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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Brading. Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 1: My name is Matt, my name is all they called

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Speaker 1: me Ben. You're joined as always with our super producer

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Speaker 1: Paul Mission Control Decond. Most importantly, you are you. You

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Speaker 1: are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want

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Speaker 1: you to know. We're coming to you somewhat live from

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Speaker 1: a dark, stormy mid morning here in Atlanta, Georgia. And

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that I think we've

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Speaker 1: all been thinking about in our crew is that history

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Speaker 1: is a disturbing thing. Right. Some things are further away

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Speaker 1: than they seem. Others are much more recent than people,

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Speaker 1: governments and institutions would like to admit. I mean, just

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Speaker 1: think about this. You know, April was more than thirty

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Speaker 1: years ago, and as recently as the nineteen sixties, black

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Speaker 1: citizens in the United States were legally prevented from voting.

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Speaker 1: This struggle against institutionalized discrimination, racism, oppression. It continues today,

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Speaker 1: and this struggle is often collectively referred to as the

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Speaker 1: Civil rights movement, the story of amazing people struggling against massive,

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Speaker 1: systemic forces hell bent on making sure the practice of

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Speaker 1: the law did not measure up to the promises it made.

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Speaker 1: And there is something else to this story about civil

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Speaker 1: rights in the nineteen sixties. It's a twist you won't

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Speaker 1: find in most history books. But first things first, here

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Speaker 1: are the facts. So, I mean, just a little bit

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Speaker 1: on you know, what the civil rights movement is. I

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Speaker 1: think probably most people are very familiar with this, but

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Speaker 1: just to lay a little bit of groundwork in context

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Speaker 1: the civil rights movement, it's generally referred to a series

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Speaker 1: of strategies and activities taken up by many different groups

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Speaker 1: in the United States between nineteen fifty four and nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight in order to end racial segregation and discrimination

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Speaker 1: in the country while also acquiring legal recognition for the

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Speaker 1: rights that are already guaranteed under the Constitution. And and again,

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Speaker 1: as we can see just by turning on the news today,

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Speaker 1: we've still got a ways to go before those things

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Speaker 1: are really and truly accomplished. But uh, it's it's crazy

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Speaker 1: how between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty eight, Uh,

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Speaker 1: so much work was done and progress was made in

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Speaker 1: a relatively short period of time. Um. And while the

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Speaker 1: aims of the movement centered on justice for the African

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Speaker 1: American community, they also pushed for equal rights for people

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Speaker 1: of all races. Yeah, it's astonishing when you think about it.

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Speaker 1: Despite centuries of oppression through institutions and through physical violence,

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Speaker 1: more a single generation was able to influence crucial legislation,

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Speaker 1: was able to uh profoundly shift attitudes of a prejudice culture.

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Speaker 1: And when this generation is doing it, they didn't have

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Speaker 1: the Internet, They didn't have social media or any of

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Speaker 1: the modern tools of communication that most people listening use

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Speaker 1: every day. Yeah, we can't really overstate, um, how important

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Speaker 1: and crucial the Internet has been in in so many

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Speaker 1: modern uprisings, from the Arab Spring to what we're seeing

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Speaker 1: now with the protests in the United States and across

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Speaker 1: the world. Uh, so much sparked um and proliferated by

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Speaker 1: social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook videos, you know, live streams,

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Speaker 1: the access to information instantly that just wasn't the case

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Speaker 1: in these days. So it's extra impressive and just really

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Speaker 1: astonishing that how much was accomplished without those tools. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it really shows the importance of anyone who had a camera,

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Speaker 1: who was willing to use that camera. You know, from

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Speaker 1: fifty four to sixty people who were willing to write

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Speaker 1: words and release them in a publication about what was happening.

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Speaker 1: The struggles of the civil rights movement. Then they were

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Speaker 1: going up against some intense issues and just some examples

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Speaker 1: of those if you look at what's known as the

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Speaker 1: Jim Crow laws that existed in a lot of Southern

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Speaker 1: states within the US. These were laws that blatantly reinforced

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Speaker 1: and propped up white supremacy within those Southern states. In

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Speaker 1: in particular, there's legislation that was that existed that did

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Speaker 1: things like kept schools and other public places racially segregated.

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Speaker 1: Laws that tried to early attempted and were effective in

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Speaker 1: ventding black people from voting. There were things like pulling taxes,

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Speaker 1: literacy tests and you know, think about that, a literacy

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Speaker 1: test in order for you to be able to cast

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Speaker 1: your vote as a citizen of a country. And by

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Speaker 1: literacy tests, that's not like the quick red fox jumps

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Speaker 1: over the lazy brown dog or whatever that's that's uh saying, hey,

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Speaker 1: read this mandarin, this thing literally written in mandarin, or

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Speaker 1: you can't vote and honestly, even if it was more

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Speaker 1: basic than that or or something, you know, not obviously

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Speaker 1: completely set up for someone to fail. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: the folks that were being forced to take these tests

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Speaker 1: didn't have access to the same level of education that

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Speaker 1: you know, people of other races did, so it was

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Speaker 1: set up to fail, even if you didn't push it

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Speaker 1: to those egregious levels, you know, yes, and you know,

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Speaker 1: as egregious as that is. There were also laws that

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Speaker 1: would prevent you possibly from marrying the person that you

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Speaker 1: love or that you wanted to marry, if that person

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Speaker 1: was not of the same race as you. Yeah, mis engination, right, yes,

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Speaker 1: and and it is just you know, it's unthinkable in

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Speaker 1: these days, those kinds of laws. But that wasn't the

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Speaker 1: only these were And by the way these laws were

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Speaker 1: struck down through the efforts of all of these people,

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Speaker 1: um or at least to the most part, the laws

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Speaker 1: were stricken. But it doesn't mean attitudes fully changed, right,

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't the only thing they were up against. Right,

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Speaker 1: And there are you know, now here in twenty we

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Speaker 1: as a species are seeing the same patterns enacted again,

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Speaker 1: like violence against citizens, right, the galvanizes communities and organizations

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Speaker 1: to push for change. Consider the case of Emmett Till,

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Speaker 1: fourteen year old boy, a black child who was from Chicago,

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Speaker 1: traveled down to the town of Money, Mississippi to visit relatives.

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Speaker 1: He was forcibly removed from his relatives home. He was

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Speaker 1: brutally beaten, he was tortured, he was ultimately murdered. And

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Speaker 1: when this case received national attention in the media, it

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Speaker 1: galvanized the movement. It got people out into the streets

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Speaker 1: and into their communities. Then there's the issue, of course,

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Speaker 1: like you mentioned Matt school segregation, specifically cases like brown

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Speaker 1: versus the Board of Education. And these are just a

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Speaker 1: few cases. There are many, many more. These are just

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Speaker 1: like some of the notable incidents that children are taught about,

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Speaker 1: hopefully taught about in school today. Well, not to mention

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Speaker 1: things like the ku Klux Klan. Uh, we're essentially, um

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Speaker 1: just so enmeshed within these power structures. Like police officers

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Speaker 1: in the South were often also members of the Ku

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Speaker 1: Klux Klan and their agendas would be aligned. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: they certainly wouldn't necessarily wear their you know, quick Klux

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Speaker 1: Klan hoods while on duty, but then they would go

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Speaker 1: carry out whatever maybe they didn't feel comfortable doing in

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Speaker 1: their officers uniforms after hours, you know, they would take

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Speaker 1: the law into their own hands. Um. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I've talked about this on the show before, but the

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Speaker 1: Watchman series on HBO really does a fantastic job of

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Speaker 1: even though it's like a you know, sci fi comic

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Speaker 1: book based type series, it does an incredible job of

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Speaker 1: painting a picture of what this dynamic was like. And

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Speaker 1: of course, these laws, these power structures, that's what they are.

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Speaker 1: Their their power structures, right. Uh, They're they're meant to

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Speaker 1: uh mandate the way an individual is treated by a

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Speaker 1: society and mandate the way uh an individual in a

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Speaker 1: society treats other members of their own society. These these

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Speaker 1: are white supremacist power structures, and they are older than

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Speaker 1: this country. The white supremacist here in the US and

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Speaker 1: the time of civil rights initially had a massive advantage.

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Speaker 1: They controlled the media at the time, they controlled vast

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Speaker 1: swaths of industry because originally they were the only people

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Speaker 1: who could own the land right and who could own

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Speaker 1: the businesses, and that naturally leads to them owning the

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Speaker 1: government in in practice. Even you know, even though that's

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Speaker 1: not what it's supposed to be on paper. If you

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Speaker 1: read the legal documents founding in this country, and these

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Speaker 1: forces opposed to the push for equality during the Civil

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Speaker 1: Rights movement, they did use all the levels of power

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Speaker 1: at their disposal, legal and criminal. They wanted to squash

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Speaker 1: the movement, and when possible, they wanted to terrify or

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Speaker 1: vilify any allied non black groups that may sympathize with

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Speaker 1: people seeking equality. I mean not just talking about other

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Speaker 1: like groups that were out marching. We're taught king about

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Speaker 1: people who were listening to the radio or watching television

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Speaker 1: at their house. They would be you know, bombarded with

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Speaker 1: headlines about about the dangers of unrest. Right it makes

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Speaker 1: me think a little bit about like workers rights, you know,

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Speaker 1: struggles like with you know, union busting and things like that.

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Speaker 1: And I only mentioned that because it's another example of

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Speaker 1: if people in power have something to lose by some

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Speaker 1: level of organization, they will do whatever they can to

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Speaker 1: squash that by any means necessary. And obviously this is

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Speaker 1: much more of a human rights you know, like it's

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Speaker 1: so much more deeply entrenched thing. It's more than just uh,

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Speaker 1: controlling money and power. There is a deep seated hatred

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Speaker 1: and racism in those in power that really fueled a

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Speaker 1: lot of this behavior as well, not just the money

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Speaker 1: and not just the idea of controlling you know, workers

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Speaker 1: and things like that. But um, yeah, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I just I'm inherently distrustful often of of of of

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Speaker 1: any anybody that has so much to lose, you know,

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Speaker 1: by people asking for the right thing to be done. Um, So,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's a little easy to get

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Speaker 1: disenchanted with all this kind of stuff, but it's also

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Speaker 1: incredibly inspiring to look into the history of some of

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Speaker 1: the groups and the individuals that really took this UH

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Speaker 1: movement to to the next level and created this you know,

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Speaker 1: blueprint for where we are now, at least in terms

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Speaker 1: of activism and and um not accepting this kind of

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Speaker 1: status quo. Yeah. One of the first groups you could

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Speaker 1: look at, we're called the Freedom Writers. It was a

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Speaker 1: group that got together on May fourth, nineteen sixty one,

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Speaker 1: group group of people from varying walks of life, different races,

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Speaker 1: who UH left Washington, d C. On a bus. They

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Speaker 1: were headed towards New Orleans and along the way there

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Speaker 1: were actions taken on the bus that seeing. You know,

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Speaker 1: it seems very strange to to talk about it today

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Speaker 1: in but literally changing where they were sitting on the

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Speaker 1: bus became a revolutionary act. There were white freedom writers

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Speaker 1: who moved to the blacks only section on that bus,

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Speaker 1: and black writers who moved to the whites only section

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Speaker 1: on the bus. And it was um it was something

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Speaker 1: that angered people who who knew that these me these

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Speaker 1: norms that were in place, and these regulations were in place,

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Speaker 1: and they knew what they were doing was violating the

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Speaker 1: norms right the the you can't really call them regulations,

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Speaker 1: but the the rules that were put forth on that

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Speaker 1: particular bus and the busses everywhere in in especially the South.

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Speaker 1: They knew what they were doing was perfectly legal according

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Speaker 1: to a recent Supreme Court case or several Supreme Court cases.

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Speaker 1: But they also knew that there would be people who

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Speaker 1: would be so angry that this action was being taken.

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Speaker 1: They were just hoping that the government or they're testing

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Speaker 1: to see whether or not the government would respond to

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Speaker 1: help them, Uh, just prove that these things, you know,

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Speaker 1: it does not matter where anybody sits on the bus. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Because again, an eloquently written line or two of legal

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Speaker 1: ease feels good, right, it feels good to know that's real.

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Speaker 1: But how much does it matter. It matters when it

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Speaker 1: is enforced, right, it matters when it is upheld. So

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Speaker 1: the Freedom Writers, you know, were mentioning some groups, notable

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Speaker 1: individuals there, there are many, many, many more stories were

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Speaker 1: just giving you a high level look at civil rights

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. These people, like you said, matth

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Speaker 1: They knew what they were doing was legal, but they

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Speaker 1: did not know whether it would be enforced or whether

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Speaker 1: the people who were supposed to wors the law would

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Speaker 1: indeed do their jobs. They knew their lives were on

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Speaker 1: the line, and they were beaten. The buses were you know,

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Speaker 1: people were throwing stones at them, their tires were slashed.

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Speaker 1: More than three hundred Freedom Writers were arrested during the trip,

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Speaker 1: uh and it never finished its trip to New Orleans ultimately.

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Speaker 1: So that's that's one group. Maybe we can talk about

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Speaker 1: some of the notable individuals associated with the movement. Where

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Speaker 1: we record in Atlanta, Georgia is often kind of referred

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Speaker 1: to as UM one of the cradles of the civil

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Speaker 1: rights movement. That's largely because of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Speaker 1: Who was a Baptist minister and the first president of

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Speaker 1: the Southern Leadership Conference or the sc LC. UM and

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Speaker 1: and you know, considered probably the most prominent leader. UH.

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Speaker 1: But you know there there there's even discussion of her

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Speaker 1: where he wouldn't have considered himself a leader, like he

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Speaker 1: was jumping off of work that had been done by

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Speaker 1: others as well. And but he is, you know, history

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Speaker 1: has sort of crowned him as being the leader of

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Speaker 1: the civil rights move We just wanted to put that

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Speaker 1: out there, UM that there were many leaders of the

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Speaker 1: civil rights movement and he was just probably the most

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Speaker 1: front and center one. But Dr King was incredibly instrumental

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Speaker 1: in executing non violent protests UM that sort of followed

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Speaker 1: the practices of Mohamma Gandhi and the idea of not

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Speaker 1: meeting violence with violence and doing things like sit ins

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Speaker 1: and peaceful marches and and all of that. And some

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Speaker 1: of the most famous events that he um organized where

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Speaker 1: the Montgomery bus boycott UH and the nineteen sixty three

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Speaker 1: March on Washington, which is where he delivered of course,

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Speaker 1: his uh incredibly powerful and iconic I have a Dream speech, UM.

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Speaker 1: And he was in car it was locked up many

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Speaker 1: times UM and for an extended period of time when

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Speaker 1: he was incarcerated for civil disobedience in nineteen sixty three,

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Speaker 1: he wrote UM one of his most famous UH texts,

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Speaker 1: which should be the Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he

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Speaker 1: included the famous quote injustice anywhere as a threat to

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Speaker 1: justice everywhere. Uh. And then in nineteen sixty five he

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Speaker 1: began to speak out against America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

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Speaker 1: And then in early nineteen sixty eight, Martin Luther King Jr.

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Speaker 1: Made his way to Memphis, Tennessee. It was you know,

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Speaker 1: you can get into the full story of this and

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Speaker 1: is probably an episode for another day. I believe we've

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Speaker 1: talked about it on this show before the day of

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Speaker 1: his assassination. I know we made a video about it

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Speaker 1: back in the day. But he went to Memphis, Tennessee

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Speaker 1: and support of sanitation workers there in the city who uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, their safety was at risk every day they

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Speaker 1: were working, and they were being severely underpaid for the

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Speaker 1: work they were doing, and he went there to support them.

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Speaker 1: He gave a speech on April third, nineteen sixty eight.

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Speaker 1: He was at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple there in Memphis,

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Speaker 1: and this is where you get his mountaintop speech. I

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Speaker 1: would read a quote here, but there it's actually his

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Speaker 1: words are very tightly controlled, so we probably should not

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Speaker 1: include it in this But you can look up the

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Speaker 1: mountaintop speech and find all of the text there. What

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Speaker 1: what What is important to say here is that he

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Speaker 1: seemed to at the end of that speech signal that

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Speaker 1: he was not going to make it to the end

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Speaker 1: of of the struggle, of the civil rights movement and

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Speaker 1: all of these movements, that essentially he is a part

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Speaker 1: of signaling that perhaps he wasn't long for this world.

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Speaker 1: And the next day, on April fourth night, he was

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Speaker 1: shot on the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel

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Speaker 1: there in Memphis, Tennessee, a single bullet, uh, shot in

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Speaker 1: the face. And you know, I think it's needless to

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Speaker 1: say here, but that assassination um is highly contentious in

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Speaker 1: in a lot of places, and for very good reason. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: highly contentious is about the most diplomatic way to phrase that.

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Speaker 1: A couple of points here. One thing that would be

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Speaker 1: a profound, provable factual illustration of institutions and power structures

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Speaker 1: at play and how they work is that many of

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Speaker 1: the same companies that fought against civil rights definitely vilified

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Speaker 1: leaders like Dr King, especially UH while he was alive,

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Speaker 1: and and government agencies to UH. Now they're the same institutions,

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Speaker 1: the very same institutions that will cherry pick quotes and

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Speaker 1: and put them up because they want to appear to

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Speaker 1: be doing the right thing. But don't forget you know what,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago that those same institutions were

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Speaker 1: trying to shut this person and this community and this

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Speaker 1: movement down. You know what I mean, The FBI broke

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Speaker 1: the laws that it made multiple times with Dr King,

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Speaker 1: And you know that's that brings us to another notable figure, right.

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Speaker 1: El haj Maalik el Shabaz born as Malcolm Little, better

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Speaker 1: known today as Malcolm X, spent ten years in prison,

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Speaker 1: and while within the prison system, he converted to the

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Speaker 1: Nation of Islam. When he was released in nineteen fifty two,

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Speaker 1: he became a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, and

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Speaker 1: today he's credited for increasing the group's membership from four

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Speaker 1: hundred to an estimated forty thousand over just the course

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Speaker 1: of eight years. Yeah, and and many of Malcolm X's

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Speaker 1: messages were a good bit different than those of of

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Speaker 1: MLK Jr. UM, because he didn't embrace the whole peaceful

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Speaker 1: protest thing uh nearly to the same degree. Um. He

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Speaker 1: he saw violence as as absolutely a legitimate response to

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Speaker 1: violence being done on on his community. UM. And you

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Speaker 1: can kind of sum it up in this quote where

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Speaker 1: he says, if violence is wrong in America, violence is

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Speaker 1: wrong abroad. Uh. If it is wrong to be violent

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Speaker 1: defending black women and black children and black babies and

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Speaker 1: black men, then it is wrong for America to draft

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Speaker 1: us and make us violent abroad in defense of her.

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Speaker 1: And if it is right for America to draft us

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Speaker 1: and teach us how to be violent and defense of her,

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Speaker 1: then it is right for you and me to do

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Speaker 1: whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here

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Speaker 1: in this country. He said those words in November of

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three during a speech in New York City. UM.

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Speaker 1: A year later, he left the Nation of Islam and

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Speaker 1: converted to traditional Islam while on a pilgrimage to Saudi

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Speaker 1: Arabia to Mecca. UM. And when he returned to the US,

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Speaker 1: he had sort of ideologically shifted a bit and was

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Speaker 1: a little more optimistic towards the idea of a peaceful resolution, uh,

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Speaker 1: to the fight for civil rights. Um. And you can

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Speaker 1: sum that up. And another quote that he made in

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Speaker 1: February of nineteen sixty, he said, it is a time

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Speaker 1: for martyrs now, and if I am to be one,

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Speaker 1: it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That's the

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Speaker 1: only thing that can save this country. And on February

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Speaker 1: twenty one, only two days after he said those words,

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Speaker 1: he was at a New York City ball or a

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Speaker 1: place called the Audubon Ballroom, and he was about to

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Speaker 1: give a speech. He was preparing for that. And you know,

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Speaker 1: according to the official story, some members of the Nation

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Speaker 1: of Islam, again according to the official story, shot and

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Speaker 1: killed him. And there, you know, there are there are

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Speaker 1: a ton of documentaries you can watch, in books you

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Speaker 1: can read about this assassination. Um. And again, same kind

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Speaker 1: of deal. The official story is very contentious. That is

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Speaker 1: extremely diplomatic of us to call it highly contentious. Uh.

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Speaker 1: When I recommend the autobiography of Malcolm X, which was

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Speaker 1: published in nine it's Malcolm X with Alex Haley. UM.

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Speaker 1: This this is a book that should be in your

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Speaker 1: local school system. And you know, if you're if you

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Speaker 1: wanted to watch Netflix. There's currently in as a recording

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Speaker 1: this in June, UH a series you can watch called

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Speaker 1: Who Killed Malcolm X? And again, you know, for many

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Speaker 1: of our listeners in the audience today, this this is

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Speaker 1: hopefully stuff that was already already very well known, right,

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Speaker 1: but it turns out that there is more to the

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Speaker 1: story of civil rights. It's something here in the U s.

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Speaker 1: It's something that doesn't get reported in UH in a

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Speaker 1: lot of school textbooks, doesn't doesn't really get mentioned. Almost first,

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Speaker 1: almost every single concept we have just mentioned has conspiratorial

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Speaker 1: aspects of its own. And some of these, uh, like

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Speaker 1: like the death of Dr King, have been covered in

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Speaker 1: previous episodes that we have done, and there are tons

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Speaker 1: of resources out there. UH. There are clear there are

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Speaker 1: clear uh contradictions in the official story, and then things

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Speaker 1: that we know to be facts and we can't make

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Speaker 1: any mistake. You know, Um, Matt, you mentioned that that

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Speaker 1: idea about doctor the speech that doctor King gave before

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Speaker 1: the assassination. You know you could interpret that also as saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is bigger than one person, right, this

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Speaker 1: is this is bigger than me. And that's correct because UH,

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Speaker 1: many people have died, but this movement, Make no mistake,

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Speaker 1: it continues, and racism is still shockingly apparent to anyone

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Speaker 1: who bothers to explore modern statistics. But the civil rights

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Speaker 1: movement had another ally. It was a foreign group halfway

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Speaker 1: around the world, and they let us know if you

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Speaker 1: think they wanted to help, because they wanted to at

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Speaker 1: least appear to assist this struggle for equality, not because

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Speaker 1: they necessarily cared about the concept of justice, but because

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Speaker 1: they saw in the US civil rights movement an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to attack their greatest rival. Russia, you see, had hatched

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Speaker 1: a movement all its own, and we'll talk about that

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Speaker 1: right after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it

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Speaker 1: gets crazy. Let's call this the Russian angle. The Soviet

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Speaker 1: government then, as as the as the Russian government does today,

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Speaker 1: excelled in what are known as covert influence campaigns. You see,

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Speaker 1: when you look at the global context here, the beginning

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Speaker 1: of the Civil War coincides with the beginnings of what

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Speaker 1: we've referred to as the civil rights movement today, and

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Speaker 1: the two became intertwined, both in how the uss are

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Speaker 1: sought to exploit racial strife and how the Cold War

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Speaker 1: itself propelled the cause of civil rights forward. This is

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Speaker 1: this is a fascinating story that should should be told

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Speaker 1: more often. As far back as nineteen twenty eight, the

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Speaker 1: USSR saw the stark racial inequality and divisions in the

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Speaker 1: United States as an opportunity to weaken their primary rival

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Speaker 1: in in what we know of as the Cold War today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's right. As far back as ninety eight, the U

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Speaker 1: s s R UM really looked upon this divide, this

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Speaker 1: this UH racial inequality and the struggle that it led

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Speaker 1: to as an opportunity to weaken US as as a nation.

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Speaker 1: So initially, like they had a plan, and they had

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Speaker 1: sort of like, um, I don't know, kind of a

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Speaker 1: smoke screen, sort of altruistic cause that they were hiding

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Speaker 1: behind or at least using it as bait, which was

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Speaker 1: the notion of pushing for self determination in the what

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Speaker 1: they're called the Black Belt UH. In order to do this,

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Speaker 1: they would recruit Southern UH individuals of color who would

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Speaker 1: be all about these aims. And a lot of this

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Speaker 1: work came from something known as the Common Tern or

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Speaker 1: the Communist International, which sought to spread the Communist Revolution

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Speaker 1: around the world. UM. And in nineteen thirty, the Common

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Speaker 1: turn escalated these goals, uh the goals of its covert

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Speaker 1: mission UM, and decided to work towards establishing an entirely

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Speaker 1: separate black state in the Southern United States, which would

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Speaker 1: kind of give them like a base camp and a

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Speaker 1: base of operations um to spread that communist revolution to

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Speaker 1: North America. Yeah, well, that's an excellent point. The uss

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Speaker 1: are deployed a tactic that is still still viable today

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Speaker 1: and still used today, starting from an understandable point like

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Speaker 1: let's create let's have a racially equal society that that is,

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Speaker 1: who would have a problem with that? But then take

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Speaker 1: take that movement and and co opt it, begin to

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Speaker 1: push it to become a vehicle for the aims of

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Speaker 1: the USSR in the Cold War. And this is um,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is like kind of a high level

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Speaker 1: origin story. But there are notable, real concrete actions that

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Speaker 1: this program took. Yeah, there are things here. It just

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Speaker 1: seems it seems like it's out of comic book or

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Speaker 1: something to me, the actions that were taken by the

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Speaker 1: U s s R in this time. And then some

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00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: of them feel like, oh, well, that's just a good

432
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: or right thing to do. But then there's this underlying

433
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 1: wave of you know what we keep saying here, of

434
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:17,880
Speaker 1: of what the true intentions were. And by the way,

435
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 1: we learned about this part here from a an article

436
00:28:23,080 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: in The New Yorker that was written by Gilanni cobb

437
00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:31,000
Speaker 1: In It's called the Enduring Russian Propaganda interests in targeting

438
00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: African Americans. And if you look at that article, you're

439
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 1: going to hear a couple of stories, or a bunch

440
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 1: of stories of specific actions taken. And one of those

441
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: was in ninety two when the Soviet government invited a

442
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: group of black American artists, including the poet Lenkston Hughes,

443
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: to go to Russia and to make a movie, to

444
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: make a movie that could then be used as propaganda,

445
00:28:57,200 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 1: both internally within the United States and externally, to be

446
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 1: sent out to other countries and used by the Soviet

447
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: Union to show how terrible and wrong the United States was.

448
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: And it's so tough because it was, I mean it

449
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: was the situation was dire and and terrible. It was

450
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: going to be used against the country as a whole

451
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: and the government in particular. And you you said the

452
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: magic word, matt, propaganda, right, there was there was something,

453
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: there were the We know from the evidence that the

454
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: motivations of the Soviet government at the time UM were

455
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: also based on what they perceived as propaganda value, and

456
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: they were based on exploiting people for the economic benefit

457
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: of the USSR. You know, follow the money. We have

458
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: to remember again, like when when this stuff is initially happening.

459
00:29:53,480 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: The nineteen thirties are the height of um when I

460
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:02,160
Speaker 1: find myself increasingly referring to as the first Great Depression.

461
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: The Soviet Union advertised itself real slick, real slick ads. Uh,

462
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: We're a worker's utopia. We are free of all that ethnic, national,

463
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: and religious division. History, of course, would prove that this

464
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: was not true, but the propaganda worked. Um So. In

465
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: addition to luring thousands of white American workers, the program

466
00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: brought over African American workers as well, and also share

467
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: croppers with the promise of the freedom to work and

468
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: live unburdened by the violent restrictions of Jim Crow. Um so,

469
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 1: in return, they were expected to help the Soviet Union

470
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: build their cotton industry in Central Asia. Uh. Several hundred

471
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: UM individuals answered this call, and though many eventually went

472
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: back or here's you know, the kicker died uh in imprisonment,

473
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: and then the Gulags because they weren't cooperating to the

474
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: extent that they were expected. Because again, this whole thing

475
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: is not altruistic, it's a it's a tool for you know,

476
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 1: capitalizing on people's misfortune in an effort to just you know,

477
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,160
Speaker 1: screw over the United States. Uh. It's it's it's the

478
00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: most opportunistic kind of uh, just callous thing I could

479
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: really imagine during a time like this. And just gonna

480
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: give you another article here to read if you choose

481
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: to do so. It's from The New York Times written

482
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 1: by Jennifer Wilson in seventeen titled when the Harlem Renaissance

483
00:31:41,040 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: went to Communist to Moscow And they're proving conspiracies here too.

484
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 1: One particularly illuminating example comes from September n the governor

485
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:57,680
Speaker 1: of Arkansas at the time, with I don't want to

486
00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: make fun of him for his name, but his his

487
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: name was Orville Fabius. That's it's just a weird name.

488
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: He deployed the National Guard the National Guard to keep

489
00:32:08,920 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: nine children from integrating the Central High School there in

490
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: Little Rock. This standoff was covered by newspapers around the

491
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 1: world and many of these newspapers, to their credit, pointed

492
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: out this massive discrepancy, right, not just not just the

493
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: discrepancy between what the law says and what the people

494
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 1: who are supposed to be the law keepers do, but

495
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 1: they noted the discrepancy between the values America was expressing

496
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,719
Speaker 1: and and spreading in some cases forcing around the world

497
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: versus how it behaved at home, you know what I mean.

498
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: And and this this was a great point the Soviet

499
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:54,040
Speaker 1: the Soviet actions take advantage of this opportunity. In Komsomolskaya Pravda,

500
00:32:55,000 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: the newspaper of communist youth organization in the ussr UH,

501
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: it ran this story that had a lot of photographs

502
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 1: that were actual photographs, you know, and this wasn't photo

503
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:10,880
Speaker 1: shopped or anything. And we're about this conflict, and they

504
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: said with the headline troops advance against children. That's just one,

505
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 1: but we wanted to give you a specific source in

506
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: a specific story. That sounds terrible. Ben If I saw

507
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:25,239
Speaker 1: the headline, I would be shocked. It's like it's like

508
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: mean politicians murder old lady, you know, like that's the

509
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,920
Speaker 1: equivalent definitely shock and awe. All right, well, yeah, and

510
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna make a reference to headlines that are

511
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 1: circulating today as we're recording this that are just as

512
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: bad with the violence that's being carried out against protesters.

513
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 1: But let's you know, let's just remember that that is

514
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: happening now, that is our current situation, and let's jump

515
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: back to the situation. And here the propaganda push. You know,

516
00:33:58,440 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: by the way, that was just one of the stories, right,

517
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: this is a common occurrence. It's it's happening over and

518
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,720
Speaker 1: over and over again as uh as other events unfold,

519
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: and the propaganda push led to international consequences for the

520
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 1: United States. There were things that actually happened to us

521
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: because of the reporting. And again it's the same deal

522
00:34:20,040 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: that it's right to report on that, but how it's

523
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 1: used then can be called into question. So according to

524
00:34:27,320 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 1: a legal historian, Mary Dudsieck uh and this is a

525
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: quote here, the Russian objective then was to disrupt US

526
00:34:34,200 --> 00:34:37,880
Speaker 1: international relations and undermine US power in the world and

527
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: undermine the appeal of US democracy to other countries. And

528
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:47,200
Speaker 1: the propaganda was working, oh yeah, because because again it

529
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: started to impact the people in power. So once they

530
00:34:52,040 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: were directly impacted, they started to care to diplomats and

531
00:34:57,040 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: you know, visiting countries across the globe, US diplomat noticed

532
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: that they were being increasingly questioned on the hypocrisy of

533
00:35:04,840 --> 00:35:09,760
Speaker 1: the US, Like, yes, ambassador, I see your arguments about

534
00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:17,279
Speaker 1: uh capitalism and about you know, democracy, but everybody in

535
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: the world knows about your your country's record with this

536
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:27,759
Speaker 1: profound violence against people who want the same thing that

537
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: you're saying you're going to give to us. And there's

538
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: a there's a moment that history hinges upon here. There

539
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: was a tour of Latin America. Richard Nixon was there.

540
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,399
Speaker 1: He was the vice president at the time, he wasn't

541
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:43,759
Speaker 1: yet president, and he was he was, you know, going

542
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:48,360
Speaker 1: out for like a photo op, shake some hands, makes

543
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: make nice internationally, geopolitically, but he was greeted instead with protesters,

544
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: all of whom we're screaming little rock at him because

545
00:35:57,640 --> 00:36:00,680
Speaker 1: they knew about this story. Yeah, and Secretary of State

546
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:05,680
Speaker 1: John Foster dull us Um complained that the situation was

547
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: killing foreign policy. It was just really bad business, and

548
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,520
Speaker 1: that the effect that it was having on Asia and

549
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:17,280
Speaker 1: Africa would ultimately be worse for US, the United States

550
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:20,800
Speaker 1: than Hungary was for the Russians. Ben, with your international

551
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: affairs background, can you unpack that for us a little bit? Uh? Yeah,

552
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask I wanted to ask you all

553
00:36:27,120 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: about this, um And like you said, well, that is

554
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: an actual quote from the Secretary of State at the time.

555
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:38,799
Speaker 1: It sounds like their concern is much less. Hey, maybe

556
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:43,400
Speaker 1: we should change something and much more. Well, this is uh,

557
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,439
Speaker 1: this is making the Cold War tougher for us. Yeah,

558
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:49,200
Speaker 1: we need to start controlling this narrative a little more tightly. Guys,

559
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 1: they're talking about and you know, they're talking about domestic

560
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:59,520
Speaker 1: violence in Hungary, uh and and how it played Essentially

561
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,400
Speaker 1: there are saying everything but bad pr It feels like

562
00:37:02,480 --> 00:37:06,280
Speaker 1: that's what they were worried about, more so than the

563
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: the actual hypocrisy. But also unless we make the mistake

564
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: of thinking that this, this operation, the series of operations

565
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: was entirely altruistic, I think we pointed out earlier that

566
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: it wasn't. A lot of people also don't know this.

567
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,720
Speaker 1: Dr Martin Luther King was the target of a KGB

568
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: campaign as well. You know, the FBI tried numerous things

569
00:37:32,680 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: to intimidate, to discredit, the smear, to depower to kill

570
00:37:37,840 --> 00:37:41,280
Speaker 1: Martin Luther Kern. Yes, yes, exactly exactly to turn Martin

571
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 1: Luther King. But the KGB wanted to exploit him as well.

572
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:50,360
Speaker 1: They wanted to turn him into a political insurgent against

573
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: d C. And when he refused to play ball, he

574
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: found himself in a terrible situation. Both the FBI and

575
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: the KGB were after him, they were trying to undermine

576
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:04,839
Speaker 1: him at the same time. I can't imagine being in

577
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: that situation. And again, like go back and listen to

578
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: our episode and co Intel pro we have other numerous

579
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: episodes where you can get more information, um, just about

580
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: some of that, you know, the FBI and other intelligence

581
00:38:18,960 --> 00:38:22,480
Speaker 1: agency's involvement in the in the civil rights movement. Well yeah,

582
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:23,839
Speaker 1: and the like we really like, you know, I mean,

583
00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:28,760
Speaker 1: this stuff is unequivocally real. These organizations are ruthless and

584
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 1: we'll stop at nothing to exploit their quote unquote targets

585
00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: or you know, their assets or whatever. And they were

586
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:40,280
Speaker 1: both like kind of jockeying for uh, you know, turning

587
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 1: King and making him kind of like a tool for

588
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,359
Speaker 1: their ends. And then you know, as as you said, Matt,

589
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:48,720
Speaker 1: when he wouldn't play, then he made a powerful, powerful

590
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 1: enemies on both sides, and I just you know, it

591
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: just seems like an absolutely rock in a hard place

592
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: type situation. Just you know, wouldn't wish that on my

593
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:03,280
Speaker 1: worst enemy. But all of this was moving, uh, towards

594
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 1: a bigger picture kind of end game. Uh, And we're

595
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,760
Speaker 1: going to talk about what that was and how things

596
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: turned out. After a quick word from our sponsor, we've returned.

597
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: Here's a dilemma for those of us in the crowd

598
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:31,719
Speaker 1: who might consider, you know, consider themselves staunchly anti Russian, right,

599
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: not even anti uss Are, but anti Russian in general.

600
00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: While this massive propaganda conspiracy was not created, let's be honest,

601
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: not created out of altruistic or noble reasons, it played

602
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 1: a huge part in the positive change that occurred in

603
00:39:51,440 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: the country. Right in the US, I mean in the

604
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties. The international pressure created by these propaganda

605
00:39:58,560 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 1: campaigns motivated US politicians to push through things like the

606
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:07,919
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and this,

607
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:10,880
Speaker 1: And you do you know why they did that. Didn't

608
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 1: do it because they said, hey, that's right, this is

609
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:16,799
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. These politicians and policymakers did

610
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: this because they thought it was an issue of national security.

611
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 1: It was a military motivation. American leaders made refuting the

612
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 1: Soviet narrative about American racism a national security issue critical

613
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: for maintaining US international leadership and promoting relationships with what

614
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 1: was then called the Third World. And it wasn't a

615
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: small impact either. Yeah, We've got a specific quotation here.

616
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: This is on the legal record. The US literally admitted

617
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 1: what what you said, mat It wasn't a backdoor conversation.

618
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:55,480
Speaker 1: And their amicus brief for Brown versus Board of Education,

619
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,759
Speaker 1: which we mentioned at the top of the show, they

620
00:40:58,920 --> 00:41:03,240
Speaker 1: said the thought quote racial discrimination has an adverse effect

621
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:07,160
Speaker 1: upon our relations with other countries. Racial discrimination has furnished

622
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 1: grist for the communist propaganda mills, and it raises doubts

623
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 1: even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our

624
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: devotion to the Democratic faith. Oh oh, that's a lot

625
00:41:23,280 --> 00:41:26,799
Speaker 1: to unpack. Sounds kind of fanatical too, doesn't it. I've

626
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: never heard it referred to the the Democratic Faith. That's

627
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: like very cultish sounding, and it's very much saying, hey,

628
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:38,319
Speaker 1: the only reason we should maybe calm down some of

629
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 1: this systemic racism is because of the pr stuff that

630
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: Matt was talking about earlier. If you really think about it,

631
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: these moves against the United States, the government, and the

632
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 1: system as a whole, like in an attempt to weaken

633
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: hurt the power of the US. The end result here

634
00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:04,239
Speaker 1: was that the so Union improved the United States. It

635
00:42:04,320 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: made it a better place. Even if it was just incremental,

636
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:12,359
Speaker 1: it was noticeable and measurable the positive change that their

637
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:17,919
Speaker 1: propaganda campaigns had on the US. So, when you think

638
00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:23,720
Speaker 1: about it, by attempting to weaken or destroy the United States,

639
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 1: the USS are actually made it a better place. That

640
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: That is one of the strangest, most important points to

641
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: take away from this, Right, Yeah, I mean, I mean,

642
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: you know, whatever the motivation, Right we talked about the

643
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: pr nests of the whole thing and how oops, we

644
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: better do a better job because making us look bad

645
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,880
Speaker 1: to other countries. But then whatever the reasoning behind it is,

646
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 1: it it did affect some change. Uh does that cheapen it?

647
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know what it's It's hard to

648
00:42:56,160 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: even look at it in those terms because any positive

649
00:42:58,280 --> 00:43:03,560
Speaker 1: change in something is imports as as race racially charged laws,

650
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: um is going is going to be a positive net result. Um.

651
00:43:07,719 --> 00:43:10,839
Speaker 1: No matter what the people in powers motivations actually are.

652
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:12,840
Speaker 1: It's like we're going to change the hearts and minds.

653
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,680
Speaker 1: It's more like affecting something that's going to affect them

654
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 1: in their bottom line or the perception of you know,

655
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 1: the government. Well. Yeah, and while while this international pressure

656
00:43:27,040 --> 00:43:31,839
Speaker 1: certainly forced the hand to some extent of you know,

657
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 1: the power structures within the United States to at least

658
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: acknowledge a few things and you know, make a few changes,

659
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:45,280
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that it fixed everything. You know, the

660
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:47,960
Speaker 1: the international pressure was helpful, and I think it is

661
00:43:48,160 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 1: in every instance where where other countries, especially countries that

662
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: are so closely aligned or allied with, you know, a

663
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,359
Speaker 1: place like the United States, are going to force them

664
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: at least to an extent to take action. And it again,

665
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,879
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that it's all fixed now, because I mean,

666
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: look what is happening in our world today as we're

667
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 1: recording this on June five, two twenty you know, the

668
00:44:15,600 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: recent stories that have been coming out as we were

669
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: I'm just a little peek behind the curtain when we

670
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 1: were preparing to record this, when we were writing this episode,

671
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: the shooting of Ahmud are Y had just happened, and

672
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:36,760
Speaker 1: you know, look at what's happened over just the course

673
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: it was. It was a course of a few days,

674
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 1: I believe, Yes, it was a week's well, I mean

675
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 1: it was. It was a week or something. I don't

676
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: know the exact timeline. But time is has been feeling

677
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:52,719
Speaker 1: very compressed and or expanded lately, depending on the day,

678
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: and then stuff like this just adds to it, and

679
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:57,839
Speaker 1: in terms of like what even is time? But yeah,

680
00:44:58,040 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: it got to the point where too, when I was

681
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:04,879
Speaker 1: seeing the George Floyd's story pop up, I almost was confused.

682
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: I thought it was referencing the other I can't breathe story,

683
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 1: the gentleman who was held down for selling loose cigarettes

684
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:17,600
Speaker 1: in New York. Um. And then I realized, oh no,

685
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 1: this is brand new, and that's and then everything changed.

686
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: I think that's a very good point. I also think

687
00:45:27,280 --> 00:45:29,399
Speaker 1: another way to look at it is you could say

688
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,279
Speaker 1: that nothing had changed. You know, right now, covert influence

689
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: campaigns continue to date. The the USSR has gone right,

690
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 1: m debatably, we have an episode on that. But people

691
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: will always use a tactic so long as it works.

692
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:49,239
Speaker 1: I believe, Matt, you had pointed out, you point out

693
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:52,319
Speaker 1: that the New Yorker verified this just a few years back,

694
00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 1: that's correct. Just got a quote from from the article

695
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: from the New Yorker, and this is the article we

696
00:45:58,520 --> 00:46:02,680
Speaker 1: mentioned before, the enduring Russian roupaganda interests in targeting African Americans.

697
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: And here here's just a piece from that article. It

698
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:08,759
Speaker 1: just says the Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports on

699
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: attempted Russian interference in the ten presidential election, which highlighted

700
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: how those efforts targeted African Americans. And if you continue

701
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:22,359
Speaker 1: reading through, it discusses how half of the Facebook advertisements

702
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 1: that were created by this organization called Internet Research Agency

703
00:46:27,120 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: or i r a UM. And these you know, at

704
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: least according to the article and according to intelligence, they

705
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,480
Speaker 1: were backed by the Kremlin, and they were said to

706
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: be influencing Americans around the presidential election. And what they

707
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: were referencing in attempt to change the way people were

708
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 1: thinking about that election. Uh, they were referencing race. And

709
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: again again, whenever whenever you run into an organization that

710
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 1: has like a bland beige wall paper kind of name

711
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 1: like Internet Research Agency or you know that's the same

712
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: as like people for things, right, Uh, you have to

713
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: you have to watch out. But of course the answer

714
00:47:16,200 --> 00:47:23,840
Speaker 1: is obvious. This the goal. If if your goal is destabilization,

715
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: or if you want to um, if you want to

716
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,479
Speaker 1: push a large group of people in a specific way,

717
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: you go with what works. And the Internet Research Agency,

718
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:39,440
Speaker 1: the FSR, the Federated States of Russia, really, if we're

719
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:44,960
Speaker 1: being honest, does this because it works and because it

720
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:49,880
Speaker 1: is true, it is true that there is enormous inequality.

721
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 1: It's not like somebody over in St. Petersburg just had

722
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 1: a lightbulb moment and made this all up. And as

723
00:47:56,360 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: you know, as that old meme says, modern problems require

724
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:04,319
Speaker 1: modern solutions. One there there are noticeable differences between the

725
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 1: old campaigns and the new propaganda conspiracies. Nowadays, your friendly

726
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:14,440
Speaker 1: secret Russian correspondence on social media are likely to play

727
00:48:14,600 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 1: both sides, by which we mean the same people that

728
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: are pushing out anti Clinton messages in at the same

729
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: time those same organizations were pushing out anti Republican messages,

730
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,360
Speaker 1: they were doing it on purpose. It's the same way

731
00:48:32,440 --> 00:48:36,800
Speaker 1: that giant corporations often donate equal amounts of money to

732
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: different political parties depending on who can help, you know,

733
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 1: because it depends from day to day who's going to

734
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 1: be empower and who can help them and which thing

735
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 1: is actually going to sway positive change for them. So

736
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: it's like hedging your bets. You know, there's really no

737
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: ideological reasoning behind it. I would just say that the

738
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:58,720
Speaker 1: instances of corporations uh splitting donations in in that way

739
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,960
Speaker 1: You're right, is to maintain their own power, no no

740
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:05,279
Speaker 1: matter who else is in power. In this case, it

741
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:09,680
Speaker 1: is to equally erode the trust that you know, American

742
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: voters or American citizens have in the system that supports

743
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 1: them and the system that you know they pay taxes

744
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:22,160
Speaker 1: to UM and and that seems to be why it's

745
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:27,320
Speaker 1: so effective in making everyone just feel like there's something wrong. However,

746
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 1: in this instance, there is something wrong. So it's odd.

747
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: It's it's just odd to to think about all of this,

748
00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: every everything that we've talked about today. It is is

749
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:44,200
Speaker 1: a strange thing to wrap your head around. And you know,

750
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:48,240
Speaker 1: I know a lot of us listening today are thinking

751
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:53,400
Speaker 1: about about the book Foundations of Geoe Politics, right uh

752
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: this this. You know, there's a lot of debate about

753
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: how relevant or elevant the author is right now much

754
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: people are reading Tea leaves here. But one of the

755
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:09,359
Speaker 1: one of the things we have to remember here is

756
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: this is literally a conspiracy. It is a technique, It

757
00:50:14,120 --> 00:50:16,200
Speaker 1: is a tactic, and it has an aim, and it

758
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: is continued, It has continued innobated for nearly a century

759
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 1: the idea of this propaganda, and make no mistake you,

760
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:29,400
Speaker 1: regardless of where you live, regardless of what you believe,

761
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:33,920
Speaker 1: regardless of which social media platform is your favorite, you

762
00:50:34,080 --> 00:50:37,520
Speaker 1: are the target. Also as possible to say that the

763
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 1: aims of these programs have become even more if it

764
00:50:41,239 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 1: was even possible, even more cynical. At least, the Russian

765
00:50:45,640 --> 00:50:49,520
Speaker 1: conspiracy of the civil rights movement was somewhat ideologically sound.

766
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:53,640
Speaker 1: They had a flavor of of of of positive ideological

767
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 1: spinning it. They wanted to create a black state, and

768
00:50:57,280 --> 00:51:00,520
Speaker 1: they wanted to empower workers. And but I don't know, man,

769
00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:02,440
Speaker 1: I I still feel like a lot of that was

770
00:51:02,440 --> 00:51:04,839
Speaker 1: smoking mirrors as well, just to like bait people into

771
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 1: supporting their cause, to destabilize United States. But whatever the

772
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: case might be, whatever you may think about that inequality

773
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:17,239
Speaker 1: is UH in theory the enemy of the communist revolution um.

774
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:21,680
Speaker 1: And yet, like democracy in the United States, communism and practice,

775
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 1: UH fell far short from the ideas that they set

776
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 1: out on paper. UM, communism and theory, we always say,

777
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,319
Speaker 1: sounds pretty great. Oh, everyone gets a piece, you know,

778
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:34,120
Speaker 1: you work hard, you get you know, your fair share.

779
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:36,799
Speaker 1: That sounds great. What could go wrong? Well? I think

780
00:51:36,840 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: it's the ultimate corruptibility of human beings that that goes wrong.

781
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: And that's the same thing that we see with democracy.

782
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,920
Speaker 1: Sounds real, great constitutions all well and good, but you

783
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:51,800
Speaker 1: can't change everybody's worse instincts as human beings, and power

784
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:56,239
Speaker 1: corrupts people and that's what we see time and time again. UM.

785
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:58,759
Speaker 1: But I do think it's a fascinating story. Uh. And

786
00:51:58,960 --> 00:52:01,440
Speaker 1: I actually want to thank and Bright Pacheco, who I

787
00:52:01,520 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: worked with some some other shows and continue to work with. UM.

788
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:07,840
Speaker 1: She's the one who turned us onto this topic. It

789
00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:10,319
Speaker 1: was something that her son had been really into and

790
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:12,160
Speaker 1: told her a lot about and I've never heard of it,

791
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 1: and UM, we discussed it as a team and decided

792
00:52:14,920 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 1: we wanted to check it out. So thanks Lauren for

793
00:52:16,760 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: the for the tip. Again, there's certainly more to discuss here,

794
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: but for today we're gonna have to end off here.

795
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 1: We would love to know what you think about all

796
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:31,839
Speaker 1: of this. UM. Are there you know, are there articles

797
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 1: or books or movies or facts or anything else that

798
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:39,319
Speaker 1: you want to alert your fellow conspiracy realists too. You

799
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:43,680
Speaker 1: can check out our Facebook group. It's called Here's Where

800
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:45,920
Speaker 1: It Gets Crazy. You can share all of that information

801
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:49,279
Speaker 1: links there that are going to be helpful. You can

802
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:53,160
Speaker 1: reach out to us. We are on Twitter and Facebook

803
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 1: and Instagram. On Twitter and Facebook we are Conspiracy Stuff

804
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:01,040
Speaker 1: and Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. If you don't want

805
00:53:01,040 --> 00:53:02,879
Speaker 1: to do that, you can always give us a call.

806
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 1: That's correct. You can reach us anytime. We are one

807
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:10,440
Speaker 1: eight three three st d w y t K. We

808
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:13,000
Speaker 1: look forward to curing from you. You have three minutes.

809
00:53:13,239 --> 00:53:16,120
Speaker 1: Let us know. If you do not want your name

810
00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:19,840
Speaker 1: or your comments revealed on air, and if you hate

811
00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:23,960
Speaker 1: the phone, then we have one more way. You can

812
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:27,520
Speaker 1: always reach us, regardless of the day, the time, or

813
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: the place. You can send us a good old fashioned email.

814
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they

815
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:53,880
Speaker 1: Don't Want You to Know is a production of I

816
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

817
00:53:57,160 --> 00:54:00,200
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818
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.