Speaker 1: Greetings and welcome to It could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 1: I am a researcher and writer on the podcast team.
Speaker 1: Today we have a roundtable discussion with a group of
Speaker 1: researchers who look into extremism and political political violence that
Speaker 1: usually stemming from far right propagandists and people on that
Speaker 1: kind of whole sphere. So we have a discussion relating
Speaker 1: to climate change and all these other things. So that
Speaker 1: I was able to record these fine people. It's split
Speaker 1: up into two sections, so part one is coming out today,
Speaker 1: Part two is coming out to tomorrow. Highly recommend you
Speaker 1: listen to both, maybe maybe even back to back at
Speaker 1: some point because it does really give a nice rounded
Speaker 1: out um view of what we were talking about. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is my discussion with I kind
Speaker 1: of know, well, not not a dozen, but of a
Speaker 1: lot a large amount of terrorism researchers. As we are
Speaker 1: all uh in the woods. As you will soon find out,
Speaker 1: Welcome to it can happened here The Daily Show. I
Speaker 1: am Garrison Davis, and I am recording in an undisclosed
Speaker 1: location in the woods. Um. We are me and a
Speaker 1: few a few internet colleagues are all hiding from the
Speaker 1: world for a week to reset our poisoned brains. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna slightly re poison us here for about an
Speaker 1: hour to have a discussion about climate change and terrorism,
Speaker 1: because all we have a group of people here who
Speaker 1: are all well research the bad thing online a lot.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to try to try to use to
Speaker 1: take advantage of having this uh unique group of people
Speaker 1: all in one location to have this nice discussion for
Speaker 1: you guys. But yeah, specifically we want to we want
Speaker 1: to talk about how we how each of us has
Speaker 1: an you know, quote unquote expert in certain fields. Um
Speaker 1: see climate change impacting, imply acting extremism and terrorism in
Speaker 1: the next in the next few decades. Um. And yes,
Speaker 1: we are recording in the forest, So if you hear
Speaker 1: sounds like we're in the forest, that's because we are. Um.
Speaker 1: You you guys already know me, or you probably do.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna We're gonna go around a circle, probably
Speaker 1: starting on my left, um, introducing the people, and yeah,
Speaker 1: just give a brief a brief brief bio, however detail
Speaker 1: do you want to get into. My name's Matt Taylor.
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist and researcher focusing on cults, um, conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories and extremism. And to day is my birthday, Happy Birthday, Matt.
Speaker 1: In the in the past, my name's THEO. I am
Speaker 1: a journalist and researcher as well. I mostly focused on
Speaker 1: the American militia movement and paramilitary groups. I'm toothpick Um
Speaker 1: with THEO, Matt Emmy and Big New Houses. Isn't here
Speaker 1: on terrorism? Bat that's that's a that's a podcast, by
Speaker 1: the way, self plug um. My research and reporting focuses
Speaker 1: on mainly on conspiracy theories and where that overlaps with
Speaker 1: political extremism and the focus on connections between US in Europe,
Speaker 1: especially Germany. I'm Peter Smith. I'm a journalist with the
Speaker 1: Canadian Anti Hate Network and the host of the Unusual
Speaker 1: Show podcast. I'm Lily and I focus on extermism and
Speaker 1: kind of terrorism and data analysis. And I'm Emmy. I
Speaker 1: do digital propaganda and rhetoric. That that that is our
Speaker 1: little crew. Um. Yeah, let's see what the first thing
Speaker 1: we kind of want to talk about, I'm guessing is
Speaker 1: how we see like small because like the podcast is
Speaker 1: more about like smaller local collapses, like we don't there's
Speaker 1: not gonna be one big class. Where is the small
Speaker 1: thing to start to fall apart? And how we see
Speaker 1: when small things all apart, what we do we see
Speaker 1: filling in those gaps. Specifically, I think this will tie
Speaker 1: into the militia movement a lot in a lot of ways. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you guys can start sprouting off your your knowledge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I've been thinking of
Speaker 1: and following it. I don't know if this has made
Speaker 1: as much of an impact in US media. UM, but
Speaker 1: in the last month UM, parts of Germany and the
Speaker 1: Netherlands experienced UM, really bad flooding UM that that literally
Speaker 1: wiped out some villages in some towns. UM. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that we've seen in Germany is you know,
Speaker 1: far right groups. UM. There isn't really a militia movement
Speaker 1: because it all laws there, but but far right groups
Speaker 1: rushing in UM and collecting aid and going for photo
Speaker 1: ops UH in those catastrophe areas. UM. And what that
Speaker 1: does make me think of and maybe THEO can talk
Speaker 1: more about this. Eyes we've seen smilar stuff in the
Speaker 1: US with the militia moving marking themselves as you know,
Speaker 1: emergency preparedness UM or marking them selves in that way
Speaker 1: and positioning themselves where when you know the government is
Speaker 1: unable to respond, that these groups are able to come
Speaker 1: in UM and also using that for their messaging and
Speaker 1: for their rhetoric. Yeah. So, I mean that is something
Speaker 1: that you see in the US. The biggest example Garrison
Speaker 1: and I talked about this earlier, but during the wildfires
Speaker 1: in Oregon last year, you saw checkpoints being established by
Speaker 1: militia groups, whether are already formed militia groups are kind
Speaker 1: of impromptu armed bands, And you also see that as
Speaker 1: like a big marketing thing. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: the Virginia based militias that I follow went out to
Speaker 1: Tennessee two one or two years ago when the tornadoes happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they did a bunch of kind of aid and photo ops. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: just not to docks myself, but I'm from Nashville. And then, uh,
Speaker 1: the beginning of in March, right before you own, someone
Speaker 1: just dropped a toy gun. Great job, guys. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: in the beginning of March of last year, right before
Speaker 1: COVID hit Nashville, we had a huge tornado go through
Speaker 1: Nashville itself and wipe out like two different neighborhoods and
Speaker 1: then a rural town right outside of Nashville. But you
Speaker 1: saw a lot of like so the community that comes
Speaker 1: together in this really nice display of mutual aid to
Speaker 1: do all the clean up basically before any official cruise
Speaker 1: could get there. But with that you also sell like
Speaker 1: these far right groups coming in for photo ops and
Speaker 1: it just it normalizes their presence in heavily impacted areas
Speaker 1: and it was not not ideal. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: the American militia movement, especially the modern kind of post
Speaker 1: two thous strain of it, is dedicated on this idea
Speaker 1: of a complete breakdown of order or a loss of
Speaker 1: civil order, however you conceive of that. And um, these
Speaker 1: like climate disasters that are going to hit areas are
Speaker 1: going to kind of provide a self fulfilling prophecy for
Speaker 1: these people to step in and say like, oh no,
Speaker 1: you need some sort of armed force, You need some
Speaker 1: sort of group of people to keep order and to
Speaker 1: keep law in whatever way they conceive of that. Do
Speaker 1: think it's interesting you guys talking about kind of like
Speaker 1: the photo op thing that they do, Because when the
Speaker 1: wildfire has happened in Oregon, all of the actual like
Speaker 1: relief work was done by anti fascists, like we like
Speaker 1: people in Portland, we set up, you know, these these
Speaker 1: massive camps to help we know all these like you know,
Speaker 1: much more conservative people who who have who are to
Speaker 1: that wait their back to their homes and they were
Speaker 1: all getting fed and all like their closes that were
Speaker 1: coming from anti fascists and the all the right did
Speaker 1: was do the arm checkpoints thing. But interesting that like
Speaker 1: in the South where there's less anti fascists, like you know,
Speaker 1: compared to the generals, compared to the Portland right, how
Speaker 1: some of those groups actually you do some of the
Speaker 1: relief effort um and that that's definitely not the case
Speaker 1: up here in the in the West coast. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean last year, I remember a few county level
Speaker 1: militias that I follow in Virginia. We're like seriously doing
Speaker 1: relief work, like they were gathering food, they were taking
Speaker 1: out places affected by flooding in North Carolina, but tornadoes
Speaker 1: and Tennessee. It's not I wouldn't go so far as
Speaker 1: to call it mutual aid because it lacks the kind
Speaker 1: of ideological framework for that. But they are providing some
Speaker 1: sort of infrastructure for their guys. Yeah, yeah, with yeah,
Speaker 1: with with less of like the theory side of mutually.
Speaker 1: But like, and I'm sure there's someone else who can
Speaker 1: speak more on this, but like from my perspective growing
Speaker 1: up in a super weird church, I see this in interacting,
Speaker 1: they see this like combining with local churches a lot
Speaker 1: as well. Um, I'm not sure there's anyone else here
Speaker 1: who could say something more intelligently than me about how
Speaker 1: like religion will combine with these like kind of militia efforts. Well,
Speaker 1: I was like eco eco extremists, like on the far right,
Speaker 1: on the very very fringe far right, can start to
Speaker 1: like be very esoteric about there, you know, belief in
Speaker 1: climate change, and they start to sort of frame it
Speaker 1: as like a reason for the collapse, Um, that we
Speaker 1: need collapse, are attacking infrastructure, like for the purpose of
Speaker 1: somehow save in the planet, even though it's really not
Speaker 1: going to get that anywhere. We really need to we
Speaker 1: have to do with a lot of our own work
Speaker 1: on the planet. We can't just destroy everything and see
Speaker 1: if it working. Yeah, we can definitely bring up accelerationists
Speaker 1: and accelerationism as a as an over overarching thing that
Speaker 1: is you know, not just it not to be like
Speaker 1: horseshoe theory about it, but the accelation is that pops
Speaker 1: up a whole whole lot of areas, including areas of
Speaker 1: the left, where it becomes very unuseful, um and it
Speaker 1: can lead to like a lot of wasted time and
Speaker 1: some destructive tendencies. I mean, I think that point kind
Speaker 1: of also provides an interesting through line between more mainstream
Speaker 1: militias and like the really esoteric brands of eco fascism
Speaker 1: or ecologically based extremism is that like they're both very
Speaker 1: influenced by like colonial schools of thought, like eco fascism
Speaker 1: and all that is kind of predicated on this idea
Speaker 1: of like Tera Noli's like there is this perfect empty
Speaker 1: wild land that we can have manifest destiny exactly, and
Speaker 1: like so much of the ideas of order and um
Speaker 1: like peacekeeping that you find within more mainstream militia movements
Speaker 1: come from this exact same type of thinking, where it's
Speaker 1: like a colonial order that you need to keep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, there's a lot of a lot of people
Speaker 1: on the left who are in like the kind of
Speaker 1: like you know, green green, like like eCos socialist or
Speaker 1: like green anarchists kind of strange, so get very frustrated
Speaker 1: when people talk about eco fascism, which I can understand
Speaker 1: because no one really means the same thing when they
Speaker 1: talk about it. Sometimes they just mean any like any
Speaker 1: like quote unquote terrorism that has like has like an
Speaker 1: environmental purpose. Some people, you know, when they think of
Speaker 1: eco fascists, we think of like overpopulation. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of different things they mean mean by it.
Speaker 1: But I know, we we've all had talks about like
Speaker 1: what we personally view as like eco fascism, because it's's
Speaker 1: it's it's not just eco streamism, Like eco streamism does
Speaker 1: not equal fascism. Like there is there's a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of eco extremists who are very anti fascist. Um. And
Speaker 1: there is some who kind of bridge bridge the gap,
Speaker 1: you know, like like like id S has some more
Speaker 1: fascist tendencies, But I would not accurately call them fascist
Speaker 1: based on the type of stuff they do, with type
Speaker 1: of writing they do, they do not have, they do
Speaker 1: not check all of the boxes. Um. But then then
Speaker 1: we do have people who I would accurately describe as
Speaker 1: eco fascists who have done who've done you know, mass shootings,
Speaker 1: who have a lot of eco who have eco fascist stuff,
Speaker 1: either in the writing that they like or their own manifestos.
Speaker 1: They bring up enough points it's like, yeah, you kind
Speaker 1: of fall into this broad category. Does someone here want
Speaker 1: to give their personal definition of ego fascism? This isn't
Speaker 1: this not necessarily exactly what we used for the pod,
Speaker 1: But I just I'm interested to here's a lot of
Speaker 1: people with various backgrounds. Everyone has their own specialized knowledge.
Speaker 1: What kind of when people say that, what, what do
Speaker 1: you kind of put into that category? People believe in
Speaker 1: like this organic law and like natural order, and they
Speaker 1: believe that like there is a natural hierarchy ingrained in everything.
Speaker 1: And I think that generally, like if we return to
Speaker 1: like some kind of primitive society or like, you know,
Speaker 1: they'll assume that like everything has uh, it's own structure,
Speaker 1: and that there's going to be people who rise to
Speaker 1: the top, people who just you know, uh don't belong
Speaker 1: in that kind of society. It's going to be really
Speaker 1: damaging for like the elderly, for disabled people, And they
Speaker 1: just sort of see it as like survival of the
Speaker 1: fist um. And I think that's like a much more
Speaker 1: eco fascist point of view rather than like a more
Speaker 1: green anarchist point of view where things would sort of
Speaker 1: even out, um, rather than become a hierarchical Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think hierarchy is an important part of that. And
Speaker 1: how we you know, there is like a lot of
Speaker 1: green anarchist who are focusing on like making their own
Speaker 1: medication for for you know, people with diabetes and stuff.
Speaker 1: That's kind of stuff that is like really interesting to
Speaker 1: look at and stuff that we should absolutely pursue because
Speaker 1: we'll become less reliance to apply chains. And we don't
Speaker 1: really see eco fascists doing that. We do not see
Speaker 1: them focusing on making medication for people. Oh no, maybe
Speaker 1: I can kind of set some people up to say
Speaker 1: more stuff if I say this is is real quickly. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that I always or that that
Speaker 1: is a red flag for me is is just you know,
Speaker 1: bring in this very traditional discussions of gender roles and
Speaker 1: and relating that to the environment. Yeah, our rhetoric, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't we don't need to say names of specific
Speaker 1: like writers are people, but there's definitely describe the general sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: stop playing with the toy gun. Oh my god. Um,
Speaker 1: just just like establishing and it is kind of it
Speaker 1: can be kind of like an older left thing too,
Speaker 1: but establishing you know, ecological discussions within framework of traditional
Speaker 1: gender roles um and kind of like what is expected
Speaker 1: of people based on their sex. Yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is this is the dark side of cottage core. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's one way to put it. I mean you want
Speaker 1: to get in here, oh boy, yeah, I like parts
Speaker 1: of cottage courts not want intersects with a certain strain
Speaker 1: of politics, Like queer cottage core is extremely cute, sure
Speaker 1: until yeah, well until you're not queer, and listen, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they still are. Now here's the thing. When we're
Speaker 1: when we're dealing with like traditional gender role stuff, it's
Speaker 1: a really like slippery slope into more aggressive strains of thought.
Speaker 1: So when we're when we're talking about the the idea
Speaker 1: of of the class, we will podcast it's mass birthday.
Speaker 1: You asked to apologize, Yeah, ripped to the editor. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't know what that's so good. So when they're talking
Speaker 1: about the claps and they want, you know, they think
Speaker 1: the rod of modernity will be gone, society will be ended.
Speaker 1: They can they can you know, rebuilt from the ground up,
Speaker 1: smaller communities and Uh, they can. They can build the
Speaker 1: society they want, which is largely a no nationalists. It's
Speaker 1: not great. The the idea that there will be this
Speaker 1: this super traditional family structure. You're going to have your
Speaker 1: this combined strong warrior also homesteading man and your cool
Speaker 1: trad wife who never ages above thirty in this society.
Speaker 1: Like I'm being generous here, assuming that at least like
Speaker 1: some of these people have a little bit of like
Speaker 1: pre planning. But they don't. They don't um, and they
Speaker 1: step on each other a lot, right because they have
Speaker 1: this this whole plan for this uh, this society free
Speaker 1: of industry, um, and they can't stop posting about it
Speaker 1: on the internet. It's really funny, right, Like they're not
Speaker 1: they're not good at it. Yeah, they're like way too
Speaker 1: addicted to posting to like actually commit to like the
Speaker 1: true no off the grid trad life. At least at
Speaker 1: least ten K was off the grid. We don't gotta
Speaker 1: hand it to you. Go ahead, We don't gotta hand
Speaker 1: it to it. You got ahead to you undergo circumstances
Speaker 1: and got a hit. Todd is divided on how much
Speaker 1: we gotta hand it to, said K. The official stands
Speaker 1: of terrorism bad? Is the terrorism is bad? Why don't
Speaker 1: we just bring them on? It is kind of a
Speaker 1: concern when they do end up when they stop posting.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a concert when they're posting, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of more concerning posted sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: same as like looking at a kid that wants to
Speaker 1: be a firefighter or something like they're just talking. They're
Speaker 1: not going to do it, but you see some of
Speaker 1: the I'm doing and when they're doing the thing, the
Speaker 1: lifestyle influencer version of fascism. Yeah, do you think that
Speaker 1: it's going to affect kind of like laws about living
Speaker 1: off grid and laws about like for for normal people.
Speaker 1: I just want to get the funk out. I actually
Speaker 1: just read something about this. There's some guy who've been
Speaker 1: living off grid in pennsylvani for like thirty years and
Speaker 1: I don't remember the details of this, and we don't
Speaker 1: have internet out here. Burn house down. Yeah, he's in
Speaker 1: jail now. He's probably gonna be in jail for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. And I think part of whether
Speaker 1: it comes from left through the right as people kind
Speaker 1: of start to try to build resiliency within communities for
Speaker 1: disasters that are coming and start to seek ways of
Speaker 1: living that do not rely on supply chains and do
Speaker 1: not rely on the state. The state will strike back
Speaker 1: against that as a consolidation of power, because the more
Speaker 1: that people move away from it, whether on the left
Speaker 1: or right, the less power the state has. I mean,
Speaker 1: and utilizing counter terrorism an excuse to do so, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're giving reasons and it's not it's not going
Speaker 1: to get enforced equally. I'm sure that's gonna gonna focus
Speaker 1: uncertain people doing this and be slightly more okay with
Speaker 1: other people doing it. Yeah, what's so? I would like
Speaker 1: to talk about Canada a little bit because specifically climate
Speaker 1: change affecting Canada's can be varied. It's going to be
Speaker 1: slightly different, and most of it can go to the States,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I've been, I've been, I've been having
Speaker 1: my my waist deep in climate science books for most
Speaker 1: of UM, and Canada's gonna probably see economic boosts UM,
Speaker 1: and they're probably the state's probably just gonna get actually
Speaker 1: stronger because of how the same thing with Russia. Both
Speaker 1: Canada and Russia are going to get more economically powerful
Speaker 1: under climate change because of how much more props are
Speaker 1: gonna get moved up. How give me your thoughts to Canada,
Speaker 1: because in canada's my backup plan. It's gonna gets too
Speaker 1: spicy in the States, I'm I'm taking my Canadian passport
Speaker 1: and hiding in the woods. Um. How how it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting to hear you guys talk about American mellistic culture
Speaker 1: because we we definitely are rhetoric and propaganda that we
Speaker 1: see in Canada gets borrowed a lot the talking points
Speaker 1: from the States, like the concepts. But what we don't
Speaker 1: have are these strong organized militia groups. We had three
Speaker 1: per centers for a while, um and who still exists,
Speaker 1: but they were they were big about being off right
Speaker 1: like they were the ones who weren't posting for a
Speaker 1: long time. UM. And it seems like as much as
Speaker 1: all these people are still around, they've largely deflated, doubt
Speaker 1: because Canada has made some some efforts to call them
Speaker 1: terrorists right right. Very recently we designated them as a
Speaker 1: terrorist organization, which doesn't carry a criminal charge. But if
Speaker 1: you if you do something involved with them, you send
Speaker 1: the money like there is there are consequences of that
Speaker 1: legal enhancements, um. But are are kind of militia culture
Speaker 1: focuses on the illegitimacy of the state that Canada is founded.
Speaker 1: It's very kind of soft sit type rhetoric. But that
Speaker 1: Canada's established, minutes, it's rules, and especially with all the
Speaker 1: public health measures, it's this growing, uh, this growing kind
Speaker 1: of tired of thought in both the prairies and largely
Speaker 1: out west. I grew up a statute. Um, most of
Speaker 1: my families in Alberta. I know when when I look
Speaker 1: at when I because I keep a soft eye on
Speaker 1: some Canadian hate groups just because I'm Canadian. Most of
Speaker 1: them popped up around Alberta. Um, where do you see
Speaker 1: this stuff kind of like happening, Like do you see
Speaker 1: any of this on the East coast? If so, is
Speaker 1: it's smaller or is this mostly on like a West
Speaker 1: coast Canada thing. Well, that like that conspiratory thought we've
Speaker 1: seen kind of across the country, like on the East coast.
Speaker 1: You know, just recently we had people setting up their
Speaker 1: own version of checkpoints um as like a protest against
Speaker 1: the the public health measures, and like the whole eastern
Speaker 1: part of Canada is in its own bubble right now. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you had this conspiracy based movement forming these
Speaker 1: actual checkpoints. And then the main part of it though,
Speaker 1: is probably going to be out west. That is where
Speaker 1: these ideas are the most popular or the most popular.
Speaker 1: That makes sense where mainstream politicians are moving towards, you know,
Speaker 1: amplify these types of talking points. Do you see that
Speaker 1: like is that is? Is that a mostly Alberta thing?
Speaker 1: It's the mostly like prairies Alberta, the farmland. The interesting
Speaker 1: part is that when you talk about groups is like Canada,
Speaker 1: groups are an urban phenomenon. For the most part, most
Speaker 1: of our organization takes place around the city centers, and
Speaker 1: that is very different from the States. With the States,
Speaker 1: that's it's usually the usually the opposite in some there's
Speaker 1: there's always exceptions of too minimum people live, but generally
Speaker 1: we see it as more of it's more of a
Speaker 1: rule thing which teams organized, whereas cities are more like
Speaker 1: liberal and that's what the anti fascist groups are based. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's kind of these like these little ideological pockets
Speaker 1: that exist all over and certainly that sentiment is probably shared,
Speaker 1: but the need to mobilize seems to mostly focus on
Speaker 1: the urban centers. And then we never have our group.
Speaker 1: They don't providing any kind of age that's just or
Speaker 1: even checkpoints like that's beyond these like very recent protest movements,
Speaker 1: you know, and there has been no more forest fires
Speaker 1: around BC, um, around you know what Western Alberta. Um.
Speaker 1: How do you see the government's response these types of
Speaker 1: things right now? And it can do is in a
Speaker 1: particular situation with um, the Liberals having a minority control.
Speaker 1: You know, the Canadian poet parliamentary system is probably confusing
Speaker 1: to love of Americans that they don't understand it already. UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, how how what do you what do you
Speaker 1: see on on that front? You know, you know, trust
Speaker 1: and true both look both true down Biden talk the
Speaker 1: talk around like pipelines and stuff, and then do the
Speaker 1: complete opposite. Um, how do you could have seen this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff working right now? For for like on
Speaker 1: the on the climate side of things, Well, yeah, our
Speaker 1: our reaction to the firefighters or started reaction to the wildfires. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean the government response has always looked out on
Speaker 1: like it's always looked at poorly. UM. But none of
Speaker 1: these people are taking this as an opportunity to kind
Speaker 1: of change minds, kind of do pr um. There's much
Speaker 1: less reaction to it. Most like the West. Also there's
Speaker 1: this incredible feeling of alienation because of the way that
Speaker 1: government is set up. They have substantially less or they
Speaker 1: have substantially less voting power. Yeah, the same way in
Speaker 1: the States, how you know, there's like there's acceling states
Speaker 1: or states in the Midwest, you feel like they don't
Speaker 1: really have any power politically. The same things for almost
Speaker 1: the entire East, entire West Coast of Canada, everything from
Speaker 1: like Manitoba to Alberta and parts of BC. Everyone is
Speaker 1: very frustrated at at at the at the federal e's
Speaker 1: um and how they really don't have control for what's happening. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people in the East Coast are controlling and what what
Speaker 1: our what our pipelines are, what our minds are doing,
Speaker 1: and that does not fair to our workers, because yeah
Speaker 1: it is. It does suck when you know, a mind
Speaker 1: closes and then everyone in a small town is out
Speaker 1: of business, like the part the part right in Canada,
Speaker 1: almost Stanley around them, you know, used to be you know,
Speaker 1: bustling small towns that are basically all all men ghost
Speaker 1: towns be because stuff to close, people have to move
Speaker 1: to either like Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, don't laugh. Um, So
Speaker 1: you know all these specific things, you know, and we
Speaker 1: see pockets, we see pockets, we see pockets of this
Speaker 1: and like the good Western the States definitely also is
Speaker 1: like manifest destination because like they are a lot of
Speaker 1: it started with people kind of moving outward to try
Speaker 1: and gain more land and make their borders um larger
Speaker 1: and like live further out to like try and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'll take me more territory. Um. And
Speaker 1: with the like Canadian big surgeon like indigenous rights and
Speaker 1: the big focus and shift to like sort of give
Speaker 1: them land back or something. I'm not exactly clear on
Speaker 1: what the Canadian stances are on that. Oh, just like
Speaker 1: I mean we have a big movement from indigenous populations
Speaker 1: to they seem very like the economic like well, there's
Speaker 1: so many different bands and tribes in different types of nations, um,
Speaker 1: like we have unseated territory, and the dynamics with which
Speaker 1: the government is supposed to deal with and has agreed
Speaker 1: to deal with and actually does deal with them is
Speaker 1: all vastly different. Um. But yeah, that that idea of
Speaker 1: this focus on these particular issues, like indigenous issues, even
Speaker 1: our attempts to you know, have a greener economy, you
Speaker 1: know for a place that for a long time and
Speaker 1: still is an extraction economy. Yes, Um, how does that
Speaker 1: like a fact the oil company with healthcare more like
Speaker 1: extremist far right groups who want to move out that way, um,
Speaker 1: for the purpose of organizing. And you also have the
Speaker 1: indigenous focus within the liberal government. So like, how do
Speaker 1: those two groups do you think like interact? Uh? Like,
Speaker 1: the general conception is that the push for indigenous rights,
Speaker 1: especially on the farther right, is is for the dishent
Speaker 1: franchifisement of white Europeans like it is um. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: you do have this Western exodus where we have very
Speaker 1: popular figures who are moving further west because they're these
Speaker 1: stronger ideas of sovereignty. Um. I forget what exactly was pulling,
Speaker 1: but when the Western exit or exit started, you know,
Speaker 1: there was a significant amount of popular or at least
Speaker 1: like not strong support, but like existing support there was
Speaker 1: there was there was a there was a large amount
Speaker 1: of support. Yeah. Absolutely, It'll be interesting to see what
Speaker 1: happens though. Talking about collapse, like you know in these
Speaker 1: small towns, in like cloistered communities, um, you know, they
Speaker 1: already feel cut off from the government and not represented,
Speaker 1: and then do you have a breakdown of infrastructure you know,
Speaker 1: that will create why do we even happen in the
Speaker 1: first place if they're not helping us? Which is which
Speaker 1: which is true, which is like a well real thing
Speaker 1: to think about. But their solutions are wildly different than
Speaker 1: the actual solutions to help people. Right. How this plays
Speaker 1: out in the past as well with UM, you know,
Speaker 1: places where uh, the infrastructure starts to break down and
Speaker 1: then people who have weapons kind of become the authority
Speaker 1: just based on the fact that they have more power. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that I follow is a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of like the more let's characterize it
Speaker 1: as boomer esque conspiracy theories UM, especially with anti vax,
Speaker 1: anti public health measures type thing UM. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that that that really is noticeable to me
Speaker 1: is how much more sovereign citizen stuff is creeping up
Speaker 1: into those areas UM and especially you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: two really big examples of you know, if there's an
Speaker 1: anti vax protest in your city, it's probably one of
Speaker 1: these two networks that both come from Europe UM that
Speaker 1: I'm not going to name right now, UM and those
Speaker 1: two networks also, you know, love to organize over the
Speaker 1: messaging app Telegram, UM, and Telegram is tell me if
Speaker 1: I'm stepping in it. I mean, Telegram is where you know,
Speaker 1: so much of this ideology, this far right ideology is
Speaker 1: able to cross mix and co mingle um. You know,
Speaker 1: I we talked about Telegram in the pod. Okay, but
Speaker 1: people are familiar, Yeah, stepped in it, yet keep going
Speaker 1: yeah adjacent to yeah. So so I mean, my, my,
Speaker 1: the biggest frame we're going to talk about this a
Speaker 1: lot is is Telegram as kind of this technological body
Speaker 1: of the cultic milieu because there is so like basically
Speaker 1: no enforcement close to no enforcement on Telegram and so
Speaker 1: you know, these these more malicious actors know that, and
Speaker 1: they know that they can find an audience who is
Speaker 1: interested in, you know, opposing the mainstream conspiratorial thought in
Speaker 1: these kind of like boomer tell boomers on Telegram and
Speaker 1: conspiracy groups and there are you know, milicitious actors plan
Speaker 1: to go in and when these people over and you
Speaker 1: know a lot of these molious actors are younger people
Speaker 1: who don't have those resources, but they know that they
Speaker 1: can win over these people who do have resources who
Speaker 1: only and who have savings to kind of like fund
Speaker 1: that movement if yeah, oh, I was just gonna say,
Speaker 1: I do think that the cultic milliuse like a really
Speaker 1: important heuristic for these kind of collapse scenarios, because the
Speaker 1: question of what happens when kind of infrastructure and any
Speaker 1: sort of political guidance falls away is governed a lot
Speaker 1: by that, and like this idea that there's there are
Speaker 1: these ideas flowing around in our society and once people
Speaker 1: have nothing else turned to, these malicious actors will bring
Speaker 1: this stuff in and uh yeah, to put it simply,
Speaker 1: then we're pretty fucked. Yeah. Telegram also has recently started
Speaker 1: to have to crack down people and um because of that,
Speaker 1: you have this really interesting dichotomy of people who are saying,
Speaker 1: like this means like get ready, get prepared, go off
Speaker 1: grig guns, and you also on the other end people
Speaker 1: who are saying, you know, create all tech platforms and
Speaker 1: like create um more like self encryption and like, hello,
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to step in right now. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm but to be able to uh to speak more
Speaker 1: peer like peer to peer resources. And that wraps up
Speaker 1: part one of the Terrorism round Table discussion Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. You can find us at happen Here
Speaker 1: pod and cool Zone Media on all of the socials UM.
Speaker 1: You can find me at Hungry bow Tie UM, and
Speaker 1: you can follow a decent amount of the researchers on
Speaker 1: their podcast at Terrorism Bad, the podcast I Think I
Speaker 1: Think It's just at Terrorism Bad anyway. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to Part one, Part two drops tomorrow. Stay tuned. It
Speaker 1: Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.