Speaker 1: You should never say how I mistook one party can
Speaker 1: send those on a recording, rubb it. It's okay. It's
Speaker 1: with a president, so it can't be there. Um, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't have done. That's Jimmy Corton. Dude. Well he's never recovered, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can see it in his eyes when he tried
Speaker 1: to rebuild those houses. Welcome to It could happen here
Speaker 1: the podcast where one of us committed a crime against
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States. Um, that
Speaker 1: might actually get us in trouble with the Secret Service.
Speaker 1: But you know what it's happening. It's happening James. Well,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to figure out which one it was. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that of course second voice, James Stout, who might
Speaker 1: wind up in Guantanamo for this because he's not a
Speaker 1: US citizen. But I feel pretty safe, and I feel
Speaker 1: like our guest for today is pretty safe. And I
Speaker 1: would like to introduce Stephen Manicelli. Stephen, you work for
Speaker 1: and are an editor at Protein Magazine. You've written for
Speaker 1: The Rolling Stone, You've written for a bunch of People,
Speaker 1: Dallas Voice, a number of different um news websites, magazines,
Speaker 1: and you have been spending a big chunk of the
Speaker 1: last year or so in the streets and Dallas reporting
Speaker 1: on the escalating series of well, hopefully not escalating. I
Speaker 1: guess time will tell on that. But the series of
Speaker 1: right wing UM, I don't even want to I don't
Speaker 1: want to dignify them by calling them protests, but like
Speaker 1: right wing organized attempts to intimidate UH and spark violence
Speaker 1: at LGBT events in the DFW area, and some of
Speaker 1: the left wing protest counter against that, which has involved
Speaker 1: groups like the elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, who
Speaker 1: we've had on the show a few times, and has
Speaker 1: involved groups of armed leftists kind of UM in opposition
Speaker 1: to groups of armed right wingers UM. Now, Stephen, the
Speaker 1: specific reason we're talking today is you were just the
Speaker 1: other day part of a panel put on by the
Speaker 1: Cato Institute, which is a libertarian think tank, titled Domestic
Speaker 1: Extremism and Political Violence the Threat to Liberty UM. Your
Speaker 1: fellow panelists were Mike German. Mike is a former FBI
Speaker 1: agent who went undercover against the far right UM and
Speaker 1: now works for the Brennan Center, and Christopher Wiles, who
Speaker 1: is a professor of English and a director of American
Speaker 1: Studies at the University of Connecticut and wrote the u
Speaker 1: s Anti Fascism Reader. Um. Now, this was interesting for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. Kind of in the lead up
Speaker 1: to this event, the Kata Institute published a graphic that
Speaker 1: showed a number of domestic armed organizations. Um. And so
Speaker 1: in the same graphic you had groups like the Proud
Speaker 1: Boys and Patriot Front, as well as groups like Yellow
Speaker 1: Peril Tactical and the Elm Fork, John Brown Gun Club
Speaker 1: and the Socialist Rifle Association. Prior to the event, this
Speaker 1: sparked a bit of frustration the left and some people
Speaker 1: suspecting that this was going to be kind of geared
Speaker 1: towards attacking left wing armed groups and smearing them, you know,
Speaker 1: as violent extremists in the same way that the Proud
Speaker 1: Boys are. Uh, that is not what happened. Um, And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna open the floor up to you, Stephen, thank
Speaker 1: you for being on the show. Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad that this is not sort of a
Speaker 1: critics criticism session that I'm gonna be sitting with y'all on.
Speaker 1: In terms of yeah, my participation with a hestitate to
Speaker 1: even use the word libertarian because of the historical definition
Speaker 1: of the term. But you know, conservative libertarian whatever, big
Speaker 1: L versus small L. I don't. Yeah, we could call
Speaker 1: them a right libertarian think to their rough bodies, right
Speaker 1: like literally founded by rough body. Yeah, they love them
Speaker 1: some Rothbard. Um didn't they like excommunicate him or something,
Speaker 1: though at some point I couldn't. I don't. I'm not
Speaker 1: deep on the lower One thing, if doing my favorite
Speaker 1: meme with the two hands meeting in the middle middle
Speaker 1: left libertarians and right libertarians have excommunicating members of Murray
Speaker 1: Rothbart is on an io exile Murray Rothbart and Mary
Speaker 1: Books and United and cancelation. So yeah, I guess I'm
Speaker 1: not being canceled, which is good. Um. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: they had reached out to me in September about being
Speaker 1: on this panel, and they had mentioned, um, the other guests,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I was intrigued because you know, if people
Speaker 1: want to pay attention to the growing threat of fascism,
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty neat. And it seemed like an
Speaker 1: opportunity to do the thing that Glenn Greenwald claims that
Speaker 1: he does when he goes on Tucker Carlson, which is
Speaker 1: like reaching out to an audience that doesn't already agree
Speaker 1: with the things that I think UM, because he just
Speaker 1: goes on because their pals and they already all agree.
Speaker 1: So UM, I digress. I thought it was maybe an
Speaker 1: interesting forum, and and I was really interested to hear
Speaker 1: UM from the other panelists, in particular UM, because I
Speaker 1: had looked at what Mike German had written after his
Speaker 1: service in UM the FBI and as well as the
Speaker 1: author of the Anti Fascist Handbook, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if if Kato has invited all three of us, it's
Speaker 1: it's not gonna go too off the rails in terms
Speaker 1: of UM, you know, sort of the false equivalency problems,
Speaker 1: or it just becoming a session to bash on groups
Speaker 1: that aren't really the part of the problem. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: the primary amount of bashing that went on was Mike German,
Speaker 1: former f by FBiH, repeatedly viciously criticizing the police and
Speaker 1: the FBI for their complicity with far right street movements. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Mike's been pretty consistent. I spoken this for like a
Speaker 1: couple of years, and I'm sure you people are probably
Speaker 1: aware of his presence by now, but he's been pretty
Speaker 1: consistent on bashing defense for failing to act on white
Speaker 1: supremacy for decades, and it's very It's there's a number
Speaker 1: of reasons this is interesting that we'll we'll be getting
Speaker 1: back into. But I really do recommend people take a
Speaker 1: listen to this conversation between y'all. Among other things, there's
Speaker 1: there's some good history in there. We'll talk about a
Speaker 1: couple of things that got introduced that I don't a
Speaker 1: hundred percent agree with. That there's some good history in there,
Speaker 1: and I think more to the point, you get um
Speaker 1: a lot of updates from your reporting in Dallas and
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of summaries of that which I
Speaker 1: find very valuable and think will be valuable to people
Speaker 1: who have maybe been following it less. And then also
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to get Mike's perspective as someone he
Speaker 1: was in it was late eighties, early nineties, he was
Speaker 1: doing a lot of undercover stuff in the West Coast
Speaker 1: and neo Nazi movements, UM, and so hearing him discuss
Speaker 1: the way in which the FBI's programs targeted at the
Speaker 1: far right work and don't work was really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, that was the sort of the side of
Speaker 1: the story that I knew the least about UM. Christopher Viles,
Speaker 1: the professor, the guy who wrote the handbook. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: I think he provided a very important set of historical
Speaker 1: information that kind of helped iron out some of the
Speaker 1: issues in terms of the framing craps and some of
Speaker 1: the inconsistencies which I think we can dive into a
Speaker 1: little bit, or rather inaccuracies that kind of got slipped
Speaker 1: by UM and we weren't really able to address in
Speaker 1: the course of the conversation. But hearing him just put
Speaker 1: it so bluntly kind of took the wind out of
Speaker 1: me in a good way where I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't have anything else to add here, no notes, UM,
Speaker 1: because he really made the point that yes, some of
Speaker 1: these organizations were candon glove with police officers at the
Speaker 1: local level, even at the federal level. He's witnessed it.
Speaker 1: He has a number of experiences that he cited where
Speaker 1: the FBI is basically saying, uh, do not talk about
Speaker 1: your case is involving white supremacists and these similar type
Speaker 1: of groups. Because there are people in the agency who
Speaker 1: are sympathetic UM. And I think that's kind of why
Speaker 1: I ended up on the panel because in part the
Speaker 1: story that I've been covering around here with this harassment
Speaker 1: campaign over the past few months of lgbt Q groups
Speaker 1: and events. Part of the story is that policing has
Speaker 1: not really done anything to prevent uh you know, this
Speaker 1: incitement and harassment from continuing and occasionally turning violent. Not
Speaker 1: in the sense of weapons being used other than bear
Speaker 1: me so far, but in the sense the physical violence
Speaker 1: and uh you know, slurs and violent threats being hurled
Speaker 1: at people. Um so, I I think that Mike's points
Speaker 1: for really timely and well said, and frankly, he's the
Speaker 1: kind of person that they needed to come from, because
Speaker 1: as otherwise, they just kind of get smacked away as
Speaker 1: a leftist talking point by people who probably have some
Speaker 1: internal biases or prejudices, prejudices that prevent them from engaging
Speaker 1: with it when it comes from the wrong person in
Speaker 1: the wrong way. And there were a number of interesting
Speaker 1: kind of discussions happening. One thing that I was happy
Speaker 1: about is that, well, the initial framing, I think there
Speaker 1: was a lot of fear that all of these left
Speaker 1: wing groups are going to get lumped in with groups
Speaker 1: that have, to put it bluntly, tried to overthrow democracy.
Speaker 1: Um right, we should point out that that's how the
Speaker 1: FBI does do it, right, like they for instance, the
Speaker 1: group white supremacists with like black identity groups, is racial
Speaker 1: identity extremists or statistics that way like that, That's that's
Speaker 1: how the FEDS see this. But yeah, they didn't, which
Speaker 1: is which is good. It's like a form of obfuscation
Speaker 1: to do so. And um, you know, why would they
Speaker 1: do that. Well, maybe there's a few reasons they might
Speaker 1: do that, especially if you ask someone like Mike. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's such a blind spot for obvious
Speaker 1: the ideological reasons for so many people involved. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's it's Um. It was interesting because there was this
Speaker 1: bit in the middle of it where Mike, you know,
Speaker 1: being a former FED, walked through kind of like, well,
Speaker 1: it makes sense to me given the fact that law
Speaker 1: enforcement is is not able to be trusted in a
Speaker 1: lot of instances and often is working hand in glove
Speaker 1: with these far right groups that want to harm marginalize people,
Speaker 1: that they would seek to arm themselves. Um. And that
Speaker 1: prompted from the the fellow who was actually um kind
Speaker 1: of the organizing the the event, Patrick Eddington, who's a
Speaker 1: senior fellow at the Cato Institute him to point out,
Speaker 1: and he was I would have to say broadly fair um,
Speaker 1: And generally he seemed a little bit kind of um uh.
Speaker 1: He he had this attitude you you get sometimes around
Speaker 1: libertarians where he was like, there was a moment where
Speaker 1: he was like, well, I'm glad some on the left
Speaker 1: to finally started accepting the Second Amendments and stuff like that. Um.
Speaker 1: But but he had a he had a moment where
Speaker 1: he expressed a concern, um, which was his fear about
Speaker 1: the possibility that if you keep having these events, at
Speaker 1: some point you're going to have two groups of people
Speaker 1: who are armed shoot at each other. Um, which is
Speaker 1: we have We've been right up to that line. You
Speaker 1: have had exchanges of fire, just thinking. In Portland, you
Speaker 1: had a moment where a single right wing individual with
Speaker 1: a handgun fired into a group of people, thankfully didn't
Speaker 1: hit any Two people in the anti fascist side fired
Speaker 1: back and forced him to flee. Um. You had a
Speaker 1: moment earlier this year in Portland where a right winger
Speaker 1: shot into a group of unarmed people doing traffic security,
Speaker 1: killed a sixty one year old woman, wounded I think
Speaker 1: five other people, and then was shot and stopped by
Speaker 1: a leftist. Um, you obviously had um a proud boy,
Speaker 1: while a member of Patriot Prayer shot and killed during
Speaker 1: an altercation, but not an exchange of fire. The only
Speaker 1: person who fired was the person who killed that that individual.
Speaker 1: So none of those are quite two groups of people
Speaker 1: with guns exchanging fire, you know, in a sustained way. Um,
Speaker 1: none of those even entirely approached kind of what happened
Speaker 1: at like Greensville. But they're all on that spectrum. And
Speaker 1: and while I think this guy there's a degree to
Speaker 1: which he's kind of spooked at seeing leftists with guns,
Speaker 1: I do think that that's a reasonable thing to be
Speaker 1: concerned with, because when and if we hit that point,
Speaker 1: it's going to be an inflection moment for I think
Speaker 1: the entire country. Right right, I think the reality is
Speaker 1: that most normal people, whatever you want to use the
Speaker 1: word to describe them, people aren't brain poisoned and plugged
Speaker 1: into the Internet and about all these things or or
Speaker 1: having to deal with them and are affected by them
Speaker 1: in real life. They might see these groups and just
Speaker 1: cast them all under the same umbrella. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a good me I chuckled at that came out afterwards,
Speaker 1: where it had had the slide showing on all of
Speaker 1: the groups the right when groups and the left and
Speaker 1: groups sort of armed groups in you know, the United States,
Speaker 1: and then replacing them all with just domestic cleaning products. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: they all have something in common. They have weapons, and
Speaker 1: they're armed to some degree, but beyond that, they all
Speaker 1: have distinctions and we shouldn't drawn equivalency. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, Mike did a very elegant job of drawing
Speaker 1: that distinctionaries as these people not only have a right
Speaker 1: to defend themselves, but they probably have a good reason
Speaker 1: to given all of these things. He was basically writing
Speaker 1: the lyrics to arrage against them en song and um,
Speaker 1: I was a little astonished by that, and he made
Speaker 1: a very clear point to say, like, yeah, there are
Speaker 1: people who are aggressors and there are people who aren't.
Speaker 1: We can find a distinction in that. And if we're
Speaker 1: just now getting concerned about this violence, well maybe we
Speaker 1: should ask why we've had such a big blind spot
Speaker 1: for so long. And he got right to the core
Speaker 1: of it. It's these ideologies deeply baked into our institutions
Speaker 1: of white supremacy, right supremacy. UH basically all the way
Speaker 1: back to colonization, and you know, dealing with that is
Speaker 1: necessary for us to deal with the broader problem. And
Speaker 1: I think he was very clear to say, like the
Speaker 1: things that were required to get to that point of
Speaker 1: like a potential shootout would be a total breakdown in policing.
Speaker 1: And so he played place the blame at the feet
Speaker 1: of the police practically said it's there goddamn fault that
Speaker 1: people feel the need to do this, because if they
Speaker 1: just focused on the crimes that proud boys commit in
Speaker 1: the Dallas area, uh, you know, basically minor assaults and stuff,
Speaker 1: they would trace it back to the people that are
Speaker 1: committing them, and they would cut down on these escalations
Speaker 1: because the same people are the ones that show up
Speaker 1: to these events time and time again. It's worth like Robby,
Speaker 1: you're talking about like an inflection point, right And we
Speaker 1: spoke about like failures in policing too. I think part
Speaker 1: of the reason that we see things as super duper
Speaker 1: exceptional right now is the way that we teach history
Speaker 1: in schools here and part of the things we don't
Speaker 1: teach like that this has happened before, right, like the
Speaker 1: Battle of Haze Pond being a paramount example, if we
Speaker 1: look at the like the standoff at Wounded Knee or
Speaker 1: the Second Battle of Woundednee, or whatever you want to
Speaker 1: call it, and throughout the civil rights movement. Right there's
Speaker 1: a book by Rob Williams about a contemporary book about
Speaker 1: the use of firearms and the civil rights movement that
Speaker 1: people can read like all of this stuff did happen then,
Speaker 1: And this same tension that we're feeling now about like
Speaker 1: a society putting itself apart and when it leads to
Speaker 1: a civil war also happened then and people felt this
Speaker 1: then two and we we well, the progress was made
Speaker 1: at that time. We didn't fix everything, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: why we're having this discussion now. But like, I think
Speaker 1: the fact that we've removed so much of that, specifically
Speaker 1: the violence and the use of guns from our discussion
Speaker 1: with the civil rights movement sometimes leads us to see
Speaker 1: what's happening now is like really particularly exceptional, and it's
Speaker 1: not like, yeah, it's always been the case of marginalized
Speaker 1: folks that have resorted to the same tools that are
Speaker 1: used to oppress them to defend themselves. And why wouldn't
Speaker 1: they write, like like Mike said, like Steve said, there's
Speaker 1: a very good and clear reason for oppressed people to
Speaker 1: want to defend themselves and their communities. The only analog
Speaker 1: that we were able to bring up in the conversation
Speaker 1: is like the pink Pink panthers, pink panther control, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, something that a lot of people don't know about.
Speaker 1: And we did get a little bit of opportunity to discuss,
Speaker 1: you know, the black Panthers and how community defense is
Speaker 1: a different set of reasons for arming yourself and having
Speaker 1: knowledge of the Second Amendment and all those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: Then you know, going outside in an event hosted by
Speaker 1: an organization you have no interest in belonging to wearing
Speaker 1: your guns on your body to send a message that's
Speaker 1: a very menacing form of free speech. And I think
Speaker 1: another good moment to bring up when we talk about
Speaker 1: this would be the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen, which
Speaker 1: was a series of race riots targeting black people in
Speaker 1: the United States that also involved large groups and communities,
Speaker 1: particularly in cities, of Black Americans taking up arms and
Speaker 1: defending themselves um and and was fairly enormous and it's
Speaker 1: deftal hundreds and hundreds of people were killed. Um, it's
Speaker 1: it's really a pretty nightmarish moment in history. But it's
Speaker 1: the thing when you have groups, and we're about to
Speaker 1: have someone on from from Yellow Peril Tactical, when you
Speaker 1: have groups that are specifically organizing and saying like we
Speaker 1: are organizing, we are teaching skills for people to become
Speaker 1: armed because we are afraid that we and people like
Speaker 1: us will be victimized. It's stuff like the Red Summer
Speaker 1: that they're directly looking at. It's not theoretical, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're Frank Karl from Arranged TV. Have some good videos
Speaker 1: about a lot of these different things if people are
Speaker 1: interested in looking them up. Yeah. Um, and I think
Speaker 1: probably we should bring on our next guest for tonight,
Speaker 1: and and Stephen will be staying on as well. Snow
Speaker 1: from Yellow Peril Tactical. Snow, do you want to introduce
Speaker 1: yourself and your organization for folks who may not be
Speaker 1: as as familiar with the stuff as we are. We
Speaker 1: we briefly covered y'all a little bit earlier in this
Speaker 1: but yeah, thanks for having me. My name is Snow,
Speaker 1: my pronouns the sheet or they, and I am one
Speaker 1: of the many members of Yellow peril tactical. We are
Speaker 1: a collective of leftist Asian Americans under the shared ideology
Speaker 1: of being anti authoritarian um. And we talked about all
Speaker 1: sorts of things, but particularly how to develop firearms skills
Speaker 1: and also community defense and the occasional ship post and uh,
Speaker 1: first questions, because we're talking about this Cato Institute thing
Speaker 1: that Stephen was on. Have you had a chance to
Speaker 1: listen to that yet? Since y'all watched it twice I
Speaker 1: have or paid notes? Yeah? Yeah, why why don't we
Speaker 1: start here? Yeah? Go off? You know, Okay, Like the
Speaker 1: chat was lit. When we first saw that we were mentioned,
Speaker 1: we were like, wow, we fucking made it because originally
Speaker 1: we started as a ship post account and then we
Speaker 1: were like, oh, people actually care, um. And this is
Speaker 1: just one of those moments where, uh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it felt like really surreal that Kato would even give
Speaker 1: a funk about us because we do all of this
Speaker 1: in our free time. You know, this is like nobody
Speaker 1: pays us, right, um. And so we had a lot
Speaker 1: of skepticism going into it, um. And in a sense, uh,
Speaker 1: we're a bit on the defensive, kind of preparing for
Speaker 1: a lot of false equivalence, rhetoric um, and a lot
Speaker 1: of just like I don't know, maybe like orientalism as well, um,
Speaker 1: just given the history of how like Westerners have viewed
Speaker 1: Asian culture. UM. But ultimately, like the consensus has been
Speaker 1: that we were pleasantly surprised of how balanced it was.
Speaker 1: I thought, overall it was very intriguing, and I got
Speaker 1: some good some good quotes written down, But I don't
Speaker 1: know if you want to go into those now or
Speaker 1: later or what can we start with having I really
Speaker 1: want to like anchor this in having you explained what
Speaker 1: community defense means, like so people can understand why, and
Speaker 1: then we can go from what people say to you. Yeah, UM,
Speaker 1: so earlier y' all we're talking about like, um, the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen riots and actually reminded me of like the
Speaker 1: Pacific Coast Race riots of nineteen seven, and a bunch
Speaker 1: of were like murdering and committing violence against Asian people, right,
Speaker 1: And nineteen oh seven was not that long ago. Um,
Speaker 1: And in a sense it never has gone away. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think, um, Chris Files said it
Speaker 1: like put it nicely when he was like, you know,
Speaker 1: in the backdrop of a lot of anti Asian violence. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just that it's been a lot more prevalent among
Speaker 1: Asians specifically. That doesn't stop you know, like Boba liberalism,
Speaker 1: identity politics from happening where there's not like a grand
Speaker 1: division of like what's going on at large. Um. But
Speaker 1: we know that like our communities are under attack and
Speaker 1: the cops don't give a funk about us, and if anything,
Speaker 1: they just make it worse most of the time. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so it's truly up to us because you know,
Speaker 1: cops don't prevent crime, They come after and they funk
Speaker 1: it up. Um. And it's not something that has come
Speaker 1: easily to me personally. I've been in denial about it
Speaker 1: for a lot of years around thinking like if I
Speaker 1: just avoid going out late at night, if I am
Speaker 1: always walking with a buddy, if I just you know,
Speaker 1: spend twenty minutes looking for a closer parking spot, it'll
Speaker 1: prevent me from being harmed. And ultimately, like that's just
Speaker 1: me being in denial, um. And part of it. Another
Speaker 1: realization is like being strapped, I can seal Carrie every day,
Speaker 1: that's not going to deter someone from attacking me because
Speaker 1: of how I look without dosing myself I just look alternative, right, um,
Speaker 1: And knowing that that puts me at risk has never
Speaker 1: deterred me from wanting to express myself with how I look.
Speaker 1: But I know the risks, and that doesn't stop people
Speaker 1: from me. But part of it is like I'm not
Speaker 1: going down without a fucking fight. Like my ancestors have
Speaker 1: come too fucking far. We kicked out the French, we
Speaker 1: kicked out the US, right uh, and now I'm in
Speaker 1: their turf. I've infiltrated the wire. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: but you know, it doesn't mean that it's going to
Speaker 1: stop them from harming US. Um. And you know, we
Speaker 1: know that we can't live in a fever dream where
Speaker 1: every single fascist on this planet will be gone. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the very least, like my life goal is
Speaker 1: to make them think twice. And I'm scared a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you you bring up sort of what
Speaker 1: I think is a really good point, which is that
Speaker 1: like even if you're if you're in your day to
Speaker 1: day life, the fact that you're carrying a gun isn't
Speaker 1: going to stop somebody from starting, you know, an interaction
Speaker 1: with you that could turn violent because you just look
Speaker 1: the way that you look, I do want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what's kind of the opposite thing,
Speaker 1: and it is sort of part of why I think
Speaker 1: folks were a little on edge when this event got
Speaker 1: announced and you know that graphic came out that had
Speaker 1: as we've discussed, the Yellow Peril tactical alongside you know,
Speaker 1: these these these other groups. And there's one of the
Speaker 1: things that kind of results from the way gun culture
Speaker 1: works is that there's a very recognizable kind of um
Speaker 1: uniform um that you see particularly you've seen it with
Speaker 1: the Boogle Boo Boys, you see it with groups like
Speaker 1: the Proud Boys. It's the it's the thing where you've
Speaker 1: got a plate carrier, a belt, you know, an a
Speaker 1: are some other kind of long gun helmets and and
Speaker 1: usually other tactical gear on it um. And this kind
Speaker 1: of this outfit, so to speak, has kind of evolved
Speaker 1: over time. It really is a result of the War
Speaker 1: on Terror, and it's both an aesthetic choice and there's
Speaker 1: a huge number of companies that exist, particularly on the
Speaker 1: right to provide people with aesthetic options for kind of
Speaker 1: having all of this gear that are are sort of
Speaker 1: ideologically simple simpatica with them UM. But it's also just
Speaker 1: actually a practice. Well, some of this stuff is less
Speaker 1: practical than others, but the basics of the of the
Speaker 1: get up exist because it's what worked. Right. There's one
Speaker 1: of the things people noted when the Taliban took back
Speaker 1: over in Afghanistan is that all of their special operations
Speaker 1: guys were dressed the same way that US fighters, just
Speaker 1: because it's just what works. You see the same outfits
Speaker 1: on Ukrainian and Russian spec ops guys um. And one
Speaker 1: of the things when we when we're looking at kind
Speaker 1: of domestically, when you have people who are organizing and
Speaker 1: going out in the world armed as part of a
Speaker 1: public event, is that to people who are not familiar
Speaker 1: with what's going on, it can be hard to tell
Speaker 1: them apart sometimes. And that is that strikes me the
Speaker 1: thing that the left particularly needs to deal with because
Speaker 1: both in kind of in the media and also out
Speaker 1: in the field, you don't want to be mistaken for
Speaker 1: groups like the Proud Boys and Steve and I want
Speaker 1: to start kind of with you here because I think
Speaker 1: you're you're reporting has always done a really good job
Speaker 1: of kind of making that difference clear. If you kind
Speaker 1: of have any thoughts on that, and then we'll go
Speaker 1: back to you, Snow. I think that's a really interesting problem,
Speaker 1: the proliferation of tactical UM aesthetics and the ideological sort
Speaker 1: of turn in the production of weaponry and accessories. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's like goddamn tactical eight so the franchises, which is
Speaker 1: making me lose my mind for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: UM and that is a is a real distinct thing
Speaker 1: that I see all the time around here, and and
Speaker 1: I think there's subtle things at groups do to try
Speaker 1: to distinguish themselves. Obviously are patches, but in order to
Speaker 1: see a patch, you have to be close enough to
Speaker 1: someone in order to even find it legible. So then okay,
Speaker 1: you have flags, but then you also have to know
Speaker 1: what these flags are. Something that some groups around here
Speaker 1: have done when they're you know, sort of protecting an
Speaker 1: LGBTQ event is still have UM flags affiliated with the
Speaker 1: LGBTQ movement, but once again you have to know what
Speaker 1: those are. And one more people know what those are
Speaker 1: these days. So that's a way in order to distinguish themselves.
Speaker 1: But it still takes a second for you to see
Speaker 1: a group of armed people and then process you know
Speaker 1: exactly all of these sort of semiotic markers of who
Speaker 1: they are and what they're doing. Um. Because if they
Speaker 1: have a different set of those things, it can be
Speaker 1: a very different set of conclusions that you can walk
Speaker 1: away from if you identify them. Uh. And in Texas,
Speaker 1: the right does love carrying these flags and wearing these patches,
Speaker 1: so it makes it very clear who has consistently shown
Speaker 1: up to these events. Um. But like the reaction of
Speaker 1: normal people if a group of armed people are leading
Speaker 1: a protest is to kind of be like, what the heck?
Speaker 1: Double take? Maybe they will start filming it because it's
Speaker 1: the craziest thing that they've seen that week. Um. And ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, they have to kind of know some contextual
Speaker 1: clues in order to even make these distinctions, particularly when
Speaker 1: you're talking about groups like um, you know, John Brown
Speaker 1: Clubs or Yellow Peril, where you're there's concerns around op
Speaker 1: sack or info sack and you don't want to necessarily
Speaker 1: reveal your identities because you're already a part of a
Speaker 1: group that's facing violence at a disproportionate rate and maybe
Speaker 1: you're you know, potentially targeted by the FBI at a
Speaker 1: disproportionate rate, like the former FBI officer interestingly noted during
Speaker 1: the conversation that, yeah, you may have an even harder
Speaker 1: time sort of distinguishing yourself and in making it known
Speaker 1: who you are. UM, So it's an interesting challenge. I
Speaker 1: don't know if I have uh, sort of any lessons
Speaker 1: from it other than that, you know, these classic signifiers
Speaker 1: also seem to work. Sometimes they're kind of kitchy or um,
Speaker 1: you know, seem ridiculous, but it's kind of the same thing,
Speaker 1: like you said about the spec op stuff, like it's
Speaker 1: been used for centuries. Stuff like this has been used
Speaker 1: for a long time because it works because you immediately
Speaker 1: can comprehend is this person with a gun here to
Speaker 1: kill me or to protect me? Yeah? Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: really interesting because I I, obviously I have a complicated
Speaker 1: history with flags, but there's few better ways to inform
Speaker 1: other people about what a group of folks is doing
Speaker 1: than having one. Um. Yeah, as long as you're not
Speaker 1: conducting an ambush and that's an offensive maneuver. And then
Speaker 1: suddenly you know, it's like, as long as you're cool
Speaker 1: with being like, we're here and this is what we're doing.
Speaker 1: A flag is exactly the thing that you might want.
Speaker 1: So No. One of the things I've always paid attention
Speaker 1: to and appreciated about yellow perils the way and what's
Speaker 1: y'all social media and y'all's kind of forward face is
Speaker 1: both unapologetically focused on firearms, focused on training, and also
Speaker 1: feels completely different from any of the sort of right
Speaker 1: wing kind of groups that that focus on some of
Speaker 1: the state, even when you're doing stuff that's like videos
Speaker 1: of people shooting and training. UM, do you want to talk?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just anything in general on this subject
Speaker 1: that you've you've felt. But that's something I've always particularly
Speaker 1: noticed about y'all. Yeah, so thank you. UM, we try
Speaker 1: really hard. You should see the group chat um. But
Speaker 1: it's it's something that you know, when historically Asian Asians
Speaker 1: represent it in firearms culture tend to be conservative folks
Speaker 1: who fit within the norm or you know, proximity to whiteness,
Speaker 1: and that's something that we are not at all interested in, UM,
Speaker 1: and we know that comes at a risk. That's why
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why are identifiable tattoos are clothing
Speaker 1: and our faces are always blurred. One because we don't
Speaker 1: want cult of celebrity around individuals. UM. But too it's
Speaker 1: like part of that is a lot of folks generally,
Speaker 1: but especially on the right, will kind of have this
Speaker 1: very grandiose, uh I don't know, uh, buffer sense of
Speaker 1: legitimacy just because they have cool you know, video editing,
Speaker 1: they have like the nicest guns, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of guns. Um. And our thing is like, you don't
Speaker 1: need all that. What you do need is to train
Speaker 1: with what you got and are target audience are folks
Speaker 1: who don't know ship about firearms or just getting into
Speaker 1: it and needs some more reputable to go. Um. And
Speaker 1: we take that very seriously, um, because I only got
Speaker 1: into firearms like two years ago, um, and so that
Speaker 1: is fresh in my memory, and I know very well
Speaker 1: what that's like, um and how intimidating it could be.
Speaker 1: So a lot of our work is to try to
Speaker 1: demystify it and really break it down to a way
Speaker 1: that like it doesn't like we don't make people feel
Speaker 1: like they have to be at a certain level already
Speaker 1: to even enter into the firearms world. Like, we want
Speaker 1: to meet people where they're at and encourage people. So like,
Speaker 1: you know, do our drill of the month and like
Speaker 1: tell us your score and then do it next month
Speaker 1: and tell how to tell us how you did better,
Speaker 1: and so it's really encouraging people to get better on
Speaker 1: an individual basis. Um, we encourage people to go out
Speaker 1: with their friends. Um, but we also try to throw
Speaker 1: in like community international solidarity with our fundraisers in there too.
Speaker 1: So it's we try do a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, like if we
Speaker 1: help just eapen a handful of shooters get better at
Speaker 1: defending themselves or their community, like, it's all worth it.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I want to ask next and I'll ask
Speaker 1: you both again kind of same question. Where do you
Speaker 1: see the armed left moving? Particularly in this next year's
Speaker 1: we kind of get through our last or start go
Speaker 1: through our last blessed year before election. Um, what are
Speaker 1: some things that that are on your radar? What are
Speaker 1: some things that you're sort of expecting to see? What
Speaker 1: are some things that you're worried about? Saying a lot,
Speaker 1: it's a big ques trying to keep it to a year, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, I like I worry a lot. I
Speaker 1: try not to get too caught up in it because
Speaker 1: life will surprise you, you know. Um, But I think ultimately,
Speaker 1: like where I live, we are facing down a really
Speaker 1: tight governor race in which if the Republican candidate wins UM,
Speaker 1: a lot of work that has been put to you know,
Speaker 1: codify abortion rights, workers rights, things like that, will be
Speaker 1: reversed by this governor um. And it's something that a
Speaker 1: lot of people are worried about, myself included, and where
Speaker 1: I live, even within city limits, there are white supremacists flags,
Speaker 1: Confederate flags even just like a couple of miles from
Speaker 1: my house, and so there's a lot of fear around
Speaker 1: that becoming even more emboldened. Even though we managed to
Speaker 1: fight back a lot and deterred, it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: they're not taking this moment the right, the fast right
Speaker 1: to restrategize and to recalibrate what they want to do
Speaker 1: next um. And so it kind of feels like we're
Speaker 1: in the calm before the storm. Oh man. Uh, not
Speaker 1: like the J six storm, That's not what I mean,
Speaker 1: but like genuinely what it will actually look like, because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna be. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: gonna be Like, you know, we meet at the football
Speaker 1: field and we have like our drummers out and like
Speaker 1: our little pipe players out and then we have about it.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be like urban like warfare, is what I think. Um,
Speaker 1: And a lot of other people think that too. And
Speaker 1: you just throw in climate change as a treat like
Speaker 1: we don't know what the literal climate is going to
Speaker 1: be like, um, And so it really just feels like
Speaker 1: there's multiple fronts right now. But it seems like climate
Speaker 1: change or the fascists will kill me before my smoking
Speaker 1: habit will And a lot of people think that too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I do anecdotally know a lot of
Speaker 1: people who justify their cigarette use with like, look, there's
Speaker 1: wildfires all around my house. I'm not worried about the
Speaker 1: mar Brea's it is. It is October and the city
Speaker 1: of Portland is blanketed and smoke. I don't know if
Speaker 1: the cagrets are going to get me. Stephen, did you
Speaker 1: did you want to go next? Yeah? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that a ship posting account gained
Speaker 1: some traction, maybe there's hope yet. Um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but ship posting will save us in the end. It's
Speaker 1: it's another one on the board for ship posting. Let's
Speaker 1: put it that way. So looking forward to what are
Speaker 1: we dealing with well, Texas is uh deep in it
Speaker 1: right now. Um, we're one of the sort of laboratories
Speaker 1: of fascism in the United States at the moment, sort
Speaker 1: of a spear tip of a lot of really bad
Speaker 1: stuff really just like you know, codifying in the state,
Speaker 1: oppressive things, things that they just talk about in other states. Um.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, our governor's race, uh basedly it doesn't either,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of split things because our lieutenant governor
Speaker 1: runs independently of the governor, and you know, the House
Speaker 1: is a whole other thing. Yeah, if it goes far right, um,
Speaker 1: which a ton of money has been spent, billions and
Speaker 1: billions from people in the industry that's primarily responsible for
Speaker 1: destroying the planet, are um, pushing that to make it happen,
Speaker 1: and so that all works their way, then yeah, we're
Speaker 1: probably going to get some uh seriously bad laws, really
Speaker 1: bad state sponsored violence, a variety of forms. And yeah,
Speaker 1: people are already thinking to themselves like do I want
Speaker 1: to live in this state anymore? Um? But that's also
Speaker 1: basically what the extreme people on the right want is
Speaker 1: to either just get rid of these people one way
Speaker 1: or another. Um. And so some people don't want that Obviously,
Speaker 1: some people don't have a choice to leave because it's
Speaker 1: expensive to move and they may be tied to their
Speaker 1: families and other sorts of things. So, uh, I don't
Speaker 1: like to predict the future because history is we keep
Speaker 1: pumping shells into it and it keeps getting back up,
Speaker 1: and uh, it's just gonna happen, and I don't really
Speaker 1: know exactly. I just I'm very thankful that there are
Speaker 1: people and groups in my state that are trying to
Speaker 1: protect vulnerable people, um, and people working to hopefully make
Speaker 1: it not super bad. Um. So I think like the
Speaker 1: optimistic view is that it won't be all totally terrible horrible,
Speaker 1: but it'll be still kind of same, same, you know. Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's kind of like how I see broad speaking, you know,
Speaker 1: the big projection cone. Otherwise, UM, I'm not sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fucked up, but at least we'll have friends.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it'll be wavy and it will be about the
Speaker 1: friends that we make along the way. Yeah, I do
Speaker 1: either of you have anything else you'd like to to
Speaker 1: talk about or or or bring up or say before
Speaker 1: we kind of bring this to a close. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm just like I was kind of surprised how decent
Speaker 1: that the panel went. Um. You know, the anti fascist
Speaker 1: coalition can be broad because it is a sort of
Speaker 1: anti thing. It's not necessarily positivist. But you know, maybe
Speaker 1: that's another episode to describe, you know, why it's important
Speaker 1: to also perhaps have a positivist message along with what
Speaker 1: you're trying to do in response to fascism. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know, like more discussions like this hopefully will happen,
Speaker 1: and I think they could be improved by like not
Speaker 1: all four panels being white dudes. That would probably be helpful.
Speaker 1: Um as a thought. Yeah, uh well, yeah that that
Speaker 1: was actually the first thing I wrote on my my
Speaker 1: note page is that it was for for what I
Speaker 1: should have said that earlier, So you never, I'm just playing.
Speaker 1: But I think one thing I want to add is like,
Speaker 1: similar to what you were saying, Stephen, was kind of
Speaker 1: like what is the pro positive thing? And ultimately like
Speaker 1: to me, it's like the city that I live in,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of decentralized mutual aid groups that got
Speaker 1: a lot of people through the pandemic and still provide
Speaker 1: daily relief to people consistently. Like I'm in like a
Speaker 1: million fucking signal chats where people post a need and
Speaker 1: it gets met eventually. UM. And it's like I'm pro
Speaker 1: that mutual aid and like it's something that I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it's the only thing that will really get us
Speaker 1: through whatever is to come. UM. And that's just like
Speaker 1: pro commune to be building UM and coalition building whatever
Speaker 1: that looks like in your community. Maybe if we want
Speaker 1: to talk about mutual aid, you can. I know, you
Speaker 1: guys do a lot of fundraiser I think that's a
Speaker 1: really cool thing. Certain distinguishes you from a lot of
Speaker 1: other gun clubs. So maybe do you want to talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of those, Maybe plug those? You know,
Speaker 1: I would plug our Fondward patches, but we just sold
Speaker 1: out of the second patch. It's a it is. We
Speaker 1: didn't think people would care that much, especially the first round,
Speaker 1: and so the second round we only ordered a hundred
Speaker 1: and it's pulled out in a day. Those are supporting
Speaker 1: the resistance in Myanmar, right, Yes, yes, people are getting
Speaker 1: them by donating directly to liberate me and mar and
Speaker 1: then someone sends them a cool forward patch. UM. And
Speaker 1: it's one of many fundraisers we've done. We recently have
Speaker 1: done a couple for folks in Ukraine. UM, we helped
Speaker 1: them fund an ambulance out there. UM. I can't remember
Speaker 1: the Instagram handle right now. UM. We've also done a
Speaker 1: bunch for like a group in Portland for example, Black
Speaker 1: and Beyond the Binary. UM. I think we've done to
Speaker 1: actually for Liberate Me and mar UM. But it's just
Speaker 1: something that you know, we don't do this for money,
Speaker 1: and we also want to support other groups doing things
Speaker 1: that we support, especially like popular fronts that are fighting
Speaker 1: back against authoritarian regimes UM and hoping that you know,
Speaker 1: if ship hits the fan here, that people will do
Speaker 1: that for us to UM, because we really value international
Speaker 1: solidarity and you know, as corny as it is, we're
Speaker 1: you know, we're like we got us, you know, we
Speaker 1: fend us, not George Soros, but UM, you know it's
Speaker 1: something that brings us joy to be able to help
Speaker 1: and UM, as mostly anarchists, we really believe that, like
Speaker 1: we are all that we have and we can't wait
Speaker 1: for someone else to to you know, a benefactor to
Speaker 1: come and save us, because that ship is just not
Speaker 1: going to happen. Yeah, it's great. WHA can folks find
Speaker 1: you on the into web? They want to follow along.
Speaker 1: We can find us on Instagram at Yellow dot Peril
Speaker 1: dot Practical. You have to spell it out, I think,
Speaker 1: because I think we're shadow band right now. Our Twitter,
Speaker 1: regrettably is ypt actual. We also have a website just
Speaker 1: Yellow Peril Tactical dot com. We just took it so
Speaker 1: no one else could. Um, but that's where you can
Speaker 1: mainly find us. We are primarily on Instagram, um, but
Speaker 1: most of our stuff is on Twitter. If you really
Speaker 1: want to see a ship post, go on Twitter. We
Speaker 1: recently got into it with this person and Oregon over
Speaker 1: the gun control measure. Um, and let me tell you
Speaker 1: it was a heat but also a little like maddening
Speaker 1: because this guy, this guy actually ties into how we
Speaker 1: opened the episode because he was he's a local liberal
Speaker 1: uh thought leader guy who uh saw two pictures of
Speaker 1: people with guns, one of them being fascists and one
Speaker 1: of them being one of y'all and was like, clearly
Speaker 1: these are the same thing. Um, it was a good
Speaker 1: time vote no on one fourteen in my opinion, uh,
Speaker 1: if you're in the state of Oregon. But we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that at a later point. Stephen Um, you want
Speaker 1: to plug you first off, obviously really good work, UM
Speaker 1: on the panel. I want to plug that for folks
Speaker 1: because I think it is really worth a listen. Um,
Speaker 1: as everyone is here said, there's a lot of good
Speaker 1: historical information in there and uh and and your contributions
Speaker 1: are invaluable, So folks can check that out. If you
Speaker 1: just google Cato Institute Domestic Extremism and Political Violence, you'll
Speaker 1: find it. And how else can people find you? Stephen?
Speaker 1: You can also find me on Twitter. UM, I will
Speaker 1: make sure that my handle is there. It's at Steve
Speaker 1: van Zetti. Ste van Zetti as in the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the two that got killed by the state unjustly,
Speaker 1: um because it's anti Italian discrimination, so UM I digress um.
Speaker 1: The you can find me there. Prodian is obviously something
Speaker 1: that I work with, and I would say check that
Speaker 1: out as well. It's at Prodi and mag uh that
Speaker 1: has a website Prodian mag dot com. Um and anything
Speaker 1: else that you want to know about me you can
Speaker 1: either find on Twitter or Google. There's really only like
Speaker 1: two guys named Stephen Monticelli in the entire state United States,
Speaker 1: and the other ones like a c P A in
Speaker 1: his sixties, So it's just not that one. Um, and
Speaker 1: yeah you can find me there. Excellent. Um, well I'm
Speaker 1: glad we got to end on a Sacco and Vanzetti reference.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, everybody go help somebody. It Could Happen
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Speaker 1: for listening.