Speaker 1: What's really having some motherfucking trouble getting adjusted to the
Speaker 1: new year and coming back from vacation. My be Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that see off balance from the get go. I'm Robert Evans.
Speaker 1: This is Behind the Path Behind the Bastards podcast where
Speaker 1: Sophie laughs at me for my foibles and we talk
Speaker 1: about bad people. Yeah right now. I don't know when
Speaker 1: this episode is gonna air, maybe in sometime in early February,
Speaker 1: but this is the first episode we're recording in and
Speaker 1: I have just come back, as has Sophie, from two
Speaker 1: weeks of vacation, and I think I speak for both
Speaker 1: of us when I say motherfucker um. It is hard
Speaker 1: to get back into the swing of things, which is
Speaker 1: why Garrison Davis is here today to read our episode
Speaker 1: to me so that I get to skip out on
Speaker 1: writing for a little while longer, and I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe play a fucking video game or some how. Are
Speaker 1: you doing, Garrison great. I just woke up and I
Speaker 1: have coffee in one hand and scrolling through my twenty
Speaker 1: page monster essay. An the other hand. You've truly adapted
Speaker 1: to the podcasting lifestyle, which involves waking up at twelve
Speaker 1: thirty five frantically getting on a zoom call because Sophie
Speaker 1: yells at you for being late, and then reading twenty
Speaker 1: pages about a Nazi. Yeah. Now here's my question. So
Speaker 1: you have the coffee you have? Do you have a
Speaker 1: secret weapon near your podcast being station? I have about
Speaker 1: twenties scream of sticks to my right and about I
Speaker 1: don't know five bladed weapons to my left. Yar is
Speaker 1: so so much better, it's so cool. I don't have
Speaker 1: the machete. Roberts at me. Oh, I I have that
Speaker 1: machete too. It's a it's a good one. It's a
Speaker 1: good one. Yeah. Yeah, we need to get you a
Speaker 1: get you a rifle garrison. But first let's talk about
Speaker 1: the reason you might need a rifle. These Nazis you
Speaker 1: wrote about today? Yeah not okay. Um, so I'm getting
Speaker 1: I'm getting a little tired with Nazis, I'll be honest, Um,
Speaker 1: all are That's kind of their thing. They just they
Speaker 1: just keep being a problem. Um like this this should
Speaker 1: have ended, I don't know, in the forties or something,
Speaker 1: but no, um, we have we have so many other
Speaker 1: kind of world ending problems to deal with, like common change, hunger, evictions, pandemic.
Speaker 1: But the fascist just keep popping up and they're adding
Speaker 1: on to all of these problems. And I am really
Speaker 1: not excited about eco fascism. Yeah, that's the one I'm
Speaker 1: most not excited about. Yeah, that's the thing I see
Speaker 1: coming of the most. Um. We're not actually going to
Speaker 1: be explicitly talking about eco fascism today, although it will
Speaker 1: it'll probably come up towards the end because of some
Speaker 1: of the influences that we'll be talking about. But we're
Speaker 1: we're we're gonna be more focusing on good old fashioned
Speaker 1: Nazi street fighting gangs. But we have we have a
Speaker 1: fun we have a fun twist where it's not it's
Speaker 1: not just street fighting gangs, it's also a weird kind
Speaker 1: of active where lifestyle brand. Great. Hell yeah that's my
Speaker 1: ship right there. Yoga pants, ethnic cleansing. Yeah, let's do
Speaker 1: it's both. It's like this with this brand of like
Speaker 1: lifestyle fascism with also street fights. It's great. Yeah, capitalize everything,
Speaker 1: even genocide. Yes, So of course this means we're talking
Speaker 1: about the not so fine folks at ram Or also
Speaker 1: known as the Rise Above movement. Um. If if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen protest footage, especially like a right wing versus Antifa.
Speaker 1: Footage from like pre um you've you've probably seen RAND
Speaker 1: members beating up people on the ground. Um. If you
Speaker 1: saw footage from you probably saw RAND members beating up children. Um,
Speaker 1: that's because that's kind of what they were doing for
Speaker 1: a lot a lot of seen, especially on the West coast.
Speaker 1: UM people who we now know to be a part
Speaker 1: of RAM. We're popping up all all over. So today
Speaker 1: we are going to look into the rise and the
Speaker 1: fall and the sort of kind of grift resurgence of
Speaker 1: the rise above movement. Um. Let this is just another
Speaker 1: it's just a side note for me. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I know Robert, you talked about this, you talk about
Speaker 1: this a little bit too. But when we try to
Speaker 1: like cover these groups, there's always kind of a line
Speaker 1: to want a draw between like giving them advertising and
Speaker 1: like covering them in a responsible way so people know
Speaker 1: it's like people have information about them and about what
Speaker 1: threats they pose and how to oppose it. Right. So
Speaker 1: I had a bit of I had a bit of
Speaker 1: trouble on this one trying to find this line of
Speaker 1: you know, what is too much information that's like making
Speaker 1: it to advertise the versus you know, I think this
Speaker 1: group is. I think that this group's ideology specifically could
Speaker 1: be a real problem in America. UM. So we call
Speaker 1: it the severe tri Devi paradox of like, Okay, how
Speaker 1: how deep do you get into this thing that people
Speaker 1: need to know about, but you really don't want to
Speaker 1: just be platforming? Yeah? Yeah, and so it's it's it's this.
Speaker 1: It was. This one was a bit tricky because I
Speaker 1: think there's gonna be a lot of American youth that's
Speaker 1: very susceptible to what this type of what this type
Speaker 1: of group puts out. UM. So I'm going to get
Speaker 1: into maybe a little little bit more detail than I
Speaker 1: would usually want to for this group, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try to keep it in context for you know, informing
Speaker 1: people about what to look out for. Um, because I
Speaker 1: think you know, this like is that this type of
Speaker 1: group has never actually gotten a very good stronghold in America,
Speaker 1: and I think they very well could, um because of
Speaker 1: the weird kind of macho, kind of masculine lifestyle activism
Speaker 1: with like athletics, the kind of thing that we'll we'll
Speaker 1: be talking all all about that more later. Um. Um. First, First,
Speaker 1: the kind of the origins of this group what what
Speaker 1: we know as the Rise Above Movement, which I'll just
Speaker 1: be calling RAM from now on. UM first first pop
Speaker 1: onto the scene short shortly after Donald Trump's selection, alongside
Speaker 1: a handful of other like all right groups, so late
Speaker 1: late is when they first first formed kind of alongside
Speaker 1: Richard Spencer in the Traditionalist Worker Party and like those
Speaker 1: other first wave groups. Yeah, they initially so to tell
Speaker 1: you kind of this, to get a little peak about
Speaker 1: what these people actually believe, they initially referred to themselves
Speaker 1: as the d I Y Division so nerds so division
Speaker 1: hack into that two thousand twelve relevant stream, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: also like division obviously being referenced in UM uh so.
Speaker 1: But they quickly changed their name, realizing this was probably
Speaker 1: a terrible name um so in in early in spring
Speaker 1: of seventeen, they quickly changed their branding to RAM or
Speaker 1: Rise Above Movement UM. They had about probably a few
Speaker 1: dozen members who lived mostly around southern California. The most
Speaker 1: efficient way to describe them is basically a white supremacist
Speaker 1: street gang that exists to get into fiscal contents fiscal
Speaker 1: combat with all of their ideological enemies. So that's really
Speaker 1: anyone that isn't them or anyone they see as Antifa,
Speaker 1: but it was it was very explicitly to get into
Speaker 1: fights with people. This was like their main there, This
Speaker 1: was their main focus. UM right RAM has two people
Speaker 1: usually credited as leaders or co co founders, Benjamin Daily
Speaker 1: and Robert Rundo. Uh. The inspirations for the group is
Speaker 1: a mix of kind of Nazi skinheads like the Hammerskins
Speaker 1: UM and UH, European Eastern European street fighting white identity movements,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into more in the next episode a lot.
Speaker 1: But I'm i kind of I'm gonna be kind of
Speaker 1: calling that lifestyle brand fascism because of the kind of
Speaker 1: weird the weird white identity mixed in with like this
Speaker 1: like selling athletics equipment and stuff. It's also a real
Speaker 1: good example of one of the things that Burt oh
Speaker 1: Echo talked about in Our Fascism, his essay trying to
Speaker 1: kind of explain what fascism is syncretism right, Like, fascism
Speaker 1: in in the United States has particularly um spread in
Speaker 1: like by kind of co opting aspects of consumerist culture
Speaker 1: and like, like that's why you'll see a lot of
Speaker 1: these like lifestyle brands that focus on like beards and
Speaker 1: tactical gear and like coffee and ship like that, because
Speaker 1: it's all part of this. It's an aesthetic as much
Speaker 1: as it is an ideology. Yes, and they are very
Speaker 1: into aesthetics. Um, they are a various aesthetically focused This
Speaker 1: was you know, one of their actually on Runda. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about this later, actually he'll he'll bring up this
Speaker 1: kind of topic when he gives advice for how to
Speaker 1: start these groups. And it's not like the o G
Speaker 1: Nazis weren't snappy dressers, you know, have always been a
Speaker 1: big part of fascism. Aesthetic, it's always been a giant part. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so the group is if you look at like if
Speaker 1: you look back in, the group is kind of notable
Speaker 1: for where it falls in the conservative to rights to
Speaker 1: neo Nazi spectrum um. Online, they were much more open
Speaker 1: about their whites fremasis views than say the Proud Boys Um,
Speaker 1: but they weren't quite at like Adam Waffin levels. They
Speaker 1: they're kind of this little in between between being like
Speaker 1: super openly Nazi all the time, but also they're they're
Speaker 1: beyond just doing dog whistles like you know, like they
Speaker 1: would they would post Hitler memes on social media. Um,
Speaker 1: and they would like share Daily Stormer articles. Um. But
Speaker 1: when they're in like in the streets, um, they they
Speaker 1: they fell back and hid behind the anti immigrant, pro
Speaker 1: free speech, pro traditional masculinity thing, while also using a
Speaker 1: myriad of anti Semitic dog whistles. Um. In an interview,
Speaker 1: I think uh Rundo said that someone asked him about
Speaker 1: quote the fourteen words, and one I was like, oh
Speaker 1: ha ha, well, um, uh, I'll say I'm a fan
Speaker 1: of the fourteen words. It's like he's it's like so
Speaker 1: they were they were they were more we must secure
Speaker 1: a future for it's a thing about how like we
Speaker 1: have to make the world safe for white children. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a phrase that's fourteen words. That's it's just
Speaker 1: it's kind of a just a simple it's like it's
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's it's almost almost like a code
Speaker 1: that people was back and forth to signal their ideology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've gone into detail with it about it in the
Speaker 1: War on Everyone, in the the Rockwell episodes and a
Speaker 1: few other places. Yeah. Continue, but yeah, so they're a
Speaker 1: little bit more dogwistiley in the streets, more open online.
Speaker 1: So there. It's kind of they fall into this weird
Speaker 1: kind of in between. Um. I mean, the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: are more open now than what they weren't play seventeen,
Speaker 1: but even still, you know, they have it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a little different because like ramed wouldn't allow people
Speaker 1: of color inside inside RAM, whereas the Proud Boys do
Speaker 1: UM for you know, whatever propaganda reasons. Um. Here's here's
Speaker 1: how RAM described their group on an Instagram post from
Speaker 1: seventeen in a in June quote. We want to rise
Speaker 1: above all of today's destructive culture and see the rebirth
Speaker 1: of our people strong and mental and fiscal capabilities as
Speaker 1: our forefathers were. In a time when you can be
Speaker 1: harmed for your political beliefs or shamed for your heritage,
Speaker 1: we are here to defend our identity and shared goals.
Speaker 1: So like that's the kind of that's the kind of
Speaker 1: propaganda they put out in that kind of like the
Speaker 1: phrasing that they use. Um, there's there's there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of identity Europa kind of stuff, and this this
Speaker 1: group ties into the Europa a little bit later on. Um.
Speaker 1: But they're they're they're, they're they're more more more openly
Speaker 1: by supremacists than than than the Proud Boys at this point,
Speaker 1: definitely UM North California Anti Racist Action, which is like
Speaker 1: an anti fascist information collective. UM. They put together a
Speaker 1: really good piece on the early days of RAM back
Speaker 1: in July, way way before the mainstream media started paying
Speaker 1: attention UM, in the wake of the violence at Charlottesville. UH.
Speaker 1: The Anti Racist Act Anti Racist Action article describes RAM
Speaker 1: like this UM. Note they use some loaded terms here
Speaker 1: that will try to kind of define later UM. But
Speaker 1: here's how Anti Racist Action describes RAMS as as you know,
Speaker 1: as a as an organization, UM. Rise Above movement is
Speaker 1: a loose collective of violent neo Nazis and fascists from
Speaker 1: southern California. That's or that organizes and trains primarily to
Speaker 1: engage and fighting and violence at political rallies. They've been
Speaker 1: a central participant in the recent wave of far right
Speaker 1: protest movements in California during the first half of which
Speaker 1: have attempted to mobilize a broad range of right wing
Speaker 1: constituents under the banner of protecting so called free speech,
Speaker 1: yielding on un yielding support for Trump, and apathy towards Muslims, immigrants,
Speaker 1: and other oppressed groups. So you know, when like Berkeley
Speaker 1: was happening and all these other things, you know, this
Speaker 1: group was was right there in California trying to capitalize
Speaker 1: on the new popularity that this kind of you know,
Speaker 1: quote activism was doing with these you know, lots of
Speaker 1: different right wing kind of rallies at this time. UM
Speaker 1: back back back to the anti racist action kind of definition. Uh,
Speaker 1: the group's ideology comes appears to be a mishmash mostly
Speaker 1: equal parts of identity Europa's flaccid identitarian discourse inspired itself
Speaker 1: by fascist organizations like Generation Identity from France and the
Speaker 1: fetisisty and the fetishization of masculinity, physical fitness, and violence,
Speaker 1: mixed in with shallow anti corporate, anti consumers themes like
Speaker 1: in the film Fight Club. Propaganda by the overwhelmingly, but
Speaker 1: propaganda by the group overwhelmingly contains the usual fascistic themes
Speaker 1: of emasculated young men needing to reclaim their identities through
Speaker 1: learning to fight and engaging and puring a purifying violence
Speaker 1: so very theyre they basically are just a Nazi fight club.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's really interesting about not just
Speaker 1: ram but about kind of the way in which American fascism,
Speaker 1: you know, starting like not starting in but ramping up
Speaker 1: in sen and up through the Trump years. Is it
Speaker 1: kind of recreated the process that we saw happen in
Speaker 1: the early chunk of the twentieth century, like and and
Speaker 1: ram is specifically that we talked about Gabrielle Benunzio in
Speaker 1: an earlier episode, like that he's all about the aesthetics,
Speaker 1: he's about manliness, he's about like like like the purifying
Speaker 1: nature of violence, the sacredness of action for actions sake,
Speaker 1: like they were at that stage of it. And obviously,
Speaker 1: like the kind of mainstream of American fascism has moved
Speaker 1: on and gotten much larger and more dangerous. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me that the same pattern has kind of
Speaker 1: repeated itself here. Yeah, and it was this was this
Speaker 1: was all very intentional. Like, um, if you look at
Speaker 1: like the anti racist action kind of brief definition or
Speaker 1: not not suprief definition, Um, then compare that to like, so, um,
Speaker 1: this was a ram. I'm gonna real A RAM post
Speaker 1: from a GAB circa December to seventeen. Robert, did you
Speaker 1: want to want to explain what GAB is to the
Speaker 1: listeners that have a better life than we do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Gab was the first Twitter for Nazis before Parlor was
Speaker 1: popular as Twitter for Nazis, and gab largely became defunct
Speaker 1: after someone who had repeatedly talked about killing Jewish people
Speaker 1: on Gab shot eleven Jewish people to death at the
Speaker 1: Tree of Life Synagogue. Yeah, so here's here's here's the
Speaker 1: post from RAM from from from gab um kind of
Speaker 1: echoing some sentiments that the Anti Racis Anti Racist Action
Speaker 1: article kind of laid out. The Rise About Movement is
Speaker 1: the premier m M, a fight club of the altar
Speaker 1: right representing the United States. Their dedication is to promote
Speaker 1: an active lifestyle and common values among young people and
Speaker 1: a future for European people. This is achieved through training,
Speaker 1: creative thinking, and activism. The main task of RAM is
Speaker 1: to revive the spirit of a warrior and see the
Speaker 1: rebirth of the values of the Western civilization's forefathers warrior. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the warrior spirit is going to be a big reoccurring
Speaker 1: theme here. Um I I was I. I've been familiar
Speaker 1: with the warrior spirit kind of concept for a while
Speaker 1: because actually that there's there's a sector of the Parker
Speaker 1: community that talks about that. So like I've been and
Speaker 1: I was always weary of that, even before I really
Speaker 1: knew what fascism was. I always just felt weird to
Speaker 1: me and felt a little problematic. Yeah. Um, but we'll
Speaker 1: actually we'll be talking about warrior spirit later on, probably
Speaker 1: more in in part two. Um, because there's a you know,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of fascist writing about the warriors bear
Speaker 1: to the warrior lifestyle, warrior mentality or whatever. Of course,
Speaker 1: this also ties into police training, which I'm sure is
Speaker 1: just a coincidence. Um, I'm sure there's a correlation. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's no correlation between the aesthetics, the aesthetics of
Speaker 1: violence and the warrior culture that Ram appropriated and capitalized on,
Speaker 1: and the aesthetics of violence and warrior culture that is
Speaker 1: hugely popular among law enforcement law enforcement trainers like Grossman. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's there's absolutely no comparisons between any any
Speaker 1: of those things. It is fun though, because Ram does
Speaker 1: hate law enforcement, which is gonna be very funny later. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because and that's the like you've got the two chunks
Speaker 1: of the right that are currently like the there's like
Speaker 1: the hates cops because I'm an actual Nazi chunk of
Speaker 1: the right, and then there's the back the blue chunk
Speaker 1: of the right. And at the moment one we seem
Speaker 1: to be watching the hates cops chunk of the right
Speaker 1: eating the back of the blue type, which is which
Speaker 1: is very fun. Yeah. Anyway, Yeah, we we will talk. No,
Speaker 1: I'm fin was just watching from the sidelines. Um. Anyway.
Speaker 1: So in late late seventen Pro Publica interviewed a quote
Speaker 1: leader of RAM. So this is probably either Ben Daily
Speaker 1: or Robert Rundo, but it doesn't identify who UM. And
Speaker 1: here's what the article says on the actual origin of
Speaker 1: the group UM. Quote RAM, the leader said, came together organically.
Speaker 1: It started when he encountered a few other guys with
Speaker 1: similar political beliefs, including two active duty U. S. Marines,
Speaker 1: while exercising at different gyms in southern California. They all
Speaker 1: liked Trump but didn't think his agenda went far enough.
Speaker 1: The men began hanging out. Their numbers grew. Many came
Speaker 1: from rough backgrounds. They've been strung out on drugs or
Speaker 1: spent time behind bars, and currently labored at tough blue
Speaker 1: collar jobs. Soon they had a name and a mission.
Speaker 1: They would physically take on the foes of the far right.
Speaker 1: So that's that's that's how they're kind of origin is
Speaker 1: described in that article based on the interview they did,
Speaker 1: just some dudes hanging out in gym's talking about politics
Speaker 1: and realizing that they're all kind of Nazis um, which
Speaker 1: they were. There's a lot of actually ties, there's lots
Speaker 1: of ties to the to the actual Hammer Skins Um
Speaker 1: which we'll talk more about later, which again are like
Speaker 1: one of the first big Nazi skin head um gangs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're talking like nineties, early two thousand's. Actually the
Speaker 1: first named US Antifa group, ro City Antifa form to
Speaker 1: oppose a hammer Skin rally, and I think two dozens
Speaker 1: six in Portland. Yeah, we Hammer Skins will will come
Speaker 1: back here um very soon. Um. Rams combination of influences
Speaker 1: makes it pretty makes it a pretty unique group inside
Speaker 1: the States, and one I think that young men can
Speaker 1: be especially susceptible to under the right conditions. UM in
Speaker 1: their prime. Ram just utilized the same kind of meme
Speaker 1: centric social media outreach common among the ault right, the
Speaker 1: joke filled posts about white identity, victimhood, and heritage, while
Speaker 1: also being very lifestyle focused and emphasizing the importance of
Speaker 1: physical fitness, mascaline athleticism, and street combat training, drawing from
Speaker 1: Skinheads in particular the hammer skin Nation um who who
Speaker 1: also did combat training. Um. And actually they did combat
Speaker 1: training alongside Ram and Ram and Hammerskins shared a few members. Um.
Speaker 1: I know. One one thing Wonder talks about when like
Speaker 1: he's when like now, when he's talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: advice for how to start groups and why he started
Speaker 1: this group is like he was upset that the al
Speaker 1: right fell into a few kind of factions and feel
Speaker 1: like he felt like his faction wasn't really represented. There
Speaker 1: was like the whole like there was a total like
Speaker 1: you know, the Richard Spencer kind of smart intellectual people
Speaker 1: in suits doing debates type thing, um, And there was
Speaker 1: like the very Mimi right, and then there was the
Speaker 1: very kind of Larpe right where you know, dressed up
Speaker 1: in in like tactical gear and ghost stand in front
Speaker 1: of a building. And Runda thought all these were stupid. Um.
Speaker 1: He's like, he's like kids, kids don't usually go dress
Speaker 1: up in suits and do debates. That's not really what
Speaker 1: That's not really what a lot of young kids do.
Speaker 1: But you do watch UFC. So this so this is,
Speaker 1: this is this is what his kind of big thing
Speaker 1: was was like, if I can get the kids that
Speaker 1: watch UFC, like, if I get like the young teens
Speaker 1: that do that, I think that's going to be more
Speaker 1: of a breeding ground than like the Richard Spencer dressing
Speaker 1: up in suits trying to look all like cool. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, fucking Joe Rogan proves them right and that
Speaker 1: that's not a dumb tactic. No, it's not, which is
Speaker 1: why I want to talk about this and we need
Speaker 1: to like watch out for this in the next few years,
Speaker 1: because he is right about that. I mean I would
Speaker 1: dress up in suits and do debates, but that I'm
Speaker 1: I'm me. Yeah, So it's it's I'm I'm a little
Speaker 1: different there. Um yeah, yeah, that's that's that's that's where
Speaker 1: it comes from, you know. Um. Anyway, um, let's see.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, here in in a in a in a
Speaker 1: YouTube video which we'll talk more about his rundo's YouTube
Speaker 1: videos later, but here's here. Uh. This is uh, this
Speaker 1: is a quote from one of his YouTube videos. Um.
Speaker 1: I can't remember what chapter it is in mind Comps,
Speaker 1: but the one that he says that we needed we
Speaker 1: need more people to take a boxing than we need intellectuals.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, so I mean and kind of perfectly embodying
Speaker 1: that by saying, I don't remember where in mind comfit was,
Speaker 1: but somewhere somewhere that there's a quotes apparently when when
Speaker 1: Runda was in jail, he was like allowed a copy
Speaker 1: of mine. Compea not a not a good not a
Speaker 1: good idea. But people can't have dice to play dungeons
Speaker 1: and dragons. That's satanic, Robert, it might use it to gamble.
Speaker 1: Oh and that yeah. Um so. One one key element
Speaker 1: that separates RAM from skinheads is their aesthetic. Um, instead
Speaker 1: of shaved heads, bomber jackets and boots, they have you know,
Speaker 1: taper and fashion haircuts that became a common among half
Speaker 1: skull masks, populized by popularized by him often and um
Speaker 1: as California or Anti racist Action perfectly puts it. Quote
Speaker 1: Richard Spencer in activewear kind of look, which does does
Speaker 1: really kind of describe what these guys look like. I
Speaker 1: just hate that. That's a sentence somebody wrote. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's frustrating how accurate it is. Um, the active
Speaker 1: ware thing will be circling back to multiple times. Um,
Speaker 1: because as seemingly, another big influence for the group is
Speaker 1: the Russian white supremacist mixed martial arts clothing company called
Speaker 1: White Rex, which we'll we'll we'll talk about a few
Speaker 1: more times later on. On the note of one other
Speaker 1: note on the lifestyle brand element from the anti anti
Speaker 1: racist action article quote. The group's propaganda also emphasizes an
Speaker 1: anti drug or straight edge message, which is again a
Speaker 1: common theme among certain segments of the neo Nazis, who
Speaker 1: view substances um excluding alcohol apparently um as part of
Speaker 1: the global Jewish conspiracy to weaken the white race. Despite this,
Speaker 1: many members use the wide reaches a stances and have
Speaker 1: histories of being arrested for like drunken fighting and possession
Speaker 1: in the past. Um, just a ton of them. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: One rand member, um, tylor Lob, has a long history
Speaker 1: of arrests for driving on under the influence, drunken fighting,
Speaker 1: carrying a switchblade, and robbery. And he also he actually
Speaker 1: managed to get himself shot during a drunken fight. Um. See,
Speaker 1: these are the kind of people who need to hear
Speaker 1: the gospel of my favorite drink, the actual lifestyle beverage
Speaker 1: that I pushed for Behind the Bastards high Ball, which
Speaker 1: I'm now rolling over into high ball, which my my
Speaker 1: New Year's recipe for this is you get a pint glass,
Speaker 1: you fill that pint class up eight of the way
Speaker 1: with four oh nine and then no, just just a
Speaker 1: dash of medical bleach, and you gotta make sure it's
Speaker 1: medical bleach. Stealing from a hospital. Break into a hospital
Speaker 1: with a gun, steal some medical bleach, and a dollarp
Speaker 1: of that on top of the four oh nine, and
Speaker 1: then just a scouch of women. Don't do any of that.
Speaker 1: I think I think it will cure the Nazi problem.
Speaker 1: It'll do Yeah, exactly. If we can get the Nazis
Speaker 1: drinking highballs, we'll have less of a problem with them
Speaker 1: because it make the part where people have to go
Speaker 1: guns blazing into a You don't have to go guns.
Speaker 1: That's the most American thing you can do, Sophie. If
Speaker 1: you carry out an armed robbery in a hospital, they'll
Speaker 1: probably let you take the bleach. Okay, this is not
Speaker 1: Batman movie. This is Behind the Bastards and it's time
Speaker 1: for an ad break. Don't do any of that. Ships
Speaker 1: that support this podcast, all right, we're back. Please continue Garrison. Ya,
Speaker 1: no drugs for these Nazis, so so they say except
Speaker 1: for drinking and driving, except for a lot of alcohol. Um.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like Rundo does truly believe in the
Speaker 1: straight edged thing like they like in terms of like
Speaker 1: drugs and stuff, they really are anti drug Um. You
Speaker 1: show was Hitler except for all the meth amphetamy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also like a Tyler Tyler lob. The guy that
Speaker 1: got into a who got shot during a drunking fight
Speaker 1: was like was in like a Zanex club when that happened.
Speaker 1: So like come on, like, come on, come on, buddy, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: medicinal drugs don't count, bro. Yeah. Um, but like they
Speaker 1: actually a series about the whole um stranger stranger thing
Speaker 1: in terms of like in terms of propaganda at least,
Speaker 1: um yeah. Yeah, and it's definitely like that's a pretty
Speaker 1: common stream among Nazis, Like you have to keep yourself
Speaker 1: pure and healthy for the race. Yeah yeah. Speaking of propaganda,
Speaker 1: Ran themselves relied heavily on social media propaganda for recruiting.
Speaker 1: They would often produce videos of them doing combat training
Speaker 1: or working out for the SPLC, the Southern Property Law Center. Um.
Speaker 1: Their promotional media is quote targeted towards men who find
Speaker 1: the idea of a real world fight club appealing. White
Speaker 1: supremacy supplies and justification for violence, and ultimately this group
Speaker 1: has been about street fighting, um, which I don't fully
Speaker 1: agree with the last part there. I spent way way
Speaker 1: too much time reading about RAM and watching their videos
Speaker 1: this past like two weeks, um, and they absolutely care
Speaker 1: about wite supremacy maybe above all else. UM. But I
Speaker 1: can see truth, elements of truth in this sentiment. Um.
Speaker 1: And we'll come back to this topic later. We talk
Speaker 1: about RAMS co founder Robert Runda Moore, because I think
Speaker 1: there is definitely a little bit of that violence above
Speaker 1: everything in him. But I mean it is very you know,
Speaker 1: there's there is a lot of white supremacy. It's not
Speaker 1: it's not just finding a justification for violence. It is
Speaker 1: also they just really care about white supremacy. Back to
Speaker 1: back to social media propaganda, um, from from from from
Speaker 1: the remem account, they would post videos, pictures, and memes
Speaker 1: posting over the people they beat up, usually showcasing footage
Speaker 1: or photos of the assaults. And of course this would
Speaker 1: all kind of This wasn't a great idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was good for recruiting, but this would absolutely contribute
Speaker 1: to their um downfall um because you know, they're just
Speaker 1: bragging about all the crimes they're doing and very explicit detail. Um.
Speaker 1: So the ironic thing is that they stress that people quote,
Speaker 1: get offline and get active and to quit NonStop meming
Speaker 1: despite their incriminating, NonStop meming about the people that they've
Speaker 1: beat up and they and their NonStop producing and propaganda videos,
Speaker 1: which I mean I get yeah, yeah, I know you
Speaker 1: need to recruit and stuff, but you know when you
Speaker 1: have such a such a they have such a such
Speaker 1: a focus on, like the getting offline type of thing,
Speaker 1: despite their heavily mostly online presence um to for for recruiting.
Speaker 1: Another gab gab post from January says, uh, a new
Speaker 1: year and a new direction for the alt right. Time
Speaker 1: to leave behind the online memes and countless our ship
Speaker 1: posting and act like we really do want a world
Speaker 1: that exists beyond discord. It's an etty websites, train organize,
Speaker 1: get active, repeat, So I mean, I get it right
Speaker 1: that they want to recruit new members and to get
Speaker 1: away from the right. It's kind of Keyboard Warrior gamer
Speaker 1: Gate kind of history. They're not the ones who like
Speaker 1: being associated with fucking pep's and ship. No, they find
Speaker 1: it very annoying, um. And they find a lot of
Speaker 1: people spend that too much time doing that instead of
Speaker 1: beating up children in the streets or killing Jewish people
Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. So be like this type of propaganda
Speaker 1: is the easiest way to encourage and influence people to
Speaker 1: take real world action. But I still appreciate the irony
Speaker 1: and the complete lack of security culture that they have,
Speaker 1: UM in terms of NonStop posting about people they've beat up,
Speaker 1: like they would they would constantly make memes about the
Speaker 1: people that they like be beat up in the streets,
Speaker 1: like NonStop. It was. It's amazing, and it's I mean,
Speaker 1: part of that is like it's silly that they did that,
Speaker 1: But it's not as unwise as I guess it might seem,
Speaker 1: because again, the cops never went after those people for
Speaker 1: a long time along time, I mean the cops never did.
Speaker 1: They got in tob with the with the FBI later,
Speaker 1: but we'll let we'll let we'll talk about why. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's that there's a reason in general why they're right
Speaker 1: is so bad at security culture, and it's because the
Speaker 1: cops tend to like them. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Um So, in the vein of like moving beyond online
Speaker 1: posting and into real real world action, it's time to
Speaker 1: discuss what RAM actually did at rallies. Um and who
Speaker 1: these and who these people are? Um so. Rams public
Speaker 1: debut was in March at a MAGA rally in Huntington Beach, California.
Speaker 1: At this point they were probably about a dozen people
Speaker 1: and they were still calling themselves the d A D
Speaker 1: D O I Division. UM. They held a massive banner
Speaker 1: that read Defend America UM. Holding above it there was
Speaker 1: a sign that that read uh dag do i um no,
Speaker 1: which is a variance of of that phrase or a
Speaker 1: popular anti anti Semitic phrase among the right. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna explain what it means, but believe you me,
Speaker 1: it's very anti semitic. Um so. At the Huntington Beach rally,
Speaker 1: RAM members were the first ones to start fights with
Speaker 1: anti fascists that soon turned into a very messy brawl.
Speaker 1: UM fights initially started when a RAM member later identified
Speaker 1: as Tyler Lobb, the same guy who got into a
Speaker 1: drunken UM street fight and got shot at a Xanex club. Um,
Speaker 1: the same guy. Um, he's he's he started stuff by
Speaker 1: attacking a POC journalist and punched them repeatedly in the face.
Speaker 1: Then RAM cout co founder Robert Undo, who also leads
Speaker 1: all like their fight training. Um. He's predominantly seen in
Speaker 1: the pictures unmasked UM and in videos pummeling a Black
Speaker 1: Block protester on the ground with his fists and elbows.
Speaker 1: Footage of the attack becomes a meme for the alt
Speaker 1: right and is used heavily in recruitment propaganda. UM. At
Speaker 1: this time, we have terrible nicknames being given to a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of right wing kind of street people. So
Speaker 1: he got nicknamed Based elbow Man, which is very stupid. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know again this is used for meming and
Speaker 1: propaganda and recruiting, UM, despite clear evidence. Yeah it's not
Speaker 1: it's not fun. I mean, well, we're gonna will probably
Speaker 1: got his nickname alongside such luminaries as Based Stickman. We
Speaker 1: don't don't worry about. But we're talking about stick Man. Good.
Speaker 1: I love Kyle Chapman, He's coming, don't worry. He ties
Speaker 1: into RAM two. Everyone does, even even UM, even Joey
Speaker 1: Gibson ties into RAM at some point. It's great that
Speaker 1: the names, the nicknames of all of these chudds, who
Speaker 1: are only noteworthy for hitting people in the face and
Speaker 1: not getting arrested, will be stuck in my head unto
Speaker 1: legend of my days that I don't know the name
Speaker 1: of I don't know, like the sniper who tried to
Speaker 1: kill me. It's very, very fun. I love America. Despite
Speaker 1: clear evidence of the assault, please do not rust, Please
Speaker 1: do not arrest Rondo, nor would he ever face city
Speaker 1: or stage charges. Um no, I would he yeah? Um. Alternatively,
Speaker 1: police were quick to arrest three anti fascists and Huntington
Speaker 1: Beach who defended themselves from them defended themselves, POC journalists
Speaker 1: and others from RAMS attacks. The three anti fascists were
Speaker 1: charged with quote felony a legal use of pepper spray.
Speaker 1: M hmmm, yeah, that'll really fun. Yet that peppers ray.
Speaker 1: They charge with the felony for music pepper spray for
Speaker 1: defending themselves against Nazis. Um thankfully, yeah, thankfully Three months later,
Speaker 1: the d A. The d A dropped the charges because
Speaker 1: they were stupid. Um, yeah, because they were because it
Speaker 1: was lunacy. Yeah. But the police decided to arrest three.
Speaker 1: I t fascists that day and let all the Nazis
Speaker 1: go and charge them with their lives up with I mean,
Speaker 1: like if it forever, if it gets dropped, but it
Speaker 1: sucks you up while those charges are on you, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I just applied for citizenship, and if I
Speaker 1: was ever charged with something it was dropped, I would
Speaker 1: have to put that on my application. I was charged
Speaker 1: with felony right at this one point. Cheers later dropped,
Speaker 1: but I still have to say that that that you
Speaker 1: have to you have to put that in a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's terrible. That's why I'm glad you're much
Speaker 1: faster than the cops. And I'm glad that I got
Speaker 1: my stuff paper, all papers, all submitted now, um, which
Speaker 1: is which is good? Um? Anyway? Um. Felony illegal use
Speaker 1: of pepper spray because maybe one of the funniest felonies
Speaker 1: that I've ever heard. Besides lost count of the number
Speaker 1: of people who have pepper sprayed me at rallies so
Speaker 1: many August twenty two alone, there was so much mace
Speaker 1: in the air. Yeah, so I got I got maced
Speaker 1: by DHS like four nights ago. They had giant they
Speaker 1: had mace cannons. Yeah, yeah, they had supersokers. I would
Speaker 1: constitute that a felody illegal use of pepper spray. But whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 1: See it's been months since I've been maced by DHS.
Speaker 1: Now you've got me jealous. It was great. Actually, the
Speaker 1: tear gas was a little pleasant. It was a little
Speaker 1: nostalgic because because it was only a little bit and
Speaker 1: it was it was it was almost fun, just just
Speaker 1: a with So let let's flash flash forward to April fifteen.
Speaker 1: It's like a month after this mega rally in Huntington Beach,
Speaker 1: but April Berkeley, California. UM. This is when RAM first
Speaker 1: came under the eyes of anti fascist researchers. UM. This
Speaker 1: was the second big Berkeley rally with upwards of a
Speaker 1: thousand people. UM. This is when RAMS started making connections
Speaker 1: with other neo Nazi al right groups. Rammed themselves attended
Speaker 1: the rally with the neo Nazi quote race realist group
Speaker 1: Identity Europa UM and they actually like car pooled with
Speaker 1: its leader and of an leader who is a former Marine,
Speaker 1: Nathan Domingo. Which side note here, I always thought Domingo
Speaker 1: was like in his fourties or fifties because he looks
Speaker 1: very old, but he's like thirty four. It's shocking. I
Speaker 1: was so also cocaine, which they don't talk about because
Speaker 1: they're a little too smart to usually talk about it.
Speaker 1: But all of these guys are doing a funkload of blow,
Speaker 1: especially the proud boys like it ages these motherfucker's. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: He was born in nineteen eighties six, which he looks
Speaker 1: fifty years old. He's two years older than me. Shocking,
Speaker 1: I was. I was very surprised anyway, Um ram car
Speaker 1: pulled with this asshole, UM who's also who's also a
Speaker 1: convicted felon for doing a racist arm robbery of a
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern cab driver, and he's also a former marine.
Speaker 1: Um Domingo got national tension on April fifteenth after footage
Speaker 1: went viral of him sucker punching pound woman Um. This
Speaker 1: not only turned Domingo into an alt right meme Sashiro,
Speaker 1: it gave Identity Rope a lot of free press and
Speaker 1: led to a harassment campaign against the victim um mother
Speaker 1: Jones reports quote. After the punching video went viral, the
Speaker 1: right unleash a doxing campaign against the victim and her family,
Speaker 1: publishing their home address, phone numbers, home address, and phone numbers. Online,
Speaker 1: she received rape threats and other abuse and messages and
Speaker 1: images of pornography work that she'd done were turned into
Speaker 1: memes and posted on her grandmother's Facebook page. So that's
Speaker 1: not great that they assaulted someone and then uh harassed
Speaker 1: them online for a long time afterwards. Yeah. But in
Speaker 1: in said viral footage right behind Domingo, Um, you can
Speaker 1: see a young man in a gray shirt have skull
Speaker 1: mask shaved sides and black goggles with orange lenses. This
Speaker 1: is Robert Bowman RAND member wearing what would become the
Speaker 1: RAM uniform gray active where skullman ask goggles and that
Speaker 1: Richard Spencer haircut. UM members would also usually have their
Speaker 1: hands taped up m M A style. Uh. Earlier that day,
Speaker 1: RAM co founder Robert Rundo attacked anti fascist demonstrators after
Speaker 1: they insulted him about skipping leg days at the gym.
Speaker 1: So okay, well, he's right on that you never insulted
Speaker 1: man squads. So so some teenagers insulted him about his
Speaker 1: leg about him him not doing leave days, and then
Speaker 1: also apparently they insulted him for having a presumably small
Speaker 1: penis um Triggered by the jokes, Rundo crossed over police
Speaker 1: barricades and started attacking random people. I bet he suffered
Speaker 1: serious legal consequences for breaking across the police arricade to
Speaker 1: assault people. Rundo was briefly arrested and then let go
Speaker 1: the same day, released without charges. UM, oh cool, why
Speaker 1: would you charge? No? Like he he went over a
Speaker 1: police barricade to beat up teenagers after they insulted his leg.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to respond to this without being petty.
Speaker 1: So that's but I love how often police have like
Speaker 1: shoved and threatened us with the rest for standing in
Speaker 1: a street instead of a sidewalk when the street was
Speaker 1: closed to traffic. Um, but he gets to charge across
Speaker 1: a police barricade and punch people. It's fucking rules America. Um.
Speaker 1: If the anti racist Action article points out quote, Rundo's
Speaker 1: actions clearly show it desired to not only escalate the
Speaker 1: situation to violence, but also desired to physically provoke an
Speaker 1: attack anti fascists at all costs. Um. Nathan Demingo of
Speaker 1: Identity Europo was also never arrested or charged over his
Speaker 1: assaulting of a very small woman. Um, despite bragging about it.
Speaker 1: On like mainstream news outlets, like he bragged about his
Speaker 1: his assault and nothing ever happened to him because again
Speaker 1: why um. Later that day, other RAND members, including Tim Gillen,
Speaker 1: Robert Bellman, Spencer Curry, and co founder Benjamin Daily can
Speaker 1: be seen in their M uniform assaulting various anti fascists
Speaker 1: and then bragging about it on social media while posting
Speaker 1: pictures of the attacks. Um what what? What? What made
Speaker 1: RAM different in these street brawls was their ability to
Speaker 1: attack as a unit because they all trained together on
Speaker 1: a weekly basis, Like they actually you know, like they
Speaker 1: actually did physical combat training together. Um. So like they
Speaker 1: they attacked not as just individuals, but they attacked as
Speaker 1: a group. Um. They're described by ProPublica as quote fighting
Speaker 1: as a pack. Whilst attacking someone. RAND member Robert Bowman
Speaker 1: got pepper sprayed in the face with his goggles down. Um,
Speaker 1: and then he was ushered a wave out. He was
Speaker 1: ushered to safety by Joey Gibson above patriot prayers A
Speaker 1: fun a little tie in um for people in the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. That that Yeah, so Joey Gibson saved one
Speaker 1: of the RAM people after getting pepper sprayed, even though
Speaker 1: he had goggles, they just weren't on. I guess I
Speaker 1: don't know. Um, but yeah, this whole whole fighting is
Speaker 1: the pack thing which made them a little bit more
Speaker 1: formidable in combat versus like the Proud Boys, which generally
Speaker 1: do not attack as a group and they mainly attack
Speaker 1: us intivid jewels. UM. So that that that's what made
Speaker 1: them a little bit more effective in combat. Um. We
Speaker 1: we still have a few more Nazi crossovers to get to,
Speaker 1: hear um. At the Berkeley rally, Ram also teamed up
Speaker 1: with white nationalist videographer and live streamer Vincent James Fox UM.
Speaker 1: Vincent woodstream the ra rallies via YouTube and his website. UM.
Speaker 1: Vincent previously was friendly with Ram at the Hunting to
Speaker 1: Beach rally. Um he's the one that dubbed Rundo as
Speaker 1: based elbow man. Great Vincent James would not only happily
Speaker 1: cover these far right tacks, he would also like incite them.
Speaker 1: He can be heard yelling get the fucking cock as
Speaker 1: five Round members jump a Black Block protester and began
Speaker 1: beating on them. So basically, the guy with the video
Speaker 1: camera would like be behind Ram people you like point
Speaker 1: out different people to attack, and then ran would attack
Speaker 1: that person, and then they would go back and tack
Speaker 1: someone else. Um. After after rallies, Vincent would make propaganda
Speaker 1: videos for RAM UM and he hands them all of
Speaker 1: his footage for RAM to make their own videos and
Speaker 1: memes and stuff. So we had they had. They had
Speaker 1: like this kind of like relationship circle here for like
Speaker 1: they would protect him at a rally and he would
Speaker 1: give them footage to do propaganda stuff with. Um. Yeah
Speaker 1: not not not not great again. No, none of these
Speaker 1: people really got in trouble for this with the city
Speaker 1: police or state police at all, and they would only
Speaker 1: get in trouble like many years later after like dozens
Speaker 1: of articles are posted about them, you know, beating up
Speaker 1: random people, and even still their charges miniscule compared to
Speaker 1: what anti fascists get. The thing that is should be
Speaker 1: clear to everyone about the Nazis is that, like this
Speaker 1: current swarm of Nazis that are about to descend on
Speaker 1: the will have descended on d C for the third
Speaker 1: time by the time this this episode air's is that,
Speaker 1: like if one of two things had happened, either one
Speaker 1: the first time they beat up a bunch of people,
Speaker 1: several of them had received serious felony charges and had
Speaker 1: been prosecuted, or if the first time they had come
Speaker 1: out to beat up a bunch of people, they had
Speaker 1: been surrounded by a swarm of counter demonstrators and pummeled. Um,
Speaker 1: they would not have kept coming out, and none of
Speaker 1: this would still be a problem. It would have looked
Speaker 1: like ship for them, and they wouldn't have kept going
Speaker 1: out into the street because it wouldn't have been there there.
Speaker 1: Like the fact that they were not um, the fact
Speaker 1: that they were able to continue doing this and have
Speaker 1: positive experiences getting to beat people up, getting it on video,
Speaker 1: getting their fun nicknames, getting shipped go viral, and they
Speaker 1: didn't suffer consequences from law enforcement, and they weren't there
Speaker 1: just weren't enough people at a lot of these rallies
Speaker 1: to like really beat them into the fucking ground, or
Speaker 1: if there were, the cops stopped them from doing it.
Speaker 1: Like that's why they're still here. That's why this is
Speaker 1: still a problem. Very frustrating. Yeah, still still a problem. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's going to be for for at least a while. Still. UM.
Speaker 1: Eagle eyed anti fascists noticed ram CO founder Ben Dailey
Speaker 1: doing a particular salute at the Berkeley rally. UM A
Speaker 1: closed fist Roman salute that moves and that moves into
Speaker 1: an X with both arms and both fists clenched, which
Speaker 1: is from a history NERD. Yeah, so I know, I
Speaker 1: mentioned Homiskins a few times already. We've I guess we
Speaker 1: we've already kind of um talked about them a little bit.
Speaker 1: But they're there. They're considered to be the largest or
Speaker 1: most widespread Nazia skin hood organization. UM. They have numerous
Speaker 1: ties to brutal white supremacists, assault, speedings, and murders. UM
Speaker 1: twelve of a coach, fully patched hammer skin member, UM
Speaker 1: an Army veterans. If you see a pattern here, I
Speaker 1: keep mentioning all a lot of these people are in
Speaker 1: the Marines, are in the Army because this is a
Speaker 1: pattern here. UM, but fully patch hammer skan member and
Speaker 1: an Army veteran, Wade Michael Page massacre at six people
Speaker 1: inside a sick temple inside a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: UM in in a yeah, so he he what this
Speaker 1: is the Yeah, twenty twelve six people died in this attack.
Speaker 1: There's been about probably like a it's been like around
Speaker 1: like a dozen other hammer skin murders UM. In the
Speaker 1: past few decades across UH the globe, um Ben Dalien
Speaker 1: Rams started actively recruiting hammer Skin members um Uh, Skylar,
Speaker 1: seig Burg whatever stupid name UM, Matthew brands to letter
Speaker 1: also dumb name, and Spencer Curry. Anyway, there's three three
Speaker 1: three three noted hammerskins and anti fascists have like repeatedly
Speaker 1: identified joined RAM into seen UM with Skyler and Spencer
Speaker 1: being part of a hammer skin band, because again, these
Speaker 1: are the type of Nazis that have like quote quote
Speaker 1: quote unquote punk bands, which you know any punk will
Speaker 1: say is actually, you know it's not punk, it's anti punk. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: you kind of can't be punk, and also in favor
Speaker 1: of the state using massive force two institute genocide that's
Speaker 1: not super not really punk. Yeah. Yeah. So like these
Speaker 1: people were in like you know, skinhead bands, and a
Speaker 1: Matt Bronze Setter or whatever his stupid name is UM
Speaker 1: and an accomplice beat UH beat a Jewish man unconscious
Speaker 1: and robbed him in Orange County Park back in twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: which was like a noted like Hammerskin attack. So like
Speaker 1: the same guy now active in RAM and all these
Speaker 1: guys are like in their twenties now, right, So this
Speaker 1: this is they they're they're not like old guys. They're
Speaker 1: like they were doing this as teens and they're doing
Speaker 1: you know, and they were doing stuff like ram in
Speaker 1: their twenties. They're still they're still in their twenties. Um
Speaker 1: Brand Stater or whatever his name is, was convicted of
Speaker 1: aggravated assault and with the hate car enhancement and sent
Speaker 1: to prison for twenty months for beating this Jewish man
Speaker 1: unconscious back again, back back in like um. The anti race,
Speaker 1: anti racist action article notes quote many of these individuals,
Speaker 1: such as Skylar also connected with Neonazi members of groups
Speaker 1: such as the Golden State Skinheads, who estabbed six anti
Speaker 1: fascists and anti racist protesters in Sacramento, UM in uh
Speaker 1: June of like under the banner of the Traditional Workers Party, UM,
Speaker 1: Traditionalist Workers Party. So it's clear that, yeah, it's clear.
Speaker 1: It's clear that the Day Division, as it's known back then,
Speaker 1: is a political collective of working hard to bridge the
Speaker 1: gap between the more Internet based al Right brand of
Speaker 1: white nationalism just targeted to appeal to a younger which
Speaker 1: generally educated, upper class white man and the more traditional
Speaker 1: boots and they ground and street violence tactics characterized by
Speaker 1: neo Nazi skinhead politics. So again they're trying to kind
Speaker 1: of bridge this gap between kind of getting into the
Speaker 1: street and doing fighting. Will also still recruiting young people online. Um,
Speaker 1: which is why I am particularly concerned with what this
Speaker 1: you know, what a similar organization could do in the
Speaker 1: next few years. Um. So after this big rally in Berkeley,
Speaker 1: um uh Ram also connected with far right figure Kyle
Speaker 1: Chapman um, who I don't know. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he deserves his own Bastard's episode because he's just incredibly stupid,
Speaker 1: but this is he just like he punches people a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is basic. He was part of the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: for a little bit. He started the Fraternal Order of
Speaker 1: the Old Nights again super nerves. Like it's like like
Speaker 1: Ram actually hates all these people, like Ronder will talk
Speaker 1: about this like he hates nerds, right, So it's very
Speaker 1: funny to watch his videos because I'll be insulting all
Speaker 1: these like idiots who are like Lar Big. It's very funny. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this Kyle did this Fraternal Order of the
Speaker 1: Old Nights. Um. He started a resist Marxism was turning
Speaker 1: into super happy fun America, which did that Boston Straight
Speaker 1: Pride parade. All the same guy who basically was behind
Speaker 1: all these things. He's very very funny. UM, also very dangerous. UM.
Speaker 1: And also I think more recently of Proud Boy stuff,
Speaker 1: but that's a known at the moment. Um. Yeah, Couchatman
Speaker 1: all this stuff. He got connected with Ram after the
Speaker 1: Berkeley rally. UM and the next few months, Ram also
Speaker 1: connected with various other people affiliated with the Proud Boys,
Speaker 1: including Juan cavitid a Ka, Johnny Benneatz um and quote
Speaker 1: Luke based Skywalker Dennis, which I find offensive as as
Speaker 1: I Luke Skywalker fan, I don't appreciate that. Um. But
Speaker 1: these are all Proud Boys noted for beating up people
Speaker 1: in streets during the same time. UM, so they all
Speaker 1: they they all got acquainted. UM. In the spring and summer,
Speaker 1: Ram and the Proud Boys would put on little like
Speaker 1: monthly get togethers on the different like California beaches. UM.
Speaker 1: One of these meetups was named America First, remembering the
Speaker 1: victims of illegals and refugees. UM. It's like they would
Speaker 1: just do like basically monthly beach parties with the beach
Speaker 1: first of all, Like they all live at the beach,
Speaker 1: like had like Robert Undo had, like a beachside house.
Speaker 1: I mean, and there's a conversation to be said about
Speaker 1: some of the intersections of fascism and surfer culture, like
Speaker 1: it is. It is a thing that's been written about.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that math does add up, but I don't
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Very frustrating, very frustrating. Which is great because
Speaker 1: when we had a not super Nazi, but like a
Speaker 1: noted all right figure from Portland's moved to a beach
Speaker 1: town like last year, and then Andy fascists got her
Speaker 1: fired from her job at the beaches. Yeah, and she
Speaker 1: was like working at the Safeway bakery and she got fired.
Speaker 1: She got she got fired because she took a leave
Speaker 1: of absence because they were giving any worker who was
Speaker 1: scared of the coronavirus a leaf of absence, and she
Speaker 1: took a leave of absence claiming she was scared of
Speaker 1: the virus, and then immediately organized an anti mask rally
Speaker 1: um in the same Yeah, it's it's great, it's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what else is great and good and hopefully
Speaker 1: helps keep us employed. Robert highball No Shot four nine
Speaker 1: in hospital Bleach with Yeah, now you want to drink
Speaker 1: it real fast, you can get a second one in
Speaker 1: you as quick as possible. It's the doubling up that
Speaker 1: really makes it work. I'll take I'll take some notes. Yeah, Garrison,
Speaker 1: you're you're a growing man. You know you need a
Speaker 1: four o nine cocktails. You do not need that. You're
Speaker 1: particularly done my coffee, And that means it's time to
Speaker 1: listen to these maybe coffee ads from maybe a Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope we get another Black Rifle. I swear to
Speaker 1: God if we get a nice another Black Rifle coffee, yet,
Speaker 1: I will the only coffee company that's been repeatedly forced
Speaker 1: to disavow Kyle Rittenhouse because he likes their product, and
Speaker 1: has also been attacked by its primary customers for disavow
Speaker 1: and Kyle Rittenhouse because they made their brand fascism coffee?
Speaker 1: Are you tired of masturbating with a cup of normal
Speaker 1: coffee while watching watching Hitler speeches? In that case, by
Speaker 1: Black Rifle coffee, the only coffee that makes sense to
Speaker 1: masturbate to Hitler too, Thank you, Black Rifle. I resign
Speaker 1: here we go. Well, that was a great coffee. Thanks
Speaker 1: Robert for sending me my Christmas coffee. Um this year. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're back from the ad break and I did not
Speaker 1: get black Rifle coffee because it probably seems terrible. Um,
Speaker 1: we drink death wish coffee in this house. You have
Speaker 1: not given us money. But who I quite like you
Speaker 1: know what I miss? Robert is going to the beach
Speaker 1: to look at the ocean, um, which Nazis got to
Speaker 1: do a lot with it with the Proud Boys, um.
Speaker 1: Which is weird because you know, Graham was very like
Speaker 1: openly Nazi at this point, and Gavin McGinnis was still
Speaker 1: trying to get convince people that he that his gang
Speaker 1: wasn't racist or fascist at this point. Um. And you
Speaker 1: know McGinnis would insist neo Nazis don't exist anymore. There's
Speaker 1: a bit it's it's it's it's a bit too hard
Speaker 1: depart when Ram was doing monthly beach hang out with
Speaker 1: with the Proud Boys. So real interesting thing there, um.
Speaker 1: But an observation that the antiras section article makes is
Speaker 1: um quote. What's clear is that both these groups need
Speaker 1: each other. The Proud Boys need the numbers and muscle
Speaker 1: of the of the neo Nazis, where the neo Nazis
Speaker 1: need the cover of the pro Trump groups. I think
Speaker 1: it's a really good UM observation at this time in
Speaker 1: you know, for for for how this was kind of
Speaker 1: a symbiotic relationship that they kind of both needed to
Speaker 1: survive at the time. UM speaking speaking of Nazis. At
Speaker 1: the beach, um back in back in Huntington Beach and
Speaker 1: maybe seen Red members gathered around a beach fire at
Speaker 1: a at a at a at a public beach, mix
Speaker 1: the ocean with a splastica son and rad and iron
Speaker 1: cross and cultic rooms for scribble lunch of the fire
Speaker 1: pits Huntington Beach is so nice. This is so And
Speaker 1: they were also flying an American, a Confederate and iron
Speaker 1: cross and a black sun flag requa garrison. I can't
Speaker 1: care whatever anyway, we all we're all flying. So what
Speaker 1: what do you um? So unmasked RAND members are seeing Uh,
Speaker 1: Tim Gellen and Ben Dailey are seen the pictures. Um,
Speaker 1: So what do you think these free speech crusaders are
Speaker 1: doing near a big beach fire in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day. What what do you what do you think?
Speaker 1: What do you think they're They're up to I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe burning crosses. They're doing a burning burning. Oh good, okay,
Speaker 1: what book do you because I have the script, I
Speaker 1: am your overlord? What what book do you think that?
Speaker 1: What do you think that that? What do you think
Speaker 1: they're burning? Oh? Geez? What book? Would then this is
Speaker 1: the game? Oh man, there's there's like five right answers.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, okay, I'm I don't know. I really
Speaker 1: don't know. There's too many possibilities catcher in their eye. No,
Speaker 1: they probably like that book, actually, Robert More, I think
Speaker 1: more fucked. What's like looks like something that like is
Speaker 1: really fucked. What's something that twenty year old neo Nazis
Speaker 1: are going to burn at the beach? Oh? Probably like
Speaker 1: the Torah? Maybe? But anyway, among the books being tossed
Speaker 1: in the fire were Um and Frank's The Diary of
Speaker 1: a Young Girl. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a novelization
Speaker 1: of Sinless listep so the novelistation. Okay, that's creative of
Speaker 1: the Jewish. Uh, the Jewish book of why um, cultural pluralism,
Speaker 1: um traffon Hitler's Hell. And also they burned the nine
Speaker 1: eleven Commission report. But wow, that makes sense, because you
Speaker 1: don't have to be a Nazi to know the jet
Speaker 1: fuel can't melt steel beams. Uh but yeah, um, they weren't.
Speaker 1: At least twenty other books though that they deemed culturally
Speaker 1: Marxist or Jewish enough to be burned. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they had theirselves and a little a little book burning
Speaker 1: in May on the beach, flying a black sun flag
Speaker 1: back when no one knew what a black sun flag was. Like,
Speaker 1: I still, I'll still a lot a lot of people don't. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's what they were doing. Shooter put on
Speaker 1: his body armor. Yeah, I mean, I'll mention this later,
Speaker 1: but Robert Rundo eventually gets a black sun elbow tattoo.
Speaker 1: Okay cool. Yeah anyway, Um, quick quick run down to
Speaker 1: some of Ram's activities pre pre AUGUSTE. UM. Well, Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: California May Feet members attended the May Day actions, hoping
Speaker 1: to get into fights with left wing activists. UM. San Bernardino,
Speaker 1: California June members participated in a quote anti Sharia law
Speaker 1: protest in protesting a bill that would make quote property
Speaker 1: protesting in support of a bill that would make a
Speaker 1: quote practicing Sharia law illegal. It's just very very dumb. Um,
Speaker 1: that's not how laws work. UM. They held signs that
Speaker 1: read rape fugees, stay away, not welcome. UM. Another sign
Speaker 1: that was like defend America, Islamists out. UM. Within that
Speaker 1: that that that depicted a lance lance wielding crusaders on
Speaker 1: horseback chasing away fleeing Muslims. So that's that's that's in June. UM.
Speaker 1: So not super historically accurate because let's just say crusader
Speaker 1: cavalry didn't have shipped on saladine. M. But I don't
Speaker 1: think people really care about history, that about what happened
Speaker 1: during the actual Yeah, not really um. Uh. Tourist California
Speaker 1: July seen remembers hung a quote secure Borders, Secure Future
Speaker 1: banner over the UH one ten highway or freeway. I
Speaker 1: don't know how to say local local. You know, there's
Speaker 1: like certain ways to say the numbers. You were you
Speaker 1: were cool and hippy, dude, I know all the California
Speaker 1: highways now allowed further south than reading. UM and uh.
Speaker 1: Finally um. And also in July seventeen in in Santa Monica,
Speaker 1: remembers attempted to disrupt a Committee for Racial Justice meeting. UM.
Speaker 1: Also at the time, a lot of remembers were working
Speaker 1: at a tree trimming business that was run by Benjamin Daily,
Speaker 1: so like they were all working at their gang. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: Um it's fun looking. I mean their business is currently
Speaker 1: shut down because Benjamin Daily is currently in prison for
Speaker 1: things he will do later. Um, but um, it's fun
Speaker 1: going to you can get but his yelth page is
Speaker 1: still up so you like read reviews of like people
Speaker 1: saying hey, you're a fucking Nazi um, and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: how rude that is. Yeah, it's real, real, stupid, real dumb. Um.
Speaker 1: So anyway, this this leads up to August seen and
Speaker 1: the Unite the Right rally. UM. At this point, rain
Speaker 1: Ramp claimed to have over fifty members, although it was
Speaker 1: way more likely they had around end of fifteen guys.
Speaker 1: And we're just lying about their numbers to make them
Speaker 1: seems seem bigger than what they actually were. Um. But
Speaker 1: due to their social media presence, UM, they had gained
Speaker 1: a national reputation as like an intense white supremacist street
Speaker 1: fighter group. Uh. Tim Gellen and Ben Daily are front
Speaker 1: and center in one of the most widely circulated photos
Speaker 1: of the Tiki Torch rally. They're like, right, there you
Speaker 1: can see, you can see their little little faces because
Speaker 1: they have both have they both have very unique heads UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're they're frontal center UM. On August eleventh
Speaker 1: and the night before you know, the big the big
Speaker 1: day on August twelve UM, both men Gillen and Daily
Speaker 1: had a gun charges from actually Um and Gilan had
Speaker 1: been jailed for a legal possession of an unserialized tanggun
Speaker 1: and Daily was arrested and convicted of illegally carrying a
Speaker 1: concealed snub nosed UH seven magnum revolver. So they both
Speaker 1: these guys here apparently had gun charges. So I don't
Speaker 1: think they were carrying at this time, but a lot
Speaker 1: of people made that note. So I'm like, okay, I
Speaker 1: guess I'll put it into sure, and a lot of people,
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys who can't legally carry or
Speaker 1: own guns still do because again the police very rarely
Speaker 1: punished them for breaking the law. Yeah, so these guys
Speaker 1: were chanting, you know, you will not replace us choos
Speaker 1: A lot replaces Chance Um alongside fellow remember Cole White,
Speaker 1: unfortunate name for a Nazi UM and hundreds of other
Speaker 1: UM young man. So they were there was. There was
Speaker 1: at least three or four people from RAM there that night.
Speaker 1: UM of chanting UH. The RE members in Charlottesville participated
Speaker 1: the attacking the anti racist, anti fascist protesters at the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia campus when the hundreds of Nazis surrounded
Speaker 1: a few dozen people holding an anti racist banner. So
Speaker 1: the RAM was a part of the attack on the
Speaker 1: people in front of the statue that night. UM. The
Speaker 1: next day, August twelve, at the main Unite the Right event,
Speaker 1: at least four remembers were present and can be seen
Speaker 1: attacking anti fascist counter protesters starting very early on in
Speaker 1: the day. UM. When I was, I mean, I was
Speaker 1: looking through old footage for this for writing, and I
Speaker 1: was able to actually, like I was, I I've been
Speaker 1: reading enough about these guys and watching enough other videos
Speaker 1: that I was like able to like pick out people
Speaker 1: just like just with my own eyes without having to
Speaker 1: pause or anything. I can like track certain people throughout
Speaker 1: the crowd because they were very active in beating up
Speaker 1: a lot of people. UM on on August twelve, UM,
Speaker 1: Ben Daily, Tim Gellen, Um Cold White, and Michael miss Less,
Speaker 1: UM all these guys were attacking people this day. UM
Speaker 1: the ladder, which is also a documented attacking people back
Speaker 1: in Berkeley. Um. Uh, that's Michael miss Less, who is
Speaker 1: also a PhD student at the u c l A
Speaker 1: and possessed government security clearance for work on sensitive research
Speaker 1: at defense contractor Northrop Grunman. UM. So that's good. It's
Speaker 1: not like that. It's not it's not it's not ideal
Speaker 1: at least it's at least it's not our dear friends
Speaker 1: over at that would really break my heart. But Raytheon
Speaker 1: is still pure and one of the best LGBT employers
Speaker 1: in the nation because at ray Theon, we don't care
Speaker 1: what you believe or who you love. We just care
Speaker 1: that you will to make a missile guidance chip that
Speaker 1: we can use to detonate a school bus and yeomen
Speaker 1: filled with thirty three children. That's all that matters to Raytheon.
Speaker 1: And I think that's beautiful. I think it's beautiful. Garrison.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you can given a good word for Michael
Speaker 1: uh Misless. No, they won't hire or nazis it Raytheon? Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So eventually he was fired from north gunn right what
Speaker 1: following reporting of him, you know, being a Nazi. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, kind of concerning. He had government security clearance
Speaker 1: to work on like sensitive research. So that's not ideal.
Speaker 1: I don't like it, guys, I don't. I don't. So
Speaker 1: after Unite the Right UM and the murder of Heather Higher,
Speaker 1: scrutinty was finally put on these new right groups. UM
Speaker 1: RAM leader interviewed by Republica stated that after August, he
Speaker 1: uh the group is coach trying to stay away from rallies,
Speaker 1: UM because you know, they killed somebody, um and beat
Speaker 1: up you know, dozens of other people. UM. So for
Speaker 1: over a year after Unite the Right, the only legal truggle,
Speaker 1: the only legal trouble RAM had gotten into was when
Speaker 1: uh Rob Rundo was briefly detained in Berkeley. But so
Speaker 1: far they had faced no no, no actual consequences for
Speaker 1: their assaults, despite bragging about them all over social media. Well,
Speaker 1: that slowly started to change a little bit. UM. Between
Speaker 1: October seventeen. October seventeen and August, UH pro Publica and
Speaker 1: PBS Frontline had begun reporting on RAM and their involvement
Speaker 1: in the violent activities and violent attacks. UM. A lot
Speaker 1: of the research UM done on RAM was first actually
Speaker 1: done and made public by North California Anti Racist Action
Speaker 1: UM and they're really good article that they put out
Speaker 1: on RAM from July twenty seventeen, which I've already quoted
Speaker 1: from a lot UM And unfortunately, I mean ProPublica front
Speaker 1: Line did a good job getting this reporting out into
Speaker 1: the mainstream, but unfortunately most of their work is actually
Speaker 1: heavily plagiarized. UM between it's play drives mostly from all
Speaker 1: all the RAM stuff is played drives mostly from the
Speaker 1: Anti Racist Action article UM and they also did stuff
Speaker 1: on Adam often which they played drized a lot of
Speaker 1: work from Jake han Ohan um on and I know,
Speaker 1: like a like Frontline one like Emmys for this work
Speaker 1: and stuff Perre initially left off the Yeah, it's very
Speaker 1: frustrating and they stole most of this work actually, UM
Speaker 1: extremely frustrating, but it did get the reporting into like
Speaker 1: the mainstream, so we got people upset about it, so
Speaker 1: that pressured the FBI to actually take some action. But
Speaker 1: again they didn't really credit who did the actual work.
Speaker 1: And it's very very, very frustrating, but we will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's UM, I mean for for RAM North California, Anti
Speaker 1: Anti Racist Action, UM did amazing, amazing work identifying all
Speaker 1: of these RAM people finding out lots of information about them. Um.
Speaker 1: They were they were like, I mean again, they all
Speaker 1: did this like before before, like um, like before the
Speaker 1: Charottes VI rally, Like they did this before it was
Speaker 1: you know popular to start naming these people. Um, so great,
Speaker 1: great work their guys. Um. So, with with a mounting
Speaker 1: evidence against RAM for multiple sources, including more and more
Speaker 1: mainstream outlets, because I mean the Guardian and other you
Speaker 1: know articles from mainstream uh publications started you know, referring
Speaker 1: to the propublic of stuff. So like you know, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, it went through the cycle, Guardian, CNN, whatever. Um. So,
Speaker 1: with meunting evidence, the FBI started to pay attention. Um.
Speaker 1: On Tuesday, October two, So this is four hundred and
Speaker 1: sixteen days after the Unite the Right rally, the FBI
Speaker 1: arrested four RAND members for their rule in the violent
Speaker 1: August rally. So four hundred days after Unite the Right,
Speaker 1: FBI arrests for people. Um that's Ben Daily, Tim Gellen, Uh,
Speaker 1: Cole White, and Michael Misless uh propublic article uh quote
Speaker 1: quoting another propublic article post the attack, um quote that
Speaker 1: the four men were charged with having traveled to Charltsville
Speaker 1: with the aim of inciting a right and conspiracy to
Speaker 1: incite a riot, and prosecutors submitted an array of photographs
Speaker 1: and videos capturing the men pummeling and choking protesters over
Speaker 1: the two days. UM. After after a few months, the
Speaker 1: four men eventually all pleaded guilty, admitting their actions were
Speaker 1: not in self defense. UM And in July th nineteen,
Speaker 1: three of the four men who pleaded guilty to federal
Speaker 1: charges for their role in the violence UM were sent
Speaker 1: to prison, with terms ranging from twenty seven months to
Speaker 1: thirty seven months. The fourth man, Kyle White, was let
Speaker 1: off easy for UM quickly cooperating with authorities and because
Speaker 1: he quote disavowed his hate Vali ideology. So he he
Speaker 1: got to avoid federal prison for disavowing his his hate
Speaker 1: fl ideology. Yeah, only only serving seven months in like
Speaker 1: a jail after his arrest, you know, but before the trial. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I would disavow if I could,
Speaker 1: if I could get me out of federal prison. But whatever. UM.
Speaker 1: But hey, three out of four Knatzies ain't bad. The
Speaker 1: justice system prevails gay not Actually not so fast. UM.
Speaker 1: In late October, FBI brought charges against four other RAND members,
Speaker 1: including co founder Robert Rundo, Tyler Lob again, the the
Speaker 1: Zanex Drunken Fight guy, Um, Robert Bowman, and uh Aaron
Speaker 1: um Easan I don't know how to say his name,
Speaker 1: who cares Um, But the FBI brought charges against these
Speaker 1: four guys for their involvement in the Mega rally in
Speaker 1: Huntington's Beach. So this was like, I don't know, five
Speaker 1: hundred almost six hundred days after the Huntington Beach rally.
Speaker 1: Great work FBI, real timely. But you know, the FBI
Speaker 1: is bringing charges against teenagers with umbrellas in Portland, though
Speaker 1: at much faster rate. They're No, they're bringing charges for people,
Speaker 1: you know, in August. They brought charges for you know,
Speaker 1: back in October, so it's like two months against that
Speaker 1: teenager with with an umbrella. So they're really on the
Speaker 1: on the on on the on the front line there.
Speaker 1: But it takes six hundred days to get the Nazis
Speaker 1: um too bright about their assaults anyway better than yah um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So for for the people who got brought chargers against them, Um,
Speaker 1: for the for the hunting to Beach stuff, as well
Speaker 1: as the various others you know, events around the time
Speaker 1: been daily and through the Red members were arrested in
Speaker 1: uh you know, so like the Charlotsville people were arrested
Speaker 1: in like early October UM. Around the same time, Robert
Speaker 1: Rondo's house and Hunting to Beach got rated by the FBI,
Speaker 1: deploying flash bangs into his bedroom. But Rundall wasn't arrested
Speaker 1: that day. He was there, but they didn't arrest him,
Speaker 1: so they raided at his house. They're like, all right,
Speaker 1: we didn't find it. You think you're free to go? Um.
Speaker 1: Shortly after this, he typed to flee to He attempted
Speaker 1: to flee to Ukraine, where there's like a white national
Speaker 1: still stronghold, but because of travel restrictions put on him
Speaker 1: by American authorities, he got flagged as a Tier one
Speaker 1: operator of domestic terrorism UM and so he was turned
Speaker 1: back to the US after tempt attempting to transfer flights
Speaker 1: in London. UM. Weeks later, he made his second attempt
Speaker 1: to flee. He walked across the border into Mexico and
Speaker 1: made his way to Al Salvador to quote take a
Speaker 1: vacation and see the beaches. UM. Late late later this month,
Speaker 1: while getting on a flight from Al Salvador to Argentina.
Speaker 1: He was arrested and sent back to the States. So
Speaker 1: he tried multiple times to flee to other countries UM
Speaker 1: too because like he he he knew that like people
Speaker 1: were gonna come to get him eventually. UM. So he
Speaker 1: tried to get away and did not do it very secesfully.
Speaker 1: And to take a vacation. He wasn't. He wasn't fleeing.
Speaker 1: He was taking a vacation. Yeah, it's a good time
Speaker 1: to take a vacation. Look, that's not bad. So three
Speaker 1: of the RAND members got arrested as well. This new
Speaker 1: group of rests follows similar charges as the previous set
Speaker 1: of arrests, citing felony rioting violations UM. This time, only
Speaker 1: one of the members pleaded guilty. This was Tyler Law.
Speaker 1: The other three did not plead guilty to the charges,
Speaker 1: and in June of twenty nine, United States Drift United
Speaker 1: States District Court Judge Cormack J. Kearney it's just a
Speaker 1: funny name, UM dropped all of the federal rioting charges
Speaker 1: UH for all of the RAND members UM in this
Speaker 1: in this latest bout of arrests on the grounds that
Speaker 1: the statute used to prosecute the men infringed upon their
Speaker 1: First Timent rights to free speech. So the idea that
Speaker 1: you can't assall people, UM and then brag about it,
Speaker 1: I guess was a violations First Amendment. UM Judge Judge Carney,
Speaker 1: a conservative Republican appointed by George W. Bush, wrote the
Speaker 1: charges were unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: It's easy to champion free speech when it advocates a
Speaker 1: viewpoint in which we agree. It's much harder when the
Speaker 1: speech promotes ideas we find abhorrant. But an essential function
Speaker 1: of free speech is to invite dispute. I don't care
Speaker 1: what idiots Antifa are. You're both young men. You don't
Speaker 1: want to be in custody for years. So that's just
Speaker 1: speaking to Rundo and few other people being like, I
Speaker 1: don't care if you want to be to Pantifa. You're
Speaker 1: both young men. You should not be in prison for
Speaker 1: a long time. UM. So that's great that they were
Speaker 1: let off the hook from that UM poor per court,
Speaker 1: per court host news lawyers, UM. But Chorus is like
Speaker 1: a law website. I guess I don't know. UM. Lawyers
Speaker 1: for RAM members stated the charges the men faced uh
Speaker 1: conspiracy to commit writing and travel or use of the
Speaker 1: interstate commerce with intent to write do not pertain to
Speaker 1: the actual philosical fiscal violence that took place. The law
Speaker 1: can't go and suppress everyone's First Amendment rights, adding quote,
Speaker 1: people who commit crimes will continue to be punished, which
Speaker 1: makes no sense because these people committed crimes and absolutely
Speaker 1: got punished in no way got let off. Um So
Speaker 1: in total, I guess four members of RAM got arrested
Speaker 1: by the FBI actually got charge arged and the other
Speaker 1: four did not. So yeah, I I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: So it's very stupid because these guys got arrested by
Speaker 1: the FBI and then a federal judge dropped the charges
Speaker 1: for half of them exciting First Amendment violations, I guess.
Speaker 1: But this was about felony writing and beating people up.
Speaker 1: So it's a weird, and it's it's very common for
Speaker 1: if you know how the FBI works, they don't generally
Speaker 1: charge people unless they are very confident. It's like weird
Speaker 1: for them. It's one of the reasons why federal charges
Speaker 1: very rarely don't get convicted, right, Like it's they generally
Speaker 1: put stuff out when they're fairly confident. So it's weird
Speaker 1: that they dropped so many charges against these guys, and
Speaker 1: it kind of suggests maybe, I don't know, maybe there
Speaker 1: was pushed back behind the scenes to security right wing vigilantes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Not not great. So four got arrested
Speaker 1: and sent to prison for at least a little bit
Speaker 1: of time, and the other four did not. Um, But
Speaker 1: the story of RAM is not over yet. While while
Speaker 1: one of their leaders, Ben Dailey, is still in federal prison,
Speaker 1: the other, Robert Rundo, is out frolicking around Europe trying
Speaker 1: to establish a new brand, which we will have the
Speaker 1: not pleasure of hearing about in part two. So yeah,
Speaker 1: more more fake brands of clothing coming up soon. Stay
Speaker 1: stay tuned, great, stay tuned awesome. Well I feel great,
Speaker 1: So I want to go to the beach. I would
Speaker 1: love to go to the beach again sometime and not
Speaker 1: do a book burning, which seems like a waste of
Speaker 1: time in the beach. Go to the beach. Mason people
Speaker 1: you know spray, Yeah, well, I only like to use
Speaker 1: it legally, um, which is why I put on a
Speaker 1: swastika before I pepper spray. People there you go. Great. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's the episode. I don't know what else to
Speaker 1: say here. Um not to suck Garrison. Where can people
Speaker 1: follow you? Oh yeah, this is the end of a podcast. Um. So.
Speaker 1: I have a Twitter account that I occasionally post videos
Speaker 1: on from protests I guess called at Hungry bow Tie. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess. I have a YouTube page where I posted
Speaker 1: some of the same videos but edited, edited together with
Speaker 1: funny music now which I'm doing more of. It's more
Speaker 1: fun and less depressing. Um yeah, And I guess I
Speaker 1: also have a have a I work on a podcast
Speaker 1: called Uprising a guy from Portland. If you've heard of that.
Speaker 1: It's about the Portland's BLM uprising in that sounds fascinating.
Speaker 1: Oh you you will love it, Robert. It's great. You
Speaker 1: have a whole bunch of stuff about protests and makes
Speaker 1: yeah good great fans of the show wonderful. You listen, Sophie,
Speaker 1: that's good. Yeah yeah, but those are those are those
Speaker 1: are the main things. That's so cool. Absolutely, but glad
Speaker 1: to know about all that, Robert. I'm I think this
Speaker 1: is where we bet everybody good bye. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I would like you all to just kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I think, think a lot about where this nation is heading,
Speaker 1: about kind of what we've seen since two thousands seventeen
Speaker 1: with groups like RAM and then pick up a gun,
Speaker 1: go to your nearby nearest hospital. Fight called I think
Speaker 1: gets into the episode h