Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know. This is a compiletion episode. So every episode
Speaker 1: of the week that just happened is here in one
Speaker 1: convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
Speaker 1: listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. You crack open a doctor pepper.
Speaker 1: You know it'll only make you more thirsty in the
Speaker 1: long run, but you need some liquid in your mouth,
Speaker 1: and you're saving your remaining fifteen gallons for a quick shower.
Speaker 1: The U haul is finally almost packed up. You may
Speaker 1: be able to make it down to San Francisco in time.
Speaker 1: Living in Redwood Valley has been nice the last few years.
Speaker 1: It's a beautiful place, but in August of two, the
Speaker 1: drought became too much. Late last year, California's new far
Speaker 1: right governor lifted all water restrictions on farmers. This sparked
Speaker 1: a new statewide race to use what water was available
Speaker 1: before it ran out. Lake Mendesino was already low at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year and for the first time
Speaker 1: in your memory. It is now completely empty. San Francisco
Speaker 1: isn't doing great either, but it's much better off than
Speaker 1: where you live. The Russian River Watershed relies almost entirely
Speaker 1: on rainfall and is isolated from state and federal aqueducts.
Speaker 1: After the governor lifted water restrictions, new almond and pot
Speaker 1: farms started sucking up ground water, and by the end
Speaker 1: of the summer they started pumping from the river to
Speaker 1: feed their thirsty crops. By mid July, your town implemented
Speaker 1: a twenty five gallon limit per person per day. That's
Speaker 1: about as much water as you go through during a
Speaker 1: five minute shower. The first thing you sacrificed was your garden.
Speaker 1: Then you stopped flushing after you peid. These tweaks added up, though,
Speaker 1: and without water, the lifestyle you'd love to just stopped
Speaker 1: being possible. Your brother in San Francisco offered to let
Speaker 1: you move in with him. You weren't a fan of
Speaker 1: the big city, but at least you'd be able to
Speaker 1: shower again. And so you find yourself sipping an empty
Speaker 1: soda can and loading up your last few boxes into
Speaker 1: the U haul. You give your brother a quick call,
Speaker 1: saying you're all packed up and about to head out.
Speaker 1: He sounds worried and mentioned something about his school letting
Speaker 1: new teachers go to to budget cuts. You can't really
Speaker 1: afford to think about that. Now. You just need to leave,
Speaker 1: since you're all sweaty from loading the U hall the
Speaker 1: last few days. You decided to hop into the shower
Speaker 1: one last time. You knew it wouldn't last long, but
Speaker 1: you still seem surprised when the water turned off after
Speaker 1: what felt like only two minutes. You quickly dry off
Speaker 1: and grab some clean clothes from your backpack and throw
Speaker 1: your damp towel into the passenger seat of the truck.
Speaker 1: You say goodbye to your home of ten years and
Speaker 1: to your old succulent plants, and begin the three hour
Speaker 1: drive down to San Francisco. Water scarcity is a problem
Speaker 1: you're probably already familiar with, especially if you live in
Speaker 1: the Southwest. California has dealt with particularly brutal droughts over
Speaker 1: the last twenty years, and the Golden States water problems
Speaker 1: could be about to get much much worse, because in
Speaker 1: just a few days, California might find itself helmed by
Speaker 1: a far right governor with a near religious hatred of
Speaker 1: water conservation. Electoral politics are not generally a big focus
Speaker 1: on this show, but what's going on in the state
Speaker 1: of California could have serious implications for many people, including
Speaker 1: those outside the West Coast. The ongoing recall campaign against
Speaker 1: Governor Gavin Newsom started out in June of twenty with
Speaker 1: Republican politicians and activists unhappy with Newsom's handling of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Newsom's opposition to President Trump's cracked down on undocumented immigrants
Speaker 1: also played a role. This is actually the fifth recall
Speaker 1: attempt against Newsom since he took office in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: but it's the first one to gain traction. It's fueled
Speaker 1: in part by Newsom's own hypocrisy and hubris. On November six,
Speaker 1: the recall effort gained court approval for a signature gathering extension,
Speaker 1: and later that night, Governor Newsom went to a birthday
Speaker 1: party for a Sacramento lobbyist and friend at French Laundry,
Speaker 1: a pricing Napa Valley restaurant. Soon after, photo surface of
Speaker 1: Newsom mingling massless at the packed restaurant. He faced heavy
Speaker 1: criticism and apologized, but the damage was done. Republicans latched
Speaker 1: onto this as an opportunity to finally push the recall
Speaker 1: effort through. The recall petition, which had only fifty five
Speaker 1: thousand of five signatures on the day of the dinner,
Speaker 1: had nearly half a million a month after the November
Speaker 1: sixth incident. California's recall process is probably the least democratic
Speaker 1: one in the United States. Gathering signatures to authorize a
Speaker 1: recall election is a pretty standard thing, but California has
Speaker 1: among the lowest signature requirements and states that allow for
Speaker 1: the recall of an official. Most states require that the
Speaker 1: recall campaign must gather signatures equal to of the votes
Speaker 1: cast in the last election. California requires just twelve percent
Speaker 1: for executive officials. The l A Times notes quote that
Speaker 1: might have been a high bar in nineteen eleven when
Speaker 1: the population was scattered across the seven hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: mile length of the state, But is it too low
Speaker 1: in one when petitions for ballot measures are gathered and
Speaker 1: moss by paid staff and parking lots. And That's not
Speaker 1: the only questionable aspect of California's recall process. On recall
Speaker 1: election day, voters will face two questions on the ballot, first,
Speaker 1: yes or no on whether to recall Governor Gavin Newsom
Speaker 1: from office. Second, and this one is technically option And
Speaker 1: if so, who among the forty six candidates do you
Speaker 1: want to take his place? The first question is decided
Speaker 1: by a simple majority, just like other ballot measures, but
Speaker 1: when it comes to the second question, the percentage requirements change.
Speaker 1: The replacement candidate doesn't need more than fifty percent to win,
Speaker 1: so if more than fifty percent of the voters say
Speaker 1: yes on the recall question, Governor Newsom must step down,
Speaker 1: even if he has more overall support than any other
Speaker 1: individual challenger on the ballot. The replacement question is determined
Speaker 1: by who gets the most votes among the challengers on
Speaker 1: the ballot, which Newsom cannot be on. So forty nine
Speaker 1: point nine percent of the voters can back Mr Newsom,
Speaker 1: and he can still lose to someone who is supported
Speaker 1: by only, say, twenty percent of the electorate, or even
Speaker 1: a smaller fraction. For other California elections, including special elections
Speaker 1: triggered by the death or resignation of an official, a
Speaker 1: candidate cannot win without the support of a majority of voters.
Speaker 1: If a candidate doesn't win over fifty percent outright then
Speaker 1: the top to compete in a runoff election, not the
Speaker 1: case for California's recall process. Organizers of the recall campaign
Speaker 1: submitted two point one million signatures by the March seventeenth
Speaker 1: filing deadline. One million, seven hundred nineteen thousand, nine hundred
Speaker 1: signatures were ultimately determined to have been valid, which was
Speaker 1: enough to trigger the recall. The deadline for casting your
Speaker 1: vote is September fourteenth. If the recall succeeds, the new
Speaker 1: governor would be in office for the remainder of mister
Speaker 1: Newsom's term through January second, twenty twenty three, and that
Speaker 1: leaves a lot of time for Executive Fuccory, especially considering
Speaker 1: the new front runner. Far right radio talk show host
Speaker 1: and frequent Fox guest Larry Elder, has emerged as the
Speaker 1: likely candidate to replace Newsom in the event the recall
Speaker 1: goes through. Elder, who was sixty nine, jumped into the
Speaker 1: race relatively late in the game during mid July. At
Speaker 1: that time, it was more of a toss up between
Speaker 1: Republican candidates Kevin Falconer, a former San Diego mayre, and
Speaker 1: businessman John Cox, who lost badly to Newsom. In the
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen gubernatorial election, Assemblyman Kevin Kiley and former athlete
Speaker 1: in media personality Caton Jinner pulled less well, but as
Speaker 1: Larry Elder entered the race, he almost immediately became the
Speaker 1: front runner in polls and raised lots of money from
Speaker 1: small donors. In the three weeks after he announced his campaign,
Speaker 1: he raised nearly four and a half million dollars, according
Speaker 1: to fundraising disclosures. That's more than every other Republican challenger,
Speaker 1: Sand's multi millionaire businessman John Cox, who's largely funding his
Speaker 1: own campaign. Elder has been a central figurehead of the
Speaker 1: right wing radio talk show scene since the nineties, but
Speaker 1: has always been hesitant to run for public office, deeming
Speaker 1: the state of California ungovernable due to its liberal supermajority.
Speaker 1: But after talking with his friend and mentor Dennis Praeger
Speaker 1: of the neo fascist propaganda outlet Praeger You, he figured
Speaker 1: it might be worth a shot, and has expressed desire
Speaker 1: to use the emergency powers of the governor to push
Speaker 1: the state right words. Elder was born in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: but moved to Cleveland to attend law school and opened
Speaker 1: his own firm in nineteen eighty. Elder's career began as
Speaker 1: a bit of an accident. He'd been invited on a
Speaker 1: Cleveland station as a guest. He did so well on
Speaker 1: air that when the regular host went on accation the
Speaker 1: following week, the program director asked Elder to fill in.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, Elder had his own weekly time slot on
Speaker 1: the Cleveland station. In the early nineties, a guest host
Speaker 1: from Los Angeles, Dennis Prager, visited Cleveland. Elder quickly impressed
Speaker 1: Praeger with his on air wit and talent, coupled with
Speaker 1: the uniqueness of a black man openly expressing extreme conservative views.
Speaker 1: Praeger persuaded his home station KBC in Los Angeles to
Speaker 1: give Elder a shot. Quoting the l A Times, Elder
Speaker 1: returned to his hometown in nine four, two years after
Speaker 1: the civil unrest following the acquittal of the officers who
Speaker 1: beat Rodney King and in the midst of the O. J.
Speaker 1: Simpson murder case. The program director at rival KFI, David G. Hall,
Speaker 1: felt KBC made a creative move bringing on this guy
Speaker 1: from South Central who swung the other way on race.
Speaker 1: Almost from the beginning. The self proclaimed sage from South
Speaker 1: Central whipped up a fewer. He mixed soundbites from Representative
Speaker 1: Maxine Waters with a recording of a barking dog. He said,
Speaker 1: blacks exaggerate the significance of racism, while women did the
Speaker 1: same in regards to sexism. For nearly four years, Elder
Speaker 1: has slapped many members of his own race in the
Speaker 1: face on radio, belittling them as whiners or losers, holding
Speaker 1: himself up as a model of African American excellence. He's
Speaker 1: become a darling of white listeners, who seemed to almost
Speaker 1: gush when they telephone him on k ABC Talk radio.
Speaker 1: They are astonished to find a black man who not
Speaker 1: only isn't going to chastise them, but who also often
Speaker 1: agreed with them, a black man who declared that race
Speaker 1: was no longer a significant factor in American society. Elder
Speaker 1: also doesn't believe that racial profiling exists. This is despite
Speaker 1: telling The Times editorial Board that police pulled him over
Speaker 1: between seventy five and a hundred times the first year
Speaker 1: he had his driver's license. Elder's regressive, provocative content angered
Speaker 1: Mine Angelinos and black citizens of California led a boycott
Speaker 1: of advertisers on the show. It worked, and by the
Speaker 1: late nineties the show had begun losing millions in AD revenue,
Speaker 1: But thanks to syndication, changing networks, podcasts, and TV appearances,
Speaker 1: Elder has been able to remain a central figure of
Speaker 1: the right wing cont and sphere. He most recently starred
Speaker 1: in a video series for far right propaganda organization and
Speaker 1: literal cult, The Epoch Times. According to Elder's campaign, the
Speaker 1: Central recall issues, He's focusing on our rampant crime, rising homelessness,
Speaker 1: out of control costs of living, water shortages, disastrous wildfires,
Speaker 1: rolling brown outs, and repressive COVID restrictions. For this show,
Speaker 1: we'll be focusing on the last three as they relate
Speaker 1: to the rapidly shifting and hostile climate. For the past
Speaker 1: thirty years, Elder has been a classic conservative climate denier.
Speaker 1: He had a whole section of his website devoted to
Speaker 1: debunking the Gore bull warming myth. Like Al Gore bullshit
Speaker 1: warming myth, Yeah, it's a bad pun. In a CNN
Speaker 1: interview prior to the two thousand eight election, Elder called
Speaker 1: global warming a false myth, while disparaging and making fun
Speaker 1: of both John McCain and George W. Bush for discussing
Speaker 1: global warming is a serious issue. However, more recently, Elder
Speaker 1: has shifted his rhetoric around the climate. In an interview
Speaker 1: last month, he expressed belief that some warming is taking place,
Speaker 1: but by using old soft denialist talking points. Climate is
Speaker 1: always changing. Of course, the climate is changing. The question
Speaker 1: is what do we do about it? Do we deal
Speaker 1: with the effects of it, or do we force feed
Speaker 1: renewables based economy down the throats of people, jacking up
Speaker 1: the price of energy a disproportionate pain for poor people.
Speaker 1: But of course there's climate change, and the climate is
Speaker 1: getting warmer, and maybe about a degree or so in
Speaker 1: the last several years, and it will likely continue. He adds,
Speaker 1: what I don't believe in is climate change alarmism. He
Speaker 1: also said that he was not sure whether climate change
Speaker 1: is making wildfires worse. Quote fires have gotten worse because
Speaker 1: the failure of this governor to engage in sensible fire suppression.
Speaker 1: Elder also blames California's rising housing costs on environmental extremists
Speaker 1: that jack up the cost of housing so that developers
Speaker 1: have to wait and wait and get sued over and over.
Speaker 1: Agains that finally, when the home is built it's way
Speaker 1: more expensive than otherwise it would be without these environmental
Speaker 1: rules and regulations. Despite the slight back pedaling on climate
Speaker 1: for better media optics, his potential policies on the topic
Speaker 1: are just as horrendous as one might assume. In a
Speaker 1: recent video news conference, Elder declared that he would in
Speaker 1: the war on oil and gas and the attack on
Speaker 1: the logging industry, while also reducing regulation on fracking and
Speaker 1: stopping California's growing efforts to expand wind and solar power,
Speaker 1: which he calls not very efficient. Elder did not mention
Speaker 1: climate change during his news conference. Water scarcity will be
Speaker 1: an increasingly severe concern for California in the coming years.
Speaker 1: Drought is already a major political talking point among voters
Speaker 1: and politicians, and it creates another rift between city folk
Speaker 1: and rural farmers. Farmers are having a harder time growing
Speaker 1: crops and feel threatened by water rationing. They're frustrated by
Speaker 1: the thought that the Democrats running cities will always prioritize
Speaker 1: pumping extra water into population dense areas. Meanwhile, people in
Speaker 1: cities are concerned they will be forced to cut back
Speaker 1: on personal water use as almond farmers suck up tons
Speaker 1: of water to feed their droops. Just building more dams
Speaker 1: and water catchment systems or aquifers may seem like a
Speaker 1: solution and have done property. Some of those things might help,
Speaker 1: but they can't make up for a lack of rainfall
Speaker 1: and snow melt. Relying on river water has its own problems.
Speaker 1: Pulling too much from fresh water that flows through rivers
Speaker 1: allows for extra salt water to intrude from the bay,
Speaker 1: and ocean salinity in the water negatively impacts local ecosystems
Speaker 1: and dirties what is supposed to be a freshwater source.
Speaker 1: Drought is simultaneously pushing migratory fish species like chinook salmon
Speaker 1: and steelhead trout closer to the brink of extinction. Large
Speaker 1: numbers of fish are dying off because the rivers they
Speaker 1: rely on as spawning habitats are too warm or too low.
Speaker 1: Anxiety around water, droughts, and crops as among the issues
Speaker 1: driving some people to vote yes on the recall. A
Speaker 1: poll conducted last July by the Public Policy Institute of
Speaker 1: California found that residents sited drought and water supply as
Speaker 1: their top environmental concern, with about twenty calling it their
Speaker 1: chief concern. Which makes it pull well above the related
Speaker 1: problems of wildfires, air pollution, and climate change. Republican politicians
Speaker 1: have been using anxiety around drought to drum up support
Speaker 1: for the recall by blaming the current situation on Newsom.
Speaker 1: The original recall petition against Newsom from early warned that
Speaker 1: the governor quote seeks to impose additional burdens on our state,
Speaker 1: including rationing our water use. Last April, Governor Newsom did
Speaker 1: declare a drought emergency into northwest California counties. The order
Speaker 1: allowed state officials to restrict the amount of water diverted
Speaker 1: from the Russian River and authorized the relocation of fish
Speaker 1: stranded in drying puddles. The local county government asked residents
Speaker 1: to use no more than fifty gallons per day per person,
Speaker 1: but Newsom himself hasn't mandated water rationing for individual consumers,
Speaker 1: though he has asked Californians to voluntarily cut consumption by
Speaker 1: fifteen percent and has suggested that statewide restrictions could be
Speaker 1: on the table if conditions worsened. Heading into the fall,
Speaker 1: Newsom in the Department of Water Resources as a whole
Speaker 1: do have ideas in mind for tackling this issue. Last year,
Speaker 1: Newsom authorized an eleven billion dollar water infrastructure project building
Speaker 1: a single thirty mile tunnel under the Sacramento, San Joaque
Speaker 1: and River Delta. The project, which has been discussed for years,
Speaker 1: is being pushed forward in hopes that it will protect
Speaker 1: the Delta's existing wetland ecosystem and supply enough fresh clean
Speaker 1: water to be diverted south for the rest of the state.
Speaker 1: But the tunnel concept has faced opposition both locally and
Speaker 1: from conservation minded folks. Some residents in the Delta regency
Speaker 1: it is just a water grab to meet the demands
Speaker 1: of southern California and the agriculture industry while the needs
Speaker 1: of those up north are being ignored. Ecologically focused critics
Speaker 1: say it could still increase salinity in the Delta and
Speaker 1: result in notable harm for the ecosystem. Newsom has more
Speaker 1: recently discussed other action and legislation to help mitigate the
Speaker 1: continued drought, quoting the San Francisco Chronicle. In July, the
Speaker 1: governor signed a state budget that includes five point one
Speaker 1: billion dollars over four years for new water infrastructure and
Speaker 1: drought preparation projects, including money to repair delivery canals help
Speaker 1: farmers irrigrate crops more efficiently in start water recycling projects. Still,
Speaker 1: Newsom's recent actions have done little to quell anger among
Speaker 1: many farmers, who say the state's failure to plan for
Speaker 1: another major drought just a few years after it exited
Speaker 1: the last one has put them on the brink of ruin.
Speaker 1: Ernest Buddy Mendez, a lifelong farmer in Fresno County and
Speaker 1: Republican county supervisor, said he was forced to let hundreds
Speaker 1: of acres where he used to o cotton and wheat
Speaker 1: dry up this year after his allotment of river water
Speaker 1: was slashed to zero. He's relying on groundwater pumped from
Speaker 1: wells to keep his grove of almond trees alive. Mendez
Speaker 1: said he hasn't decided whom to support as a replacement candidate,
Speaker 1: and the recall just that he will vote Hell Yeah
Speaker 1: to remove Newsom. Let's face at Newsom. Damn is a
Speaker 1: four letter word, Mendez said, we haven't done anything in
Speaker 1: twenty years about building storage. California already does have one
Speaker 1: of the most extensive damn systems in the country, with
Speaker 1: nearly fifteen hundred reservoirs. Building new on river dams would
Speaker 1: cost billions of dollars if such efforts even survive legal challenges,
Speaker 1: which are all but guaranteed amid the struggle to save
Speaker 1: endangered fish species, there are not many areas left that
Speaker 1: would make sense or be sustainable to build a new
Speaker 1: large reservoir. One other, more cost effective solution could be
Speaker 1: to store more water collected during wet years and underground aquifers.
Speaker 1: One of the solutions to this problem is the same
Speaker 1: as the solution to a number of other climate related problems,
Speaker 1: which is that we simply have to cut the amount
Speaker 1: of resources we're consuming, whether that means reducing our inner
Speaker 1: ge use or cutting down on wasteful water use. You
Speaker 1: can only build so many dams. The trend of California
Speaker 1: farmers growing thirstier crops has made an existing problem much worse. Today,
Speaker 1: the state produces three times as many acres of almonds
Speaker 1: as it did twenty five years ago. With California most
Speaker 1: likely entering a third straight year of disappointing rainfall and
Speaker 1: snow melt, anxiety around drought and increased severity of water
Speaker 1: restrictions won't get any better, And if the Lenina weather
Speaker 1: pattern hits the West coast as it's poised to That
Speaker 1: would mean the western US will have a drier and
Speaker 1: hotter winter than average. Last August, water regulators made an
Speaker 1: unprecedented move to begin cracking down on water use in
Speaker 1: the sprawling Sacramento River in San Joaquin River watersheds, ordering farmers,
Speaker 1: water districts, and other landowners, including the City of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: to stop drawing water from the basins of the river
Speaker 1: or face penalties of up to ten thousand dollars a day.
Speaker 1: The city has enough water in its reservoirs to meet
Speaker 1: demand for at least a couple of years, and stored
Speaker 1: water is not affected by the state restrictions. Water agencies
Speaker 1: also can seek an exemption from curtailments of human health
Speaker 1: or safety or compromised. This does hit rural areas and
Speaker 1: agriculture the hardest, because most cities have alternative supplies and
Speaker 1: stored water to tap into. Looking to attract voters, Larry
Speaker 1: Elder and other Republican challengers to Newsom have made it
Speaker 1: a recurring point to say that farmers should not have
Speaker 1: to endure such cuts, but they don't really give any
Speaker 1: perspective solutions to prevent rationing. When water levels at reservoirs, lakes,
Speaker 1: and wells are all plummeting. Larry Elder said drought is
Speaker 1: not inevitable and said he supports building more reservoirs and
Speaker 1: dams to store runoff, but he has also voice support
Speaker 1: for permitting to salinization projects. The salinization devastates ocean life,
Speaker 1: costs much more than other alternatives, and uses tons of energy. Also,
Speaker 1: soon it will be made obsolete by increasing focus on
Speaker 1: water recycling. Explaining to salonization quickly, ocean water is collected
Speaker 1: and run through pipes to remove the largest solids, and
Speaker 1: then pump through reverse osmosis filters to remove salt, while
Speaker 1: fish and other creatures die upon being sucked in or
Speaker 1: just from the force of the water flow. In a
Speaker 1: report studying it is salinization plant in the early two thousands,
Speaker 1: it was found that on average over a five year period,
Speaker 1: nineteen point four billion larva were caught up at intakes
Speaker 1: and about two point seven million fish, along with marine
Speaker 1: mammals and sea turtles were killed by intake equipment. For
Speaker 1: every gallon of drinking water to salinization leaves another gallon
Speaker 1: of salty brine behind. The plants then just mix that
Speaker 1: with two parts ocean water before pumping it back into
Speaker 1: the ocean. These measures can negatively impact the environment for
Speaker 1: this generation and generations to come. This type of resource
Speaker 1: extract of thinking reflects how we got into the problem
Speaker 1: in the first place. Battling over water allotments will only
Speaker 1: get us so far when dealing with lackluster rainfall. What
Speaker 1: can help is permaculture programs to help farmers learn ways
Speaker 1: to irrigate more effectively and cultivate healthier soils that retain water.
Speaker 1: Moving away from water heavy crops like almonds and towards
Speaker 1: more sustainable and moisture efficient crops must also be done
Speaker 1: if we want to stave off the worst effects. Putting
Speaker 1: Larry Elder in office won't make it rain, but it
Speaker 1: will put the state at least another year further behind
Speaker 1: on taking the kind of action necessary to ensure California
Speaker 1: remains habitable. The last few months in San Francisco have
Speaker 1: been honestly better than you expected. Still hot and dry,
Speaker 1: but now that you're in fall, the heat has become manageable.
Speaker 1: In the Bay Area, at least, staying with your brother
Speaker 1: has been actually really nice. The first few showers felt
Speaker 1: like luxury, recently, he's had less of a good time.
Speaker 1: He found out he was getting laid off right before
Speaker 1: the school year started. He told me. Over fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: other teachers have been fired as a part of the
Speaker 1: governor's new reform schools program. The teacher's union is fighting it,
Speaker 1: but your brother isn't too optimistic of regarding the outcome.
Speaker 1: He's been looking for new work, and meanwhile, you've gotten
Speaker 1: a shitty retail job to help with bills while you
Speaker 1: decide on what hospitals you want to apply to. You
Speaker 1: don't really miss your old MS job in Redwood Valley.
Speaker 1: When you finally do get back into medical care, you
Speaker 1: really prefer something in a hospital or clinic setting as
Speaker 1: opposed to the extra stress inherent in emergency services. The
Speaker 1: one chance you have had to use your medical skills
Speaker 1: since moving was during the fires last September and October
Speaker 1: back up north. They got really bad and hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of people evacuated. Down South, some old activist friends
Speaker 1: of yours from college made their own fire relief slash
Speaker 1: Mutual Aid, set up to give out clothes and food
Speaker 1: and to help people displaced by the fires. You haven't
Speaker 1: talked much with your old college buddies in the past
Speaker 1: few years, but upon hearing of the relief effort, you
Speaker 1: happily offered up your skills to help with minor medical
Speaker 1: issues in a smell medic tent they set up. It
Speaker 1: was the first time you've helped with anything related to
Speaker 1: protests organizing since you moved up to Redwood Valley ten
Speaker 1: years ago. It was oddly refreshing. Politics hasn't been a
Speaker 1: major part of your life since college. But speaking of politics,
Speaker 1: mid term ms are finally this month. The past year
Speaker 1: has felt like it stretched on forever. Your brother and
Speaker 1: his union buddies have been doing canvassing for a few
Speaker 1: progressive city council candidates that might actually get a shot
Speaker 1: at getting in. You haven't had time to adjust to
Speaker 1: San Francisco's local political scene, and honestly, you're not sure
Speaker 1: if you really care to. You have been keeping half
Speaker 1: an eye on the big state electoral races, though, which
Speaker 1: feels kind of weird. You know, there's no way the
Speaker 1: Republican governor will get reelected, not here in California. One
Speaker 1: thing that has gotten you worried is the weekly anti
Speaker 1: election fraud rallies that have been happening in l A.
Speaker 1: Ever since October, the governor, surrounded by state troopers, has
Speaker 1: made it down himself a few times to drop up
Speaker 1: support from his fan base, and after the rallies, roving
Speaker 1: gangs of far right extremists have gone around randomly attacking
Speaker 1: homeless encampments. You heard that just last week after a
Speaker 1: Sunday rally, three people had to be rushed to the
Speaker 1: emergency room. It's now just a week before Action Day.
Speaker 1: You're on the bus home from your job at the
Speaker 1: vintage clothing store when you receive a message on signal
Speaker 1: from one of your old college mutual aid buddies you
Speaker 1: met up with again during the fire relief effort. The
Speaker 1: message reads, hey, are you free on election Day? You
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about the day itself, You respond, maybe
Speaker 1: nothing really planned yet. Your friend replies with a fat
Speaker 1: wall of text. My affinity group and I are heading
Speaker 1: down to l A on Tuesday. There's a big stop
Speaker 1: the steel type rally happening, and where it is, lots
Speaker 1: of proud boys are gonna show up. Comrades in l
Speaker 1: A have put out some calls for support, so my
Speaker 1: crew is going to go down and probably bring some
Speaker 1: medical stuff. If you want to come, we got an
Speaker 1: extra seat in the van. The thought of driving down
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles to deal with proud boys doesn't excite you,
Speaker 1: especially on an already stressful day. You think about it
Speaker 1: for a few minutes. Images of the people maimed during
Speaker 1: and after the recent rallies floods your mind. Your buddies
Speaker 1: know more about organizing and protests than you do, but
Speaker 1: you have more medical training. You decide you'll do it.
Speaker 1: You reply, I'll come with and pack some extra effects
Speaker 1: and tourniquets. Among the issues of Republican recall, challengers have
Speaker 1: raised to attack newsom, forced mismanagement has leomed large among
Speaker 1: the recent complaints. This type of thing hearkens back to
Speaker 1: Trump's old habit of blaming the governor and not raking
Speaker 1: enough leaves for California's fiery plight. On a larger scale,
Speaker 1: this can be seen as part of an effort to
Speaker 1: push all the blame of wildfires off of oil gas
Speaker 1: and our transformation of the climate and onto a simple
Speaker 1: lack of fire prevention measures. This narrative, of course, makes
Speaker 1: the fossil fuel industry more happy. The thing is, all
Speaker 1: of these things are contributing factors for California's wildfire problem.
Speaker 1: Climate changed caused hotter temperatures and droughts makes fires easier
Speaker 1: to catch and spread, and inadequate forest management, plus above
Speaker 1: ground power lines do the same. Just because there are
Speaker 1: bad faith attacks on Newsom doesn't mean there aren't actual
Speaker 1: failures he's made as governor, especially in relation to the forests.
Speaker 1: An investigation from CAP Radio and California MPR published last
Speaker 1: June found out Newsom had grossly misrepresented and fled out
Speaker 1: lied about his promises of new wildfire prevention efforts. Elements
Speaker 1: of the piece were, of course, used by Larry Elder
Speaker 1: and the Right to push for support of the recall,
Speaker 1: but the article itself is a very fine piece of journalism.
Speaker 1: Back when Newsom first took office in January twenty nine,
Speaker 1: one of the first things he did was signed on
Speaker 1: executive order overhauling how California handles wildfire prevention and forest management.
Speaker 1: The measures included removal of hazardous dead trees, vegetation clearing,
Speaker 1: creation of fuel breaks and community defensible spaces, and creation
Speaker 1: of ingress and e dressed corridors. In January twenty a
Speaker 1: year after Newsom's initial announcement. The Governor's office claimed in
Speaker 1: a press release that under the Executive Orders Priority Projects,
Speaker 1: ninety acres got treated with these fire prevention measures, but
Speaker 1: according to data attained by CAP Radio and MPR, the
Speaker 1: actual number of acres treated by these priority projects was
Speaker 1: only eleven thousand, three hundred and ninety nine, just thirteen
Speaker 1: percent of the number Newsome boasted about, quoting the piece
Speaker 1: by CAP Radio quote data shows cal Fire's fuel reduction
Speaker 1: output dropped by half and twenty twenty two, levels below
Speaker 1: Governor Jerry Brown's final year in office. At the same time,
Speaker 1: Newsom slashed roughly one hundred and fifty million dollars from
Speaker 1: cow Fire's wildfire prevention budget. In four point three million
Speaker 1: acres burned, the most in California's recorded history. That was
Speaker 1: more than double the previous record set in eighteen when
Speaker 1: the Camp fire destroyed the town of Paradise, ultimately killing
Speaker 1: eighty five people. A decade ago, cal Fire was treating
Speaker 1: a poultry seventeen thousand acres annually. That number has steadily climbed.
Speaker 1: Though Newso misrepresented the number of acres treated in his
Speaker 1: priority projects. The overall amount of wildfire mitigation work carried
Speaker 1: out by cal Fire spiked in his first year of
Speaker 1: office to sixty four thousand acres, but in fuel reduction
Speaker 1: totals plummeted to less than thirty two acres, a roughly
Speaker 1: fifty drop unquote. Multiple factors contributed to twenty twenties subpar
Speaker 1: fire prevention and reduction efforts in the year, with the
Speaker 1: large number of acres treated in recent history. The state
Speaker 1: budget allotted for three hundred and fifty five million dollars
Speaker 1: for wildfire prevention and resource management, but after the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic hit California in early Newsom cut the budget
Speaker 1: down to two hundred and three million. On top of
Speaker 1: the budget cuts, the fires themselves made prevention work more challenging.
Speaker 1: Twenties wildfire season started out early, which resulted in less
Speaker 1: time to do prescribed burns and thinnings because the same
Speaker 1: teams that are tasked with prevention and fuel reduction often
Speaker 1: also serve as firefighters once the fires break out. As
Speaker 1: of MAE, cal Fire has treated over twenty three thod
Speaker 1: acres throughout the year. This puts California on a trajectory
Speaker 1: better than last year's total, but not as high as
Speaker 1: the sixty thousand plus acres treated in Newsom has been
Speaker 1: trying to make up for his missteps and gross exaggerations.
Speaker 1: Quoting the Cap Radio report again, quote, Newsom is trying
Speaker 1: to play catch up with the state enjoying an unexpected surplus.
Speaker 1: Newsome proposed two billion in spending on wildfires and emergency preparedness,
Speaker 1: with one point two billion going towards wildfire resiliency in
Speaker 1: the upcoming budget. Experts say the increase in prevention spending
Speaker 1: could help the state get closer to a less day
Speaker 1: DRISS wildfire season over time, but they also expressed concern
Speaker 1: over whether the state will sustain that commitment for years
Speaker 1: to come. Unquote. Revelations about Newsom's and cow fires lies
Speaker 1: and lackluster force management were quickly jumped on by Larry
Speaker 1: Elder and other Republican challengers as an easy way to
Speaker 1: attack Newsom and to move the conversation about wildfires away
Speaker 1: from climate change. Elder has said he has quote unquote
Speaker 1: no idea why more prevention and reduction measures aren't being done,
Speaker 1: and when he becomes governor, he'll be a quote implementing
Speaker 1: these common sensical kinds of plans so that we can
Speaker 1: reduce the severity of these fires unquote. Elder has given
Speaker 1: no concrete plans on what measures he'll be shooting to implement,
Speaker 1: or any indication on how much money will be directed
Speaker 1: to prevent or fight fires on the noted budgets. Elder
Speaker 1: has said that the more recent spending on wind and
Speaker 1: solar power has left quote less money for removing trees
Speaker 1: and putting power lines underground, the kind of things that
Speaker 1: would make these fires less intense unquote, And he promises
Speaker 1: to drastically cut spending on renewables while also investing more
Speaker 1: in oil and gas. To be clear, Newsom's upcoming budget
Speaker 1: contains billions for both fire prevention, slash fuel reduction, and
Speaker 1: renewable energy such as wind and solar. Whoever ends up
Speaker 1: governing California is not only in charge of local politics.
Speaker 1: Like governors at other states. What happens in California affects
Speaker 1: people across the country and even globally, whether that's wildfire
Speaker 1: smoke traveling across continents, or changes to supply chains and
Speaker 1: industry rippling across the world. California is, after all, the
Speaker 1: world's fifth largest economy. There are also political ramifications that
Speaker 1: could affect the States as a whole. If Elder gets
Speaker 1: in office, the Senate is currently a fifty fifty split
Speaker 1: between Republicans and Democrats, with Vice President Kamala Harris getting
Speaker 1: the tie breaking vote. One of California's senators is eighty
Speaker 1: eight year old Diane Feinstein, the oldest active Senator. If
Speaker 1: she dies in office or has to step down due
Speaker 1: to medical reasons before her term is over, the governor
Speaker 1: of California gets to appoint her replacement. If Elder appoints
Speaker 1: a Republican, then the Senate will be back under geop
Speaker 1: control and give it his connections to the far right
Speaker 1: media sphere. The list of potentials that Elder could appoint
Speaker 1: is frightening. This is by no means inevitable even if
Speaker 1: Elder gets into office. If he does, Finstein does have
Speaker 1: the brief opportunity to step down and put a replacement
Speaker 1: in before the new governor has sworn into office. However,
Speaker 1: Feinstein has said she has no plans of doing so.
Speaker 1: Reports of her declining health have become only more common
Speaker 1: in recent years, but like many politicians and judges, she's
Speaker 1: not keen on stepping aside, even to possibly help prevent
Speaker 1: a disastrous outcome. Changes in the Senate are not required
Speaker 1: for horrible outcomes. In the wake of an even brief
Speaker 1: Elder governorship, his anti VAX sentiments and planned to open
Speaker 1: up the state and remove basically all COVID restrictions will
Speaker 1: result in hospitals being pushed to max capacity. Elder has
Speaker 1: said he has plans to appoint education officials similar to
Speaker 1: former Secretary Betsy Divas, and judicial appointees like Conservative Supreme
Speaker 1: Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Elder has stated his intention of
Speaker 1: declaring states of emergency and using executive orders to push
Speaker 1: through otherwise unpopular legislation. He has discussed plans to declare
Speaker 1: an education emergency in order to fire upwards of twenty
Speaker 1: one quote unquote bad teachers. Elder blames teacher unions for
Speaker 1: quote protecting bad teachers, and in a recent interview stated,
Speaker 1: quote someone told me that between five percent and seven
Speaker 1: percent of public school teachers need to be fired. An
Speaker 1: emergency declaration would give the power to get rid of
Speaker 1: bad teachers faster than the system allows. Once you did that, automatically,
Speaker 1: education would improve overnight unquote. Now, Elder is not specified
Speaker 1: who had advised him on teacher terminations or how he
Speaker 1: plans to weed out the so called bad teachers out
Speaker 1: of the three thousand in the school system. He's also
Speaker 1: touted plans to declare a homeless emergency, but his solutions
Speaker 1: have nothing to do with actually helping homeless people. His
Speaker 1: homeless emergency declaration would allow him to suspend the California
Speaker 1: Environmental Quality Act, the long requiring environmental review of building projects.
Speaker 1: Elders stated goal is to unleash developers and contractors without
Speaker 1: environmental regulation, which he claims to quote tries developers and
Speaker 1: contractors like criminals, unquote, and allows building projects to get
Speaker 1: suspended indefinitely, ultimately raising the cost of housing in his opinion.
Speaker 1: One of the more frightening aspects of Larry Elder is
Speaker 1: his close ties to many far right propagandists. He's done
Speaker 1: work for Praker You Epic times, and has been a
Speaker 1: guest on Fox News at least two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: times in the past five years. In the last episode,
Speaker 1: we discussed his friendship with Dennis Prager. Also Dave Reuben
Speaker 1: just recently campaigned for Elder at a recent rally, and
Speaker 1: a month and a half ago, Elder was on Candice
Speaker 1: Owens Show discussing how the descendants of slave owners deserve
Speaker 1: reparations for having their property i e. Black people stolen
Speaker 1: from them when the slaves were freed. Those are his words,
Speaker 1: not mine. What's probably most concerning is Elder's connection to
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller. In fact, we wouldn't have Stephen Miller if
Speaker 1: it were not for Larry Elder. Back in the late nineties,
Speaker 1: a conservative student from Santa Monica High School would call
Speaker 1: into Larry Elder's show to rant about his school's liberal culture. Reportedly,
Speaker 1: the student would go around demanding staff and fellow students
Speaker 1: regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He railed against condom
Speaker 1: giveaways and called Spanish language announcements quote a crup preventing
Speaker 1: Spanish speakers from standing on their own unquote. Young Californians
Speaker 1: calling into Elder's show and agreeing with him wasn't very common,
Speaker 1: and Elder ate it up. He loved talking with the
Speaker 1: students so much that he let the kid on basically
Speaker 1: any time he wanted a platform to rant and rave.
Speaker 1: You know where this is going. That student was Stephen Miller.
Speaker 1: According to Miller, he appeared on Elder's show sixty nine times.
Speaker 1: Throughout his time in high school and university, and calls
Speaker 1: Elder quote the one true guide I've always had unquote.
Speaker 1: Miller's appearances on Elder's radio show made him a recognizable
Speaker 1: figure in the larger conservative media world, helping him connect
Speaker 1: with Steve Bannon and eventually President Trump. By extension, Elder
Speaker 1: was Stephen Miller's on ramp to the White House. In
Speaker 1: an email to Miller in twenty sixteen, Elder told him quote,
Speaker 1: I hope to live to see the day when you
Speaker 1: become president. When media has brought up his friendship with
Speaker 1: Stephen Miller, Elder tries very quickly to change the subject
Speaker 1: when pushed on the topic. In a recent interview, Elder
Speaker 1: shot back with quote, why would you bring up Stephen Miller?
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering what the agenda here is? What's the point?
Speaker 1: Am I somehow what a Nazi? A fascist? Unquote? I
Speaker 1: think that says enough. The reason we haven't discussed the
Speaker 1: other candidates in the recall election is because at this point,
Speaker 1: if Newsom is recalled, it's absolutely certain that Elder will
Speaker 1: be the one to succeed him. He has a twenty
Speaker 1: point lead ahead other challengers, but that lead is still
Speaker 1: only a tiny fraction of the total electorate, which demonstrates
Speaker 1: the part of the problem in California's recall process. There
Speaker 1: are other Republican challengers with concerning pasts and beliefs, lots
Speaker 1: of anti mask, anti trans, anti vax, total disbelief, and
Speaker 1: climate change people spouting q and on originated conspiracy claims
Speaker 1: advocating the lie that the presidential election was stolen. And
Speaker 1: there's even a Democrat challenger that plans to use the
Speaker 1: National Guard to round up all homeless people and put
Speaker 1: them in concentration camps. But Elder himself shares a lot
Speaker 1: of those views and uses the fact that he's black
Speaker 1: as a shield for criticism against his racist and nationalist
Speaker 1: policies and ideas. We haven't even mentioned that last month
Speaker 1: Elder's ex fiance came out and said that Elder was
Speaker 1: extremely abusive and had threatened her with a loaded gun.
Speaker 1: In early August, polls were showing pretty much neck and
Speaker 1: neck for the first question on the ballot, yes or
Speaker 1: no on the recall itself. A survey USA pull from
Speaker 1: that time even had respondents vote no on the recall
Speaker 1: and fifty one percent vote yes to remove Newsom Throughout
Speaker 1: August and September, results started to flip the other direction
Speaker 1: as ads against the recall hit the airwaves and internet.
Speaker 1: The latest Survey USA poll has fifty four percent voting
Speaker 1: No one the recall and voting yes. Other polls hover
Speaker 1: around same ten to fifteen point lead for Newsome staying
Speaker 1: in office. Now, with pools not going the way Elder
Speaker 1: in the GOP would like, we're starting to see a new,
Speaker 1: yet familiar narrative being prepared on on my on my website,
Speaker 1: elect elder dot com. We have voter Integrity Project. We
Speaker 1: have lawyers all set up, all ready to go to
Speaker 1: foul lawsuits in a timely fashion. The reason the lawsuits
Speaker 1: did not did not work in the election. We know
Speaker 1: what happened there is because the lawsuits were filed too
Speaker 1: late and many of them were dismissed one procedural grounds.
Speaker 1: Of course, don't like to overturn an election. So when
Speaker 1: did you hear of anything suspicious? We've heard a lot
Speaker 1: of things that have been suspicious so far. Go to
Speaker 1: elect Goda dot com. We're gonna sick our lawyers on
Speaker 1: them foul lawsuits right away. They're gonna cheat. We know that.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you what. So many people are angry
Speaker 1: about the crime, about the homelessness, about the way he
Speaker 1: shut down this state, About the fact that one third
Speaker 1: of all small businesses, many of them are owned by
Speaker 1: black and brown and Easian American people, that they hear about.
Speaker 1: But the declining call of the schools, but the fact
Speaker 1: that people are leaving, rolling BrownHouse, lack of water. So
Speaker 1: many people are angry. The number of people that are
Speaker 1: going to vote to recall this man is going to
Speaker 1: be so overwhelming, So then even when they cheat, they're
Speaker 1: still gonna lose. That's Larry Elder saying that if he
Speaker 1: doesn't win, that means the election must have been stolen.
Speaker 1: Fox News has been promoting the same idea the past month.
Speaker 1: All of it is in the vein of the Stop
Speaker 1: the Steel movement post presdential election, culminating with the attempted
Speaker 1: insurrection on January six. Here's Elder again on Fox News
Speaker 1: in early September. But you're right, I am concerned about
Speaker 1: voter fraud, and that's why I'm asking people to go
Speaker 1: to elect Elder dot com. That's my website. We have
Speaker 1: a voter integrity project set up with a bunch of
Speaker 1: lawyers ready to foul lawsuits if anybody sees anything suspicious.
Speaker 1: Big election fraud conspiracy proponent and former House Speaker Newt
Speaker 1: Gingrich was one of the first people to chime in
Speaker 1: to stoke disinformation of at the recall election. And I
Speaker 1: think this may well be the most rigged stay wide
Speaker 1: election we've seen probably at least a half century. And
Speaker 1: I think people should look carefully of this because it's
Speaker 1: pretty good evidence that if Newsom is in a straight,
Speaker 1: honest count, he probably has a good chance of losing.
Speaker 1: But if they can stuff every ballot box in California
Speaker 1: and they can cheat in every way possible, and of
Speaker 1: course this type of propaganda has made it onto the
Speaker 1: most watched cable news show on air, Tucker Carlson, California
Speaker 1: does not get the credit it deserves for the corruption
Speaker 1: that's endemic there. It's a one party state and they
Speaker 1: act like it. And you've got to have concerns about
Speaker 1: whether this recall election will be free and fair. Are
Speaker 1: you concerned? Well, of course I'm concerned, Tucker. I'm involved
Speaker 1: in election integrity efforts throughout the United States, and I'm
Speaker 1: also member of the Republican National Committee, so we have
Speaker 1: a team of lawyers that is ready to deploy throughout
Speaker 1: the state here, and we are monitoring things every single day.
Speaker 1: Just a couple of hours ago, I filed a lawsuit
Speaker 1: to intervene a challenge to the constitutionality of the recall
Speaker 1: statute because frankly, I don't trust the Secretary of State
Speaker 1: or the Attorney General, who are both appointed by the governor,
Speaker 1: to defend him in this regard, and so we are
Speaker 1: going to be jumping on every potential opportunity to do
Speaker 1: that and fight back against the Democrats. Of course, they
Speaker 1: are playing fast and loose. We've seen some very alarming
Speaker 1: scenes of three ballots bundled together in the car of
Speaker 1: a person with a gun and some drugs, and so
Speaker 1: we are definitely looking into all of these issues. But Tucker,
Speaker 1: ultimately it's going to come down to how much do
Speaker 1: people want to change in California. And I can tell
Speaker 1: you even living in my latte sipping avocado toast, eating,
Speaker 1: you know, Lululemon wearing neighborhood in San Francisco, people are
Speaker 1: fed up with the crime, the drugs, the homelessness, the
Speaker 1: intermittent electricity, and everything else that is wrong with California,
Speaker 1: So people want to change here. It's just not working.
Speaker 1: And this really is a test of whether our system works.
Speaker 1: I mean, can people get better leadership? That's kind of
Speaker 1: the question. Will there be election observers on a scene
Speaker 1: so the rest of us can know this was fair? Well,
Speaker 1: the problem in California is that the voting doesn't just
Speaker 1: take place on election day like it would in a
Speaker 1: normal place. It takes it's taking place now on a
Speaker 1: rolling basis through mail in voting. It's a hundred percent
Speaker 1: mail in ballots this time around, and it is going
Speaker 1: to take place for thirty days after the election if
Speaker 1: it's close, because they have thirty days to count the vote.
Speaker 1: That's sixty days of voting. And of course a lot
Speaker 1: of shenanigans can occur and ballots can disappear. So we
Speaker 1: are going to be observing it very closely and demanding
Speaker 1: accountability and filing lawsuits wherever we need to to hold
Speaker 1: the Democrats accountable because we cannot trust them. Yeah, I hope.
Speaker 1: So people want to believe the system works, that it's
Speaker 1: real that they have powered their vote matters. So I
Speaker 1: appreciate what you're doing, Harmydale. Thank you a lot of
Speaker 1: what's said in that last clip is either extremely misrepresented
Speaker 1: or just flat outlines. Those three ballots found in a car,
Speaker 1: we're actually part of a larger mail theft thing not
Speaker 1: related to the election at all. Voters have received new ballots,
Speaker 1: and for this election, just like the last one, Californians
Speaker 1: have the option to vote in person, to mail in ballots,
Speaker 1: or deliver them in a dropbox. The deadline to drop
Speaker 1: off mail or place your vote is September. Counting cannot
Speaker 1: start till the fourteenth either, and like every election, there
Speaker 1: will be observers throughout the entire counting process. Obviously, this
Speaker 1: isn't the first time conservative media has hyped up election fraud,
Speaker 1: the last presidential election being the biggest instance to date.
Speaker 1: But what is concerning here is that they're setting up
Speaker 1: a template to use for all future elections whenever Republicans lose.
Speaker 1: Here's a Fox clip from September seven. The only thing
Speaker 1: that will save Gavin Newsom is voter fraud. So, as
Speaker 1: they say, stay woke, pay attention to the voter fraud
Speaker 1: going on in California because it's going to have big
Speaker 1: consequences not only for that state, but for upcoming elections.
Speaker 1: It's safe to assume that stop the steal esque strategies
Speaker 1: will be us almost every time a Republican loses in
Speaker 1: an election going forward. We've seen exactly what this type
Speaker 1: of rhetoric and propaganda leads to, and it ends in blood.
Speaker 1: There were multiple attacks on state capitals during the Stop
Speaker 1: to Steel rallies prior to January six. In some places
Speaker 1: like Salem, Oregon, they succeeded in getting inside the capital.
Speaker 1: Even if Newsom gets to stay in office, there will
Speaker 1: still be many problems, electric conspiracies, and the possibility of violence,
Speaker 1: like January six, just being one. We haven't wanted to
Speaker 1: righteously defend Newsom here. He's a politician and inept in
Speaker 1: many ways. He deserves plenty of criticism, especially on the
Speaker 1: issues of climate change, but the criticism levied at Newsom
Speaker 1: from the likes of Elder in the GOP are based
Speaker 1: on bigotry, nationalism, and climate denial. Newsom should be our
Speaker 1: punching bag, not theirs. Greetings and welcome to it could
Speaker 1: happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. I am a researcher and
Speaker 1: writer on the podcast team. Today we have a roundtable
Speaker 1: discussion with a group of researchers who look into extremism
Speaker 1: and political political violence that's usually stemming from far right
Speaker 1: propagandists and people in that kind of whole sphere. So
Speaker 1: we have a discussion relating to climate change and all
Speaker 1: these other things. So that I was able to record
Speaker 1: these fine people. It's split up into two sections, So
Speaker 1: part one is coming out today, Part two is coming
Speaker 1: out to tomorrow. Highly recommend you listen to both, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe even back to back at some point because it
Speaker 1: does really give a nice rounded out um view of
Speaker 1: what we were talking about. So, without further ado, here
Speaker 1: is my discussion with I kind of know, well not
Speaker 1: not a dozen, but of a lot a large amount
Speaker 1: of some researchers. As we are all uh in the woods.
Speaker 1: As you will soon find out, welcome to it can
Speaker 1: happened here the Daily Show. I am Garrison Davis, and
Speaker 1: I am recording in an undisclosed location in the woods.
Speaker 1: Um we are me and a few a few Internet
Speaker 1: colleagues are all hiding from the world for a week
Speaker 1: to reset our poisoned brains. But I'm gonna slightly re
Speaker 1: poison us here for about an hour to have a
Speaker 1: discussion about climate change and terrorism because all we have
Speaker 1: a group of people here who are all well research
Speaker 1: the bad thing online a lot. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: try to try to use to take advantage of having
Speaker 1: this uh unique group of people all in one location
Speaker 1: to have this nice discussion for you guys. But yeah, specifically,
Speaker 1: we want to we want to talk about how we
Speaker 1: how each of us has an you know, quote unquote
Speaker 1: expert in certain fields. Um see climate change impacting impacting
Speaker 1: extremism and terrorism in the next in the next few decades. Um.
Speaker 1: And yes, we are recording in the forest. So if
Speaker 1: you hear sounds like we're in the forest, that's because
Speaker 1: we are. Um. You you guys already know me, or
Speaker 1: you probably do. But I'm gonna we're gonna go around
Speaker 1: a circle, probably starting on my left, um, introducing the people.
Speaker 1: And yeah, just give a brief a brief brief bio.
Speaker 1: However detail do you want to get into. My name's
Speaker 1: Matt Taylor. I'm a journalist and researcher focusing on cults, um,
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, and extremism. And to day is my birthday.
Speaker 1: Happy birthday, Matt. In the in the past, my name's THEO.
Speaker 1: I am a journalist and researcher as well. I mostly
Speaker 1: focused on the American militia movement and paramilitary groups. I'm
Speaker 1: toothpick Um with THEO Matt Emmy and Big New Houses.
Speaker 1: Isn't here on terrorism bad? That's that's a that's a podcast,
Speaker 1: by the way, self plug um. My research and reporting
Speaker 1: focuses on mainly on conspiracy theories and where that overlaps
Speaker 1: with political extremism and the focus on connections between US
Speaker 1: in Europe, especially Germany. I'm Peter Smith. I'm a journalist
Speaker 1: with the Canadian Anti Hate Network and the host of
Speaker 1: the Unusual Show podcast. I'm Lily and I focus on
Speaker 1: experimism and kind of terrorism and data analysis. And I'm Emmy.
Speaker 1: I do digital propaganda and rhetoric. That that that is
Speaker 1: our little crew. Um. Yeah, let's see what the first
Speaker 1: thing we kind of want to talk about, I'm guessing
Speaker 1: is how we see like small because like the podcast
Speaker 1: is more about like smaller local collapses, So we don't
Speaker 1: there's not gonna be one big collaps. We're just see
Speaker 1: small things 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 of the law is there, but but far right
Speaker 1: groups rushing in UM and collecting aid and going for
Speaker 1: photo ops UH in those catastrophe areas UM. And what
Speaker 1: that does make me think of And maybe THEO can
Speaker 1: talk more about this as we've seen similar stuff in
Speaker 1: the 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.
Speaker 1: I was gonna mentioned that, Yeah, they did a bunch
Speaker 1: of kind of aid and photo ops. Yeah. So just
Speaker 1: not to docks myself, but I'm from Nashville, and and uh,
Speaker 1: the beginning of in March, right before someone just dropped
Speaker 1: a toy gun. Great job, guys. Yeah. So in the
Speaker 1: beginning of March of last year, right before COVID hit Nashville,
Speaker 1: we had a huge tornado go through Nashville itself and
Speaker 1: wipe out like two different neighborhoods and then a rural
Speaker 1: town right outside of Nashville. But you saw a lot
Speaker 1: of like so the community comes together in this really
Speaker 1: nice display mutual aid to do all the cleanup basically
Speaker 1: before any official cruise could get there. But with that
Speaker 1: you also sell like these far right groups coming in
Speaker 1: for photo ops and it just it normalizes their presence
Speaker 1: in heavily impacted areas. And it was not not ideal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of the American militia movement, especially the modern
Speaker 1: kind of post tooth was an eight strain of it
Speaker 1: is predicated on this idea of a complete breakdown of
Speaker 1: order or a loss of civil order. However you conceive
Speaker 1: of that. And um, these like climate disasters that are
Speaker 1: going to hit areas are going to kind of provide
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy for these people to step in
Speaker 1: and say like, oh no, you need some sort of
Speaker 1: armed force, You need some sort of group of people
Speaker 1: to keep order and to keep law in whatever way
Speaker 1: they conceive of that. I do think it's interesting you
Speaker 1: guys talking about kind of like the photo op thing
Speaker 1: that they do, because when the wildfire has happened in Oregon,
Speaker 1: all of the the actual like relief work was done
Speaker 1: by anti fascists. Like we like people in Portland, we
Speaker 1: set up, you know, these these massive camps to help.
Speaker 1: We know all these like you know, much more conservative
Speaker 1: people who who have who ad to that wait their
Speaker 1: back to their homes and they were all getting fed
Speaker 1: and all like their closes that were coming from anti fascists,
Speaker 1: and the all the right did was do the arm
Speaker 1: checkpoints thing. But interesting that like in the South, where
Speaker 1: there's less anti fascists, like you know, compared to the generals,
Speaker 1: compared to the Portland Right, how some of those groups
Speaker 1: actually do do some of the relief effort um and
Speaker 1: that that's definitely not the case up here in the
Speaker 1: in the West coast. Oh yeah, I mean last year,
Speaker 1: I remember a few county level militias that I follow
Speaker 1: in Virginia. We're like seriously doing relief work, Like they
Speaker 1: were gathering food, they were taking out places affected by
Speaker 1: flooding in North Carolina, but tornadoes and Tennessee. It's not
Speaker 1: I wouldn't go so far as to call it mutual
Speaker 1: aid because it lacks the kind of ideological framework for that.
Speaker 1: But they are providing some sort of infrastructure for their guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, with yeah, with with less of like the
Speaker 1: theory side of mutually but like, and I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: someone else who can speak more on this, but like
Speaker 1: from my perspective growing up in a super weird church,
Speaker 1: I see this in interacting, they see this like combining
Speaker 1: with local churches a lot as well. Um, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure there's anyone else here who could say something more
Speaker 1: intelligently than me about how like religion will come line
Speaker 1: with these like kind of militia efforts. Well, I would
Speaker 1: like eco eco extremists, like on the far right, on
Speaker 1: the very very fringe far right, can start to like
Speaker 1: be very esoteric about there, you know, belief in climate change,
Speaker 1: and they start to sort of frame it as like
Speaker 1: a reason for the collapse. Um, that we need collapse,
Speaker 1: are attacking infrastructure, like for the purpose of somehow saving
Speaker 1: the planet, even though it's really not going to get
Speaker 1: anywhere we really need to. We have to do with
Speaker 1: a lot of our own work on the planet. We
Speaker 1: can't just destroy everything and see if it working. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can definitely bring up accelerationists and accelerationism as a
Speaker 1: as an over overarching thing that is, you know, not
Speaker 1: just it not to be like horseshoe theory about it,
Speaker 1: but the accelation is that pops up a whole whole
Speaker 1: lot of areas, including areas of the left to where
Speaker 1: it becomes very unuseful, um and it can lead to
Speaker 1: like a lot of wasted time and some destructive tendencies.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that point kind of also provides
Speaker 1: an interesting through line between more mainstream militias and like
Speaker 1: the really esoteric brands of eco fascism or ecologically based extremism.
Speaker 1: Is that, like they're both very influenced by like colonial
Speaker 1: schools of thought, like eco fascism and all that is
Speaker 1: kind of predicated on this idea of like Tera Noli's
Speaker 1: like there is this perfect empty wild land that we
Speaker 1: can have manifest destiny exactly, And like so much of
Speaker 1: the ideas of order and um like peacekeeping that you
Speaker 1: find within more mainstream militia movements come from this exact
Speaker 1: same type of thinking, where it's like a colonial order
Speaker 1: that you need to keep. Yeah. I know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of people on the left who
Speaker 1: are in like the kind of like you know, green green,
Speaker 1: like like ecosocialist or like green anarchists. Kind of strains
Speaker 1: to get very frustrated when people talk about eco fascism,
Speaker 1: which I can understand because no one really means the
Speaker 1: same thing when they talk about it. Sometimes they just
Speaker 1: mean any like any like quote unquote terrorism that has
Speaker 1: like has like an environmental purpose. Some people, you know,
Speaker 1: when they think of eco fascists, we think of like overpopulation. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of different things they mean
Speaker 1: mean by it. But I know we we've all had
Speaker 1: talks about like what we personally view as like eco fascism,
Speaker 1: because it's's it's it's not just eco streamism, like eco
Speaker 1: streamism does not equal fascism. Like there is there's a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of eco extremists who are very anti fascist, um.
Speaker 1: And 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 right and they do. They do not have they
Speaker 1: do not check all of the boxes. Um. But then
Speaker 1: then we do have people who I would accurately describe
Speaker 1: as eco fascists who have done who've done you know,
Speaker 1: mass shootings, who have a lot of eco who have
Speaker 1: eco fascist stuff either in the writing that they like
Speaker 1: or their own manifestos. They bring up enough points it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you kind of fall into this broad category. Just someone
Speaker 1: here want to give their personal definition of ego fascism.
Speaker 1: This isn't this not necessarily exactly what we use for
Speaker 1: the pod, but I just I'm interested to here is
Speaker 1: a lot of people with various backgrounds. Everyone has their
Speaker 1: own specialized knowledge. What kind of when people say that, what,
Speaker 1: what do you kind of put into that category? People
Speaker 1: believe in like this organic law and like natural order,
Speaker 1: and they believe that like there is a natural hierarchy
Speaker 1: ingrained in everything. And I think that generally, like if
Speaker 1: we return to like some kind of primitive society or like,
Speaker 1: you know, they'll assume that like everything has uh its
Speaker 1: own structure, and that there's going to be people who
Speaker 1: rise to the top, people who just you know, uh
Speaker 1: don't belong in that kind of society. It's going to
Speaker 1: be really damaging for like the elder, for disabled people.
Speaker 1: And they just sort of see it as like survival
Speaker 1: of the fist um. And I think that's like a
Speaker 1: much more eco fascist point of view rather than like
Speaker 1: a more green anarchist point of view where things would
Speaker 1: sort of 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: and that'skind of stuff that is like really interesting to
Speaker 1: look at and stuff that we should absolutely pursue because
Speaker 1: will become less relianced with apply chains. And we don't
Speaker 1: really see ego 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 have to say
Speaker 1: more stuff if I say, was real quickly. But one
Speaker 1: of things that I always or that that is a
Speaker 1: red flag for me is is just you know, bring
Speaker 1: in this very traditional discussions of gender roles and and
Speaker 1: relating that to the environment. Yeay of our rhetoric an example,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't we don't need to say names
Speaker 1: of specific like writers are people, but there's definitely describe
Speaker 1: the general sure, yeah, stop playing with the toy gun.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Um, just just like establishing and it
Speaker 1: is kind of it can be kind of like an
Speaker 1: older left thing too, but establishing you know, ecological discussions
Speaker 1: within framework of traditional gender roles. Um. And kind of
Speaker 1: like what is expected of people based on their sex. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is this is the dark side of
Speaker 1: cottage core. That's one way to put Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: you want to get in here, Oh boy, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like parts of cottage courts not want intersect with a
Speaker 1: certain strain of politics, like queer. Cottage core is extremely
Speaker 1: cute until yeah, well until you're not queer, and listen,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes they still are. Now Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When we're when we're dealing with like traditional gender role stuff,
Speaker 1: it's a really like slippery slope into more aggressive strains
Speaker 1: of thought. So when we're when we're talking about the
Speaker 1: the idea of of the class will it's mass birthday.
Speaker 1: You asked to apologize. Yeah, yeah, ripped to the editor.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know. That's so good. So when they're talking
Speaker 1: about the class 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, rebuild from the ground
Speaker 1: up smaller communities and uh, they can. They can build
Speaker 1: the society they want, which is largely no nationalists. It's
Speaker 1: not great. The the idea that there will be this
Speaker 1: this supertraditional family structure you're going to have your this
Speaker 1: combined strong warrior also homesteading man and your cool trad
Speaker 1: life who never ages above thirty in this society. Like
Speaker 1: I'm being generous here, assuming that at least like some
Speaker 1: of these people have a little bit of like pre planning,
Speaker 1: but they don't. They don't um, and they step on
Speaker 1: each other a lot, right because they have this this
Speaker 1: whole plan for this uh, this society free of industry um,
Speaker 1: and they can't stop posting about it on the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's really funny, right, Like they're not they're not good
Speaker 1: at it. Yeah, they're like way too addicted to posting
Speaker 1: to like actually commit to like the true off the
Speaker 1: grid trad life. At least at least ten k was
Speaker 1: off the grid. We don't gotta hand it. We don't
Speaker 1: got a handed to it. You got ahead, do you?
Speaker 1: Under circumstances? Got hit pod divided on how much we've
Speaker 1: gotta hand it? Said, Kay. The official stands of terrorism
Speaker 1: bad is a terrorism is bad When we just bring
Speaker 1: them on, it is kind of a concern when they
Speaker 1: do end up when they stop posting. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: when they're posting, but it's kind of more concerning post
Speaker 1: sometimes yeah. Yeah, if the same as like looking at
Speaker 1: a kid that wants to be a firefighter or something
Speaker 1: like they're just talking. They're not going to do it,
Speaker 1: but you see something, I'm doing it, and when they're
Speaker 1: doing the thing, the lifestyle influencer version of fascism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you think that it's going to affect kind of
Speaker 1: like laws about living off grid and laws about like
Speaker 1: for for normal people. I just want to get the
Speaker 1: funk out, Like I actually just read something about this.
Speaker 1: There's some guys who've been living off gride in Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: for like thirty years and I don't remember the details
Speaker 1: of this, and we don't have internet out here. Burn
Speaker 1: his house down. Yeah, he's in jail now. He's probably
Speaker 1: gonna be in jail for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: And I think part of whether it comes from left
Speaker 1: through the right, as people kind of start to try
Speaker 1: to build resiliency within communities for disasters that are coming
Speaker 1: and start to seek ways of living that do not
Speaker 1: rely on supply chains and do not rely on the state,
Speaker 1: the state will strike back against that as a consolidation
Speaker 1: of power, because the more that people move away from it,
Speaker 1: whether on the left or right, the less power the
Speaker 1: state has, I mean, and utilizing counter terrorism an excuse
Speaker 1: to do so. Yeah, because they're giving reasons and it's
Speaker 1: not it's not going to get enforced equally. I'm sure's
Speaker 1: gonna gonna focus uncertain people doing this and be slightly
Speaker 1: more okay with other people doing it. Um. Yeah, what's so?
Speaker 1: I would like to talk about Canada a little bit
Speaker 1: because specifically climate change affecting Canada's can be veried. It's
Speaker 1: going to be slightly different, and most of it to
Speaker 1: go to the States because I've been I've been I've
Speaker 1: been having my like waist deep in climate science books
Speaker 1: for most of UM. And Canada's gonna probably see economic
Speaker 1: boosts um. And they're probably the state's probably just gonna
Speaker 1: a gap to get actually stronger because of how the
Speaker 1: same thing with Russia. Both Canada and Russia are going
Speaker 1: to get more economically powerful under climate change because of
Speaker 1: how much more props are gonna get moved up. How
Speaker 1: give me your thoughts to Canada, because Canada's my backup plan.
Speaker 1: It's gonna gets too spicy in the States. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: taking my Canadian passport and hiding in the woods. Um.
Speaker 1: How How it's it's interesting to hear you guys talk
Speaker 1: about American millistic culture because we we definitely are. Rhetoric
Speaker 1: and propaganda that we see in Canada gets borrowed a
Speaker 1: lot the talking points for the States, like the concepts,
Speaker 1: but what we don't have are these strong organized militia groups.
Speaker 1: We had three per centers for a while um and
Speaker 1: who still exists, but they were they were big about
Speaker 1: being off right, like they were the ones who weren't
Speaker 1: posting for a long time. UM and it seems like
Speaker 1: as much as all these people are still around, they've
Speaker 1: largely deflated. Doubt his. Canada has made some some efforts
Speaker 1: to call them terrorists right right. Very recently, we designated
Speaker 1: them as a terrorist organization, which doesn't carry a criminal charge.
Speaker 1: But if you if you do something involved with them,
Speaker 1: you send them money like there is there are consequences
Speaker 1: of that legal enhancements, UM. But are are kind of
Speaker 1: militia culture focuses on the illegitimacy of the state that
Speaker 1: Canada is founded. It's very kind of soft sit type rhetoric,
Speaker 1: but that Canada's establishment, it's it's rules and especially with
Speaker 1: all the public health measures, it's this growing Uh, this
Speaker 1: growing kind of tired of thought in both the prairies
Speaker 1: and largely out west. I grew up in Saskatchewan. Um,
Speaker 1: most of my families in Alberta. I know when when
Speaker 1: I look at when I because I keep a soft
Speaker 1: eye on some Canadian hate groups just because I'm Canadian
Speaker 1: to them popped up around Alberta. Um, where do you
Speaker 1: see this stuff kind of like happening? Like do you
Speaker 1: see any of this on the East coast? If those
Speaker 1: it's smaller or is this mostly on the West coast?
Speaker 1: Candrather thing? Well that like that conspiratory thought we've seen
Speaker 1: 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 the conspiracy based movement forming
Speaker 1: these 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 type of talking points is do you see
Speaker 1: that like is that is it? Is that a mostly
Speaker 1: Alberta thing. It's mostly like Prairies Alberta the online. The
Speaker 1: interesting part is that when you talk about groups, is
Speaker 1: like in Canada, groups are an urban phenomenon. For the
Speaker 1: most part, most of our organization takes place around the
Speaker 1: city centers, and that is very different from the States.
Speaker 1: With the States, that's it's usually the usually the opposite
Speaker 1: in some there's there's always exceptions of two minament people live,
Speaker 1: but generally we see it as more of as more
Speaker 1: of a rule thing which troops organized, whereas cities are
Speaker 1: more like liberal and that's what the anti fascist groups
Speaker 1: are based UM. But it's kind of these like these
Speaker 1: little ideological pockets that exist all over and certainly that
Speaker 1: sentiment is probably shared, but the need to mobilize seems
Speaker 1: to mostly focus on the urban centers. And then we'd
Speaker 1: never have our groups. They don't providing any conveyed to
Speaker 1: that's just or even checkpoints like that's beyond these like
Speaker 1: very recent protest movements. You know, there has been no
Speaker 1: more forest fires around bc UM, around you know what
Speaker 1: Western Alberta UM. How do you see the government's was
Speaker 1: sponse as to things right now and it can do
Speaker 1: isn't in a particular situation with um, the Liberals having
Speaker 1: a minority control. M you know, the Canadian poems parliamentary
Speaker 1: system is probably confusing to let Americans that they don't
Speaker 1: understand it already. Um. But yeah, how how what do
Speaker 1: you what do you see on on that front? You know,
Speaker 1: you know, trust and true both both true down Biden
Speaker 1: talk the talk around like pipelines and stuff, but then
Speaker 1: do the complete opposite. Um, how do you could have
Speaker 1: seen this kind of stuff working right now? For for
Speaker 1: like on the on the climate side of things, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: our our reaction to the firefighters or a reaction to
Speaker 1: the wildfires. Um. I mean the government response has always
Speaker 1: looked at on like, it's always looked at poorly. Um.
Speaker 1: But none of these people are taking this as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to kind of change minds and of do pr Um.
Speaker 1: There's much less reaction to it. Most like the West. Also,
Speaker 1: there's this incredible feeling of alienation because of the way
Speaker 1: that government is set up. They have substantially less they
Speaker 1: have substantially less voting power. Yeah, the same way the States.
Speaker 1: How you know, there's like there's accelering states or states
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, you feel like they don't really have
Speaker 1: any power politically. Same things for almost the entire East,
Speaker 1: entire West Coast of Canada, everything from like Manitoba to
Speaker 1: Alberta and parts of BC. Everyone is very frustrated at
Speaker 1: at at the at the federalise um and how they
Speaker 1: really don't have control for what's happening. Like, yeah, people
Speaker 1: in the East Coast are controlling and what what our
Speaker 1: what our pipelines are, what our minds are doing, and
Speaker 1: that does not fair to our workers, because yeah it is.
Speaker 1: It does suck when you know, a mind closes and
Speaker 1: then everyone in a small town is out of business,
Speaker 1: like the part the part right in Canada, Almoight, Stanley
Speaker 1: around them, you know, used to be you know, bustling
Speaker 1: small towns that are basically all all the ghost towns
Speaker 1: because stuff to close, people have to move to either
Speaker 1: like Calgary, Edmonton, Regina. Don't laugh, um, so you know
Speaker 1: all all these specific things, you know, and we see
Speaker 1: pockets of this, we see pockets, we see pockets of this,
Speaker 1: and like the good Western the States definately. I also
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, tom more territory um. And with the
Speaker 1: like Canadian big surgeon like indigenous riots and the big
Speaker 1: focus and shift to like sort of give them landback
Speaker 1: or something. I'm not exactly clear on what the Canadian
Speaker 1: stances are on that. Oh, just like I mean we
Speaker 1: have a big movement from indigenous populations to they seem
Speaker 1: very like the economent like, well, there's so many different
Speaker 1: bands and tribes in different types of nations, um, like
Speaker 1: we have unseated territory, and the dynamics with which the
Speaker 1: government is supposed to deal with and has agreed to
Speaker 1: deal with it actually does deal with them is all
Speaker 1: vastly different. Um. But yeah, that that idea of this
Speaker 1: focus on these particular issues, like indigenous issues, even our
Speaker 1: attempts to you know, have a greener economy you know
Speaker 1: for a place that for a long time and still
Speaker 1: is an extraction economy. Yes, Um, how does that like
Speaker 1: a fact an oil company with healthcare? More like extremist
Speaker 1: 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: franchiisement 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 are
Speaker 1: these stronger ideas of sovereignty. UM. I forget what exactly
Speaker 1: was pulling, but when the Western Eggs it was started,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a significant amount of popular or
Speaker 1: at least like not strong support, but like existing support
Speaker 1: there was there was there was a it was a
Speaker 1: large amount of support. Yeah. Absolutely, It'll be interesting to
Speaker 1: see what happens though, talking about collapse, like you know
Speaker 1: in these small towns, in like cloistered communities, um, you know,
Speaker 1: they already feel cut off from the government and not represented,
Speaker 1: and then if you have a breakdown of infrastructure, you
Speaker 1: know that will create why do we even have them
Speaker 1: in the first place if they're not helping us? Which
Speaker 1: is which which is true? Which is like a well,
Speaker 1: real thing to think about what their solutions are wildly
Speaker 1: different than the actual solutions to help people. And we've
Speaker 1: already see how this plays out in the past as
Speaker 1: well with UM, you know, places where uh, the infrastructure
Speaker 1: starts to break down and then people who have weapons
Speaker 1: kind of become the authority just based on the fact
Speaker 1: that they have more power. Yeah. So one of the
Speaker 1: things that I follow is a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: like the more let's characterize it as boom Er esque
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, UM, especially with anti vax, anti public health
Speaker 1: measures type thing UM. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: that that really is noticeable to me is how much
Speaker 1: more sovereign citizen stuff is creeping up into those areas
Speaker 1: UM and especially you know, they're they're two really big
Speaker 1: examples of you know, if there's an anti vax protest
Speaker 1: in your city, it's probably one of these two networks
Speaker 1: that both come from Europe UM that I'm not going
Speaker 1: to name right now. UM. And those two networks also
Speaker 1: you know, love to organize over the messaging app Telegram UM,
Speaker 1: and Telegram is tell me if I'm stepping in it.
Speaker 1: I mean, Telegram is where you know, so much of
Speaker 1: this ideology this far right ideology is able to cross
Speaker 1: mix and co mingle um. You know, I we we
Speaker 1: talked about telegram from the pods. Okay, but people are familiar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have been stepped in it yet keep going, Yeah,
Speaker 1: adjacent to sting, but it's 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 milieum 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, militious actors planning
Speaker 1: to go in and when these people over and you
Speaker 1: know a lot of these militious 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: own land, 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 miliuse like a really
Speaker 1: important here stick for these kind of collapse scenarios because
Speaker 1: the question of what happens when kind of infrastructure and
Speaker 1: any sort of political guidance falls away is governed a
Speaker 1: lot by that. And like this idea that there's there
Speaker 1: are these ideas floating around in our society and once
Speaker 1: people have nothing else turned to, these malicious actors will
Speaker 1: bring 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 g gone, And you also have on the other
Speaker 1: end people who are saying, you know, create all type
Speaker 1: platforms and like create um more like self encryption and
Speaker 1: like hello, I'm trying not to step in right now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm but to be able to to speak more peer
Speaker 1: like peer to peer resources. And that wraps up Part
Speaker 1: one of the Terrorism round Table discussion. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. You can find us at happen here, pod
Speaker 1: 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, m
Speaker 1: Welcome to it could Happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. This
Speaker 1: is part two of our terrorism round table discussion. If
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to part one already, I would recommend
Speaker 1: you scroll back, listen to the previous episode and then
Speaker 1: continue on from here so you have kind of context
Speaker 1: to exactly we're talking about. Anyway, this is part two
Speaker 1: of our discussion in the Woods. I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: Something that we've talked about earlier this year after January six,
Speaker 1: was like should the government ban telegram? Right? That was
Speaker 1: the thing, And there's a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: arguments are like no, absolutely not, and there's does it?
Speaker 1: Does anyone want to speak on that? Because you know,
Speaker 1: because like if I want to talk about the government's
Speaker 1: response to these things, you know that's a very government
Speaker 1: thing to do. Be like, oh, people are organizing this platform,
Speaker 1: get out of the platform problem gone, and that's not
Speaker 1: how that works. I mean one was talking that a
Speaker 1: little bit. Sure. Um, yeah, so they're getting rid of
Speaker 1: the platform doesn't necessarily help, especially when it's something that
Speaker 1: is important such as like you know, encrypted communication, which
Speaker 1: is something that more people than just Nazis need, um,
Speaker 1: and that resource should not be cut off. And there's
Speaker 1: also kind of a bad precedent to be said if
Speaker 1: the if the government is deciding which uh forms of
Speaker 1: speech it needs to have complete access to. I don't
Speaker 1: love that. Um. The other thing is that if we
Speaker 1: knew telegram, right, they don't disappear, they formed a networks.
Speaker 1: They're still there. Still, they have to do more things
Speaker 1: in person, still there, they're just harder to hard. People
Speaker 1: are absolutely corrected when they say D platforming works because
Speaker 1: it works for the platform, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: just want that. A lot of people just don't want
Speaker 1: to see Nazi ship and they're fine with you know,
Speaker 1: D platform and they say this works, and they have
Speaker 1: data to backup that it does work. But it works
Speaker 1: for the platform. But the people still exist, yeah, still
Speaker 1: boosting their own ship. And when they bring up building
Speaker 1: their own all tech platforms, it only works there early yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And there is elements that yeah, d platform is a
Speaker 1: wider thing can were especially for like in person stuff,
Speaker 1: but yeah, for your sort of the thing you're mentioning, yes,
Speaker 1: it is. It is definitely not not that cut and dry,
Speaker 1: you know. And telegrams really interesting because it is kind
Speaker 1: of this middle space between social media and just a
Speaker 1: messaging appease. The thing about it too, is that anybody
Speaker 1: can look at these you know, the public channels, so
Speaker 1: without without saying anything in the chat. So people could
Speaker 1: be kind of completely invisible. Nobody, like nobody knows that
Speaker 1: they're there. They're watching this stuff, and they're still getting
Speaker 1: the same messaging, they're still getting the same dates for protests,
Speaker 1: they're still like organizing. But they can be uh, sort
Speaker 1: of just subscribe to a channel and you don't even
Speaker 1: need to be subscribed, you can, yeah, just looking into
Speaker 1: and getting that flow of information without ever having like
Speaker 1: formal organizing so to speak. So it's really hard to
Speaker 1: say that, like, you know, these people planned this because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of plausible deniability and there's anybody was involved.
Speaker 1: There's so much easy hyper linking between groups and channels
Speaker 1: and everything, so it's so easy for someone to move
Speaker 1: between ideology and to go from kind of like the
Speaker 1: base level ship into the much deeper stuff extremely quick,
Speaker 1: very quick. Yeah, Actually, like well that's like that's good,
Speaker 1: and that's good for them. About Telegram is that you
Speaker 1: have all of the people that are vulnerable to let's say,
Speaker 1: new ideas in one place. Exactly, if you're trying to
Speaker 1: plan a collapse, you're going to need a lot more
Speaker 1: people than the numbers that the people who want the
Speaker 1: collapse actually have. So the easiest way to kind of
Speaker 1: move things along is desert inserting their ideas and their
Speaker 1: discourses and kind of altering the vibe of certain digital
Speaker 1: environments manually until they have um what we can kindly
Speaker 1: call cannon fodder, yeah, or even starting their own and
Speaker 1: saying like, you know, this is a mega platform and
Speaker 1: it's actually just you know, a bunch of bunch of
Speaker 1: acceleration ast Tomdad to recruit them because they saw attempts
Speaker 1: of this with like Q and on. It's people who
Speaker 1: are way more excelation is trying to use extreme It
Speaker 1: was successful. People die, You're mean that. And then also
Speaker 1: you've got like like the idea of the boogaloo, right
Speaker 1: that's being co opted to try to appeal to leftists,
Speaker 1: And I mean there's a really good article by Left
Speaker 1: Coast Right Watch that goes into one of those chats
Speaker 1: and they're basically like, yeah, really try to push these
Speaker 1: ideas of really try to push talking points like black
Speaker 1: lives matter and all this. We want to get these
Speaker 1: protesters on our side. And then you also have um,
Speaker 1: some blatant like white supremacist groups who are all using
Speaker 1: the boogaloos, And how much of that too is like
Speaker 1: how much that is sort of real genuine like I
Speaker 1: am not racist, I believe in black lives matter, Like
Speaker 1: I want to be part of this even though I'm
Speaker 1: a bog or Like how much of it also is
Speaker 1: um kind of reminiscent of what we were talking about
Speaker 1: us and I also don't want stuff in it. But
Speaker 1: like with you know, the idea of from Anson of
Speaker 1: like Helter Skelter and like causing that race where it's
Speaker 1: like they what they would do is like try and
Speaker 1: frame black people for it and say like this was
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I like that. How much of it
Speaker 1: is saying like this is black lives matter and they
Speaker 1: want people to see that after they do the boogleoo
Speaker 1: groups that showed up in Portland in January in July
Speaker 1: when the particular heads were happening. Now that they showed
Speaker 1: up and we're all like, yeah, we're here to support
Speaker 1: black Lives matter and stand against the federal government and stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And they had some very suspicious patches that it took me,
Speaker 1: took me about a year to figure out what they were.
Speaker 1: And it's like this accelerationist like, um, it ties into
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of like eco fascist propaganda stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's like they're they're saying these things, well
Speaker 1: they have these very obscure patches, um. And yeah, this
Speaker 1: is an important reason why we need people who are
Speaker 1: not very smart, like I will say, Jimmy dor who
Speaker 1: puts these gives these people platforms are some of the
Speaker 1: worst and are going to cause a lot of problems
Speaker 1: because they have no idea what they're doing or they
Speaker 1: know what they're doing, and they're just bad. And like
Speaker 1: that Boogle who think kind of serves a twofold purpose
Speaker 1: in that you can bring people who stud to defy
Speaker 1: his leftists into the movement, but you also have a
Speaker 1: really good scapegoat for like actual Actually that was a
Speaker 1: big thing that we saw in Minneapolis when things first
Speaker 1: popped off and like precently was getting burned down, and
Speaker 1: suddenly people on the internet start losing their minds about
Speaker 1: the Umbrella guys. And there was a guy who was indicted.
Speaker 1: He was a boo boo boy who was indicted for
Speaker 1: um like headlines said, burning down the precinct. He fired
Speaker 1: a weapon and he fired a gun on like near
Speaker 1: the wall exactly, And so that at the same time
Speaker 1: takes away agency from left wing movement and the States
Speaker 1: able to be like, look, see, it's just it's okay
Speaker 1: to crack down on them because they're all, you know,
Speaker 1: wild white supremacists exactly. Just from any autonomous movie with
Speaker 1: the forms of the people in the community that isn't
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't necessarily for to his leftists just piste
Speaker 1: off people. I mean, that's what we saw in every
Speaker 1: single you know, everybody, the young kids who are fucking
Speaker 1: piste off and are going to go smash it. And
Speaker 1: it's like saying all of people from outside of the
Speaker 1: town where it's like, yeah, it's a tale as old
Speaker 1: as time, Like outside agitator has been used since before this.
Speaker 1: It's a very old state talking point. Yeah, are you
Speaker 1: going to say that, Um yeah, I was gonna say Also,
Speaker 1: it's somewhat related to that we're talking about using like
Speaker 1: human on his cannon fodder and also ties into the
Speaker 1: sab sit conversation we're having. So my research I special
Speaker 1: are not specialized. I focus on Christian identity, this white
Speaker 1: supremacist ideology and how specifically how it's grown since the
Speaker 1: nineties until now through like the Internet and all that
Speaker 1: fun stuff. This whole point they've been pushing lately is
Speaker 1: to like there this with Christian identity. The whole thing
Speaker 1: is they are preparing for the apocalypse, which they call
Speaker 1: the tribulations, and they see modern see I folks see
Speaker 1: the boogaloo as like the tribulation that's coming. So what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do is go off grid and really
Speaker 1: try to like establish this new land or like to
Speaker 1: protect their kids and everything from like pollution and all
Speaker 1: that ship but also to be away from the collapse
Speaker 1: and be able to start buy it. And then while
Speaker 1: they're doing all that, like prepping homesteads and the compounds
Speaker 1: and stuff, they're also like pushing like election fraud conspiracies
Speaker 1: and all that on like Q and on in the
Speaker 1: maggot crowd, not because they believe it, not because yeah right,
Speaker 1: they don't believe it. They know it's bullshit, but they
Speaker 1: can use it to accelerate collapse, just like January say, yes,
Speaker 1: so exactly, I mean when I mean, there are groups
Speaker 1: when Joe Biden won the presidency or won the election, whatever,
Speaker 1: some groups being like, yeah, I really try to push
Speaker 1: this theory of this conspiracy about election fraud, even if
Speaker 1: you even if you don't believe in it, just push
Speaker 1: it because that helps our cause. And that's that's something
Speaker 1: to be really mindful of too. I forgot where else
Speaker 1: I was going with that. Well, yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: them don't mean what they say. They'll say things that
Speaker 1: will push other people to do something that they don't
Speaker 1: necessary really want to do. And that's a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of like during January six, so much excitement
Speaker 1: because they could see that the Q and on crowd
Speaker 1: are actually mobilizing, and so they said to them, like
Speaker 1: to themselves, like, you know, get them, get the mobilizing
Speaker 1: for the white race, get the mobilizing for you know,
Speaker 1: our cause. And they've really successfully been able to infiltrate
Speaker 1: that and be able to get some people on board
Speaker 1: with some of it just based on using their rhetoric. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, I talked about this on our podcast, but
Speaker 1: you could see it, like I reported on January six
Speaker 1: in person, and like you could watch it happen. Someone
Speaker 1: with a skull mask on or proud boy or an
Speaker 1: oathkeeper would literally come back from the police line, grab
Speaker 1: a group of people, yell something at them about que
Speaker 1: and On or the storms upon us, and throw them
Speaker 1: up to that riot line until they got did a
Speaker 1: really good did really good vision investigation of how those
Speaker 1: extremist cubes used mega people in q and On people
Speaker 1: as their foot soldiers. Qua a folk que didn't really
Speaker 1: can break down their mus podcast. Yeah, but it's also
Speaker 1: with I mean not to link everything the Christian identity,
Speaker 1: which I have a tendency to do, but it's it's
Speaker 1: very ideologically similar to Q and On, like from a
Speaker 1: Christianity point of view, like that's quan On is like
Speaker 1: so close to the edge of Christian identity. It's very scary. Actually,
Speaker 1: I talked about it on Jake hammer Hens Q Clarence podcast.
Speaker 1: But it there's also like not only trying to accelerate
Speaker 1: things through them, but also trying to recruit them through
Speaker 1: these like very very similar talking points about like the
Speaker 1: Synagogue of Satan and all that, saying that Christian identity
Speaker 1: is an entry point for some of them. Some of
Speaker 1: them bring it up as an entry point into further
Speaker 1: like accelerationist Nazi ship. But like they will start with
Speaker 1: Christian identity because I think that it's more pactual to
Speaker 1: people who already believe and on. Yeah exactly. I mean,
Speaker 1: like Will was saying, these there's a lot of this
Speaker 1: comes from these kind of boomer conspiracies and anti vax groups,
Speaker 1: and you're not going to be able to get you know,
Speaker 1: memon pap pap into like wotonism or something like that,
Speaker 1: if you try hard enough, you can't. But like Christianity
Speaker 1: is something that's palatable, it's something that's normal to them,
Speaker 1: and as you can kind of slowly tweak it through
Speaker 1: to it on, you can get them to this much
Speaker 1: wark stream. Oh yeah, talk about Christian identity. I think
Speaker 1: we should, like maybe Matt, you could define it Christian identity.
Speaker 1: It's this radical offshoot of Christianity that sees all white
Speaker 1: people as the true Israelites from the Bible um. And
Speaker 1: they also think Jewish people are all literally the spawn
Speaker 1: of Satan. There's this really dumb theory they came up
Speaker 1: with and like kind of rewrote the whole Bible off
Speaker 1: of called can I name n z okay okay dual
Speaker 1: seed line theory where they say, like the story if
Speaker 1: you know about uh, like Adam and even all that
Speaker 1: they had can enabled. Right, So they see, um Kane
Speaker 1: was the offspring of Eve and the devil and he
Speaker 1: was literally the spawn of Satan and then he intermingled
Speaker 1: with all these races that were there before Adam and
Speaker 1: Eve and created this demonic race. And it's really really
Speaker 1: fucking dumb, but it's still here. It's been here for
Speaker 1: tone's probably gonna keep going. It's gonna get worse calling
Speaker 1: it now, it's gonna get worse. Yeah, but uh, And
Speaker 1: the whole thing is they essentially like worship like a
Speaker 1: Nazi Jesus. They see Jesus only was really only talking
Speaker 1: to the white race, and that Christianity and like God
Speaker 1: only is able to be perceived by the white race.
Speaker 1: And before you start laughing at people, because yes it
Speaker 1: does sound very silly, keep in mind that these are
Speaker 1: extremely dangerous, Like, right, this is this is one problem
Speaker 1: with two and on when liberals just start laughing about
Speaker 1: how crazy it is, and then they're so surprised at
Speaker 1: January six, we're like no, no, like it's yeah, like
Speaker 1: they're actually dangerous. Yeah, he's mentioned in a lot and
Speaker 1: he's chricially that has been mentioned in various manifestoes linked
Speaker 1: to you has warned very like organized, like I mean
Speaker 1: historically a big part of like with Christian identity with
Speaker 1: a lot of these kind of like a lot of
Speaker 1: them based their like whole historical context of like arianism
Speaker 1: on this rewriting of history based on UM a fake
Speaker 1: study that was done in Nazi Germany about uh where
Speaker 1: some proto Indo European languages came from. And so they
Speaker 1: believe that like white people came from uh an area
Speaker 1: that's you know, you could generally say it's sort of
Speaker 1: near the Black Sea. UM, and that it's based on
Speaker 1: this like strange idea that like Sanskrit is not the
Speaker 1: oldest language, but like are you pointing the gun at
Speaker 1: me because I'm stepping in you, I think it actually
Speaker 1: is useful and yeah, there there is actual They really
Speaker 1: tried to push this. They made UM a lot of
Speaker 1: fake studies that you could spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: researching this and believe that it's true, um, because there's
Speaker 1: just so much written about it. And I think this
Speaker 1: is like a tactic that they really tend to do
Speaker 1: with historical revisionism allat is just crank out essay after essay,
Speaker 1: even if it's wrong, even if it's totally like based
Speaker 1: on false data or just skew data. If they don't care,
Speaker 1: they just write about it, and that they think that
Speaker 1: like having more written about it makes it more legitimate.
Speaker 1: And if that's what we are talking have been talking
Speaker 1: about this this whole time we've been not recording, is
Speaker 1: there's just an overflow of content that is so easy
Speaker 1: to access, you know, not necessarily from these specificers they're
Speaker 1: talking about, just from the further right. In general, I
Speaker 1: just overflow the content. It's like always the top ship
Speaker 1: on Facebook. To give an idea of how pervasive even
Speaker 1: that idea of like where Indo European languages came from,
Speaker 1: Like when I still went to college, I took the
Speaker 1: Religions of South Asia course and we had to spend
Speaker 1: like multiple days where a professor went through these myths
Speaker 1: about like what was the Arian invasion, which like was
Speaker 1: there are arian people that that is a thing historically, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're not white people, but like going through a definition
Speaker 1: of white people. Sure, based on language, they think of
Speaker 1: arianism as like referring to a linguistic pattern. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: like in a university course, we still had to go
Speaker 1: through and like debunk these myths because they've gotten so
Speaker 1: pervasive within the culture. Yeah. And another thing I want
Speaker 1: to say is that kind of these more entry level
Speaker 1: conspiracy ideas, it is hard to over emphasize how small
Speaker 1: the spaces between the entry level stuff and the much
Speaker 1: harder stuff. It can happen extremely extremely you know, I'll
Speaker 1: give I'll give an example. I went to you know,
Speaker 1: I was reporting on an anti vax protest and they
Speaker 1: went straight into talking about New World Order and and
Speaker 1: Project locks, Lockstep and and the raw Childs and the
Speaker 1: Builderers and like the Sabbatines and David Ice ship just
Speaker 1: me and this is this is the middle of the day,
Speaker 1: and like a metropolitan area with a bunch of boomers
Speaker 1: and trump Paths who are getting this like hardcore ship
Speaker 1: pumped at them where you uh, we shall sell that
Speaker 1: a lot with the national bombing too, like immediately it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it was actually an attack on dominion,
Speaker 1: and also it was orchestrated by the roths Childs to
Speaker 1: destroy evidence of voter I forgot that that and then
Speaker 1: also there as a whole like there a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff that came up later is a big conspiracy that
Speaker 1: it was actually a missile strike. I had to talk
Speaker 1: my grandpa down from that. There was a video that
Speaker 1: circulated for a while about that. I had to get
Speaker 1: into a conversation with my grandpa, but at the time
Speaker 1: was super isolated because of COVID and that's a whole yeah,
Speaker 1: And I had to like talk him down and show
Speaker 1: him like, no, here's uh, here's a video from somebody
Speaker 1: I knew who was like somewhat in the area and
Speaker 1: saw the explosion and like, and there was not a
Speaker 1: missile anywhere. They One of the data studies that I've
Speaker 1: done is UM and worked on is using big pool
Speaker 1: and small pool discord servers of far right extremists UM,
Speaker 1: far right militia groups and UM very very accelerationist skull
Speaker 1: mass that network UM and looking at the big pools
Speaker 1: and the small pools and seeing the app mentioned between them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there was not one person who was more than
Speaker 1: three nodes away from anybody else. So it's very it
Speaker 1: can't be overstated how close people are from entry to
Speaker 1: very very very extreme h types of goals and andy
Speaker 1: explicit ideologies that explicitly pushed violence. And you know, another
Speaker 1: point I want to bring up is um like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's been much said about Qunan isn't going away, It's
Speaker 1: just not called qun On anymore. Um with with these
Speaker 1: anti vax mobilizations, those mobilizations and groups aren't going away.
Speaker 1: They're just going to continue to shift in evolve their focus.
Speaker 1: And the networks say they're planning for it like they've
Speaker 1: they've they've they've designed it that way. So I sometimes
Speaker 1: I find the normal stuff first, sometimes I find the
Speaker 1: crazy stuff first. But I mean, not even that long ago,
Speaker 1: I came across a particular social media profile but was
Speaker 1: explicitly calling for acts of terror and attempting to organize
Speaker 1: act of terror, displaying ACCEP tear, which is like an
Speaker 1: immediate problem that needs to be dealt with. However, they
Speaker 1: had multiple alternate accounts that you follow that path, and
Speaker 1: on their other accounts they're sharing like Tucker Carlson stuff
Speaker 1: like things that your grandparents are going to watch right like,
Speaker 1: and that is done on purpose to try to like
Speaker 1: siphon people out of um more quote unquote mainstream versions
Speaker 1: of like conspiratorial thinking directly into like you should start
Speaker 1: exploding things, and even even more even more let's say,
Speaker 1: left of center conspiracy thinking ties into this what does
Speaker 1: and it's not. You know, conspiracy theories are not solely
Speaker 1: a thing of the right, which which pass me off
Speaker 1: to no end. No, I just want to back you
Speaker 1: up on that, Like I think there's this maybe this
Speaker 1: like implicit idea that the left is immune to conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: when it very much is. Yeah, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: emphasize that point that I yet though of like never
Speaker 1: being that far from the serious stuff is something that's
Speaker 1: really really observable, even beyond like a data level. I
Speaker 1: I used to like consult with local newsrooms on how
Speaker 1: to report on things, and one of the big points
Speaker 1: I always tried to drill in was like, if you
Speaker 1: fuck this up and you frame this the wrong way,
Speaker 1: it will have consequences. And if this is stepping in
Speaker 1: it too much, we can cut But like the um
Speaker 1: Dylan Roof Dylan Roof started his journey to radicalization by
Speaker 1: reading about Trayvon Martin in local news websites and local
Speaker 1: newspapers and then googling black on white crime and his
Speaker 1: first result comes up exactly and like it does not.
Speaker 1: It did not take long for him to go from
Speaker 1: I am reading local news articles that are framed this
Speaker 1: specific way to I am killing people. That's not normal,
Speaker 1: of course, like a lot of people are not going
Speaker 1: to be reading local news and then suddenly start to
Speaker 1: think this way, but like there is a concerted effort
Speaker 1: by some very specific people who would like to make
Speaker 1: that pathway easier. It's well, it's interesting because we don't
Speaker 1: we can't like define it really as terrorism. What are
Speaker 1: they doing. They're really just they're just saying things. They're
Speaker 1: just encouraging people to do things, and like they're not,
Speaker 1: like they're not doing anything wrong. We can't really call
Speaker 1: it terrorism. The most dangerous people in this game are
Speaker 1: usually not the ones doing the shooting, people behind the
Speaker 1: scenes trying to go on these paths in the first
Speaker 1: looking for people who are willing and then so they
Speaker 1: see somebody reading local news maybe and they want to
Speaker 1: make that pathway easier. For to go from local news
Speaker 1: and Dylan Roof like because that's not a normal jump.
Speaker 1: But they really want to find people who are looking
Speaker 1: at local news like that and then say to them like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: you look at this, now look at that trying to
Speaker 1: try respect to climate change. How do you see do
Speaker 1: you see a similar pathway instead of instead of someone
Speaker 1: googling no black white crime, like googling stuff about collapse
Speaker 1: and and like modern motion. Eric Stryker, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Eric Striker has been on about this, and I think
Speaker 1: that he's a i mean relatively like middle point that
Speaker 1: people get to like fairly like average people do listen
Speaker 1: to things like Eric Stryker entry level explicit Nazi. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And another thing, cut me off if we don't want
Speaker 1: to go in this direction. But you know, one of
Speaker 1: the biggest places where we see young people getting into
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories is TikTok alright, TikTok cut that cut that
Speaker 1: cut that we're not we're not cutting that. That is
Speaker 1: that is with the pod. Yeah. I mean, the biggest
Speaker 1: entry points I've seen for a lot of things remains crisis. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the thing is this, our upcoming climate scenario is
Speaker 1: going to give people an easier jumping on point. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so. I mean we were talking about how like
Speaker 1: the mythology of like like black on white crime and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. They're trying to create a situation that,
Speaker 1: you know, with the urgency that justifies fascism, which on
Speaker 1: its own is unjustifiable and ridiculous. But when there's a crisis,
Speaker 1: climate change is the existential threat that they've been trying
Speaker 1: to artificially create, and they no longer have to. They
Speaker 1: now get to skip a lot of steps and save
Speaker 1: a lot of energy by just planting at the fact
Speaker 1: that everything is literally on fire and that like that
Speaker 1: that makes it so much quicker. State, we have to
Speaker 1: do something. We have all the guns. Now would be
Speaker 1: great time to join it in our power. This kid,
Speaker 1: this this is our Mr Era hyper inflation type ship.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like when you're when you can't
Speaker 1: get food from the grocery store anymore because of supply
Speaker 1: chain problems, or when everything around you is on fire.
Speaker 1: You don't need like a grace, you don't need a
Speaker 1: great replacement theory. No, you don't need anything. You don't
Speaker 1: need to say that the Rothchilds are behind you. You
Speaker 1: haven't just need to wait, you have you have enough
Speaker 1: things that you experience yourself, and it's much scarier when
Speaker 1: you can't because I can't, Like like how do we
Speaker 1: how do we stop? Yeah? I can't. It's hard. It's
Speaker 1: literally on fire. It's it's a problem and something needs
Speaker 1: to be done about it. I don't like your solution,
Speaker 1: but something needs to happen. So what what what do
Speaker 1: you think on this path? And this is gonna get
Speaker 1: a whole lot more speculative, but like, what can we
Speaker 1: do to make people falling down those pathways less often?
Speaker 1: Like like, yes, that is that, that's that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that we're trying to do on the PA
Speaker 1: is making sure that people do not fall full down
Speaker 1: the the doom or path because yeah, this that that
Speaker 1: does get people along down em like against like like
Speaker 1: against most types of extremism. Eco extremism is mostly logical.
Speaker 1: Like you look at it and you say, we need
Speaker 1: a radical change right now, and that's correct. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just the way that they go about it is very
Speaker 1: very different, and that's why, like you know, eco fascism
Speaker 1: is very different. It's its own type of eco extremism,
Speaker 1: and there's in green anarchy, that's a very different type
Speaker 1: of eco extremism. Like these are all different parts of
Speaker 1: something that almost has the same goals but wants to
Speaker 1: go about them very very very differently. And it's so
Speaker 1: easy to just look around and see how everything's on
Speaker 1: fire and think like the government's doing nothing about it.
Speaker 1: The government starts doing something about it, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: it's the state's two bigs were in communism, you know.
Speaker 1: So they all of like different goals and it's very
Speaker 1: conflicting on how to how to deal with and like
Speaker 1: even the very different tactics between green anarchy and like
Speaker 1: fascistic you extremism, they also will get two different endicals, right,
Speaker 1: like you like your your basic amprim what's a very
Speaker 1: different life than you're you know, very you know, very
Speaker 1: stepping in it pilled fascist? Right. A collapse can only
Speaker 1: benefit the right. A collapse can only benefit the people
Speaker 1: who already have power, who already able bodied, who already
Speaker 1: stocked up on guns, who already like, yeah, that does
Speaker 1: frustrate me with their being anarchists who are like rooting
Speaker 1: for the e collapse because you're not gonna win, like
Speaker 1: you're just going somewhere, Yeah, well, they have very strict
Speaker 1: ideas of which people count as human and the goal
Speaker 1: of the majority of fascist movements is to you know,
Speaker 1: purge the ranks of the people they see is lesser,
Speaker 1: and they have they have they have very precise ideas
Speaker 1: about who they plan on letting to survive the collapse.
Speaker 1: So let's let's I think it's time to start talking
Speaker 1: about and tell me if I'm taking this in the
Speaker 1: long direction. You know what the funding someone who's listening
Speaker 1: to this, Yeah, no, stop recycling, it's it's all getting
Speaker 1: buried in the Oregan force. Just vote. Let mean, like,
Speaker 1: what made you start local? Find a local group, find
Speaker 1: a local direct action group. Investigate that group and see
Speaker 1: who is behind it. But find start locally. It has
Speaker 1: to start at the local level. Because when I'm t say,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, if the collapse comes or like or
Speaker 1: the collapse like local local collapses, disasters, confusis disasters are
Speaker 1: gonna affect at the local level. No, talk to your
Speaker 1: talk to your neighbors, neber talk to your family, Like,
Speaker 1: let's try to get your family on these paths that
Speaker 1: lead to helping your neighbors instead of you know, making
Speaker 1: friends with the church. Militia. Before you buy a gun,
Speaker 1: learn how to fucking garden. Yes, but buying a gun
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing is is good. It's good
Speaker 1: to know how to use firearms. Basic preparedness, yes, but
Speaker 1: learn learn how to put on our turn to learn
Speaker 1: how to feed yourself. Learn how to grow some fucking food.
Speaker 1: Learn how to cook that fucking food. Get an effect.
Speaker 1: All that comes before, like you get to be a
Speaker 1: follow up character. Yeah, oh yeah, an individual first aid kit.
Speaker 1: You can buy them on the stores. You can. You
Speaker 1: can buy them in like some pawn shops. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: like North American Rescue or North River Rescue. I'm sure
Speaker 1: we'll find what I attacks more on the poduct. Well there, Look,
Speaker 1: there are two big things. One, we all have a
Speaker 1: moral obligation to consistently counter the black pill doom er ship.
Speaker 1: Everything is coming to an end, like it doesn't have to.
Speaker 1: That's optional. Like weed. Things are going to get bad,
Speaker 1: but there's degrees of that. We can stop it from being.
Speaker 1: And you don't need civilizational We don't need civilizytion to
Speaker 1: end like that can be done. Step two. We also
Speaker 1: have an obligation to counter the individualist stuff and and
Speaker 1: and focus our efforts more towards towards community and relationships.
Speaker 1: That is so so important because every idiot that's gonna
Speaker 1: buy a gonna have a bunker not only is not
Speaker 1: gonna make it, it's gonna screw the rest of us.
Speaker 1: Like this has to be a communal effort and a
Speaker 1: civilization thing, Like we do need the civilization to change,
Speaker 1: like we need human society, as we lay out, we
Speaker 1: as has a lot of problems. I understand people's critiques
Speaker 1: of human civilization. We still need a society, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we we need we need places that you know, people
Speaker 1: are going to Catherine and people, you know, provide the
Speaker 1: things that we have. Um. I noticed that that can
Speaker 1: be a loaded word on certain political circles. So I'm
Speaker 1: not you know, we're not getting into like civilization theory
Speaker 1: and that kind of anything. I was gonna say, I
Speaker 1: would argue any ideology or ideas just the boogaloo that
Speaker 1: uh kind of hypes up a collapse is generally one.
Speaker 1: You should stay away from anything that makes the collapse
Speaker 1: sound like it makes it sound sexy and personal story.
Speaker 1: As think it's important to remember, like if there was
Speaker 1: some massive civil conflict that happened, I think the people
Speaker 1: who would suffer the most or the noncombatants talk about
Speaker 1: to deal with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll talk about
Speaker 1: kind of episode of terrorism. Bad. Um, well we'll do
Speaker 1: plugs of the end. Hold put the gun back in
Speaker 1: your pants together. I was talking about historical precedent earlier,
Speaker 1: about things we've seen in the past with collapses and
Speaker 1: how people with guns and people who with training end
Speaker 1: up being the ones who gained power. Um. Something that
Speaker 1: like I was specifically reading about that was, um, like
Speaker 1: the Rwandan genocide. If you know, it was just three
Speaker 1: months where most of the Fusie people were wiped out. Um.
Speaker 1: There are conflicting numbers, so I'm not gonna specifically say
Speaker 1: any but um, you know the more recently like this year.
Speaker 1: Earlier this year, Um was only when Rwanda admitted what
Speaker 1: it was, that it was a genocide. And um, the people,
Speaker 1: the armed forces were the ones who came like the
Speaker 1: leaders and then they were backed by the government. That
Speaker 1: can't happen in America. Yeah, and it's like it can't
Speaker 1: happen here though we are we are immune to this
Speaker 1: in our spot of the world called it will not
Speaker 1: happen here. And the other thing is look at where
Speaker 1: you get your information from. Seriously, no matter who you are,
Speaker 1: take a long, hard look at who you get your information,
Speaker 1: even if you're on the left, especially if you're you're
Speaker 1: on the left. You know, if you want to hear
Speaker 1: about something that's happening in an area, look at the
Speaker 1: people who are actually on the ground reporting. People don't
Speaker 1: just rely on like news aggregators. Especially on Twitter. There's
Speaker 1: been a lot of bad, very bad faith news agreators
Speaker 1: on Twitter who are posing a leftist. This has been
Speaker 1: a huge problem. Even leftists who just don't do that
Speaker 1: just do a very bad job. People call themselves like
Speaker 1: car extremism or counter terms and researchers, and they are
Speaker 1: really talking about anti They say that they are counter
Speaker 1: extremism researchers, and they pose that way, and they look
Speaker 1: sometimes like they could be Sometimes I think not they're not,
Speaker 1: but like you know, vary varying degrees of life, legitimacy,
Speaker 1: but like they focus only on like the left wing stuff.
Speaker 1: They don't think they don't it has to be this
Speaker 1: idea of like keeping it balanced right, like not making
Speaker 1: it just like a far right issue, which I would argue.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of other people would that this
Speaker 1: kind of stuff is more concerning issue and there is
Speaker 1: like merit definitely to looking at left acceleration which is
Speaker 1: not for the record, like left accelerationism is not talking
Speaker 1: about anti fascists. But um, that's out time to get
Speaker 1: like we left accelerations and will will be its own episode.
Speaker 1: But what what some people do posing as um, you know,
Speaker 1: people who have credibility and are able to um kind
Speaker 1: of sway opinion, They are not really doing what they
Speaker 1: say that they're doing. They're really just trying to shift
Speaker 1: the narrative form of racially motivated violent extremism, which is
Speaker 1: a big obviously having to being like BLM is racially
Speaker 1: motivated violent extremism, and they want to push that narrative
Speaker 1: further and further. I think let's let's let' let's go,
Speaker 1: let's kind of price start to like wrap up and
Speaker 1: say our final thoughts on you know, this whole this
Speaker 1: whole topic. Um, I know, we we didn't. We didn't
Speaker 1: we did, we did We did not get to talk
Speaker 1: about like eco defense very much. Anyone has any final
Speaker 1: thoughts on that and how they see it kind of
Speaker 1: growing and how they see the state's response to it. Um,
Speaker 1: that might be worth briefly mentioning. But yeah, let's kind
Speaker 1: of let's just kind of go around in a circle
Speaker 1: and give kind of everyone's you know, final thoughts on
Speaker 1: the on the subjects. Um, I think collapse is is
Speaker 1: bad and I think that well, I mean that's my
Speaker 1: main my main thing. But anything that's appealing to you
Speaker 1: and on like an ecological level that's collapse related to
Speaker 1: something you should be very wary of. And I think
Speaker 1: you should be ware very wary of, like generally everything.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's kind of like a butchered be
Speaker 1: careful about everything. Um. Yeah, I guess in my opinion,
Speaker 1: the idea of total collapse is very misleading because it's
Speaker 1: easy and disasters don't work like that. You're not gonna
Speaker 1: suddenly reset one day. Um, everything is going to suck
Speaker 1: and you're going to need to fight for whatever semblance
Speaker 1: of a society that you want to see in the world.
Speaker 1: Talk to you fucking neighbors, that kind of people in
Speaker 1: your city, in your nighborhood. There are people doing good
Speaker 1: ship in whatever city town you live in. Most likely,
Speaker 1: if not, you can start it. Look at your local
Speaker 1: mutual aid network, Look at the people who are taking
Speaker 1: action around and get involved seriously. You know it could
Speaker 1: be going out into a park Saturday mornings and just
Speaker 1: like giving out food, talking to the people who are
Speaker 1: most affective people. Seriously, if every once a person you
Speaker 1: need to talk to touch grass people. If you need,
Speaker 1: like the most basic thing to start on any sort
Speaker 1: of mutual aid work trying to find a food not
Speaker 1: ball chapter. And they're well organized, they're easy to join.
Speaker 1: You don't have to put on block and fight a cop.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's a good entry point and it's it's great.
Speaker 1: It's great training for for disaster relief. If you have
Speaker 1: money and you want to help, seriously, just give pass
Speaker 1: to on house, people on the street, give money, give
Speaker 1: money to people, give money directly to people. Yep. Uh.
Speaker 1: My last thoughts are just that I think the idea
Speaker 1: of collapse or whether actual collapse themselves and mental or otherwise,
Speaker 1: will always be something to rally behind, Like it is
Speaker 1: always an entry points as well as motivator from from
Speaker 1: all for all sides, from all sides. Um. But it's
Speaker 1: like when these things become very silent, like was mentioned before,
Speaker 1: when they're outside of your door, that's when you know
Speaker 1: that's when like the ideology kind of hits the pavement,
Speaker 1: like what is actually going to play out, what is
Speaker 1: actually gonna happen, and how that's gonna affect People's very real.
Speaker 1: So building community, you know, building connections, um, and just
Speaker 1: understanding you know, who is in your community. It's probably
Speaker 1: one of the most important things. Yeah, the idea of
Speaker 1: collapse is a romantic and ridiculous notion. Uh, come up
Speaker 1: with people who are like really into like apocalyptic thinking
Speaker 1: and the version of themselves if they get to be
Speaker 1: the main character. So first and foremost, take care of
Speaker 1: each other. There are a lot of people out there
Speaker 1: who want to manipulate you and want to change the
Speaker 1: way you think about things, and they really really want
Speaker 1: you to buy in to the end times and you
Speaker 1: don't have to because you're smarter than that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's not hopeless. We really have to move away from
Speaker 1: hierarchical thinking. Our society really incentivized this hierarchical thinking and thinking.
Speaker 1: You're saying to a sac like we, um, we really
Speaker 1: need to just be focusing on people, like if things
Speaker 1: people because you know, somebody doesn't have to you know,
Speaker 1: earn you know, respect and earn humanity. For some reason,
Speaker 1: we try and make it seem like that. But people
Speaker 1: are people. Um, people are in different circumstances because of
Speaker 1: usually because of just the way that the world is.
Speaker 1: And um, yeah, you need to just you need to
Speaker 1: organize locally. You need to help your own people, and
Speaker 1: stay away from the internet. Ship stop posting. Don't stop
Speaker 1: posting a stop posting, even though I We'll keep doing
Speaker 1: it because because I'm the good poster who wants who
Speaker 1: wants to pluck the pot your product? Follow terrorism bad?
Speaker 1: We're on that s What is the plot? Like? What what?
Speaker 1: What do you? Yeah? We go through, um, portrayals of
Speaker 1: terrorism and extremism and conspiracies and conspiracies in popular media,
Speaker 1: and we look at it from the perspective of people
Speaker 1: who studied this and say, did this succeed in portraying
Speaker 1: these things or did it as it more often does
Speaker 1: problems completely fail and cause us all personal problems become propaganda?
Speaker 1: And like, did you make terror propaganda? Or did you
Speaker 1: make good media about that is a thin line? Such
Speaker 1: a thin line made a career out? That is that
Speaker 1: is the thin terror line? Yeah, do you want to
Speaker 1: plug your fantastic group? Yeah? Absolutely with you can read
Speaker 1: anything I write at Anti Hate dot c A. And
Speaker 1: we do just general reporting on h far right extremism
Speaker 1: in Canada as well as infiltration if I oh, and
Speaker 1: I also host a podcast called The Unusual Show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to keep up to date on extremism
Speaker 1: in Canada. Their group is one of is probably the
Speaker 1: best one around right now in my opinions. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and you do, you do, you do very good work.
Speaker 1: You keep your eye on my home country where my
Speaker 1: family lives. So thank you for that. Um, and I'm
Speaker 1: very happy to be talking with you guys in the
Speaker 1: beautiful woods where we have no cell service. We can't
Speaker 1: post um and that's good and we're gonna continue doing
Speaker 1: that and stop using this microphone. So goodbye. UM. Yeah
Speaker 1: and Terrorism Fat the podcast with that that wraps up
Speaker 1: the Terrorism round Table Forest Discussion episodes. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to all of us rant about our specific weird niche
Speaker 1: focuses and hopefully trying to have it within the useful
Speaker 1: context of climate change. You can follow me at Hungry
Speaker 1: bow Tie. You can follow the podcast Happen Here pod
Speaker 1: and cool Zone Media on Twitter and I believe Instagram,
Speaker 1: you can follow some of the researchers I interviewed UM
Speaker 1: on their podcast at Terrorism Bad. So that wraps up
Speaker 1: this discussion. Thanks for listening, See you later in the
Speaker 1: podcasting verse, the pod verse. Okay, goodbye. What's a problem
Speaker 1: here the show where I'm a problem. I'm on vacation legally,
Speaker 1: You're not on vacation allegedly legally, But okay in Shelah,
Speaker 1: I'm drunk. Garrison, you're in charge, now figure it out. Great, Hi,
Speaker 1: it could happen here today. We are talking with somebody.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to the past two episodes, you should
Speaker 1: actually know, uh, THEO who is a journalist and researcher,
Speaker 1: and we are going to be discussing plans for an
Speaker 1: upcoming rally in Washington, d C. That's has a lot
Speaker 1: of that seems good. Yeah, this is Uh. Things never happened? When?
Speaker 1: What happened? What happened last time? But half the last time,
Speaker 1: I don't I I historically only pay attention to things
Speaker 1: that happened after May and before December. So I'm unaware
Speaker 1: of anything bad ever happening in d C. Well, something
Speaker 1: bad stuff happened there last time. It got it got
Speaker 1: a little spicy, um, okay, spicy, but it's not like
Speaker 1: they tried to overthrow the government murder elected leaders, right,
Speaker 1: that is what they are actually having too much fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just boys. They were just proud of their boys.
Speaker 1: A little carried away building. All of the build that
Speaker 1: big hanging contraption whatever it's called gallows gallows. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we're talking THEO. Do you want to do? You want
Speaker 1: to introduce yourself? Yeah, Hey, guys, I'm theo UM idealist
Speaker 1: and a researcher. I'm based out of Virginia. Allegedly I
Speaker 1: end up covering a lot of events in DC because
Speaker 1: of that, and that's my plans for this weekend. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want to do? You want to give us
Speaker 1: like an overview of what rallies in DC have been
Speaker 1: like the past, Let's say like the past year. Um
Speaker 1: oh boy do I yeah? Let's just for background. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: like pretty much immediately post election, as the whole kind
Speaker 1: of stop the Steel thing got kicked into gear. Um,
Speaker 1: November fourteen, there was a rally in d c um
Speaker 1: and then there was one December twelve, and then there
Speaker 1: is finally one as most are probably aware, on January six.
Speaker 1: January six, you know, obviously got the bulk of the
Speaker 1: media coverage. UM, but November fourteenth and especially December twelve
Speaker 1: were very violent situations in general. UM proud boys, General
Speaker 1: Chud's a bunch of oathkeepers, bunch of people's confused memas
Speaker 1: and pat paps showed up. UM would kind of wander
Speaker 1: around the Yeah yeah they did, Yeah, pretty pretty fucked up.
Speaker 1: I know some people who were there when they did,
Speaker 1: and it's I don't know, it's sad, like it's really bleak.
Speaker 1: I was there with the people that you know Ubert,
Speaker 1: Oh good, yeah, so you I mean, it's just it's
Speaker 1: so fucking um. I don't know the extent of the disinformation, right,
Speaker 1: It's hard when you're talking about this to like express
Speaker 1: a lot of sympathy for some of these people. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sympathetic towards their aims. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: do the New York Times like let's talk to the
Speaker 1: Trump voter down the street. But like a lot of
Speaker 1: them are just like they're fucking dumb people who bought
Speaker 1: into some bullshit and it it destroyed them and their
Speaker 1: relationships with their families and in some cases cost them
Speaker 1: their lives and like you don't have to sympathize with
Speaker 1: them to be like, yeah, that's bleak as ship, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think you see that with the dc rallies
Speaker 1: really more so than like, uh, Portland's Proud Boy event
Speaker 1: for example, that is not at all a gathering of
Speaker 1: like the masses. That's that's a specific group of pieces
Speaker 1: of ship. Yeah. Yeah, And like you'd have absolutely like
Speaker 1: units of Proud Boys or oath keepers. We had three
Speaker 1: per centers some local Virginia militias and they'd kind of
Speaker 1: be wandering around. But during the day itself you'd normally
Speaker 1: see like speakers. Alex Jones was there, Um to meet him.
Speaker 1: That was fun. Um, that's always a meeting Alex. He's
Speaker 1: a great guy. It was really fun. He's his neck.
Speaker 1: It's hard to exaggerate how how he is just as
Speaker 1: red in person. He's so red. And as a guy
Speaker 1: who's good at strangling, it seems like he would be
Speaker 1: hard to strangle. Oh, nearly impossible. Like that's so big,
Speaker 1: it's such like it's like a fucking train car. Like
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous how big that man's neck is. Look, most
Speaker 1: people aren't hard to strangle. Alex Jones would be that's
Speaker 1: not praising him, that's just being honest. So during the
Speaker 1: day there would be speakers, you know, Alex Jones, and
Speaker 1: you kind of see people split up into whatever they're
Speaker 1: specific brand of fucker he is. There's like groups of
Speaker 1: nerdy looking gropers. Um, there were some trad cats wearing
Speaker 1: road Those guys were fun meant, but yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of it's you know, confused, like boomers on Facebook and
Speaker 1: kind of to Roberts point, like I normally didn't go,
Speaker 1: you know, wearing press credentials because I value knives being
Speaker 1: outside of me and not inside of it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's good to not get stabbed. Most people appreciate that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite things. And so I'd get
Speaker 1: to like talking to these people, especially the older ones,
Speaker 1: because I take the Metro into the city and they
Speaker 1: are they're just confused, old people who have gotten in
Speaker 1: over their heads. But yeah, then like the sun would
Speaker 1: set and that's when the Proud Boys would really start
Speaker 1: getting into ship. November they stabbed. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm remembering this correctly, so feel free to fact check me,
Speaker 1: but I believe there was two people on the Uh,
Speaker 1: they cracked a girl's skull and then on December twelve,
Speaker 1: they stabbed one other person and Jeremy Burtino got blayed
Speaker 1: on the street. He shared it, he shared it, and
Speaker 1: the fucking d A elected not to prosecute because that
Speaker 1: was the clearest case of self defense I have ever
Speaker 1: seen in my life. Um. Yeah, so like, like the
Speaker 1: dude literally tried to flee three times, he drew his
Speaker 1: knife after by the third time he was blinded by
Speaker 1: having a shirt puld and assaulted by a group he
Speaker 1: had no other choice. Yeah, he did exactly what you're
Speaker 1: supposed to do in that situation and repeatedly tried to
Speaker 1: flee and when he did, and he stabbed a motherfucker.
Speaker 1: And you can't, I I can't. He did nothing wrong
Speaker 1: in my in my opinion, all the d a's opinion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all probably better off for it. But yeah, there's
Speaker 1: this kind of established Uh, there was this established sort
Speaker 1: of cycle of show up, a bunch of weird Republican
Speaker 1: politicians that you've never heard of before, give speeches. Uh,
Speaker 1: you go and kind of wander around, and then the
Speaker 1: proud Boys come out and they funk around and sometimes
Speaker 1: other groups too, Like January the night before January six,
Speaker 1: there were people from NSC one one who were hanging
Speaker 1: out trying to cause trouble, getting in altercations all their
Speaker 1: normal ship and so yeah, there's this kind of like
Speaker 1: general mix of groups. January six shifted the paradigm on
Speaker 1: that a lot. And I think that's the big thing
Speaker 1: for this weekend is we don't really know what it's
Speaker 1: gonna look like. Yeah, can you talk about kind of
Speaker 1: what has kind of the event promotion looked like from
Speaker 1: the right, Like what have they what messages have they
Speaker 1: been putting out to promote this event with? So yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of like the bigger groups have been fairly
Speaker 1: explicitly saying like don't go officially. Unofficially is a bit
Speaker 1: of a different story and fairness, It's worth noting that
Speaker 1: prior to UM the United Rally and Charlote, so the
Speaker 1: Proud Boys were saying don't go, and an awful lot
Speaker 1: of their most violent members were at Unite the Right
Speaker 1: in Charlottesville. You know, it's some some of this is
Speaker 1: a plausible deniability game. Yeah, So like the official Proud
Speaker 1: Boys telegram channel was like, oh, this is I mean
Speaker 1: in different words, but we're pretty much like this is
Speaker 1: a honeypot, this is a trap, this is an op
Speaker 1: don't go. Um. But also like we've seen activity that
Speaker 1: really suggests otherwise. UM, whether it's like smaller, more local
Speaker 1: groups saying that they want to go or UH streamers
Speaker 1: and journalists using the word lightly to UH who have
Speaker 1: pretty close relationships with these groups, hiring extra stringers for
Speaker 1: the weekend, or looking like they're preparing to report on
Speaker 1: something big. Yeah, the kind of the I know, we've
Speaker 1: talked a little bit um online with some of our
Speaker 1: colleagues and there's definitely a mixed a mixed, a mixed
Speaker 1: opinion on how big the event is going to be
Speaker 1: and who's all going to be there and what kind
Speaker 1: of their goal is, which makes kind of everything all
Speaker 1: the more tense because you know, it's almost easier to
Speaker 1: when we know what it's going to be, like we
Speaker 1: like we have a good grasp and what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: and this we're not really sure? Um do you do
Speaker 1: you know, has there been any kind of response from
Speaker 1: like local DC officials, like like law enforcement or anything
Speaker 1: about what they're gonna do at this gathering? So I
Speaker 1: did see Capital Police is planning to put the fence
Speaker 1: back up. Um. Probably a good idea, yeah, which like
Speaker 1: will cover the capital. But there's also a problem with
Speaker 1: the fence going up, which is the back of the
Speaker 1: fence goes right up to the end of the Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter Plaza in d C, which has been used
Speaker 1: as kind of a rallying point for uh anti fascist activists,
Speaker 1: and when that fence is up, it's just it's a funnel.
Speaker 1: The so it goes like this is an of visual medium.
Speaker 1: There's a street, uh, and that's where Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: plause is and there's only two exits, and both those
Speaker 1: exits lead to hotels that Proud Boys and Chud's love
Speaker 1: to stay in. So what happens almost without fail is
Speaker 1: people go and hang out in the plaza. You know,
Speaker 1: Chud's come down the streets. Police form a line, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty much a pre made kettle, right. So that's
Speaker 1: like not good. Uh, it's good for the capital, but
Speaker 1: it's not good for the people that will be on
Speaker 1: the ground, yeah, because they're also as is most of
Speaker 1: these events, UM, there has been some organizing locally and
Speaker 1: even you know UH anti fashions from around kind of
Speaker 1: the country. Trying to like put out advice and feelers
Speaker 1: and like what to do for the specific gathering. UM.
Speaker 1: And I know there's been there's been a decent amount
Speaker 1: of you know, there's there's always like debate eighteen conflict
Speaker 1: of around how much to show up, where to show up,
Speaker 1: you know, how proact people should be. Um. But because
Speaker 1: this is the first big rally since J six, I
Speaker 1: feel like there's a lot of people. I feel it's
Speaker 1: much more important and like the people have like you know,
Speaker 1: there's there's there's like there's like a heightened sense around
Speaker 1: the specific thing. Um. Do you know, like how many
Speaker 1: people are kind of roughly planning to show up on
Speaker 1: like the anti fascist side. It's really hard to tell,
Speaker 1: um d c anti fascist actions. I've seen you know,
Speaker 1: a couple dozen people in block towards close to a hundred.
Speaker 1: I would um, from what I've heard, the kind of
Speaker 1: main counter demo that's happening is uh definitely less radical
Speaker 1: and it's kind of trying to establish sort of a
Speaker 1: community space thing. Uh. So I would say, I don't know,
Speaker 1: expect around forty to fifty like people who are there
Speaker 1: to throw hands, Yeah, and a lot more people who
Speaker 1: are just kind of there. I mean, it's it's this uh,
Speaker 1: it's this thing we saw. I was in d C
Speaker 1: for Unite the Right too, you know, the second rally,
Speaker 1: and it it didn't turn into much of a thing,
Speaker 1: you know. I think because of the preparation, the expectation,
Speaker 1: and I guess I'm interested in if you think I'm
Speaker 1: wrong on this, but my current expectation is that maybe
Speaker 1: that might be the most likely outcome because because of
Speaker 1: the degree of and the unexpected event already occurred and
Speaker 1: was awful, I'm not expecting anyone will be given free leash,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, I could definitely see that sort of
Speaker 1: Unite the Right to scenario playing out, especially because it
Speaker 1: is very similar, like there was this massive shocking event
Speaker 1: that kind of yeah Lee's attention, Yeah, and so then
Speaker 1: people will I think the only big difference is, like
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of Unite the Right, you kind of
Speaker 1: saw at times of misguided media focus, but still a
Speaker 1: media focus on anti fascist activists as playing a unique
Speaker 1: role when you didn't have that for January six, And
Speaker 1: I think that's that's really one of my bigger worries
Speaker 1: is less so kind of clashes between Chud's and uh
Speaker 1: anti fascists, which is still I mean, you know that's
Speaker 1: always a thing that may happen. But also like you
Speaker 1: have to think these chuds that are coming. When they
Speaker 1: look at DC police, they see someone, they see the
Speaker 1: people who killed Ashley Babbitt. When the DC police look
Speaker 1: at these chudd's, they're the people who beat someone, beat
Speaker 1: one of their co workers to death. And you know,
Speaker 1: like there's Capital Police not same as DC Metro Police,
Speaker 1: but like in the minds of both these groups, that
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter. And I worry about the tension there.
Speaker 1: I like, I don't care if they mace each other.
Speaker 1: You know, if the Proud Boys and cops mace each other,
Speaker 1: then that's a great day for me. But if it
Speaker 1: escalates further, and you know, we're seeing that more and
Speaker 1: more the past, was it past two kind of major
Speaker 1: right wing rallies in the Pacific Northwest have had shots fired. Yep, yep, ye.
Speaker 1: Every every reason PW protest has involved gun fire. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like the one, the August two one had, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess you could call it a legitimate change, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a casual gunfight. I mean, the the start of it
Speaker 1: was not legitimate. The right winger who fired was not legitimate. Um,
Speaker 1: but the two people on the left who responded, we're
Speaker 1: doing so in self defense. Now, what happened a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks later, from the video that's come out was
Speaker 1: not self defense. It was a guy shooting at somebody
Speaker 1: pursuing them from like fifty feet back, you know. It
Speaker 1: was not legally what you would call self defense for
Speaker 1: certain Yeah, and that kind of the precedent that that's set,
Speaker 1: which I think it's happened a few enough times that
Speaker 1: we can't really say that it's it's the norm or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but it's still it's an escalation. It's
Speaker 1: something absolutely did Like if that, if that had happened
Speaker 1: in when Unite the Right happened like that would have
Speaker 1: been unprecedented. It's very frightening, you know, and it it
Speaker 1: should be. It doesn't matter what you think about the
Speaker 1: morality of shooting tiny you know, or what ever. Exchanges
Speaker 1: of fire becoming more common is a threat to everybody,
Speaker 1: and it is something that should concern everybody. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it reminds me a lot of and this was kind
Speaker 1: of the impetus of the first season of It could
Speaker 1: happen here but like the early days of something like
Speaker 1: the Syrians of Award where it went from protests to
Speaker 1: exchanges of gunfire too, you know what it is Now?
Speaker 1: Do you think DC specific gun laws um will make
Speaker 1: gunfire in DC a little bit less likely? Do you think?
Speaker 1: I don't? Like? Still like the police always have that
Speaker 1: capacity if they feel, um, you know, if if they
Speaker 1: choose to. But more specific on like the right between people.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's like no boogs are going to
Speaker 1: show up or whatever. Um, what kind of talk do
Speaker 1: you see around firearms? So yeah, kind of just from experience,
Speaker 1: I think my worry with DC's gun laws is only
Speaker 1: one side will be armed. Every time that Ched has
Speaker 1: come to d C. I mean they are obviously carrying.
Speaker 1: I mean, every single one of them is print is printing.
Speaker 1: You can tell that they have firearms on them. They
Speaker 1: don't really try to hide it, and none of them
Speaker 1: have ever I mean, I guess apart from Tario getting
Speaker 1: arrested for illegal magazines, like, none of them have really
Speaker 1: faced any consequences for that. And the general fear among
Speaker 1: people on the left is well, even if I do
Speaker 1: come and I carry for self defense, if I get arrested,
Speaker 1: for something unrelated that will enhance whatever charges I get. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's sketchy and it's um. I don't I'm not convinced
Speaker 1: in the situation d C is in specifically, that showing
Speaker 1: up with a fucking firearm is the right call. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm not in this business to lecture people, but I'm
Speaker 1: not convinced that's going to help. In the Pacific Northwest,
Speaker 1: we've seen situations where people with weapons, as on the
Speaker 1: twenty two, defended themselves and others. And we've seen situations
Speaker 1: in which people on the web with weapons on the
Speaker 1: left escalated things. So it's not a it's never a
Speaker 1: zero sum game, you know, it's not. It's not a
Speaker 1: simple issue. Is a neutral tool, you know. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to, like, I don't want it to
Speaker 1: come off like I'm encouraging, you know, every person in
Speaker 1: block to show up with a long gun like that,
Speaker 1: because that would be a fucking disaster most likely. But
Speaker 1: also like, I don't like the idea of, you know,
Speaker 1: looking at a line of Proud Boys or something and
Speaker 1: knowing every single one of these people has a gun,
Speaker 1: and I do not. That's an imbalance of force that
Speaker 1: I don't like when things if things do escalate. No,
Speaker 1: that that's completely reasonable in my opinion. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think the big thing is just there's so
Speaker 1: many unknowns. Uh, you know, we've never really there's not
Speaker 1: much of a historical precedent for group tries to overthrow
Speaker 1: the government, group shows back up in d C months later,
Speaker 1: or elements of the same kind of ideology, and yeah,
Speaker 1: we just don't know. I mean even like I think
Speaker 1: that Unite the Right to example, is similar but also
Speaker 1: like markedly different enough that I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: an all encompassing tool for like this is what it's
Speaker 1: gonna look like. Yeah, is there any like specific players
Speaker 1: that you know is going to show up or or
Speaker 1: have like said that they're going to show up. So
Speaker 1: one that I kind of worry about is um, oh
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get fucking tweets or this God damnit. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's a group in Virginia that you may have
Speaker 1: heard of, b LM seven five seven. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Yeah. Uh. They are based out of
Speaker 1: the Virginia Beach area and they're the biggest pain in
Speaker 1: the ass ever um they work with. They claim to
Speaker 1: be a Black Lives Matter organization. The local Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter organizations have denounced them. They work with Boogloo boys.
Speaker 1: They were very tight with Mike Dunn before he uh
Speaker 1: snitched and off the face of the earth. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: And then yeah, they come And I don't like the
Speaker 1: idea of them coming to a town that is not
Speaker 1: familiar with them, because like they come to Richmond, for example,
Speaker 1: and people are like, oh, there's b l M seven seven.
Speaker 1: We don't funk with them, but they come, you know,
Speaker 1: they come to a town or groups like this, like
Speaker 1: uh n f a C. The Not Not Fucking Around
Speaker 1: Coalition tried to come to d C. And I these
Speaker 1: groups that are gonna be armed, are gonna want to
Speaker 1: escalate and are gonna kind of try to slide in
Speaker 1: to like a counter demo or stick around like the
Speaker 1: more left leaning parts of the crowd, and then could
Speaker 1: very quickly escalate things. So they're one that I'm worried about.
Speaker 1: Some local Virginia militia movement players have been chatting about it.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen really that much in the way of
Speaker 1: like definitive statements that they're gonna go. Um, and those
Speaker 1: guys don't really worry me, there a bunch of nerds
Speaker 1: who like to play dress up in the woods mostly,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's again it's just like these kind of unknowns. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so just like not knowing who's going to show up
Speaker 1: and what they're gonna do and where'll they're be and yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, like and this was a thing. Definitely. It
Speaker 1: reminds me a lot of the first stop, the Steel Rally,
Speaker 1: where we had more concrete groups saying we're gonna be there.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more chatter about it on social media,
Speaker 1: but it was still kind of like I don't know,
Speaker 1: like what range of the sort of right wing ideological
Speaker 1: spectrum will be here, Like I know, you know Q
Speaker 1: and on your Q and on uncle will be there.
Speaker 1: But like, for example, on November four, uh, Jason Kessler
Speaker 1: was there, the organizer of Unite the Right. I literally
Speaker 1: bumped into Jason Kessler, like I was walking and my
Speaker 1: shoulder hit him and I looked up and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh sorry, dude, and then I just kind of stopped
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, ship, I recognize you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're that famous piece of ship. Yeah. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: like it's kind of that same thing where we don't
Speaker 1: we really just don't have that much intel, and it
Speaker 1: seems like, you know, people with access to more streams
Speaker 1: of information than us, like the FEDS have been saying
Speaker 1: for I guess a couple of months now, like we're
Speaker 1: monitoring this situation where like preparing to stop another January six,
Speaker 1: which take it with a grain of salt. It is
Speaker 1: the FEDS, but also like part of me, A lot
Speaker 1: of the worry I get from this is people that
Speaker 1: I know no more than I do, reacting to it,
Speaker 1: like chud streamers hiring stringers, FEDS saying like announcing months
Speaker 1: before that it's a situation that they're preparing for a
Speaker 1: lot of people are very interested in what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I think people are definitely preparing for a lot of
Speaker 1: different different outcomes, and that makes any kind of resistance
Speaker 1: to it hard because you don't know if you're over,
Speaker 1: if you're overpreparing, underprepared, ring, you don't know if you'll
Speaker 1: have what you'll do. Your preparations too aggressive and not
Speaker 1: aggressive enough, yeah, yeah, and always trying to like you know,
Speaker 1: feel it out. Once you're there is more scary because
Speaker 1: once you're there in person, a lot of communications breakdown
Speaker 1: between other you know other activists that that's what happened
Speaker 1: in like the last big rally in Portland is people
Speaker 1: try to know, change up plans once they got to
Speaker 1: the spot, and it kind of made everything a lot
Speaker 1: a lot more challenging because it's hard to a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of people in block don't have their
Speaker 1: phone on them. It's just it's hard to get ride.
Speaker 1: It's you know, any kind of any kind of impromptu
Speaker 1: organizing at the site, it's always gonna be way more
Speaker 1: challenged than trying to figure this stuff out at home.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's just kind of I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: it's I think I think the United the right to
Speaker 1: background is useful for like a big event after you know,
Speaker 1: a previous event that had a lot of coverage and
Speaker 1: had a lot of talk about it because it had,
Speaker 1: you know, a disastrous outcome. And then I think looking
Speaker 1: at you know, looking at November fourteen in December ten,
Speaker 1: um are also they are also kind of valuable indicators.
Speaker 1: Has there been any have you seen anything around the
Speaker 1: grapers or like any of the Fuentes crew showing up
Speaker 1: to this or they are they trying to just are
Speaker 1: they are they trying to like keep good optics. I
Speaker 1: guess I've as far as I've seen, they're mostly trying
Speaker 1: to keep good optics around us. Um they as They
Speaker 1: also kind of fall in through the category of like people,
Speaker 1: I'm not super worried about like some of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but in like a street fight situation, in a street
Speaker 1: fight less so I'm not worried about a groper. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The most violent encounter I've ever had with a groper
Speaker 1: was one that was probably five ft tall, following me
Speaker 1: around and calling me a soy boy for thirty minutes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What I'm more concerned about is is Graper is kind
Speaker 1: of following the insal terrorism tradition of you know, skinny
Speaker 1: of skinny white guys get access to weapons and than
Speaker 1: than doing something with the gun is dangerous. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're not going yeah, here finished what you were saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, like, you know, all all of the
Speaker 1: grapers I've seen, they're not going to beat me in
Speaker 1: a fist fight because they're all even even more not
Speaker 1: even more like because your fastest ship. But yeah and
Speaker 1: and that and that. Yeah, Yeah, I think that's kind
Speaker 1: of another thing that's you know, it's always a possibility
Speaker 1: of these things. Like I always say, like the worst
Speaker 1: possible outcome is someone someone starts shooting, like a firefight
Speaker 1: is always the worst way this could go. But with
Speaker 1: the sort of optics surrounding this, I I think there's
Speaker 1: definitely space for more extreme people, uh, specifically more accelerationist
Speaker 1: minded people who try to start something to try to
Speaker 1: cause some ship. I mean, uh, like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: in Virginia. I think of the Richmond gun rally in
Speaker 1: the lobby day in what was that twenty nineteen beginning
Speaker 1: of I Forget All Time is a flat circle to
Speaker 1: me now, But um, the members of the base that
Speaker 1: we're intercepted on their way to Richmond, Uh, I think
Speaker 1: about that situation and how other people and other groups
Speaker 1: that we will not talk about on pod could see
Speaker 1: an opportunity here. Yeah, and I think that's I think
Speaker 1: that's more likely happening in somewhere like DC than it
Speaker 1: is in Portland's right, because in Portland we have a
Speaker 1: pretty good grip on who shows up and why they
Speaker 1: show up. The East Coast, the south um northeast, south East,
Speaker 1: they have a lot more groups with interest with you know,
Speaker 1: obscure ideologies that are more think more prone to those
Speaker 1: types of to those types of like, um, more insurgent attacks.
Speaker 1: And I think people are on the West coast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think another thing that kind of amplifies that is,
Speaker 1: like you said, like Portland has kind of an established
Speaker 1: infrastructure of chud fuckery, you know. I mean, I'm on
Speaker 1: the other side of the country, and I know the
Speaker 1: familiar faces of Portland's bullshit, and we we do have
Speaker 1: that to an extent. But d C brings people from
Speaker 1: all across the country. I was meeting people on the
Speaker 1: metro from everywhere from Tennessee to Kansas to California. And
Speaker 1: when people are coming in from such a broad range
Speaker 1: of places, there's a lot more uncertainty. Yeah, well, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure and anything else you want to mention about
Speaker 1: kind of what you expect at this rally and any
Speaker 1: I don't know, general advice has since you've been at
Speaker 1: the past three versions. Yeah, so, I mean, if you're
Speaker 1: in the DC area or you're nearby, and you're comfortable
Speaker 1: with it and physically able to do so, I show up. Um.
Speaker 1: The one thing that we do know for sure about
Speaker 1: these events is that the more bodies we have, the
Speaker 1: less likely it is for people to be able to
Speaker 1: pray on someone walking home from work or houseless person
Speaker 1: just trying to sleep. Yeah, the more bodies that we have,
Speaker 1: the better it is. Um, if you are either unable
Speaker 1: to come or you don't feel comfortable coming, I know
Speaker 1: that there will be jail support, mutual aid efforts UH
Speaker 1: and Garrison. I can send you to some links to
Speaker 1: local d C orgs. If you want to throw it
Speaker 1: in the show notes, sure, um, but yeah, just and
Speaker 1: if you're gonna go, be prepared, have have a buddy, UH,
Speaker 1: lock up, bring UH, bringing I fac and get ready
Speaker 1: to party. Yeah. I think that's one of the things
Speaker 1: you mentioned is like more numbers helps in the case
Speaker 1: of it's less likely they'll be like roaming attacks, because
Speaker 1: that's what we've seen at a lot of these rallies
Speaker 1: is that sometimes they don't ever like actually cause trouble
Speaker 1: at where people are, you know, like where the where
Speaker 1: the people are. They wait until people are walking away
Speaker 1: or going back to their car, or if there's no
Speaker 1: one like that, they just find some random person on
Speaker 1: the street. You know. We saw a lot of that
Speaker 1: in d C of of Proud Boys just finding kind
Speaker 1: of people in the area that they thought looked like
Speaker 1: Antifa quote unquot out and then just attacking them. Um.
Speaker 1: So you know, the less scattered people are, um, the
Speaker 1: less likely to get kind of those roaming attacks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think. I mean, it's it's always hard to speculate
Speaker 1: on the event, on an event that hasn't happened yet.
Speaker 1: But um, I believe by the time, by the time
Speaker 1: they see airs, it will be happening tomorrow. So as Saturday,
Speaker 1: THEO do you want to plug anything? Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter, um at THEO Hansen THEO with
Speaker 1: a zero. Uh. Listen to my podcast Terrorism Bad. We
Speaker 1: look through portrayals of terrorism and extremism in popular media.
Speaker 1: See how it holds up to the real world. Um.
Speaker 1: Trying to think of anything else. I'll be there on Saturday.
Speaker 1: I'll be live tweeting the event. I'm not live tweeting
Speaker 1: that dead or otherwise incapacitated or I don't have cell service.
Speaker 1: Service is always horrible at these things. Oh it's awesome. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a constant problem. Yeah. They were blocking signals on
Speaker 1: January six on the Capitol lawn and when I stepped off,
Speaker 1: I had like thirteen texts from all my friends that
Speaker 1: were like, hey, text me if you're still alive. It's
Speaker 1: really hard to tell what's going on, you know, when
Speaker 1: you're when you're like whether or not it's like a
Speaker 1: cell signal problem, or if it's somebody like targeting you
Speaker 1: in particular, it's frustrating. Yeah, all right, well, thank you, Cel,
Speaker 1: thank you for giving us the rundown on Saturday's activities. Um,
Speaker 1: I hope you don't get shot. Thank you. I hope
Speaker 1: I do not as well. That's my general feeling towards
Speaker 1: anyone who shows up on uh, you know, on the
Speaker 1: eighteenth in d C. I hope you don't get shot.
Speaker 1: Do your best. Yeah, and if you do get shot,
Speaker 1: you know what to do about it? Well? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: have a have a care a minute, you know, have
Speaker 1: some cell locks. Yeah, that's ideal, but not getting shot
Speaker 1: is better. So you cannot remember what try not to
Speaker 1: get shot? All right, Thanks for having me on guys.
Speaker 1: Nice to meet you, Robert and Sophie. Thanks to meet you.
Speaker 1: You can follow us that Happened here pod on Twitter,
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Speaker 1: And we'll be back on Monday. Hey, we'll be back Monday,
Speaker 1: with more episodes every week from now until the heat
Speaker 1: death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a
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