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Speaker 1: your podcasts. Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted
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Speaker 1: can make your own decisions. Welcome to it could happen here,
Speaker 1: a podcast that is on the cycle of being sort
Speaker 1: of Okayley introduced. When this episode goes out, it will
Speaker 1: be Indigenous People's Day and so to to talk about
Speaker 1: that more where we're gonna talk to Dalia Killsback, who
Speaker 1: is a member of the Northern Chyenne, has Northern Cheyenne
Speaker 1: tribal citizenship, and has sort of studied and worked in
Speaker 1: federal India tribal policy. Dahlia, Hello, how how are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. Thank you for inviting me here today.
Speaker 1: Of course Garrison is also here. Garrison Hello, Hello. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm currently also doing writing about indigenous stuff, but within
Speaker 1: the context of Canada, which people should will probably here
Speaker 1: later this week. UM. So yeah, I guess first thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about is a little bit is
Speaker 1: about what Indigenous People's Day is and why it is
Speaker 1: that and not the other thing. Um. Yeah. So Indigenous
Speaker 1: People's Day, um, as many people know, is replacing I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say it, Chris chrispher Columbus Day. Um, that is
Speaker 1: still like a federal holiday, but multiple cities and states
Speaker 1: have opted to use Indigenous People's Day instead. Um. And
Speaker 1: the reasoning for that is acknowledging the atrocities that were
Speaker 1: committed by Christopher Columbus, who first of all, did not
Speaker 1: discover America. UM, but um continue to um not only
Speaker 1: use slavery, but UM commit different forms of genocide, rape, etcetera,
Speaker 1: all of these terrible atrocities. And so rather than celebrating
Speaker 1: UM somebody like that UM, Indigenous people Day UM has
Speaker 1: been implemented in order to recognize the people who are
Speaker 1: actually here first, UM and indigenous people's across the America's there, histories, cultures,
Speaker 1: and contributions. Yeah, Columbus, real piece of ship, worst Christopher, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it really cannot be overstated how bad that guy was,
Speaker 1: even even you know, even people in that era who
Speaker 1: had committed their own genocides like Isabelle and Ferdinand, who
Speaker 1: you know, expelled the Jews from Spain. Where it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, if once you've reached the sentence expelled the
Speaker 1: Jews from X like you you're are You're already in
Speaker 1: the ship list of the worst people in human history.
Speaker 1: And even they saw what Columbus was doing, it was
Speaker 1: like what on earth? Bad bad guy, bad name. Things
Speaker 1: are going to continue to go badly? And yeah, that
Speaker 1: that was an everything that I wanted to talk about,
Speaker 1: which is federal Indian policy. And you know this this
Speaker 1: is an incredibly broad This is an incredibly broad area
Speaker 1: spanning like three hundred years. So we're not gonna be
Speaker 1: able to go into like an enormous amount of depth
Speaker 1: in it, but I think it's important that people have
Speaker 1: an understanding of, I mean, ages what the US did
Speaker 1: and how everyone else has had the sort of deal
Speaker 1: with it. And then also the fact that this is
Speaker 1: something that changes over time and has has looked different,
Speaker 1: It's looked it's been bad in different ways. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so when talking about federal Indian policy, I always like
Speaker 1: to contextualize it within a larger um sort of like
Speaker 1: euro American like teleology of colonial conquests, and then moving
Speaker 1: on to set where colonialism and where we are with
Speaker 1: federal federal Indian policy currently. Um. So, how do we
Speaker 1: connect Christopher Columbus to where we are currently? Um? And
Speaker 1: this is the history of federal Indian policy and Western
Speaker 1: legal discourse and how UM European powers throughout history have
Speaker 1: defined what it means to be an Indian person in
Speaker 1: relationship to UM Indigenous people's rights to their own land
Speaker 1: and to self governance. UM. So, when we're looking at
Speaker 1: the different periods of federal Indian policy, UM, prior to
Speaker 1: their being the United States government, we have the colonial period, um,
Speaker 1: which is fourteen ninety two to seventeen seventies six. UM.
Speaker 1: This is how federal Indian policy illegal scholars divide that UM.
Speaker 1: And it's really important to kind of give the difference
Speaker 1: between what is um a colonial state versus a settler
Speaker 1: colonial state when you're talking about not just the United
Speaker 1: States government but also the Canadian government and UM, different
Speaker 1: governments globally. UM. But I want to talk just a
Speaker 1: little bit about what I've by the difference between a
Speaker 1: colonial government and a Suttler colonial government, because they're tied together. UM.
Speaker 1: So by a Suttler colonial government, I mean what I
Speaker 1: mean is that it is defined by the d territorialization
Speaker 1: of indigenous population populations. And so rather than in a
Speaker 1: colonial government as you had with Christopher Columbus and the
Speaker 1: Spanish and with the English, etcetera, UM is rather than
Speaker 1: a state and sovereignty being conceived as all these resources
Speaker 1: are going back to the metrical all these resources are
Speaker 1: going back to England or to Spain, etcetera. And colonial
Speaker 1: occupation is in is um conceptualized within this way in
Speaker 1: settler colonial governments, UM, the colonists come to these lands
Speaker 1: and stay and they're what they define a sovereignty is
Speaker 1: within this land that they define now as their own.
Speaker 1: So and in order for that process to happen, UM,
Speaker 1: there needs to be different forms of genocide of the
Speaker 1: indigenous populations. And so that's what we saw with Christopher
Speaker 1: Columbus and throughout history, UM was just the depletion of
Speaker 1: a lot of our indigenous populous UM. And so when
Speaker 1: I mean about the United States UM being a settler
Speaker 1: colonial state, I mean that this is current and ongoing.
Speaker 1: And so when we talk about federal Indian policy, UM,
Speaker 1: Federal Indian policy is always in this conversation with what
Speaker 1: started with Christopher Columbus as the doctrine of discovery and UM.
Speaker 1: So that's how we define the colonial period. And feel
Speaker 1: free to like stop me and ask me questions. Else
Speaker 1: I'm just going to try to move quickly because there's
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, I think we probably should briefly talk
Speaker 1: about what the doctory discovery is, um lacy before we
Speaker 1: get to sit at the martial trilogy and stuff. For sure,
Speaker 1: what does that actually mean legally? Um? So legally, UM,
Speaker 1: it's the discovery of a quote unquote New found Land,
Speaker 1: UM by European colonial forces. And the reason why it's
Speaker 1: called the doctrine of discovery, was that indigenous peoples on
Speaker 1: these lands were deemed unable to govern themselves and they
Speaker 1: did not know how to utilize their land up to
Speaker 1: the definition of what the European powers thought UM land
Speaker 1: use was that UM, indigenous peoples didn't have the same
Speaker 1: concept of property UM, and same with their relationship with
Speaker 1: resources and resource extraction. So when um, Christopher Columbus and
Speaker 1: all of these other colonizer as clunky clunkyst doors came
Speaker 1: to the quote unquote new land, UM, they saw all
Speaker 1: of this rich, plentiful resource and thoughts of themselves, Well,
Speaker 1: obviously these people don't know what they're doing because there's
Speaker 1: just so much they have not done anything with it. UM.
Speaker 1: And we're going to take this back to two hours
Speaker 1: because obviously their inferior beings and don't know what property
Speaker 1: is so UM. Legally, UM, the doctrine of Discovery conveyed
Speaker 1: legal title to an ownership of American soil to European
Speaker 1: nations UM, a title that devolved to the United States
Speaker 1: and so UM. This definition is expansive UM, and expansive
Speaker 1: discovery implies that Native nations have a right to lands
Speaker 1: as occupants or possessors, but they are incompetent to manage
Speaker 1: those lands and need a quote unquote benevolent guardian such
Speaker 1: as a federal government who holds legal title. And um.
Speaker 1: So when we're talking about this legal title, it devolves
Speaker 1: to the United States later on um in history, after
Speaker 1: the American Revolution, um. And so rather than being colonial
Speaker 1: states um as the United States like thirteen original colonies,
Speaker 1: given um, the American Revolution and its own constitution and
Speaker 1: its creation of itself as a nation state, then that
Speaker 1: turns into a settler colonial government. Yeah. I think we can,
Speaker 1: ye know, we can get to what happens next then,
Speaker 1: because yeah, yeah, you have you have this elaborate legal
Speaker 1: framework that lets you steal people's land and murder them
Speaker 1: and then control it. And then the outgrowth of that
Speaker 1: is this sort of weird event where the colonies go
Speaker 1: into rebellion and suddenly, yeah, there's there's not a colony.
Speaker 1: They're not colonies anymore. They just are the state. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, about what happens next after the sort of
Speaker 1: formation of the United States. So after the formation of
Speaker 1: the United States, UM, so we have this period the
Speaker 1: American Revolution. It's all not really diving into It is
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy six to seventeen eighty nine, and it's called
Speaker 1: the Confederation period. But next we have the Trade and
Speaker 1: Intercourse Act era, which is from seventeen eighty nine to
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty five. And so this is defined with the
Speaker 1: United States Constitution and Congress's exclusive right to regulate trade
Speaker 1: relations and make lands since the land secessions and enter
Speaker 1: into treaties with tribes. So this is a treaty making
Speaker 1: era with the tribes that only the United States federal
Speaker 1: government is able to And there's a distinction there because
Speaker 1: there had been a lot of contestation between state and
Speaker 1: the federal government as to who is going to now
Speaker 1: deal with these, um, these nations that are with our
Speaker 1: within our own settler colonial borders. So whose job is
Speaker 1: that to solve this issue? Um? So within the United
Speaker 1: States Constitution, there are three clauses that define the United
Speaker 1: States legal relationship to American Indians, and so these are
Speaker 1: the treaty making clause, the commerce clause, and the property clause. Um.
Speaker 1: And so this this movement from just relying on the
Speaker 1: doctrine of discovery and treaty making processes between different European
Speaker 1: powers now is between the United States federal government and tribes.
Speaker 1: And so what this does is now tribes are located
Speaker 1: within the United States territory, and this places Indians within
Speaker 1: the boundaries and jurisdiction of the United States, and now
Speaker 1: there're a matter of domestic interest something. It leads it
Speaker 1: to one of the sort of complicated questions that the
Speaker 1: changes to this whole era, which is about what does
Speaker 1: sovereignty mean for these tribes and to what extent to
Speaker 1: the even continue to possess it, and how does that
Speaker 1: even sort of how does that work if you have
Speaker 1: when you have this new state that's sort of just
Speaker 1: has his clan control here, right, And also during this
Speaker 1: period UM, well, well later on when we have um
Speaker 1: started jumping ahead of myself, when we have the extermination
Speaker 1: of the treaty making process, and this completely removes seeing
Speaker 1: tribes as independent sovereign nations. UM. So I think that
Speaker 1: will kind of get more into that later. But the
Speaker 1: thing with federal Indian policy UM is that it's sort
Speaker 1: of self prophesizing. So as settlers are moving across America, UM,
Speaker 1: the United States government also has to create these policies
Speaker 1: UM in order to legalize these land cessations and movements.
Speaker 1: And a pattern that we do see here UM throughout
Speaker 1: history and throughout time is that the United States federal government,
Speaker 1: as a settler state is um over the rights of
Speaker 1: over the UM, rights to land, and rights of indigenous
Speaker 1: peoples themselves. You have a priority of the settler state
Speaker 1: in order to acquire land. So that a lot of
Speaker 1: the reason why UM later these treaties will be broken, etcetera,
Speaker 1: is because settlers are moving into these lands and the
Speaker 1: United States is then breaking these treaties in order to
Speaker 1: UM have more more land, more land secessions. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: laws are just following the violence, and it's just becomes
Speaker 1: a sort of retroactive justification for yeah. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a self justifying sort of sovereignty. So this is the
Speaker 1: Removal period and what a lot of people may have
Speaker 1: heard of. So it's from five to eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: and what we have is the extinguishment of Indian title
Speaker 1: to eastern lands and the removal of Indian tribes westward.
Speaker 1: So UM. One of the most notable acts is the
Speaker 1: Removal Act, which was authorized by President Andrew Jackson, which
Speaker 1: moved Um Indians from the east to the west of
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River into what was called Indian territory UM.
Speaker 1: And what brought about this UM Federal Federal Act UM
Speaker 1: was a series of three foundational statutes within Federal Indian
Speaker 1: Policy UM, dictated by Chief Justice John Marshall. So first
Speaker 1: we have Johnson B. Macintosh Cherokee Nation be Georgia and
Speaker 1: Worcester be Georgia. And I won't go into UM too
Speaker 1: much detail, but what this these essentially UM did and
Speaker 1: legally defined tribes as being domestic dependent nations. And so
Speaker 1: it clarified more that again tribal nations are underneath the
Speaker 1: federal government's overview, not the states. So yeah, it placed
Speaker 1: tribes above state jurisdiction. And what this was trying to
Speaker 1: do was UM solve some issues that tribes such as
Speaker 1: the Cherokee Nation had with different states when it came
Speaker 1: to land and UM jurisdiction over suid land. UM. But
Speaker 1: that is kind of the basis of a lot of
Speaker 1: federal Indian policy and still remains true day. And what
Speaker 1: is notable UM in each one of these statutes UM,
Speaker 1: I believe, particularly in Worcester the Georgia, although it seems
Speaker 1: that it was supporting tribal sovereignty in them and that
Speaker 1: they were above state jurisdiction. A lot of these um
Speaker 1: statute sided racist President and the doctrine of Discovery. So
Speaker 1: what you see for federal Indian policy is that a
Speaker 1: lot of the fount well all the foundation for federal
Speaker 1: Indian policy based on President is the doctrine of Discovery,
Speaker 1: which is reliant on the idea that American Indians were
Speaker 1: savages and needed um federal benevolence and um paternalism in
Speaker 1: order to regulate their own affairs. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: that's well, okay, we should probably not just immediately get
Speaker 1: to allotment, but yeah, because there's this, there's this, there's
Speaker 1: also yeah, this is also the period of use. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing you were talking about earlier is the thing
Speaker 1: you helped me know about, which is, okay, it's not
Speaker 1: true to say this is when this starts, but this
Speaker 1: is Indian Removal Act, Trail of Tears territory. And one
Speaker 1: thing that you know, I think one of one of
Speaker 1: the sort of running themes of this is that, you know,
Speaker 1: the the law in this context is just sort of
Speaker 1: becomes a sort of retroactive excuse to do whatever needs
Speaker 1: to be done from the perspective of quote unquote of
Speaker 1: the sort of of the settler state to just take
Speaker 1: all of this land. Yeah. And I think maybe like
Speaker 1: one of the keystones of this is Andrew Jackson just
Speaker 1: straight up tellings between court to funk Off so that
Speaker 1: he can do so he can do with trail of tears. Yeah. UM.
Speaker 1: So the Removal Act happened after all of these statutes
Speaker 1: that you already had that supported UM federal Indian sovereignty.
Speaker 1: And so the Cherokees in Georgia were one of the
Speaker 1: tribes that were removed. UM. And so you kind of
Speaker 1: see what you talked about, the the retrograde kind of
Speaker 1: justifications for said removal to spite UM the statutes that
Speaker 1: are there. So although that like Marshall UM in Worcester
Speaker 1: b Georgia determined that the State of Georgia did not
Speaker 1: have jurisdiction over Cherokee territory, all this territory although this
Speaker 1: territory was in the state's borders. UM. Later on you
Speaker 1: see with the Removal Act that although these statutes are
Speaker 1: still president in Federalian policy, those were noll in order
Speaker 1: for UM there to be more UM expansion of settlers
Speaker 1: within these areas. So when it was decided that oh, wait,
Speaker 1: we do need this land and we don't actually want
Speaker 1: these Indians here, Let's put them to the side, over
Speaker 1: past the Mississippi so that they're out of sight, out
Speaker 1: of mind. Right, So we see more of this um
Speaker 1: justification for settler expansion. And so again we bring back
Speaker 1: to these themes of like settler colonialism and or are
Speaker 1: too um kind of gain more of this land. And
Speaker 1: a lot of these statutes are still cited the doctrine
Speaker 1: of discovery in them and rather than supporting tribal policy,
Speaker 1: the relationship between the United States federal government and American
Speaker 1: Indians um was not based on the rights of Indians,
Speaker 1: but more that they can't they can't govern themselves, right
Speaker 1: and so so and that's the whole issue is like
Speaker 1: people are like they don't know what they're doing, so
Speaker 1: we're gonna push them and like take their land again.
Speaker 1: So I I don't know if you want me to
Speaker 1: go too much into the trail of tears, but um,
Speaker 1: you're seeing a lot of patterns here, I think different
Speaker 1: forms of genocide, different forms of taking land. And this
Speaker 1: was this is all around the same time as the
Speaker 1: Indian acting Canada as well, which was did a very
Speaker 1: similar thing, especially starting in the starting in the twenties
Speaker 1: century as well, with the like expansion of the like
Speaker 1: assimilation programs. Yeah, and I think I guess the one
Speaker 1: only thing I want to point out about this is that,
Speaker 1: you know, so one of one of the things that
Speaker 1: happens trailers here is at the Streme Court like tells
Speaker 1: Jackson that he can't do this, and she actually just
Speaker 1: does it anyways. And I think that's a very interesting
Speaker 1: important moment because you know, this is this is this
Speaker 1: thing right where the federal government can tell there's a
Speaker 1: Preme Court to funk off, right, and there's nothing that
Speaker 1: Streme Court could do about it. And if you look
Speaker 1: at what they did it to do, the thing they
Speaker 1: did it to do was genocide. And it's I think
Speaker 1: it's it's just I think it's a very sort of
Speaker 1: I don't know, this incredibly grim like you know, encapsulation
Speaker 1: of like what this state actually is, which is the
Speaker 1: sort of genocide machine and whatever sort of you know,
Speaker 1: this is what sovereignty is, right, the ability to break
Speaker 1: your own rules to sort of main instit or to
Speaker 1: maintain the system. So you know, you you break your
Speaker 1: own laws and you know, as we're gonna get to
Speaker 1: in a second, like you break your own treaties continuous
Speaker 1: and you do this because you know, the ganslit massion
Speaker 1: has to keep moving right And Um. There's a couple
Speaker 1: of federal and new policy theorists um Bindeler Jr. Who's
Speaker 1: one of the most famous ones, and David E. Wilkins
Speaker 1: who talks about how there's no need for checks and
Speaker 1: balances within the federal Ondian policy system. So you have
Speaker 1: Congress that is able to um pass whatever act they want,
Speaker 1: and and then you also have the Supreme Court, and
Speaker 1: then you also have executive action. But it wasn't really
Speaker 1: delineated that well um within especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: this period as to who is going to be dealing
Speaker 1: with the Indians kind of thing. Um. And so this
Speaker 1: kind of confusion and not really completely defining what it
Speaker 1: means to be a domestic dependent nation, I think really
Speaker 1: just goes to show how much of a fragile edifice
Speaker 1: settler um colonial policy is, for it is within the system. Um.
Speaker 1: But again moving on, it comes back again to land.
Speaker 1: So the reservation area era in eighteen sixty one to
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty seven UM has you have a lot of
Speaker 1: westward expansion of non Indians UM settlers, specifically to California.
Speaker 1: You also have the creation of Indian reservations and resulting
Speaker 1: Indian wars UM. Uh. So during this era what you
Speaker 1: see a lot out of UM are different types of
Speaker 1: attempts that assimilation UM and a lot of warfare. So
Speaker 1: you have a lot of the Plains tribes my tribe
Speaker 1: for instance, UM, that are going through all of these
Speaker 1: battles fighting UM forced removal onto reservations UM. One of
Speaker 1: the most famous ones was UM the Bad of Greasy
Speaker 1: Grass or a Little Big Horn UM where General Custer
Speaker 1: was killed by Sue Cheyennes and Arapahos, and different instances
Speaker 1: of battles such as those, and also where a lot
Speaker 1: of tribes UM were forcibly removed to era areas that
Speaker 1: they weren't originally from. So like how the Ripees were
Speaker 1: moved to Oklahoma, there was attempts of my tribe, for instance,
Speaker 1: more than Cheyenne to be moved down to Oklahoma as well,
Speaker 1: and that's why there's some Southern Cheyennes in Oklahoma, and
Speaker 1: then My tribes and Northern Shiance in Montana. Another UM in.
Speaker 1: Another thing that is happening during this period are boarding
Speaker 1: schools UM the boarding school era. So this attempt at
Speaker 1: assimilation through education UM, and assimilation is also UM within
Speaker 1: within the settler colonial kind of structure. It's defined as
Speaker 1: a process where indigenous people end up UM conforming to
Speaker 1: different constructed notions of UM settler norms UM. So if
Speaker 1: they're not absorbed within the state completely, then their attempted
Speaker 1: attempt to be assimilated UM culturally UM through education, through languages,
Speaker 1: in terms of economics and how you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of different sort of bureaucratic structures on these reservations trying
Speaker 1: to make tribal governments appear to be UM or constructed
Speaker 1: as as settler colonial governments are UM. So maybe it's
Speaker 1: the three branches UM in ways that aren't just compatible
Speaker 1: with different tribes culturally. And you also have the attemptive
Speaker 1: eradication of different kind of spiritual and cultural practices is
Speaker 1: and a lot of Christianity be course on to different
Speaker 1: people and just kind of terrible things that UM. I
Speaker 1: think more and more people are becoming aware of due
Speaker 1: to due to current movements, but we'll get into that
Speaker 1: more later. Do we want to talk about a lot
Speaker 1: and briefly because if I remember quickly, this is in
Speaker 1: the same period, yes, a lotment period and UM course assimilation.
Speaker 1: So this is like eighteen seventy one to nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: and so this is the end of the treaty making process.
Speaker 1: So the whole idea of UM trying to force tribes
Speaker 1: onto reservations and sign these treaties were too again take
Speaker 1: land and make sure that the United States has more
Speaker 1: land and all the land etcetera that they possibly have UM.
Speaker 1: So at this end of treaty making UM, federal allotment
Speaker 1: of Indian lands also happened in the UM the DAWs
Speaker 1: Act UM. And so what this was was an attempt
Speaker 1: to UM further shrink the reservation lands that tribes are
Speaker 1: already guaranteed within treaties UM. So during this period, I
Speaker 1: think that somewhere like nine million acres were UM taken
Speaker 1: from travel reservations during the allotment process. So that what
Speaker 1: the allotment process did was it counted each in every
Speaker 1: individual Indian UM that was eligible. I think there were
Speaker 1: adults UM. Yeah, adults that were eligible UM, and each
Speaker 1: one of them were given a certain parcel of land
Speaker 1: a certain number of acreage UM. And once all of
Speaker 1: this land was calculated, what you had was an excess
Speaker 1: of land quote unquote excess of land that the tribes
Speaker 1: obviously didn't need because they had still too too many people.
Speaker 1: And so what the excess of land um was utilized
Speaker 1: force for pioneers and for settlers UM. If it didn't
Speaker 1: go UM to the federal government, it was to um
Speaker 1: incentivize settlers to colonized essentially centil on Indian lands. So
Speaker 1: trying its hardest to not stay true to its treaty
Speaker 1: making practices. I think everything goes interesting to me about
Speaker 1: this is that like because one of the other goals
Speaker 1: of this is to sort of like, oh is the
Speaker 1: civilizing mission is like, yeah, we're going to turn them
Speaker 1: into We're gonna turn these people into like like human farmers,
Speaker 1: like true American finteersman or whatever. And it's just like
Speaker 1: it just doesn't work because economically it doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: like breaking up all these like lands. It's like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't you can't just give someone a small patch of
Speaker 1: like shitty land and have them farm like this doesn't
Speaker 1: like this, it doesn't it doesn't like they certainly tried
Speaker 1: and the yeah, yeah, like that was one of the
Speaker 1: main things. One of the main things in Canada was
Speaker 1: about getting them to adopt like like European farming practices,
Speaker 1: which which they already knew how to get their own food, right,
Speaker 1: they were trying to change this whole system of of
Speaker 1: of like of of food growth to to this like
Speaker 1: to to this European way of of farming, and it
Speaker 1: just and they were just forcing them to and there's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it gets, it gets, it gets super, it
Speaker 1: gets super like dark and horrible. Once you like look
Speaker 1: at like the letters that were being written by like
Speaker 1: the heads of these programs, um, like you know, instructing
Speaker 1: like these agents were stationed at these like reservation that
Speaker 1: to like force people to be doing doing this horrible
Speaker 1: farming for like all day every day. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know the sign that this is like like this
Speaker 1: is this is so bad that even the US government
Speaker 1: eventually is like wait this this like this is fucked
Speaker 1: up and doesn't work. So I think that's yeah, your
Speaker 1: transition to sort of like the next phase, I guess, yeah,
Speaker 1: a very short phase. Um. Yeah, So the next phase
Speaker 1: um is the Indian reorganization Act. And so this only
Speaker 1: lasted six years from nineteen thirty four in nineteen forty UM,
Speaker 1: so this is when allotment ended. As you said, the
Speaker 1: United States government was like, wait, this isn't working. Um,
Speaker 1: what else can we do with the Indians aren't dying off,
Speaker 1: they're not assimilating, they're not a culturating. We don't know
Speaker 1: what to do with them. Um, so maybe we'll We'll
Speaker 1: have them adopt these constitutions and a lot of them
Speaker 1: were just templates, so regardless of whether or not they
Speaker 1: were um I think compatible with tribal different tribes way
Speaker 1: of life, they were like, you have these constitutions. Now, um,
Speaker 1: now you're you're a tribe and this is what each
Speaker 1: tribe has to look like in order for us, the
Speaker 1: federal government to recognize you as a legitimate entity. Uh
Speaker 1: and um. And then so you have the establishment of
Speaker 1: these um tribal governments that consist of tribal councils and
Speaker 1: the business committees, etcetera. However, this period is fleeting, very fleeting. Um.
Speaker 1: And next, um, you have the termination era. So this
Speaker 1: is the period of time where the federal government, essentially
Speaker 1: even more so, wants to just get rid of the
Speaker 1: quote unquote Indian problem, which is the existence of indigenous
Speaker 1: people's UM that are reminders to the government essentially that UM,
Speaker 1: they are a settler colonial force and they don't know
Speaker 1: what to do with us because they tried to commit genocide,
Speaker 1: they try to remove us, etcetera, etcetera. It's still not working. UM.
Speaker 1: They decided that our travel governments UM aren't aren't legitimate,
Speaker 1: and they just decide, well, it's too much to try
Speaker 1: to keep up with our treaties and what we promised
Speaker 1: them when it comes to healthcare, education, housing, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: How about we terminate our federal responsibility, our trust responsibility
Speaker 1: that are delineated in federal in the policy and in
Speaker 1: our treaties UM and give them off to this to
Speaker 1: the states to decide what to do with. And so
Speaker 1: during this period you see UM sort of the federal
Speaker 1: um dissolution of some tribes such as the monomy Um
Speaker 1: and other ones UM as well. So this is another
Speaker 1: dark time. They're the dark times just keep on coming.
Speaker 1: And what federal policy scholars have UM characterized federal around
Speaker 1: policy as a pendulum, the swinging swinging from side to
Speaker 1: side between this terminate this termination of tribes. So the
Speaker 1: federal India government as trying to get rid of tribes,
Speaker 1: especially as you can see in this era, and then
Speaker 1: the pendulum of the other side of self determination. But
Speaker 1: both of these are held within the context of goals
Speaker 1: of assimilation. So, um, this is just another phase of terribleness. Well,
Speaker 1: I think this this phase also like one thing I
Speaker 1: think that also like is important people understand. Is it
Speaker 1: like like it's not like people aren't fighting this like
Speaker 1: the whole time. I mean even going like even going
Speaker 1: back to the stuff the Seventh Cafrey, like the Seventh
Speaker 1: Cavalry lose like bores Day lose bells all the time.
Speaker 1: People are fighting constantly, and this is this period determination
Speaker 1: period is also you see the rise of the American
Speaker 1: Indian movements. Yeah, a lot of these periods can be
Speaker 1: like dove into more and all of these different things. Um.
Speaker 1: In every instance, in every instance of federal Indian policy,
Speaker 1: you have resistance, which we are not covering here right now. Um,
Speaker 1: but you have instances throughout history where indigenous peoples have
Speaker 1: fought for their rights to land, to um, for their community,
Speaker 1: to being sovereign nations, etcetera. And that's why the federal Indians,
Speaker 1: the federal government not federal Indian government. The federal government
Speaker 1: has not been able to eradicate us, much to their
Speaker 1: dismay UM UM. And so now I'm going to switch
Speaker 1: into the eraw that we are considered to be in,
Speaker 1: which I have mentioned when I talked about the pendulum
Speaker 1: of federal Indian policy. So now we are in the
Speaker 1: self determination era UM, which began in ninety sixty two UM,
Speaker 1: and we have UM the right it's characterized with the
Speaker 1: revitalization of tribal entities. So UM going kind of back
Speaker 1: to when there was the Indian Reorganization Acts that we
Speaker 1: have our tribal councils UM. There's restoration of some tribes
Speaker 1: under federal recognition who were terminated, again not all of them.
Speaker 1: We also have the Indian Civil Rights Act, so this
Speaker 1: this kind of guaranteed individual Indians UM some rights UM,
Speaker 1: not just characterized by their tribes. Also the self determination policy,
Speaker 1: so this is when UM Nixon condemned the termination policy
Speaker 1: and gave more control to Indians rather than the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Indian Fairs, which just a federal bureau and just
Speaker 1: kind of like other policies that UM have given the
Speaker 1: tribes more rights to UM German for themselves in their
Speaker 1: own trust, their own people, UM to a certain degree
Speaker 1: underneath the federal government as mess of dependent nations. And
Speaker 1: again I I think that we have seen a lot
Speaker 1: more movement, but within the context of being within a
Speaker 1: settler colonial state. UM. It's always I think a possibility
Speaker 1: that the federal Indian government, or the federal government I
Speaker 1: keep saying Indian, the federal government will try UM to
Speaker 1: take more and more. And I think UM, for instance,
Speaker 1: when it comes to issues of fishing rights, issues of
Speaker 1: UM hunting rights with states, not even just with the
Speaker 1: federal government. So you have a lot of states throughout
Speaker 1: throughout history but still ongoing UM that attempt to encroach
Speaker 1: on tribal treaties UM. And again, treaties are the basis
Speaker 1: of federal Indian policy. Without these treaties, that lands would
Speaker 1: have never been succeeded to the United States. And so
Speaker 1: UM there's just this sort of like legal legal conundrum
Speaker 1: I would say, of where all these all treaties in
Speaker 1: the history of the United States with Indian with Indian
Speaker 1: tribes have been broken in some way, shape or form UM.
Speaker 1: But still UM American Indians have to live on their
Speaker 1: reservations instead of having their their land back. And so
Speaker 1: nowadays a lot of movement has been towards um land
Speaker 1: back what this means? What is this process? And I
Speaker 1: think it means a lot of different things for different
Speaker 1: people Indigenous people because again there's there's seventy four federally
Speaker 1: recognized tribes and so it's not one monolith of ideas
Speaker 1: and monolith of the beliefs. But by just by saying
Speaker 1: land back, that's like recognition that this is our this
Speaker 1: was our land first, and you're not keeping your side
Speaker 1: of the deal and never have been. Could you maybe
Speaker 1: go a bit more into land back with the topic,
Speaker 1: because like specifically, like the past five years, it has
Speaker 1: really gain a lot more like um popularity as like
Speaker 1: a slogan UM. But I think for a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of people who chanted and here it don't
Speaker 1: always really know exactly what it means. That there's a
Speaker 1: lot of like mixed opinions on what it means. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, on like the more like reactionary side, it's
Speaker 1: like people be like, what you're going to like kick
Speaker 1: white people out of these areas, Like that's kind of
Speaker 1: that's what a lot of like the reactionary takes on
Speaker 1: land Back is. Um And I'm sure most people are
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast that's not what they think, um,
Speaker 1: But they may not really know exactly what it means either. Um.
Speaker 1: They may I think it sounds like a good idea,
Speaker 1: but they're not quite sure what it is. Do you
Speaker 1: mind kind of talking about how land back is like
Speaker 1: developed as as an idea and what like what like
Speaker 1: you mean by it personally? At least? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I can talk about more about like what I mean
Speaker 1: by it personally and what I've understood it to mean
Speaker 1: to other people, because I think, um, land back itself,
Speaker 1: it means like a lot of different things, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that there has been a concrete kind of
Speaker 1: idea of what it means. But I think a lot
Speaker 1: of the movement, I want to contextualize it within a
Speaker 1: lot of the sort of act activism that we've seen
Speaker 1: in their recent years. UM. So, for instance, no Jack
Speaker 1: all the Dakota Access pipeline in two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 1: and kind of I think that's one of the more
Speaker 1: recent events that have really illustrated on a wide scale,
Speaker 1: like globally about indigenous movements, UM, sovereignty movements, and especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to environmental justice. But what you saw
Speaker 1: there was encroachment on tribal treaty land within UM that
Speaker 1: when it had to do with the Dakota Access pipeline. UM.
Speaker 1: So although it didn't cross some of the current reservation borders,
Speaker 1: it was in treaty land, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: The same the same thing was stop line three. How
Speaker 1: it encroached on like the hunting land and the farmland
Speaker 1: that was not technically in the like residential like like
Speaker 1: um like like not in like the reservation area where
Speaker 1: people live, but it's in the surrounding area that is
Speaker 1: for hunting that is specified in the treaty. So people
Speaker 1: trying to use these loopholes to get the pipelines through
Speaker 1: right right. And so I think what you see is
Speaker 1: a lot of solidarity across tribes because this is not new,
Speaker 1: This has never been new, and a lot of abs
Speaker 1: can relate to that. And what you've seen and what
Speaker 1: I've hoped that I've highlighted throughout this kind of very
Speaker 1: brief overview of federal ving policy is the different ways
Speaker 1: that indigenous rights to land and sovereignty has been attacked
Speaker 1: in different forms by settler and colonial governments. Um. And
Speaker 1: I think that the day and age that we live
Speaker 1: in now has allowed for um sort of more widespread solidarity,
Speaker 1: especially over social media. UM. And so when we say
Speaker 1: land back for me, how I interpret it as what
Speaker 1: people mean when they're saying it is recognition of our
Speaker 1: tribal sovereignty, of our right to this land that has
Speaker 1: not been respected. And then I also think that it means, well,
Speaker 1: if these treaties aren't being respected, then how is this
Speaker 1: treaty still UM valid? Right? How we aren't getting our
Speaker 1: land back because they're not upholding your end of the deal.
Speaker 1: While some people also might mean and recognize that this
Speaker 1: whole United States government is a settler state right based
Speaker 1: on the doctrine of discovery, which is based on denying
Speaker 1: tribes and American Indians of their rights to this land. UM.
Speaker 1: So some people might take it to this whole other
Speaker 1: context of yeah, well maybe this is this is all
Speaker 1: of our land, etcetera, etcetera. But in practice, what does
Speaker 1: this look like? And I think in practice a lot
Speaker 1: of people UM are seeing it with reparations or people
Speaker 1: buying land back for tribes and giving it back to tribes.
Speaker 1: And we have seen some of that or UM also
Speaker 1: just people interrupting the narrative UM in their own mind
Speaker 1: of their euro American identity, so not non UM American
Speaker 1: Indians and primarily europe and settlers and their history of
Speaker 1: their own families taking part of the settler colonial process,
Speaker 1: and how has that UM what about their lands? There's
Speaker 1: everyone who UM descends I guess from these these settlers,
Speaker 1: and I want to be specific when I'm talking about
Speaker 1: Euro American settlers um, UM and how they currently benefit
Speaker 1: from these systems. And I think by saying land back, UM,
Speaker 1: it's we're able to highlight this movement for tribal sovereignty
Speaker 1: and recognition on a global scale instead of searching for
Speaker 1: justice within the quote unquote like UM searching for justice
Speaker 1: within the courts of the conqueror, How how do we
Speaker 1: expect UM for the conqueror to be held accountable for
Speaker 1: all of these atrocities, attempts at genocide, assimilation, et cetera.
Speaker 1: By taking it more towards a global scale, such as
Speaker 1: no adaptle highlighting these two other people as these are
Speaker 1: injustices is UM, this is this is ongoing genocide. I
Speaker 1: think that land back has many like a plethora of
Speaker 1: meanings in the in that sense. Yeah. Yeah, I hope
Speaker 1: that answers your question. I myself, UM might use it
Speaker 1: in in some some different ways. Um, because land as
Speaker 1: we conceive it to be property kind of grew that
Speaker 1: concept grew in conversation with Euro American Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah,
Speaker 1: conceptions of property. So I think that, um, moving forward
Speaker 1: when we talk about de colonization as a process and
Speaker 1: not like a metaphor, um that thinking of land back
Speaker 1: not within that whole idea of your American property as well.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of another thing to consider. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think Lena would just be a hold other
Speaker 1: thing that will pay someone more qualified than our team
Speaker 1: to talk about on this show. Um. Because yeah, that's
Speaker 1: definitely like you know, like all of the things we've
Speaker 1: we've discussed, they deserve their own deep dives by people
Speaker 1: that are uh not me, Robert and Chris. UM. Let's see,
Speaker 1: is is there any kind of resources either books or
Speaker 1: stuff online that you would recommend for people wanting to
Speaker 1: learn more about this history? Um? And then any kind
Speaker 1: of ways to I don't know, I guess show support
Speaker 1: in these and these kind of like efforts that are
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, for sure. UM. So in terms of
Speaker 1: resources and reading UM, I have read Lorenzo Verrocchini's UM
Speaker 1: Settler book on Settler Colonialism. UM. That's really helpful when
Speaker 1: you're trying to understand that framework in terms of getting
Speaker 1: to know kind of or the basics of like current
Speaker 1: UM issues impacting tribes UM. The National Congress of American
Speaker 1: Indians does a lot of work on the federal level. UM.
Speaker 1: If you want to talk more about UM kind of
Speaker 1: lived current lived experiences of American Indians, there's illuminatives UM
Speaker 1: and getting more involved in those as well. I think
Speaker 1: that they have some tips, but I would recommend UM
Speaker 1: everyone getting more familiar with the land that they are
Speaker 1: on currently, the tribes within their states, and what they
Speaker 1: can do UM, not just on the local level, but
Speaker 1: on the state level to support tribal sovereignty UM. Because
Speaker 1: a lot of issues UH. For instance, I worked UM
Speaker 1: on the on the state policy level in Washington and
Speaker 1: in Montana, and both of those have a significant amount
Speaker 1: of tribes UM. But you have a lot of legislation
Speaker 1: that's trying to happen that infringes on tribal treaty. Rights.
Speaker 1: And the thing is is UM as ugly as it
Speaker 1: maybe to say, but sometimes voices of non indigenous people's
Speaker 1: are listened to more within those UM contexts. So you
Speaker 1: need to get more involved on on those levels. UM
Speaker 1: what sort of like at UM nonprofit organizations UM work
Speaker 1: with your tribes or and what sort of issues are
Speaker 1: impacting tribes. And again these are all gonna probably be
Speaker 1: surrounding travel sovereignty, so maybe it's UM fishing access, hunting rights, etcetera. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that's a really good way to make some
Speaker 1: more palates UM tangible change, to feel like you're doing
Speaker 1: something to support tribal sovereignty while you're also educating your
Speaker 1: your self and making sure that their voices are at
Speaker 1: the forefront. And that's also applicable to the federal level,
Speaker 1: especially with as you already said, like stop line three
Speaker 1: in Minnesota, contacting your legislators, etcetera, etcetera. And I think
Speaker 1: also with when it comes to one of one of
Speaker 1: the larger issues besides UM environmental justice for indigenous peoples
Speaker 1: such as pipelines, you have right now missing a murdered
Speaker 1: indigenous women, UM, so looking and looking into that UM
Speaker 1: a little bit more and who you can support who's
Speaker 1: addressing those issues. Along with UM, there is another movement
Speaker 1: with boarding schools right now because there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of UM bodies of young children UM that have been uncovered.
Speaker 1: And this is not an issue that happened a long
Speaker 1: long time ago, like for instance, my grandmother went to
Speaker 1: a boarding school. UM. There's still schools that UM although
Speaker 1: they're not called boarding schools right now that we're boarding schools,
Speaker 1: but are still an operation under different names, etcetera. UM.
Speaker 1: So kind of familiarizing yourself with those histories. And then
Speaker 1: also there's a UM national UM I think it's called
Speaker 1: the National Boarding School Healing Coalition based out of Minnesota,
Speaker 1: and UM looking into them and supporting their efforts UM
Speaker 1: with this issue is also a good place to start. UM.
Speaker 1: Is there anywhere that people can find you online? Yes?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't really use UM social media that much.
Speaker 1: From yeah yeah, yeah, I try not to. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If I want people to find me, do not, don't,
Speaker 1: don't do it better, It's it's better that people don't
Speaker 1: find anyone online. It's better we're all just just posting
Speaker 1: into the void. There's nothing not just just a void.
Speaker 1: Well that that is I think gonna wrap up what
Speaker 1: we have today. Chris don want to close us out
Speaker 1: with a funny bit A right light your local gas
Speaker 1: station on fire. Wow, Jesus Christ killing it here? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, jeez wow. All right, goodbye forbody. The Gangster
Speaker 1: Chronicles podcast is a weekly conversation that revolves around Underworld
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Speaker 1: Terrible My Me? This Is It Could Happen Here, a
Speaker 1: podcast about collapse. And that's a appropriate because everyone's faith
Speaker 1: in me as a colleague has collapsed today as the
Speaker 1: result of a series of horrific cluster fox On my part,
Speaker 1: I'm late to the meeting. I accidentally left the meeting
Speaker 1: when they started recording just a just a complete fucking
Speaker 1: ship show. Speaking of ship shows, my co host Garrison Davis,
Speaker 1: how are you Arison, I'm the one that saved this.
Speaker 1: I had to send the guest to the zoom call,
Speaker 1: I know, and I'm not even supposed to be on
Speaker 1: this call. No you're not. You're not even supposed to
Speaker 1: be working today. That's not true. Well, but you're not
Speaker 1: on this call, not on this call. But here I
Speaker 1: am saving. This is enough. This is enough, Woody Banter.
Speaker 1: This is a daily podcast. And now let's bring on
Speaker 1: our guest for today, monsignor Alex new House. Alex, how
Speaker 1: are you doing. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I feel like I was pulled in off the street,
Speaker 1: just like bundled into a van and then yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we uh. You know how people used to get like shanghaied,
Speaker 1: like like captured by it, allegedly allegedly and forced to
Speaker 1: work on on on boats in like San Francisco and whatnot.
Speaker 1: We do that with podcasts. I mean that is actually
Speaker 1: most of what I've done to the people who work
Speaker 1: on your podcast. I think I think I've had everyone
Speaker 1: from your show on our show now, and it has
Speaker 1: been very much like I'm just pulling them on a string.
Speaker 1: Speaking of which, Alex, you are one of the hosts
Speaker 1: of the Terrorism Is Bad podcast, a very uh controversially
Speaker 1: named podcast. Uh. And you work at the Middlebury Institute
Speaker 1: of International Studies at Monterey Center of Terrorism, Extremism and
Speaker 1: counter Terrorism Center on not not of that would be
Speaker 1: a different center, very important, very important. Yeah, and we're
Speaker 1: not We're not bringing you on to talk about how
Speaker 1: to make explosively formed penetrators. Not this time. That is
Speaker 1: someone else. Yeah, but you and you are also you
Speaker 1: were also a actual games journalist. Yes, yeah, I got
Speaker 1: my start in is Weird Space. How do you gamer Gate?
Speaker 1: How do you feel about ethics in the game journalism industry? Alex, Uh,
Speaker 1: always been fine, like the ship. Yeah, alright, anyway, that's
Speaker 1: the end of that. Yeah, I do want to actually
Speaker 1: start there, Alex, because you and I both have something
Speaker 1: in common, which is that we we got our start
Speaker 1: writing in a field that's wildly different from consulting with
Speaker 1: like governments on terrorism. Like for me, it was I
Speaker 1: wanted to write like Dick jokes on the Internet and
Speaker 1: I just like stumbled into a bunch of ices propaganda
Speaker 1: that most people weren't aware of, and and that started
Speaker 1: me like lecturing at universities and ship And for you
Speaker 1: it was gamer gates. I'm interested in kind of you
Speaker 1: telling your story a little bit to start us off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was. I was during undergrad I enterned every
Speaker 1: summer at game Spot video game website you may have
Speaker 1: heard of. It's one of the two big ones along
Speaker 1: with I g n UM. And when I was doing that,
Speaker 1: I was so this was like right in at the
Speaker 1: beginning stages of of gaming gate really popping off. And
Speaker 1: what ended up happening is a lot of the people
Speaker 1: I worked with, a lot of my colleagues and friends
Speaker 1: were just in the blast zone. They were just targeted
Speaker 1: by the absolute onslaught of of harassment UM and I
Speaker 1: just had a curiosity started looking into some of those
Speaker 1: people who were who are targeting my friends and colleagues,
Speaker 1: and it ended up being a lot of the people
Speaker 1: that were still talking about today. Uh, you know, it
Speaker 1: all all rolls back up to the bright bart metropolitan area,
Speaker 1: if you will. And um, I don't know what a
Speaker 1: uh the thing that made me want to I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously I've been aware of you work for well, but
Speaker 1: the thing that maybe want to specifically bring you on
Speaker 1: as you started on a new project to create like
Speaker 1: a video game that that will hopefully have an ability
Speaker 1: to help like de radicalize people. And I'm I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely certain like of the details of the project, but
Speaker 1: I think it's a fascinating project because, as as you
Speaker 1: know all too well, a lot of this stuff started
Speaker 1: in gaming, not as a result of anything specifically about
Speaker 1: gay but the kind of like socialization that occurs in
Speaker 1: those spaces and the kind of like different communities. And
Speaker 1: it's been like we have going back to the nineties
Speaker 1: evidence of like different Nazi groups on the early Internet,
Speaker 1: like talking about like these are specific specific groups and
Speaker 1: subcultures that you know will have an easier time radicalizing
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But yeah, I'm interested in kind of what
Speaker 1: actually is going on with this project, um, and and
Speaker 1: how you think it's going to look at this stage.
Speaker 1: I understand it's pretty early in development right now, so
Speaker 1: I'm not expecting like, you know, an E three walkthrough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our E three size life and I wish we had that. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We won a grant from DHS and FEMA their their
Speaker 1: Tears and Prevention Grant program this year. We just got
Speaker 1: awarded it like literally two weeks ago, so I have
Speaker 1: not even started work on it at all. But the
Speaker 1: project will be a collaboration between my center and a
Speaker 1: nonprofit games development company called the I Thrive Foundation. UH.
Speaker 1: And basically what we are going to do is like
Speaker 1: build digital scenario as digital narratives that can be engaged
Speaker 1: with UH within classroom settings. So we're targeting high schools
Speaker 1: for rolling this out UH. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: we're going to give students the ability to take on
Speaker 1: roles that empower them to better understand how extremism and
Speaker 1: radicalization work as mechanisms, which will hopefully the idea is
Speaker 1: that it will it will improve resilience and you know,
Speaker 1: civil integrity and all those fun buzzwords within within high
Speaker 1: school communities. So we're not necessarily trying to de radicalize
Speaker 1: already radicalize people, but we're really trying to build community
Speaker 1: awareness community resilience to to radicalization pathways. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is something I think about constantly because I get asked
Speaker 1: this a lot. You know, I'll get I'll get emailed
Speaker 1: questions from people, sometimes as much detail as like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm like a teacher and here's some things this could
Speaker 1: in my classes said or something he put in an essay,
Speaker 1: and like, I'm growing really concerned about him, and like, I,
Speaker 1: I what do I do? And my usual answer is
Speaker 1: there's a couple of people who I respect that I'll
Speaker 1: try to direct them too, But I I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty good at how people get radicalized. It's something I
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time studying. I don't know how
Speaker 1: how you I have trouble figuring out how to break
Speaker 1: down these pathways because like, right, the the default for
Speaker 1: a lot of people and for a lot of time
Speaker 1: has been will you d platform? Right? You? Um, you
Speaker 1: get them off of whatever? And there's there's still I
Speaker 1: do certainly think there's there's utility in that, but there's
Speaker 1: also you know, the toothpaste tube effect, the fact that
Speaker 1: when you you squash these popular areas where they're able
Speaker 1: to spread them, they filter off into increasingly isolated communities
Speaker 1: that develop new terms, they find out ways to hide it,
Speaker 1: and that actually increases you know, it may it may
Speaker 1: reduce the number of people who get radicalized, but the
Speaker 1: people who remain just get more and more extreme because
Speaker 1: they're even more isolated from you know, everyone else. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, how do you how do you how
Speaker 1: do you break that that radicalization cycle? Like, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you stop that ship before it gets,
Speaker 1: you know, to a tipping point? Yeah, I mean, in general,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, I'm pretty skeptical of a lot of
Speaker 1: the radicalization state. G's uh. And it's it's like an
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult task to to pull someone out who's already
Speaker 1: going down these pathways. And then, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: also an incredibly difficult task to make sure that when
Speaker 1: you are disrupting the radicalization networks that they aren't just
Speaker 1: disappearing off to some other corner of the Internet, which
Speaker 1: we know they're doing. Like, one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: we're we're working with a video game video game company
Speaker 1: is over the last few years, we've noticed a big
Speaker 1: migration into video game platforms, especially big social based video
Speaker 1: game platforms like Roadblocks and Minecraft, which are like not
Speaker 1: even remotely prepared to deal with you know, very well
Speaker 1: developed sophisticated radicalization networks. They have moved over there, uh,
Speaker 1: both for organization and radicalization reasons. Um, since mainstream companies
Speaker 1: have started taking more of an interest in deep platforming them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so we're ending up like pretty wildly unprepared for
Speaker 1: this sudden onslought of extreme as being right in front
Speaker 1: of kids as they're playing games or you know, teenagers
Speaker 1: or even young adults. So our idea essentially is to
Speaker 1: use that language, the same language that extremists are trying
Speaker 1: to adopt the structures of video games three via the
Speaker 1: sort of interactivity there, to better communicate the impacts of extremism,
Speaker 1: what it looks like, how to identify it, and hopefully
Speaker 1: how to avoid getting you know, falling into the traps
Speaker 1: that are laid for for unsuspecting people. One of the
Speaker 1: issues and I'm curious your thoughts on this because we
Speaker 1: we we talk a lot about, Like I think people
Speaker 1: have become increasingly aware of how bad Facebook in particular is,
Speaker 1: is a problem with this. It's it's really well real.
Speaker 1: A lot of the Boogaloo movement to and now this
Speaker 1: stuff is coming out about like the data Facebook has
Speaker 1: had on just and this isn't this isn't this is
Speaker 1: adjacent to radicalization, Um, the mental impact that it's been
Speaker 1: having on teenagers, right, like the just how bad it
Speaker 1: is for people, And UM, I'm wondering, like how do
Speaker 1: you scale this stuff? I guess is the question, like
Speaker 1: how do you actually how do you make the social
Speaker 1: internet less dangerous? Yeah? I mean that's that's going to
Speaker 1: be extremely tough. And we are even starting very very small,
Speaker 1: like we're building we're building on a narrative platform to
Speaker 1: target three high schools right now. UM. But the hope
Speaker 1: is that ultimately what we can do is build a
Speaker 1: tool set and and a platform like literally a game
Speaker 1: platform that can be used by high school teachers in
Speaker 1: high school classes throughout the country or throughout the world. Um.
Speaker 1: The idea will be to hopefully make a new sort
Speaker 1: of package of different methods and interactive experiences that can
Speaker 1: be reused into the future. But it is one of
Speaker 1: the big open questions that we will hopefully come to
Speaker 1: some sort of answer for throughout the project about how
Speaker 1: do we actually scale us up? Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: in general, it is again like one of the biggest
Speaker 1: open questions right now. One of the reasons why I's
Speaker 1: so skeptical of a lot of d RAD and CBE
Speaker 1: techniques is they try to go for scale about effectiveness UM,
Speaker 1: when in reality, one of the best and only the
Speaker 1: radicalization pathways that we know of involves people that you
Speaker 1: know and I know going out and meeting with these
Speaker 1: people one on one and having intensive, frequent communications with them.
Speaker 1: So UM, there's as far as we know, there's not
Speaker 1: a good answer right now. This is a huge place
Speaker 1: of research right now because we just straight up do
Speaker 1: not understand how to scale up UM radicalization, prevention and
Speaker 1: de radicalization. I mean, and you know what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do, and like, reaching kids in high school in
Speaker 1: something that's meant they're meant to be consuming while they're
Speaker 1: in school is even such an additional challenge because I
Speaker 1: think you and I are both young enough to at
Speaker 1: least remember that like almost nothing that you put before
Speaker 1: kids in that context in a school gets through. I can.
Speaker 1: I can. I can think about like anti drug programs
Speaker 1: and stuff when I was a kid, and how in
Speaker 1: effective they were. There was I had one one effective
Speaker 1: anti drug like speech by a teacher and it was
Speaker 1: just a teacher who who's it was part of this
Speaker 1: this there was this one night and plane where like
Speaker 1: six kids indeed on heroin. It was there was big
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone article about it was a very famous moment,
Speaker 1: and her son was one of the kids who nearly
Speaker 1: died and she was and she like just explained like
Speaker 1: physically what happened to him and begged us not to
Speaker 1: do heroin. And that actually did stick with me. I've
Speaker 1: never never shot up anything, um, but you know, like
Speaker 1: the a lot of it doesn't work. And I think
Speaker 1: part of why it's this thing I talked about when
Speaker 1: I tried to explain like why isis propaganda was so effective,
Speaker 1: it's the it feels more authentic than the than the
Speaker 1: counter narrative, right, the counter narrative, because it's it's usually
Speaker 1: focus grouped. It's coming as the result of like some
Speaker 1: sort of government initiative, a bunch of people worked in together.
Speaker 1: It feels focus grouped as opposed to there's something inherently
Speaker 1: more compelling about something that just like it feels like
Speaker 1: somebody who really gave a ship, cares a lot put
Speaker 1: this thing together, even if it's terrible, and I that
Speaker 1: strikes me as a really, because if you're going to
Speaker 1: be scaling something and trying to reach a lot of people,
Speaker 1: it's going to have to be something that is put
Speaker 1: together at scale by an organization. And how do you
Speaker 1: I mean, I know this must be on your mind
Speaker 1: as you're trying to figure out how to craft this thing.
Speaker 1: I'm just interested in your thoughts on that. Really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that exact challenge challenges what led us to
Speaker 1: proposing the project project that we are so the idea
Speaker 1: behind it, or the the impetus behind what we did
Speaker 1: what we proposed is, um, the exact problem of students
Speaker 1: just don't listen to people in whether that's anti drug
Speaker 1: programs or anything like that. Often, my uh my uh
Speaker 1: feeling about it is they are often resistant to it
Speaker 1: because it's very negative. It's very don't do this, don't
Speaker 1: do this. I'm setting up boundaries for for kids and
Speaker 1: analystens to act within. It's all very declaratory, very you know, commanding. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no there's no sense of treating kids like people
Speaker 1: who have control, who have interests, who have motivations. It's
Speaker 1: all attempting to restrict them. And so the idea is
Speaker 1: that we're going to attempt to build a game play
Speaker 1: form than actually empower students to operate within roles that
Speaker 1: have control, that that have something to say, to give them,
Speaker 1: voices to give them um and that sort of feeling
Speaker 1: of being an established um person within a within a
Speaker 1: certain scenario. Um. The way that I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: it is that we're basically merging video games with like
Speaker 1: the structure of a model UN conference or something like that.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll be a little less nerdy than the model
Speaker 1: UN conferences, but that's the idea of giving people power
Speaker 1: to make decisions, uh, and and treat them like actual,
Speaker 1: you know, operating humans. Yeah, I uh, I'm wondering do
Speaker 1: you have any kind of models that you're looking at
Speaker 1: when you think of like something that you see is
Speaker 1: is kind of worth I don't emulating maybe the wrong word,
Speaker 1: but like, oh, these people I think got it right
Speaker 1: and and this was effective, Like or is this really
Speaker 1: a situation where you feel like we're kind of in
Speaker 1: the fucking wilderness here. There's not a lot of great
Speaker 1: models for what's effective. We are very much in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: We're going to at this kind I was expecting you
Speaker 1: to say, like so much of c V and d
Speaker 1: RAD work over the last ten years has been directly
Speaker 1: towards trying to essentially recreate the like the DARE model
Speaker 1: or the anti drug model, just in a different field. UM.
Speaker 1: And so we're going to be pulling from scenario builders
Speaker 1: and like mala un and debate and like all of
Speaker 1: these different models that seem to at least work to
Speaker 1: get kids engage with like operating that sort of situation.
Speaker 1: But it is going to be pretty I mean, at
Speaker 1: least from what I understand, is gonna be pretty new.
Speaker 1: We're going to be out there really flying blind for
Speaker 1: a lot of it, UM, But we will you know,
Speaker 1: we have a pilot phase built in to try to
Speaker 1: bate attest this with with um some of the students
Speaker 1: were incorporating students and instructors in the actual creation development stage.
Speaker 1: So that'll be another hopefully good part of this will
Speaker 1: we'll give some students experience with the game development process,
Speaker 1: which I think will all. Yeah, that strikes me as
Speaker 1: a particularly good idea of like giving and also just
Speaker 1: giving them some agency. So it's not like this is
Speaker 1: a thing that you are forced to consume, Like this
Speaker 1: is the thing that you can like learn something from
Speaker 1: I think that's that's very important. I'm interested in how
Speaker 1: you see how you see this because like, again, we
Speaker 1: kind of both got in around the same time. Gamer
Speaker 1: Gate is when I started paying attention to radicalization to
Speaker 1: how do you think it's changed since then? How do
Speaker 1: you think like the nature of of how, particularly like
Speaker 1: younger people are being radicalized has changed. And I guess
Speaker 1: I'm also interested because I get the feeling that back
Speaker 1: then it was mostly younger people getting radicalized and that's
Speaker 1: no longer the case. I'm just as we're talking, I
Speaker 1: just came across the video on Twitter of a group
Speaker 1: of anti vax protesters chasing parents and children away from
Speaker 1: an elementary school and screaming at them that they're raping
Speaker 1: their kids with a vaccine. So clearly the problem is expanded.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, and honestly, one of the things that
Speaker 1: keeps me up at night is that when we start,
Speaker 1: if you know, knocking movies are a roll this out
Speaker 1: to more schools, We're going to run into some probably
Speaker 1: very resistant parents who have radicalized. Yum. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the big one is, like what you said, like the
Speaker 1: radicalization demographics have vastly expanded to incorporate so many more
Speaker 1: different types of people, so many more ages and even
Speaker 1: ethnicities and genders. Um. But what we do know is
Speaker 1: that the hardcore of the of the violent extremists are
Speaker 1: still targeting adolescents. UM. We know, accelerationists, for instance, hang
Speaker 1: out and try to essentially blackpill a bunch of teens,
Speaker 1: especially autistic teens, especially teens with mental health issues, UH,
Speaker 1: and bring them into a more violent, more accelerationist posture. UM.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I think that has sort of stayed
Speaker 1: constant throughout all of this. One of the big uh
Speaker 1: changes has been platforms. You know, ten years ago, it
Speaker 1: was much easier for a neo Nazi to operate openly
Speaker 1: on YouTube or Facebook, but has thankfully changed. Um. But
Speaker 1: they have spread out into like I mentioned earlier, they've
Speaker 1: spread out into video games. They spread out into other
Speaker 1: sorts of platforms where the social aspect isn't necessarily the
Speaker 1: first part of the platform, but rather a secondary aspect
Speaker 1: to it, and they try to engage um adolescence on
Speaker 1: their own turf on you know, in a Roadblocks game
Speaker 1: or in a in a video game forum. Out there.
Speaker 1: It's not even enough to say it feels like the
Speaker 1: task of reducing radicalization or or not not even mentioned,
Speaker 1: pulling it back, just stopping the process. It feels not
Speaker 1: just like whack a mole, but like whack a mole
Speaker 1: when you're surrounded by moles. Um. And I guess that
Speaker 1: is the thing that keeps me up at night the
Speaker 1: most too, is that like the problem has gotten because
Speaker 1: of how social media scales, I think, in large part,
Speaker 1: has gotten so much worse than it ever was. And
Speaker 1: the I see these crowds of adults, you know, assembling
Speaker 1: in you know, places like Los Angeles, showing up outside
Speaker 1: of schools to her ask people, and like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what, I don't know what to do about that.
Speaker 1: Like part of me thinks, um, part of me thinks
Speaker 1: that the only effective long term answer is to mobilize
Speaker 1: a larger number of people two show up to you know,
Speaker 1: not necessarily confront those people, but make them make them
Speaker 1: feel outnumbered, and maybe they'll stop, and that will start
Speaker 1: a process where they they alter their thinking. Like I'm
Speaker 1: thinking kind of back to some aspects of the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement here right where you would have these people
Speaker 1: show up at schools just try to stop integration and whatnot,
Speaker 1: and they would be opposed, often by by larger groups
Speaker 1: that they would see the size of the marches in
Speaker 1: the street, and like, I don't know, I don't even
Speaker 1: know if it works that way anymore. Like knowing that
Speaker 1: you know, tend to one people think your stance on
Speaker 1: vaccines is stupid and they're willing to show up to
Speaker 1: like yell at you if that would do anything. But
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I don't know what's going to do.
Speaker 1: Like I'm I guess I'm asking you, like, can you
Speaker 1: have you figured this out? Because I don't know what
Speaker 1: the fun to do. Um, But it's it's it's not
Speaker 1: you can't we can't close there. Obviously you're someone who's
Speaker 1: trying to confront it directly, but we certainly can't keep
Speaker 1: ourselves like just pretend it's not going to get worse, right, No, totally,
Speaker 1: And um, you know, I often feel like it's almost
Speaker 1: too far gone. And you know, frequently I worry that
Speaker 1: we've already passed some sort of you know, point of
Speaker 1: no return on radicalization exploitation of social media. But one
Speaker 1: of the other things I've also recognized is that when
Speaker 1: you're in a space that is dedicated to one type
Speaker 1: of confronting one one method of confronting extremism. Very often
Speaker 1: they will forget about, or the prioritize, or or even
Speaker 1: ignore the other types, the other methods. And one of
Speaker 1: the tasks before us, I think, before we throw up
Speaker 1: our hands and give up, is trying to tie together
Speaker 1: all of the different facets of of resisting extremism, from
Speaker 1: the hardcore confrontational dosing and showing up in the streets counterprotesting,
Speaker 1: which I think is an essential part of it, to
Speaker 1: UM working as hard as we can to try to
Speaker 1: get tech companies to to realize what's going on UH,
Speaker 1: and then also on the educational side, like what we're
Speaker 1: doing with this with this project UM. Some of the
Speaker 1: things that make me at least a little bit optimistic
Speaker 1: is that there is obviously inertia, both intentional and unintentional
Speaker 1: at tech companies, but frankly, they are still extremely far
Speaker 1: behind in understanding how to even do D platforming on
Speaker 1: their platforms, how to even identify who t D platform
Speaker 1: like the majority of tech companies are still making content
Speaker 1: moderation decisions on a piece by piece basis, specifically looking
Speaker 1: at content. Very few of them are doing actor analysis,
Speaker 1: very few of them are doing secial network analysis. Very
Speaker 1: few of them are looking at even the links between
Speaker 1: like off platform violence and on platform content like the
Speaker 1: They are still very much in the stone ages when
Speaker 1: it comes to contentment moderation. And that's so so key
Speaker 1: when I think about like what actually would reduce the
Speaker 1: harm that these platforms are doing at scale. It's focusing
Speaker 1: on the actors, um and and not just like the
Speaker 1: individual actors, which is part of the patterns that let
Speaker 1: you tell whether or not someone is like that same
Speaker 1: actor who is kind of like putting on a different hat,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Um, are you aware of like is
Speaker 1: there any I because I have not seen that happen yet.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen Facebook take that seriously. Um, and I
Speaker 1: have I have spent some time there. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: certainly haven't seen Twitter take that seriously. Um, I haven't
Speaker 1: really seen. I don't believe TikTok is like they're they're
Speaker 1: they're they're just um like you said, they're going after
Speaker 1: they're taking it on a piece bay piece basis, which
Speaker 1: is never there's too many pieces. That's never going to
Speaker 1: handle the problem. Yeah, I mean, take talk is crawling
Speaker 1: right now on the air in their infancy. Um, they don't.
Speaker 1: They don't have a data sharing UH, any sort of
Speaker 1: data sharing systems set up for for researchers or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Yet I I've seen optimistic signals. So I
Speaker 1: think Facebook's approach to q and on in boogleoo movement
Speaker 1: over the past year has been probably the best, the
Speaker 1: most positive development we've seen on the content moderation front,
Speaker 1: because they took an actual network based approach to it.
Speaker 1: It was handstrung by a variety of different policy decisions,
Speaker 1: but it was still from like a from like a
Speaker 1: mechanics standpoint, the most sophisticated one any of the companies
Speaker 1: has actually talked about openly. UH. And YouTube has followed
Speaker 1: in their path. They've started taking more network approaches. Um
Speaker 1: they They've taken moderation action against q and on on
Speaker 1: a similar basis. But the thing that I want tech
Speaker 1: companies to start looking at is applying a lot of
Speaker 1: the techniques they're using for disinformation and in info ops
Speaker 1: work to extremism and radicalization. It's very similar, but right
Speaker 1: now it seems to be just easier politically or just
Speaker 1: there further along with doing the large scale network analysis
Speaker 1: approaches on this info UM, Like Twitter is doing a
Speaker 1: lot of that, but it's all on information operations and
Speaker 1: to info yeah, as opposed to yeah people. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I I worry too because I'm paying attention to kind
Speaker 1: of you know, you have this whistle blower from Facebook,
Speaker 1: and how that's being politicized, right, how the right is
Speaker 1: kind of coming at this from a they're trying to say,
Speaker 1: like as Ben Shapira said, they're trying to to UM
Speaker 1: to censor alternative media voices and the like. And I
Speaker 1: I worry tremendously about the politicization because number one, it
Speaker 1: means that at best we've got like three years to
Speaker 1: get something together before you know, who knows whose wides
Speaker 1: up in the White House next. But also if it's
Speaker 1: just this thing of like veering between who gets who
Speaker 1: gets paid attention to UM based on like what is
Speaker 1: politically viable for Facebook, We're never going to solve the problem.
Speaker 1: And I I think I agree with you for the
Speaker 1: most part on the Facebook's response to the boogle Boo movement.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess I think the problem was that
Speaker 1: by the time they developed a functional set of responses
Speaker 1: to it UM, it had metastasized, it had grown, it
Speaker 1: had grown strong enough to exist on its own, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people have gotten exposed. What do you
Speaker 1: think is the actual is reasonable to expect in terms
Speaker 1: of response time from these people, Because with Boogleoo stuff,
Speaker 1: it was about I want to say, about three months maybe, well, no,
Speaker 1: it was more like five. It was about five months
Speaker 1: that it had from like December of twenty nineteen was
Speaker 1: when I started really noticing it. And then like you know,
Speaker 1: May at the when when stuff really kicked off with
Speaker 1: the George Floyd protests, when you started to see action
Speaker 1: taking the tail into May. Yeah, so I guess that
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like what is the half life of this ship?
Speaker 1: Like how quickly do you need to crack down on
Speaker 1: this stuff before it it gets to be impossible to contain? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the biggest limiting factor on the effectiveness
Speaker 1: of UH contemnation in general, but also in particular these
Speaker 1: new approaches that the tech companies seem to be experimenting with. UM,
Speaker 1: my understanding is that part of the So I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not defending Facebook by any stretch. I'm not here
Speaker 1: to be the Facebook rallying croup. But my understanding is
Speaker 1: that they literally did develop an entirely separate approach to
Speaker 1: taking down the biblue movements, So that explains at least
Speaker 1: a little bit of the delay. But hopefully, you know,
Speaker 1: my optimistic side hopes that they will be able to
Speaker 1: apply it more quickly in the future. Um. The problem
Speaker 1: is a lot of the network approaches that have been
Speaker 1: developed are have like these very high thresholds for attribution.
Speaker 1: So it has to be like a dedicated network that
Speaker 1: has crossed the line into criminal activity and is actively
Speaker 1: calling for you know, political violence on like a network level,
Speaker 1: and that like we all know that that isn't that
Speaker 1: is like the end goal or the end point in right,
Speaker 1: Like that is the terminal point of the development of
Speaker 1: these extremist networks. So you know, we're one of the
Speaker 1: one of the things that we're working on is trying
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to convince tech companies that
Speaker 1: you can and should take action earlier before it reaches
Speaker 1: that point. And it's going to be a mosaic of things.
Speaker 1: It's going to be combining violent extremism with hate speech,
Speaker 1: with even like c SAM child exploitation stuff, with um all,
Speaker 1: you know, criminal criminal conspiracy network policies. All of those
Speaker 1: things need to be sort of thought of as pieces
Speaker 1: in a single, big, overarching umbrella that we can use
Speaker 1: to take down networks earlier on. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a that's one of the biggest tasks is
Speaker 1: just convincing them to think about it much much earlier. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: all right, well, let's I think most of what I
Speaker 1: wanted to get into today. Is there anything else you
Speaker 1: really wanted to like kind of talk about while you're here? Um,
Speaker 1: those are the those are the big ones for sure.
Speaker 1: We will hopefully have more to talk about very soon.
Speaker 1: And how we're approaching this project. Um, it's going to
Speaker 1: be a pretty big project. It will take two years
Speaker 1: to implement, but um, we're pretty excited to see what
Speaker 1: comes out of it. Yeah. Um, Well, people can find
Speaker 1: you on Twitter at it's just at alex new house, right,
Speaker 1: alex B new house, alex B new house. Yeah, at
Speaker 1: alex B new house. Um, they can check out where
Speaker 1: you work at at C T E, C M I
Speaker 1: I s UM And yeah, I'm I'm excited to see. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll have you back on when you UMU, when
Speaker 1: you you you actually put out the game. But I'm
Speaker 1: really interested in looking at that. Oh yeah, it was
Speaker 1: the less than you brewed. Oh I brewed a red
Speaker 1: I p a and I'm currently brewing three gallons of
Speaker 1: apple cider. Oh nice. We just um reduced ten gallons
Speaker 1: of apples and pears that I just kegged after almost
Speaker 1: four weeks of fermentation that I know. I've been I've
Speaker 1: been looking at I've been looking at apple mills, like
Speaker 1: apple presses. Yeah I should I should just buy one.
Speaker 1: And we found one to rent. Um So it's just
Speaker 1: like I don't know, thirty bucks for the day. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we just gathered up all the apples on property.
Speaker 1: But it's it was rab definitely very soul. Yeah. We
Speaker 1: were juicing all of the apples the day that um
Speaker 1: tiny got shot at that protest in Olympia. So it's
Speaker 1: just like looking at the Twitter saying there's been a
Speaker 1: shooting into protests and be like, yeah, I'm glad I'm
Speaker 1: not working today. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not working today
Speaker 1: afternoon pressing apple. This is this is a more enjoyable
Speaker 1: use of my time right now. All right, Well, Alex,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being on. Thank you for
Speaker 1: what you're doing, and thank you all for listening. Go
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Speaker 1: didn't have to do what he did, and he did
Speaker 1: it anyway. The moment I put the wire around the
Speaker 1: first time, my life was over. If it ever got out,
Speaker 1: they would kill me in a heartbeat. Listen to deep
Speaker 1: Cover on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. It could happen here. Mike
Speaker 1: is possibly anyway, I'm Robert Evans. Uh, you know who
Speaker 1: I am because you're listening to this show unless you
Speaker 1: stumbled upon this having never heard of the internet before,
Speaker 1: in which case, this is a show about how things
Speaker 1: are kind of falling apart, and we also try to
Speaker 1: talk every now and then about how to maybe put
Speaker 1: them back together a little bit. My co host is
Speaker 1: Garrison Davis. Garrison, say hello to the people. Hello, people.
Speaker 1: I'd also like you to say hello to Sean. Hi. Sean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a Sean somewhere out there. There's probably a few Seans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was at least one or two. Garrison, What do we?
Speaker 1: What do we? What do we? What? What? What are we? Well,
Speaker 1: we're finally doing something I've been wanting to do for
Speaker 1: a while, is branching off into kind of covering different
Speaker 1: parts of like media and culture. Um that kind of
Speaker 1: relate to all of these topics. Um. I know both
Speaker 1: both me, but both me a little bit and and
Speaker 1: Robert more so have worked for or have have written
Speaker 1: for UM like an online investigative journalism website called Belling
Speaker 1: Cat that deals in open source UM like research. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that we're big fans of that
Speaker 1: Belling Cat I've talked with a few of the other
Speaker 1: people is a game called Her Story, which is a
Speaker 1: video game that has maybe one of the better better
Speaker 1: depictions of kind of open source UM investigations. Uh it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very it's a very good game.
Speaker 1: I highly recommended. I played it a few years ago.
Speaker 1: It was lovely and I recently uh well, originally, when
Speaker 1: I bought Her Story, I bought both that game and
Speaker 1: like a spiritual sequel called Telling Lies, which I did
Speaker 1: did not play for a while because I was too
Speaker 1: busy UM. And then I went to the Earth First
Speaker 1: Gathering this summer and I and I came back and
Speaker 1: I had some free time, so I played Telling Lies.
Speaker 1: And because of the continent of that game, I found
Speaker 1: it really interesting. Because I'm not gonna spoil tons of it,
Speaker 1: I think you should play it for yourself, and part
Speaker 1: of it is solving the mystery on your own. But
Speaker 1: but part of it does take place to like green
Speaker 1: environmentalism activism setting and it has one of the more
Speaker 1: honest depictions of environments like that. So I have of
Speaker 1: we we are graced with bringing on the creator of
Speaker 1: both Her Story and telling lies. Uh. Sam Barlow, Hello, Hey,
Speaker 1: exciting to be here thanks to that lovely interest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am, I am. I'm very excited to talk with you.
Speaker 1: These games are some of my favorite things. Um. First off,
Speaker 1: I guess I would just like to kind of talk
Speaker 1: about your inspiration for this type of detective game, because
Speaker 1: it is it is unique to every other kind of
Speaker 1: investigative game out there. UM. And it's you know, very
Speaker 1: much grounded in open source research. Um. And like using
Speaker 1: computers in the real world. What what kind of got
Speaker 1: you onto that kind of storytelling concept? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think there was a whole bunch of things that all
Speaker 1: kind of sparked off at once, Like when I made
Speaker 1: Her Story. This was my first independent video game. So
Speaker 1: I've been making video games for ten plus years, um,
Speaker 1: working on other people's franchises, more traditional things. When I
Speaker 1: started out working on like Nicolas Cage movie, Tiants and
Speaker 1: extreme sports games and all these kind of things. Um.
Speaker 1: But at some point I got to work on the
Speaker 1: Sunlight Health franchise, which is this this very cool psychological
Speaker 1: horror franchise, and it's one of the certainly at that
Speaker 1: point in time, it was one of the few kind
Speaker 1: of established gaming franchises that had a story that was
Speaker 1: interesting and took place in the real world and had
Speaker 1: characters and things. So kind of from that point, I
Speaker 1: was really digging into kind of a lifelong interest in storytelling,
Speaker 1: especially what we can do with it interactively, and continue
Speaker 1: to be frustrated somewhat by working for these bigger publishers.
Speaker 1: And at one point I worked for three years I
Speaker 1: was directing and writing this this big budget video game
Speaker 1: that got canceled, and that kind of gave me a
Speaker 1: moment to kind of sit and think, like, what what
Speaker 1: do I want to do? Do I want to get
Speaker 1: on board another of these big video games. I was
Speaker 1: very frustrated at the kind of incremental change that you
Speaker 1: see in the kind of bigger budget video game space.
Speaker 1: It feels like things happened very slowly, which can be frustrating.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of looking around. This was when
Speaker 1: like iPhones, people gaming on their iPhones and stuff was
Speaker 1: kind of starting to blow up. The fact that you
Speaker 1: could now distribute a game individually digitally and reach an
Speaker 1: audience was sort of changing the landscape. So I kind
Speaker 1: of felt like I should get into that. And so
Speaker 1: at its conception, her story was was me going, what
Speaker 1: are all the things I've wanted to do that that
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to do when I was working with
Speaker 1: these bigger budgets, with these more established kind of gaming templates.
Speaker 1: So from the get go it was I wanted to
Speaker 1: deal with characters that essentially lived in the real world,
Speaker 1: which is a hard pitch. You know, if you're asking
Speaker 1: for big bucks, every video game has to essentially be
Speaker 1: about superhero. It needs to be some kind of wish
Speaker 1: fulfilment for a teenage boy is generally what people are
Speaker 1: asking for. Uh. And the big thing with her story
Speaker 1: was subtext as someone's interesting storytelling. Us always trying to
Speaker 1: push how important subtext is and the idea that there is.
Speaker 1: You know, there are layers to a narrative that you're
Speaker 1: not spelling out for the audience that they're going to
Speaker 1: extract through performance or through whatever um And that was
Speaker 1: always a hard sell when you were kind of dealing
Speaker 1: with these kind of bigger companies that had a very
Speaker 1: simple idea of what their audience was. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to prove that the audience was actually smarter than we
Speaker 1: were giving them credit for, and that if you gave
Speaker 1: more control to them, if you gave more of the
Speaker 1: kind of work of piecing these stories together, that that
Speaker 1: would be not not just something they could do, but
Speaker 1: which would actually be more interesting and more personal and um,
Speaker 1: you know, and with her story, I had a kind
Speaker 1: of lifelong love of like crime fiction and slightly more
Speaker 1: kind of gothic leaning crime fiction. And so it's like, right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna create a video game which is in that
Speaker 1: world and which kind of breaks a lot of the
Speaker 1: established rules of how you might tell a story. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of that I was pulling from, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my love of some of the more kind of avant
Speaker 1: garde literally stuff, interesting pieces of kind of movies and things.
Speaker 1: But it was, it was, it was pulling from a
Speaker 1: lot of different kind of storytelling traditions and ending up
Speaker 1: in this this interesting place where, like you say, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a game experience where you're essentially researching the
Speaker 1: story yourself and kind of putting the pieces together. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for for people who don't know, it's like you're basically
Speaker 1: on a virtual desktop, um, and you're sorting through like
Speaker 1: a hard drive full of footage and the versatility of
Speaker 1: the game, and you know, people learning how to use
Speaker 1: like search terms, right, just like people try to use
Speaker 1: like UM in open source it's called like using like
Speaker 1: Google operators. It's this kind of the same thing. Um.
Speaker 1: But also there's like the other side of things. I
Speaker 1: think Belling Cat wrote an article about your game where
Speaker 1: they like made like a Python script to scan all
Speaker 1: of the videos for specific keywords and put them into
Speaker 1: like different folders and files. So it's like you can
Speaker 1: do the thing where you just like search it, but
Speaker 1: you could like take this to a ridiculous level or
Speaker 1: you're like breaking the game open and doing it like
Speaker 1: you're actually like investigating this and you need to be
Speaker 1: very quick. UM. So I think her story is is
Speaker 1: a lovely intro to this type of game concept. And
Speaker 1: then for telling lies, you kind of changed you change
Speaker 1: some things with it. Um. You made like I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess like an expansion would be the way I
Speaker 1: would describe it for how it like takes the same
Speaker 1: concept and pushes it further. And I think watching these
Speaker 1: things now, it is very different after being like two
Speaker 1: years on Zoom. Right, I'm I'm sure, I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: heard this from other people as well as, like, you know,
Speaker 1: because because because of how telling lies operates, it's like
Speaker 1: a lot of it is well you open the game
Speaker 1: as you're basically cracking open and then I say hard drive,
Speaker 1: so all of it is video from like webcams and stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: so you know, watching people talking to their computer camera
Speaker 1: like this after spending years on Zoom definitely hits harder.
Speaker 1: I guess it was one of those things where so
Speaker 1: when we were first working on this and conceiving of it,
Speaker 1: which was I don't know, maybe and something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a leap, right, and as a storyteller you
Speaker 1: allow yourself sometimes to take that one leap that the
Speaker 1: audience will take with you. And the leap there was
Speaker 1: like these people are using video chat a lot. But
Speaker 1: I mean and as I was starting to put it together,
Speaker 1: I would start noticing people around that time doing video
Speaker 1: chat in the street on their phones, which was something
Speaker 1: I was not used to sing and I was like, oh, ship,
Speaker 1: maybe this is not too big of a leap. Um,
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think I think it was the virgin
Speaker 1: or somebody ran an article that like, Telling Lies is
Speaker 1: still a great game, uh mid pandemic, it's just real
Speaker 1: hard to play now that that like this Zoom thing
Speaker 1: is our lives. I mean I was like, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was that was a big thing I was interested in
Speaker 1: at the time, was like, what what is this doing
Speaker 1: to us? What is communicating over the internet? How does
Speaker 1: that change how conversations and and things happen? And was
Speaker 1: kind of looking into some of the research there, so
Speaker 1: that Yeah, that was wild. Was was was kind of
Speaker 1: living in that world for several years putting the game
Speaker 1: out and then spending two years on Zoom calls. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean in a few ways, I think the game
Speaker 1: has aged very well because of that, and because the
Speaker 1: way people People are more used to interacting with the
Speaker 1: computer in that format now, so when they're you know,
Speaker 1: trying to search for these like hundreds of video files,
Speaker 1: I think they can understand it better. Um So, in
Speaker 1: some ways, I think it's not it's not necessarily a
Speaker 1: bad thing. Um But yeah, let's see. So I think, well,
Speaker 1: I want to talk a bit about kind of the
Speaker 1: influences for kind of the surveillance aspect, because, like her
Speaker 1: story is filmed in like a police um interrogation room
Speaker 1: for based basically basically the whole thing, whereas this pulls
Speaker 1: video footage of people like in private moments. Essentially. Of course,
Speaker 1: this was like after like the Snowden stuff and after
Speaker 1: all of the other kind of after the you know,
Speaker 1: surveillance became a bigger talking point. Um, But what what
Speaker 1: got you to decide you wanted to kind of revolve
Speaker 1: the game around this concept of internet surveillance. And then
Speaker 1: you know, different three letter agencies kind of fighting each
Speaker 1: other a little bit. So I think it was two things.
Speaker 1: One was in making her story and making lots of
Speaker 1: decisions somewhat intuitively kind of when it was finished and
Speaker 1: it was a big success, and I looked back on it,
Speaker 1: and then kind of when a little bit of time
Speaker 1: and passed, I then had this very different relationship where
Speaker 1: I had forgotten that I was the person that had
Speaker 1: made it and so could have opinions about it. And
Speaker 1: I was really interested in how that that game established
Speaker 1: a level of intimacy with the main character that Viva plays,
Speaker 1: that you're seeing being interrogated, despite the fact that it's
Speaker 1: happening through a computer desktop, despite the fact that there's
Speaker 1: none of what traditionally, you know that the agency you
Speaker 1: would traditionally having a video game, which you know, conventional
Speaker 1: logic would be that's how you would establish the idea
Speaker 1: that this person is alive and that you're in contact
Speaker 1: with them. But the act of like digging into all
Speaker 1: this video footage of Viva and seeing her on screen
Speaker 1: talking essentially at you created this this interesting amount of
Speaker 1: intimacy that a lot of people responded to. So I
Speaker 1: was like, well, that's one of the things that is
Speaker 1: interesting to me to take further, because it's it's very
Speaker 1: rare that a video game creates this sensation of kind
Speaker 1: of intimacy or of getting close to or understanding people.
Speaker 1: And then it was Snowden UM. I think it was
Speaker 1: one of the the early reports UM from from all
Speaker 1: the various things that came out via Snowden. There was
Speaker 1: a particular UM operation in the UK, which I think
Speaker 1: was called Optic Nerve or something, and the idea there
Speaker 1: was that they were spying on everyone's Internet traffic. And
Speaker 1: I think it's a little bit easier to do that
Speaker 1: in the UK than it is elsewhere. And this one
Speaker 1: particular operation I remember there was a PowerPoint slide that
Speaker 1: was leaked that was like their internal presentation which proved
Speaker 1: that like in any leaked government PowerPoint will be the
Speaker 1: worst power point you've ever seen, like the clip art
Speaker 1: and just terrible nous, right um. But in this scheme
Speaker 1: what they did and this blew my mind was for
Speaker 1: a period of I think it was two years, every
Speaker 1: single video chat that went through Yahoo in the UK
Speaker 1: was captured and recorded, and they had this issue, which
Speaker 1: I think is if you want to talk about surveillance
Speaker 1: kind of post nine eleven, the big problem with surveillance
Speaker 1: and the extent to which is now used, is what
Speaker 1: do you do with all this data? Like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's just too much. So they they were capturing all
Speaker 1: this Yahoo video chat and attempting to add the metadata
Speaker 1: and sort it, which is kind of interesting because that's
Speaker 1: kind of to some extent kind of how something like
Speaker 1: her story worked. Yeah. Yeah, And the biggest issue they
Speaker 1: had and they put up this power point and it
Speaker 1: blew my mind, was thirty of all the video chat
Speaker 1: through Yahoo at this point was sexual in nature, and
Speaker 1: they were concerned about the feelings of their operatives who
Speaker 1: were doing the tagging of all this data, so they'd
Speaker 1: put their best computer minds on it, and they'd come
Speaker 1: up with an algorithm which would detect an excessive amount
Speaker 1: of skin tone and would then kind of flag and
Speaker 1: silo those clips. And I just remember reading this and
Speaker 1: being like, what about the feelings of the people whose
Speaker 1: skin tone you're capturing? Right? Like you weren't you weren't
Speaker 1: stopping to think like why are we doing this? Shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing this? You're you're you're solving for the problem
Speaker 1: of like how do we stop our agents seeing all
Speaker 1: this newity? And I think there was there was a
Speaker 1: bunch of other anecdotes right in the snowed and stuff
Speaker 1: of people alongside him, like you know, looking through people's
Speaker 1: webcoun data and stuff and in a in a voyeuristic way,
Speaker 1: and just this constant invasion of people's rights. So I
Speaker 1: think that it was one of those things where I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is this is like new, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know we now have you know you you you
Speaker 1: worry about certain levels of like your privacy being invaded,
Speaker 1: and you would certainly worry if someone was letting themselves
Speaker 1: into your house at night. But we suddenly found ourselves
Speaker 1: in this position where we have these phones that we
Speaker 1: put by our bedside at night that have cameras and
Speaker 1: microphones that are pretty much just running right and capturing,
Speaker 1: and just the extent to which now technology has transformed surveillance.
Speaker 1: And that that was really interesting to me because I,
Speaker 1: um and a big thing I wanted to do, you know,
Speaker 1: I've made her story. And like, growing up, I loved
Speaker 1: cop shows, and I particularly loved the good ones, like Homicide,
Speaker 1: Life on the Street in the US. There was a
Speaker 1: show in the UK called Cracker Um and these were like,
Speaker 1: you know, somewhat nuanced in how they with policing, but
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're still you know, we're in this
Speaker 1: position now where we're starting to ask deeper questions about
Speaker 1: whether we should watch this many cops shows. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: they're like the main thing on all television all the time. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And that would be like when I made her story,
Speaker 1: Partly I pitched the bigger publishers like we should do
Speaker 1: the equivalent of a cop show like that, we should
Speaker 1: do crime fictional cop show, video game, and they would
Speaker 1: always be like nah, And I would say, well, look,
Speaker 1: this is like the evergreen. You know, if you're a
Speaker 1: book publisher. You have a crime show, you have a
Speaker 1: crime book. You know, if you doing movies, you're going
Speaker 1: to have some movies with this genres it works, And
Speaker 1: they would always kind of push against that. So when
Speaker 1: I made her story, that was, in fact, like the
Speaker 1: arc of of playing her story to some extent mirrors
Speaker 1: my ark in that. Like at the top of it,
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to make an interesting detective game,
Speaker 1: and I want to deconstruct how detective stories work. And
Speaker 1: I then started to do a bunch of research whereas
Speaker 1: digging into, well, how do actual criminal investigations work, how
Speaker 1: does one interrogate the suspect doing all that stuff? And
Speaker 1: then I started to pull up what at the time
Speaker 1: like there was a bit it was slightly ahead of
Speaker 1: like the true crime explosion, but there was starting to
Speaker 1: be stuff on YouTube and in various places where footage
Speaker 1: from real investigations was online, and it was starting to
Speaker 1: get a bit weird and interesting, and that people were
Speaker 1: kind of vicariously watching these things. And yeah, thats as
Speaker 1: questions they were trying to piece thegether their own kind
Speaker 1: of conclusions based on these leaked or sometimes officially released
Speaker 1: interview segments. Yeah, and and there was one in particularly
Speaker 1: got really into the Jodi Arias case. It's just like
Speaker 1: and and the way the media spun that story and
Speaker 1: just really dug into Oh, there's like sex and murder
Speaker 1: and Mormons, and there's this beautiful blonde woman who now
Speaker 1: when she goes to court has gone brunette, and they
Speaker 1: were endlessly talking about on cable news like her parents
Speaker 1: and setting her up as this kind of them fatal
Speaker 1: kind of ice maiden. On the slip side of this,
Speaker 1: I think there's like the thing with them the Making
Speaker 1: the Murderer documentary, which I think I have some issues
Speaker 1: with how they handle the main guy, but particularly how
Speaker 1: they showed the totally immoral interrogation tactics used on used
Speaker 1: on Brandon the kid um, and that really cracked that
Speaker 1: whole thing open, being like, yeah, the way the police
Speaker 1: are interrogating minors without it was the lawyers is shocking.
Speaker 1: And that was I was that was part of this
Speaker 1: transition for me, was was going into her story with like,
Speaker 1: the hero of this is the detective. It's Andre Brower
Speaker 1: and homicide Life from the Street. It's the genius detective
Speaker 1: that's going to come in there and crack this case.
Speaker 1: And the more I dug into in cases like Jody's,
Speaker 1: where um there word various um aspects to that case.
Speaker 1: She definitely did murder her lover, but there are lots
Speaker 1: of questions around whether the relationship itself was particularly healthy. Um.
Speaker 1: And by the end of it, like all of my
Speaker 1: sympathy was with Jody, not with the interrogator who you
Speaker 1: watch it and you realize that, like, the reason this
Speaker 1: person is in this situation is because their life has
Speaker 1: gone very badly, and the reason for that is everything
Speaker 1: that's happened in their life prior to this, and they've
Speaker 1: never spoken to anyone about any of this stuff. And
Speaker 1: suddenly they're in this room with the homicide detective who's like, hey,
Speaker 1: you can talk to me. I'm the first person that's
Speaker 1: going to sit and listen to you, and and all
Speaker 1: these tricks that they use to just get people talking,
Speaker 1: and it becomes very intimate and becomes kind of like
Speaker 1: therapy session. But by the end of it so so
Speaker 1: for me, Like the hook of her story is, oh,
Speaker 1: you get to solve a murder, but really, by the
Speaker 1: end of it, it's like a character port should entirely
Speaker 1: be with her that is less about seeing justice done right.
Speaker 1: So I even but even coming away from that, I
Speaker 1: was like, I still feel slightly uncomfortable with with kind
Speaker 1: of having made this thing that is reveling in how
Speaker 1: much fun it is to be involved in the police
Speaker 1: work or whatever. And so I was definitely thinking about
Speaker 1: the snows and stuff thinking about that aspect and the
Speaker 1: extent to which technology has just so empowered policing in
Speaker 1: general to the point where it's there's this great um.
Speaker 1: Like one of the core themes that I wanted to
Speaker 1: dig into and telling lies was the when you see
Speaker 1: people try and defend this stuff and defend policing in general,
Speaker 1: is they try and set it up so that you
Speaker 1: basically have They talk in terms of families and very
Speaker 1: close relationships, so they're kind of like, well, the government
Speaker 1: is your parent, and they're trying to look after you.
Speaker 1: And you understand as a parent, you're going to sometimes
Speaker 1: invade the privacy of your children or sometimes you're going
Speaker 1: to inhibit their freedoms because you're trying to protect them.
Speaker 1: And we all understand that, and that's part of being human,
Speaker 1: and that's all that's happening here with government, right We're
Speaker 1: trying to protect you from the Big Bad the Evil.
Speaker 1: I sort of like there's some tweet from the YPD
Speaker 1: the other day that was like, you'll be come, You'll
Speaker 1: come running when evil is on your doorstep. Someone was
Speaker 1: saying something macros and and and for me, once you
Speaker 1: you take that understanding of how people relate directly to
Speaker 1: which they have, families, work, the second you scale it
Speaker 1: to the size of government, it breaks like that you
Speaker 1: d not extent that metaphor. And then when you add
Speaker 1: in tech, um, you know the extent to which uh,
Speaker 1: you know, privacy has been degraded, our freedoms. Um. You
Speaker 1: know when you start just blanket looking for crime, right,
Speaker 1: you start creating all the systemic issues that we have
Speaker 1: just suddenly become amplified. Um. So that that to me
Speaker 1: was kind of interesting. Um, well, you know, here is
Speaker 1: like a means to explore that. And I like one
Speaker 1: of the things that was interesting to me about her
Speaker 1: story that in retrospect was the extent to which it
Speaker 1: was about watching video, which seems like a dumb thing
Speaker 1: to say, but like the choice to use real video
Speaker 1: kind of inspired by watching all these interrogation piece of
Speaker 1: footage from Jodi and people. Um, you know it was
Speaker 1: was kind of made, oh yeah, that makes sense, and
Speaker 1: I just kind of got on with it. But then
Speaker 1: looking back, I was like, oh, well, it's interesting because
Speaker 1: people talk about this game as being an interactive movie,
Speaker 1: but it's nothing like a movie. No, not at all,
Speaker 1: and it's not how movies work. It just happens that
Speaker 1: it uses a video camera. Only similarity is that it
Speaker 1: has live action footage. That yea. So I was like,
Speaker 1: I really want to go even further into that texture.
Speaker 1: And so I was just thinking about and when I
Speaker 1: was starting to do my research, like the idea of
Speaker 1: surveillance and and the commonalities between like classic old school surveillance,
Speaker 1: I you know, someone sat in a car some binoculars
Speaker 1: watching someone and and modern surveillance. The commonalities that it's
Speaker 1: quite boring, right, there's just a lot of sitting and
Speaker 1: watching doing nothing. Yeah, right. And but out of that
Speaker 1: and when you kind of read the first hand accounts
Speaker 1: of the people doing the surveillance or some of the
Speaker 1: depictions of this media, like there's a level of intimacy
Speaker 1: that you get with the person you're surveilling, right where
Speaker 1: you know, if you're just sat watching them, when you
Speaker 1: chef someone's life, if you're listening to a bug in
Speaker 1: someone's kitchen and just hearing all the just everyday ship
Speaker 1: in their lives, or if you are you know, watching
Speaker 1: them through some kind of technology. Um, you're just spending
Speaker 1: all this time with them, and that's like a that's
Speaker 1: like a very non cinematic thing. It's just like this
Speaker 1: that menu sha and the time stretching out of just
Speaker 1: being present with somebody. And that was kind of interesting
Speaker 1: to me of just kind of putting you in that
Speaker 1: headspace and kind of thinking about what that means. I
Speaker 1: think that totally gets through because of the way you
Speaker 1: break up the conversations and telling lies. You have to
Speaker 1: sit and watch these characters as they're just doing nothing
Speaker 1: for sometimes like like over five minutes. They're just like
Speaker 1: sitting there, um, and you do get like very intimate
Speaker 1: with these characters, but it almost like in a very
Speaker 1: like creepy way where you like you feel like I
Speaker 1: shouldn't be here, which is kind of the general feeling
Speaker 1: of telling us really interesting because I like some people
Speaker 1: to have a very and this was you know, completely
Speaker 1: again like trying to process how I felt watching the
Speaker 1: like the videos of all the various police interrogations and stuff.
Speaker 1: Was like, this is fascinating because there's human beings were
Speaker 1: fascinated by other human beings, and here is this extremely interesting,
Speaker 1: dramatic stuff where people are just really spilling their lives out.
Speaker 1: That's why true crime blew up, right, But then you
Speaker 1: have all these moral questions around it. And obviously with
Speaker 1: turning lies, it's inspired by lots of real things, but
Speaker 1: it's fake and you're watching actors act this stuff. But
Speaker 1: still some people would have this real visceral reaction of
Speaker 1: like I shouldn't be watching some of this stuff, and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, I mean, you you can. It's like
Speaker 1: that was that was where it became really not cinematic
Speaker 1: to me, was like, you know, if you're watching a
Speaker 1: you know, a noir film or you know, a thriller
Speaker 1: and you have you know, or even like the The
Speaker 1: thing for the domestic stuff for me was, you know,
Speaker 1: you could watch and it was sitcom, watching any a
Speaker 1: normal sitcom, and the husband and wife sat in bed chatting.
Speaker 1: At no point do you feel like I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: here because you're in the kind of classic Hollywood invisible
Speaker 1: camera set up. You're this, you know, you have permission
Speaker 1: to be there as the invisible camera spectator, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel as weird as it would if you're hiding
Speaker 1: in the closet of this couple's bedroom. Um So, with
Speaker 1: the setup I'm telling Lies, you immediately feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: like this, I am in this position that I shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: So suddenly all those more domestic moments become charged with
Speaker 1: like a very different vibe. Yeah, because you're watching them
Speaker 1: and you're you're not invited, like right, you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're sitting looking at this ns A horror drive and
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, I'm not supposed to be watching this
Speaker 1: like this, this this isn't They never invited me into
Speaker 1: this conversation. Telling Lies very much feels like a much
Speaker 1: more mature game than her story, not in terms of
Speaker 1: like has like more mature content, but like in terms
Speaker 1: of like this concept growing up and like evolving and
Speaker 1: gaining more depth. Um particularly because you know, not only
Speaker 1: just because it has way more characters, but because you know,
Speaker 1: you get to know all of your kind of games
Speaker 1: deal with some degree of like characters lying to you
Speaker 1: and like just doing like straight lines to your face.
Speaker 1: That's kind of a That's my read on a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of your games. Um, I mean you're
Speaker 1: the game is called Telling Lies, so so you definitely
Speaker 1: see like elements of of you know, all of these
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what is true and what is not.
Speaker 1: I think it is interesting looking at like how easier
Speaker 1: it is to lie via these technological platforms. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, to just like you feel like telling the
Speaker 1: truth is just so much more work and you may
Speaker 1: as well just get through this conversation by doing a
Speaker 1: few white lives, which is that inspiral out of control. Um.
Speaker 1: When you combine this with you know, law enforcement, infiltration
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff, he gets it gets
Speaker 1: very complicated, very quickly. Um. One thing that I think
Speaker 1: you guys handled very well in Telling Lies was kind
Speaker 1: of the activism side of things. So like when when
Speaker 1: I play this game, like almost immediately after coming back
Speaker 1: from the stop line, re protests, um and like and
Speaker 1: and like an Earth First gathering, you know, everyone there
Speaker 1: is always very people try to be aware of surveillance
Speaker 1: to be like, okay, you know, you don't talk about
Speaker 1: certain things if there's phones nearby and stuff. So so
Speaker 1: that whole side of things was very interesting to like
Speaker 1: play this game right afterwards because you have to see
Speaker 1: like the other side of things, being like, okay, if
Speaker 1: the the FBI is infiltrating this group, here's you know,
Speaker 1: one of the ways that they do it, and like
Speaker 1: that from my perspective being you know, in activism spaces
Speaker 1: for a while, not just like environmental ones, but you
Speaker 1: know other ones like here in Portland. Um, you had
Speaker 1: you handled this topic very accurately. Um, where what kind
Speaker 1: of stuff did you pull from to kind of create
Speaker 1: these like these you know environments and interactions between people
Speaker 1: because I'm not sure if you haven't experience yourself and
Speaker 1: stuff like this, or if you've got people onto like
Speaker 1: like you talk to people who are more experienced activists,
Speaker 1: what was kind of your inspiration for like, you know,
Speaker 1: the opposite side of things, not on the law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So that was that was like one of the big
Speaker 1: initial jumping off points. So uh like in terms of
Speaker 1: the kind of real life inspirations, Like the seed of
Speaker 1: this whole thing was Remember when this was it was
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say two could be completely wrong here, but
Speaker 1: it was The Guardian in the UK I think broke
Speaker 1: the story, but it was and and we've recently had
Speaker 1: some good progress in this this area, but broke the
Speaker 1: story of this UK spy Cops operation, which was a
Speaker 1: specific unit within the London Police whose job was to
Speaker 1: infiltrate groups, to surveil them from the inside. And um,
Speaker 1: it was horrific. And they're like a couple of things
Speaker 1: about it that were horrific. One of them was that like,
Speaker 1: essentially their modus operandi was to find vulnerable young women
Speaker 1: on the periph of groups, target them romantically, and then
Speaker 1: they would be the collateral to get you know, to
Speaker 1: have people then more solidly enter into these groups. And
Speaker 1: then they had like a whole you know, stepped plan
Speaker 1: of like once you're in, how you kind of would
Speaker 1: would destabilize steer these groups from within. Um. And the
Speaker 1: the thing that really made this even worse UM was
Speaker 1: the fact that most of the groups, I think maybe
Speaker 1: all of the groups targeted with this particular unit were
Speaker 1: green activists. There's this incredible, incredible, like you couldn't make
Speaker 1: this stuff up. But there's a famous libel case where
Speaker 1: McDonald's was suing these these two activists in the UK
Speaker 1: right because they were putting up flyers exposing some of
Speaker 1: the practices of McDonald's and the group that they were
Speaker 1: members of, which I think at this point was called
Speaker 1: Green Piece, but it was different to the kind of
Speaker 1: more famous Green Piece in London. Prior to them doing
Speaker 1: this big kind of McDonald's thing, UM was losing members
Speaker 1: and it got to a point where there were so
Speaker 1: few people in this group that it would have shut
Speaker 1: down had it not been for the fact that there
Speaker 1: were a large number of undercover cops in this group.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you imagine at some point they
Speaker 1: were actually more undercover cops and private security people undercover
Speaker 1: in this group that actual activists UM, which has enabled
Speaker 1: the group to continue. And in fact, the original flyer
Speaker 1: that they put out was written I forget the guy's
Speaker 1: name now by one of these undercover cops. He wrote
Speaker 1: the copy for this flyer that went out and then
Speaker 1: was you know, saw this these people dragged up in
Speaker 1: court and was this huge you know, Donald's won the case,
Speaker 1: but in terms of pr it was hugely damaging to them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that that for me was the thing that
Speaker 1: seemed even more a point because because here you had
Speaker 1: this story of the state sanctioning the you know, one
Speaker 1: of the most terrible abuses like Essentially, you know, what
Speaker 1: was happening was pretty easy to to kind of call
Speaker 1: it rape, right. There was women in sexual relationships with
Speaker 1: people and thinking it was consensual, but not realizing that
Speaker 1: they this was you know, what they were getting into
Speaker 1: is not what they thought it was. And so this
Speaker 1: was just so appalling and like from a just to
Speaker 1: kind of base emotional level, just it was so hard
Speaker 1: for me to imagine the pain of um and these
Speaker 1: women when relationships with these undercover officers for years and
Speaker 1: then and and out of the modus operanda was when
Speaker 1: you were done, you had to exit and disappear, and
Speaker 1: they had this whole plan where the cops would claim
Speaker 1: that they were being followed and that they were worried,
Speaker 1: and then they would disappear, and then they would call
Speaker 1: from some European country and say that they've kind of
Speaker 1: fled the country because they were worried that the cops
Speaker 1: were onto them, and then they would slowly kind of
Speaker 1: disappear and this you know, some of these were kind
Speaker 1: of pre modern internet, so it was easier for someone
Speaker 1: to kind of disappear. But this stuff totally happened in
Speaker 1: the Green Scare in the States, in you know, around
Speaker 1: this was around. This was my big question was was
Speaker 1: this you know, some of these cases were kind of
Speaker 1: the original inspiration And when I started thinking about trying
Speaker 1: to tell a story inspired by their originally it starts
Speaker 1: off and and and it's still in based in the
Speaker 1: UK and based on these things. And there was a particular, ah,
Speaker 1: a particular flavor to it where the cops doing this
Speaker 1: work it was part of the matt Police who were
Speaker 1: you know, that's the more kind of gang story, Like
Speaker 1: there's there's a real reputation that the Met Police have.
Speaker 1: So these cops that were chosen for this work were
Speaker 1: the ones that were a bit more kind of marcho
Speaker 1: and edgy, and there were there was I mean, there
Speaker 1: was so much stuff to it was horrific, Like they
Speaker 1: would only pick cops that were married, um because they
Speaker 1: felt that that h gave them some level of ability
Speaker 1: to be sleeping with these activists and not lose themselves
Speaker 1: in it. Um. But obviously the wives didn't know what
Speaker 1: was hapdening um and and there's just there's so many
Speaker 1: layers of this that I just thought was it was awful,
Speaker 1: And coming off the first story, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I would love to tell an undercover cops story in
Speaker 1: which we acknowledge that the undercover cop is bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they aren't, like you know, because because it's such a
Speaker 1: classic trope, is the undercover cops story. Because you get
Speaker 1: to have your cake and eat here. You get to
Speaker 1: see someone on both sides the law, you get, you
Speaker 1: get all the tension and thrills of it. But usually,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever, even if the if the movie or
Speaker 1: the story or whatever has a bittersweet ending, the protagonist
Speaker 1: is always the undercover cop. And ultimately, because they're the protagonist,
Speaker 1: they're the one that your heart goes to, right. And
Speaker 1: the secondary characters, whether that's like the wife and Donnie
Speaker 1: Brasco or Good Fellows or something, you know, they basically
Speaker 1: serve as a foil to the main character. So I
Speaker 1: was like, well, can we tell a story where, um,
Speaker 1: we we treat the wife and the activist who's being
Speaker 1: targeted and the other people on the periphery of this
Speaker 1: guy think more about their perspective on this world, and
Speaker 1: let's acknowledge from our perspective that this is wrong. Everything
Speaker 1: that's happening is wrong and it's not justified. And then
Speaker 1: let's just see what the impact is on people. UM.
Speaker 1: So once we started developing it, and when I was
Speaker 1: speaking to Anna partner about doing it, UM, I felt like, oh,
Speaker 1: we should move this to the States um to make
Speaker 1: it feel certainly as well, because the larger audiences American
Speaker 1: to to kind of reiterate and make it feel kind
Speaker 1: of more identifiable and have it be less quaint and British. Um.
Speaker 1: So my number one question from day one was like, well,
Speaker 1: does this ship happen in the States and as uch
Speaker 1: does it happen in the same way. And so we
Speaker 1: brought on a researcher who then started pulling stuff up
Speaker 1: and and the big thing for me was replacing the
Speaker 1: undercover group the met with the FBI, and and then
Speaker 1: I that became fascinating to me because then I started
Speaker 1: digging into the FBI and understanding their history and everything
Speaker 1: that's wrong there. But yeah, immediately I start seeing all
Speaker 1: these great examples of yeah, this explicit infiltration of green
Speaker 1: groups UM so, pretty horrific cases of entrapment um where
Speaker 1: you know, people infiltrate these groups and then encourage them
Speaker 1: to do more extreme and violent things. On the record.
Speaker 1: It's the point where you're listening to like recorded FBI stuff,
Speaker 1: and and you can hear the group being like, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure about that, Like that doesn't sound like a
Speaker 1: great idea, dude, And the the FBI person is they're
Speaker 1: going like, what, I don't know, I really do think
Speaker 1: we should blow this bridge up, guys. And it's so obvious,
Speaker 1: like when you listen to which is why a lot
Speaker 1: of these cases have ultimately been thrown out. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was. It was, I guess for the project,
Speaker 1: reassuring to see that all this stuff was happening over here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the FBI, like the specific FBI agent that we
Speaker 1: kind of follow definitely feels very American and feels very real. Um.
Speaker 1: I really like the actor that you got to play him. Um,
Speaker 1: he definitely feels like a lot of kind of the
Speaker 1: law enforcement dudes who kind of handle this side of things. Um.
Speaker 1: That was that was That was definitely that was like
Speaker 1: an FBI. He became like the fbiis of it became
Speaker 1: very important to it. And it was interesting the way
Speaker 1: that the FBI they had this brand, which is partly
Speaker 1: reinforced by the media, Like they had the great idea
Speaker 1: back in forties or fifties to themselves fund and support
Speaker 1: cop shows. So this whole idea we have through the
Speaker 1: X Files, through pretty much every serial killer media whatever.
Speaker 1: The idea of the FBI is being like the smartest
Speaker 1: and the best, like that's put out by them. But
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to see they believe that, like they
Speaker 1: are beyond approach and like they have higher standards for like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to join the FBI, there
Speaker 1: is in theory this kind of moral moral check that
Speaker 1: you have to pass. BUTTBI agent flipping backwards and shooting
Speaker 1: somebody with his gun falls out of his pants at
Speaker 1: a club. Well, then you read about it and you're like,
Speaker 1: actually the experience, the lived experience, and we would it
Speaker 1: was it was so bizarre because I was like, I
Speaker 1: really want to understand what it's like to be an
Speaker 1: FBI wife, and um, let's find let's reach out the
Speaker 1: research I've done. Some of the stuff we pulled up.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, it, it does sound pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Like there's a requirement if you're an FBI agent you
Speaker 1: have to move every three years or something. So if
Speaker 1: you're the wife to an FBI agent, you essentially move
Speaker 1: every three years, and so you never get a chance
Speaker 1: to build your own career or to make roots. And
Speaker 1: so you're generally and the wage is not great, which
Speaker 1: is why they're very vulnerable to uh corruption really. Um,
Speaker 1: so you're generally living. There's usually kind of areas where
Speaker 1: all the FBI families live, so it's this very insular
Speaker 1: world and you you start to see where some of
Speaker 1: these wives have come out and spoken about it. They're like,
Speaker 1: it's really shitty because husbands who believe themselves to be
Speaker 1: like you know, March of superheroes get to disappear for
Speaker 1: three days at a time and we can never ask
Speaker 1: where they are or what they're doing. And there's this
Speaker 1: kind of internal code which you see a lot of
Speaker 1: law enforcement right where they will cover for each other
Speaker 1: and protect each other. Um. And you you suddenly start
Speaker 1: to see that like, ah, you know this, this is
Speaker 1: not like And in fact, I remember reading sort of
Speaker 1: the guy who inspired like Silenced the Lambs. The TV
Speaker 1: show mind Hunter was based on him in his book
Speaker 1: Us this guy who was one of the early kind
Speaker 1: of serial killer profiling people within the FBI. You read
Speaker 1: his book, It's a terrible book. When I heard that
Speaker 1: Fincher was adapting, I was like, wow, good luck. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's incredible the lack of self awareness he has. Um,
Speaker 1: this guy is so sexist and so bad. Every time
Speaker 1: he introduces a warm then it starts by from the
Speaker 1: legs up like he's describing it and um. At the
Speaker 1: very end of the book, he reveals that his wife
Speaker 1: leaves him, and he kind of writes as if this
Speaker 1: is a huge surprise, and yeah, he's calling us from
Speaker 1: chapter one and he has the best buddy. So like
Speaker 1: the guy who's who's the kind of number two in
Speaker 1: mind hunt on TV, there's like a real life version
Speaker 1: of him. And halfway through the book, his wife hires
Speaker 1: an assassin to kind of hitman to come in and
Speaker 1: kill him, and the guy just narrowly avoids it. And
Speaker 1: the guy writing the book is like, what an evil woman?
Speaker 1: Like my poor friend, and you're like, well, having a minute,
Speaker 1: what did your what was your friend like? Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was going on? Yeah, there's there's there's probably something going
Speaker 1: on there. So yeah it was Yeah that that sense
Speaker 1: that which I think for me, expanded beautifully to the
Speaker 1: bigger picture of like that character kind of believing that
Speaker 1: he's the good guy. Absolutely, you know, he's the sheriff
Speaker 1: in the Western he's come in and he's fixing problems
Speaker 1: and he's but and then he falls apart. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and and his inability, Like it's such a brittle world view. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he is. He is very Once yeah, once he's exposed
Speaker 1: to thinking that the world is maybe different, it just
Speaker 1: totally breaks him. Yeah. His specific arc I think is
Speaker 1: extremely interesting. Um, but I don't want to spoil it
Speaker 1: because I think it's it's it's too it's too shocking.
Speaker 1: Once you get to the final piece of his story,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh wow, um, I think that was laid
Speaker 1: out in a really beautiful way. But it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's not like shocking away, like oh this this like
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. It's like, oh no, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see that, I can see why he's doing this, but
Speaker 1: it's still it's like you kind of slowly watched this
Speaker 1: guy get broken down piece by piece. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: because he starts he's very much like the superhero FBI agent.
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop these terrorists
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then he just like yeah, watching him
Speaker 1: progress throughout the story, and you can see like how
Speaker 1: pathetic he is. Sometimes there's a there's a great uh,
Speaker 1: one of the UK spy cops. Um, I forget his
Speaker 1: name if we're doing this three years ago and I've
Speaker 1: had all these names in my head, but he um. Uh.
Speaker 1: So he was assigned and he was he infiltrated this
Speaker 1: green group somewhere in the UK for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: had this relationship with this girl. Um was participating and facilitating.
Speaker 1: The one detail that I loved and try to make
Speaker 1: sure it was accurate, was all these cops would have
Speaker 1: a van or they would have like a big truck
Speaker 1: in the UK because they realized that, like in these
Speaker 1: smaller groups like being the transportation was like your superpower.
Speaker 1: So like if you are someone was like, oh, I'll
Speaker 1: drive everyone to the thing, I'll get his all that
Speaker 1: because I have this big van. Um. That was the
Speaker 1: easiest way to just kind of make yourself useful. Um.
Speaker 1: But this guy is doing all that. At some point, Um,
Speaker 1: they decided to pull him and they pull him out.
Speaker 1: He returns to his wife and his normal life back
Speaker 1: in London. Um. But he can't go back to his
Speaker 1: normal life, and so he starts and he's done all
Speaker 1: the stuff of disappearing, but he just starts getting up
Speaker 1: and driving and maybe he's in the north of England
Speaker 1: somewhere just just shows back up and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm back, guys, and they're like, oh, Ship, what happened.
Speaker 1: I thought you had to like disappear because people are
Speaker 1: after you. And he's like, no, it's all right, ah
Speaker 1: and just goes back to living as an activist. UM.
Speaker 1: And at some point one of his superiors notices that
Speaker 1: the mileage on his police paid vehicle is huge and
Speaker 1: they're like, why is this guy doing so much mileage
Speaker 1: in is because he's driving all the way back uh
Speaker 1: and and continuing to live this life and inhabit this
Speaker 1: character that he's set up. UM. And at some point
Speaker 1: I think he gets found out and it all goes
Speaker 1: horribly wrong because he no longer has like the fake
Speaker 1: idea and stuff that they gave him. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that and like that stuff is interesting. But then
Speaker 1: he was always important to never be ugly sympathetic when
Speaker 1: you see the struggling there. There is certain points where
Speaker 1: you see the FBI agents struggling because of how like
Speaker 1: smug he is. You're like, yes, he's struggling, and you
Speaker 1: like get excited when he gets like when he gets
Speaker 1: like reprimanded or he you know, people are like mad
Speaker 1: at him for various reasons. And it is very interesting
Speaker 1: how you like how sympathies get pulled in certain directions,
Speaker 1: because like by the end of the game, you definitely
Speaker 1: have a much fuller perspective on who this guy is
Speaker 1: and how it's kind of psyche works because he is
Speaker 1: really in a lot of ways like kind of pathetic
Speaker 1: as like a person. Um and he like needs to
Speaker 1: like hype himself up for himself to like make himself
Speaker 1: feel like he's special. Then when that gets broken down,
Speaker 1: he just completely collapses. I guess one of the last
Speaker 1: things I want to talk about is like throughout all
Speaker 1: of your games, you have kind of a through line
Speaker 1: of like fairy tales. You kind of you bring in
Speaker 1: fairy tale concepts into all of these games. Um And,
Speaker 1: I like how a lot of your games are very
Speaker 1: open ended in some ways. I think that her story
Speaker 1: being much more open ended than than telling Lice in
Speaker 1: some ways. Um And, I really like that you kind
Speaker 1: of you can't like look up, like what is the
Speaker 1: ending of this game? It's like no, like you have
Speaker 1: to piece it together in your own brain like that,
Speaker 1: and whatever you think the story is, that's what it
Speaker 1: is for you. There's no like definitive ending, especially like
Speaker 1: especially for her story. Um and how this combines with
Speaker 1: fairy tales. I think it's really interesting way to like
Speaker 1: include like mythology into these more modern stories. What's kind
Speaker 1: of your pot process behind you know, kind of kind
Speaker 1: of including mythology and fairy tales into these more like
Speaker 1: modern stories of like you know, people interacting with like government,
Speaker 1: law enforcement, and then just you know, breaking down their
Speaker 1: own psyches under these high tensed situations. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think it. I think it came initially with her
Speaker 1: story of ye thinking about that the kind of meta
Speaker 1: storytelling nous of these things, right, the extent to which
Speaker 1: their experiments and like how we tell stories. Um And
Speaker 1: but a lot of times, like the myths and the
Speaker 1: kind of classic stories that people go to those right
Speaker 1: to try and understand the bigger questions or certainly like um,
Speaker 1: I guess partly came out of Ah, the start of
Speaker 1: first story, I had like two youngest kids, and you're
Speaker 1: so you're reading them all the classic stories, and you
Speaker 1: realize the extent to which these are just encoding our
Speaker 1: society's values, right, I had this incredible book that was
Speaker 1: that my parents got for me, and I tracked down
Speaker 1: and made sure we still had when I had my kids.
Speaker 1: That was called It was like folk tales of the
Speaker 1: people's of the Soviet Republic from like the early eighties,
Speaker 1: and it was collected like a lot of people. I
Speaker 1: think it was Ukrainian folk tales, and they were amazing
Speaker 1: because they were so dark. Like the message of each
Speaker 1: of these stories was trust no, the rich will always win.
Speaker 1: You will end up dead and unhappy, right, And each
Speaker 1: story would start with the poor peasant, his brother gets rich,
Speaker 1: he asks for help. The brother like is horrible. Like
Speaker 1: this is one story where's this brother who's like, oh,
Speaker 1: if you want some grain because you're starving, and then
Speaker 1: gouge out your own eye and I'll give you some grain.
Speaker 1: And then it comes back from more grain later and
Speaker 1: he's like, guge out your other eye. Now, chop off
Speaker 1: your hand. And it's like they're so dark, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: but this is reflecting what it was like to live
Speaker 1: in that world and grew up and you're preparing people
Speaker 1: for the realities. So um, you know. I think that
Speaker 1: to me was really interesting. In and her story tells
Speaker 1: this story that kind of to some extent grows out
Speaker 1: of this childhood and then were telling lies. Definitely, it
Speaker 1: was part of this idea of of yeah, how Logan's
Speaker 1: character David sees the world and lates to his part
Speaker 1: in it, and like his utter inability to realize that
Speaker 1: he's the bad guy in the story, right, and he
Speaker 1: thinks he's the good guy. And and that was like,
Speaker 1: that was partly the key to breaking his character. And
Speaker 1: it was his daughter. So he has this character who's
Speaker 1: the six seven year old daughter and that's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he lets down and does horrible things to a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of people. Um, but the thing he's not going
Speaker 1: to be able to get over is knowing that he's
Speaker 1: laid his daughter down, right, knowing that at some point
Speaker 1: she will grow up and be an adult woman who
Speaker 1: if she learns about what her father has done, we'll
Speaker 1: we'll think less of him and you know, we'll realize
Speaker 1: that he's the bad guy in the fairy tale whatever.
Speaker 1: So um, that was like just interesting to me to
Speaker 1: set him in that moment and have him reading those
Speaker 1: stories and see see his relationship with his daughter. Um,
Speaker 1: And yeah, I think that that Yeah, he end up
Speaker 1: just relating those things back to what are the these
Speaker 1: kind of base values, and so much of those folk
Speaker 1: tales is preparing you for the fact that people are
Speaker 1: going to lie to you and trick you and you
Speaker 1: know all those kind of aspects. Yeah, a lot of
Speaker 1: them do deal with, like, you know, failures of trusting
Speaker 1: people and you know, getting getting let down and being misled.
Speaker 1: A lot a lot of those do kind of follow
Speaker 1: on these same same kind of rough templates. UM. Let's see,
Speaker 1: is there anything you're working on now that you wanna
Speaker 1: that you wanna plug um, and of course you know
Speaker 1: people should pick up Telling Lies her story. UM. I
Speaker 1: have them on Steam. I think they are best suited
Speaker 1: to be playing on PC, but you can get them
Speaker 1: on console, we can get them on iOS. But in
Speaker 1: any anything anything upcoming. Yeah, we're working on currently. This
Speaker 1: project is called Immortality, UM, which is very ambitious. Uh.
Speaker 1: It will be out next year. It deals with the
Speaker 1: story of an actress who only ever made three movies
Speaker 1: the Ladder Half the twentieth century UM, and then disappeared.
Speaker 1: And we have recovered footage from these three movies. UM.
Speaker 1: It's been interesting because we're telling lies like I've always
Speaker 1: been someone that when I think about the kinds of
Speaker 1: stories I want to tell, I've always thought that I'm
Speaker 1: not a capital P politics person, right, I tend to
Speaker 1: be interested in how people relate to each other and
Speaker 1: some of the kind of smaller politics. Um And once
Speaker 1: I got to telling lies, it was like, oh, actually,
Speaker 1: like there is some capital P politics tied to all this,
Speaker 1: and so dug into that was like, well, so I
Speaker 1: want to do right by this, right, So we did
Speaker 1: involve speaking to lots of people, did involve bringing in
Speaker 1: all the research and everything. Um So, coming away from
Speaker 1: telling lies, and as I mean, it was making the
Speaker 1: game was insane because it was during Trump Trump happens,
Speaker 1: and I remember going into it being like, we're making
Speaker 1: this story about the FBI being bad. That's a pretty
Speaker 1: reasonable endpoint. And then once we hit Trump, you had
Speaker 1: all that stuff of like the good FBI agents and
Speaker 1: theory or the FBI might be the people that bring
Speaker 1: Trump down, and suddenly they it was leaning into the
Speaker 1: myth of the FBI and I was looked down it
Speaker 1: and just everything getting worse, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is like so intense to be making something and
Speaker 1: speaking to some of these issues whilst this is all happening,
Speaker 1: um so finishing that, I was like, well, okay, for
Speaker 1: the next project, we are definitely going away from talking
Speaker 1: about real life issues and capital p politics. And then
Speaker 1: just accidentally it's become because we're talking about an actress
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century and what it means to make
Speaker 1: movies and ah, digging into that suddenly becomes about a
Speaker 1: whole other bunch of systemic issues. So not not managed
Speaker 1: to avoid the politics again, but it's I think a
Speaker 1: really really interesting protection. I think I think once you
Speaker 1: crack that egg open of realizing that politics are kind
Speaker 1: of intrinsic to every story we tell, it's hard to hand.
Speaker 1: It's hard to kind of put that back in the
Speaker 1: box because once you realize you can use politics in
Speaker 1: a very interesting and complex storytelling way that still doesn't
Speaker 1: alienate a lot of audiences, it's like, oh, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is just using another way to interact with the world.
Speaker 1: I think that was that was one of the things
Speaker 1: that was slightly disappointing. I guess we're telling lies was
Speaker 1: like we we're working on it. I'm like, we want
Speaker 1: to make sure we get these things right, because like
Speaker 1: these are very important issues, and there are some nuances
Speaker 1: and so we you know, we don't want to accidentally
Speaker 1: say something that is incorrect or we don't want to
Speaker 1: give people the impression that we're you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah wrong. Um. So I was expecting some level of
Speaker 1: scrutiny in terms of discussing the games themes and everything.
Speaker 1: Um and I guess like the video games world is
Speaker 1: still not quite ready for that. Like they're quite happy
Speaker 1: to talk about the game mechanics and how this thing,
Speaker 1: what works since big picture or emotional responses, but no
Speaker 1: one's willing to kind of dig deeper. And we had
Speaker 1: like as the game was coming out and continues to be,
Speaker 1: you have the bigger name developers being like, there's no
Speaker 1: politics in our video games. As they're like invading to
Speaker 1: make a game about you know, you know, being a
Speaker 1: black Ops unit taking down communist countries. We're not gonna
Speaker 1: about politics. We're gonna yeah that constantly, constantly just saying
Speaker 1: it's it's possible, and they'll always say we we both
Speaker 1: sides it right, Well, we'll tell both sides and let
Speaker 1: people make the decision. And something that I was very
Speaker 1: adamant was very im porn to me on telling lies
Speaker 1: was like, if we're making this game, it is not.
Speaker 1: The point of the game is not to give you
Speaker 1: a mush of information and have you decide the moral yeah,
Speaker 1: good or bad? Something like we are going into this
Speaker 1: with the assumption that we and the audience or most
Speaker 1: of the audience believe that people doing these things are wrong,
Speaker 1: and then we're just And then I'm interested in what
Speaker 1: does it due to the people, What what is it
Speaker 1: like to be in this world? What are the consequences
Speaker 1: of ramifications? How does one exist and continue to live
Speaker 1: a life after having been involved in these things? So,
Speaker 1: for me, a political game is it can't be the
Speaker 1: political story in any media. It can't be going back
Speaker 1: to first principles pretending we're in debate club, because I
Speaker 1: just I think that's just that's lies the audience. I
Speaker 1: think you can say a political story is one which
Speaker 1: embraces and acknowledges the reality of the various power struggles
Speaker 1: and inequalities that we have and then has something to
Speaker 1: say about or has a particular angle it wants to interrogate,
Speaker 1: or something that wants to shed light on. But it's
Speaker 1: very childish, and I think we're definitely struggling with this
Speaker 1: in video games to be like, oh, if it's about politics,
Speaker 1: then it should be a big question and we should
Speaker 1: assume no one and it's like, yeah, this is completely
Speaker 1: bullshit and and it kind of it can lead to
Speaker 1: some problematic ways, which is why you see a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, game footage in actual like terrorist propaganda,
Speaker 1: like with like like it was like not sayings and
Speaker 1: white supremacist stuff. They use a lot of game footage
Speaker 1: in their propaganda videos when especially when it's like both
Speaker 1: sides of these issues. Yeah, it's a I have I
Speaker 1: have a particular interest in the intersection between like politics, extremism,
Speaker 1: and gaming because the gaming is very important to our
Speaker 1: modern kind of extremist ecosystem um, particularly around like four
Speaker 1: Chan and like you know, like mass shooting is all
Speaker 1: of these things play into game culture. Not not saying
Speaker 1: games cause these events to happen, because they don't, but
Speaker 1: like the way they interact with these people is actually interesting.
Speaker 1: You know. This is very different from like the way
Speaker 1: like this Senate is like, oh, games are causing mass
Speaker 1: shooting because they're not. Yea, I think it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a completely separate thing. It's it's there
Speaker 1: is there is a Fox News kind of hysteria around gaming.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, like and and really you know,
Speaker 1: one way I pitched her story when I was telling
Speaker 1: people why it was interesting us like this is a
Speaker 1: game about listening. I was like, that's cool because you know,
Speaker 1: whatever you think about the larger politics of it, or
Speaker 1: the question of whether video games themselves are inherently harmful
Speaker 1: or anything, like, the fact that's still the stories we
Speaker 1: tell are about someone with a gun in their hand
Speaker 1: or assort in their hand, and the power dynamics and
Speaker 1: the story the types of stories and the types of protagonists, like,
Speaker 1: it's screwed up. And I think to the same extent
Speaker 1: that the fact that, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is
Speaker 1: about a bunch of glorified cops going around saying the
Speaker 1: world like, you know, if you continue to reinforce these things, yeahbously,
Speaker 1: all of the art we make are saying certain things
Speaker 1: about the world, and we're reinforcing a certain narrative over
Speaker 1: and over again and not really thinking critically about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a problem with making art. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to come off as being anti gamer. I would
Speaker 1: play a lot of games. I really like gaming. I
Speaker 1: just think some some companies need to figure out why
Speaker 1: why certain games are used in mass shooting manifestoes in
Speaker 1: certain games aren't um particularly around like politics like this
Speaker 1: is particularly particularly talking about like white supremacy and how
Speaker 1: certain games kind of playing too certain things. Because even
Speaker 1: even a game like Wolf and Stein, which I think
Speaker 1: handles this topic very well, still will you know, get
Speaker 1: brought up in certain you know, propaganda videos because they
Speaker 1: do have cool shots of Nazis walking around, right, That's
Speaker 1: the kind of the problem with some of these things. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, if they weren't killing if Nazis weren't
Speaker 1: killing people as much as wouldn't be as much of
Speaker 1: a problem. But because that's still a thing, that's still
Speaker 1: a thing that needs to get talked about. Anyway, this
Speaker 1: this this took a very sad sad turned towards the
Speaker 1: end of anyway. Yeah, I will, I will. I will
Speaker 1: just strongly recommend playing her story playing telling lies. I
Speaker 1: think these games, you know, interrogate our our predispositions about
Speaker 1: about kind of police detective were, um, and you just
Speaker 1: get to learn a lot. You get to learn a
Speaker 1: lot about like people on characters because like a lot
Speaker 1: of these games, you know where the setup is like, oh,
Speaker 1: solve this crime or mystery, but then by the end
Speaker 1: you're solving a very different mystery and you're kind of
Speaker 1: solving what makes the person tick. And it's very You've
Speaker 1: I really like the art that you have in your games.
Speaker 1: They've brought me a lot of happiness. So thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that, and thank you for talking with
Speaker 1: all of us, um about your work. I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for having me. And uh yeah,
Speaker 1: like I say, I was, I was hoping to have
Speaker 1: hundreds more conversations about what Telling Lies was about and
Speaker 1: about these issues when it came out. But it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know that, it's I mean, it's hot just general
Speaker 1: media landscape now, like you put something out there and
Speaker 1: it comes out and people consume it, Yeah, move on,
Speaker 1: Like you don't have that. It's bad of like discussion
Speaker 1: that that. I don't know, it feels like it used
Speaker 1: to used to be a thing. Yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: definitely did. It used to be a thing. And definitely
Speaker 1: your games have had an influence on media in certain ways,
Speaker 1: and I know there's been like a few other like
Speaker 1: projects that like Netflix is doing that is kind of
Speaker 1: taking your concept but not really doing it correctly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's definitely been a lot. Yeah. People always send me them.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, this sounds a lot like story this thing,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh, but it's it's build non linear. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You let people. Yeah, usually it's like watch there are
Speaker 1: eight episodes. You can watch them in any order, which
Speaker 1: isn't how her story works. No, Yeah, like, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is there's a Yeah, there's a whole different thing going on,
Speaker 1: but no, I mean it's it's interesting times for for
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. But anyway, play these games on
Speaker 1: Steam and that that doesn't for today. You can follow
Speaker 1: the show on Twitter and Instagram at Happening here, pod
Speaker 1: and cool Zone Media. Do you have Do you have
Speaker 1: social media that you would like to plug or would
Speaker 1: your people if people are on Twitter, that's where I
Speaker 1: tend to be. Despite it's despite yeah, I know, I
Speaker 1: am I am Mr Sambo Twitter M I will say
Speaker 1: I I actually I actually do like your Twitter account.
Speaker 1: You do? You do post some fun stuff every once
Speaker 1: in a while. That's that's kind of a weird contescen
Speaker 1: think we think to say of anyway. Bye for Puddy
Speaker 1: Raffie is the voice of some of the happiest songs
Speaker 1: of our generation. Baby So who is the man behind
Speaker 1: Baby Bluga? Every human being wants to feel respected. When
Speaker 1: we start with, all good things can grow from there.
Speaker 1: I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, New Dad and host of Finding Raffie,
Speaker 1: a new podcast from my Heart Radio and Fatherly Listen
Speaker 1: every Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Robert sex Reese, host
Speaker 1: of The Doctor Sex Reese Show, and every episode I
Speaker 1: listened to people about their sex and intimacy issues, and yes,
Speaker 1: I despise every minute of it. And she she made
Speaker 1: mistakes too, I mean, did she kill everyone at her wedding?
Speaker 1: But hell is real. We're all trapped here and there's
Speaker 1: nothing any of us can do about it. So join me,
Speaker 1: won't you? Listen to The Doctor Sex Ratio every Tuesday
Speaker 1: on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast. Here's to the great American settlers.
Speaker 1: The millions of you have settled for unsatisfying jobs because
Speaker 1: they pay the bills, and you just kind of fell
Speaker 1: into it. And you know it's like totally fine, just
Speaker 1: another few decades or so and then you can enjoy yourself.
Speaker 1: Of course, there is something else you could do, if
Speaker 1: you've got something to say. You could, I don't know,
Speaker 1: start up podcast with spreaker from my Heart and unleash
Speaker 1: your creative freedom and spend all day researching and talking
Speaker 1: about stuff you love and maybe even earn enough money
Speaker 1: to one day to own your irritating boss. As you
Speaker 1: quit and walk off into the sunset. Hey, I'm no settler,
Speaker 1: I'm an explorer speaker dot com. That's spr e a
Speaker 1: k E R hustle on over today. That's gonna that's
Speaker 1: gonna be way too jarring to open an episode where
Speaker 1: well we already did it, so just keep moving. Yeah
Speaker 1: uh huh. Um, the episode is actually going to start
Speaker 1: with Garrison saying that's way too jarring to open an
Speaker 1: episode with, and the listeners won't know that is much.
Speaker 1: That is a much easier opening. Um, alright, so we're
Speaker 1: doing I'm gonna be I'm gonna be reading a thing
Speaker 1: today and then we're gonna talk about the thing that
Speaker 1: we're reading. Um and and and who and who are you?
Speaker 1: And who is here? Oh yeah, this is a happen here.
Speaker 1: This is it could happen here. I'm I'm Garrison. I
Speaker 1: am our resident Canadian. Yeah, that's Anderson. That's Anderson the
Speaker 1: dog in here. We have we had to hire a
Speaker 1: Canadian for a diversity quota. You do not anyway. We
Speaker 1: have Chris here, Robert Evans as usual, um, and Sophie.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about We're gonna talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about about Canada today. So in the like descripted
Speaker 1: what if scenarios first positive in the original it could
Speaker 1: happen here. Um. It detailed what it might be like
Speaker 1: to live in the United States during a modern civil conflict.
Speaker 1: And like one of the stories that we kind of
Speaker 1: tell ourselves as a culture is about, you know, crossing
Speaker 1: up into the safe haven of Canada whatever stuff breaks
Speaker 1: out in the States. Um, whether that be like an
Speaker 1: escape from just the hell that's us politics, um, or
Speaker 1: you know, going up into the cold northern terrain better
Speaker 1: equipped to deal with climate change. Canada is kind of
Speaker 1: just viewed as a bast gene of like little of
Speaker 1: liberal democracy in North America. UM. You know, I've I've
Speaker 1: made jokes in the past about using my Canadian passport
Speaker 1: to escape up into the forest of Alberta when things
Speaker 1: get too dicey here in the States. But this like
Speaker 1: weird utopian view of Canada is not just wrong about
Speaker 1: Canada's current political state, but also assumes that a Canada
Speaker 1: is like immune to the political shifts that the States
Speaker 1: have gone through the past few years, which is it's
Speaker 1: it's very obviously not um so like Canada internationally is,
Speaker 1: and specifically in the States, it's it's used as like,
Speaker 1: you know, Canada's it's used it's like America's little brother,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, it's much more you know, democratic,
Speaker 1: it's much more liberal. It's like it's like this kind
Speaker 1: of ideal scenario for like what the States could be.
Speaker 1: And like Canadians have a weird view of the States
Speaker 1: as well. Like Canadians, they're both like the like they're
Speaker 1: kind of obsessed. Like a lot of Canadians think no
Speaker 1: more about US politics than that they know about Canadian politics.
Speaker 1: Um but almost in like a way that we watch sports.
Speaker 1: It's it's like it's like this thing that we like
Speaker 1: watch as entertainment, like like some kind of like sick
Speaker 1: reality show. That's how I think a lot of Canadians
Speaker 1: really view US politics, um, because it's just so wacky
Speaker 1: compared to the kind of more like civil parliamentary system
Speaker 1: that we have in Canada. US politics just looks very,
Speaker 1: very bizarre, and there's always this notion it's like, no
Speaker 1: matter how bad things can get in Canada, at least
Speaker 1: we're not the States. At least at least we're not
Speaker 1: at least we're not the US. And that is kind
Speaker 1: of a lot of a lot of how a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff can get really get can just like surviving
Speaker 1: Canada longer, because it's just they view it like, at least,
Speaker 1: at least we're not as bad as the other people.
Speaker 1: So that's how, you know, it gives them kind of
Speaker 1: some kind of sense of security. But in terms of
Speaker 1: like in terms of Canada as a country, you know,
Speaker 1: we we we've said that Canada as a country is
Speaker 1: basically just you know, a few mining companies in a
Speaker 1: trench coat and the trench coat is healthcare, um. And
Speaker 1: that's that's really all they are is as as as
Speaker 1: a country. UM. But today we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: kind of Canada's slide towards farther right wing politics. Um.
Speaker 1: Both you know, historically and then more recently, because a
Speaker 1: lot of what we've seen in the States has happened
Speaker 1: kind of in its own weird Canadian way around the
Speaker 1: same time. UM. But before we really before we really
Speaker 1: get started, I think to be remiss not to mention
Speaker 1: how the Canadian government has historically treated Indigenous and First
Speaker 1: Nations people UM living on that land. Of course, it's
Speaker 1: like not only just hundreds of years ago, but a
Speaker 1: lot more recently as well. Just in the past year,
Speaker 1: there have been thousands and thousands of like hidden graves
Speaker 1: found across the provinces at the sites of these residential
Speaker 1: schools UM. And the process of looking for these on
Speaker 1: Martin graves has like just just started. UM. The Canadian
Speaker 1: Historical Association published a letter this past Canada Day Canada
Speaker 1: Day is like Independence Day but for Canada, UM, saying
Speaker 1: that it was abundantly clear that Canada is guilty of
Speaker 1: is guilty of genocide. UM. I know there's there's a
Speaker 1: few episodes behind the Bastards, UM, and I think even
Speaker 1: worse deer that that talk about residential schools UM and
Speaker 1: and the genocide of indigenousop Canada. So you can you
Speaker 1: can check those out and I wrote this episode to
Speaker 1: be more focused on Canada's political shifts the past five years.
Speaker 1: But since we're talking to be talking about Canadian fascism,
Speaker 1: I thought it would be irresponsible to not mention this
Speaker 1: upfront as like a thing responsible and very responsible. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to take us through aspects of Canadians
Speaker 1: of Canada's politics chronologically. Um, you guys can button and
Speaker 1: kind of ask questions and clarifications about stuff. Um, But
Speaker 1: the first thing that we're gonna start with is actually
Speaker 1: going to be on the First Nations the side of things,
Speaker 1: and that that's kind of how that that's what mostly
Speaker 1: Indigenous people are called in Canada's First Nations. Um, even
Speaker 1: you know the Indigenous people up in Canada, most amuse
Speaker 1: that term. So that's the term I'll be using for
Speaker 1: some some of this stuff, just because that's the one
Speaker 1: that's used up there. Um. So the the residential School's
Speaker 1: program is where gonna briefly mentioned a few things about it,
Speaker 1: just because of how it kind of relates to some
Speaker 1: of the stuff that we're gonna be talking with for
Speaker 1: the rest of the episode. Um yeah, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read someone I'm gonna read some words by by
Speaker 1: Duncan Campbell Scott. Who was the department, Who was who
Speaker 1: was the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs. This was like
Speaker 1: a rank in the Canadian government. UM. He served as
Speaker 1: the Deputy Superintendent from nineteen thirteen to nineteen thirty two. UM.
Speaker 1: And he's arguably like the main architect of the residential
Speaker 1: schools program. UM he was. He was also good friends
Speaker 1: with the first Prime Minister of Canada, John John John McDonald.
Speaker 1: So here's here's here's how this guy the the architect
Speaker 1: of this program. This is this is how he kind
Speaker 1: of talked talked about this in letters to both his
Speaker 1: like his underlings, and just like openly quote. It is
Speaker 1: readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to
Speaker 1: illness by habituating so close in the residential schools, and
Speaker 1: that they died a much higher rate than in their villages.
Speaker 1: But this does not justify a change in the policy
Speaker 1: of this department, which is geared towards a final solution
Speaker 1: for our Indian problem. It is quite within the market
Speaker 1: to say that fifty of children who passed through these
Speaker 1: schools did not live to benefit from the education and
Speaker 1: which they had received. So that's that's just what he
Speaker 1: calls it. He says, the final solution to the Indian problem.
Speaker 1: It's very very very clear. What what like that. That's
Speaker 1: just the language he uses. And this was like before
Speaker 1: Hitler though, like this was this was attention to these Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah like this this is just like this is the
Speaker 1: mindset of all of these same people. This is all
Speaker 1: of all of the same thing. Um. Another another another
Speaker 1: quote from this dude is I want to get rid
Speaker 1: of the Indian problem. I do not think of it
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact that the country ought to
Speaker 1: continually protect a class of people who are able to
Speaker 1: stand alone. That's my whole point. Our objective is to
Speaker 1: continue until there's not a single Indian in Canada that
Speaker 1: has not been absorbed into the into the body politic,
Speaker 1: and there's no Indian question and no Indie Department. That
Speaker 1: is the whole objective of this bill. The bill referring
Speaker 1: to the residential schools program. So that's that's how he
Speaker 1: talks about these things. Um. There there's other letters that
Speaker 1: he's sent that's like telling his um, his like agents,
Speaker 1: because he had like agents stationed at at Canadian at
Speaker 1: Canadian reserves to like not let Indians do dancing because
Speaker 1: both that's you know, that's doing their cultural practice, but
Speaker 1: also it will distract them from learning how to do
Speaker 1: Western farming. Um. Like they weren't allowed to go to
Speaker 1: fairs or exhibitions or anything that you like that anything
Speaker 1: that has like that is reminiscent of like any kind
Speaker 1: of cultural tradition that is not white in European. Um.
Speaker 1: So he he is, he is a pretty pretty pretty
Speaker 1: bad dude. He probably deserves his own his own thing
Speaker 1: that this this specific guy. But you can you can
Speaker 1: kind of see like these like fascist ideas and rhetoric
Speaker 1: are not foreign to Canada. Um. And you know it's
Speaker 1: been there since its infancy. Now, Canadian politics is very
Speaker 1: different in a lot of ways compared to American politic ticks. Uh.
Speaker 1: Canada tries to kind of follow the European model, whereas
Speaker 1: America is very much like the rebel state that tries
Speaker 1: to play on its play by its own rules. Um.
Speaker 1: Kind of The first main difference is that Canada isn't
Speaker 1: a two party system. Um, it's it's more like a
Speaker 1: two party plus the system. Because yeah, there still is
Speaker 1: the main liberals and the main Conservatives, but there are
Speaker 1: there are other parties that actually can get elected. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not it's not like a strictly two
Speaker 1: party system the same way the States is. So that
Speaker 1: makes things more interesting. Um. And another thing that's really
Speaker 1: interesting about like a cultural politics. That's that's different from
Speaker 1: the States, you know. Besides, you know, Canada obviously has
Speaker 1: like a parliament and the prime minister. That's different. But
Speaker 1: the Canada view and Canadians view nationalism and patriotism very differently, uh,
Speaker 1: compared to to like United States, Um. Citizens patriotism and
Speaker 1: in some ways nationalism have always been kind of more
Speaker 1: of a liberal progressive thing um, you know, in opposition
Speaker 1: to the States where it is not really seen as
Speaker 1: a liberal progressive thing. Um. It's like, even under conservative leadership,
Speaker 1: Canada kind of pride itself as as sort of like
Speaker 1: liberal utopia. And that's where a lot of the patriotism
Speaker 1: and celebration in Canada comes from. Among its you know,
Speaker 1: mostly liberal and more socially progressive citizens. They like celebrate
Speaker 1: Canada as like this great progressive nation, and that's where
Speaker 1: a lot of the patriotism comes from. Is like, oh look,
Speaker 1: look how progressive we are. Um. Then the nationalism part
Speaker 1: can be a bit more tricky, uh, because you first
Speaker 1: need to understand like the English and French divide which
Speaker 1: within the country, which I barely understand that to be honest,
Speaker 1: I was I was, I was. I was born in
Speaker 1: the Prairies. That was you know, much more of like
Speaker 1: the Protestant English Ilish English settlement. You know, I'm not
Speaker 1: from Quebec, but we'll be talking about Quebec a lot
Speaker 1: here because it is very important to how nationalism works
Speaker 1: in Canada. So the divide between the French and the
Speaker 1: English make elections really interesting because the English majority politicians
Speaker 1: usually need to court some of the French Canadian population
Speaker 1: and and people in Quebec in order to get enough
Speaker 1: parliamentary seats to have a majority government. Because Canada works
Speaker 1: on having a majority within the parliament. Um, you can
Speaker 1: have a minority in in in the Parliament like the
Speaker 1: Liberals currently have. So even if you know, someone doesn't
Speaker 1: win a plurality of votes, that can still be in
Speaker 1: control of the government in an in a minority or
Speaker 1: usually a majority capacity. We'll get into this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff later, um. But even though they need to get
Speaker 1: seats from Quebec to have you know, a decent control
Speaker 1: of Parliament. Quebec kind of likes to act like its
Speaker 1: own special country. Um. They even have their own like
Speaker 1: federal political party, uh, the block Kebuqua and so like that.
Speaker 1: That that's a that's a federal party that operates in
Speaker 1: forwarding the interests of Quebec. Sometimes it functions as like
Speaker 1: a separatist party, but not really anymore. Um. So although
Speaker 1: the Blockbuqua is a lot is a lot more secular
Speaker 1: and progressive than basically any any other major party outside
Speaker 1: of the n d P UM. But despite them being
Speaker 1: much more like socially progressive, that also like one of
Speaker 1: the biggest nationalist parties UM in Canada. And you know,
Speaker 1: the far right parties in Canada have had always had
Speaker 1: their you know brand of ethno nationalism, but that was
Speaker 1: that's that's been much less pronounced than the kind of
Speaker 1: like keep non French Canadians out of Quebec and keep
Speaker 1: Americans out of Canada type of nationalism that's common with
Speaker 1: like liberals UM and specifically you know progressives inside Quebec,
Speaker 1: which you can't blame them for wanting to keep Americans. No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like good sense. If I could keep Americans out of America,
Speaker 1: I would do it. Yeah. But so that kind of sentiment,
Speaker 1: you can see how that connect like you know, be
Speaker 1: used to foster some not good things though that that
Speaker 1: that that specific type of thinking of of like keeping nationals,
Speaker 1: like you know, keeping four nationals out of your state. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good to not have Americans there, but you know
Speaker 1: that's going to get extended towards other people's unfortunate Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and like so even though the nationalism can be
Speaker 1: a lot more progressive, that's not to say as no
Speaker 1: nationalism does not come up within these sex um, which
Speaker 1: is going to bring us to uh when when a
Speaker 1: briefly talk about something from the thirties called the called
Speaker 1: the National Unity Party of the National Unity Party of Canada. Um,
Speaker 1: the National Union Party National Unity Party, that is a
Speaker 1: weird thing to say. Um was was originally called the
Speaker 1: Canadian National Socialist Unity Party. Oh wait, now that remindmate
Speaker 1: national socialism. That seems like a term with a little
Speaker 1: bit of baggage. Remember correctly, yep, it sort of does. Um.
Speaker 1: So that this was a party formed in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: four by a little Nazi shot head named Adrian R. Khan. Um.
Speaker 1: Now that is if you cannot tell that it's me
Speaker 1: trying to say a French name. So he is from Quebec.
Speaker 1: This is a lot of Canadian Nazi stuff originates inside
Speaker 1: Quebec because it already has such nationalist tendencies. Um. So
Speaker 1: our cons introduction into nationalism started around the turn of
Speaker 1: the century, um amid fears in Quebec that Chinese immigration
Speaker 1: would threaten the white French Canadian working class. Um, this
Speaker 1: is still a big thing in Canada. Uh. Racism and
Speaker 1: nationalism against the Chinese is still a big thing. We
Speaker 1: will talk about this at the very end of this
Speaker 1: of this of of these episodes, because it's that's still
Speaker 1: a thing the Conservative Party talks about a lot. Um So. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his his internationalism was because of fears of Chinese immigration
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds. Um, the the anti his
Speaker 1: so his anti immigrants upbringing, plus the fact that he
Speaker 1: attended the Catholic school. Um that there there there was
Speaker 1: no there was no public schools in Quebec until the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. All of the schools were either Catholic or Protestant.
Speaker 1: Now this is also part of the cultural divide inside Canada,
Speaker 1: where usually the English speakers are Protestant and they're usually
Speaker 1: further west and the and the Catholics are usually you know,
Speaker 1: French Canadians. There's a lot of that inside Quebec. Um.
Speaker 1: So he went to a Catholic school of which were
Speaker 1: at the time very anti Jewish because what was happening
Speaker 1: is that the Jewish people in Quebec wanted to make
Speaker 1: their own Jewish schools, and the Catholics, like in charge,
Speaker 1: didn't want that because then that'd be less people were
Speaker 1: inside Catholic schools, and they weren't you know, learning Catholicism.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot, a lot of stuff going on
Speaker 1: here that is kind of extreme contributing. So he was
Speaker 1: you know, already anti immigrant because of the Chinese, and
Speaker 1: then he got got exposed to anti Semitism inside its
Speaker 1: Catholic schools um and that you know, pushed him onto
Speaker 1: this specific path. So in Urkhan made a deal with
Speaker 1: the head of the Conservative Party R. B. Bennett that
Speaker 1: in exchange for fifteen thousand dollars, which is like two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thou dollars in today's money, our our
Speaker 1: con would craft a smear campaign. Um trying to assist
Speaker 1: the Conservatives in basically smearing the Liberals to gain more
Speaker 1: Conservative support inside the province of Quebec, which at the
Speaker 1: time was majority liberal leaning. So our Kan got to
Speaker 1: work and started prepping like pseudo fascist propaganda for the
Speaker 1: Conservatives um and by the nineteen thirty federal election it
Speaker 1: absolutely worked um Bennett and the Conservatives one they gained
Speaker 1: twenty four parliamentary seats in Quebec, which is a massive success.
Speaker 1: Like before they did not win any seats in Quebec.
Speaker 1: So gaining twenty four seats in for over the course
Speaker 1: of just one election, massive win. Um. So after getting
Speaker 1: the after getting the Conservatives elected, the Conservative Party dropped
Speaker 1: Arkhan because he was, you know, a little hashtag problematic
Speaker 1: um uh huh. So after he got dropped by the
Speaker 1: Conservatives short shortly later, our Khan made contact with the
Speaker 1: growing National Socialist Party in Germany um and over the
Speaker 1: next few years he just he started to gain more
Speaker 1: fascist contacts around the world. He would exchange letters, people
Speaker 1: from people like Peteople, people from the German Nazis would
Speaker 1: come over and meet with what and come over to
Speaker 1: Canada and see what he was doing. He would travel
Speaker 1: around meeting other other Nazis around the world. Um, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of just like just gaining a lot, a
Speaker 1: lot more contacts. So then in nineteen thirty four he
Speaker 1: formed his own fascist party, which is the Canadian National
Speaker 1: Socialist Unity Party, and within that year, so in in
Speaker 1: the you know, midnighteen thirties, it merged with other Canadian
Speaker 1: nationalist parties that were more based in the west, so
Speaker 1: you know, in the prairies like Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC.
Speaker 1: So he emerged a few other kind of nationalist groups
Speaker 1: and started gaining traction, getting thousands and thousands of members.
Speaker 1: This actually became an actual thing. You can find footage
Speaker 1: of of his rallies and they're just terrifying, just like
Speaker 1: you know, just it's it's the same thing whenever you
Speaker 1: see like the Nazis, you know, rallying in Britain. You
Speaker 1: know it it feels different than watching a Nazi rally
Speaker 1: in Germany because you can feel a lot more, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's it's it's the same feeling, but come but
Speaker 1: come home your own countrymen kind of do the same
Speaker 1: thing that you associate with the old footage of dead
Speaker 1: people is exactly yeah, so he was getting thousand numbers
Speaker 1: across Canada. UM, you know, mostly in the provinces of
Speaker 1: of Quebec and Alberta. So the two main provinces were
Speaker 1: to talk about are going to be Quebeca and and
Speaker 1: Alberta because that's where a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: the far right stuff get started out. UM. So in
Speaker 1: ninety eight, so that's like four years after he started this, Uh,
Speaker 1: the Canadian National Socialist Unity Party merged again, this time
Speaker 1: with various nationalist group groups and so called swastika clubs.
Speaker 1: UM in there we're already inside like Ontario and Quebec,
Speaker 1: so on the eastern side of Canada. So now he
Speaker 1: he united both the Quebec stuff, Eastern Canada and Western Canada.
Speaker 1: And then he called that the National Unity Party UM
Speaker 1: and our Khan appointed himself the Canadian fural Gosh, yes so,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to quote from a time Time magazine
Speaker 1: piece from July of nineteen thirty eight, Our Cohn scheduled
Speaker 1: Canada's first national fascist convention for Kingston, Ontario. The mayor
Speaker 1: and city council did not want a fascist convention held
Speaker 1: in their city and called the police to prevent it. Defiantly,
Speaker 1: Leader Arkhan slipped forty five of his leaders into a
Speaker 1: room near police headquarters. It's this old tibe language held
Speaker 1: forth unmolested for five and a half hours. Upon emerging,
Speaker 1: Leader Arcan wired thanks to the mayor for his courtesy
Speaker 1: extended and announced the formation of the new National Unity Party.
Speaker 1: A flaming torch will be the new party's emblem, Canada
Speaker 1: for Canadians, its slogan, and the upraised arm of its
Speaker 1: salute for King, Country and Christianity. Moving onto Ontario, leader
Speaker 1: Arcan supported by eighty five of his Blue Shirts. Uh
Speaker 1: he claims there were eighty thousand members at the time,
Speaker 1: held a meeting in Nancy Hall that there was attended
Speaker 1: by about eight hundred sympathizers. More impressive, however, there were
Speaker 1: three anti fascist counter demonstrations held simultaneously. Two outdoor anti
Speaker 1: fascist meetings drew four hundred persons until broken up by
Speaker 1: police fearing a clash, But at Maple Leaf Gardens the
Speaker 1: Canadian League of Peace and Democracy attracted ten thousand so
Speaker 1: as was the first big fascist rally in Canada. There
Speaker 1: was like, you know, ten thousands of these more liberal
Speaker 1: people rallying elsewhere and four hundred like anti fascion just
Speaker 1: ready to you know, beat up these Nazis, um, but
Speaker 1: then the police beat them up. Because history doesn't change.
Speaker 1: Times of flat circle, we're still doing the same thing. Now.
Speaker 1: Do you know who won't rally eight hundred Canadian Nazis
Speaker 1: called the Blue Shirts to sell you products? Tell us
Speaker 1: promise that, yeah, depending depending what. Because Hello Fresh has
Speaker 1: recently been sending there, why do you always pick Hello Fresh?
Speaker 1: There are so many worse brands that we can't ignore
Speaker 1: the fact that they've been increasingly building their militant capacity
Speaker 1: for the last seven years. Anyway, here's some ads. You
Speaker 1: have too much to read, and we are back talking
Speaker 1: about the Canadian Blue Shirts, Um, the Hello Fresh, Hello
Speaker 1: Shut please continue, Blue Aprons, the Blue Aprons, thanks Chris
Speaker 1: that they Christopher saving the bit all right, thank you. Um.
Speaker 1: So next year, after his first rally was nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: World War two obviously started to ramp up, and the
Speaker 1: Canadian government arrested Arkhan for plotting to overthrow the state
Speaker 1: UM and his National Unity Party was banned from federal elections.
Speaker 1: Arkhan was released from prison after the war, but he
Speaker 1: continued his political aspirations. UM. He ran for federal election
Speaker 1: twice in Quebec, once in nineteen forty nine and once
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three. Both times he uh, he ran
Speaker 1: under his National Unity Party banner despite it being banned
Speaker 1: from elections. I don't know how he did that, um,
Speaker 1: both times, laws are fake. Yeah. Both times he placed
Speaker 1: second with over five and a half five and a
Speaker 1: half thousand votes, which was about like thirty percent of
Speaker 1: of of the vote. Um. Actually, but the second time
Speaker 1: he ran as he ran just under a nationalist banner, um,
Speaker 1: and he got second as well, but he got like
Speaker 1: the vote, so he he did a slight slightly better
Speaker 1: just running as a nationalist in Quebec, not like the
Speaker 1: National Unity thing because that was, you know, more overtly Nazi.
Speaker 1: But he kept holding National Uni of the party public
Speaker 1: rallies until the mid sixties. His last rally I think
Speaker 1: attracted like one thousand supporters, too many. I was hoping
Speaker 1: you were able to say like three and there was
Speaker 1: probably sad footage, but that's sad in a different way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he finally died in nineteen sixty seven, and with
Speaker 1: him also died the National Unity Party. I So I
Speaker 1: bring this one up because it's one funked up and
Speaker 1: interesting um and too, it's like it's indicative of the
Speaker 1: weirdness that can come out of Quebec's nationalist political bent. Uh.
Speaker 1: We can see that now with a modern fact, you know,
Speaker 1: neo fascist Canadian political party that's based out of Quebec,
Speaker 1: which we will talk about shortly. Um, but even like
Speaker 1: the nationalist tendencies within Quebec's more mainstream progressive population. Like
Speaker 1: I'm going to read some of the policy positions of
Speaker 1: the Block cabu Qua party. That's that's that, that's the
Speaker 1: that's like the Quebec sovereignty you know, party that is
Speaker 1: still actually very very pot killer in in elections specifically
Speaker 1: in Quebec. And just ahead of this, if you're a
Speaker 1: French speaker and you're frustrated by Garrison's pronunciations or my
Speaker 1: pronunciations of Quebecua that your language isn't real and it's fine,
Speaker 1: and you're desended from the French. Yeah, and you're responsible
Speaker 1: for this Nazi so unlike unlike English speakers who have
Speaker 1: been responsible for Spanish. That's my take, okay, anyway, saying
Speaker 1: Spanish here here here is the progressive liberal block Qubuqua
Speaker 1: policy positions UM Quebec sovereignty you know, up into independence.
Speaker 1: But usually it's just you know, them pushing the interests
Speaker 1: of Quebec. UM environmentalism, abortion rights, you know, pro abortion rights, UM,
Speaker 1: l g l g lgbt Q rights, UM, legalization of
Speaker 1: assisted suicide, UM, opposition to Canadian participation in the Iraq war,
Speaker 1: UMU abolition, abolition of the abolition of the monarchy. All right, Uh,
Speaker 1: forcing forcing immigrants to speak French in Quebec lost lost
Speaker 1: blocking immigration to Quebec. You've also lost me the Quebec
Speaker 1: Secularism Law, which bans public workers in positions of authority
Speaker 1: from wearing religious symbols primarily targeted at Muslims, and seeks
Speaker 1: exemption Quebec's exemption from the requirements of the Multiculturalism Act. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know the Multicultural Act, but I'm
Speaker 1: it's great. It's it's it's good. So yeah, so you
Speaker 1: can kind of see how like they have you know,
Speaker 1: all these like you know, pretty good, pretty good progressive
Speaker 1: STIGs and then and then they get really anti immigrant, right,
Speaker 1: so this is like this is kind of hard to
Speaker 1: explain to Americans, how like you can be very like
Speaker 1: pro gay, pro you know, abolition of the monarchy, but
Speaker 1: then also be like no, but we don't want those
Speaker 1: brown people in Quebec. Yeah. So yeah, anyway, we're gon
Speaker 1: we're gonna move on from Quebec specifically, but don't worry,
Speaker 1: we will be back because you're still a problem. But
Speaker 1: there there are there are other things too, are other
Speaker 1: things to discuss. So after our CON's fascist Canadian movement,
Speaker 1: there was a stint of like Canadian skinheads in the seventies,
Speaker 1: you know, around the same time as the UK and
Speaker 1: the US. UM in the seventies, there was an unsuccessful
Speaker 1: Nazi party called the Nationalist Party of Canada that spawned
Speaker 1: a skinhead gang called Heritage Front. Um. Heritage Front disbanded
Speaker 1: around the mid two thousands because the Canadian Feds infiltrated
Speaker 1: it and kind of you know cut that down, so
Speaker 1: critical support to the Canadian fans. But now we're gonna
Speaker 1: move on to Unite the right, not not not the
Speaker 1: unite right that you're thinking of, the Canadian Unite the
Speaker 1: Right movement from the ninety nineties and early two thousands.
Speaker 1: That one probably wasn't problematic right there. It has no
Speaker 1: lasting problems so because of because of Canada's multi multiparty system,
Speaker 1: there's more opportunity for ideologically similar parties to split the vote,
Speaker 1: you know, of people leaning in a certain direction. Um.
Speaker 1: Throughout most of the later half of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: they were multiple conservative right wing parties that were operating
Speaker 1: at the same time, which did split the right of
Speaker 1: center vote. This is in part what allowed Canada to
Speaker 1: rise as like a liberal haven, because for a while
Speaker 1: the Conservatives just couldn't get elected because they were splitting
Speaker 1: the vote too many ways, leaving the main liberal party
Speaker 1: to win the vast majority of elections. Um. Obviously this
Speaker 1: frustrated right wing politicians and vote and voters than in
Speaker 1: the ninety nineties there were there were there were two
Speaker 1: main right wing parties. There was the older Progressive Conservative Party.
Speaker 1: They're like a classically fiscal conservative party with slightly less
Speaker 1: socially conservative beliefs, so you know, I would rather take
Speaker 1: them compared to the alternatives here. Um. The other major
Speaker 1: party was a right of center party called the Reform Party,
Speaker 1: which was much more of like a right wing populist
Speaker 1: and extremely socially conservative party, more similar to like the
Speaker 1: Trump era Republican Party. You know, they they're they're they're
Speaker 1: much they're much more right wing, populist, they're way more
Speaker 1: socially conservative, kind of what we traditionally think of as like,
Speaker 1: you know, like a racist Republican that this this this
Speaker 1: is their party called called the Reform Party. So, after
Speaker 1: after loss after loss throughout the nineties and during the
Speaker 1: turn of the century, concertative efforts were being made between
Speaker 1: these two parties to unite into one. In nineteen there
Speaker 1: was a Unite the Right conference held in Toronto, Ontario,
Speaker 1: trying to bring together politicians and delegates from these two
Speaker 1: main conservative parties. But they also brought in some much
Speaker 1: more extreme Christian fascist parties, which there was like four
Speaker 1: of at the time. There was a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of Christian fascist parties around this time. Um so
Speaker 1: the conference garnered a negative news coverage in part to
Speaker 1: due to the inclusion of these far right Christian extremist parties.
Speaker 1: And then after the conference, polls were conducted that suggested
Speaker 1: that many of the progressive conservative supporters would rather vote
Speaker 1: liberal than vote for the new kind of merged, more
Speaker 1: extreme right wing party. So like a lot of these
Speaker 1: a lot of these fiscal conservatives are like no, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to vote for all of this weird racism.
Speaker 1: I just don't want there to be higher taxes. So
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna I'm gonna rather vote for the liberals
Speaker 1: then vote for these fucking weirdos, which I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that, that's the Conservative I would rather have. UM.
Speaker 1: So the conference didn't sit well with the with the
Speaker 1: Progressive Conservative Party. UM it's politicians or or the political leaders.
Speaker 1: So the merger plans were cut off. They're like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do this. You guys are too
Speaker 1: weird and racist. We're not doing this. UM. Then in
Speaker 1: two thousand to no. I think this is important that
Speaker 1: this was after nine eleven. I think this is really
Speaker 1: the reason why this happened. UM. One of the original
Speaker 1: Reform Party founders that the Reform Party is the more
Speaker 1: populist one. So one of the original founders named Stephen
Speaker 1: Harper took control of the populist Conservative Party and works
Speaker 1: to improve the optics of the more extreme sides of
Speaker 1: his party. I think it's very important this this happened
Speaker 1: after nine eleven, and this is how the merger actually worked.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand three, merger talks start sort of
Speaker 1: up again, and in August of that year, the two
Speaker 1: parties announced the merger had been completed. There was a
Speaker 1: new United Conservative Party. UM. In the announcement, harper is
Speaker 1: quote it as saying, our swords will henceforth be pointed
Speaker 1: at the Liberals, not each other, And in December Harper
Speaker 1: was voted in as the new party leader. The work
Speaker 1: did pay off in the two US and six Canadian
Speaker 1: federal election. The Conservatives gained a controlling minority government among
Speaker 1: the electorate, with the former co founder of the extremist
Speaker 1: you know, populist Reform Party, Stephen Harper, becoming the new
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Canada. So this is how he got
Speaker 1: from Reform Party to being the you know, the prime
Speaker 1: minister in throughout through the two thousand's um he was
Speaker 1: the Prime Minister of Canada for most of the time
Speaker 1: I lived there. That that that's who I think of
Speaker 1: when I think of the Prime Minister of Canada's I
Speaker 1: think of Stephen Harper. So Harper remained as Prime minister
Speaker 1: until the two US fifteen election that saw noted black
Speaker 1: face appreciator Justin Trudeau elected under the Liberal Party. So
Speaker 1: that's good, what a good system we have that that
Speaker 1: that man like just your range of his pla say
Speaker 1: what you will about the man, very careful. You know
Speaker 1: you under no circumstances gonna hand it to him. You
Speaker 1: do not, in fact have to hand it to him.
Speaker 1: Well you have to hand him. Uh the little the
Speaker 1: towel that he uses to get the black face off
Speaker 1: of his face can go into his work running Canada.
Speaker 1: Huh yep, cool country. Didn't find out that like five
Speaker 1: of our governors all had black face photos. It was
Speaker 1: it was. It was a big year for black face.
Speaker 1: It really, It's incredible because I can't picture. Like again,
Speaker 1: I grew up very right wing and definitely had some
Speaker 1: said some uncomfortable things in my time. I don't think
Speaker 1: there was ever a point at which I would have
Speaker 1: been like, yeah, this seems like a good right it's
Speaker 1: what the fuck? Like? Yeah? Pretty? What is the joke there?
Speaker 1: It's pretty? It's pretty bad? Uh? Justin Trudeau? Uh yeah
Speaker 1: he is. He is the one all of the wine
Speaker 1: Mom's thirst over. Yeah yeah. Anyway. Um. Beyond making it
Speaker 1: easier to vote in right of center candidates, what what
Speaker 1: the Canadian Unite the Right accomplished was pushing the conservative
Speaker 1: establishment much further to the right than what the previously
Speaker 1: popular progressive Conservatives had established, while maintaining the respectability and
Speaker 1: civility the progressive Conservatives had cultivated. We are now going
Speaker 1: to skip ahead to two thousand seventeen. UM. In January seventeen,
Speaker 1: soon after the US President Donald Trump put into place
Speaker 1: the travel band from from you know, seven Muslim majority countries,
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivered a message via Twitter to
Speaker 1: those fleeing persecution, terror and war. Canadians will welcome you,
Speaker 1: regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. Hashtag welcome
Speaker 1: to Canada. Though, so Trudeau was like, if the US
Speaker 1: is gonna be racist, we're gonna we're gonna let them in.
Speaker 1: UM for this, uh, for this next part, I'm going
Speaker 1: to quote from the New York Times. UM. Just hours
Speaker 1: after watching the television report suggesting Canada would accept immigrants
Speaker 1: that were shunned by Trump, the twenty eight year old
Speaker 1: political science student packed his glock, handgun and rifle and
Speaker 1: trudged through the snow covered streets of Quebec to a
Speaker 1: nearby Islamic cultural center. As fifty three men were finishing
Speaker 1: evening prayers. He unloaded forty eight rounds. Six people were killed,
Speaker 1: several of them with shots to the head, and nineteen
Speaker 1: others were injured. One was paralyzed for life. In the
Speaker 1: month before his rampage, the shooter tralled the Internet eight
Speaker 1: hundred and nineteen times for posts related to Mr Trump,
Speaker 1: reading his Twitter feed daily and homing in on the
Speaker 1: American president's travel ban on several Muslim majority countries. He
Speaker 1: kept a cache of guns underneath his bed at his
Speaker 1: parents house, and among his friends was just his twin brother.
Speaker 1: The shooter told investigators that he wished he had killed
Speaker 1: more people and he wanted to protect his family from
Speaker 1: Islamic terrorists. Experts on radicalization say that in Quebec, the
Speaker 1: French speaking province surrounded by an English speaking majority, the
Speaker 1: anti immigrant far right offers fertile, fertile, imperilous ground for
Speaker 1: psychologically unstable youths seeking a sense of identity and a scapegoat.
Speaker 1: The head of the Canadian based Center of Prevention of
Speaker 1: Radicalization Leading to Violence that they said that the Quebec
Speaker 1: Mosque shooter was in part of it was part of
Speaker 1: a growing number of educated, middle class to white youths
Speaker 1: in Quebec drawn to far right ideas fueled by the
Speaker 1: election of Mr Trump and fanned by fears of immigration
Speaker 1: that threatens Quebec's identity. When the Anti Radicalization Center was
Speaker 1: started in two thousand and fifteen, they dealt with sixteen
Speaker 1: cases of youths in the province that we're getting radicalized
Speaker 1: by the far right. Last year, which was like sixteen, Uh.
Speaker 1: This center had one hundred and fifty four such cases.
Speaker 1: So this is this is kind of the the arc
Speaker 1: of things. Really Trump's Trump's election did respire did did
Speaker 1: for a lot of this growing like oh, these political
Speaker 1: beliefs are acceptable now, right, Like this is something that
Speaker 1: is like we are we are we are allowed to
Speaker 1: do this and that that did echo in Canada and
Speaker 1: across a lot of the a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of other countries. Um. What what one of one of
Speaker 1: the victims of the of the Quebec Uh massacre his
Speaker 1: his father said that he come to Canada from Algeria
Speaker 1: in the escape terrorism um and he said that like
Speaker 1: Quebec did not create the monster the shooter, but the
Speaker 1: Islamophobia that is inherent inside Quebec gave him like the motive.
Speaker 1: So this is really does relate to connate to like
Speaker 1: the political situation of Canada. And it's very it's it's
Speaker 1: it's not a coincidence that the majority of these types
Speaker 1: of attacks are inside either Quebec, Toronto or um. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're a white, if you're if you're
Speaker 1: in Alberta. It's that it's more tied to like other
Speaker 1: other like conservative values, but like a lot of it
Speaker 1: is around Quebec for a lot of these like shootings
Speaker 1: and all these acts of terrorist them. Um. There was
Speaker 1: like the there was the in celle guy who ran
Speaker 1: over tons of people in in Toronto with his car. Um,
Speaker 1: same same kind of thing of like of getting more
Speaker 1: more used to these kind of having these far right
Speaker 1: ideas be more allowed, um and then thinking them as
Speaker 1: more of like a normalized thing. So that so the
Speaker 1: Quebec mosque shooting, uh kind of well couple a lot
Speaker 1: of people in Canada's being like, oh, we're not immune
Speaker 1: to this. This is like an actual thing that we
Speaker 1: have to deal with. Two. Um. And the next few
Speaker 1: months after Trade's January announcement, border crossings did see an
Speaker 1: increase in Canada formally accepted more immigrants and refugees and
Speaker 1: and no not and there was like the term in
Speaker 1: Canada is like an irregular spike of border crossings. Um.
Speaker 1: The fact the way Canadian media reported this, I think
Speaker 1: it's very irresponsible, the way they tried to like frame
Speaker 1: this as like after this announcement, we're getting so many
Speaker 1: irregular crossings that only few old this type of like
Speaker 1: this type of anti immigrant sentiment. Um. It was. It
Speaker 1: was not really great. A lot of the old articles
Speaker 1: I pulled up for this for like, had really had
Speaker 1: really disgusting framing, especially you know, viewing it now. So
Speaker 1: in March, the Canadian Parliament passed a motion that condemns
Speaker 1: Islamophobia and request that the government recognized the need to
Speaker 1: quell the public of climate of fear and hate specifically
Speaker 1: around Muslims and immigrants. Um. The motion was non binding,
Speaker 1: So it doesn't it doesn't mean anything. It's just the
Speaker 1: government saying something nice. Um. But it's still it's it's
Speaker 1: still sparked tons of outrage. Um. You know. It called
Speaker 1: on the government to condemn Islamophobia and all forms of
Speaker 1: systemic racism and discrimination. Uh. The the margin was passed
Speaker 1: by like it was passed by a margin of like
Speaker 1: two hundred two h two over ninety so people a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of the Conservatives in Parliament didn't
Speaker 1: didn't like this, but it it's it's garnered so much
Speaker 1: online backlash. There were there were petitions and nationwide protests
Speaker 1: condemning this bill as an attack on free speech um
Speaker 1: and uh. The the person who introduced the bill, um
Speaker 1: uh in an MP named um Akra Khalid, received death
Speaker 1: threats um on through like their email and like they
Speaker 1: had like their private private information leaked. And it turned
Speaker 1: in this very very big kind of one of the
Speaker 1: first things where it had like these like national protests
Speaker 1: in Canada that you know, similar to how we had
Speaker 1: like the free speech thing around to two and seventeen.
Speaker 1: This was like the Canadian version of that and how
Speaker 1: this kind of started. UM. Then in December, Urdeau signed
Speaker 1: into the United Nations Global Migration Pact. There's another non
Speaker 1: binding incentive designed to provide understanding among nations about how
Speaker 1: to deal with the global immigration crisis. Again, all these
Speaker 1: things are just people talking um but it made people
Speaker 1: very very mad because if you're talking about it, that
Speaker 1: means it actually is real and it's actually gonna affect you,
Speaker 1: or it's just ignoring that these problems exist. So really,
Speaker 1: after Trump's election, after the Quebec, after after the Quebec
Speaker 1: Mosque shooting, than we have all these bills. This kind
Speaker 1: of ignited a in person rallying possibility and in person
Speaker 1: protests that Canada hadn't really seen before for this type
Speaker 1: of like anti immigration sentiments. Um, and we'll we'll talk
Speaker 1: more about these protests after after we have a little
Speaker 1: little bit of an ad break. You know, who doesn't
Speaker 1: get protested except for that one time when they illegally
Speaker 1: overthrew the government of Ecuador. Uh, have to be more
Speaker 1: the the That's right, Garrison, our sponsors only one time
Speaker 1: did they cause mass protests as a result of overthrowing
Speaker 1: a sovereign government. That's pretty good, Garrison, Pretty good. Are
Speaker 1: you trying to do like a Banana republic thing? What
Speaker 1: are you? What are you doing? I'm just saying most
Speaker 1: podcasts three to four governments overthrown by their sponsors, all right,
Speaker 1: could happen here? Just the one baby, Hello, welcome to
Speaker 1: Why Canada isn't a liberal utopia and actually has a
Speaker 1: lot of the same systemic problems that every other Western
Speaker 1: country does, and it's not immune to fascist infiltration and
Speaker 1: co option so as so, I know, we we've talked
Speaker 1: a lot abou Quebec and stuff, which is uh great
Speaker 1: because yeah, it is a problem. But this exists in
Speaker 1: the western provinces as well. Saskatchewan, Alberta, BC have a
Speaker 1: lot of these growing kind of things. But they're not
Speaker 1: French Canadians doing this. They're more like you know what
Speaker 1: we in America would you know recognize as like rule conservatives. UM.
Speaker 1: So around all of this, you know, increased discussion around
Speaker 1: immigration in two seventeen UM, around the same time people
Speaker 1: in Western Canada have We're facing a bit of an
Speaker 1: economic recession. They had you know, significant job loss around
Speaker 1: this time UM. And projects that traditionally brought work to
Speaker 1: the area, like pipelines were you know, there was discussion
Speaker 1: of them getting stalled and people you know moving more
Speaker 1: towards renewable energy. This kind of increasing of the political
Speaker 1: tensions between the Eastern you know, liberal majority Canada and
Speaker 1: the western more rule Canada. Um. Quoting an article from
Speaker 1: the CBC, Uh, Trudeau just keeps giving away all of
Speaker 1: our money to immigrants, said Samantha two boy and is
Speaker 1: a that is a French name. I'm not even attempted
Speaker 1: that one. Samantha Frenchie. Anyway, this mother of five, she
Speaker 1: attained a January fifth rally with a Webster, her husband,
Speaker 1: and two of their children. It was her first protest
Speaker 1: for any cause we're stuck paying for all this money
Speaker 1: that he wants to give away to everybody, but Canadians.
Speaker 1: My kids are growing up, and my grandkids and all
Speaker 1: of their kids are going to be poor and stuck
Speaker 1: in a hole that they're never going to get out of.
Speaker 1: This is this is you know, very common type of thing,
Speaker 1: like oh, we're getting taxed and taking all of our
Speaker 1: money and giving giving away to immigrants. This happened after this,
Speaker 1: after the Syrian refugee crisis, when Canada is sort of
Speaker 1: accepting a lot of Syrian immigrants. That's that's around the
Speaker 1: time that I left Canada. Um. But I totally remember people,
Speaker 1: you know, having very similar sentiments of like, why are
Speaker 1: we you know, paying for all of these refugees, you know,
Speaker 1: and and that that that's that's the thing that happens
Speaker 1: in the States too. Yeah. Um. So, the economic tensions
Speaker 1: developing in Western Canada, combined with the increase in anti
Speaker 1: immigration sentiments among conservatives, were in part spurred by the
Speaker 1: Trump presidency led to the Canadian yellow Vest movement. UM.
Speaker 1: This is totally separate from the French protest movement UM.
Speaker 1: The Canadian version just stole like the working class branding,
Speaker 1: just used it for their proto fascist crusade UM. So
Speaker 1: the Canadian yellow Vests were a a group of connected
Speaker 1: protest movements over the course of nineteen that had a
Speaker 1: lot of like in personalities but also a lot of
Speaker 1: online mobilization. It's kind of since died out, but it
Speaker 1: was a major force in pushing right wing extremism in
Speaker 1: Canada and having it be accessible to like regular people,
Speaker 1: right It's it's not It's not like the Proud Boys
Speaker 1: at all, where it's like you know specific you know,
Speaker 1: bad people doing this thing. It was like appealing to like,
Speaker 1: you know, the oil workers, appealing to like the moms.
Speaker 1: It was like it was it was. It was primarily
Speaker 1: used Facebook as a means of passing off this type
Speaker 1: of information and making it seem you know acceptable. Um.
Speaker 1: The Canadian Lovests, quoting an article from Vice UM, Canadian Yelvest,
Speaker 1: which had over a hundred thousand members on their Facebook
Speaker 1: as of May, carries the greatest potential for radicalization leading
Speaker 1: to violence in Canada right now, according to the executive
Speaker 1: director of the Canadian Anti Hate Network uh. The group's
Speaker 1: description says it says it was created to protest the
Speaker 1: carbon tax and build that pipeline and stand against the
Speaker 1: treason of our country's politicians who have the audacity to
Speaker 1: sell our country's sovereignty over to the globalist u N
Speaker 1: and their tyrannical policies. But concerns over Canadian oil sector
Speaker 1: appeared to be a very little factor in the discussion
Speaker 1: that goes on inside these groups. Instead, members are obsessing
Speaker 1: over with the defending you know, Western civilization from Islam,
Speaker 1: bashing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and spreading whatever you know,
Speaker 1: far right conspiracy theory is trending at the time, and
Speaker 1: I cannot overstate the amount that these people hate Trudeau.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not for like reasons because he wore
Speaker 1: black face. Like they find the most bizarre ways to
Speaker 1: hate this man um A lot of these people think
Speaker 1: that Justin Trudeau is the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro.
Speaker 1: This is a this is you look similar. This is
Speaker 1: a very a very popular conspiracy theory in Canada. It
Speaker 1: is like the way that Trudeau is treated by conservatives
Speaker 1: is baffling because like I hate Justin Trudeau, but I
Speaker 1: think I hate him for like reasonable reasons, Like he
Speaker 1: made a lot bunch of promises around you know, environment
Speaker 1: stuff that he didn't follow through on. He doesn't do
Speaker 1: he doesn't do anything he is. He does a lot
Speaker 1: of black face. It's like there's a lot of reasons
Speaker 1: to hate Justin Trudeau, but not because he's the illegitimate
Speaker 1: son of Fidel Castro leading us to like leading trying
Speaker 1: to sneak Canada into with the socialist you end, like
Speaker 1: that's not that's not what he's doing. Like, yeah, he
Speaker 1: was the illegitimate son of Fidel Castro. There's a couple
Speaker 1: of those in the United States. One of his daughters
Speaker 1: is now like a right wing radio personality, and that
Speaker 1: makes so much sense. He you know, he's Castro. He
Speaker 1: did a lot of fucking Like who who would care?
Speaker 1: It's not your your fault, who your dad is. It's
Speaker 1: just like this is it's it's like it's like a weaker,
Speaker 1: like funnier version of Birtherism. Yeah, like it is. It
Speaker 1: makes it It is like the Canadian version of that like,
Speaker 1: it's very weird. He's like Justin Trudeau is very cringe e.
Speaker 1: He lies about all of his promises. Um, he talks
Speaker 1: about game, he does a lot of virtue signaling, he
Speaker 1: does a lot of black face. There's are all really
Speaker 1: good reasons to have a lot of black face. UM, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of black face. But the way the ways
Speaker 1: that they come up with trying to make him seem
Speaker 1: like a bad dude just baffling. UM, very very bizarre.
Speaker 1: So UM in an interview with somebody from the Yellows
Speaker 1: Exposed Anti Fascist Research Team, which was a very good
Speaker 1: Twitter account around it's it's it's inactive now, but this
Speaker 1: this was a very good account, a very good account
Speaker 1: that did really really solid research into the into the
Speaker 1: Ellis movement. UM. In an interview, they were asked what
Speaker 1: type of impact they think the elbsts could have in
Speaker 1: Canada and this was this was their response. The image
Speaker 1: of the threat is no longer the skinhead, blooded, blood,
Speaker 1: blood and honor type. We're dealing with average people who
Speaker 1: don't understand the impact of the rhetoric. They're calling for
Speaker 1: the mass death of an entire religion, or they're celebrating
Speaker 1: them or they're celebrating the violence against that religion, or
Speaker 1: they're celebrating violence against government officials. They are just one
Speaker 1: step away from outright fascism, but they can't see that,
Speaker 1: and they refuse to see that, which I think it's
Speaker 1: very is a very good UM summary of like how
Speaker 1: the yellow vests were a popular movement specifically on Facebook. Um.
Speaker 1: Another part of it was the idea of like Western separatism. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, the people in Western Canada feel ignored, They
Speaker 1: feel you know, put upon, They feel oppressed not just
Speaker 1: for feeling not not just for being Westerners, but they
Speaker 1: honestly feel oppressed because they're white. They feel like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're focusing on you know, only gonna give money to
Speaker 1: the brown people. That's the kind of thing that they
Speaker 1: feel like in the West. Um, they're like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: my right to free speech was taken away because of
Speaker 1: the because of the non binding bill, and refugees can
Speaker 1: just walk across the border and they make more money
Speaker 1: than I do. So they they have they have all
Speaker 1: these all these ideas that are not actually based in reality,
Speaker 1: but they can believe them. Um. And they you know,
Speaker 1: find these new sources that are just echo chambers that
Speaker 1: reinforce this belief to the point where they they become
Speaker 1: radicalize themselves. UM. It's very it's a very very common thing,
Speaker 1: especially around twenties nineteen. I was tracking a lot of
Speaker 1: these Facebook groups around twenty nine as well, just in
Speaker 1: my spare time, UM, because it's just interesting to watch
Speaker 1: them interact. UM. I'm gonna give like, you know, like
Speaker 1: a brief recap of like a typical yell yellow best
Speaker 1: protest around like Edmonton UM, based a bit off of
Speaker 1: of of of a few CBC articles, So you know,
Speaker 1: testers would gather around in front of UM like the
Speaker 1: legislative building, holding signs, wearing bright yellow vests. UM. And
Speaker 1: they would do this like basically every every weekend for
Speaker 1: you know, months and months and months on end. UM.
Speaker 1: Some protesters when we stand at the podium showing conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories about how powerful the Jewish families controlling the world
Speaker 1: are UM, as one as one dude did at the
Speaker 1: Alberta Legislature UM on like January. UM. Some may come
Speaker 1: sporting red make Alberta great again. Hats uh. This was
Speaker 1: very very popular, very popular. UM. Others may proud the sidelines,
Speaker 1: stress like they belong to a biker gang. Um. Instead
Speaker 1: of only instead of Hell's Angels patches, they have patries
Speaker 1: that say Wolves of Odin and Canadian Infidels. Uh. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you one, guests, what type of ideology the
Speaker 1: Wolves of Odin have? Yeah, the the communists, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: they're not season Um. But most of the protesters voices
Speaker 1: are not away from like, are not from the fringes.
Speaker 1: Most of them just have jobs, um, you know, you
Speaker 1: know in like high rises, or they drive it for Uber,
Speaker 1: or their teachers or pipe fitters or real estate agents.
Speaker 1: And although their message is like muddled by all of
Speaker 1: these other like you know, much more overtly extremist kind
Speaker 1: of talking points, they all have one thing in common
Speaker 1: that they feel like they're getting ignored and being left
Speaker 1: behind by the liberals in the east. UM. This is
Speaker 1: echoed by one of the person they got interviewed at
Speaker 1: these rallies was named Lynn Smith, who was a former
Speaker 1: oil and gas worker who now works in the school system. UM.
Speaker 1: They were at a a yellow vest rally on in
Speaker 1: January that was like the fourth first fourth protester she attended. UM.
Speaker 1: She said, they're just giving away our country. We have
Speaker 1: no rights anymore. They're taking them away. No more Lord's prayer.
Speaker 1: But they're putting prayer prayer rooms in schools for Muslims. Um,
Speaker 1: marry Christmas. You're you're You're not. You're not allowed to
Speaker 1: say anymore. It's supposed to be happy holidays. They're changing,
Speaker 1: they're changing our country, and we've got to stand up
Speaker 1: and say something about it, because because this is our
Speaker 1: count tree, I was born here, my parents are born here.
Speaker 1: It's wrong. So you know, I'm sure people in the
Speaker 1: States are familiar with this type of rhetoric. Um, but
Speaker 1: the the increased nature of in Canada was surprising to
Speaker 1: a lot of Canadians and like president of a lot
Speaker 1: of like liberal Canadians, because they're like, but you're you're
Speaker 1: in Canada. Why are you doing the States thing? Why?
Speaker 1: Why are you doing the thing that they do in
Speaker 1: the States. Why are you doing it here? Um? But
Speaker 1: you know, the same reason you know people do in
Speaker 1: the States is because they feel ignored by politicians, you know,
Speaker 1: saying that's that's why this happens in Saskatchewan and Alberta
Speaker 1: NBC way more than it happens in like Ontario, right,
Speaker 1: is because you know, the more farther away you are from,
Speaker 1: you know, the big cities, the less your interests are
Speaker 1: cared for by a lot of politicians. So the ones
Speaker 1: that speak to you are these like extremists who are
Speaker 1: trying to pray on these actual you know, financial insecurities.
Speaker 1: Um so A lot some of the protesters say that
Speaker 1: they're not like a post immigration but but most of
Speaker 1: the focus of the Edmonton Yellow Best rallies has been
Speaker 1: has been about who can come into the country and
Speaker 1: how they're allowed to get here. Um one one I
Speaker 1: named Brett Webster, the father of five for works like
Speaker 1: contruction construction industry, says they're overwhelming our resources. We can't
Speaker 1: properly let these people and make sure it's safe for
Speaker 1: them to come in and make sure that they're skilled
Speaker 1: and assimilate into our country and know our ways and
Speaker 1: our values. So most of the extremest stuff in Canada
Speaker 1: outside of Quebec does come from does come specifically from Alberta.
Speaker 1: You know, the big big cities in Alberta are our
Speaker 1: Calgary and Edmonton. This happens also in a lot of
Speaker 1: the more rural areas that you know, mostly used to
Speaker 1: run on like oil drilling. UM After losing an election
Speaker 1: to the more social democratic NDP party. Uh, the two
Speaker 1: provincial Conservative parties in Alberta had their own little mini
Speaker 1: Unite the Right and merged together in to US in seventeen,
Speaker 1: leading to their success in the polls in ten. So
Speaker 1: then the Conservatives have since then, they've done a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff in Alberta, like cutting down their health
Speaker 1: care to actually a lot of a lot of the
Speaker 1: Conservative voters don't like, but like they voted for because
Speaker 1: that was the platform. You just were being scared of
Speaker 1: brown people, so you voted for the Conservatives. Now, but
Speaker 1: now your healthcare is cut. So that's that's how politics works. Um.
Speaker 1: So that that's kind of a brief summary of the
Speaker 1: Yellow US movement and how it how it gained a
Speaker 1: lot of popularity. Um. They they would do rallies around
Speaker 1: like polling centers. They would they would they would they
Speaker 1: would attack people. They would have you know, violent rallies
Speaker 1: where a lot of like older, older men who were
Speaker 1: in the Yellows movement would be you know, pretty violent
Speaker 1: towards you know, and anyone in their area during a protest. Um.
Speaker 1: But they kind of kind of around COVID, the Yellow
Speaker 1: Vess kind of sput it out. A lot of the
Speaker 1: people in these Facebook groups got you know, moved into
Speaker 1: other conspiracy theory groups um, and the LLOS movement kind
Speaker 1: of lost its train. UM. So that's where we're kind
Speaker 1: of going to end for today, is with the kind
Speaker 1: of the LLOSS kind of fizzling out, and then the
Speaker 1: next part we'll talk about what's happening from like en
Speaker 1: and the election that year took like kind of the
Speaker 1: present fascist rumblings um inside different sectors of Canadian politics.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that is that's my that's my very very
Speaker 1: brief right up of of right wing populism and extremism
Speaker 1: in Canada. Yep, it's fun. It's not fun. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's upsetting um, and it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of the same problems we have here of
Speaker 1: you know, politicians really ignoring people in certain parts of
Speaker 1: the country which provide provide very fertile recruiting ground for
Speaker 1: a lot of extremists. I think it's going to all
Speaker 1: end well. That is our that is our that is
Speaker 1: our official policy that everything is going to turn out great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems fine. I mean there's like there is actual
Speaker 1: ways of preventing this are happening, right, It's not it's
Speaker 1: it's not a hopeless thing. We can actually do it
Speaker 1: if we want to. Just people with power to do it,
Speaker 1: don't don't don't like doing it. Yeah, well and good
Speaker 1: that is the message of the pod, Sophie cool and good.
Speaker 1: So yep, that's that's Canadian fascism one cool. Um. I
Speaker 1: would recommend if people want to learn more about the
Speaker 1: Canadian uh yellow vests, check out the yellow Best Exposed
Speaker 1: Twitter account. Uh. There's also like there's also articles about them.
Speaker 1: They were a very a very good anti fascist research team. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would just recommend if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about this the specific movement, all of their work on
Speaker 1: it has been great. Um. So yeah, shout out, shout
Speaker 1: out to Yellow Vests Exposed. That's the pod. Alright, Well
Speaker 1: go get your Tim Hortons and tomorrow, Yeah, I go
Speaker 1: get your Tim Horton's and you're I don't know, maple
Speaker 1: syrup and go find a moose Fozon Media or happen
Speaker 1: here pot on, the twits and the inst against Bye
Speaker 1: bye everybody, a goodbye A A adoption of teams from
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Speaker 1: we're here to change that. I'm April Dinuity, host of
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Speaker 1: Each episode brings you compelling, real life adoption stories told
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Speaker 1: and make sure you leave a review. Hi. Hello, Nope,
Speaker 1: that's not it. That's it. Garrison episode has begun it
Speaker 1: cannot be unbegun. A let's let's roll right into it.
Speaker 1: Let's talk so well, welcome this says it could happen here.
Speaker 1: Um today the today, the here is is Canada, that
Speaker 1: is the that is where it could happen. Um. This
Speaker 1: is gonna be part two of my little deep dive
Speaker 1: into Canadian fascism and the far right rumblings in general
Speaker 1: in the Great White North. And oh god, that is
Speaker 1: a bad, bad nickname for Canada, the Great White North,
Speaker 1: not inaccurate. Did not really think that went through? Oopsie doodle.
Speaker 1: Maybe the Yeah, there's a good chance anyway. Um. The
Speaker 1: last episode we left off with the Canadian yellow vests, um,
Speaker 1: and you know of frightening increase in Islamophobia and anti
Speaker 1: immigration rhetoric around late seventeen and eighteen after Trump selection.
Speaker 1: And we started the last episode by talking about one
Speaker 1: of Canada's first fascist political parties. And we're gonna start
Speaker 1: part two but talking about Canada's new neo fascist political
Speaker 1: party that also got started inside the province of Quebec
Speaker 1: just like the National Unity Party did. Uh. This one
Speaker 1: is called the People's Party of Canada. Um. Before we
Speaker 1: get into the People's Party and first to give some
Speaker 1: background on the founder of the party, Maxine Bernier. Um.
Speaker 1: And that's how that's that's how I'm gonna say his name. Um,
Speaker 1: No one at me, it's good enough. Um. Bernair was
Speaker 1: born in Quebec in nineteen sixty three and is the
Speaker 1: son of a conservative talk radio host turned politician. Isn't
Speaker 1: that funny? Isn't that funny? How that keeps happening? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Bernair entered politics into US in six um he
Speaker 1: ran as the Conservative Party candidate for the House of
Speaker 1: Commons in the same writing district that his father had
Speaker 1: represented in the eighties and nineties. Stephen Harper, leader of
Speaker 1: the new United Conservative Party, initially wanted Maxine's father to
Speaker 1: re enter politics, but Bernair Senior was less keen on
Speaker 1: that idea, and instead told Harper that he that perhaps
Speaker 1: his son should run in his place. Radio and nepotism,
Speaker 1: radio and nepotism, yep, and politicians and yeah it is
Speaker 1: it is starting great. Um. So at this point Bernair
Speaker 1: was more like a free market libertarian, libertarian type guy,
Speaker 1: you know, still with some of the same like conservative
Speaker 1: immigration stuff that's that's common in Quebec, but he was
Speaker 1: more of just like a libertarian dude. Bernair easily won
Speaker 1: the writing writings of what we call districts here in
Speaker 1: the States, ranking at sixty seven percent of the popular vote,
Speaker 1: which was the largest majority for a Conservative politician outside
Speaker 1: of the province of Alberta. So he he did, he
Speaker 1: did very well. Bernair, who had a background in business,
Speaker 1: quickly rose through the ranks of the Conservative Party. Within
Speaker 1: the same year he was appointed to be a cabinet
Speaker 1: minister in the Harper government. Um and he worked as
Speaker 1: a as an industry minister from to us in six
Speaker 1: to US and seven before being promoted to a foreign
Speaker 1: affairs minister, and then in two thousand eleven he was
Speaker 1: appointed of. He was appointed as Minister of the State.
Speaker 1: So in in spring of sixteen, after the fifth after
Speaker 1: the federal election, uh Brena Air put in his bid
Speaker 1: to be the new elected Conservative Party leader. UM So,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna briefly explain how Canadian elections work. You You
Speaker 1: don't vote for a prime minister. You vote for a
Speaker 1: party within your specific district if you if if your
Speaker 1: party wins, they get a seat in parliament. Whoever has
Speaker 1: the most seats in parliament, that's whose prime minister gets elected,
Speaker 1: so whoever is whoever is the leader of the party,
Speaker 1: they will be prime minister if that party gets the
Speaker 1: most seats. So in tow us in sixteen, burn Air
Speaker 1: put in his bid to be the new Conservative Party leader.
Speaker 1: Uh he got remarkably close to securing the spot as
Speaker 1: leader of the Conservatives. In the final round of voting,
Speaker 1: he received forty nine point zero five percent of the vote,
Speaker 1: losing to Saskatchewan Conservative politician Andrew Shear, who got fifty
Speaker 1: point nine percent, so less less than two percent difference.
Speaker 1: He was so close to the comic leader of the
Speaker 1: Conservative Party, like ridiculous. So yeah, after his extremely slight loss,
Speaker 1: he continued to work in Shear's Conservative Party for a
Speaker 1: few years. Um, if you remember from the last episode,
Speaker 1: Around this time was when these lamophobia and anti immigration
Speaker 1: talking points were starting to gain a new popularity, and
Speaker 1: Berner followed along with this trend. He would tweet out
Speaker 1: about the dangers of extreme multiculturalism and he had like
Speaker 1: an increasingly racist and divisive rhetoric and that kind of
Speaker 1: caused some drama within the Conservative establishment. So in August
Speaker 1: of eighteen, around the same time, the yellow vest movement
Speaker 1: in Canada was starting up. Berner resigned from the Conservative
Speaker 1: Party with the stated intention of forming a new federal
Speaker 1: populist far right political party. Um here here, here's a
Speaker 1: segment from his resignation speech and he he does talk
Speaker 1: in a very thick French accent. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do that. Um yeah, you're you're channel the energy. Um
Speaker 1: that was that was just direct audio. That was instead
Speaker 1: of leading as a principal Conservative and defending the interests
Speaker 1: of Canada and Canadians. Andrew sheer is following the Trudeau Liberals.
Speaker 1: I was told that internal polling is showing that the
Speaker 1: Liberals response to Trump is popular and that in six months,
Speaker 1: if the polls change, the party's stand may change to
Speaker 1: the same thing happened in reaction to my tweets on
Speaker 1: diversity and multiculturalism. This is another crucial debate for the
Speaker 1: future of our country. Do we want to emphasize or
Speaker 1: ethnic and religious dif princes or exploit them to buy
Speaker 1: votes as the Liberals are doing, or emphasize what unites
Speaker 1: us and the values that can guarantee social cohesion. Just
Speaker 1: like other Western societies grappling with this issue. A large
Speaker 1: number of Canadians and certainly the vast majority of Conservatives
Speaker 1: are worried that we are heading in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: But it's not to raise such questions. So yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think the honestly one of the main reasons why
Speaker 1: Brenaire hasn't been super successful UM is because of his
Speaker 1: accent like he is. It's harder for Protestant white Canadians
Speaker 1: to support him because he talks with a French Canadian accent. Um.
Speaker 1: If if if he talked in like good English, I
Speaker 1: think he would have he would have won Conservative leadership
Speaker 1: UM and his Populist party would be way more popular
Speaker 1: than than than it is now. So critical support to
Speaker 1: other French racism is preventing the racist from being racist enough. Yes,
Speaker 1: you love love to see it. You certainly see it.
Speaker 1: We do, we do see it. So Brenner faced some
Speaker 1: pushback from his conservative colleagues, including Stephen Harper U, of
Speaker 1: trying to divide the right and split the right of
Speaker 1: center vote. UM and some of the less socially conservative
Speaker 1: members of the main Conservative Party decried Berner's departure and
Speaker 1: subsequent New People's Party as just a plain attempt to
Speaker 1: pander to xenophobia and racist right wingers. But Berner went
Speaker 1: right to work and ran enough candidates under his new
Speaker 1: party to secure a spot in the federal election debates
Speaker 1: that were like that, you know how we watch presidential debates,
Speaker 1: same thing, but these have you know, multiple candidates because
Speaker 1: there are multiple parties, the same thing. But basically he
Speaker 1: was able to get in the televised debates. Um, the PPC,
Speaker 1: which is the People's Party of Canada. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: say the PPC now because it sounds funny. Um. They
Speaker 1: started going viral on the internet after pictures of massive
Speaker 1: billboards with Brenner's face and big text that said say
Speaker 1: no to massimmigration. This this this guy very is this
Speaker 1: guy very Mimi around like these big, these big PPC billboards. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna read a bit from a write
Speaker 1: up and it's going down by some local um Montreal
Speaker 1: anti fascists. There have been suggestions that the PPC spokesperson
Speaker 1: and architect of its public relations strategy, Martin Mass, has
Speaker 1: been key to its embrace of the far right. Mass
Speaker 1: was owner of the publisher of the Capucua Libre, which
Speaker 1: is an online libertarian news outlet that shut down in
Speaker 1: six and that pp but that PPC's cozy relationship with
Speaker 1: racists primarily due to the influence of this one person
Speaker 1: is highly doubtful. However, that's the PPC is positioning itself
Speaker 1: as the option of choice for those who find the
Speaker 1: Conservative Party insufficiently right wing. Racism is clearly just one
Speaker 1: of the most effective tools for such a strategy, witnessing
Speaker 1: PPC billboards and tweets against mass immigration, also tweets about
Speaker 1: being against Antifa and Bernard's diet tribe about radical Islam
Speaker 1: being the biggest threat to freedom and peace and security
Speaker 1: in the world today, and how he complains about other
Speaker 1: parties are are complacent and pandering to Islamists, and promising
Speaker 1: that the PPC will make no compromise with the tolitarian ideology.
Speaker 1: A number of media articles have revealed the far right
Speaker 1: connections to people active in the PPC as organizers and
Speaker 1: members whose signatures were used for the PPC to gain
Speaker 1: official party status. Um for instance, a Derek Horne, the
Speaker 1: PPC volunteer and a security agent who accompanied Bernair at
Speaker 1: a variety of events and media interviews. He has been
Speaker 1: revealed to be a founding member of the neo fascist
Speaker 1: Canadian Nationalist Party, which we we briefly mentioned in the
Speaker 1: last episode. UM. Sean Walker is an American immigrant and
Speaker 1: organizer with the PPC in St. Catharine's UM, as well
Speaker 1: as one of the people who as signed on for
Speaker 1: PPC to be an official party. He was revealed to
Speaker 1: be the president of the National Alliance US based in
Speaker 1: the not the organization seven. He was also convicted. He
Speaker 1: was also convicted of hate crimes at the time for
Speaker 1: violence stands People of Color UM. Following these latian's Walker
Speaker 1: was expelled from the PPC and Bernard claimed that he'd
Speaker 1: slipped through the party's betting process. However, was also revealed
Speaker 1: that Bernar follows him on Twitter UM. Others who signed
Speaker 1: up for the for the PPC to be an official
Speaker 1: party include Janice Balch, a founding member of the Patriotic
Speaker 1: Europeans Against the Islamification of Accent and also Justin L. Smith,
Speaker 1: leader of this of the Sudbury chapter of the Soldiers
Speaker 1: of Odin. So a whole bunch of whole bunch of
Speaker 1: fascist people are working work working for the party UM
Speaker 1: and unsurprisingly a number of a number of candidates have
Speaker 1: made headlines. But there as there you know social media
Speaker 1: posts from the past and present have surfaced featuring like racism, islamaphobia,
Speaker 1: and a lot of spreading of far right conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: You know that was just kind of common. There's too many,
Speaker 1: honestly to mention. Um. And it's it's not just that
Speaker 1: the PPC has a few bad apples in it. It's
Speaker 1: like the whole the whole party is rife with these
Speaker 1: kind of one of these kind of sentiments. Um. One
Speaker 1: gauge of this and the sign and a sign that
Speaker 1: like this is intentional is the as looking at the
Speaker 1: candidates who have left the party or have been kicked out.
Speaker 1: When it became clear that there would be no condemnation
Speaker 1: of the far right from the upper ranks, there was
Speaker 1: like and and justin like twenty nineteen alone, there was
Speaker 1: like three candidates who were who left or were either
Speaker 1: kicked out um because they you know, had objections to
Speaker 1: the racism rampant within the party. They were like complaining about, hey,
Speaker 1: these guys stem of racist and then they were kicked
Speaker 1: out of the party or or or or they left.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's that's a not a good problem to have. UM.
Speaker 1: So in in uh, finishing up this, this little quote
Speaker 1: here um. Indeed, a cursory accursory look at the Facebook
Speaker 1: pages of PPC candidates reveals what's been really noteworthy is
Speaker 1: how selective the news stories about racist tweets or Facebook
Speaker 1: posts have been. Almost every PPC candidate in Quebec has
Speaker 1: recently in repeatedly shared articles from climate denialist sources, including
Speaker 1: many with a conspiratorial bent. A candidate for Path and
Speaker 1: You even produced his own YouTube expose revealing how George
Speaker 1: Sorrows it's behind an international global conspiracy theory to crash
Speaker 1: economies and make money spending a panic about climate change.
Speaker 1: Secondary to climate denial, there's a lot of fears around
Speaker 1: free speech and mass immigration, which are both recurring themes
Speaker 1: in the PPC candidates, and roughly one in five have
Speaker 1: recently shared news articles from what we would deem a
Speaker 1: national populist or full right sources, including less manchetz dot com,
Speaker 1: which is the website of the French language of the
Speaker 1: French language translator of the Christ Church Um Manifesto UM,
Speaker 1: and that that the guy who had the website is
Speaker 1: also involved with organizing in the Montreal in the Montreal
Speaker 1: chapter of the Yellow Bests. UM. Yeah. So he he
Speaker 1: both translated the manifesto and he's also running the Montreal
Speaker 1: yellowst movement. So that's fun. Um, it's not fun, it's bad, um,
Speaker 1: andre Pytree pipe pood Wow. So you remember, So I
Speaker 1: didn't learn French in Canada because I was in a
Speaker 1: weird Christian private school. Otherwise I could be a lot
Speaker 1: better at this job. But anyway, there's there's a there's
Speaker 1: a there's a there's just like a far right YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: But this guy called uh Studio who a lot of
Speaker 1: his stuff was shared. Um, and there's a more like
Speaker 1: eccentric and sporadic mix of of of other news sources
Speaker 1: including Unite the Right attendee Faith Goldie who also ran
Speaker 1: from Mayor of Toronto and got third place, UM, Quebec
Speaker 1: based que and On figure Alexus trudell Um, and the
Speaker 1: al right YouTuber black Pigeon Speaks. Of course, the main
Speaker 1: yellow Vest page was shared a lot, and also sources
Speaker 1: from the highly racist The Voice of Europe. So yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of a lot of not
Speaker 1: not great news sources being being shared by the PBC. UM.
Speaker 1: So that is the gist of the People's Party as
Speaker 1: of twenty nineteen. UM overall, their performance in the election
Speaker 1: was kind of a flop. Uh. Bernair lost his own
Speaker 1: seat in Quebec. No CTC candidates got into office and
Speaker 1: the party only managed to get one. Uh. The party
Speaker 1: only managed to get one point six percent of the
Speaker 1: total national popular vote. So that's good. It only got
Speaker 1: one point six percent of all of the votes in Canada.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a break from the People's Party
Speaker 1: for now and we will circle back towards it um
Speaker 1: at the end. But after after an ad break, we
Speaker 1: will we will talk about the what the main Conservative
Speaker 1: Party was up to during this time and uh and
Speaker 1: a little bit after the election. So yep, and now
Speaker 1: the cats just blocking the whole thing. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: The cat is in the bathroom. I moved my cats.
Speaker 1: They were blocking the camera. Hello, um, People's Party not
Speaker 1: doing great in the first election. That's fun. Let's see
Speaker 1: what the regular Conservatives are up to. I'm sure it
Speaker 1: was things that are just good and cool. If I
Speaker 1: know anything about conservative it's that they're not not hashtag problematic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just let's just got okay, So I'll just be sad
Speaker 1: over here and the audience can know that I'm sad
Speaker 1: the whole time you're talking. I would rather as episode
Speaker 1: me not such a not such a downer, but it's
Speaker 1: it's hard to make it. That is kind of an upper.
Speaker 1: I'll make a bargain with the audience that if they listen,
Speaker 1: I will I will do my French accent at least
Speaker 1: one more time. We'll see doing the French accent. This
Speaker 1: is the happiest I have seen Robert all day. He
Speaker 1: does look very tired. You didn't say earlier, Garrison, and
Speaker 1: this was very funny that you'd be better at your
Speaker 1: job if you could speak French. But given what we
Speaker 1: are here, it cools oon media. You would actually be
Speaker 1: much worse at your job. Um And in fact, if
Speaker 1: you if you were to speak French, I would I
Speaker 1: would fire you immediate. It's actually requirement that you can't
Speaker 1: pronounce things to certainly not French. There's other languages you're
Speaker 1: allowed to know how to pronounce, but not French. No
Speaker 1: oblo francie. So let's pick up right after Maxine Bernair
Speaker 1: lost the Conservative leadership to Andrew Sheer in Um. Sheer
Speaker 1: won the leadership on a on on like a platform
Speaker 1: of classical financial conservatism and a slightly more socially moderate
Speaker 1: platform UM. When Sheer got into office, though, one of
Speaker 1: the things he faced criticism for, even among the Conservative
Speaker 1: caucus was his association with a little media with was
Speaker 1: his association with a little media outlet called Rebel Media.
Speaker 1: Yeah so most most listeners may not know what rebel
Speaker 1: media is, but you've certainly seen their stuff or felt
Speaker 1: their effect. Yeah, it's like the rough draft of bright
Speaker 1: Bart And also Canadian and Canadian, Yes so Canadian? Uh
Speaker 1: so Rebel mead as a Canadian far right neo fascist
Speaker 1: propaganda outlet's turn that has a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of bright bardy vibes. Umbel Media, Yeah, bright Bartesque. Rebel
Speaker 1: Media hosts and contributors have included a white nationalist and
Speaker 1: white genocide proponent Laurence Southern UM and Proud Boy founder
Speaker 1: Gavin McGinnis UM. McGinnis produced a quote satirical video for
Speaker 1: Rebel called ten Things I Hate about the Jews. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah so, and and it's and it is worth noting
Speaker 1: that both Southern and McGinnis are Canadian. Um. They're actually
Speaker 1: a lot of alter right figures that are Canadian. Of course,
Speaker 1: we have we have Lauren Southern Gavin McGinnis. Um, we
Speaker 1: have Stephen Crowder, uh, Stefan malin you and of course
Speaker 1: Jordan Peterson. All of those people are are Canadian and
Speaker 1: most of the most of them still live in Canada. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's still alive. Made he made it. And same tweet
Speaker 1: the other day. God, he made the most tweet. That
Speaker 1: tweet made it all worthwhile. Baby, he got everyone to
Speaker 1: go check his Twitter feed. It is amazing. You can
Speaker 1: you can hear his brain shorting out when you read
Speaker 1: that tweet, Like you need to find the tweet it is.
Speaker 1: It is just it is the most beautiful piece of
Speaker 1: poetry of everywhere. It's like somebody taught a stroke out
Speaker 1: of type. It makes no sense. God, it's so good. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm going to quote an article by a Global News
Speaker 1: dot c a on Andrew Sheer and Rebel media. Quote.
Speaker 1: Despite a string of controversies faced by Canadian right wing
Speaker 1: media outlet of the Rebel, including allegations of downplaying the
Speaker 1: Holocaust movie minted, Conservative Party leader Andrew Shear has so
Speaker 1: far continued to make himself available to the company that
Speaker 1: other prominent conservative politicians have criticized for its controversial reporting
Speaker 1: and activism. Shears campaign organization also has a direct nection
Speaker 1: to The Rebel. His campaign manager, Hamish Marshall, is listed
Speaker 1: as a director of the company's federal incorporation records, which
Speaker 1: show its most recent annual gathering meeting was in February
Speaker 1: this year. Following the leadership election in Toronto on Saturday,
Speaker 1: Sheer granted one on one interviews with a handful of
Speaker 1: major media organizations, including a face to face interview with
Speaker 1: The Rebels Ottawa correspondent Brian Lily. Prior to his convention interview.
Speaker 1: Sheer appeared on The Rebel in February in a studio
Speaker 1: interview with host Faith Goldie on her show on the Hunt.
Speaker 1: At the end of the discussion, Goldie asked Sheer if
Speaker 1: if he would agree to go on a duck hunting
Speaker 1: trip with her after after he wins the leadership on
Speaker 1: Canada Day, which he agreed to. UM. We briefly mentioned
Speaker 1: Faith Goldie earlier in her connection to the People's Party
Speaker 1: UM and her brief campaign for the Toronto mayor, but
Speaker 1: here's some more background on her UM and her coverage
Speaker 1: and her coverage of the Unite the Right rally for
Speaker 1: Rebel media. Quoting from Winnipeg Free Press. In the course
Speaker 1: of her dispatches, Goldie argued the events in the Charlottesville
Speaker 1: were evidence of a rising white racial consciousness that was
Speaker 1: going to change the political landscape in America. She also
Speaker 1: wanted to she's actually not wrong there. That was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's not wrong, but I think she's incorrect. She's on
Speaker 1: the other side of the island. And whether this is
Speaker 1: a good or bad thing. Yeah. She went to great
Speaker 1: lengths to laud the twenty point Meta political Manifesto composed
Speaker 1: by White National's leader Richard Spencer, a document that includes
Speaker 1: calls to organize U states along ethnic and racial divides
Speaker 1: and celebrates the superiority of white America faith. Goldie describes
Speaker 1: Spencer's manifesto as robust and well thought out. Goldie was
Speaker 1: fired by Rebel in mid August seventeen, but not due
Speaker 1: to her participation in Unite the Right. She was fired
Speaker 1: for appearing on a Daily Stormer podcast to discussing the right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, that's that's fine, So yeah, fine, nice
Speaker 1: to have her. Interviewing Conservative of leader Andrew Sheer asked
Speaker 1: for his reaction to Unite the Right and Rebel media
Speaker 1: um after what happened in Charlotte'sville in seventeen. Sheer, who
Speaker 1: had previously been interviewed by Rebel multiple times UH, finally
Speaker 1: disavowed the outlets, saying, look, I believe there's a fine
Speaker 1: line between covering events and giving a platform to groups
Speaker 1: who are promoting a violent, disgusting point of view. I
Speaker 1: won't be granting interviews going forward. So that's nice that
Speaker 1: it took someone dying in Charlotte's Ville to realize that
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't talk to the fascist media source. Um So,
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of Unite the Right, the mainstream conservatives
Speaker 1: kind of had to tread carefully around social issues because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, yeah, they're there's still not seas we
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't be pandering to them. Um But as more
Speaker 1: time of distance let the air cool, some conservatives went
Speaker 1: back to the same old rhetoric around the twenty nineteen election. UM.
Speaker 1: For instance, in his twenty nineteen election campaign, UH Tom Chemick,
Speaker 1: the parliamentary representative of one of the parliamentary representatives for
Speaker 1: Calgary l Berta, wrote out and spread flyers with the
Speaker 1: all claps with the all caps header of crisis at
Speaker 1: the Border with text treating their constituent. The Independent Auditor
Speaker 1: General of Canada has published a scathing report confirming that
Speaker 1: the Ottawa Liberals have failed to safely and responsibly manage
Speaker 1: Canada's borders. Since Justin Trudeau you responsibly tweeted out that
Speaker 1: Canada would open Sportis to anyone seeking entry, the number
Speaker 1: of people illegally crossing the boarder into Canada from the
Speaker 1: United States has surged past one thousand a month, with
Speaker 1: almost twenty thou people illegally enteringen alone, and while speaking
Speaker 1: to voters of Connect repeatedly insisted that all the problems
Speaker 1: of people illegally crossing the Canadian border isn't a symptom
Speaker 1: of a failure of systems to respond to a growing crisis,
Speaker 1: but merely a failure for border patrol to to assert
Speaker 1: control over people. UM quotes and flyer courtesy of About
Speaker 1: This Tom chemic Guy. A courtesy of a. Dan Olson
Speaker 1: of Folding Ideas. He's a great Canadian documentarian who released
Speaker 1: a magnificent piece on Q and on and conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: last year on his YouTube channel of Folding Ideas. Overall,
Speaker 1: I really really like Dan. He makes very good stuff.
Speaker 1: UM So thank thank you to him for sending me
Speaker 1: those those those flyers. Um. Anyway, during the election, sheer
Speaker 1: led the Conservatives to gain a total of twenty six
Speaker 1: seats in the party inside Parliament, going from nive up
Speaker 1: to one hundred and twenty one. But they did finish
Speaker 1: thirty six seats behind the Liberals despite beating the Liberals
Speaker 1: and the popular vote by one three percent. So that
Speaker 1: was a thirty four point four percent for Conservatives and
Speaker 1: thirty three point one percent of the popular vote for Liberals.
Speaker 1: The margin was just over like two hundred and forty
Speaker 1: thousand votes. Um. The Liberals lost twenty seats in the
Speaker 1: election and the NDP lost fifteen seats. And this was
Speaker 1: the first time since uh since nineteen seventy nine that
Speaker 1: a party won the most seats without also winning the
Speaker 1: popular vote. Um. What what pushed the Conservatives over on
Speaker 1: the popular vote was due to you know, extremely high
Speaker 1: conservative turnout in uh in in in various in various writings.
Speaker 1: So basically more Conservatives voted instant runnings and they usually
Speaker 1: do so even if the Liberals still win the district,
Speaker 1: there was still more conservative votes to be counted. Um.
Speaker 1: And also they basically swept the Prairie provinces of Alberta
Speaker 1: and Saskatchewan, where they won seventy of the vote in
Speaker 1: sixties five percent of the vote, respectively. But their victories
Speaker 1: in those states and their higher turnout did not convert
Speaker 1: into many seats because the less population dense areas have
Speaker 1: fewer federal writings and fewer available seats UM, and the
Speaker 1: Liberals had to rely heavily for seats in Ontario, the
Speaker 1: you know, the most populous province that include cities like Toronto, UM,
Speaker 1: and you know other a few other big cities. So
Speaker 1: you know, Canada doesn't have the most democratic system like
Speaker 1: so the same way you know in the States were
Speaker 1: familiar with, you know, people losing popular votes um but
Speaker 1: still getting elected president and stuff. You know, in Canada's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a little bit different because of how
Speaker 1: you vote for parties in your own little district. UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's still not perfect, right because like
Speaker 1: it is. It it does feel weird for the leader
Speaker 1: of the leader of the country to not have his
Speaker 1: part do not have also won the popular vote because
Speaker 1: of how you know, districts work out and how higher
Speaker 1: turn out in some areas doesn't mean that it's going
Speaker 1: to have more seats. Um. You know. But the other
Speaker 1: side of things here is that like Canada also doesn't
Speaker 1: have ranked choice, so like, still the majority of people
Speaker 1: voted for left of center candidates if you include you know,
Speaker 1: the Green Party, the n DP, and the Liberals. So
Speaker 1: even the Liberals lost the popular vote, there's still like
Speaker 1: a majority left of center voting. So if they if
Speaker 1: they had ranked choice, maybe the results would have been different.
Speaker 1: So Canada's system, it definitely is, I'm perfect for how
Speaker 1: they do elections. Um. I would I would prefer ranked choice,
Speaker 1: as you know, basically basically I would prefer that for
Speaker 1: like every country if they're gonna have elections. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: just kind of explaining why they can lose the popular
Speaker 1: vote but still you know, still win a majority controlling government. Um.
Speaker 1: So after the election, Sheer announced he was resigning as
Speaker 1: head of the Conservatives in December twenty nineteen. Uh. This
Speaker 1: was after it was revealed that he had used party
Speaker 1: funds for his children's own private schooling. So good for him. Um,
Speaker 1: A new bid for Conservative leadership went into effect. We're
Speaker 1: gonna mainly focus on two candidates here. Uh. There was
Speaker 1: an erin O'Toole and Derek Solan Um. O'tool fancies himself
Speaker 1: as another kind of like classic financial conservative and a
Speaker 1: social moderate. He feels more like the old progressive conservative
Speaker 1: candidates from back before the two of us in three
Speaker 1: Unite the Right merger. Um we got some like John
Speaker 1: McCain vibes here, um, but Derek solan is more similar
Speaker 1: to the farther right parts of the U s IS
Speaker 1: current Republican Party, like anti abortion, anti LGBT, racist tweets, etcetera. Um.
Speaker 1: But as a whole, Solon's extremism was rejected by the
Speaker 1: Canadian Conservatives. Um he got only he got like only fourth.
Speaker 1: He got fourth placed with fifteen percent of the vote
Speaker 1: during the first round of voting, UM and ultimately o'tool
Speaker 1: one leadership after three rounds of votes. UM and o'tool
Speaker 1: now has the has the new challenge of trying to
Speaker 1: appeal to the Canadian conservatives more moderate wing, as well
Speaker 1: as the more Trumpian wing that's developed the past few years.
Speaker 1: He's been relatively successful in crafting like a boring, polite
Speaker 1: Canadian version of Trump's nationalism, with slogans like Canada First
Speaker 1: and take Canada Back. Um, you know, despite supporting trade
Speaker 1: deals outsourcing Canadian jobs to cheaper overseas markets, because they
Speaker 1: never actually mean what they say. UM and the and
Speaker 1: As the Liberals have grown more aware of Canada's bloody
Speaker 1: history and have like toned down the red and white
Speaker 1: maple leaf patriotism, the Conservative Party under o'tool has seized
Speaker 1: on this opportunity to make Canadian patriotism more of a
Speaker 1: right leaning staple, just like patriotism is, you know, it's
Speaker 1: more of like a right wing thing in the States.
Speaker 1: So basically, after we were like, oh yeah, residential schools
Speaker 1: were bad, Canada's kind of sucked up, liberals are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we maybe shouldn't be so we shouldn't be waving our
Speaker 1: maple leaf flags everywhere. Maybe we're not a perfect country.
Speaker 1: The Conservatives like, no, you have be proud to be Canadian.
Speaker 1: So they've kind of taken patriotism to be their new thing. Well,
Speaker 1: previously it was much more of like a liberal thing.
Speaker 1: The Islamophobia and overt religious bigotry under a tool has
Speaker 1: been slightly trimmed down. UM and climate change has at
Speaker 1: least been mentioned as existing UM, but there has also
Speaker 1: been increased discussion on trying to hack down Canada's healthcare
Speaker 1: and privatize more aspects of it. Which, yeah, good job, guys,
Speaker 1: take away the only good part of Canada. Um like Uh.
Speaker 1: The province of Alberta under Jason Kenny has done this
Speaker 1: to a disastrous effect, um, raising the cost of medical
Speaker 1: care for lower class people, many of whom voted Conservative. UM.
Speaker 1: I have family in Alberta and just the past five
Speaker 1: years the changes to the healthcare system there has been horrible. UM,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not great. So basically what what what
Speaker 1: old Tool wants is he he wants he wants to
Speaker 1: just privatize more elements of it. He has a specific
Speaker 1: term he uses like. He wants like a. He wants
Speaker 1: to like split the FED like the like the taxpayer
Speaker 1: healthcare and privatize health care into two sections that you
Speaker 1: can choos which one to join in. Anyway, it's silly.
Speaker 1: Um O'Toole did take a wee little stance to distance
Speaker 1: himself from the more extreme wings of his party when
Speaker 1: he decided to remove MP Derek Solan from the caucus.
Speaker 1: Oh Tool announced that Solan will not be allowed to
Speaker 1: run as a candidate for the for the Conservative Party
Speaker 1: in the next election either, saying racism is a disease
Speaker 1: of the soul, repugnance to our core values. It has
Speaker 1: no place in our country and has no place in
Speaker 1: the Conservative Party of Canada. I won't tolerate it. Um.
Speaker 1: Also last year, O'Toole refused to say whether he thinks
Speaker 1: systemic racism exists. UM. But the decision to remove Soland
Speaker 1: was made after it was revealed that he accepted the
Speaker 1: donation from the Canadian Nazi Paul from during uh during
Speaker 1: Soland's bid for a Conservative leadership back in the nineties
Speaker 1: of From was a figurehead of the Canadian far right movement,
Speaker 1: appearing at Heritage Front rallies and also caught on video
Speaker 1: at a party celebrating Hitler's birthday, which he lost his
Speaker 1: high school teaching job over. Sol. Look, it's just polite
Speaker 1: to celebrate a guy's birthday, you know, whether or not
Speaker 1: he's Hitler, under no circumstances. Do you got us? This
Speaker 1: is a hot tike um. So there has been a
Speaker 1: bit of the There has been a bit of a
Speaker 1: rift in the Conservative Party over how much Trumpian rhetoric
Speaker 1: should be allowed in the Canadian Conservative Party. UM. And
Speaker 1: this kind of rift has definitely increased after January six. UM.
Speaker 1: The problem for Conservative politicians is that to win elections
Speaker 1: they need to appeal to the largest swath of voters
Speaker 1: UM and that includes more socially conservative and increasingly far
Speaker 1: right rule folks. But if they go too far, they'll
Speaker 1: lose the moderates to the Liberal Party. So you have
Speaker 1: to it's like this delicate balance but to kind of
Speaker 1: give you like an overview of what the current state
Speaker 1: of the Conservative of like votership is UM for and
Speaker 1: tent of the Conservative Party of Canada members. So you know,
Speaker 1: people signed up to vote in the party. You know,
Speaker 1: regular people UM four in ten would say that they
Speaker 1: would have voted for Trump. For intents say that they
Speaker 1: think Democrats told the presential election, and for intens say
Speaker 1: that the Conservative and four intent believe that the January
Speaker 1: six riot was staged or was done by the Democrats,
Speaker 1: are done by Antiva. So that's kind of the state
Speaker 1: of the Conservative Party in Canada for like the for
Speaker 1: the voters. So you know, politicians have to kind of
Speaker 1: in order to win, they need they need still still
Speaker 1: still need to appeal to those people, but they don't
Speaker 1: want to do that thing. Usually like they usually don't
Speaker 1: like usually there the like a big talking point is
Speaker 1: like rejecting the divisive politics of the of of the
Speaker 1: of the United States. Like that's a big thing people
Speaker 1: say in Canada. Is that like they don't want it
Speaker 1: to become like, you know, like a fighting match, because
Speaker 1: like the other main difference between Canada's elections in American's
Speaker 1: elections is like America is like always an election season,
Speaker 1: right like every you know, even after each election, it's
Speaker 1: like you feel like campaigns start right up again. Um,
Speaker 1: Canada's campaigns only run like a few months before the election, Like,
Speaker 1: like it is not like those things you guys do
Speaker 1: objectively better than us, and a lot of the world does.
Speaker 1: It's not just Canada. The idea that like, oh, elections
Speaker 1: are terrible, we should spend a little time. It's like
Speaker 1: to like two or three months of campaigning. That's it,
Speaker 1: Like it's not it's not like a two year, four
Speaker 1: year thing. No, that is a thing that we should.
Speaker 1: Absolutely the election should be about eleven minutes from from
Speaker 1: the start of the campaign to the vote. Everybody gets
Speaker 1: a minute to explain their their politics and then we
Speaker 1: vote and then we throw them into the sea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so trying to trying to craft marketing to the divided
Speaker 1: right wing. It's been interesting to watch. You know, there's
Speaker 1: like videos about Tool walking through you know, downtowns with
Speaker 1: Pride flags in the background and you know, featuring visible
Speaker 1: like minority Canadians intermingling. But then you also have a
Speaker 1: tool like Ralely against cancel culture feeling suggestions that the
Speaker 1: liberal government's pandemic response is part of a socialist great
Speaker 1: reset and pulling out the dog whistle on like China
Speaker 1: and the coronavirus, you know, as often as you can.
Speaker 1: UM tools in the past also downplayed Canadians Residential Schools
Speaker 1: program UM and described the efforts of activists pushing to
Speaker 1: removal of statues of the of the Residentary of School
Speaker 1: Architects as stupid. UM. So, I I do think O'tool
Speaker 1: prefers a conservative party, resistant too far right branding, but
Speaker 1: he knows he needs to appeal to the voters in
Speaker 1: order to win elections. So it's it's it's it's just
Speaker 1: it's the thing that's not great, but it's interesting to watch. UM.
Speaker 1: In August one, Justin Trudeau noted black face appreciator UH
Speaker 1: called a snap election in an effort to gain more
Speaker 1: parliamentary seats in hopes of getting a majority Liberal government,
Speaker 1: something a prime minister should not be allowed to do,
Speaker 1: by the way, like a priva minister should not be
Speaker 1: able to decide when to do elections. That is, like
Speaker 1: should totally not be a thing. Like what, no, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't do that, but anyway. Um. As snap election ramped up,
Speaker 1: the Conservative Party under a tool, made some extremely questionable
Speaker 1: choices for their marketings and their slogans. Um, what does
Speaker 1: the phrase secure the future bring to mind anything? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So that became the new tagline for the entire Conservative
Speaker 1: Party under o'tool. Right. Okay, sure, we got, we got,
Speaker 1: we got, we got Secure the Future, billboards, we got,
Speaker 1: we got, we got websites, Conservative dot c a slash
Speaker 1: secure the Future. We got mailer's magazine covers all emblazoned
Speaker 1: with secure the future or secure our future. Um, and
Speaker 1: you know what will secure our future? Garrison the Chevron
Speaker 1: ads that keep popping up that we keep securing our future. Yeah, great,
Speaker 1: you're welcome. It's a great time. Chevron appreciators for everyone. Ah,
Speaker 1: we're back and just appreciating Chevron, just like Justin Trudeau
Speaker 1: appreciate like Justin Trudeau. Yeah, so secure the future great
Speaker 1: slogan and not a good slogan. Bad. Um. I'm going
Speaker 1: to read a bit from a mailer that went out
Speaker 1: to Conservative Party members after a Tool one leadership quote.
Speaker 1: I firmly believe Canada has everything. It has everything it
Speaker 1: takes to recover from COVID nineteen and enjoy a prosperous
Speaker 1: future if we have a government that knows how to
Speaker 1: secure the future. If the truth, if the Trudeau Liberals
Speaker 1: stay in power, they'll continue spending taxpayer money at pandemic
Speaker 1: era levels long before, long after the virus is behind us.
Speaker 1: The result, all the things we love about Canada will
Speaker 1: be in serious jeopardy, Our debt will become out of control,
Speaker 1: and they'll never be able to get back the Canada
Speaker 1: you and I grew up in the kind of Canada
Speaker 1: our children and grandchildren deserve so uh. Later on in
Speaker 1: the page, oh, Tool says we need to stand up
Speaker 1: to the Chinese Communist Party and hold Beijing accountable for
Speaker 1: sabotaging our economy and taking jobs from Canadian workers. Um. And.
Speaker 1: On August sixteen, the Canadian Conservative Party Twitter account tweeted
Speaker 1: out and I quote, Canada's recovery program will secure the
Speaker 1: future for you, your children, and your and your grandchildren.
Speaker 1: So that's fun. Also, also, guess how guess guess how
Speaker 1: many words is in that last sentence. It's fourteen of them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going back to calling Canada Clanada again. It's like
Speaker 1: a dog whistle, but except for you know, a dog whistle,
Speaker 1: only dogs can hear it, except everyone. It's just a whistle.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just a regular whistle. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's that he just tweeted it tweet. Yeah. So as anyway,
Speaker 1: um as O'Toole was getting all secure the future piled um.
Speaker 1: Canada's actual far right populist party, the People's Party, was
Speaker 1: gaining much more popularity amid the pandemic and the anti mask,
Speaker 1: anti lockdown, anti VAXX protests. The COVID nineteen pandemic was
Speaker 1: a gift to the far right in general, as it
Speaker 1: allowed the injection and proliferation of conspiracy theories to accelerate
Speaker 1: at levels almost never before seen and provided fair recruiting
Speaker 1: ground to gain new followers. The PPC latched onto this
Speaker 1: and was extremely successful. They were you know, they sponsored protests.
Speaker 1: They did a whole b of campaigns that are around
Speaker 1: like anti mask stuff, anti vaccine, you know, all all
Speaker 1: of it. Um. So the PPC was able to be
Speaker 1: not just a safe harper for anti immigration, white nationalists
Speaker 1: and neo Nazis and other far right groups, but also
Speaker 1: now more mainstream anti lockdown, anti vaccine, anti government protesters
Speaker 1: as well as you know, gun rights activists and some
Speaker 1: general rule workers feeling left behind from even the Conservative Party.
Speaker 1: So the PPC has changed from a niche white nationalist
Speaker 1: party to a full blown far right populist force. What
Speaker 1: Berner and the and the PPC have done so effectively
Speaker 1: since the pandemic is to use the broad concerns around
Speaker 1: COVID and freedom and the more you know, mainstream concerns
Speaker 1: about economic anxieties, job loss, lots of businesses, immigration and
Speaker 1: changing culture and managed and managed to rule all of
Speaker 1: these things up into one tight package, which is really
Speaker 1: appealing to a lot of Canadians who are very anxious
Speaker 1: about the state of their country, especially amid the COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic. So the results of the September snap election,
Speaker 1: which was you know, last month, we're basically the same
Speaker 1: as the twenty nine election, except the PPC went from
Speaker 1: one point six percent of the vote to five percent
Speaker 1: of the vote, a big, big change, uh. They That
Speaker 1: means they were ranking above the Green Party and nearly
Speaker 1: tying the block kebu Qua. So they made like, I know,
Speaker 1: like one percent of five percent doesn't seem like tons,
Speaker 1: but like this is a really big jump for a
Speaker 1: brand new party, um, especially especially if they're ahead of
Speaker 1: the Green Party and tying the Block Party. That is
Speaker 1: like a notable shift um. The University of Ghulaf Professor
Speaker 1: of of Political Science, Tamra Small said that said this
Speaker 1: after the results of the last snap election quote, I
Speaker 1: think the only leader who's a static about last night's
Speaker 1: results is Bernair. I don't think they're going anywhere. I
Speaker 1: think it seems that he's taken the populism and attached
Speaker 1: to far right politics, the idea that Canada was immune
Speaker 1: to this sort of far right populism, the idea that
Speaker 1: Canada was going to be free from the populism that
Speaker 1: we saw in Europe, like what Nigel Farage is in
Speaker 1: the UK. But I think lots of people are wondering
Speaker 1: if Bernara is just gonna say I'm not here to
Speaker 1: form an actual government. I'm just here to challenge the
Speaker 1: system and use that as a way of gaining massive support. Um.
Speaker 1: After us CTV News emailed the PPC for comment for
Speaker 1: their post election story, uh, the party spokesperson sent back
Speaker 1: a one line email response, I don't respond to requests
Speaker 1: from leftists. Activists masquerading as journalists get lost, So that's fun.
Speaker 1: Also in late September, Bernard's Twitter account was temporarily suspended
Speaker 1: for encouraging his supporters to attack journalists. Yeah. Just not like,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with criticizing journalist and stuff, because most journalists
Speaker 1: are like not great. But when you're using your political
Speaker 1: Twitter account to just like tell people to just go
Speaker 1: attack the press, usually it's a bad sign of of
Speaker 1: like a political party. Usually it's just like, yeah, political
Speaker 1: parties when they do that usually leads to bad things. Um.
Speaker 1: We are going to talk about one kind of wrapping
Speaker 1: up here. We'anna talking about one Ontario People's Party candidate
Speaker 1: named Mario Greco, who was a another another high school
Speaker 1: teacher UM and still proclaimed game developer UM of a
Speaker 1: few years ago. I I see Chriss Wincent because like
Speaker 1: you know, this can't lead to good tis the gamers
Speaker 1: it can't be good. So A few years ago, Greco
Speaker 1: made a video game called Happy Culture Shootout UM. Quoting
Speaker 1: an article from Press Progress dot c A Happy Culture
Speaker 1: Shootout is a Space Invaders style game that allows players
Speaker 1: to control spaceship that shoots laser beams at caricatures of
Speaker 1: various identity groups. Quote. This game is about an alien
Speaker 1: order to invade Earth and transport all humans to happy Land,
Speaker 1: Greco says on his personal website, which includes other games
Speaker 1: that he authored, like Die Mare, which is about a young,
Speaker 1: misunderstood hero who sees to liberate post war Germany. UM
Speaker 1: Boy in a in a sist in a since tell
Speaker 1: did video obtained by Press Progress. The People's Party Canada
Speaker 1: delivered a presentation to university students several years ago, offering
Speaker 1: his post mortem on the game. Um Reco expressed surprise
Speaker 1: that his students and faculty reacted negatively to the game,
Speaker 1: with one calling it the most racist game I've ever played.
Speaker 1: Greco says his game is not racist in the slightest,
Speaker 1: noting that he made fun of his own Italian heritage.
Speaker 1: He also claimed that some students thought his gay Pride
Speaker 1: parade level was hilarious. My friends and I love people
Speaker 1: of all cultures, and we also love humor of all
Speaker 1: types that includes harmless racist jokes. Greco said in the video.
Speaker 1: The game was intended to make a joke about how
Speaker 1: ridiculous cultural stereotypes are, so we can laugh about it
Speaker 1: together and move on with our lives. UM. During the presentation,
Speaker 1: the People's Party candidate offered a interesting side note about
Speaker 1: the games Israel level. According according to Greco, a faculty
Speaker 1: member at the university strongly recommended that he removed Jewish
Speaker 1: stereotypes from the game. He was like, no, get rid
Speaker 1: of it immediately. Don't have any religious content whatsoever. I
Speaker 1: know that subject is very, very touchy. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is just a game where you race shoot to minority people. UM. Anyway.
Speaker 1: In twenty six and Greco posted a photo on Facebook
Speaker 1: of an el stration of Pepe the Frog, which he
Speaker 1: said was drawn by one of his students in in
Speaker 1: the white board of his York Region high school. UM.
Speaker 1: Peppe had a little speech bubble that said free Kakistan
Speaker 1: great yea so now Nazis so Currently, Greco was spending
Speaker 1: his time tweeting about critical race theory and trying to
Speaker 1: get into office under the People's Party banner. UM. In
Speaker 1: his Twitter bio, he calls himself an egalitarian, libertarian nationalist
Speaker 1: and he still also teaches computer science at Ontario Higher
Speaker 1: call themselves fascists. I know it's it's not fun. These
Speaker 1: people are all all for the worst most scum. UM.
Speaker 1: And one one more thing before we sign off. UM.
Speaker 1: Last month, right before the September election, I was forwarded
Speaker 1: some pictures of some People's Party of Canada posters and
Speaker 1: flyers put up linking to their campaign website that someone
Speaker 1: came across UM around town, not not Portland's, like somewhere
Speaker 1: in Canada. UM. Under the PPC logo there was you know,
Speaker 1: pictures of people's faces and big black text that said
Speaker 1: it's okay to be white, right bad. So that's the
Speaker 1: liberal utopia of Canada, everybody. UM. And basically, like the
Speaker 1: reason why I want to put these episodes together is because,
Speaker 1: like we we lots of like, you know, we make
Speaker 1: a lot of jokes about, you know, escaping to Canada
Speaker 1: as the States gets too fascist, and I just want
Speaker 1: to like say, like I'm not saying Canada's get at
Speaker 1: the same rate, but Canada is not immune to the
Speaker 1: same thing, like it's it's it's, it's it's you can't
Speaker 1: you can't run away from authoritarianism by moving, yeah to
Speaker 1: a country with no history of authoritarianism, like I don't know, Germany,
Speaker 1: uh huh. Yeah. And I think the everything is important
Speaker 1: with with Canada particularly is that like Canada is like
Speaker 1: affected by American political trends. And you see this absolutely
Speaker 1: like like one of one of the things that I
Speaker 1: remember looking now when I was when I was looking
Speaker 1: into sort of uh if you look at the history
Speaker 1: of like anti Asian riots for example, So there's a
Speaker 1: huge wave and night No. Seven that goes like it
Speaker 1: goes all the way up the West Coast, a lot
Speaker 1: of them, and it ends in Toronto. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of you know. Yeah, and you see you see that
Speaker 1: like and you see that like today to where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Toronto I think has the highest rate of anti
Speaker 1: Asian attacks like in North America. That's not pretty impressive
Speaker 1: considering like the absolute ship show going on in like
Speaker 1: New York, in l A and Seattle, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: Toronto's worse. No, It's it's real bad. There's I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about how the far right's getting a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot more, a lot stronger of an influence in Alberta,
Speaker 1: and it is spreading into other eastern eastern provinces, not
Speaker 1: just inside Quebec. You know, there was the insult attack
Speaker 1: in Toronto a few years ago that killed like, I
Speaker 1: think like a dozen people. Of course, there was the
Speaker 1: Quebec mosque shooting. There's been a lot of these kind
Speaker 1: of things popping off, and you know, there's there's even
Speaker 1: more starting in like British Columbia as well, which is
Speaker 1: which has a decent far right kind of influence, at
Speaker 1: least on the eastern side of BC, um away from
Speaker 1: like Victoria and from Vancouver. UM. So, yeah, I just
Speaker 1: wanted to like place together and be like, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's worth looking at these countries that we usually
Speaker 1: view as you know, generally doing better and be like no, like,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing is happening there, and it's all
Speaker 1: it's all part of the same overarching slide right word
Speaker 1: that we've seen in both in the UK we were
Speaker 1: even seeing it now in Germany. We're seeing it, you know,
Speaker 1: in the obviously the States under Trump, and in Canada,
Speaker 1: even though the liberals have won the past few elections.
Speaker 1: It's still scooting right word. So yeah, I just wanted
Speaker 1: to put this thing together. If you want to keep
Speaker 1: up to date on Canadian stuff, you can check out
Speaker 1: the Canadian Antihit network, which does work tracking extremism in Canada.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that is ah, that is what I put together, Sparrison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're welcoming, You're welcome. Well, that's the episode that's gonna
Speaker 1: do it for us here, and it could happen here today,
Speaker 1: come back tomorrow or you know when ever, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about another part of the world. Maybe I don't
Speaker 1: know Portugal. Fuck it, I don't have stuff pulled up
Speaker 1: for parture life. You have to me by tomorrow. No,
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing now. Follow us on Twitter, on
Speaker 1: Instagram and it could happen here. Pot Nicols on media
Speaker 1: leave five star reviews, whatever, goodbye. Hey, We'll be back
Speaker 1: Monday with more episodes every week from now until the
Speaker 1: heat death of the Universe. It could happen here is
Speaker 1: a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com,
Speaker 1: or check us out on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
Speaker 1: find sources for it could happen here. Updated monthly at
Speaker 1: cool zone media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: On April four, Dr Martin Luther King was shot and
Speaker 1: killed in Memphis. A petty criminal named James Earl Ray
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Speaker 1: I was concerned, did not match the circumstances. This is
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