this whole time fully on board with the 883 00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,440 Speaker 3: truckers thing. He's trying to convince people as a trucker strike, 884 00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:51,520 Speaker 3: which is it's not it's like objectively it's not. It's 885 00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:54,200 Speaker 3: it's almost all these people are like anti union who 886 00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,840 Speaker 3: are participating. Yeah, and they're also they're also like the 887 00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,560 Speaker 3: actual people who are truckers are the people who own 888 00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:01,719 Speaker 3: trucking companies. They're not like they're not the people who 889 00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:04,920 Speaker 3: are leasing trucks out. They are like the owners of 890 00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:08,880 Speaker 3: these trucks. So he's really doing this sort of like 891 00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,120 Speaker 3: like he's really doing this this sort of like pivot right, 892 00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:17,239 Speaker 3: like she was pupting himself. By twenty twenty three, he's 893 00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:21,960 Speaker 3: just posting straight up anti vax stuff like here, here's 894 00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:25,239 Speaker 3: the thing that he wrote about. Uh, Peter Holtz, who 895 00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:26,800 Speaker 3: was this guy? He was like this guy who was 896 00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:29,520 Speaker 3: I don't know, he's like a science guy. He was 897 00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:31,560 Speaker 3: like he was a really big target of the right 898 00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,960 Speaker 3: for a while because you wouldn't he kept for like, 899 00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:37,759 Speaker 3: there's there's this whole thing where Joe Rogan was trying 900 00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,480 Speaker 3: to debate him about wether vaccines worked, and it was 901 00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:46,919 Speaker 3: it was this whole weird thing, meeting of the minds. Yeah, yeah, 902 00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:49,160 Speaker 3: it's a bitefol With all his like, Bill Gates made 903 00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:52,000 Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of dollars off his investment in biotech 904 00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,399 Speaker 3: thanks to government subsidies and one of the greatest fear 905 00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:59,160 Speaker 3: campaigns in history. He called mRNA a miracle, VACS a miracle. 906 00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,880 Speaker 3: Now he admits the vaccines were semi worthless, big pharma junk. 907 00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:09,080 Speaker 3: And then, but after contributing so much social damage with 908 00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:12,400 Speaker 3: his unrelenting sanatory in demand for hard lockdowns and the 909 00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:16,160 Speaker 3: mass mandating of what amounted to experimental pharma junk, including 910 00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:20,279 Speaker 3: the small children hots seems desperate to avoid accountabilities. So 911 00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:23,719 Speaker 3: this is just straight up anti vax shit, right, Like 912 00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:27,600 Speaker 3: this is like where we are like now, It's like 913 00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:29,960 Speaker 3: he spent like a whole bunch of like the last 914 00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:32,399 Speaker 3: two years just tweeting anti vax stuff, and this got 915 00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:36,640 Speaker 3: fused with like the lab leak stuff really quickly. And 916 00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:38,399 Speaker 3: this is the thing I think is really interesting because 917 00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:44,120 Speaker 3: it's another demonstration that like he knows what he's doing. 918 00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,239 Speaker 3: So back in twenty twenty one, back like right after 919 00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:53,960 Speaker 3: the Atlanta the Atlanta Spas shootings happened, he like maxlely 920 00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:56,400 Speaker 3: Menthol's action to it was like, oh, yeah, here's a well, 921 00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:59,920 Speaker 3: here's this in light of recent racist attacks. Here's a reminder. 922 00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:04,040 Speaker 3: Josh Rogan's Trump disinfo dump the Washington Post blaming China 923 00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:07,640 Speaker 3: for cooking up COVID nineteen. In the Lab, Rogan cited 924 00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:11,120 Speaker 3: a US funded dissident as a fake scientist legitimated propaganda. 925 00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:14,440 Speaker 3: Now this is actually the stuff with the lab leak 926 00:50:14,560 --> 00:50:17,719 Speaker 3: is actually true, which is sort of wild. I mean, 927 00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,839 Speaker 3: it's not quite like the lablak stuff I think has 928 00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:25,520 Speaker 3: directly contributed to people getting attacked. The Atlanta's shooting. I 929 00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:27,680 Speaker 3: don't know, I did a bunch. I did two episodes 930 00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:31,120 Speaker 3: about it at the like a bit later. Yeah, if 931 00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:33,760 Speaker 3: you want to hear me talk about the full explanation 932 00:50:33,840 --> 00:50:36,239 Speaker 3: of that for a very long time. So that's what 933 00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,200 Speaker 3: he's saying. In twenty twenty one, right, is he has 934 00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:43,840 Speaker 3: correctly identified that the Lableik stuff is like the OCONN, 935 00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:50,200 Speaker 3: like Trump like anti China stuff. One year later, he 936 00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,239 Speaker 3: has Jeffrey Sachs on the show to talk about how 937 00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:55,640 Speaker 3: the US is covering up how the Pentagon, the National 938 00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:59,720 Speaker 3: Institute of Health funded biological research that created COVID nineteen 939 00:50:59,800 --> 00:51:04,880 Speaker 3: am wuhan. In one year, he has gone from calling 940 00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:09,040 Speaker 3: the lab leak like a neo kon quote a quote 941 00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:11,239 Speaker 3: Trump dis info dump that was created by a neo 942 00:51:11,280 --> 00:51:13,560 Speaker 3: kont to having Jeffrey Sachs on his show to talk 943 00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:16,960 Speaker 3: about how the lab leak is real and like like 944 00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:19,120 Speaker 3: this is bad enough just as an ideological shift, right, 945 00:51:19,120 --> 00:51:20,239 Speaker 3: but we need to talk about Do you guys know 946 00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:24,719 Speaker 3: who Jeffrey Sachs is? No? 947 00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:25,479 Speaker 4: Not really? 948 00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:30,600 Speaker 3: Oh boy, okay, So Sachs is a Columbia University economists. 949 00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:34,759 Speaker 3: He is also the guy who did shock therapy both 950 00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:37,040 Speaker 3: in Russia and in Poland. Like this is the guy 951 00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:39,279 Speaker 3: who privatized the Russian economy and handed it over to 952 00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,200 Speaker 3: a combination of like American investors, Russian mobsters, and the 953 00:51:42,200 --> 00:51:45,400 Speaker 3: guys who would become Russia's oligarchy. Like he is the 954 00:51:45,480 --> 00:51:48,200 Speaker 3: guy who, like, if you are one of these people, 955 00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:52,960 Speaker 3: he should be enemy number one, right he is. He 956 00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:55,600 Speaker 3: is the guy who like destroyed if like, if you 957 00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:58,160 Speaker 3: believe this, he's the guy who destroyed Russian communism, right 958 00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:01,279 Speaker 3: he is. He is responsible. And this is this is 959 00:52:01,320 --> 00:52:02,879 Speaker 3: one of the things that people will talk about a lot, 960 00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:05,560 Speaker 3: is how like all of the shock therapy stuff like 961 00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:08,040 Speaker 3: caused the largest drop in life expectancy between World War 962 00:52:08,080 --> 00:52:11,320 Speaker 3: Two and COVID, right, and like like Sax is not 963 00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:13,520 Speaker 3: a bit like Sax was literally in the room. He 964 00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:15,640 Speaker 3: was in the room in the Kremlin when the USSR 965 00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:18,279 Speaker 3: was dissolved. This is like, this is one of the 966 00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:21,600 Speaker 3: greatest anti communist in human history. And here is Max 967 00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:23,239 Speaker 3: Bloom with all a man who is supposed to like 968 00:52:23,440 --> 00:52:26,960 Speaker 3: his entire thing is about like opposing the imperialist to 969 00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:31,000 Speaker 3: over through communism, like sitting down having like a very 970 00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:33,560 Speaker 3: like a very sort of like having like a very 971 00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:38,160 Speaker 3: palaing around interview about that that is sax pushing a 972 00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:40,920 Speaker 3: conspiracy theory, the Ladley conspiracy theory that he was literally 973 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:45,440 Speaker 3: calling this info one year ago. And I don't know. 974 00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:49,200 Speaker 3: I thought about this for a long time trying to 975 00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:53,680 Speaker 3: figure out what was happening here, and the conclusion that 976 00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,080 Speaker 3: I came to is that this is the soul of 977 00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,520 Speaker 3: a man who believes in nothing. And you know, you 978 00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:01,759 Speaker 3: can you you can ask the question why do this? 979 00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:03,800 Speaker 3: And the short answer people tend to give is just 980 00:53:03,960 --> 00:53:07,759 Speaker 3: is money. And that's like true, but it doesn't go 981 00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:10,960 Speaker 3: anywhere near far enough, because I think the real answer 982 00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:13,680 Speaker 3: why these people did these right wing pivots is much 983 00:53:13,800 --> 00:53:18,120 Speaker 3: much worse. The actual reason people in left media suddenly 984 00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,879 Speaker 3: start taking right wing turns. And this is something we've 985 00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:24,040 Speaker 3: seen from like the Young Turks, like taking this like 986 00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:27,319 Speaker 3: anti trans, anti homeless pivots. There have been several other 987 00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:30,279 Speaker 3: outlets that have done a right wing turn. And this 988 00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:32,719 Speaker 3: is a structural problem in left media, which is that 989 00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:36,400 Speaker 3: if you're in left media, you have a massive and 990 00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:39,400 Speaker 3: you're trying to expand you have a massive problem. And 991 00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:41,440 Speaker 3: the problem is that the left in the US just 992 00:53:41,520 --> 00:53:44,080 Speaker 3: isn't that big. Right, Like there are more leftists now 993 00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:46,759 Speaker 3: than there've been for a very very long time. But 994 00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,560 Speaker 3: there's only so many leftists and you can't pull from 995 00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:52,799 Speaker 3: them all because leftists all hate each other. So even 996 00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:54,879 Speaker 3: if you try to corner like the market of one 997 00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:56,560 Speaker 3: faction of the left, another faction to the left is 998 00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:58,840 Speaker 3: going to hate you because this is just how this 999 00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:02,000 Speaker 3: is just how infighting works. And so if you're producing 1000 00:54:02,080 --> 00:54:04,839 Speaker 3: something that's designed for the left and only the left, 1001 00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:08,359 Speaker 3: there is built in a hard cap on how big 1002 00:54:08,440 --> 00:54:12,359 Speaker 3: your audience can get. And if you're successful, you can 1003 00:54:12,440 --> 00:54:14,480 Speaker 3: hit that limit. But if you want to grow more 1004 00:54:14,600 --> 00:54:18,560 Speaker 3: after that, you have to expand your ideological base, like 1005 00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,080 Speaker 3: the ideological base of your audience. But the problem is 1006 00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:24,879 Speaker 3: there's only two directions you can go right. You can 1007 00:54:24,920 --> 00:54:26,959 Speaker 3: either try to get liberals to listen to your show, 1008 00:54:27,480 --> 00:54:30,239 Speaker 3: or you could try to get conservatives. But you know, 1009 00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:32,359 Speaker 3: for people like Max wely Monthal or like Jimmy dre 1010 00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:35,400 Speaker 3: for examples, another person who did this big like anti 1011 00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:37,960 Speaker 3: vax pivot around the same time maxle Monthal was doing it, 1012 00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:40,359 Speaker 3: they have a whole thing where they they're they're talking 1013 00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:44,919 Speaker 3: about how ivermectin is actually a good COVID treatment together. Yeah, 1014 00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:47,319 Speaker 3: he used to be like a like a left wing 1015 00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:51,040 Speaker 3: YouTuber or like, yeah, he was a young guy from 1016 00:54:51,080 --> 00:54:52,879 Speaker 3: the Young Turks and he went off into his own 1017 00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:56,160 Speaker 3: thing is now like just completely only does anti vax shit. 1018 00:54:57,400 --> 00:54:59,400 Speaker 3: But the problem is if you're if you're a Jimmy 1019 00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,840 Speaker 3: dor like, you're you're gray zone. Right, Recruiting liberals is 1020 00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:05,520 Speaker 3: really really hard because your entire brand is based on 1021 00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:08,279 Speaker 3: how much you hate liberals, and this means that the 1022 00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:13,000 Speaker 3: people who naturally agree with them are conservatives. And the 1023 00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:15,680 Speaker 3: other important thing here is that leftists don't have that 1024 00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:20,200 Speaker 3: much money, right, Like they're there's not there's like us. 1025 00:55:20,239 --> 00:55:22,279 Speaker 3: There's like there there are there are leftists who are 1026 00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:25,520 Speaker 3: like college students who have rich families who have some money. 1027 00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:27,680 Speaker 3: There's like a small number of like leftist business, but 1028 00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:30,600 Speaker 3: they like they don't have on average, leftists don't have 1029 00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:34,400 Speaker 3: that much money. On the other hand, conservatives have an 1030 00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:37,760 Speaker 3: enormous amount of money, and they are very very easily 1031 00:55:37,880 --> 00:55:41,440 Speaker 3: pandered to. If you just like pump out like bottom 1032 00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:43,960 Speaker 3: barrel anti vax shit, like, they will flock to you. 1033 00:55:46,120 --> 00:55:48,600 Speaker 3: And you know, whenever you need to get leftists sort 1034 00:55:48,640 --> 00:55:50,520 Speaker 3: of back on your side, right, you can just start 1035 00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:52,920 Speaker 3: tweeting a Pali sign and everyone will forget everything else 1036 00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:56,319 Speaker 3: you've ever done, because any like, any time anytime someone 1037 00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:59,440 Speaker 3: posts posts like a pro pales sign thing, people just 1038 00:55:59,640 --> 00:56:03,200 Speaker 3: click on it. Right, Yeah, this has been, This has 1039 00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:04,879 Speaker 3: been like so Maxlelyen with thus met the last about 1040 00:56:04,920 --> 00:56:08,600 Speaker 3: two years just doing anti vax stuff. The moment, like 1041 00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:12,319 Speaker 3: the moment Palestine became something that people were focusing on again, 1042 00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:15,000 Speaker 3: and you know, and there are reasons for that, right like, 1043 00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:17,480 Speaker 3: but the moment he did that, he just pivoted back 1044 00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:21,600 Speaker 3: into doing Palestine stuff, and everyone just completely ignored what 1045 00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:24,759 Speaker 3: he'd been doing this whole time. And if you do this, 1046 00:56:26,040 --> 00:56:28,279 Speaker 3: and you could you pander to you pander to the 1047 00:56:28,320 --> 00:56:30,920 Speaker 3: anti factors and making anti vax content. And then also 1048 00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:33,640 Speaker 3: you could just go back and regain your leftist credentials 1049 00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:36,759 Speaker 3: and get like views and support from leftists by doing 1050 00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:40,719 Speaker 3: Palestine stuff. You can make a lot of money, but 1051 00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:44,200 Speaker 3: there's a price. Every time you sell out to these people, 1052 00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:47,000 Speaker 3: you betray another part of yourself, until one day you 1053 00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,279 Speaker 3: believe in nothing left and the right and lose all 1054 00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:52,320 Speaker 3: meeting and the only thing that's left is content in 1055 00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:55,560 Speaker 3: the culture war. And I want to close this episode 1056 00:56:56,640 --> 00:57:02,600 Speaker 3: by talking by reading something from another contributor, Anya Parimpel, 1057 00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:05,120 Speaker 3: who is she's another Gray Zone journalist, and she's Matthew 1058 00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:08,799 Speaker 3: lu Wenthal's wife, and she she is the Gray Zone 1059 00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:11,840 Speaker 3: person who's reached the end of this cycle. I'm just 1060 00:57:11,920 --> 00:57:15,320 Speaker 3: gonna read what this looks like quote. The labels of 1061 00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:18,280 Speaker 3: left and right are outdated in the US. Case in point, 1062 00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:20,960 Speaker 3: leftist white men now pander to other white men by 1063 00:57:21,000 --> 00:57:23,680 Speaker 3: telling women of color their bigots for saying boys shouldn't 1064 00:57:23,680 --> 00:57:26,200 Speaker 3: be able to piss in the girls room. These same 1065 00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:33,919 Speaker 3: punks spent months loudly advocating against bodily. I don't know, okay, 1066 00:57:34,440 --> 00:57:37,240 Speaker 3: her tweet just trails office is bodily. It says dot 1067 00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:39,360 Speaker 3: dot dot and just moves. Or I don't know. She's 1068 00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:42,680 Speaker 3: not a very good writer. Gender ideology has created a 1069 00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:44,680 Speaker 3: dynamic in which a bunch of men can come into 1070 00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,320 Speaker 3: organizing circles, play victim and a certain control over what 1071 00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:50,120 Speaker 3: is acceptable for others, especially women, to say and think. 1072 00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:53,640 Speaker 3: Most people know it's just misogyny tied up at a 1073 00:57:53,720 --> 00:57:57,040 Speaker 3: frilly bow, but are too afraid to I just thought, 1074 00:57:57,080 --> 00:58:00,800 Speaker 3: thought that's off again. I deeply weird now that participants 1075 00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:03,280 Speaker 3: in the Impression Olympics have spent weeks attacking an anti 1076 00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:05,680 Speaker 3: war rally because it didn't fit their tunnel vision for 1077 00:58:05,760 --> 00:58:08,720 Speaker 3: the movement. Gloves are off. Good luck winning over the 1078 00:58:08,840 --> 00:58:11,320 Speaker 3: people with your message. The same people who believed workers 1079 00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:14,760 Speaker 3: should not be mandated to take an experimental injection and 1080 00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:17,320 Speaker 3: that did not quote stop the spread cred my body, 1081 00:58:17,440 --> 00:58:20,320 Speaker 3: my choice in roe was overturned. Yet these same these 1082 00:58:20,320 --> 00:58:23,600 Speaker 3: are the same people who do not even believe biological 1083 00:58:23,640 --> 00:58:25,680 Speaker 3: women exist. Total incoherence. 1084 00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:30,200 Speaker 2: So this is this is just a collection of This 1085 00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:32,840 Speaker 2: is just a collection of like very basic right wing 1086 00:58:32,960 --> 00:58:38,120 Speaker 2: talking points like this is yeah, the the like the 1087 00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:45,080 Speaker 2: false correlation between like reproductive health care and like vaccines 1088 00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:49,080 Speaker 2: for public health, and the stuff of a gender gender ideology. 1089 00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:52,160 Speaker 2: All of it is just very very basic like talking 1090 00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:56,080 Speaker 2: points used used by the right that conflate various issues. 1091 00:58:57,240 --> 00:59:01,240 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just like this is indistinguishable from the ravings 1092 00:59:01,280 --> 00:59:04,040 Speaker 3: of any other right winger. And this is just this 1093 00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:07,520 Speaker 3: is just where this stuff ends, because this this this 1094 00:59:07,640 --> 00:59:10,800 Speaker 3: specific line, this is how you fucking make money. And 1095 00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:13,440 Speaker 3: you know there's you know, I mean, we could talk 1096 00:59:13,480 --> 00:59:16,560 Speaker 3: about a million more iterations of how this these stuff 1097 00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:18,840 Speaker 3: fused together. I mean maxle Wental goes to like an 1098 00:59:18,840 --> 00:59:21,000 Speaker 3: anti VAXX rally that has a bunch of like three 1099 00:59:21,040 --> 00:59:23,360 Speaker 3: percenters and like a bunch of just straight up right 1100 00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:28,320 Speaker 3: wing fascists. But you know, this is at least one 1101 00:59:28,400 --> 00:59:31,320 Speaker 3: of the end points of where this stuff goes. But 1102 00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:33,959 Speaker 3: tomorrow we're going to look at a group of people 1103 00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:39,520 Speaker 3: who took this even further. Yeah, it's a get ready 1104 00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:43,160 Speaker 3: for that shit because it's about to get wildly anti semitic. 1105 00:59:43,720 --> 00:59:46,000 Speaker 1: Oh great, hoorayo. 1106 00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:53,640 Speaker 2: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. 1107 00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:56,560 Speaker 4: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 1108 00:59:56,600 --> 00:59:58,800 Speaker 4: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 1109 00:59:58,840 --> 01:00:02,240 Speaker 4: iHeartRadio app, podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 1110 01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:04,960 Speaker 2: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated 1111 01:00:05,040 --> 01:00:08,040 Speaker 2: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. 1112 01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:09,080 Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.