Speaker 1: You are listening to Waiting on Reparations, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hey what is happening night, Franca? We
Speaker 1: are waiting on reparation and waiting on some coup of
Speaker 1: test results because that I'm marry on. It's no joke, man,
Speaker 1: Yeah so yeah, I mean we were just talking before
Speaker 1: we started recording. Wait, so do you think you might
Speaker 1: got the RUNA? I might? I might. So baby was
Speaker 1: having a fever of like a hundred and two on Saturday.
Speaker 1: Took him to the hospital. They just gave him Thailand. All.
Speaker 1: So that's gonna be fun to pay emergency room bill
Speaker 1: for Thailand. All. But Thailand, you know, got him tested
Speaker 1: for the RUNA does in case, and we're still waiting
Speaker 1: to get those results back. But since then, I have
Speaker 1: also started to not feel very well. So, um, we
Speaker 1: see this is comparable to uh, the first time that
Speaker 1: you got it. The first time I got it was
Speaker 1: a matic I other than I think what ended up
Speaker 1: actually being a panic attack, but to me registered as
Speaker 1: chess pains at the time. Other than that was totally fine. Um.
Speaker 1: And I and I also, you know, throughout pregnancy, etcetera,
Speaker 1: have been sick multiple times this year that weren't COVID,
Speaker 1: like you know, got tested, everything was fine. So I
Speaker 1: might just have a compromised immune system from stress and
Speaker 1: other factors. And so maybe it's not that. But given
Speaker 1: the explosion in cases that we have seen in the
Speaker 1: last two weeks, I think over a million cases um
Speaker 1: reported on one of one day of this last week,
Speaker 1: might have been yesterday, probably wouldn't be shocked. It feels
Speaker 1: like every single person, like I've had multiple like potential
Speaker 1: exposures like over the last two weeks. Oh, I mean
Speaker 1: we have. We both have a mutual friend of the
Speaker 1: show who right now suffering from it, and I mean
Speaker 1: just I mean, I guess it's all anecdotal, but it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, when the initial pandemic hit, it's like there's
Speaker 1: definitely people who I knew who were affected by it.
Speaker 1: And then when Delta hit, it's like, Okay, more people
Speaker 1: that I know are affected by it. And now with
Speaker 1: the with the new Amarian strain, oh, sh like everybody
Speaker 1: who everybody who I know has got COVID, Like every
Speaker 1: like things in Savannah starting to shut down again, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody's canceling parties and live events and stuff
Speaker 1: that they had going on. So um, yeah, no, it
Speaker 1: definitely is no joke. But since you are not feeling well, ship,
Speaker 1: let's sucking. Let's let's keep it moving, right, Let's keep
Speaker 1: it moving. We've got lots of cheery, other cheery topics
Speaker 1: to discuss this week. Particularly this is speaking of which
Speaker 1: Happy Insurrection Day everybody, Yeah, the anniversary. Yes, So we
Speaker 1: generally record on like early in the week, so I
Speaker 1: don't even think we got the chance other than I
Speaker 1: think last year we had an episode the week after
Speaker 1: the insurrection, the attempted coup to um, we talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about the rise of my right wing fascism.
Speaker 1: But this is our first time to really, like, you know,
Speaker 1: reflect deeply on the other incarnations of fascism in in
Speaker 1: the United States, particularly as they have bloomed over the
Speaker 1: last year in the aftermath of the insurrection. And we're
Speaker 1: actually speaking you're speaking with somebody today who is an
Speaker 1: expert on on right wing extremism and anti and you know,
Speaker 1: anti fascist organizing from what I understand, Yeah, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking with Christopher Goldsmith today and um, he's a
Speaker 1: really cool guy, really interesting cat. He's an ex army
Speaker 1: vet and when he got out, he started working with
Speaker 1: doing veterans work and noticing that, uh, you know, some
Speaker 1: of his brothers in arms were kind of susceptible to
Speaker 1: you know, recruitment by right wing extremist groups, and that
Speaker 1: started the work that he started doing infiltrating some of
Speaker 1: those organizations, reporting them actually actively sabotaging their plans and
Speaker 1: movement and stuff like that. So we're gonna be chatting
Speaker 1: with him just about his thoughts on, you know, the
Speaker 1: year after January six, some of the things the right
Speaker 1: wing extremist groups have been up to, and just where
Speaker 1: he thinks things are heading. So that's gonna be a
Speaker 1: really dope conversation. But before we get into that, we're
Speaker 1: just gonna recap some of our thoughts on January six
Speaker 1: and talk about some of those same things. We will
Speaker 1: be back with that after the jump. All right, we
Speaker 1: are back. So, I mean, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody who's listening to the show who's been under a rock.
Speaker 1: Most people know what the events of January six, two tho,
Speaker 1: you know, were, But if you don't know like the
Speaker 1: full details of stuff, or even if you want to
Speaker 1: like get like a full sense of the picture, of
Speaker 1: full scale of what what with them? I suggested everybody
Speaker 1: check out the Southern Poverty Law Center. They have a
Speaker 1: extremely dope timeline of all of the events, and I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about dating back before George Floyd's murder. But
Speaker 1: they kind of go through the rundown of all of
Speaker 1: of the entire year to show you all of the
Speaker 1: little events nationwide that we're leading up to what eventually
Speaker 1: it took place on January six. But just to kick
Speaker 1: it off for you're gonna read this little uh opening
Speaker 1: of how they opened up that timeline. So on January six,
Speaker 1: two thousand twenty one, a right wing mob stormed the U. S.
Speaker 1: Capitol at the urging of President Donald J. Trump in
Speaker 1: an attempt to prevent the certification of the presidential election results.
Speaker 1: But the attack didn't come from nowhere. It was the
Speaker 1: culmination of a year of increasingly radical activity by a
Speaker 1: slew of extremists around the country. They mobilized against racial justice,
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen prevention measures, and voting rights for all Americans,
Speaker 1: and they were goaded on by the President and other
Speaker 1: politicians on the right. I mean, I'm sorry I didn't
Speaker 1: so similar to the aftermath of the George Floyd murder,
Speaker 1: there was almost universal there's almost universal combination of the riot.
Speaker 1: But just like with Floyd, it only took a few
Speaker 1: weeks before Republican politicians began to rationalize and justify it
Speaker 1: um As a congratsional investigation into the event wraps up. Now,
Speaker 1: more and more evidence has come out about the director
Speaker 1: involvement of Trump, his staff, and administration, as well as
Speaker 1: various right wing media figures. You know, there's text messages
Speaker 1: that came out between uh, talking heads at Fox News
Speaker 1: and Trump's children trying to dissuade Trump from egging on
Speaker 1: the rioters. Um that were you know, ultimately ignored, etcetera. UM.
Speaker 1: They've been finding like all sorts of hidden memos and
Speaker 1: drafts and PowerPoint presentations to show exactly like how like
Speaker 1: I mean, the main thing is, it's like in real time,
Speaker 1: like experiencing it, it seems ridiculous, you know, and it
Speaker 1: seems like he he ha haw other sart of losers,
Speaker 1: or this is funny or they're being ridiculous. But in
Speaker 1: the you know, the time sense, it's like we found
Speaker 1: out how calculated and deliberate this entire thing was. And
Speaker 1: and not only that, but also how much most of
Speaker 1: these not even most, how much all of these right
Speaker 1: wing politicians did not believe a word of what they
Speaker 1: were saying, Like none of them believe that the Donald
Speaker 1: Trump really won the election. None of them believe it,
Speaker 1: but they're saying it anyway. So a lot of that
Speaker 1: stuff has been exposed and is coming out. And I mean,
Speaker 1: one way or another, this committee is going to end
Speaker 1: because you know, the Republicans are most likely going to
Speaker 1: win back the House, and when they do, they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna shut this ship down the next day if it's
Speaker 1: still going on. So and this is important why I
Speaker 1: you know, in my life of elected service whatever um
Speaker 1: and very resistant to the like the committee ization of
Speaker 1: everything of like, oh, let's assign that to a committee.
Speaker 1: Let's have a committee investigate that, you know, study for reparations.
Speaker 1: Let's assign that to a committee. You know, January six,
Speaker 1: let's have a committee look into that, because it's just
Speaker 1: where they send stuff to die like that. A year later,
Speaker 1: like none of the folks that were encouraging this insurrection
Speaker 1: have been expelled from Congress or even censured in a
Speaker 1: major way. None of them have, to my understanding, been
Speaker 1: stripped of their committees or anything like that. Uh, let
Speaker 1: alone any sort of legal action taken against them for treason, etcetera. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we just assigned the committee, and yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we've you know, discovered a lot of harrowing details about
Speaker 1: it through the course of this investigation. But like you said,
Speaker 1: probably will take back the house nubsp No's gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It's shocking to degree to which Republicans have continued to
Speaker 1: push the big lie. You know, in Cobb County this
Speaker 1: week there is a pob County Republican Party is hosting
Speaker 1: like a vigil for the j six patriots that you
Speaker 1: know are being persecuted, etcetera, etcetera. Um. Like, folks have
Speaker 1: just become ever more emboldened since then because nothing there
Speaker 1: were really no consequences for I mean, you give him
Speaker 1: motherfucker interest, they're going to take a vial or a
Speaker 1: yard or whatever the saying is. But I mean it
Speaker 1: really is like that there. Paul gos Are is still
Speaker 1: still there. He's still he's still going to white supremacist
Speaker 1: rallies and then going to the house. Like you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, He's he's still going back and forth
Speaker 1: like it's I don't think that I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't think that I don't think that it's sunk in
Speaker 1: how like the madness of that situation. I don't think
Speaker 1: it's really stuck to landing as much as you know
Speaker 1: lives in mainstream media. They report on it at nausea,
Speaker 1: so it's not like it's not being reporting. But for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, from like a public standpoint, that ship didn't
Speaker 1: stick the way that it did, you know, again speaking
Speaker 1: in in cliches, but it's like, obviously if that was
Speaker 1: like a Black Lives Matter protest, that was a bunch
Speaker 1: of Muslim people that like we you know, you can
Speaker 1: go down the list of like what group, what demographic
Speaker 1: that that group could have been made of, that would
Speaker 1: make us still be talking about it today like it
Speaker 1: was the traumatizing national, traumatizing event that it was, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But it's like whenever right wingers
Speaker 1: do shit, ship doesn't. I don't know why, but ship
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem to stick because like it seems like
Speaker 1: I think this was an emblematic of like America in that,
Speaker 1: you know, oftentimes the folks pulling the strings and inciting
Speaker 1: the terror get away or you know, just for you
Speaker 1: know who, or complicit in the crimes, but are like
Speaker 1: big wigs of some fashion get away with ship. And
Speaker 1: then the foot soldiers are the ones that get popped
Speaker 1: because there have been some pretty serious consequences for a
Speaker 1: number of the people who physically stormed the capital, even
Speaker 1: if there haven't been for the folks that whooped them
Speaker 1: into a frenzy. Just like how during the housing christ
Speaker 1: of the two thousand eight, you best believe the folks
Speaker 1: the men that were beating their wives because they were
Speaker 1: losing their houses, and the folks that were turned into
Speaker 1: prostitution or whatever because they lost their jobs, and the
Speaker 1: kids that you know started selling weed because the parents
Speaker 1: whole college fund for them got you know, disappeared overnight.
Speaker 1: You best believe all those people went to jail. You
Speaker 1: best believe all these people want to do, but the
Speaker 1: Wall Street motherfucker's did not, because the people at the
Speaker 1: top skate by and they're totally fine. No matter what
Speaker 1: sorts of calamities the engineer, it's the people that are
Speaker 1: doing the footwork that are that is the result of
Speaker 1: that engineered calamity. That there are the people that go
Speaker 1: to jail. I mean, I agree, I like the correct
Speaker 1: but I mean, still there's a there's a still there's
Speaker 1: a disparity. Though. It's like I think that like if
Speaker 1: I hear of somebody who was, you know, participated in
Speaker 1: the Gen six thing, Oh this person got two years
Speaker 1: or oh this person got like five years or something
Speaker 1: like that, to me, that sounds like, wow, that's like
Speaker 1: serious consequences. But I'm I'm saying that as like somebody
Speaker 1: who generally just generally as a you know, a ruler prinsiple,
Speaker 1: doesn't really like want motherfucker's going to jail like that,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But we damn sure know
Speaker 1: that they would be handing out five and ten years
Speaker 1: sentences like gettles if this was a Black Lives Matter protest,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, like none of that
Speaker 1: would matter. And and the thing is the thing that
Speaker 1: kills me about like people on the left is like
Speaker 1: like we're using all of these like qualifiers as to
Speaker 1: why we shouldn't look down on this situation or why
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, we shouldn't have as big
Speaker 1: of a hysteria as like mainstream media, like mainstream establishment
Speaker 1: democrats are having on it. We shouldn't be that freaked
Speaker 1: out about the situation because oh man, they're just gonna
Speaker 1: if we if they crack down on this, then think
Speaker 1: about when they're in power, they're gonna crack down on
Speaker 1: left wing activism and lest left wing protests and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. It's it's like, what what planet or motherfucker's
Speaker 1: living on they're gonna do that anyway? That's yeah, like
Speaker 1: there's there's no there's no like reality that's gonna happen
Speaker 1: where we go through another period of their being, like
Speaker 1: you know, heavy protests on the left, that our heavy
Speaker 1: protests coming from the left. There's no no world where
Speaker 1: we're gonna be in that situation and Republicans or conservatives
Speaker 1: and charge A're gonna say, man, you know what, we
Speaker 1: were going to crack down on them, but they didn't
Speaker 1: cracked down on the jam six guys. So it's cool,
Speaker 1: like what, yeah, this is getting this that not going
Speaker 1: to be the kid na, although you know, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: Like I generally try to avoid amplifying horseshoe theory because
Speaker 1: I do think it is ultimately reactionary like way to
Speaker 1: discredit the left at times, but the idea that like,
Speaker 1: you know, the far right and the far left like
Speaker 1: sort of meat in the middle in some ways, kind
Speaker 1: of like if politics were a horseshoe. However, something that
Speaker 1: I do find really interesting is the way that Marjorie
Speaker 1: Taylor Green and Matt Gates and folks like that have
Speaker 1: been calling for justice for the j six wrioters that
Speaker 1: are being unfairly treated in prison, and like, look at
Speaker 1: these horrible conditions in prison, and it's like, yo, we've
Speaker 1: been trying to tell you that for so long, Like yes,
Speaker 1: comrade Marjorie Taylor Green, Like that's that's the thing, is like,
Speaker 1: but that's the thing is like it's all disingenuous, and
Speaker 1: it's all on purpose, and it's all the oh no,
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely playing. I'm playing. But it's just really you're paying.
Speaker 1: There's mad people. There's mad people who don't who think
Speaker 1: that un ironically, I mean, who like aren't playing her
Speaker 1: like and it's it's just it's totally weird. Like when
Speaker 1: when Marjorie Taylor Green starts talking like she's sucking MLK
Speaker 1: about prison conditions and stuff like that in the context
Speaker 1: of January six people, she's doing that on purpose. You
Speaker 1: know what. I mean like she's purposely co opting like
Speaker 1: language like that about like prison conditions and pstances like
Speaker 1: they're doing they're trolling, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: they're they're trying to be like wink wink funny, like
Speaker 1: ha ha ha, we're using their stuff. So you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So I don't know. I I don't
Speaker 1: like for me, I don't necessarily know whether I'm in
Speaker 1: the mindset of a throw the hammer at them as
Speaker 1: an example to their friends or whatever. But I mean
Speaker 1: when you when you you're essentially telling motherfucker's that feel
Speaker 1: entitled to ship already that is good. Not only those good,
Speaker 1: but like sit tight until y'all boys get back. That's not.
Speaker 1: It's like none of this stuff is good, and I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not talking about the usual good like when
Speaker 1: you like watch the news and ship and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's bad. I mean like this ship this is like bad,
Speaker 1: Like like where where this this ship is heading? Is it?
Speaker 1: It's January six was just a dry run. It was
Speaker 1: just practice. It was dress rehearsal, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And it's like in the year that has passed since,
Speaker 1: you know, laws have been changed to to take away
Speaker 1: people's voting rights. Things have been implemented to make it
Speaker 1: harder and more difficult for people to vote. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, I see them, I see them making this
Speaker 1: play for their minority rule thing, and you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're not slowing down with it at all.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, it's it's it's pretty shifty stuff. Do
Speaker 1: you sorry? I was gonna say, do you recall like
Speaker 1: your thoughts or feelings that day January? Yeah? I mean
Speaker 1: I remember it was it was daytime and ship and
Speaker 1: I don't know if you were home. I think I
Speaker 1: may have been. Where would I have been? It's a pandemic.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, true, true, true, true, um, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: like for me, it was kind of like it was
Speaker 1: kind of like a uh like the O. J. Simpson
Speaker 1: running away in the White Bronco or like even like
Speaker 1: Christopher Goldsmith he was saying, like for him, it was
Speaker 1: like the similar feeling to nine eleven, not like the
Speaker 1: gravity of the situation, not comparing them in that sense,
Speaker 1: but just comparing the like the weight of it, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like I remember, you know, there
Speaker 1: there's certain there's certain things that have happened in in
Speaker 1: life throughout life where it's like it happens that day
Speaker 1: and you remember like that day, you remember where you
Speaker 1: were when you saw it going down, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like you remember how like the room smelled
Speaker 1: like it's one of the it's one of It was
Speaker 1: one of those situations for me where I'm watching it
Speaker 1: on TV and not knowing how it was going to
Speaker 1: play out, me just completely thinking that the cops are
Speaker 1: just gonna start bucket people at some point and expecting it,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I was I was
Speaker 1: just like sitting there watching it, like, man, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: remember this for the rest of my life, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, definitely, Definitely. It felt very momentous. It felt
Speaker 1: like a watershed moment because it was so unclear what
Speaker 1: was going to happen next, Like are they gonna start
Speaker 1: storming capital? It's all over the nation? Uh da da
Speaker 1: da da dad. That was the day. That was the
Speaker 1: day I got sworn into my second term, and like
Speaker 1: I was like furiously texting the city manager like is
Speaker 1: it safe, and people like making fun of me like yeah,
Speaker 1: it's fine, It's like yeah, bench, you ain't never got
Speaker 1: no lynching threats, ma'am, Like, of course you're not worried.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to stand outside City Hall get my
Speaker 1: brains blown out by sniper on the parking deck. Like
Speaker 1: just so much, so much uncertainty of what the larger
Speaker 1: implications were for it in that moment of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: where is this going? Yeah, and it could have got bad.
Speaker 1: I mean it could have got he got so so bad.
Speaker 1: I think I heard something about a report that came
Speaker 1: out that said that there actually was like a like
Speaker 1: you know, damn mear like Special Forces hostage rescue sort
Speaker 1: of like team on standby while all the ship was
Speaker 1: going down. So the question was like, okay, how come
Speaker 1: they didn't go into action? Why were they implemented? And
Speaker 1: it was like, no, no, these dudes don't. Like these
Speaker 1: dudes go to clear building and nobody standing up when
Speaker 1: they're done, you know what I'm saying. So it was
Speaker 1: kind of they were on standby pretty much waiting like
Speaker 1: if that door, you know, the door where um Ashley
Speaker 1: Babbitt got shot, But they're pretty much standing by like
Speaker 1: waiting to see if that door was gonna get breached,
Speaker 1: and if that should have gotten breach, there would have
Speaker 1: been some like operators just clearing out the clearing out
Speaker 1: the capitol, and some of these gravy seal guys would
Speaker 1: have ran into like the real deal ship that they
Speaker 1: that they like to pretend to be, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And then that would have created a ton
Speaker 1: of martyrs, and then we'd be sitting, you know, it
Speaker 1: would be sitting in a completely different I'd argue, even
Speaker 1: worse dynamic with the situation than we are right now.
Speaker 1: But it's like if if the next election comes around
Speaker 1: and they make another play at this sort of thing
Speaker 1: and they do it in a more organized sense. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like kind of like backing. It's like backing the
Speaker 1: rest of the country into a corner to where you
Speaker 1: either sit back and let them do it or you
Speaker 1: confront them on it. Yeah, you know, Um, let's get
Speaker 1: into some of these statistics and stuff like that from
Speaker 1: last year and the year before it. So in the US,
Speaker 1: the number of hate crimes targeting black people jumped nearly
Speaker 1: forty and the number of hate crimes targeting Asian people
Speaker 1: jumped near a rose by sev. The actual number of
Speaker 1: reported incidents targeting Asian people last year, it's relatively small,
Speaker 1: with two hundred and seventy four crimes compared to the
Speaker 1: targeting black people, but still it's increase. Nonetheless, in there
Speaker 1: were two thousand, seven hundred and fifty five reported incidents
Speaker 1: targeting blacks and Black Africans and people living in the
Speaker 1: US man Overall, in the United States, hate crimes rose
Speaker 1: by six percent, according to the FBI. And what I
Speaker 1: really hate Like I hate I hate violence and office
Speaker 1: forms um except for like punching Nazis. However, like I
Speaker 1: hate that the conversation around hate crimes devolved into like
Speaker 1: interracial like competition for like who should be like who
Speaker 1: should be protected under the law, just various things, various
Speaker 1: things like black folks saying like oh, like in the
Speaker 1: phase of things like the Atlanta SPA shootings, like well,
Speaker 1: you know we didn't see all saying black lives matter less?
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't be? Yeah, no, we should ban together first
Speaker 1: of all. Like I don't think hate crimes laws a
Speaker 1: particularly the best way to deal with these situations. I'm
Speaker 1: always for like actual preventative measures like the radicalizing folks
Speaker 1: through education, etcetera. But like the fact that it turned
Speaker 1: into this pisson contest of like whose lives are in danger.
Speaker 1: More like, bro, why don't we all band together and
Speaker 1: get you for all of us? Like everybody please to Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love all of y'all, A love my Asian brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters. I love black people, you know, African immigrants,
Speaker 1: all y'all, we're all cool man, let's all get it
Speaker 1: and we're all we're all going through it together too,
Speaker 1: so you know, like it would behoove us to band
Speaker 1: together and strike the numbers and all that does. Um.
Speaker 1: The agency of the FBI considers criminal incidents to be
Speaker 1: hate crimes if they're motivated by bias towards race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion,
Speaker 1: sexual orientation, disability, gender, and gender identity. There were seven thousand,
Speaker 1: seven hundred and fifty nine criminal incidents reported and ten thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred thirty two related defenses that were considered hate
Speaker 1: crimes last year by the FBI. The majority of hate
Speaker 1: crimes more than involved intimidation of victims. Well nearly forty
Speaker 1: six percent were either simple or aggravated assaults. A total
Speaker 1: of murders were reported as hate crimes, which is probably
Speaker 1: an undercount UM given like the weakness of our hate
Speaker 1: crimes reporting laws and mechanisms. But these statistics, um said
Speaker 1: I started going off with then not even reading thing. Um,
Speaker 1: there are more than eighteen thousand agencies in the United
Speaker 1: States and more than three thousands did not submit their
Speaker 1: crime statistics. In what thoughts on that? I am? That's
Speaker 1: the phrase again, Like I said, I think beefing up
Speaker 1: like are like I think beefing up our hate crimes,
Speaker 1: reporting laws and infrastructure, let's say, is only as helpful
Speaker 1: as it allows us to identify underlying causes and eradicate them.
Speaker 1: So like, just like just knowing how many people, like
Speaker 1: I guess that's helpful to know how many people can
Speaker 1: beat the funk up and stuff. However, like, what are
Speaker 1: we doing? What are we doing with this information other
Speaker 1: than just like honestly kind of fearmongering make people afraid
Speaker 1: to like take the subway or walk home alone at night,
Speaker 1: which you know, if they should be afraid, then that's valid.
Speaker 1: But like, what like other than that, what is being
Speaker 1: done with this information? Are we are we using it
Speaker 1: to analyze what is radicalizing people into violent extremism and
Speaker 1: changing our school curricula to foster more appreciation of diversity
Speaker 1: and inclusivity. No, we're not doing any sort of ship
Speaker 1: of like an actual quantitative to like measure results pipeline. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't know that. I don't know that
Speaker 1: nobody's doing that, but I mean you you definitely can
Speaker 1: use that information to like kind of check the to
Speaker 1: kind of like take like a temperature. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. It's it's not to me, it's not. It
Speaker 1: seems like it makes you know, like logical one plus
Speaker 1: one equals two cents, that the pandemic happened, and that
Speaker 1: stupid people are like harassing and attacking Asian people, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it's like like that like
Speaker 1: it gives you. It gives you. You can you can
Speaker 1: use that to take the temperature that it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's this thing that's happening in the world in the
Speaker 1: news and now violence is increasing against Asian Americans. You
Speaker 1: can work. Yeah, I shouldn't say that, no one is.
Speaker 1: But I mean it's similar to how when they took
Speaker 1: you know, it's like they took Trump off of Twitter,
Speaker 1: and quantifiably they could tell oh, okay, there's not as
Speaker 1: much hate speech going on on Twitter, like like the
Speaker 1: the amount of the amount of hate speech that was
Speaker 1: generated on Twitter, like dropped significantly over the year. That
Speaker 1: like job hasn't been on there doesn't mean he's responsible
Speaker 1: for race speech, but it just meant what is like
Speaker 1: causing effect, you know what I'm saying. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that the like hate crime numbers can be used
Speaker 1: in that sense where it's like, man, you know, if
Speaker 1: you if you look in the last ten years and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, you know, like you get
Speaker 1: to year five and then the ship jumps up. You know,
Speaker 1: you gotta kind of look at the factors that are
Speaker 1: going in and what's happening, what's causing those numbers to jump,
Speaker 1: even if it's not like scientific, just to give you
Speaker 1: somewhat of a sense. No, that's absolutely valid. And I
Speaker 1: do imagine there's a lot of scholars studying that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I imagine the folks in the sun probably
Speaker 1: lost and it probably study that kind of thing. I've
Speaker 1: been on briefings with UM like fair Fight where they
Speaker 1: have looked at election misinformation and right wing violent extremism
Speaker 1: targeting elected officials, like they are keeping track of that
Speaker 1: stuff UM within their organization for Georgia. And so I
Speaker 1: guess my question is to what degree are these things?
Speaker 1: Is this knowledge being taken up by actual governmental bodies,
Speaker 1: like it's the FBI, do it? Are they too busy uh?
Speaker 1: File training intercepting like black liberation movements? How would you
Speaker 1: use that information, councilwoman? Um? I mean, okay, well, let's
Speaker 1: be clear. Local governments can only do so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I were, if I were like Chairman Parker or whatever,
Speaker 1: but going to make sure there's no racism on this block?
Speaker 1: I yeah, I mean, but governmentally, like considering restrictions on,
Speaker 1: you know, within the f c C of what sort
Speaker 1: of stuff that folks can be posting or amplifying or
Speaker 1: since or you know, somehow bringing the hammer down on
Speaker 1: h corporations like Facebook that have significantly contributed to contributed
Speaker 1: to the amplification of right wing the violent extremism. You know,
Speaker 1: they were shown to be fundling people in the Q
Speaker 1: and on and ship like that. What where are the
Speaker 1: consequences for that? Um? So, I think efforts like that
Speaker 1: could be I mean, like, aren't my effectively promoting censorship?
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I'm not trying to get people killed
Speaker 1: out here because somebody thinks that. To ask you your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that, So I mean, like, because we're about
Speaker 1: to get into this next group, because we're gonna go
Speaker 1: down a little rundown to some of the groups that
Speaker 1: were active in it, and and who's on the scene
Speaker 1: right now. But what do you feel about that, like
Speaker 1: in a quilt to or in a in a effort
Speaker 1: to prevent right wing propaganda from spreading? Like what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts on just the argument of speech and free
Speaker 1: speech and and how that's applied and censorship and d
Speaker 1: platforming and you know what I mean, when when to
Speaker 1: do it, when not to do it, when to even
Speaker 1: talk about it or mention it? Is it fundamentally just
Speaker 1: from a principal standpoint and no go free. So this
Speaker 1: gets into like what could the stand to be used for?
Speaker 1: Like you were saying, you'd look took it to a
Speaker 1: different level and I hadn't thought about before and appreciate that.
Speaker 1: So if we consistently see um rises in hate crimes
Speaker 1: like correlated with certain sorts of like um, let me
Speaker 1: pay for a second with Okay, if we start to
Speaker 1: see a correlation between an increase in hate crimes and
Speaker 1: proliferation of certain kinds of rhetoric um hate, you know,
Speaker 1: hateful rhetoric against a certain group, like Oh, Trump in
Speaker 1: the news this week talking about how Mexicans are rapists.
Speaker 1: Next week we saw like twenty two aggravated insults against
Speaker 1: people who looked Hispanic or something like that. Perhaps not
Speaker 1: as cut and dry, but like like when you aggregate data,
Speaker 1: you can probably see significant trends of that sort that
Speaker 1: can then inform policy to say, all right, this is
Speaker 1: this is causing violence. This this sort of like messaging
Speaker 1: is causing violence. So we're gonna crack down on it.
Speaker 1: You can't say the ship, not because we want to
Speaker 1: restrict your free speech, but literally you weren't sighting violence
Speaker 1: against people. You're putting people. I mean, if we just
Speaker 1: go back to right, Dylan Ruth kills all those black
Speaker 1: people in the in the church, writes a manifesto. More
Speaker 1: or less, I'm mega right. Charlottesville happens, Heather Higher gets killed.
Speaker 1: Everybody there is. That's you literally called the Unite the
Speaker 1: Right rally. We're all mega right, um homie in the
Speaker 1: Texas church. I think it's maybe dude walks in body armor,
Speaker 1: sprays everybody up, white dude, and it's white church. He
Speaker 1: ended up being mega park Land shoot that's a MAGA kid.
Speaker 1: Um fast forward to today around this time, who's the
Speaker 1: kid that just uh, I forget where that was. Guy,
Speaker 1: there's so many of them. But a kid went to
Speaker 1: his school and he shot I think he hit like
Speaker 1: a like a football player and a couple of other kids.
Speaker 1: It just happened just like a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: But that kid's the one whose parents went on the run.
Speaker 1: Remember here, Yeah, I remember that kid. Yeah that was
Speaker 1: that was that that was a MAGA inspired incident. And
Speaker 1: then taking us back to last week, um where uh,
Speaker 1: all right, philosopher went on a murderous rampage in Denver
Speaker 1: and killed five people. Again being cliche, but if those
Speaker 1: are just like five or six incidences that have happened
Speaker 1: in the last five and six years, and like, for real,
Speaker 1: if even one of those things was done by al Qaeda,
Speaker 1: we would be invading a country right now. Not that
Speaker 1: I'm saying that's what we should be doing, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I'm not like like, that's not what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, But it's just like there is something alarming
Speaker 1: to me, the amount of malaise towards it. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just I just don't see it. Just
Speaker 1: like with the January six thing, I think that all
Speaker 1: of these incidences are just gonna keep being more frequent
Speaker 1: than they are right now because like everything is embolding
Speaker 1: people and people aren't being held to account for these things.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not I'm not working with the cops and
Speaker 1: I'm not working with the police state. But I'm also
Speaker 1: not gonna be stupid and like let right wingers run
Speaker 1: game on me so that I don't protect myself, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I'm not looking out for
Speaker 1: my own best interests in the name of like some
Speaker 1: esoteric like political like theory of like well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, because like I wouldn't want the police states.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, we don't want the police state to
Speaker 1: be used against people because we largely feel that it's
Speaker 1: it's used unjustly and unfairly in at the behest of
Speaker 1: the powerful. Well, let me put it this way, but
Speaker 1: like when people are actually acting in bad faith and
Speaker 1: like with insidious like plots trying to harm like everyone else,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I just I can't be like but it
Speaker 1: slide because let me put it this way, I don't
Speaker 1: think prison is a good place for these people that
Speaker 1: I don't think putting them in prison is going to
Speaker 1: make our community safer, because in prison, without access to
Speaker 1: your family or TV or Twitter or whatever, you're going
Speaker 1: to join a white supremacist game. If you weren't in
Speaker 1: one already, or if you were in one already, you're
Speaker 1: gonna like get a swastick, it's at it on your
Speaker 1: neck and lift uh, you know, do squads or whatever
Speaker 1: in the yard with the Nazis and become more hardened
Speaker 1: and really hate the state more because they've imprisoned you.
Speaker 1: So when you get out, if you get out, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be worse than when you went in there. Now
Speaker 1: that I'm saying people need all accountable, it's just I'm
Speaker 1: adding nuance to the like the bail, like, well there
Speaker 1: should be accountability. I don't want these same slides. I
Speaker 1: don't know this ship slide either. I'm just worried about
Speaker 1: the further radicalization of people as a result of incarceration. No,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a totally fair and good point. I
Speaker 1: would just argue that in this scenario, I think it's better,
Speaker 1: Like I really do. In this scenario, I think it's
Speaker 1: better that these these guys. These people be in situations
Speaker 1: where they are tattooed on them and they are you know,
Speaker 1: I mean joining White supremacist gate. Like, like, the the
Speaker 1: threat right now is not like like a street level
Speaker 1: insurgents of you know, like right wing extremism, although that
Speaker 1: is a threat, Like that's the like as far as
Speaker 1: in the context of what I'm talking about, that's like
Speaker 1: the Dylan Roof type stuff, or it's like the sort
Speaker 1: of attacks that I've been like, you know, listening down
Speaker 1: like that street level like we're gonna do something. I'm
Speaker 1: a lone wolf. I'm gonna do something. All that stuff
Speaker 1: is gonna increase. But like the more dangerous aspect long term,
Speaker 1: like that ship is like immediately dangerous to the people
Speaker 1: who are caught up. You know what I'm saying. If
Speaker 1: if you have the misfortune of being at that location
Speaker 1: when that lone wolf does that thing, and that sucks.
Speaker 1: But I just mean, like a broader, more general danger
Speaker 1: is that if these guys aren't like being driven to
Speaker 1: like those margins where it's like, oh, man, I'm in
Speaker 1: the Nazi gang, you know what I mean, Or man,
Speaker 1: I went to jail so that I got the tattoo
Speaker 1: the swast my eye and shipped like that. They they
Speaker 1: they get to like they get to fucking slither into
Speaker 1: the you know what I mean, undercover and and get
Speaker 1: their their thoughts not marginalized and adopted. I mean, we
Speaker 1: had the Republican parties is wide open for this ship,
Speaker 1: and it's simply just a matter of which way they're
Speaker 1: gonna go in the next five ten years. They've always
Speaker 1: had all of the they've always been with the ships,
Speaker 1: with the bullshit that they've been with. But like now,
Speaker 1: I think we face the threat of if this like
Speaker 1: right wing extremist ship gets normalized even more than it
Speaker 1: already is, you're gonna have an entire political party just
Speaker 1: like outright adopted, you know, because they haven't yet for
Speaker 1: all of those For as that ship insane as the
Speaker 1: Republicans are right now, they're lad, you know, pretty much
Speaker 1: is still led by Trump World. And Trump World has
Speaker 1: no principles and no real belief system, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, there's no there's no real ideology and Trump World.
Speaker 1: But if they start adopting this like like we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna like talk a little bit briefly or not
Speaker 1: even we've talked about Patriot Front before they were the
Speaker 1: group that marched in Washington a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: But like, for example, that should comprised the twenty year
Speaker 1: old yo in eighteen year old and you know, like
Speaker 1: in in in ten years, if those guys are, if
Speaker 1: those guys like don't face any consequences for their ship,
Speaker 1: none of them have to go to jail where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get us lost his tattooed on my face.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna end up becoming a cop or a
Speaker 1: judge perhaps perhaps or a real estate agent or landlords.
Speaker 1: People are already real estate agents and cos and landlords,
Speaker 1: Like I don't We're not gonna avoid that from happening.
Speaker 1: That's what these people already are. But I would say
Speaker 1: I don't have a clear answer for what accountability would
Speaker 1: look like for these people, because perhaps they are too
Speaker 1: far gone. I also know that when people are back
Speaker 1: into a corner, they bite, you know. Um, that's we
Speaker 1: see with folks that are out here slaying maths and
Speaker 1: killing each other and my fucking neighborhood. And that is
Speaker 1: equally true of people that feel marginalized for made up reasons.
Speaker 1: But oh, I'm so oppressed because I'm a white real
Speaker 1: estate agent. UM, but like feel oppressed or marginalized ideologically,
Speaker 1: UM that tends to like sometimes retrench the white people
Speaker 1: already feel. But again, I don't have a clear answer
Speaker 1: for it, other than like, I think the reason why
Speaker 1: Republicans um pursue austerity politics so hard is to keep
Speaker 1: alive these racial resentments and uh between like the white
Speaker 1: and black working classes. Like, if we pass things like
Speaker 1: a federal job guarantee, you couldn't claim anymore than Mexicans
Speaker 1: are stealing your jobs. If we did things like free
Speaker 1: higher education and a lot of these you know, white
Speaker 1: folks that just come home from work at the auto
Speaker 1: shop every day and put on Fox was could like
Speaker 1: develop some critical thinking and maybe realize that like black
Speaker 1: people are the people, ETCeteras. Like I think a lot
Speaker 1: of these things could, over the long term, helped transform
Speaker 1: the situation that we're in. And that's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing I always advocate for. Like there's no perfect system
Speaker 1: of accountability. I don't even know if a state is
Speaker 1: capable of developing such. But like the ending, this kind
Speaker 1: of violence is ultimately incumbent upon UH. Thus state to
Speaker 1: investing communities in a way that like just keep people
Speaker 1: from becoming this mentally deranged. But anyway, UM, if you
Speaker 1: want to, if you want to get into the interview,
Speaker 1: we can. We're gonna take a little break, y'all, and
Speaker 1: when we get back, we're gonna have that interview that
Speaker 1: I had with Christopher Goldsmith, Nazi hunter, extraordinair, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna get his thoughts on January six and some of
Speaker 1: the stuff that we've been talking about so far. So
Speaker 1: we will be back with that after the job. All right, people,
Speaker 1: what is happening? We are back? All right? So we've
Speaker 1: got uh now, a friend of the podcast. Um, it's
Speaker 1: my Homies, a CEO of something called Spavarious, which he's
Speaker 1: going to explain to us. He's also an Iraq war
Speaker 1: vet and a Nazi hunter. I want you to you know,
Speaker 1: I wish I always say this whenever I introduced people,
Speaker 1: but like I wish that this was live so that
Speaker 1: I could get like a crowd response to you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But I wish everyone could make some
Speaker 1: notfou hopie, Christopher Goldsmith, what's happened? Christ how you do?
Speaker 1: What's happened? Brother? It's good to be kind of back, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of that kind of back. Well when when I
Speaker 1: you know, I just gave you an introduction like that,
Speaker 1: like with all with all of those things, what exactly
Speaker 1: like would you how would you describe yourself? Like what
Speaker 1: do you do? So? Um? I one of the one
Speaker 1: of the most eye opening classes that I ever took.
Speaker 1: You know, I've joined the army when I was when
Speaker 1: I was eighteen, I went to a rack at nineteen,
Speaker 1: was was out by twenty one in like some really
Speaker 1: rough shape. I got out in two thousand seven, and
Speaker 1: I didn't start school until so it took me that
Speaker 1: long to kind of like put myself back together. Um.
Speaker 1: And I took in economics one on one course, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was one of the most eye opening courses in
Speaker 1: terms of like applying names and and like like actual
Speaker 1: um theory to things that I kind of understood but
Speaker 1: like didn't have a name for. Uh. And one of
Speaker 1: those things is negative externalities. So negative externalities is like
Speaker 1: when a coal firing power plant is operating in your
Speaker 1: town and and smog is like you know, just filling
Speaker 1: your house with with all sorts of terrible stuff. That's
Speaker 1: a negative externality, like you are paying the cost for
Speaker 1: that power plant's operation. Right, So modern day laws, we
Speaker 1: tax them, right, or we find them for for that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Right now, the far right, UM, you
Speaker 1: know everything from Trump World on, They're imposing negative externalities
Speaker 1: on all of us all the time. I mean, January
Speaker 1: six was a traumatic event for so many of us.
Speaker 1: UM as a New Yorker who experienced eleven from twenty
Speaker 1: miles away lost. Um. You know, I personally didn't lose anybody,
Speaker 1: but most of my friends and family, UM lost someone
Speaker 1: who is a direct connection. UM. January six felt like
Speaker 1: that to me, right, So all of these folks have
Speaker 1: been putting their negative externalities on us and we haven't
Speaker 1: had any way to impose any costs on it. So
Speaker 1: I created Sparbarious. UM. There's an organization that is focused
Speaker 1: on not just tracking and researching and reporting on the
Speaker 1: far right, but sabotage. So I will do things like
Speaker 1: join a neo Nazi organization of document their internal comms
Speaker 1: and then I'll post them online so that people understand,
Speaker 1: Like if they've got a Nazi in their neighborhood and
Speaker 1: they want to take action to make sure that their
Speaker 1: community is safe, Like I'm helping people do that. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: So how do you like on the right Now it's
Speaker 1: Tuesday that we're talking, But when this episode is going
Speaker 1: to come out, it's going to be January six, the
Speaker 1: anniversary of January six. So in the time the year
Speaker 1: that's passed since then, what have you noticed about the
Speaker 1: movement of like far right and extremist groups have has
Speaker 1: there been any sort of rallying around that event. Obviously
Speaker 1: there have been a couple of attempts to try and
Speaker 1: do another one or you know that haven't really gone
Speaker 1: gone so well for them. But have you noticed any
Speaker 1: sort of ratcheting up of their activity in the past year? Yeah? So, Um,
Speaker 1: depending on what time of day people are listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast. Um, you know, my, my, my guests could
Speaker 1: be wrong, but you know, my analysis of what's set
Speaker 1: to happen on January six is a whole lot of nothing,
Speaker 1: at least in terms of you know, what happened here prior.
Speaker 1: But much more significant is the fact that all of
Speaker 1: the extremists who are involved in January six, either they're
Speaker 1: committing violence against their fellow Americans, police officers protecting the
Speaker 1: citadel of democracy, uh you know, using Blue Lives Matter
Speaker 1: flags to to hit cops right um, or if they
Speaker 1: were financial supporters, or or just you know Fox News
Speaker 1: UM audience who who are committed to the ideologies. They've
Speaker 1: moved their operations instead of from being centralized and attacking
Speaker 1: the capital to harassing school boards and local election officials.
Speaker 1: And you know this is we have entered a new
Speaker 1: phase in our in our history, and we're experiencing an insurgency.
Speaker 1: You know, when I when I speak about these these terms,
Speaker 1: when I use the term Nazi, when I use the
Speaker 1: term fascist or insurgency or terrorism, I want to be
Speaker 1: clear I'm not using hyperbole, Like I'm not one of
Speaker 1: those uh you know, talking heads who goes on TV
Speaker 1: every day and you know, screams that the sky is falling.
Speaker 1: When I talk about insurgency, I'm talking about the same
Speaker 1: stuff that I experienced when I was interrack. How they
Speaker 1: were armed groups who are forming in their local communities,
Speaker 1: who you know, put on their own branding saying oh,
Speaker 1: we're here to protect the public, when in fact they
Speaker 1: were there to violate human rights of those who who
Speaker 1: you know, weren't part of their group. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know what's an insurgency, and insurgency UM is
Speaker 1: a in organized group who's willing to use violence not
Speaker 1: against not just against the government and representatives of government power,
Speaker 1: be it you know, elected representatives or those in uniform
Speaker 1: police or military, but they're also willing to use force,
Speaker 1: violence threats against the American public. And and then that's
Speaker 1: what we saw in January six. So the thing that
Speaker 1: always frustrates me is like, you know, obviously it's almost
Speaker 1: a cliche at this wee like to talk about the
Speaker 1: shift of the Overton window between now and like say,
Speaker 1: thirty forty years ago. Um. But the thing that always
Speaker 1: gets to me is like what worries me is like
Speaker 1: the stochastic terrorism aspect of things and lone wolves and
Speaker 1: people just doing isolated acts and ship like that. But
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't I don't even think that we're
Speaker 1: at a point where we're waiting for that sort of
Speaker 1: stuff to start happening more. But it's like every other
Speaker 1: mass shooter has some sort of links to be in
Speaker 1: like a far right extremists or trumper or fascist or
Speaker 1: want to be this. So it's like I don't understand
Speaker 1: how well I mean, it's it's a rhetorical question, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm asking, but it's like it frustrates me that
Speaker 1: this hasn't like successfully stuck in a mainstream sort of way,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, just for example, was it just
Speaker 1: last Monday, like a literal a writer went on a
Speaker 1: shooting spree in Denver? I mean, somebody who has like
Speaker 1: eight hundred page all right manifesto printed like again cliches.
Speaker 1: But if that was like a Black Lives Matter for guy,
Speaker 1: or if that was a Nation of Islam guy, it
Speaker 1: would be a much bigger deal than it is now.
Speaker 1: So how do people who like are concerned about these things,
Speaker 1: Like is there any sort of contribution that we can
Speaker 1: get because to make things like the stick in the
Speaker 1: national mind framer in the media escape. Because I mean,
Speaker 1: for all the criticisms that we want to have of
Speaker 1: establishment media, and there's there's endless and infinite criticisms to
Speaker 1: go around, they can be useful in a case like
Speaker 1: this too, you know what I mean. For they can't
Speaker 1: be useful for propaganda, and we need we need, we
Speaker 1: successful we need propaganda against the sort of things and
Speaker 1: stuff like attaching the many crimes and like murders that
Speaker 1: they're already doing before it reaches like a you know,
Speaker 1: insane level. I don't understand how we're not able to
Speaker 1: make those sticks. Yeah, yeah, I get that frustration. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, so what one of the things that
Speaker 1: motivated me into this is like, I've I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to serve my country and it's it's I did in
Speaker 1: the military didn't work out so well. Since then, after
Speaker 1: a few years of a dark period and recovery, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been working for nonprofits, veterans nonprofits, volunteering
Speaker 1: a lot of my time and frankly like not making
Speaker 1: any money doing it. UM. One of the things that
Speaker 1: led me to become a researcher of any kind was
Speaker 1: I was working in Vietnam Veterans America and found a
Speaker 1: fake version of our Facebook page which had twice as
Speaker 1: many followers, and it was backed up by three independent websites,
Speaker 1: all with different U r l s, all branded with
Speaker 1: Vietnam Veterans America, producing news and information about veterans benefits
Speaker 1: like VA home loans, healthcare, and the latest on UM
Speaker 1: bills that would help veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange,
Speaker 1: like real true stuff. And then once in a while,
Speaker 1: they would include UM a piece of manipulated news. UM
Speaker 1: the most ingenious thing. I uh, I was impressed once
Speaker 1: I figured out a that this wasn't just like a
Speaker 1: rogue member of our organization trying to do a good thing,
Speaker 1: and that it was malicious. I found a Facebook live
Speaker 1: video that had been UM had been picked picked. They
Speaker 1: picked out a local news coverage like a fifty eight
Speaker 1: second clip from rural Massachusetts where in African American Vietnam
Speaker 1: Veterans monument. So a black Vietnam vets monument was defaced. Now,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like somebody took a chisel and hammer to
Speaker 1: it or spray paint. It looked like some kid rubbed
Speaker 1: some like red berries on it or something. But local news,
Speaker 1: it's a story, you know, any time that there's like
Speaker 1: a bad guy of any kind of conflict, that's what
Speaker 1: they want to cover. Right. So this was a true
Speaker 1: story where black veterans of Vietnam. Right, So those are
Speaker 1: three distinct and important populations were targeted by an unknown actor.
Speaker 1: So what this foreign entity did was it took this
Speaker 1: fifty eight second video somehow tricked Facebook's algorithm into believing
Speaker 1: that it was a live video and looped it for
Speaker 1: four hours and over the real chiron that says Black
Speaker 1: Vietnam Veterans monument defaced, they put this meme style text
Speaker 1: that said do you think the criminals must suffer? And
Speaker 1: then encourage people to do the heart emoji for no
Speaker 1: or the angry emoji for yes. So they're taking advantage
Speaker 1: of Facebook's algorithm on so many levels, because clicking like
Speaker 1: is one thing. Taking the extra time to click a
Speaker 1: heart or an angry emoji shows more of an investment,
Speaker 1: and Facebook's algorithm rewards that. So that entity ended up
Speaker 1: being run out of Bulgaria. At the Facebook page was
Speaker 1: run out of Bulgaria if the websites were out of Russia.
Speaker 1: UH and I spent the following two years investigating all
Speaker 1: of the far all of the ways that foreign actors
Speaker 1: target troops veterans in our families with UM online, So
Speaker 1: everything from disinformation to identity theft, and the common thread
Speaker 1: through all of it was UM was pushing veterans to extremes,
Speaker 1: especially around issues of race, refugees, immigration, UM and they
Speaker 1: would they would use these stupid slogans like veterans before
Speaker 1: refugees or veterans versus m grants to divide Americans and
Speaker 1: this Um, the years of research that I put into
Speaker 1: that first report for Vietnam Veterans America. Today, I understand
Speaker 1: it got me where I am today, but I feel
Speaker 1: like years later I wasted my time spending so much
Speaker 1: time looking outwardly because their goal was to radicalize Americans.
Speaker 1: They they weren't solely responsible for the radicalization of America's Americans.
Speaker 1: But at this point, the threats coming from outside our
Speaker 1: country are not significant in in uh, in comparison to
Speaker 1: domestic rats. You know, the cult of Trump is m
Speaker 1: of Q and on of Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gates.
Speaker 1: That is far more dangerous than anything the Russians ever
Speaker 1: did to us. So where do you think it's heading? Um,
Speaker 1: wait before before we get into that, because one of
Speaker 1: the groups that we talked about on this episode is
Speaker 1: a Patriot Front because they were in the news with
Speaker 1: the march that they did recently. Um, are there any
Speaker 1: other groups that you think should be on people's radar
Speaker 1: or could you tell us more about Patriot Front and
Speaker 1: what makes and particularly unique amongst the hate groups. So
Speaker 1: Patriot Front is is really the group that got me
Speaker 1: into going as far as I do in terms of
Speaker 1: like joining these hate groups and sabotaging them. Um. It
Speaker 1: came about because of a buddy of mine who I
Speaker 1: served with in the army, who deployed in two thousand
Speaker 1: seven and as a sniper. UM, he went through some
Speaker 1: really tough stuff during the troops, surgeon to Iraq, came home.
Speaker 1: He's now medically retired. The guys is brilliant. Um. He's
Speaker 1: you know, built like a brickshit house and he wants
Speaker 1: to serve his country. But Iraq broke him in ways
Speaker 1: that he will never be fixed. And he Um. Rather
Speaker 1: than you know, wallow and sadness not being able to
Speaker 1: do what he wants to do, he figured out another
Speaker 1: way to serve his country. He randomly joined a hate group.
Speaker 1: Called me up and said, hey, Goldie, I want you
Speaker 1: to help me take down this neo Nazi group that
Speaker 1: I just joined. Like there was that was the pitch.
Speaker 1: There was no previous discussion and no idea. So fast
Speaker 1: forward a year later, I get laid off due to
Speaker 1: the COVID problem, UM, and I call him back up
Speaker 1: and I'm like, all right, buddy, tell me about your
Speaker 1: neo Nazis. And that ended up being the Patriot Front. Um.
Speaker 1: It is the gen Z's take on the KKK. You know,
Speaker 1: people who saw the photos and videos of of their
Speaker 1: march and d C saw the white gator, the like
Speaker 1: neck things that they pull up over their face. That's
Speaker 1: just the modern day clanhood. Like, you know, we laugh
Speaker 1: at them because they look goofy. They look like they're
Speaker 1: you know a bunch of Best Buy managers with the
Speaker 1: people that yeah and like, well the clan you know,
Speaker 1: think about how goofy a bunch of people dressed like
Speaker 1: ghosts slow, right, and and that part of that is deliberate, right.
Speaker 1: So the uniform um, you know, if if you're if
Speaker 1: you're a marine in the United States Marine Corps, you
Speaker 1: have a great looking uniform and that uniform tells a
Speaker 1: lot of things about you. The the the the stripes
Speaker 1: on your shoulder tell you tell people you know, what
Speaker 1: rank you are. The ribbons on your chest tell people
Speaker 1: your resume, like what you've done, how much combat you've seen, etcetera, etcetera. Well,
Speaker 1: the goofy Best Buy uniforms that Patriot Front are wearing,
Speaker 1: they've they've got bell crow on stick or is that
Speaker 1: show like the locations that they're from the rank within
Speaker 1: the organization, all sorts of stuff that they understand but
Speaker 1: we as outsiders don't necessarily recognize. Right, So they have
Speaker 1: goofy uniforms, but they're signaling to one another there, you know,
Speaker 1: allegiance to white supremacy and what they've done for for
Speaker 1: the cause of advancing their racist um propaganda campaigns. Well,
Speaker 1: something I want you to dig a little deeper on,
Speaker 1: just because you know, um, I think sometimes it's seducing
Speaker 1: to put racism and like hate and just all this
Speaker 1: stuff that we're generally talking about and put it in
Speaker 1: the box of you know, this is an old man sport,
Speaker 1: like where you know what I mean, Ay, we're just
Speaker 1: a generation away. They're dying out and then it's all
Speaker 1: gonna be Kumbaya and flowers and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: the aspect of Patriot Front being a gen's the sort
Speaker 1: of grouping like a youth movement almost in a way.
Speaker 1: And even I noticed this online with you know, the
Speaker 1: amount of young men who follow who Stephen Crowder and
Speaker 1: Jordan Peterson and so on and so forth. So like,
Speaker 1: can you can you talk a little bit more about
Speaker 1: about it being like a gen Z thing? Like, how
Speaker 1: are they using their gen z nous too? Like further
Speaker 1: this really old, antiquated ideology. Yes, so the same way
Speaker 1: that that millennials and older generations look at gen Z
Speaker 1: and they're like, man, when these kids grew up with
Speaker 1: the Internet at their fingertips, they literally grew up with smartphones,
Speaker 1: with tablets, uh with you know, not not like eight
Speaker 1: bit computer games right like complex m m O RPGs,
Speaker 1: like massive multi player online role playing games right there
Speaker 1: the world that they grew up in, uh, through so
Speaker 1: much information and at them, and we don't think about
Speaker 1: the hard skill sets that come from daily life of
Speaker 1: being a gen Z or connected to the internet. Gen
Speaker 1: Z grew up watching Kim Kardashian go from some unknown
Speaker 1: person who had a porn tape, uh, you know, mysteriously
Speaker 1: leak to being one of the richest and most powerful
Speaker 1: people on the planet. I mean, you know she's not
Speaker 1: a politician, but you know she can she can make
Speaker 1: a brand overnight, right Like she gets people to to
Speaker 1: to act, she gets people to send their money, you
Speaker 1: know whatever way to believe in causes. Well, so if
Speaker 1: you're a gen Z kid and your dad's in the
Speaker 1: KKK and you're growing up with those two influences. You've
Speaker 1: got you know, Kim Kardashian on your phone, and you've
Speaker 1: got Jim Bob, your your racist dad, like, you know,
Speaker 1: influencing you and teaching you your so called values. You're
Speaker 1: going to become a really effective propagandist. You know these
Speaker 1: kids have have you know, basically you got a bachelor's
Speaker 1: degree in marketing and communications. Just growing up as gen
Speaker 1: z Like they understand what makes an engaging photo video
Speaker 1: like that whole the Patriot Fronts march thing, like we
Speaker 1: were all laughing at them. But people who are susceptible
Speaker 1: to the the like whole wanting to fight for the
Speaker 1: white race because you're a racist piece of ship thing like,
Speaker 1: they love that stuff. So back to the question that
Speaker 1: I cut you off, Um, where do you think this
Speaker 1: is all heading? Because I mean, just to give you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think that. I don't think like a literal
Speaker 1: civil war is looming Like that sounds something like something
Speaker 1: in a movie or a script or something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: And I don't even really think that they mean civil
Speaker 1: war when they talk about civil war, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: think any of these guys are daydreaming about like urban
Speaker 1: warfare with SWAT teams, like a warehouse matrix gun battle
Speaker 1: with like Navy seals and stuff like I think they're
Speaker 1: talking about, Hey, let's go into a gay youth center
Speaker 1: and shoot it up, you know, I mean, hey, let's
Speaker 1: go into a black church and kill everyone. Like so, like,
Speaker 1: where do you think it is? Headache? Um? So, if
Speaker 1: if you know, Patriot Front is able to operate completely unopposed,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party is going to adopt straight up, like
Speaker 1: real explicit white supremacy as their party platform, you know.
Speaker 1: And and like, yes, the Republican Party engages in a
Speaker 1: whole lot of that stuff, but most of it's masked
Speaker 1: and veiled. Not every member of the gop in Congress
Speaker 1: is as much of a piece of ship as like
Speaker 1: the guy Paul Gossar in Arizona who hangs out with
Speaker 1: Nick Fuentez and goes to neo Nazi conventions. Um, but
Speaker 1: we're you know, if people don't start actively opposing these
Speaker 1: folks and bringing it back to what we talked about before,
Speaker 1: are imposing negative externalities or finding them or panalizing them
Speaker 1: for the negative externalities that they're bringing to the rest
Speaker 1: of society. That's that's the direction we're moving in. It's
Speaker 1: it's a the coup attempt that we saw in January
Speaker 1: six didn't stop on January six. You know, we are
Speaker 1: seeing the rewriting of laws that are disenfranchising entire populations
Speaker 1: of voters. UM. You know, that are making it so
Speaker 1: that we're going to live under the tyranny of the minority.
Speaker 1: And that's not like an if thing. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a very small chance that Democrats hold the House in
Speaker 1: when h McCarthy become Speaker of the House and guys
Speaker 1: like Paul Gosar are chairing committees, they're going to be
Speaker 1: shaping laws, running investigations, harassing UM federal agencies to the
Speaker 1: point that they can no longer protect the of the
Speaker 1: United States from violent domestic extremists. So, if some of
Speaker 1: anybody wants to help you and others in the fight
Speaker 1: against this ship, where can they go? What can they do? So?
Speaker 1: Spar Various is partnering with human rights first, It's it's
Speaker 1: a big nonprofit organization UM. They are primarily UM concerned
Speaker 1: with the settlement of refugees, with helping vulnerable populations, immigrations,
Speaker 1: and protect the human rights at home. And abroad. They
Speaker 1: created two programs. One is called Veterans for American Ideals,
Speaker 1: which was specifically made to help Iraq and Afghanistan interpreters
Speaker 1: and allies come into the United States to push for legislation,
Speaker 1: to push for administrative action to to help them get
Speaker 1: welcomed into United States. UH. And two is the Innovation Lab.
Speaker 1: So the Vation Lab at Human Rights First is developing
Speaker 1: technology that is UM that is meant to protect human rights.
Speaker 1: So that means UM, we're we've we've got a program
Speaker 1: where it can analyze hundreds of hours of YouTube videos
Speaker 1: and it can help us without having to have a
Speaker 1: human being watch all of those you know, shitty videos,
Speaker 1: help us understand how YouTube videos are being used to
Speaker 1: radicalize American youth for you know, other targeted populations. We've
Speaker 1: got software that analyzes videos that's meant to to detect
Speaker 1: state sponsored violence. So things like what we saw on
Speaker 1: in Lafayette Square when Trump ran across the street after
Speaker 1: having cops clear crowds that were you know, vast majority
Speaker 1: of completely peaceful with no warning. All of those videos, UH,
Speaker 1: we're putting into an ai UM an artificial intelligence program
Speaker 1: that is helping us learn how to detect police violence
Speaker 1: so that we can use that not just here state side,
Speaker 1: but overseas as well. So this the cool thing about
Speaker 1: what we're doing at Human Rights First in the Innovation
Speaker 1: Lab is we're making it so that the programs that
Speaker 1: we're developed will never be used by the government, They'll
Speaker 1: never be used by a foreign government, they will never
Speaker 1: be used by any actor who could use it to
Speaker 1: hurt vulnerable populations or to a road democracy. You know,
Speaker 1: we're going to make sure that it stays in the
Speaker 1: hands of journalists, m human rights activists, researchers and that
Speaker 1: type of thing. So if if people want to support us,
Speaker 1: you know, you can check out and go to my
Speaker 1: website spar Various dot c O. You can search for
Speaker 1: me on on Twitter online Christopher Chris with a k
Speaker 1: old Smith. I'm pretty easy to find because my name
Speaker 1: is spelled weird um and go to Human Rights First
Speaker 1: and and poke around the website. Checkout Veterans for American Ideals,
Speaker 1: check out the Innovation Lab, you know, make a donation
Speaker 1: if if you want to support the work directly UM.
Speaker 1: And we're also at spar Various going to be training
Speaker 1: veterans to engage in the work that I do of
Speaker 1: of studying and exposing and disrupting extremist organizations. That's what's up. Yeah, hey,
Speaker 1: Christopher man, thank you for talking with us. Thanks a lot, brother. Alright,
Speaker 1: be easy, I'll let you down the down the jump,
Speaker 1: all right, all be good, all right. And that was
Speaker 1: Christopher Goldsmith, ladies and gentlemen. So as you guys can hear,
Speaker 1: he's out there actually doing the work and putting himself
Speaker 1: in harm's way to combat some of this stuff. Um
Speaker 1: just general really, you know, like as we wrap this up,
Speaker 1: um like what don't just overall? Where do you think
Speaker 1: this whole thing is heading? And my whole thing I
Speaker 1: just mean, because it's like we're in the midst of
Speaker 1: something new, you know, Like as Christopher was saying with
Speaker 1: the Patriot Friend group, is like these these these kids
Speaker 1: essentially have grown up in the era of like media
Speaker 1: and mass communications, and all of them technically have marketing
Speaker 1: and communications degrees just by growing up, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So all of them are expert propagandas and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And with everything racing up, where do
Speaker 1: you where do you see it headed? Where do you
Speaker 1: think we are? If we were if we were to
Speaker 1: have a discussion about right wing extremism in the next
Speaker 1: like three years from now, where do you what do
Speaker 1: you think we're talking about? I think even the shorter
Speaker 1: charm than at like thinking about the next six months,
Speaker 1: we have a very short window in which um Democrats
Speaker 1: can enact bold transformative policies that substantively invest in communities
Speaker 1: as a way to both animate the electorate to come
Speaker 1: out and support them, to keep the fascist out of power.
Speaker 1: And as I was saying earlier in the show, those
Speaker 1: to have those investments also pay dividends for the people,
Speaker 1: for the like the white folks, the real estate to
Speaker 1: whoever who feel disenfranchised or like ideologically marginalized right now,
Speaker 1: for them for for that sort of investment, to see
Speaker 1: that kind of good and feel that kind of good,
Speaker 1: you know, those tangible benefits in their lives. To cool
Speaker 1: down the currently very heated god political climate and the
Speaker 1: ways that it gives rides to violent extremism. Like we
Speaker 1: got honestly, you're talking about well three years and now
Speaker 1: like we got six months to like really really locked
Speaker 1: the ship down, start putting like you know, material needs
Speaker 1: of working people over civility and protocol fire the parliamentary
Speaker 1: and like and like and like try to try our
Speaker 1: best to buy ourselves more time through having a continued
Speaker 1: uh democratic control over that the three houses of government.
Speaker 1: That's what I see. I don't know what's gonna happen
Speaker 1: after that if we failed. I don't even know if
Speaker 1: that's going to completely solve the issue. But let's at
Speaker 1: least like, let's put a band aid on this for now,
Speaker 1: but at least delivering for the American people, trying to
Speaker 1: maybe keep the House and the presidency in and like
Speaker 1: just stave off the utter collapse for like a little
Speaker 1: bit longer. I guess I would. I would just say,
Speaker 1: is like I think we should all be easy on
Speaker 1: given a lot of these cats the benefit of the
Speaker 1: doubt and ship early. I don't know, at least for me,
Speaker 1: I'm at a point in life where I think that
Speaker 1: the stakes are so high that I'm just not willing
Speaker 1: to put my life at risk by betting on some
Speaker 1: of these basic basic human commonalities and stuff like that. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's any right wingers out there.
Speaker 1: If there's a right winger out there that you can
Speaker 1: convince that Medicare for all is a good idea. They're
Speaker 1: not including me in that assessment, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: If if like like like whatever economic anxiety that these
Speaker 1: cats are feeling, they're not like they're like, I don't
Speaker 1: think that, Like I think you can find a mutual
Speaker 1: ground with them, only to a certain extent, because there's
Speaker 1: like a whole like subsect of the population that they're
Speaker 1: not considering or factoring to any of that good ship.
Speaker 1: So like, like, I don't know how real that alliances
Speaker 1: because I don't give them the benefit of the doubt,
Speaker 1: and I think that for the most part, they're lying,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't really think I believe that any of this
Speaker 1: ship is comprised of economic anxiety or only the liberal
Speaker 1: elites fly over us and look down, and you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, I think a lot of that
Speaker 1: ship is lip service, and it's the lies that people
Speaker 1: tell themselves to justify in public the things that they
Speaker 1: want to do. Yeah, that's just me. That's just me.
Speaker 1: So I would just say that we should just proceed
Speaker 1: with caution, because like fascists are very aware of what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and they're very aware of how to use
Speaker 1: rhetoric and how to like deceive. It's like it kind
Speaker 1: of goes in the bag with being the fascist is
Speaker 1: like deception and ship like that. So we shouldn't let
Speaker 1: our good nature help these funs take over this ship,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and get their messages out.
Speaker 1: That's just that's just my two cents. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: smoke l I think Joe is gonna bust a beat
Speaker 1: oh sope, yeah. Waiting a reparations yeo, yeo. I think
Speaker 1: these kids need a therapists embarrassed this Nazi what they
Speaker 1: help us, but various they're talking all that bullshit and
Speaker 1: I noticing how weird it is. Then they lose their
Speaker 1: job and they crash. It's hilarious. A couple of years
Speaker 1: ago they said the Jews will not replace it. Then
Speaker 1: they met the consequences were bruising guys are facing, so
Speaker 1: they had to switch their name up Patriots to stay front.
Speaker 1: Little teenagers have to run into the same truck like that.
Speaker 1: If Trump went again, they'll be right back. Replace the
Speaker 1: police uniform with khakis in a white mask. So if
Speaker 1: you want to be a blogger, that's fine, But I'm
Speaker 1: punching Hitler like, I'm Steve Rogerson's prime mofucker. Hey, my
Speaker 1: name's Dope Knife. I'm like, well, Franco, and we are
Speaker 1: waiting on reparations. We didn't even tell you the Happy
Speaker 1: New Year, you know, happy New Year. Stay safe out there,
Speaker 1: I really, honestly, hey, it's telling people to stay safe
Speaker 1: when the fucking federal government has abandoned. But do your best,
Speaker 1: you know, try your best act pay for effort, kidsation
Speaker 1: trophy for trying to dodge the Rhona. So we will
Speaker 1: see you all next week. I'm Dope Knife waiting our reparations.
Speaker 1: You'll take it easy. Matrix movie That's Better Winning on
Speaker 1: Reparations is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.