Speaker 1: Friends and neighbors fellow conspiracy realist, pro fascist, and anti
Speaker 1: fascist alike. Back in twenty twenty, there was a word
Speaker 1: that kept popping up in US discourse Antifatifa antifa there, Yes,
Speaker 1: did you.
Speaker 2: Guys see the recent Well it's all some clips going
Speaker 2: around with an FBI official testifying before a congressional committee
Speaker 2: about antifa and how it's the most dangerous domestic terror
Speaker 2: threat within the United States right.
Speaker 1: Now, and really dropping the ball when as specifics, because
Speaker 1: it turns out it's kind of like saying the biggest
Speaker 1: threat to the United States is feminism and you say, well,
Speaker 1: where's their headquarters?
Speaker 3: Well, and I go, I don't know. Well, I guess that's
Speaker 3: the thing. I mean. Back in the simpler days of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, where this was really just starting to get
Speaker 3: thrown around, I think it was pretty clear what it
Speaker 3: was in terms of like a concepts or you know,
Speaker 3: the idea of being anti fascist. But then like a
Speaker 3: lot of terms in the wrong hands kind of get
Speaker 3: weaponized and redefined and taken over. So it'll be kind
Speaker 3: of an interesting time capsule, honestly. Oh yeah, to see
Speaker 3: where we were and where we are.
Speaker 2: Well, we know, when it comes to things like revolutions,
Speaker 2: and idea can be one of the most dangerous and
Speaker 2: viral things that exists. Right, So there is something maybe
Speaker 2: to be thinking about here when it comes to an
Speaker 2: opposition to whatever the status quo is or you know,
Speaker 2: a current administration or something. Maybe the idea of whatever
Speaker 2: antifa is could be their biggest threat, which is weird
Speaker 2: to think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the mission creep of definitions, Right, this phrase is,
Speaker 1: as we said at Portmanteau, of anti fascist, which in
Speaker 1: general is something people can universally agree upon being bad
Speaker 1: in a democracy. But now, as we'll see it, may
Speaker 1: the term may have experienced definition creeps such that it
Speaker 1: becomes defined as anything antithetical to what I like.
Speaker 3: That's right. You'll even remember in that recent kind of
Speaker 3: love fest in the Oval Office between Mondomni, the recently
Speaker 3: elected mayor of New York City, and President Trump, who
Speaker 3: had previously been mega mega against that dude, he made
Speaker 3: a little joke about, Oh, it's okay, you can say
Speaker 3: I'm a fascist. Just go ahead, it's fine, it's fine.
Speaker 3: Like the level of truthlessness almost that that term has
Speaker 3: achieved in a way, it's a little it's a little concerning.
Speaker 1: So to that earlier point, let's roll the tape and
Speaker 1: let's see what we learned in twenty twenty and how
Speaker 1: it's aged in the modern day.
Speaker 4: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 4: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 4: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 5: A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 6: They call me Ben.
Speaker 1: We are joined as always with our super producers Paul,
Speaker 1: Mission Control Decand as well as Alexis nicknamed to be
Speaker 1: Determined Jackson. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know,
Speaker 1: or at least that's the name we use when we
Speaker 1: describe this show. Today's question starts with first figuring out what's.
Speaker 4: In a name.
Speaker 1: We know they're powerful currency in the modern media, right,
Speaker 1: They're a cognitive shortcut. You've only got so much time
Speaker 1: on air if you're a news anchor. Names can also
Speaker 1: function as what's known as a thought terminating shay. This
Speaker 1: is familiar. It's a long time conspiracy realist, and the
Speaker 1: more we think about this insidious practice of grouping multiple
Speaker 1: things under one phrase, the more often we notice it.
Speaker 1: Conspiracy theorists. That's an easy phrase as an example, but
Speaker 1: then there are things like truthers, for instance, snowflakes, or
Speaker 1: for an historical example, forty nine ers. This is common.
Speaker 1: This naming practice is common in all walks of life,
Speaker 1: numerous fears of debate. There's not one political group that
Speaker 1: does it more than any other. If you're watching the
Speaker 1: news in the United States recently, you are aware of
Speaker 1: a term that has attained a new prominence all its own,
Speaker 1: antifa or antifa, antifa, antifa antifa.
Speaker 2: I think it just depends where you are when you're
Speaker 2: saying it. Perhaps we're gonna find out what it means
Speaker 2: and you'll realize that all of those kind of work.
Speaker 1: It's it's funny because antifa sounds like someone's aunt who's
Speaker 1: like named fa, you know, or like short for parah. Well,
Speaker 1: we're also, regardless of how you choose to pronounce it,
Speaker 1: you're probably aware of just how controversial this term and
Speaker 1: what it represents can be. It's not a stretch to
Speaker 1: say there are, if we're being diplomatic, differing opinions about
Speaker 1: what antifah actually is and we can't even agree how
Speaker 1: to pronounce it. And as we explore these opinions, we
Speaker 1: quickly find ourselves hip deep in conspiracy. But first, here
Speaker 1: are the facts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, so, you know, let's just do a
Speaker 3: little housekeeping with the term here. What does antifha actually mean?
Speaker 3: Where does the word come from? It seems to many
Speaker 3: of us to be a very recent development, at least
Speaker 3: here in the United States. The term traces back, however,
Speaker 3: to Germany. In the nineteen thirties, the Communist Party of
Speaker 3: Germany had a wing called I'm going to do my
Speaker 3: best here anti fascistischa achchion. I'm not perfect, but I
Speaker 3: think that was close. There's a lot of repeated sounds
Speaker 3: in that one. It's I had to do a double take.
Speaker 3: And this later became referred to by a much more
Speaker 3: abbreviated and punchy word antifa, or of course anti fascists.
Speaker 1: I got okay, So one thing I want to hear
Speaker 1: what you guys think about this is entirely my unfounded opinion.
Speaker 1: This is not a fact and should be not taken
Speaker 1: as such. But it seems to me, if you want
Speaker 1: to build a lasting movement or rally around some sort
Speaker 1: of cause it's smarter to make a name that stands
Speaker 1: for something rather than against it. Like a good example
Speaker 1: in this nomenclature would be the two very different names
Speaker 1: used on others on opposite sides of the abortion debate.
Speaker 1: Supporters of abortion are most likely going to describe themselves
Speaker 1: as pro choice, right, and opponents would describe themselves as
Speaker 1: pro life. They're not anti abortionists by their own description,
Speaker 1: and people aren't necessarily on the pro choice side describing
Speaker 1: themselves as.
Speaker 3: Pro abortion.
Speaker 1: I don't know, there's a marketing power in names there, so,
Speaker 1: Like anti fascism starts as what like it's against something
Speaker 1: that already existed, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's against something that I think most people
Speaker 3: would typically characterize as bad.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: That's the thing that's so interesting about this whole debate,
Speaker 3: Like when well, yeah, I don't know, Matt, what do
Speaker 3: you think?
Speaker 2: Well, I just I would say, first we have to
Speaker 2: know what fascism is, right, And that's another part of
Speaker 2: this whole thing that that word, that term gets thrown
Speaker 2: around an awful lot, and you know, it's on us
Speaker 2: to learn what that is before we, you know, are
Speaker 2: throwing around antifa.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like if my boss makes me work on a weekend.
Speaker 3: I call that person a fascist. That's appropriate use of
Speaker 3: that term. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, we're gonna find out here in a moment. The
Speaker 2: big thing is that today when that you know, that
Speaker 2: term antifa is thrown around, it's really misleading because it's
Speaker 2: being applied to a ton of different individuals, of groups
Speaker 2: and organizations, of even the the tactics that are employed
Speaker 2: by individuals or groups. And you know, the idea here
Speaker 2: is to fight fascism, right. It is short for anti
Speaker 2: fascism against fascism, So what exactly is fascism?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: And now now we're in even deeper definitional water, right,
Speaker 1: because fascism, like antifa or anti fascism, doesn't really have
Speaker 1: its own solid, uh solid definition. Fascism does have a
Speaker 1: fascinating history.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm gonna leave.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I can see you can't leave. You're already home, Matt.
Speaker 2: Where are you gonna go anywhere?
Speaker 6: But here I've seen all of the zoom going. We're
Speaker 6: just gonna move on. We'll pretend that.
Speaker 3: No, no, we were all with this here on. They
Speaker 3: don't want you to know, but it's true. It's it's
Speaker 3: a word that comes from something seeming pretty innocuous. It's
Speaker 3: an Italian word fascio, referring to a bundle, which in
Speaker 3: this case would represent groups of people. So, you know,
Speaker 3: I think we'll get to this, but it's become negative
Speaker 3: by association. The initial like it wasn't designed to be
Speaker 3: an inherently negative thing. It was just designed to be descriptive.
Speaker 3: It's origins date all the way back to ancient Rome,
Speaker 3: when the fascis was a bundle of wood with an
Speaker 3: axe head that was carried by leaders in Roman politics,
Speaker 3: and the finding fascism today is much more complicated because
Speaker 3: of the fact that many governments, organizations, and individuals have
Speaker 3: been called this. It's been lot you know, lobbed around
Speaker 3: as kind of a term of abuse. In post World
Speaker 3: War Two, this was often used as an insult by
Speaker 3: opponents or critics of a given movement or a government,
Speaker 3: like the way I, you know, talk about.
Speaker 6: My boss who loves this show.
Speaker 3: By the way, I know, I don't mean it, which.
Speaker 6: One I don't know of the loves is show.
Speaker 2: We have so many bosses.
Speaker 6: Now that's corporate America, my figurative boss.
Speaker 3: You guys, this is not this is just for the
Speaker 3: purposes of demonstration. Here, But it was Mussolini that really
Speaker 3: got the phrase to kind of catch fire and be
Speaker 3: associated with what we think of as fascism today.
Speaker 6: True story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, Noel in nineteen fifteen, one of the
Speaker 1: only bad bends in history. There aren't a ton of them, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Benito Mussolini. That's where we think of fascism. That's the
Speaker 1: sort of origin story of modern fascism. And when we
Speaker 1: tried to define it, we see that a lot of
Speaker 1: people in academia and politics have made their careers based
Speaker 1: on arguing what the hell this is or is not.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, it's somewhere between a specific genre of authoritarian
Speaker 1: government and a set of tactics deployed by governmental institutions.
Speaker 1: So kind of like how all mazes are puzzles, but
Speaker 1: not all puzzles are mazes. All fascist governments are authoritarian,
Speaker 1: but not all authoritarian governments are fascist.
Speaker 2: Very good, ben I love the old mazes, puzzles analogy.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about what those characteristics are, right, and
Speaker 2: some of them are. You know, how they function and
Speaker 2: then what they do, actions they take. So you could
Speaker 2: describe a fascist group or government as being very very
Speaker 2: against and opposed to their opposers to anyone who is
Speaker 2: going to be a dissident or not believe the same
Speaker 2: things that they believe or fight against I guess the
Speaker 2: desired beliefs of a populace. They're going to aggressively attempt
Speaker 2: to suppress that or block that in some way. They
Speaker 2: are going to attempt to, you know, use whatever power
Speaker 2: that they do have this group or government, to essentially
Speaker 2: use it in a dictatorial way. So what they say
Speaker 2: goes anybody else. Again, going back to the first one,
Speaker 2: is not welcome. They want to have intense control on
Speaker 2: everything that occurs within their society, within the whatever it
Speaker 2: is that they control. Right, that's everything from the economy
Speaker 2: to what people can and can't do in their personal lives.
Speaker 2: And another characteristic here is that depending on how let's say,
Speaker 2: let's just say it's a government, depending on how the
Speaker 2: politics and government work within an individual area, when you
Speaker 2: have a fascist group in power, essentially this group is
Speaker 2: going to see fit to change whatever rules existed prior
Speaker 2: to them coming into power. Right That's I guess one
Speaker 2: of the things that we could say there.
Speaker 3: Well, I think hand in hand with that comes a
Speaker 3: strong sense of nationalism. Yes, because it's there has to
Speaker 3: be an other ing, you know, in order to say
Speaker 3: we are the ones who are right, we are the
Speaker 3: righteous path. All others who oppose us are wrong and
Speaker 3: therefore need to be shut down. And that requires kind
Speaker 3: of like a you know, it's us against the world,
Speaker 3: and that inherently is a pretty nationalist kind of view. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's a very important important thing here, is
Speaker 2: that wherever they are functioning, there's going to be a
Speaker 2: US versus everyone else's attitude. Essentially, that's put forth in
Speaker 2: everything from laws to you know, small things on the
Speaker 2: books that you wouldn't call a law necessarily just kind
Speaker 2: of a norm. Ultra nationalism is certainly a factor.
Speaker 6: Here, and it can't. It's sort of the way that.
Speaker 1: This is a weird sentence I never thought I would say,
Speaker 1: not as a dean on capitalism or fascism, but a
Speaker 1: comparison I think that's worth making, is that the same
Speaker 1: way capitalism must have a profit motive to exist for
Speaker 1: that mechanism to work, fascism must have a conflict motive
Speaker 1: to exist. Fascism must exist in opposition to something. And
Speaker 1: also it's super convenient if you're an iron gloved dictator,
Speaker 1: because you can just change what fascism means whenever you want.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, We've always been at war
Speaker 1: with East Asia, Right, that's one of the most pivotal
Speaker 1: impactful lines of fascism in fiction and or well in
Speaker 1: self of course about anti fascist or antifa member. But
Speaker 1: so antifa is something we can't fully define fighting something
Speaker 1: and we also fully defined we know the characteristics, we
Speaker 1: know the actions and the tactics. But I'm intrigued to
Speaker 1: hear more about antifa history because, like you said, Nola
Speaker 1: doesn't it didn't start in twenty seventeen in Charlottesville.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. I mean, as a movement, it has
Speaker 3: its own origins and what we might describe as the left,
Speaker 3: even the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the idea of
Speaker 3: anarchists and the like. So while fascism is often characterized
Speaker 3: as being a far right, militaristic, you know, hypernationalist ideology,
Speaker 3: again problematic to even you know, assign it to an ideology.
Speaker 3: In particular, anti fascism is the opposite. It's it's it's
Speaker 3: very much something that that that leans far to the left.
Speaker 3: Part of this comes from the simple order of operations
Speaker 3: that you find in history. Leftist groups were the first
Speaker 3: primary targets of fascist violence, and it arose as a
Speaker 3: reaction to that violence, as a way to organize and
Speaker 3: protect folks that were identifying in this way from these
Speaker 3: types of attacks.
Speaker 2: And there's an author who is cited quite often when
Speaker 2: discussing this topic. His name is Mark Bray and he
Speaker 2: wrote Antifa the Anti fas Just Handbook, and he writes
Speaker 2: about how you know, the modern movement of antifa, it
Speaker 2: really started in the nineteen eighties, and there's a group
Speaker 2: at that time called Anti Racist Action. Its members confronted
Speaker 2: neo Nazis, another pretty modern movement of an older thing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: They would go to punk gigs, you know, music performances
Speaker 2: and everything, and they would gone in the Midwest and
Speaker 2: other places in the United States and they would just
Speaker 2: actually have confrontations with people that they believed to be
Speaker 2: neo Nazis.
Speaker 1: Are you guys familiar with the sharp movement yep, Skinheads
Speaker 1: against racial Prejudice.
Speaker 3: I always found that to be fascinating. It's like, you know,
Speaker 3: with a rise and skinheads, and like punk rock scenes
Speaker 3: and hardcore scenes in the eighties, there was a splintering
Speaker 3: and folks who like I guess, still identified with the
Speaker 3: aesthetic of a lot of that, but we're not about
Speaker 3: that life, not about that nationalists ideology, and it was
Speaker 3: something that began in New York in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 3: But the idea of you know, someone that like, hey,
Speaker 3: skinheads can be cool too, you know, we can also
Speaker 3: be like about equality, and so therefore you have the
Speaker 3: sharp movement.
Speaker 1: I think it's a tremendous point. It's one that echoes
Speaker 1: what we set up at the beginning, which is these
Speaker 1: grouping disparate movements or people under the same convenient figure
Speaker 1: of speech or turn or phrase. Sure it feels good
Speaker 1: to do that, because we're humans. We categorize and classify things.
Speaker 1: We want to see patterns, but we do a disservice
Speaker 1: to ourselves and others when we fall into that trap.
Speaker 1: By the early two thousands, the Antifa movement in the
Speaker 1: US was I guess considered mostly dormant in terms of
Speaker 1: mass media, Like, there were definitely groups who align themselves
Speaker 1: with that, they just weren't getting in CNN.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they certainly weren't getting but they were also
Speaker 2: they were showing up every once in a while. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you guys remember, especially during George W.
Speaker 2: Bush's presidency, there were a ton of protests and there
Speaker 2: was some reporting on anti fascist movements, but it was
Speaker 2: very few and far between, and I can't recall at
Speaker 2: least any major protests that turned violent in a way
Speaker 2: that the you know, group in power, whoever was president
Speaker 2: at the time, whoever was running the show, that they
Speaker 2: had such a response I guess, or a public response
Speaker 2: against this group or people who they labeled as Antifa.
Speaker 1: Or like Black Bloc as well and occupied movements, which
Speaker 1: we'll get in Doorri. We'll meet the Black Bloc later.
Speaker 1: Now fast forward to just a few years ago. Don't
Speaker 1: call it a comeback, or do call it a comeback?
Speaker 1: Antifa is back in the new whose they get new
Speaker 1: modern prominence after the events of what was called the
Speaker 1: Unite the Right rally. You probably remember the photographs that
Speaker 1: went around the US and the world of people marching
Speaker 1: with tiki torches saying things like Jews will not replace us.
Speaker 1: This was a gathering of numerous right wing groups, including
Speaker 1: as you can tell from that slogan, white supremacist in Charlottesville,
Speaker 1: Virginia and August of twenty seventeen, Antifa was back in
Speaker 1: the news described as counter protesters in this debacle, and today,
Speaker 1: you know, it'd be surprising to look through most news
Speaker 1: sources on their websites or watch most news channel shows
Speaker 1: and not notice some sort of mention of Antifa. But
Speaker 1: the groups, there are groups who identifi as anti It's
Speaker 1: a very real thing. This wasn't made up out of
Speaker 1: whole cloth. The problem is that there are a number
Speaker 1: of groups identifying with this, and they have different, at
Speaker 1: times contradictory goals, and they have an even wider range
Speaker 1: of different tactics.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, that's right. I mean it would typically be
Speaker 3: stuff you would categorize as non violent, like chanting, shouting,
Speaker 3: having sit ins, human chains, you know, holding up signs,
Speaker 3: the like. But ANTIFAP has become controversial because they're like
Speaker 3: any loved together large movement that there are many, many
Speaker 3: kind of splintered factions of like with the skinhead example,
Speaker 3: there are going to be more extreme, little kind of
Speaker 3: offshoots of this. So some of these factions of protesters
Speaker 3: that's often referred to as agitators, which is another kind
Speaker 3: of term of abuse that's very easy to categorize. All
Speaker 3: of the members of this movement as agitators because of
Speaker 3: a couple of bad apples or whatever, if you will.
Speaker 3: Got to hate that term, but it's what we have.
Speaker 3: So there's a belief in direct action, confrontation, and at
Speaker 3: times violence. That can include things like actual weapons, pepper spray,
Speaker 3: brass knuckles, throwing bricks through store windows and cars, vandalism, graffiti,
Speaker 3: knives and you know, switchblades, things like that that are
Speaker 3: easily conceivable, and in the modern day, it can include
Speaker 3: internet based tactics, things like doxing, when you release people's
Speaker 3: personal information or basically, you know, just outright misinformation, spreading
Speaker 3: about individuals and trying to ruin people's reputations online. So
Speaker 3: for example, releasing personal information about a victim online, getting
Speaker 3: someone fired for their political views, putting them on blast
Speaker 3: in that way, not in a positive way, which someone
Speaker 3: maybe deserves it, but I guess deserving it depends on
Speaker 3: side of the argument you're on. Some of these folks
Speaker 3: who are righteously indignant might believe that they are doing
Speaker 3: the right thing that that's not really the point. So
Speaker 3: why are there so many conflicting narratives and is there
Speaker 3: one way?
Speaker 2: Is there like a truth core to this whole thing.
Speaker 2: So it really does take us back to the main
Speaker 2: problem here. And that's in the same way when you're
Speaker 2: dealing with a group that has no leader, right, that
Speaker 2: has no head, that has no mission statement essentially for
Speaker 2: the entire group, and control you know, from one sector
Speaker 2: or from one governing board, however you want to put it,
Speaker 2: Just like Anonymous, the same thing with Antifa, there is
Speaker 2: nobody at the helm. It is like minded people that
Speaker 2: identify as this movement as Antifa. And again, much like
Speaker 2: groups like Anonymous with Antifa, when someone claims they are
Speaker 2: on Tifa, they are on Tifa. That's how it goes, right,
Speaker 2: and that's.
Speaker 6: Your qualification is wanting to be that right?
Speaker 2: Yes, and then generally, you know, there's no swag to
Speaker 2: buy necessarily. I'm sure you could find it somewhere on Pinterest.
Speaker 2: Somebody's got an amazing Antifa store there.
Speaker 1: It's not like the KKK or the Communist Party. I'm
Speaker 1: picking two different organizations, so I'm not picking anyone. Like
Speaker 1: you want to be in the Communist Party, you have
Speaker 1: to apply dual body, you have to join, there's a membership,
Speaker 1: there are probably dues. KKK is the same they have ranks,
Speaker 1: they have a hierarchy that doesn't exist in this concept.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like the Crips and the Bloods who both
Speaker 2: had their own soda in Atlanta at least for a
Speaker 2: while there thanks to Killer Mike. Good on you, Killer Mike.
Speaker 2: You know you have to you have to look at
Speaker 2: this in from both sides, right, And that's what we're
Speaker 2: tempting to do today. So not only do you just
Speaker 2: get to decide that you're Antifa and then you be
Speaker 2: come Antifa. In the same way, if you have an opponent,
Speaker 2: let's say, or someone that you dislike their views with
Speaker 2: and you label them through your words or actions Antifa,
Speaker 2: then guess what they are until that person comes forward
Speaker 2: improves that they are not right.
Speaker 1: And then you could say, that's exactly what an ANTIFA
Speaker 1: member would say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, Matt. The definition is dangerously malleable if
Speaker 1: you think about it. It's like beauty or pornography. The
Speaker 1: definition all too often lies in the eye of the beholder.
Speaker 1: And for anyone interested in what a problem those two
Speaker 1: definitions have been, I would recommend checking out the court
Speaker 1: case in the US pertaining to James Joyce's ulysses where
Speaker 1: the I think the deciding legal opinion was some high
Speaker 1: faluting version of pornography is pornography. Everybody knows what it
Speaker 1: is when they see it.
Speaker 3: With maple Thorpe as well. Sorry, I mean to know,
Speaker 3: you're totally right, and that's problematic because that's how Antifa
Speaker 3: is used as well, where we don't have a good definition,
Speaker 3: but it's used by people in power as Oh, that's
Speaker 3: what it is because I know it when I see it.
Speaker 1: And it's this slippery definition that fuels the numerous ongoing
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories about Antifa. What are we talking about? We'll
Speaker 1: tell you after a word from our sponsor. Here's where
Speaker 1: it gets crazy. First, I you know, thinking about this
Speaker 1: off air, it's it's always it's like a fireworks show.
Speaker 1: Do we save the big explosion for the end or
Speaker 1: do we start big? I feel like we have to
Speaker 1: start big with the most prevalent conspiracy theory about Antifa.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know where you're going with us, Ben, Oh boy,
Speaker 2: don't know exactly where you're going, So all right, all right,
Speaker 2: let's just do it. So the first thing you've probably
Speaker 2: read likely on Facebook. I'm gonna bet Facebook maybe Twitter
Speaker 2: to Twitter. Actually, you know what, anywhere on social media,
Speaker 2: you've probably heard something on there about how on tifa
Speaker 2: and tifa whatever it is. You know what are these
Speaker 2: groups of all these differing contradictory aims. Somehow all of
Speaker 2: these people are knowingly working together in secret and have
Speaker 2: a leader.
Speaker 3: They actually have a leader, right.
Speaker 2: People who really put this theory forward, or people who
Speaker 2: at least believe it right, they will argue something like
Speaker 2: astroturfing that we've talked about a lot on this show,
Speaker 2: where essentially there would be a lot of varying groups
Speaker 2: standing in that you would see in the spotlight, right,
Speaker 2: but they're actually standing in for something else, and the group, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's kind of like a front company. But
Speaker 2: in this case, it would be as though every time
Speaker 2: you see a big group of protesters, they aren't actually
Speaker 2: there of their own volition. They aren't actually there to
Speaker 2: protest something. They're being paid to be there. They're like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, straw end protesters. I don't know what
Speaker 2: to say about that, guys. But ultimately, people who believe
Speaker 2: this would put forward that these these really wealthy, generally
Speaker 2: left wing individuals and groups are the ones that are
Speaker 2: behind Antifa. They're the ones funding them, radicalizing them, putting
Speaker 2: them on buses or in other ways to send them
Speaker 2: to towns and cities everywhere to wreak havoc on the
Speaker 2: United States on both the status quo, on the infrastructure,
Speaker 2: on the economy, on everything. And they're doing it for
Speaker 2: their own nefarious and probably for money and power reasons.
Speaker 3: But Matt, a leader of this type would have to
Speaker 3: be very, very wealthy and have lots of resources and
Speaker 3: also wield a lot of influence politically.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, there is a prominent figure here that you
Speaker 2: have likely heard many many times before, mister George Soros.
Speaker 6: Oh yes, you know him, you love him.
Speaker 3: George Soros.
Speaker 1: He's a billionaire. As of May, his estimated net worth
Speaker 1: was in the ballpark of eight point three billion dollars.
Speaker 1: Fellow listeners, It's important to keep in mind, however, that
Speaker 1: every person at that level of wealth is more than
Speaker 1: capable of hiding the full extent of their assets. So
Speaker 1: while that's a good financial guess, you should not take
Speaker 1: it as gospel. Soros has been accused of so many things.
Speaker 1: He's he occurs in conspiracy lore, not as often as
Speaker 1: the Rothschild's, but he's an up and comer on the charts.
Speaker 1: He's been accused of vowing to destroy the United States.
Speaker 1: Reuters claimed to have debunked this, but the belief remains.
Speaker 1: He's also been accused of outright owning Antifah, kind of
Speaker 1: the way you would own maybe a trademark or a
Speaker 1: company or a battalion. And he's been accused of owning
Speaker 1: the Black Lives Matter movement as well. This comes from
Speaker 1: one of his primary political enterprises is something called the
Speaker 1: Open Society Foundation. Longtime listeners, you know that innocuous names
Speaker 1: with a lot of money behind them usually means something
Speaker 1: something fishing.
Speaker 6: Might be going on.
Speaker 1: Just be suspicious anyway. This foundation OSF claims that they
Speaker 1: support the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement, and
Speaker 1: they support the aims of other protests, but that they
Speaker 1: do not pay these organizations. They don't pay them to organize,
Speaker 1: they don't importantly pay protesters to show up, and the
Speaker 1: leaders of Black Lives Matter say that they're relatively dis
Speaker 1: centralized group.
Speaker 6: However, you do a little.
Speaker 1: Bit of digging, Open Society Foundation makes a lot of donations,
Speaker 1: they create a lot of grants. They did set up
Speaker 1: a twelve million dollar grant and this is the verbatim
Speaker 1: quote here to help organizations fighting institutional racism. They also
Speaker 1: donate to a number of related groups things that ally
Speaker 1: with their aims across the planet. And it's concluding things
Speaker 1: like planned parenthood. It's including things, you know, like groups
Speaker 1: that try to address systemic or institutional racism. So kind
Speaker 1: of this the heart of this conspiracy sort of hinges
Speaker 1: on whether what's the difference between a donation and what's
Speaker 1: the difference between out and out payment, Like are you
Speaker 1: giving people support because you believe in their mission or
Speaker 1: are you paying them to do to do a specific task,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, and also it arises the question of whether
Speaker 2: or not by supporting you are talking about bussing in
Speaker 2: protesters or some action like that, which is something that occurs.
Speaker 2: We've seen it happen in the past for you know,
Speaker 2: various protests for various photo opportunities that have occurred in
Speaker 2: the past. It is a real thing that has occurred
Speaker 2: where people are shipped in from other places on purpose
Speaker 2: by a group that is willing to pay the money
Speaker 2: for the bus.
Speaker 3: Right, But is that inherently like bad or a criokeet
Speaker 3: or disingenuous. I mean, you know, people who support certain
Speaker 3: political parties might bus folks into the polls who couldn't
Speaker 3: get a ride otherwise, or you know, I mean, isn't
Speaker 3: this just a way of supporting a movement.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying it's bad. I'm saying we know that
Speaker 2: that occurs, and it is possible there if you were,
Speaker 2: let's say, going to pay several bus loads of people
Speaker 2: to go, like you're paying for the bus and giving
Speaker 2: each person there a small amount of money, who is
Speaker 2: going to go and spend their day doing that? That
Speaker 2: would be riding the line, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean these are both fantastic points. I guess
Speaker 1: I would say, like, first off, I can't speak for
Speaker 1: everybody in the conspiracy stuff fam, but I've never donated
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. What I have donated, you know, has
Speaker 1: not at this point at least reached some threshold where
Speaker 1: an organization cares specifically what I want. Like if I
Speaker 1: donate to a literacy fund, they're not going to me
Speaker 1: and going, oh, you know, is there any book you
Speaker 1: don't want kids.
Speaker 6: Or the elderly to read? They don't care.
Speaker 1: I'll just get a letter that says, hey, thanks for
Speaker 1: agreeing with us that people should be able to read.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how much power is there, you know,
Speaker 1: but but that point about what services are rendered or
Speaker 1: you know, what that money is supporting. It's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, the argument is like with the Tea party argument,
Speaker 1: where people said, these folks might think their grassroots testers,
Speaker 1: but they're being funded and pushed into the forefront by
Speaker 1: very powerful right wing entities, and that that did turn
Speaker 1: out to be at least partially true.
Speaker 6: I just don't know.
Speaker 1: I think also, I've got to I don't know about
Speaker 1: you guys, but I have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: billionaire prejudice. I just like, we see the way that
Speaker 1: countries with less money than Soros are able to already
Speaker 1: influence elections right in a tremendously effective way. So isn't
Speaker 1: it kind of circuitous to like take the long road
Speaker 1: around when you could just buy politicians.
Speaker 6: I don't know. Maybe it's about the journey. I don't
Speaker 6: know what it's like to be a billionaire.
Speaker 2: Whatever it's about, I think it is worth us doing
Speaker 2: an entire episode on George Soros because there are so
Speaker 2: many current conspiracies surrounding him, that it would be worth
Speaker 2: our time just to look into him and all his
Speaker 2: various groups and see what we can discover.
Speaker 6: Yeah, people on, here's where it gets crazy. We're asking
Speaker 6: for that as well.
Speaker 1: So agreed. Okay, So that's like the big tents. That's
Speaker 1: what you're most likely to hear about antifa conspiracies. And
Speaker 1: it's not always Soros. We just think he's an excellent
Speaker 1: example because he is so prevalent in these ideas. But
Speaker 1: there are other antifa conspiracies out there, and some of
Speaker 1: them might surprise you, I guess because first group the
Speaker 1: anti antifa conspiracies, the anti anti fascist conspiray, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, yes, And to jump into these anti antifa conspiracies,
Speaker 2: it would be really helpful if you could take your
Speaker 2: mind back to the good old days of Batman. And
Speaker 2: now when I say the good old days of Batman,
Speaker 2: I mean just before Ben Affleck got involved.
Speaker 3: So like.
Speaker 2: Around the time of Batman begins in the Dark Knight,
Speaker 2: there is specifically in the Dark Knight there is this
Speaker 2: amazing scene where mikeel Kaine comes in and he says,
Speaker 2: some men just want to watch world Bone And I
Speaker 2: think he's right now, I'm just joking. I don't know
Speaker 2: if he's right or not, but that is the accusation
Speaker 2: of Antifa or groups calling themselves out or people identifying
Speaker 2: themselves as that and wearing you know, shirts that have
Speaker 2: it written on them that are usually black. But the
Speaker 2: concept here is that, you know, the true motives behind
Speaker 2: this group or people believing that is the abs It's
Speaker 2: essentially chaos, but the absolute dissolution of any kind of government,
Speaker 2: any kind of ruling faction that exists, and just bringing
Speaker 2: us all back to zero. It kind of reminds me
Speaker 2: of mister Robot in a way, like it reminds me
Speaker 2: a bit of the F Society from from that show
Speaker 2: and series.
Speaker 3: Just occurred to me that maybe the F Society stands
Speaker 3: for like F society.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is very true. Yeah, well the problem here
Speaker 2: is that they're not you know, people making this accuisation
Speaker 2: aren't necessarily wrong, but they also aren't necessarily right either.
Speaker 2: There's it's all of this stuff. It's such a great
Speaker 2: area because there's probably some truth in that concept that
Speaker 2: there are people who identify themselves as Antifa that would
Speaker 2: like to see some of the major you know, governing
Speaker 2: bodies and governments across the world just kind of having
Speaker 2: to start over at least to some degree, right, I
Speaker 2: mean there anarchists are real. Anarchists are probably at least
Speaker 2: to an extent involved in Antifa gatherings, let's say, or
Speaker 2: people who identify themselves as that. But how much or
Speaker 2: how little like what that actual influence is. We just
Speaker 2: have no idea. We honestly nobody has any idea.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: I mean it ties into the other, the other anti
Speaker 1: antifa idea of subverting the rule of law. Right, Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a billionaire individual like Soros, Sometimes it's a group
Speaker 1: accused of one world ordering the planet, like the CFR
Speaker 1: or something. And then sometimes it's just plain old anarchists
Speaker 1: want to see the world burn. This does tie d though,
Speaker 1: with the other conspiracy of using well intentioned movements to
Speaker 1: as a vehicle to push for a different, unrelated violent agenda.
Speaker 1: This thing works, though, That's the problem with this one.
Speaker 1: We know even the most cursory study of human history
Speaker 1: shows that people are easily led and easily misled. So
Speaker 1: this idea is that factions of Antifa, whatever their origins,
Speaker 1: whatever their motivations may actually be, will infiltrate an otherwise
Speaker 1: peaceful protests or movement and then try to push it
Speaker 1: further and further toward radicalization and violence. Like you know,
Speaker 1: like let's say, Nol, Matt, Alexis, and Paul are all
Speaker 1: it at a prot test, a peaceful protest against the
Speaker 1: closing of the local Applebee's, and then some other guy
Speaker 1: that no one has met shows up and is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: they should keep the apple bees open. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, you know, if you think about it, we
Speaker 1: should burn down the chilis next to the street, you know,
Speaker 1: this the next street over. We're like, no, we're peaceful
Speaker 1: apple Bee's people. They're like, yeah, well, you can't be
Speaker 1: a peaceful Applebee's person if you're not also burning down
Speaker 1: that Chili's.
Speaker 3: Well, isn't this a lot of the same stuff we
Speaker 3: covered in the Agent Provocateurs episode. I mean it really
Speaker 3: they do kind of go hand in hand, the idea
Speaker 3: of someone infiltrating a cause that has one particular aim
Speaker 3: that could well be peaceful protests, and then trying to
Speaker 3: kind of cause i don't know, cause division within those
Speaker 3: ranks and try to convince people to lash out and
Speaker 3: do violent things in the interest of either co opting
Speaker 3: that movement or potentially even having the protest be shut down,
Speaker 3: you know, to aid theirular you know, viewpoints, or you know,
Speaker 3: would you say these things are related, Ben.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, you know that's I would categorize that as
Speaker 1: a left wing Antifa conspiracy. So that's the that's the
Speaker 1: crazy part you'll hear about the right wing antifa conspiracies.
Speaker 1: But you may be surprised to learn organizations that are political,
Speaker 1: that are affiliated with the political left are often themselves
Speaker 1: not automatically fans of what they consider antifa. Part of
Speaker 1: that is the agent provocateur question. You know, we've covered
Speaker 1: that in other episodes. But that's not a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: That's an active conspiracy tactic. It happened before, it's maybe
Speaker 1: happening now. In my opinion, it probably is happening now,
Speaker 1: and it will definitely happen in the future. Uh. We
Speaker 1: know also that left a lot of left wing institutions, movements,
Speaker 1: and groups have a huge problem with antifa direct action
Speaker 1: and they say that this this action, violent action, whatever
Speaker 1: the motivation or intention on the part of protesters, creates
Speaker 1: more problems than it solves.
Speaker 3: So what makes antifa in particular different from other movements.
Speaker 3: We'll talk more about that after a quick break, and
Speaker 3: we're back with the question what makes antifa different? Why
Speaker 3: is it so special? Why is it popping up now
Speaker 3: more than in the past. And we've discussed that it's
Speaker 3: historically been a thing for for a while. There are
Speaker 3: some purported crimes of the Antifa movement, or you know,
Speaker 3: the multiple movements that exist under this kind of umbrella.
Speaker 3: One of them is something called black block tactics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and when you're talking about black block, this is
Speaker 2: something you've undoubtedly heard about or seen videos of somewhere,
Speaker 2: if not on live leaks than in other places. Generally speaking,
Speaker 2: you would describe a black block that's bloc as a
Speaker 2: group that deploys some kind of violent tactic in you know,
Speaker 2: one form or another during a protest that is occurring
Speaker 2: for another completely other reason or you know, an individual
Speaker 2: reason for that protest, the black block would be there independently,
Speaker 2: right and they would be doing things like we've seen vandalism,
Speaker 2: destruction of some kind of property occurring, you know, while
Speaker 2: the protest is going on. A lot of times a
Speaker 2: group that we would call a black block would be
Speaker 2: targeting sites of significance to probably the economy. That's a
Speaker 2: very popular one to government. You know, any kind of
Speaker 2: building like a city hall or something, a bank, headquarters
Speaker 2: of a large corporation, there would be what would be
Speaker 2: considered or described as rioting. They would, you know, do something.
Speaker 2: This one's a little lighter fair, but you know, demonstrating
Speaker 2: without a permit or outside of a free speech zone.
Speaker 1: I think that's an important one. When we were what
Speaker 1: is in Chile in Santiago, we saw a lot of
Speaker 1: kind of black block things, but they were escalating in
Speaker 1: step with the police, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 1: South and Central America has heavily militarized police forces. But
Speaker 1: calling and demonstrating illegally it sounds like a small thing,
Speaker 1: but if you withdraw the legal means to demonstrate, then
Speaker 1: every demonstration is illegal. I think there's some tricky things
Speaker 1: that legal authorities can do there.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even the act of demonstrating you are knowingly
Speaker 2: bringing about a police response, right, so if it if
Speaker 2: it's not legal to do that, you know that's going
Speaker 2: to happen. So then essentially a group like this would
Speaker 2: or functioning as this would prepare they preferre defenses essentially
Speaker 2: you know, barricades. They would encourage others to come out,
Speaker 2: you know, with them and do the same thing. They
Speaker 2: would provide perhaps weaponry or other equipment for others, as
Speaker 2: well as providing medical care on site for anybody who's
Speaker 2: injured in their efforts.
Speaker 3: So why are they called this why Black blocks bloc?
Speaker 3: By the way, they are known for really leaning heavily
Speaker 3: on remaining anonymous, wearing black clothes, covering their face, and
Speaker 3: identifying marks like tattoos. That being said, though, these are
Speaker 3: all things that are any protesters are going to be
Speaker 3: doing now a lot of especially with the pandemic, it
Speaker 3: can be a lot harder to differentiate these groups. And
Speaker 3: we in our episode about protesting one oh one, we
Speaker 3: made it pretty clear that it's a good idea to
Speaker 3: cover any identifying marks, et cetera. But here's the thing
Speaker 3: moving in a unified mass, the being they can't get
Speaker 3: us all. And that's true of any kind of I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't want to characterize this as like a
Speaker 3: gang or any kind of thing like that. That's not
Speaker 3: the same thing. But that is a tactic that folks
Speaker 3: that are saying like motorcycle gangs would employ they ride
Speaker 3: in a group because you can't chase down everybody. You
Speaker 3: think people can divide and conquer and split and just
Speaker 3: kind of cause the authorities to be overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's still sort of the case, right, That
Speaker 1: sort of works for any I mean, that's the reason
Speaker 1: why if you want to get away with a robbery
Speaker 1: of a small business, you go in with twenty people
Speaker 1: and you move out fast. There is a power in numbers.
Speaker 1: It's an arguable, but it might not always make you anonymous.
Speaker 1: In the future, the surveillance state has been expanding. We've
Speaker 1: been in a massive expansion this phase of that since
Speaker 1: post nine to eleven. It hasn't stopped since. Pretty in
Speaker 1: the future, it's conceivable that it doesn't matter what you
Speaker 1: wear or where you leave your phone, authorities will be
Speaker 1: able to find you or at least make a plausible
Speaker 1: case against you and then proceed from there. Probably another
Speaker 1: tactic that differentiates Antifa in the mind of the mainstream
Speaker 1: media is property damage. It and it can feel pretty
Speaker 1: you know. I don't know about anybody else again speak
Speaker 1: for anybody else, but it feels a little off and
Speaker 1: pretty cold when you're seeing protests about massive injustices and
Speaker 1: loss of human life. And then the first thing someone
Speaker 1: in authority says about it is like, we have to
Speaker 1: protect the corporate building, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: what what is the hierarchy? Where do where do people
Speaker 1: stand in relation to property? It's an ongoing argument in
Speaker 1: this country. So the idea here is that antifa is
Speaker 1: different from a lot of other protests groups or ideologies
Speaker 1: because purposeful physical violence is in place somehow. So in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, Active is self identifying as Antifa or Black Block.
Speaker 6: We're accused of throwing.
Speaker 1: Molotov cocktails causing one hundred thousand dollars worth of damage
Speaker 1: in the Berkeley protest February seventeenth, twenty seventeen. So that's
Speaker 1: like one example. You can find a bunch of other
Speaker 1: examples as as well, and they're often What's weird about
Speaker 1: this is a lot of the accusations of violence against
Speaker 1: people or against property on the side of protesters is
Speaker 1: leveled at antifah when it's when people calling themselves Antifa
Speaker 1: show up as counter protesters to write wing events, you know,
Speaker 1: unit the ride or like a I don't know what
Speaker 1: I making up a plausible title in my head would
Speaker 1: be like freedom rally, I don't know, sort of like.
Speaker 3: In movies that don't have a lot of budget, where
Speaker 3: you see products and it's like a jug of milk
Speaker 3: that just says milk, you know, or like a thing
Speaker 3: of juice that just says orange juice.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: It's like that.
Speaker 1: But the thing here, though, that's interesting is that proponents
Speaker 1: of Antifa, their supporters or people who say, you know,
Speaker 1: they identify with this or related movements, they'll argue that
Speaker 1: the media is misleading people that what is characterized as
Speaker 1: purposeful violence is often instead self defense. And this is
Speaker 1: something you brought up, Matt, that I think is a
Speaker 1: very very interesting thought that doesn't get addressed often enough.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, sure. And it goes back to the nineteen
Speaker 2: thirties again, this time instead of in Germany, in Britain,
Speaker 2: and they had their own anti fascist movement there Antifa
Speaker 2: when there was a group gaining in popularity, a political
Speaker 2: group gaining popularity. They were known as British Union of Fascists,
Speaker 2: at least according to reporting done by Vox and around
Speaker 2: that time, in nineteen thirty six, this group was attempting
Speaker 2: to have a large parade. Okay, this is place called
Speaker 2: Cable Street in London there and what this group did,
Speaker 2: the British anti fascist group did was actually throw homemade
Speaker 2: bombs and bricks and other weapons at this group attempting
Speaker 2: to have a parade down the street to the point
Speaker 2: where they had to leave. The whole point here was
Speaker 2: to preemptively attack them in self defense, and which sounds crazy,
Speaker 2: but the reasoning here is to defend against the possibility
Speaker 2: that a fascist group would eventually come to power, right,
Speaker 2: so they're defending themselves now for what the future would
Speaker 2: hold if this group came to power. It's it's logically difficult,
Speaker 2: but imagine if you could have done that prior to
Speaker 2: the Nazis getting to power, and you did it effectively
Speaker 2: enough where the Nazi just had to go home and
Speaker 2: be sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but but that's the time travel question. You don't
Speaker 1: know what happens because you're changing the timeline and history
Speaker 1: is obdurate. History doesn't always hinge on one person. Guarantee
Speaker 1: you if you go back in time in that era
Speaker 1: of Germany, pre rise of Nazi power and Adolf Hitler,
Speaker 1: and you kill Aidolf Hitler as a child, there will
Speaker 1: probably still be a Nazi party there will just be
Speaker 1: a different lunatic making speeches and you'll be locked up
Speaker 1: because you went back in time. And as far as
Speaker 1: they can tell, you just killed a baby.
Speaker 6: That's it.
Speaker 2: You're not a hero. Yeah, well, you know, it does
Speaker 2: go back to the United States campaign of preemptive strikes
Speaker 2: against a lot of countries in the Middle East that
Speaker 2: were occurring in the early two thousands, like they might
Speaker 2: attack us someday. Yeah, it's weird because I think anybody
Speaker 2: listening with a critical enough mind can see both sides
Speaker 2: of that. I think you can see the concept of
Speaker 2: wanting to protect yourself against a group that may arise
Speaker 2: to power that would be very dangerous at least that
Speaker 2: you believe personally that would be very dangerous, and also
Speaker 2: that you're not You can't predict the future.
Speaker 3: That's man.
Speaker 2: It is just okay, it's a it's a complicated process
Speaker 2: of thinking through.
Speaker 1: Well, let's look at it from another side too. I
Speaker 1: think this is a tremendously important thought. So let's flip
Speaker 1: flip it a little bit, flip the narrative and say
Speaker 1: what if in the halls of power? The argument is, look,
Speaker 1: we're playing fast and loose with the Constitution. We're cutting
Speaker 1: some corners because we are preemptively defending the country because
Speaker 1: Antifa may be you know, primarily known as protesting groups now,
Speaker 1: but we think they're going to be terrorists. That's not
Speaker 1: just the thought experiment that's litter early. What's what's happening
Speaker 1: or what's what's kind of in the mix in the
Speaker 1: in the dirty, dirty cauldrid known as Twitter.
Speaker 3: Well, and that's sort of where we get to the
Speaker 3: point we are in terms of the rhetoric surrounding Antifa
Speaker 3: and the way it's used to label folks that may have,
Speaker 3: may have nothing to do with it, may not identify
Speaker 3: as it, or even align with any of these concepts,
Speaker 3: but it's something that the President has used quite effectively
Speaker 3: to label folks who disagree with him or his policies
Speaker 3: or with protests, to to kind of you know, malign
Speaker 3: or in some way diminish the idea of a peaceful
Speaker 3: protest or the idea of the cause that a protests
Speaker 3: might represent. By labeling folks as Antifa and consequently labeling
Speaker 3: Antifa as a terrorist organization, this is something that he
Speaker 3: has pushed for. In June, he tweeted the something to
Speaker 3: that effect and this is absolutely in line with the
Speaker 3: administration and the Justice Department's ongoing argument that antiphok groups
Speaker 3: are the source of violence in all recent protests. And
Speaker 3: yet if you've been paying attention, it's not one thing.
Speaker 3: So it's that absolute leaning into this kind of bundling
Speaker 3: up of labeling this, you know, multiple kind of splintered
Speaker 3: groups into as one thing, all of which must be
Speaker 3: about the exact same thing, which is violence, disruption, agitating,
Speaker 3: and you know, just basically characterizing it as being against
Speaker 3: the rule of law.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course, you know, anyone can have any
Speaker 1: intention they want at any time, just like an opinion.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to the law, there are tricky
Speaker 1: things there. The US doesn't really have the legal mechanism
Speaker 1: to do what the current administration wants to have done.
Speaker 1: The US government only formally designates foreign groups as terrorist
Speaker 1: organizations or ftos, and that means the actions have to
Speaker 1: be taken internationally through a larger organization. Right, the Soros
Speaker 1: theory would have to be real and Antifa or people
Speaker 1: identifying as that. To your point, Matt, they do exist
Speaker 1: in other countries. It's not an American enterprise. It started
Speaker 1: in Europe. But those folks are acting autonomously. They just
Speaker 1: sort of agree that they would like to use the
Speaker 1: same methods. So it doesn't seem like that meets the
Speaker 1: requirements for the State Department to label it a terrorist organization.
Speaker 1: But again, what's in a name, what's in a designation?
Speaker 1: Federal law enforcement already uses domestic terrorism categories to organize
Speaker 1: and describe cases right where they bring up the name
Speaker 1: or the phrase antifah, And then there are already a
Speaker 1: host of anti terrorism laws that authorities can use against
Speaker 1: what are called domestic extremists. So we get we really
Speaker 1: quickly fall into legalese here, But as we know, in
Speaker 1: a post nine to eleven world, that kind of kind
Speaker 1: of legalese is too often words and wind, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and the practice, the practice can be
Speaker 1: very very different. On the ground, we should say, of course,
Speaker 1: that people who identify as anarchists and activists using these
Speaker 1: tactics disagree, surprise, surprise, with the administration's claims. They say
Speaker 1: there's not any evidence. And then some other people say, well,
Speaker 1: shouldn't you consider designating far right extremist groups terrorists?
Speaker 6: As well?
Speaker 3: Fair question? Yeah, I mean, remember when the FBI tried
Speaker 3: to label Juggalos as a terrorist organization.
Speaker 6: Oh I thought it was just a gang.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. Sorry, my potato, patato. No, they're very different.
Speaker 3: But no, you're absolutely right. It does point to a
Speaker 3: political motive. One cannot, at least at the very least,
Speaker 3: it's hard to argue with that.
Speaker 2: It is weird that the Anti Defamation League actually had
Speaker 2: some information on this, and their findings were that well,
Speaker 2: well over seventy percent of murders that would be considered
Speaker 2: extremist essentially that have occurred within the United States were
Speaker 2: committed by groups that they would describe as far right
Speaker 2: or a white supremacist. That's pretty interesting. Seventy percent of
Speaker 2: those at least according to the Anti Defamation League. And
Speaker 2: you know, as you can probably imagine, if you don't
Speaker 2: believe that statistic, if you don't agree with a group
Speaker 2: or organization like the Anti Defamation League, you probably disagree
Speaker 2: with that statement, right or do you believe it's the opposite.
Speaker 2: A lot of this ends up coming down to belief, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: So what has the government itself done in response to
Speaker 2: these concepts about antifa and the rumors and conspiracies that
Speaker 2: have been roiling up around them.
Speaker 1: Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. The problem is that there's not a unified
Speaker 1: response the US. The current US administration maintains a view
Speaker 1: that ANTIFAJ should be considered a terrorist group and subject
Speaker 1: to the considerations that definition includes. But Mark Bray, the
Speaker 1: author you mentioned at the top. Matt says that this
Speaker 1: is an attempt to control the conversation and shift it
Speaker 1: away from what he describes as widespread socioeconomic discontent in
Speaker 1: the US, which you know, goes across all levels. We're
Speaker 1: being honest, and there's not like one group of people.
Speaker 1: There's not one large group of people that's super happy, right,
Speaker 1: And he says that there's a mathematical problem here. He
Speaker 1: believes that there are literally not enough members of various
Speaker 1: ANTIFAG groups out there to be doing all the stuff
Speaker 1: that the DOJ, by the way, and the administration are
Speaker 1: claiming that they have done. So yeah, and then you'll
Speaker 1: see other of course, the ideas in municipal, regional level governments,
Speaker 1: state level governments may differ. Your individual mileage may vary.
Speaker 1: That's the problem. There was a report by a national
Speaker 1: counter terrorism unit in January of twenty twenty I want
Speaker 1: to say that found the same thing they were, Like,
Speaker 1: no one's on the same page about this.
Speaker 6: We have these serious gaps.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we can go out and call
Speaker 1: a group terrorist and just keep changing the definition of
Speaker 1: what terrorism is or what that group is until we
Speaker 1: get it to work, because.
Speaker 6: That's a little bit like, well, far be it for
Speaker 6: me to say the.
Speaker 3: F word fascism?
Speaker 7: Right, Yeah, it's a little bit right to like, Look,
Speaker 7: we all love improvisation, love improv yes, and is such
Speaker 7: a such a beautiful panacea balm?
Speaker 6: But does improvisation belong in these kind of things?
Speaker 1: Does it belong in government?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's true. But there's definitely
Speaker 3: a lot of things that don't belong in government, but
Speaker 3: we see them every day, and improvisations certainly become a
Speaker 3: big one.
Speaker 1: Yes, And this is an ongoing story. Sorry I'm not above,
Speaker 1: but this is an ongoing story because right now, if
Speaker 1: this would if this perspective was pushed through and this
Speaker 1: designation became closer to being a reality, no one really
Speaker 1: knows what would happen. We haven't been to that like
Speaker 1: part of constitutional argument.
Speaker 3: Yet.
Speaker 1: Constitutional scholars are the majority of them are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this would be illegal, but no one can No one
Speaker 1: has one hundred percent proof about that.
Speaker 6: Like we, it would be an argument.
Speaker 1: And while it was being an argument, you can bet
Speaker 1: your bottom dollar that forces on the ground would just
Speaker 1: act like, you know, the argument have been decided in
Speaker 1: whichever way they wish, whatever that way might be, And
Speaker 1: that's where we're at. We tried on this one to
Speaker 1: give an objective view of antifought and the conspiracies and
Speaker 1: the differing narratives about it, and also the huge again,
Speaker 1: the huge, the tremendous problems with definitions. If I start
Speaker 1: calling people pop farts and the definition of a pop
Speaker 1: fart is that I think you're a pop fart, then
Speaker 1: it just depends on what kind of day I'm ating
Speaker 1: right as to whether or not you were prosecuted as
Speaker 1: a pop fart.
Speaker 3: That's just yeah.
Speaker 2: Best pop farts out there are definitely strawberry frosted, just
Speaker 2: so everybody's aware.
Speaker 3: I like the cinnamon sugar ones myself. I can't stand them, really, Okay,
Speaker 3: I guess, uh, I guess we're on two sides of
Speaker 3: the pop part divide here. My friend, I'm a Smores guy.
Speaker 3: I like the Spores Ones two. No, I like this
Speaker 3: Smores one too, because they've got the Graham cracker or
Speaker 3: kind of crust you know that really sets them apart.
Speaker 3: But it's the same as like, you know, this labeling
Speaker 3: thing is something that we see too in in in
Speaker 3: political rhetoric, where people are given kind of insulting nicknames
Speaker 3: and it starts to kind of sink into the public
Speaker 3: con when you repeat something enough. Our brains tend to
Speaker 3: bucket things in those ways that you were talking about.
Speaker 3: Then at the top of the show, our brains look
Speaker 3: for patterns, and that could be something as simple as saying,
Speaker 3: you know, farty binn Bolan, but before you know it,
Speaker 3: people think Ben Bollen's got a flatulence problem. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: I'm just sticking with the fart thing here, you know.
Speaker 3: But it's it's true, and the words are very powerful
Speaker 3: and Antifa because it's such a pithy, little brand name
Speaker 3: sounding thing. It's something that's very easy to lump folks into,
Speaker 3: even if you don't really know what it is, which
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't seem to.
Speaker 2: So we would love to know your opinion about all
Speaker 2: of this. Are you extremely anti antifa or are you
Speaker 2: down with whatever that cause represents?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: According to you, are you like Chandler, We're a steck
Speaker 2: of Charlotte, North Carolina, who, according to the intercept, wrote
Speaker 2: wrote a message to the FBI and was all like, hey,
Speaker 2: I lead Antifa over here in Charlotte.
Speaker 3: What's up?
Speaker 2: And then they totally came out to his house to
Speaker 2: have a little chat with him. Read the intercept. By
Speaker 2: the way, that story is called, he tweeted that he
Speaker 2: was the leader of Antifa. Then the FBI asked him
Speaker 2: to be an informant. It's fantastic, but you know, how really,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about this? What do you think
Speaker 2: about it? We would love to know your opinion, especially
Speaker 2: if you identify as Antifa or you are part of
Speaker 2: a group that would consider themselves Antifa. We'd love to
Speaker 2: hear from you and just know your story. You can
Speaker 2: contact us anonymously, by the way, if you wish to
Speaker 2: do that through an email or through a phone call
Speaker 2: that you can just you can talk to us if
Speaker 2: you're worried about your own safety or privacy.
Speaker 6: Right yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, while you're at it, what's your where are you
Speaker 1: at with this whole pop tart pop fart thing. You know,
Speaker 1: we want your opinions. You are the most important part
Speaker 1: of this show and this has nothing to do with anything.
Speaker 1: But I don't know about you all. I'm curious. Why
Speaker 1: is it normal in the US the candy for breakfast?
Speaker 6: Let us know.
Speaker 1: Let us know about the antifas stuff first. That should
Speaker 1: be the priority you can get in com.
Speaker 2: People should be eating bacon, right, just bacon.
Speaker 6: Just bacon, you know it. Let us know.
Speaker 1: You can find us in so many ways. As Matt said,
Speaker 1: you can find us on Facebook. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter. Of the three,
Speaker 1: we highly recommend our Facebook community page. Here's where it
Speaker 1: gets crazy. You can also find us as individuals online.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you'd like to do so. You can find
Speaker 3: me on Instagram. I am at how now, Noel Brown.
Speaker 2: If you want to know my Instagram handle and your upset,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to listen to another episode of Stuff
Speaker 2: they don't want you to know to figure out my handle.
Speaker 3: Well played, Matt, Wait, hold the audience hostage, my man.
Speaker 2: Oh, the master at work, changing the rules as we go.
Speaker 6: Doing a chef kiss for you man.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, you can also so I've been building out
Speaker 1: some survival kits for friends and families. You can watch
Speaker 1: a little bit more of that at Ben Bolan on Instagram.
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter at Ben Bolan HSW.
Speaker 1: But I hate social media, you might be saying, we
Speaker 1: of all people get it. If you have a message
Speaker 1: you'd still like to relate to us, we have a
Speaker 1: phone number you can call.
Speaker 3: That's right. You can reach us at one eight three
Speaker 3: three STDWYTK. Leave a message at the sound of Ben's
Speaker 3: dulcet tone, and I think they're what three and a
Speaker 3: half minutes is ish apiece, So you know, try to
Speaker 3: be brief if you can, but feel free to leave
Speaker 3: a couple if you need to continue the story. And
Speaker 3: now we've got a weekly outlet for these wonderful messages
Speaker 3: from you the most important part of the show, So
Speaker 3: bring them on and you might hear yourself with the show.
Speaker 3: Please be sure to let us know if you want
Speaker 3: to remain anonymous, if you want us to take your
Speaker 3: name out entirely. We've been taking last names out just
Speaker 3: to standard operating procedure, but just let us know if
Speaker 3: you want what level of anonymity you wish, and we.
Speaker 2: Will honor that, and just as a counterpoint, the shorter
Speaker 2: and sweeter you make your message, no matter if it's
Speaker 2: a suggestion or comment or whatever, the better, because honestly,
Speaker 2: we're still in the midst of June messages right now,
Speaker 2: trying to make our way through, so hopefully very soon
Speaker 2: we will catch up.
Speaker 3: But it's a relatively good problem to have. These are
Speaker 3: these are really great stories, and we're finally at a
Speaker 3: place where we can actually kind of push some of
Speaker 3: those out for all of you to hear. I'm personally
Speaker 3: excited about it. Me too.
Speaker 2: I think we're all excited. Just shorter and sweeter could
Speaker 2: be better if you wanted to, if you wanted to.
Speaker 2: If you don't want to do any of that stuff,
Speaker 2: but you still want to contact us, you can always
Speaker 2: reach us at our good old fashioned email.
Speaker 5: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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