Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Nol.
Speaker 4: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 4: super producer called Mission Control Decades. Most importantly are you.
Speaker 4: You are here that makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 4: want you to know. We're going to ask you, folks,
Speaker 4: please please before you jump into this one. As I
Speaker 4: said in episode one, this is deep water. Before you
Speaker 4: jump into part two of the Pentagon's anti vaccination program,
Speaker 4: please check out part one. Here are the facts previously
Speaker 4: on stuff they don't want you to know. Time kind
Speaker 4: of got away from us, don't you think.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we all ended this recording session alarmed
Speaker 3: at how much there was to say about this topic.
Speaker 3: And as you pointed out, then we don't do two
Speaker 3: parters off them, and when we do, we do it
Speaker 3: for a good reason.
Speaker 2: And here we go with part two, just quickly jumping
Speaker 2: to add this just more context. We were talking about
Speaker 2: how there were vaccine fears in the Philippines prior to
Speaker 2: any of this going down, and that is from the
Speaker 2: Reuters investigation. There's someone they interviewed named Lulu Bravo, who's
Speaker 2: the executive director of the Philippine Foundation for a Vaccination,
Speaker 2: who was talking about a dengay fever vaccine that was
Speaker 2: rolled out in twenty sixteen, and because of that rollout,
Speaker 2: there were public concerns about that specific vaccine and a
Speaker 2: lot of skepticism and a lot of social media posts
Speaker 2: very similar to this, that we're making people fearful of
Speaker 2: that specific vaccine, like maybe you shouldn't take it, and
Speaker 2: there were some issues with it.
Speaker 3: Well, let's talk about it even within our own country,
Speaker 3: like things like you know, experiments on you know, African
Speaker 3: American populations that we have literally done and the government
Speaker 3: has subsidized. I know a lot of black folks that
Speaker 3: are friends of mine who didn't take the vaccine because
Speaker 3: of those fears, because they think that like there's a
Speaker 3: definite possibility that whatever this thing is is not good
Speaker 3: for them and is in some way nefarious.
Speaker 4: Here's where it gets crazy. Operation Warp Speed did not
Speaker 4: accomplish all of the things that wanted to accomplish. In fact,
Speaker 4: it stymied some of its own goals. Know, you're talking
Speaker 4: about Tuskegee, I imagine we're also talking about various prison experiments,
Speaker 4: not all of which have been declassified at this time
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty four. Yeah, this happens. This kind of
Speaker 4: stuff happens.
Speaker 3: And that's what's in our own country. Like, of course,
Speaker 3: you know, people, this isn't about our vaccine, but just
Speaker 3: the fact that people would be suspicious of a sort
Speaker 3: of like you better take this now, better take your medicine,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Like well, I think I think anytime any government comes
Speaker 2: for it and says, hey, you have to do this thing.
Speaker 3: That hasn't really been tested that much, there.
Speaker 2: Probably should be some healthy skepticism no matter where you live,
Speaker 2: no matter what government is doing it.
Speaker 4: I mean with the Americans in particular, though, if you
Speaker 4: look at it objectively, all the stuff that the government
Speaker 4: is already okay with people shoving in their bodies, you know,
Speaker 4: the homa high fructose corn syrup right yellow as you
Speaker 4: know what I mean. Anyway, that's I don't know if
Speaker 4: that's a helpful point, but it is true. And we
Speaker 4: do also have to give a great deal of respect
Speaker 4: again to our journalists who broke the story in Reuters
Speaker 4: because they're very fair about what they can and cannot prove.
Speaker 4: Now they have a lot of read between the line implications.
Speaker 4: I think we're talking about this a little off air,
Speaker 4: but they they earned a lot of respect, I think
Speaker 4: when they noted explicitly that they could not quote determine
Speaker 4: how widely the anti vax material another Pentagon planted disinfo
Speaker 4: was viewed, or to what extent the post may have
Speaker 4: caused COVID deaths by dissuading people from getting vaccinated end quote.
Speaker 4: So they're very fair about that. But as we said,
Speaker 4: you know, forty three hundred and sixty one people died
Speaker 4: of COVID in the Philippines by November of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: So people were dying and some of those lives could
Speaker 4: have been saved by vaccinations.
Speaker 3: Can we also point out wasn't Rodrigo Duert It's a
Speaker 3: kind of a megaproblematic figure in the president of the Philippines.
Speaker 3: He like had some really wild policies about murdering, killing,
Speaker 3: executing drug dealers and like some really totalitarian kind of
Speaker 3: things that he had.
Speaker 4: The tatalitarian drunk stepdad energy for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was twenty sixteen when he got elected same
Speaker 2: year as Donald Trump, and it was that anti drug
Speaker 2: campaign with those there were purported death squads that were
Speaker 2: then confirmed where people would just go and commit extra
Speaker 2: judicial killings of drug dealers or people suspected of taking
Speaker 2: drugs or I mean it was.
Speaker 4: Not bad, right, it was Judge Dread level kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: There was not a rule of law instituted if it
Speaker 4: became almost witch hunt like, because an accusation did not
Speaker 4: have to be supported by facts.
Speaker 3: Well, this quote that you got in here, Ben really
Speaker 3: supports exactly what we're talking about, like this kind of
Speaker 3: rhetoric that he's putting out. In June of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: he said in a televised address, you choose vaccine or
Speaker 3: I will have you jailed. There is a crisis. And
Speaker 3: it's funny because this goes counter to his other policy
Speaker 3: or ideals on drug use or whatever. But in this case,
Speaker 3: there is a crisis in this country. I'm just exasperated
Speaker 3: by Filipinos not heating the government.
Speaker 4: Yeah, imagine that in the United States. Imagine if President
Speaker 4: Trump or Biden or yeah, I think your favorite or
Speaker 4: least favorite president. What if Franklin Pierce stood up one
Speaker 4: day and said, everybody, go get this shot or you're
Speaker 4: going to be arrested.
Speaker 3: Well, because the logistics of enacting something like that starts
Speaker 3: to really get into like Nazi level, crystal knock type
Speaker 3: rounding up of certain types, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Like that's when you really start to have to paint
Speaker 3: with a megabroadbrush where it's like and then it's so
Speaker 3: easy to be lumped in with oh, you know an
Speaker 3: and a person that didn't take it, you're just as bad,
Speaker 3: And that's when things go haywire.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's a weird situation. The entire world is
Speaker 2: going through this thing that everybody kind of is on
Speaker 2: the same page that this is a global pandemic to
Speaker 2: the level of like disaster never civilization might and at
Speaker 2: some point if we don't get this under control.
Speaker 3: That was the line I mean, it was It was
Speaker 3: really I felt that way to a degree, you know,
Speaker 3: so it felt very dystopian.
Speaker 2: Well, so you can imagine where someone who's used to
Speaker 2: being able to just say, you know, I don't like
Speaker 2: drug dealers, let's kill them all, is exasperated by the
Speaker 2: populace not listening to him. Anymore.
Speaker 4: Also torn between the the Filipino president is for most
Speaker 4: of recent history, is going to be torn between bigger powers, right,
Speaker 4: and it absolutely absolutely sucks for the people living in
Speaker 4: the Philippines. For you know, we have a lot of
Speaker 4: listeners who are in the Philippines or in the Filipino diaspora,
Speaker 4: you know. And this is something that I think a
Speaker 4: lot of people miss, you know, is the fact that you,
Speaker 4: as a president of this power, you are continually threading the.
Speaker 3: Needlephants make war only the grass.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, And speaking of suffering, I'm kidding. That's not
Speaker 4: the way to set up an a.
Speaker 3: That's fine, It's as good as any other man. This
Speaker 3: is all pretty bummer material.
Speaker 4: We should note this operation, this program, still as of
Speaker 4: yet not officially named, was halted in mid twenty twenty
Speaker 4: one under the Biden administration. It was spring of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one when the n SC, the National Security Council,
Speaker 4: said hey, guys, stop any anti vaccine messaging, and presumably
Speaker 4: you know, this faction of the Pentagon came back and said, yeah,
Speaker 4: but you know, like Greater Good and we don't like China.
Speaker 4: He told us, you know, we don't like China's we're
Speaker 4: we're doing the non China stuff like you guys said
Speaker 4: you guys said that, And then they say, okay, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: no no, you got to be pro vaccine. You got
Speaker 4: to be pro all vaccines. And they're like, yeah, but
Speaker 4: what about you.
Speaker 2: Know you see me that is that freaks me out
Speaker 2: a little bit. You got to be pro vaccine. You
Speaker 2: have to be pro all vaccines. Trust me, oh man,
Speaker 2: Spring of twenty twenty five. We got a big thing
Speaker 2: coming and we need to be pro vaccines.
Speaker 3: It's just supposed to show how little actual truth matters
Speaker 3: in these kind of situations. It's not about truth. It's
Speaker 3: about like toe the line. It's about you know, like
Speaker 3: there is nothing here that is contingent upon what is
Speaker 3: actually real. It is all about like what is our
Speaker 3: goal like in terms of like what are what are
Speaker 3: we trying to accomplish? And that usually involved lying or
Speaker 3: tricking people. It's not about the greater good at all ever,
Speaker 3: mostly Jesus, I'm.
Speaker 4: Sorry, we have to The greater good depends upon the perspective, right,
Speaker 4: And before we go to an ad break, we'll leave
Speaker 4: you with one of my favorite truisms from the Pentagon
Speaker 4: we don't lie. The truth changes. We'll pause for word
Speaker 4: from our sponsors.
Speaker 2: And we've returned. Let's get into it.
Speaker 4: We don't lie. The truth changes. Let's see what the
Speaker 4: experts think. As we said at the top, we want
Speaker 4: to be very careful not to denigrate, you know, the
Speaker 4: millions of people who work the literal millions of people
Speaker 4: who work at the Pentagon who didn't have anything to
Speaker 4: do with this, right. I don't think a memo went
Speaker 4: out on a Friday where they said, hey, everybody, keep
Speaker 4: it under your hat.
Speaker 3: Well, but when you have that level of granular kind
Speaker 3: of like mission creep and stuff, it's a lot easier
Speaker 3: to say I was just following orders. Because your orders
Speaker 3: aren't to execute a person. Your orders aren't to put
Speaker 3: someone in a camp. Your orders are much more minutely
Speaker 3: kind of detailed than that. So even you, as a
Speaker 3: person in acting that order, you don't even see it
Speaker 3: because you don't see the big picture. You're siloed so much.
Speaker 3: You just see the one little thing you're doing, which
Speaker 3: might appear innocuous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of the banality of evil, right, I
Speaker 4: think it was Hannah Arright. The The interesting thing here too,
Speaker 4: in this exploration is that the majority of people who
Speaker 4: do go on record to be identified as individuals from
Speaker 4: their statements. They are former employees, right, They're former officials,
Speaker 4: or they're academics, they're running a nonprofit or a think tank.
Speaker 4: One of these was Greg Trevorton, former US National Intelligence
Speaker 4: Council chairman. These are the folks who are kind of,
Speaker 4: without sounding dismissive, with great affection. They're sort of the
Speaker 4: admin of Washington's spy agencies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're I mean, come on, they're like above the
Speaker 2: sith lords.
Speaker 4: Somehow they put together the pizza parties, which is a
Speaker 4: position of tremendous.
Speaker 2: Power for the sith lords.
Speaker 4: Yes, for the right.
Speaker 3: What do you think sith lords like on their pizza?
Speaker 4: Probably just child's tears.
Speaker 3: Well, I would argue, it's like, you know the often
Speaker 3: in films, bad guys drink milk. Drink milk, thank you,
Speaker 3: Yes exactly. I think they just like straight up extra cheese.
Speaker 4: Excuse me, could I have some milk on this pizza?
Speaker 3: I'd like you to give me a side of milk
Speaker 3: so I can dunk my slice in them and it's
Speaker 3: gonna be.
Speaker 4: A whole milk, no more sloppy pizzas.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, I'll take that milk extra warm, please,
Speaker 2: gues directly from.
Speaker 3: The mother of justice.
Speaker 4: Oh boy, yeah, yeah, she can't see because her eyes
Speaker 4: are closed. But or livefold jokes. Whatever, we'll keep it.
Speaker 4: So Trevorton said something I think everybody would agree with.
Speaker 4: He said, Look, it should have been in our interest
Speaker 4: to get as much vaccine in people's arms as possible.
Speaker 4: He well, not everybody's interest maybe, but he said the
Speaker 4: Pentagon crossed the line by endangering innocent lives for geopolitical gain.
Speaker 4: I think we can agree with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Greg didn't get the memo that the mRNA test
Speaker 2: was going wide, you know, he just didn't know.
Speaker 4: Should you buy the pizza party?
Speaker 3: Do you think they were only willing to roll the
Speaker 3: dice on this campaign geopolitically speaking because they didn't think
Speaker 3: they didn't take it seriously enough. Yet they didn't really
Speaker 3: foresee how many fatalities might result from this.
Speaker 4: I would argue, I don't want to be careful about this.
Speaker 4: I would argue that the reasoning was, this is a
Speaker 4: new vector that we can use in our ongoing argument
Speaker 4: or conflict with China. So this was not necessarily as
Speaker 4: far as the idea of taking it seriously, yes, retrospect
Speaker 4: is always a benefit. But to them, in their mind,
Speaker 4: this is the US is growing desperate right to counter
Speaker 4: this expansionist influence in Southeast Asia, and so any kind
Speaker 4: of foothold or toe hold you can achieve, right, any
Speaker 4: kind of beachhead in this situation is worth pursuing.
Speaker 3: Did you say beachhead?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is that like a like a D Day kind of
Speaker 3: situation like storming the beaches? I don't know, beachhead.
Speaker 2: Two conflicting hedgemonic powers. They're like, yeah, they're fighting on
Speaker 2: that beach.
Speaker 4: Or you know, draw us a picture, what do you
Speaker 4: think of? Beachhead looks like a conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 4: And then we've got policy experts like Timothy Caulfield. He
Speaker 4: put it much more bluntly when he was speaking to
Speaker 4: Scientific American about the news. He said, quote, the United
Speaker 4: States government made a conscious decision to spread misinformation that
Speaker 4: killed people.
Speaker 2: There you go there, So he's not as.
Speaker 4: He's not being as diplomatic nor as uh specific as
Speaker 4: we are.
Speaker 2: Being, yes, exactly. And we also have a reaction from
Speaker 2: the Chinese government as well.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has has
Speaker 4: a lot of on this one email, they said they
Speaker 4: oppose actions to politicize the origins question and to stigmatize China.
Speaker 4: So the origins question is, you know, the idea of
Speaker 4: the provenance of COVID nineteen. Was it a wet market,
Speaker 4: was it a lab in wu had was it a
Speaker 4: secret government up? If so, which government? Those kind of
Speaker 4: questions are pretty sensitive in China just a general. I
Speaker 4: wouldn't bring them up if you travel.
Speaker 2: There, No, don't do that. No, Well, if you take
Speaker 2: your mind back when we think about all of the
Speaker 2: various hypotheses that were out there, official like hypotheses about
Speaker 2: how COVID nineteen began, Like look at all the episodes
Speaker 2: we've done covering the topic, how it has officially changed
Speaker 2: so many times, And there was a lot of success
Speaker 2: on both the United States part and on China's part
Speaker 2: blaming the other side, and lots of official reports that
Speaker 2: came out like oh no, there's no way it was this.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, the lableak is actually probably right. Oh wait, no,
Speaker 2: that's nothing to do, and that's it's it's blasphemous to
Speaker 2: say the lableak is real. Oh wait, no, it's right again.
Speaker 4: Just in the meantime, nations are panic people weirdly washing
Speaker 4: their groceries. Oh well remember that. Yeah, never forget, never forget.
Speaker 4: You're right, You're absolutely right. And China did argue with
Speaker 4: success that they convince people GOVID originated in the United States.
Speaker 4: We are definitely going to see more reactions from the
Speaker 4: Chinese government as this story develops. It is not gonna
Speaker 4: It is not a fun month for the State Department
Speaker 4: or for the people working there. I hope you still
Speaker 4: have an okay fourth of July, but it's probably intense,
Speaker 4: I don't. I think a lot of people are going
Speaker 4: to be working through the holiday. And there's one thing
Speaker 4: that we didn't get to yet. I think we're all
Speaker 4: very excited about this. Who the heck is General Dynamics it?
Speaker 2: Oh, this is the this is the Tampa, Florida folks.
Speaker 2: Get it.
Speaker 4: That's the abbreviation. And I picture, you know, someone in
Speaker 4: Tampa just like busting out of some secret compound and
Speaker 4: just yelling, get it. And it's another Florida man's story
Speaker 4: that gets ignored.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in this case, it's followed by it's followed by
Speaker 2: get it. This is who we are a global technology
Speaker 2: and professional services company that delivers consulting, technology, and mission
Speaker 2: services to every major agency across the US government, defense
Speaker 2: and intelligence community.
Speaker 4: And here we are in our dumb little podcast. They
Speaker 4: get a ton of work, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: talk about a good career decision. You have to look
Speaker 4: far at all to find them. And for everybody listening along,
Speaker 4: what Matt just read to us is a verbatim quote
Speaker 4: from the get it website.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all they do, man. They do all kinds
Speaker 2: of work for every major agency across the US government,
Speaker 2: defense and intelligence community.
Speaker 4: I wonder if there's an agency that's like too small
Speaker 4: for them, you know, like the Bureau of Land Reclamation
Speaker 4: on some good Hoover propaganda and they say.
Speaker 2: No ah, nah man that you know, there's so much
Speaker 2: work from that agency, from that administration whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And just for two quick examples, in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: General Dynamics it got a one hundred and ninety million
Speaker 4: dollar contract with the Patent and Trademark Office. And then
Speaker 4: in March of twenty twenty four, as we record this evening,
Speaker 4: they received a nine hundred and twenty two million dollar
Speaker 4: contract to modernize it infrastructure of US Central Command spcom
Speaker 4: so and by the way, to be clear, those are
Speaker 4: both things that need to happen. That's not skullduggery, right,
Speaker 4: that's not insidious.
Speaker 2: Think about how many patents the US government has to
Speaker 2: make sure that they control before they ever hit market.
Speaker 2: Think you're talking about the Patent Office one hundred ninety
Speaker 2: million dollar contract. They're just looking through everything going oh, nope,
Speaker 2: that's ours, and that's ours.
Speaker 4: That's ours. They're they're paying a guy to read all
Speaker 4: that stuff.
Speaker 2: One ninety million dollars.
Speaker 4: I love it. Yeah, I hope's it right to us? Man.
Speaker 4: I want to hear We want to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 4: It's weird though. It's one of those uber powerful private
Speaker 4: entities that most of the public never thinks about. And
Speaker 4: make no mistake, they have directly impacted you in one
Speaker 4: way or another, most likely without your knowledge. They've hit
Speaker 4: your pocketbook because they are These contracts do come from
Speaker 4: taxpayer money. So a lethal anti vax campaign is just
Speaker 4: one of the many projects that got got because they
Speaker 4: you know, it's get it. I'm just spinning this out.
Speaker 4: You can also apply for their job a job on
Speaker 4: their website.
Speaker 3: Just really, what are the pre RECs. What kind of
Speaker 3: qualifications are we talking about?
Speaker 4: So let's go to If you go to GDIT dot com,
Speaker 4: you can hit their nifty little scroll down and you'll
Speaker 4: click on careers and they want.
Speaker 3: You to Opportunity owned.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they want you to look at their featured career areas.
Speaker 4: This is such a big operation.
Speaker 3: It does say I'm interested in and suggestions are cyber
Speaker 3: or engineer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have thirty thousand employees. The experts and consultants
Speaker 4: who quote extract the power of technology to create immediate
Speaker 4: value and deliver or solutions at the edge of innovations
Speaker 4: means fainting. I'm like asphyxiating from the ted talk energy there,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: She extracts the power of technology.
Speaker 4: What is disruption? Hmmm?
Speaker 2: Ben's Ben is holding to.
Speaker 4: It's two things. So you know it's not evil, but
Speaker 4: that's that's that's get it. They're they're huge and just
Speaker 4: like you know, a microcosm of the D O D.
Speaker 4: Not everybody at this company knew about the anti VACS thing, right,
Speaker 4: and if if they did, doubtlessly there would have been
Speaker 4: a lot of dissent. They would not have wanted that
Speaker 4: to happen.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, this is a huge point. I just want
Speaker 2: to I just remember this, guys. We talked about on
Speaker 2: the show a whole lot. The c i A is
Speaker 2: prevented legally, officially from targeting American citizens with propaganda. The
Speaker 2: United States government cannot target us with spaganda, except they
Speaker 2: kind of can, now cause that.
Speaker 4: Just be mean, Right, there's a loophole that happened there.
Speaker 2: There's a loophole we've mentioned before, but officially they can't
Speaker 2: do that. That's why this whole thing was targeted to
Speaker 2: people who lived in other countries, right, pretty far away
Speaker 2: from the United States.
Speaker 3: But there's a trickle down effect that they're hoping for, right,
Speaker 3: isn't that the idea? Because of the interconnectedness of the
Speaker 3: Internet and all of that, you could argue that by
Speaker 3: targeting elsewhere, it will eventually filter down to the online
Speaker 3: of us here.
Speaker 4: Borders are strange.
Speaker 2: Yes, And to the point that we're building here, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna steeple as well.
Speaker 3: Guys.
Speaker 2: Uh, it doesn't have to be the CIA with using
Speaker 2: these disinformation campaigns. It could be another, let's say, federal
Speaker 2: agency that is also intelligence by nature.
Speaker 3: But is that behold into that particular mandate, right, yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean there's also you know, you don't talk about enough.
Speaker 4: Maybe we should do a thing about American propaganda abroad
Speaker 4: because the domestic US power structure has an adorable way
Speaker 4: of pretending that they're not doing the same things as
Speaker 4: other countries constantly Radio Free Asia, Voice of America. Yeah, nonprofit, Okay, anyway, I.
Speaker 2: Walked down the street from that one. No, but it
Speaker 2: makes me skeptical of the things I am fur and
Speaker 2: again right as are saying fur and against. It makes
Speaker 2: me skeptical of the things that I even hold dear,
Speaker 2: and hopefully it makes you listening think about that skeptically too,
Speaker 2: because we could be being targeted not just by our government,
Speaker 2: but by any government out they're doing the same kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 3: I try to just let my opinions be guided by
Speaker 3: morality and not government rhetoric because I just feel like
Speaker 3: it's inherently not to be trusted no matter where it's
Speaker 3: coming from. I just don't think they have our best
Speaker 3: interests at art, and they're not actually giving us the
Speaker 3: full story. Ever, it's not get based on truth, it's
Speaker 3: not based on reality.
Speaker 4: You don't get the talking points during the eclipse.
Speaker 3: Guys question though, with with Duerte, like with his level
Speaker 3: of dissatisfaction with his whole thing. Did that have any
Speaker 3: geopolitical ramifications?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, they continue. We don't know how far it'll go.
Speaker 4: And to that point, I'm glad you bring that up
Speaker 4: before we close. Bat there was a timy we're talking
Speaker 4: about off air that really stood out. Yeah, but those implications,
Speaker 4: those consequences. Yeah, we're still in fog of war at
Speaker 4: this point. We don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh yeah, I just.
Speaker 4: He's no longer president, yes, and neither.
Speaker 2: Is Donald Trump at least for another couple of months.
Speaker 4: You know who is president of the Philippines. It's irritating
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 3: It's Marcos, like of the Amelda Marcos Marcos's Yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, just so. He the current president is Ferdinand Marcos Junior,
Speaker 4: street name Bongbong, and he is the second and only
Speaker 4: son of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Speaker 3: Democracy baby whoo well, hey, democracy rit lords, democracy manifests.
Speaker 4: So under Deterte, we talked a little bit about the
Speaker 4: hard crackdown the death squads for suspected drug dealers, but
Speaker 4: walk us through what stands out about the timing.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing The only thing that really stood out
Speaker 2: to me is that the US and the Philippines have
Speaker 2: this special relationship because of the strategic placement of military
Speaker 2: bases naval stuff going on in the Philippines that the
Speaker 2: US has. But in twenty sixteen, Donald Trump and du
Speaker 2: Terte are both elected. There's that crackdown that we just
Speaker 2: mentioned on drugs. The United States officially is not okay
Speaker 2: with that, and they decide to cancel a major weapons
Speaker 2: deal with the Philippines, which is a huge deal in
Speaker 2: itself that the US refused to sell twenty six thousand
Speaker 2: assault rifles to the Philippines because of this, and since
Speaker 2: since we basically said no and we're trying to slap
Speaker 2: their hand use the old stick method, to Terte decided
Speaker 2: he was going to get cozy with specifically Russia and China,
Speaker 2: who were the you know, geopolitical rivals of the US.
Speaker 2: Basically saying, oh, yeah, you're going to use a stick,
Speaker 2: We'll watch what I'm going to do. And he traveled
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen to Moscow to visit basically with the
Speaker 2: leadership there, with Putin and everyone, to come up with
Speaker 2: probably arms deals like that was one of the major things,
Speaker 2: but probably other special relationships stuff, right, because he's at
Speaker 2: least it would appear from the US's perspective that the
Speaker 2: Philippines is moving away from the US at least in
Speaker 2: some way, right.
Speaker 3: Didn't that a certain point though, Trump kind of like
Speaker 3: rhetorically at least support the idea of executing drug dealers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, yeah, just saying yeah. In that in that administration,
Speaker 4: there was a penchant for always supporting what we're seeing
Speaker 4: as authoritarians DRAMs.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, But the US's official position was no, no, Philippines,
Speaker 2: don't just kill all your drug dealers. But the weird thing, guys,
Speaker 2: I mean, well, I guess, first of all, that's one point, right,
Speaker 2: We're not going.
Speaker 4: To sell you weapons to kill letics and people. What
Speaker 4: is this the Middle East?
Speaker 2: Wait a minute minute, I'm telling you there's all the
Speaker 2: while go back to that propaganda episode. As you said, Ben,
Speaker 2: that's the one. But the relationship between the US and
Speaker 2: Philippines was already like pretty strained at this time as
Speaker 2: we're moving into when this disinfo campaign was active. There
Speaker 2: was just a weird thing that I wanted to mention
Speaker 2: to you guys. In twenty seventeen, as du Terte is
Speaker 2: in Moscow, his country, one of the major cities there
Speaker 2: in the Philippines is attacked allegedly by isle or isis
Speaker 2: to the Islamic State while he's there in Russia making
Speaker 2: this arms deal that just feels a little bit strange to.
Speaker 3: Me, like convenient. When I say convenient, I mean like
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, it feels a little weird to me. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you guys think that maybe I'm really
Speaker 2: being super conspiratorial here. It just does feel like from
Speaker 2: our past conversations it there's a tendency for a group
Speaker 2: that would be considered like a rebel group, right freedom
Speaker 2: fighters that are built inside a country where there's a
Speaker 2: proxy conflict occurring for that group debility, yeah, plausible deniability,
Speaker 2: and that group can then be weaponized in other.
Speaker 3: Ways in the other plague type situations.
Speaker 2: I'm not saying that's what happened here, just saying it
Speaker 2: feels weird to me.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 4: Matt anyway. So with this in mind, you also playing
Speaker 4: along with us at home, folks, you probably also see
Speaker 4: the kind of things you're talking about, Matt. The interesting timing, right,
Speaker 4: the tit for tat the cause and effect and the
Speaker 4: feedback loops. We know for sure a couple things we
Speaker 4: want to end on first. This program still not officially named.
Speaker 4: I'm sure it'll come out. It was far from the
Speaker 4: first of its sort. Twenty nineteen Trump administration authorized the
Speaker 4: CIA to do a campaign on Chinese social media to
Speaker 4: try to turn people against China, which honestly, in twenty
Speaker 4: nineteen was not that hard. I'm just saying it was
Speaker 4: a low BARTI set.
Speaker 3: Well, we also know that there were Russian social media
Speaker 3: campaigns that we're designed to sway the election in favor
Speaker 3: of Trump, or maybe we know that, maybe we don't,
Speaker 3: but it certainly seems like that was likely. All I'm
Speaker 3: saying is this idea of they are the ones that
Speaker 3: do that. We don't do that. Of course we do that.
Speaker 3: Of course we do that, and sometimes we do it
Speaker 3: to our own fing people. Hold the phone. Let's take
Speaker 3: a quick pause to hear a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 3: and then get right back into this topic.
Speaker 4: And we've returned.
Speaker 2: Guys, I've got one last non sequitur here that I
Speaker 2: just discovered.
Speaker 3: I bet it's a sequitur.
Speaker 2: No, this is non sequar, Okay, fair enough. At the
Speaker 2: time when the US is waging this disinfo campaign, the
Speaker 2: major vaccines that were being offered by the US were
Speaker 2: these brand new mRNA vaccines. Look, this is this is
Speaker 2: conspiratorial boys. The version out of China, the cinovac vaccine
Speaker 2: was not an m RNA vaccine. They offered their they
Speaker 2: made their first one and offered it to the public
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three. An mRNA vaccine by China. If
Speaker 2: you want to go deep into the rabbit hole, maybe
Speaker 2: the US was trying to get mRNA in everybody.
Speaker 3: Because because that was a relatively new technique, it was.
Speaker 2: A brand new it was untested, it was to test
Speaker 2: new Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like the thing about being a fighter pilot is
Speaker 4: you want to be on the second jet.
Speaker 3: Well, and it just goes to show the reason people
Speaker 3: think things like nine to eleven are a conspiracy because
Speaker 3: it was an opportunity to grab something, to make people believe, something,
Speaker 3: to make people comfortable in allowing the government to do
Speaker 3: something to them.
Speaker 2: When we needed a new Pearl harbor, what about a
Speaker 2: new American century?
Speaker 4: So this program we're talking about just go back to this,
Speaker 4: Like again, we've proven it is far from the first
Speaker 4: program of its sort. The scary thing is we provably
Speaker 4: know also this will not be the last operation of
Speaker 4: its sort. Why do we know this because in February
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four, get It got another four hundred and
Speaker 4: three yeah good, got another four hundred and ninety three
Speaker 4: million dollar contract specifically to continue providing clandestine influence services
Speaker 4: for the military. We won't know what the fallout is
Speaker 4: for years to come, but we know some immediate effects,
Speaker 4: some immediate cost of getting caught with your hand in
Speaker 4: the cognitive cookie jar. Trust in US institutions is already
Speaker 4: very eroded, especially you know with these bizarre Mommy dearest
Speaker 4: type moves from Scotis all states.
Speaker 3: Do you think more so than in past in the past,
Speaker 3: you really do.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is not just domestically eroded, but abroad it's eroded.
Speaker 4: And that's where it starts to get even it's different
Speaker 4: kind of dangerous.
Speaker 3: That's when we start losing our privileged position as the
Speaker 3: one that can solve the problem. And once we've lost that,
Speaker 3: have we not lost our standing as the great superpower?
Speaker 3: Isn't that sort of what we're leaning on in all
Speaker 3: of this.
Speaker 4: We's kind of the martial art philosophy, right, the best
Speaker 4: way to win a fight is not have to is
Speaker 4: to not have to physically fight. You know, if you
Speaker 4: are to the point where you're swinging punches or resorting
Speaker 4: to military might, then in a philosophical way, you have
Speaker 4: already lost.
Speaker 3: And it also goes to show why military spending is
Speaker 3: such a priority, because that is literally all we have
Speaker 3: left in terms of like, you know, we need to
Speaker 3: be this superpower that cannot be ft with.
Speaker 4: Well the economy. I think it's a different kind of
Speaker 4: military armament, it's different kind of war. But the US
Speaker 4: swings swings big.
Speaker 2: But hey, we've got the We've got that navy, right
Speaker 2: except for China's giant new aircraft drone carrier thing that
Speaker 2: they just built, which is, yeah, who cares.
Speaker 3: I mean, Ben says thumbs down, proud of proud of them.
Speaker 3: They did it.
Speaker 4: You guys did a good It's tough, is good to
Speaker 4: build a carrier, and drones are one of the future
Speaker 4: paths of warfare, right, so you know, I think it's
Speaker 4: a very It might not be the main priority for
Speaker 4: the Chinese forces building this, but it will result in
Speaker 4: the loss of your Chinese service people's lives, which is
Speaker 4: overall a good thing. You know, I don't think that's
Speaker 4: necessarily number one in their list when they were saying,
Speaker 4: how can we fight US aircraft carriers? But I like
Speaker 4: to think it was, you know, in the top five.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what I'm saying. It's never benevolence. None of
Speaker 3: these things are ever first and foremost benevolence. That comes
Speaker 3: as a talking point that you can then push out
Speaker 3: and say, look what we did, we're looking out for
Speaker 3: human lives. See, But that that was just a byproduct
Speaker 3: of the thing that was already a better idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. It's a win win for
Speaker 4: everyone technically, but it depends on how you define everyone.
Speaker 4: Here's what we Here's what we need to drive home
Speaker 4: a point that one of us made a little bit earlier,
Speaker 4: there is, as we record an active war, you are
Speaker 4: taking part of it in some way. It's not taking
Speaker 4: place in the physical sphere. Instead, this is a new
Speaker 4: kind of unprecedented conflict, one in which every social media
Speaker 4: user is potentially a target, a soldier, and the ground
Speaker 4: upon which this war is waged all at once. Careful
Speaker 4: what you click the problem, Make sure careful what you click,
Speaker 4: and make sure to ask yourself why someone wants you
Speaker 4: to see it? Why is it popping up to you specifically? Yeah,
Speaker 4: let's scroll through.
Speaker 3: Our You know, I kid myself in saying that I've
Speaker 3: trained my algorithm to only show me cool art and
Speaker 3: music and synse stuff. But then these other things creep in,
Speaker 3: and they do with increasing levels of precision where I
Speaker 3: almost don't notice that they're uh gaming me, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? Yeah, And that's that's how that's a
Speaker 3: well trained algorithm when you no longer notice that it's
Speaker 3: this outside influence exactly.
Speaker 4: The calls come in from inside the house.
Speaker 3: And it's your idea, it was I.
Speaker 4: It's not an ad, this is my opinion. Pat on
Speaker 4: the back to me, you know what I mean? I
Speaker 4: will order Uh, I don't know what's the dumbest thing?
Speaker 4: You guys got pizza? Yeah? I got a watermelon because
Speaker 4: it is it's the time, you know.
Speaker 3: Do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 2: Though, Like, isn't the idea?
Speaker 3: Like sort of like we think we're smart, we think
Speaker 3: we're savvy Internet users, but if we feed enough information,
Speaker 3: even if it's only through like synth nerd stuff and
Speaker 3: music and movies. They will eventually get us to the
Speaker 3: point where they can sneak something in that could potentially
Speaker 3: weaponize us in their particular.
Speaker 4: Cause that's I mean, yeah, that's that's the end goal,
Speaker 4: right is Again, good propaganda doesn't create a thing. Good
Speaker 4: propaganda finds the things already there that is already inside
Speaker 4: or familiar or experiential to you, and then magnifies that
Speaker 4: thing and kind of molds its growth, the same way
Speaker 4: that you, like might grow a tree and do a
Speaker 4: certain shape by gentle pressure over time.
Speaker 3: I just saw the revival production of a Cabaret in
Speaker 3: New York and it's fantastic. If anyone has a chance
Speaker 3: to see it, I highly recommend it. Eddie Redmain plays
Speaker 3: the MC. I'd never seen the show before, but it's
Speaker 3: basically this microcosm of the early days of the Nazi
Speaker 3: you know, coming Nazis coming into power, and it's you
Speaker 3: spend the first act with these people in this very queer,
Speaker 3: very open nightclub in Berlin, and by the second act,
Speaker 3: these people that you've come to know and love start
Speaker 3: to twist their thinking in a way that sort of
Speaker 3: makes it okay that the Nazis are coming into power
Speaker 3: and The thing that's so interesting about this the way
Speaker 3: it's written, is you are also sort of in that boat,
Speaker 3: and it's so easy for that to happen, much easier
Speaker 3: than you might think. So be vigilant, is all I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I'm really surprised that this story came out at all,
Speaker 2: Like really surprised. It makes the US look super bad.
Speaker 4: Careful what you click. Make sure to ask yourself why
Speaker 4: someone wants you to see it. That applies to this
Speaker 4: as well for those of us playing along at home.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean, because I had the same
Speaker 4: question mat and checking in with some folks. You know,
Speaker 4: it seems that again, it seems like there was a
Speaker 4: green light somewhere. But what's the calculus, right, what's the
Speaker 4: end game? Why would you green light an active person
Speaker 4: to talk about this anonymously. It's sort of the quote
Speaker 4: unquote anonymously.
Speaker 3: It's the same question I have when something is quote
Speaker 3: unquote declassified. I feel like it's a little like, let's
Speaker 3: just throw a snack to these people that are already suspicious,
Speaker 3: to like placate them in some way, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, little conspiracy as a treat Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be someone being like someone trying to say, hey,
Speaker 2: by the way, we did this and you didn't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like you know, Like how I may have come
Speaker 4: off sounding dismissive of the four Russian ships that were
Speaker 4: approaching Cuba and when they did that not much later,
Speaker 4: one of the most dangerous craft on the planet, a
Speaker 4: US nuclear sub surface right off Norway. Their locations are
Speaker 4: highly secure. You're not supposed to know where they're at.
Speaker 4: So that was popping a flex. So why is this
Speaker 4: a flex? If so, to what end I do? I
Speaker 4: do have one conspiracy for US.
Speaker 2: And on since wait, you knew where the sub was?
Speaker 4: No, no one knows where the subs are.
Speaker 3: Okay, But but but to your point, something leaks like this,
Speaker 3: what is the reason? And I have fully not thought
Speaker 3: about that. But I'm on board with this thinking at this.
Speaker 4: Point it'll be an interesting time to pay attention to
Speaker 4: more things that don't make the headline or fade into
Speaker 4: the background. One more conspiracy. Just as we said as
Speaker 4: a treat the last thing we talked about her very
Speaker 4: briefly here. It is so important to note that some
Speaker 4: of these fake accounts are more than five years old,
Speaker 4: because they.
Speaker 3: Know in the next chess moves. They're already thinking.
Speaker 4: About it this way. I think it's important teaches us
Speaker 4: a frightening fact. These were either back pocketed. These were
Speaker 4: definitely back pocket accounts. It means one of two things.
Speaker 4: They were either used in previous still unrevealed or still
Speaker 4: classified operations, or they were lying in wait for the
Speaker 4: right time, opportunistic right So either option shows us some
Speaker 4: ugly stuff the US government doesn't want you to know.
Speaker 4: And make no mistake, we say this as Americans. Every
Speaker 4: other government is doing the same thing.
Speaker 3: They're running the numbers, they're running the simulations. They're like
Speaker 3: looking at all of possible what's the word outcomes, they're
Speaker 3: all possible contingencies, and then they have versions of those
Speaker 3: things ready to be deployed at any given time.
Speaker 2: Good guy, guys, we're going through another presidential election, Like
Speaker 2: what do we think is happening right now on across
Speaker 2: all across social media accounts here in the US.
Speaker 3: And yet what we're seeing right now is an example
Speaker 3: of at least a party being caught with their pants
Speaker 3: down in a very interesting way that shows that maybe
Speaker 3: the party isn't as thinking as far ahead as we
Speaker 3: think they are, or or yeah.
Speaker 4: So again, the existence of these things, the age of
Speaker 4: these bots, doesn't jibe with the narrative as it's being presented.
Speaker 4: Right again, I want to go back to those two
Speaker 4: frightening facts. You're either there showing premeditation or their vestiges
Speaker 4: from a previous operation. There is ugly stuff the US
Speaker 4: government doesn't want you to know, and we want your
Speaker 4: help to find it. If you want to speak to
Speaker 4: us off the record, on the record, give yourself a
Speaker 4: cool nickname. We would love to hear from you. We
Speaker 4: would love to hear your thoughts. What is the ultimate calculus?
Speaker 4: What is the shell game here? Shell game there? B
Speaker 4: We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3: You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where
Speaker 3: we exist on Facebook or we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy on ex fka, Twitter and
Speaker 3: on YouTube with video content rolling at you. On the
Speaker 3: regular on Instagram and TikTok, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2: We have a phone number. Call us and tell us
Speaker 2: what you thought about that presidential debate that we were
Speaker 2: just hinting at right there. Our number is one eight
Speaker 2: three three std WYTK. When you call in, you've got
Speaker 2: three minutes say whatever you'd like, give yourself a cool
Speaker 2: nickname and let us know if we can use your
Speaker 2: name and message on the air. If you've got more
Speaker 2: to say than can fit in that three minutes, why
Speaker 2: not instead to send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4: We are the entities that read every single email you receive.
Speaker 4: Send a message to the dark, and be well aware
Speaker 4: sometimes the dark speaks back before we give you the email.
Speaker 4: Would like to give a very special message to our
Speaker 4: new friend in New York, Theo at Kina Kunia, a
Speaker 4: great Japanese bookstore, and shout out to our friend Mangesh
Speaker 4: who sent this to us. It is a book review
Speaker 4: and one of our favorite book reviews so far. I
Speaker 4: think THEO says, do you dislike the government? Maybe you're
Speaker 4: a bit cynical and skeptical of everything. This book will
Speaker 4: help you discern conspiracy fiction from fact in a witty
Speaker 4: and engaging way. There comes perfect for flipping through with
Speaker 4: friends while you guys want to feel like you're smart
Speaker 4: or something.
Speaker 3: Great illustrations as well. Buy the book.
Speaker 4: It's still THEO didn't write that party, He just said
Speaker 4: smarter something. But we are big fans of Nick. Admiral
Speaker 4: Turbo Benson. Check out his art, check out his website,
Speaker 4: and then send us an email. Conspiracydiheartradio dot com Stuff
Speaker 4: they don't want you to know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.