Friends and neighbors fellow conspiracy realist, pro fascist, and anti fascist alike.

Back in twenty twenty, there was a word that kept popping up in US discourse Antifatifa antifa there, Yes, did you.

Guys see the recent Well it's all some clips going around with an FBI official testifying before a congressional committee about antifa and how it's the most dangerous domestic terror threat within the United States right.

Now, and really dropping the ball when as specifics, because it turns out it's kind of like saying the biggest threat to the United States is feminism and you say, well, where's their headquarters?

Well, and I go, I don't know.

Well, I guess that's the thing.

I mean.

Back in the simpler days of twenty twenty, where this was really just starting to get thrown around, I think it was pretty clear what it was in terms of like a concepts or you know, the idea of being anti fascist.

But then like a lot of terms in the wrong hands kind of get weaponized and redefined and taken over.

So it'll be kind of an interesting time capsule, honestly.

Oh yeah, to see where we were and where we are.

Well, we know, when it comes to things like revolutions, and idea can be one of the most dangerous and viral things that exists.

Right, So there is something maybe to be thinking about here when it comes to an opposition to whatever the status quo is or you know, a current administration or something.

Maybe the idea of whatever antifa is could be their biggest threat, which is weird to think about.

Yeah, the mission creep of definitions, Right, this phrase is, as we said at Portmanteau, of anti fascist, which in general is something people can universally agree upon being bad in a democracy.

But now, as we'll see it, may the term may have experienced definition creeps such that it becomes defined as anything antithetical to what I like.

That's right.

You'll even remember in that recent kind of love fest in the Oval Office between Mondomni, the recently elected mayor of New York City, and President Trump, who had previously been mega mega against that dude, he made a little joke about, Oh, it's okay, you can say I'm a fascist.

Just go ahead, it's fine, it's fine.

Like the level of truthlessness almost that that term has achieved in a way, it's a little it's a little concerning.

So to that earlier point, let's roll the tape and let's see what we learned in twenty twenty and how it's aged in the modern day.

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies.

History is riddled with unexplained events.

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Hello, welcome back to the show.

My name is Matt, my name is Noah.

They call me Ben.

We are joined as always with our super producers Paul, Mission Control Decand as well as Alexis nicknamed to be Determined Jackson.

Most importantly, you are you.

You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know, or at least that's the name we use when we describe this show.

Today's question starts with first figuring out what's.

In a name.

We know they're powerful currency in the modern media, right, They're a cognitive shortcut.

You've only got so much time on air if you're a news anchor.

Names can also function as what's known as a thought terminating shay.

This is familiar.

It's a long time conspiracy realist, and the more we think about this insidious practice of grouping multiple things under one phrase, the more often we notice it.

Conspiracy theorists.

That's an easy phrase as an example, but then there are things like truthers, for instance, snowflakes, or for an historical example, forty nine ers.

This is common.

This naming practice is common in all walks of life, numerous fears of debate.

There's not one political group that does it more than any other.

If you're watching the news in the United States recently, you are aware of a term that has attained a new prominence all its own, antifa or antifa, antifa, antifa antifa.

I think it just depends where you are when you're saying it.

Perhaps we're gonna find out what it means and you'll realize that all of those kind of work.

It's it's funny because antifa sounds like someone's aunt who's like named fa, you know, or like short for parah.

Well, we're also, regardless of how you choose to pronounce it, you're probably aware of just how controversial this term and what it represents can be.

It's not a stretch to say there are, if we're being diplomatic, differing opinions about what antifah actually is and we can't even agree how to pronounce it.

And as we explore these opinions, we quickly find ourselves hip deep in conspiracy.

But first, here are the facts.

Yeah, I mean, so, you know, let's just do a little housekeeping with the term here.

What does antifha actually mean?

Where does the word come from?

It seems to many of us to be a very recent development, at least here in the United States.

The term traces back, however, to Germany.

In the nineteen thirties, the Communist Party of Germany had a wing called I'm going to do my best here anti fascistischa achchion.

I'm not perfect, but I think that was close.

There's a lot of repeated sounds in that one.

It's I had to do a double take.

And this later became referred to by a much more abbreviated and punchy word antifa, or of course anti fascists.

I got okay, So one thing I want to hear what you guys think about this is entirely my unfounded opinion.

This is not a fact and should be not taken as such.

But it seems to me, if you want to build a lasting movement or rally around some sort of cause it's smarter to make a name that stands for something rather than against it.

Like a good example in this nomenclature would be the two very different names used on others on opposite sides of the abortion debate.

Supporters of abortion are most likely going to describe themselves as pro choice, right, and opponents would describe themselves as pro life.

They're not anti abortionists by their own description, and people aren't necessarily on the pro choice side describing themselves as.

Pro abortion.

I don't know, there's a marketing power in names there, so, Like anti fascism starts as what like it's against something that already existed, right.

Yeah, but it's against something that I think most people would typically characterize as bad.

Right.

That's the thing that's so interesting about this whole debate, Like when well, yeah, I don't know, Matt, what do you think?

Well, I just I would say, first we have to know what fascism is, right, And that's another part of this whole thing that that word, that term gets thrown around an awful lot, and you know, it's on us to learn what that is before we, you know, are throwing around antifa.

Yeah, like if my boss makes me work on a weekend.

I call that person a fascist.

That's appropriate use of that term.

Right.

Well, we're gonna find out here in a moment.

The big thing is that today when that you know, that term antifa is thrown around, it's really misleading because it's being applied to a ton of different individuals, of groups and organizations, of even the the tactics that are employed by individuals or groups.

And you know, the idea here is to fight fascism, right.

It is short for anti fascism against fascism, So what exactly is fascism?

Right?

And now now we're in even deeper definitional water, right, because fascism, like antifa or anti fascism, doesn't really have its own solid, uh solid definition.

Fascism does have a fascinating history.

Sorry, I'm gonna leave.

Yeah, I can see you can't leave.

You're already home, Matt.

Where are you gonna go anywhere?

But here I've seen all of the zoom going.

We're just gonna move on.

We'll pretend that.

No, no, we were all with this here on.

They don't want you to know, but it's true.

It's it's a word that comes from something seeming pretty innocuous.

It's an Italian word fascio, referring to a bundle, which in this case would represent groups of people.

So, you know, I think we'll get to this, but it's become negative by association.

The initial like it wasn't designed to be an inherently negative thing.

It was just designed to be descriptive.

It's origins date all the way back to ancient Rome, when the fascis was a bundle of wood with an axe head that was carried by leaders in Roman politics, and the finding fascism today is much more complicated because of the fact that many governments, organizations, and individuals have been called this.

It's been lot you know, lobbed around as kind of a term of abuse.

In post World War Two, this was often used as an insult by opponents or critics of a given movement or a government, like the way I, you know, talk about.

My boss who loves this show.

By the way, I know, I don't mean it, which.

One I don't know of the loves is show.

We have so many bosses.

Now that's corporate America, my figurative boss.

You guys, this is not this is just for the purposes of demonstration.

Here, But it was Mussolini that really got the phrase to kind of catch fire and be associated with what we think of as fascism today.

True story.

Yeah, you're right, Noel in nineteen fifteen, one of the only bad bends in history.

There aren't a ton of them, Yeah, Benito Mussolini.

That's where we think of fascism.

That's the sort of origin story of modern fascism.

And when we tried to define it, we see that a lot of people in academia and politics have made their careers based on arguing what the hell this is or is not.

Generally speaking, it's somewhere between a specific genre of authoritarian government and a set of tactics deployed by governmental institutions.

So kind of like how all mazes are puzzles, but not all puzzles are mazes.

All fascist governments are authoritarian, but not all authoritarian governments are fascist.

Very good, ben I love the old mazes, puzzles analogy.

So let's talk about what those characteristics are, right, and some of them are.

You know, how they function and then what they do, actions they take.

So you could describe a fascist group or government as being very very against and opposed to their opposers to anyone who is going to be a dissident or not believe the same things that they believe or fight against I guess the desired beliefs of a populace.

They're going to aggressively attempt to suppress that or block that in some way.

They are going to attempt to, you know, use whatever power that they do have this group or government, to essentially use it in a dictatorial way.

So what they say goes anybody else.

Again, going back to the first one, is not welcome.

They want to have intense control on everything that occurs within their society, within the whatever it is that they control.

Right, that's everything from the economy to what people can and can't do in their personal lives.

And another characteristic here is that depending on how let's say, let's just say it's a government, depending on how the politics and government work within an individual area, when you have a fascist group in power, essentially this group is going to see fit to change whatever rules existed prior to them coming into power.

Right That's I guess one of the things that we could say there.

Well, I think hand in hand with that comes a strong sense of nationalism.

Yes, because it's there has to be an other ing, you know, in order to say we are the ones who are right, we are the righteous path.

All others who oppose us are wrong and therefore need to be shut down.

And that requires kind of like a you know, it's us against the world, and that inherently is a pretty nationalist kind of view.

Right.

Well, yeah, that's a very important important thing here, is that wherever they are functioning, there's going to be a US versus everyone else's attitude.

Essentially, that's put forth in everything from laws to you know, small things on the books that you wouldn't call a law necessarily just kind of a norm.

Ultra nationalism is certainly a factor.

Here, and it can't.

It's sort of the way that.

This is a weird sentence I never thought I would say, not as a dean on capitalism or fascism, but a comparison I think that's worth making, is that the same way capitalism must have a profit motive to exist for that mechanism to work, fascism must have a conflict motive to exist.

Fascism must exist in opposition to something.

And also it's super convenient if you're an iron gloved dictator, because you can just change what fascism means whenever you want.

You know what I mean, We've always been at war with East Asia, Right, that's one of the most pivotal impactful lines of fascism in fiction and or well in self of course about anti fascist or antifa member.

But so antifa is something we can't fully define fighting something and we also fully defined we know the characteristics, we know the actions and the tactics.

But I'm intrigued to hear more about antifa history because, like you said, Nola doesn't it didn't start in twenty seventeen in Charlottesville.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, as a movement, it has its own origins and what we might describe as the left, even the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the idea of anarchists and the like.

So while fascism is often characterized as being a far right, militaristic, you know, hypernationalist ideology, again problematic to even you know, assign it to an ideology.

In particular, anti fascism is the opposite.

It's it's it's very much something that that that leans far to the left.

Part of this comes from the simple order of operations that you find in history.

Leftist groups were the first primary targets of fascist violence, and it arose as a reaction to that violence, as a way to organize and protect folks that were identifying in this way from these types of attacks.

And there's an author who is cited quite often when discussing this topic.

His name is Mark Bray and he wrote Antifa the Anti fas Just Handbook, and he writes about how you know, the modern movement of antifa, it really started in the nineteen eighties, and there's a group at that time called Anti Racist Action.

Its members confronted neo Nazis, another pretty modern movement of an older thing.

Right.

They would go to punk gigs, you know, music performances and everything, and they would gone in the Midwest and other places in the United States and they would just actually have confrontations with people that they believed to be neo Nazis.

Are you guys familiar with the sharp movement yep, Skinheads against racial Prejudice.

I always found that to be fascinating.

It's like, you know, with a rise and skinheads, and like punk rock scenes and hardcore scenes in the eighties, there was a splintering and folks who like I guess, still identified with the aesthetic of a lot of that, but we're not about that life, not about that nationalists ideology, and it was something that began in New York in nineteen eighty six.

But the idea of you know, someone that like, hey, skinheads can be cool too, you know, we can also be like about equality, and so therefore you have the sharp movement.

I think it's a tremendous point.

It's one that echoes what we set up at the beginning, which is these grouping disparate movements or people under the same convenient figure of speech or turn or phrase.

Sure it feels good to do that, because we're humans.

We categorize and classify things.

We want to see patterns, but we do a disservice to ourselves and others when we fall into that trap.

By the early two thousands, the Antifa movement in the US was I guess considered mostly dormant in terms of mass media, Like, there were definitely groups who align themselves with that, they just weren't getting in CNN.

Yeah, and they certainly weren't getting but they were also they were showing up every once in a while.

I don't know if you guys remember, especially during George W.

Bush's presidency, there were a ton of protests and there was some reporting on anti fascist movements, but it was very few and far between, and I can't recall at least any major protests that turned violent in a way that the you know, group in power, whoever was president at the time, whoever was running the show, that they had such a response I guess, or a public response against this group or people who they labeled as Antifa.

Or like Black Bloc as well and occupied movements, which we'll get in Doorri.

We'll meet the Black Bloc later.

Now fast forward to just a few years ago.

Don't call it a comeback, or do call it a comeback?

Antifa is back in the new whose they get new modern prominence after the events of what was called the Unite the Right rally.

You probably remember the photographs that went around the US and the world of people marching with tiki torches saying things like Jews will not replace us.

This was a gathering of numerous right wing groups, including as you can tell from that slogan, white supremacist in Charlottesville, Virginia and August of twenty seventeen, Antifa was back in the news described as counter protesters in this debacle, and today, you know, it'd be surprising to look through most news sources on their websites or watch most news channel shows and not notice some sort of mention of Antifa.

But the groups, there are groups who identifi as anti It's a very real thing.

This wasn't made up out of whole cloth.

The problem is that there are a number of groups identifying with this, and they have different, at times contradictory goals, and they have an even wider range of different tactics.

Right, yeah, that's right.

I mean it would typically be stuff you would categorize as non violent, like chanting, shouting, having sit ins, human chains, you know, holding up signs, the like.

But ANTIFAP has become controversial because they're like any loved together large movement that there are many, many kind of splintered factions of like with the skinhead example, there are going to be more extreme, little kind of offshoots of this.

So some of these factions of protesters that's often referred to as agitators, which is another kind of term of abuse that's very easy to categorize.

All of the members of this movement as agitators because of a couple of bad apples or whatever, if you will.

Got to hate that term, but it's what we have.

So there's a belief in direct action, confrontation, and at times violence.

That can include things like actual weapons, pepper spray, brass knuckles, throwing bricks through store windows and cars, vandalism, graffiti, knives and you know, switchblades, things like that that are easily conceivable, and in the modern day, it can include internet based tactics, things like doxing, when you release people's personal information or basically, you know, just outright misinformation, spreading about individuals and trying to ruin people's reputations online.

So for example, releasing personal information about a victim online, getting someone fired for their political views, putting them on blast in that way, not in a positive way, which someone maybe deserves it, but I guess deserving it depends on side of the argument you're on.

Some of these folks who are righteously indignant might believe that they are doing the right thing that that's not really the point.

So why are there so many conflicting narratives and is there one way?

Is there like a truth core to this whole thing.

So it really does take us back to the main problem here.

And that's in the same way when you're dealing with a group that has no leader, right, that has no head, that has no mission statement essentially for the entire group, and control you know, from one sector or from one governing board, however you want to put it, Just like Anonymous, the same thing with Antifa, there is nobody at the helm.

It is like minded people that identify as this movement as Antifa.

And again, much like groups like Anonymous with Antifa, when someone claims they are on Tifa, they are on Tifa.

That's how it goes, right, and that's.

Your qualification is wanting to be that right?

Yes, and then generally, you know, there's no swag to buy necessarily.

I'm sure you could find it somewhere on Pinterest.

Somebody's got an amazing Antifa store there.

It's not like the KKK or the Communist Party.

I'm picking two different organizations, so I'm not picking anyone.

Like you want to be in the Communist Party, you have to apply dual body, you have to join, there's a membership, there are probably dues.

KKK is the same they have ranks, they have a hierarchy that doesn't exist in this concept.

Yeah, or like the Crips and the Bloods who both had their own soda in Atlanta at least for a while there thanks to Killer Mike.

Good on you, Killer Mike.

You know you have to you have to look at this in from both sides, right, And that's what we're tempting to do today.

So not only do you just get to decide that you're Antifa and then you be come Antifa.

In the same way, if you have an opponent, let's say, or someone that you dislike their views with and you label them through your words or actions Antifa, then guess what they are until that person comes forward improves that they are not right.

And then you could say, that's exactly what an ANTIFA member would say.

Yeah, yeah, it's really good.

You're absolutely right, Matt.

The definition is dangerously malleable if you think about it.

It's like beauty or pornography.

The definition all too often lies in the eye of the beholder.

And for anyone interested in what a problem those two definitions have been, I would recommend checking out the court case in the US pertaining to James Joyce's ulysses where the I think the deciding legal opinion was some high faluting version of pornography is pornography.

Everybody knows what it is when they see it.

With maple Thorpe as well.

Sorry, I mean to know, you're totally right, and that's problematic because that's how Antifa is used as well, where we don't have a good definition, but it's used by people in power as Oh, that's what it is because I know it when I see it.

And it's this slippery definition that fuels the numerous ongoing conspiracy theories about Antifa.

What are we talking about?

We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor.

Here's where it gets crazy.

First, I you know, thinking about this off air, it's it's always it's like a fireworks show.

Do we save the big explosion for the end or do we start big?

I feel like we have to start big with the most prevalent conspiracy theory about Antifa.

Oh, I know where you're going with us, Ben, Oh boy, don't know exactly where you're going, So all right, all right, let's just do it.

So the first thing you've probably read likely on Facebook.

I'm gonna bet Facebook maybe Twitter to Twitter.

Actually, you know what, anywhere on social media, you've probably heard something on there about how on tifa and tifa whatever it is.

You know what are these groups of all these differing contradictory aims.

Somehow all of these people are knowingly working together in secret and have a leader.

They actually have a leader, right.

People who really put this theory forward, or people who at least believe it right, they will argue something like astroturfing that we've talked about a lot on this show, where essentially there would be a lot of varying groups standing in that you would see in the spotlight, right, but they're actually standing in for something else, and the group, well, I mean, that's kind of like a front company.

But in this case, it would be as though every time you see a big group of protesters, they aren't actually there of their own volition.

They aren't actually there to protest something.

They're being paid to be there.

They're like, I don't know, straw end protesters.

I don't know what to say about that, guys.

But ultimately, people who believe this would put forward that these these really wealthy, generally left wing individuals and groups are the ones that are behind Antifa.

They're the ones funding them, radicalizing them, putting them on buses or in other ways to send them to towns and cities everywhere to wreak havoc on the United States on both the status quo, on the infrastructure, on the economy, on everything.

And they're doing it for their own nefarious and probably for money and power reasons.

But Matt, a leader of this type would have to be very, very wealthy and have lots of resources and also wield a lot of influence politically.

Right.

Oh, yes, there is a prominent figure here that you have likely heard many many times before, mister George Soros.

Oh yes, you know him, you love him.

George Soros.

He's a billionaire.

As of May, his estimated net worth was in the ballpark of eight point three billion dollars.

Fellow listeners, It's important to keep in mind, however, that every person at that level of wealth is more than capable of hiding the full extent of their assets.

So while that's a good financial guess, you should not take it as gospel.

Soros has been accused of so many things.

He's he occurs in conspiracy lore, not as often as the Rothschild's, but he's an up and comer on the charts.

He's been accused of vowing to destroy the United States.

Reuters claimed to have debunked this, but the belief remains.

He's also been accused of outright owning Antifah, kind of the way you would own maybe a trademark or a company or a battalion.

And he's been accused of owning the Black Lives Matter movement as well.

This comes from one of his primary political enterprises is something called the Open Society Foundation.

Longtime listeners, you know that innocuous names with a lot of money behind them usually means something something fishing.

Might be going on.

Just be suspicious anyway.

This foundation OSF claims that they support the aims of the Black Lives Matter movement, and they support the aims of other protests, but that they do not pay these organizations.

They don't pay them to organize, they don't importantly pay protesters to show up, and the leaders of Black Lives Matter say that they're relatively dis centralized group.

However, you do a little.

Bit of digging, Open Society Foundation makes a lot of donations, they create a lot of grants.

They did set up a twelve million dollar grant and this is the verbatim quote here to help organizations fighting institutional racism.

They also donate to a number of related groups things that ally with their aims across the planet.

And it's concluding things like planned parenthood.

It's including things, you know, like groups that try to address systemic or institutional racism.

So kind of this the heart of this conspiracy sort of hinges on whether what's the difference between a donation and what's the difference between out and out payment, Like are you giving people support because you believe in their mission or are you paying them to do to do a specific task, you know what I mean?

Yeah, Well, and also it arises the question of whether or not by supporting you are talking about bussing in protesters or some action like that, which is something that occurs.

We've seen it happen in the past for you know, various protests for various photo opportunities that have occurred in the past.

It is a real thing that has occurred where people are shipped in from other places on purpose by a group that is willing to pay the money for the bus.

Right, But is that inherently like bad or a criokeet or disingenuous.

I mean, you know, people who support certain political parties might bus folks into the polls who couldn't get a ride otherwise, or you know, I mean, isn't this just a way of supporting a movement.

I'm not saying it's bad.

I'm saying we know that that occurs, and it is possible there if you were, let's say, going to pay several bus loads of people to go, like you're paying for the bus and giving each person there a small amount of money, who is going to go and spend their day doing that?

That would be riding the line, right.

Yeah, I mean these are both fantastic points.

I guess I would say, like, first off, I can't speak for everybody in the conspiracy stuff fam, but I've never donated millions of dollars.

What I have donated, you know, has not at this point at least reached some threshold where an organization cares specifically what I want.

Like if I donate to a literacy fund, they're not going to me and going, oh, you know, is there any book you don't want kids.

Or the elderly to read?

They don't care.

I'll just get a letter that says, hey, thanks for agreeing with us that people should be able to read.

So I don't know how much power is there, you know, but but that point about what services are rendered or you know, what that money is supporting.

It's kind of like, you know, the argument is like with the Tea party argument, where people said, these folks might think their grassroots testers, but they're being funded and pushed into the forefront by very powerful right wing entities, and that that did turn out to be at least partially true.

I just don't know.

I think also, I've got to I don't know about you guys, but I have a little bit of a billionaire prejudice.

I just like, we see the way that countries with less money than Soros are able to already influence elections right in a tremendously effective way.

So isn't it kind of circuitous to like take the long road around when you could just buy politicians.

I don't know.

Maybe it's about the journey.

I don't know what it's like to be a billionaire.

Whatever it's about, I think it is worth us doing an entire episode on George Soros because there are so many current conspiracies surrounding him, that it would be worth our time just to look into him and all his various groups and see what we can discover.

Yeah, people on, here's where it gets crazy.

We're asking for that as well.

So agreed.

Okay, So that's like the big tents.

That's what you're most likely to hear about antifa conspiracies.

And it's not always Soros.

We just think he's an excellent example because he is so prevalent in these ideas.

But there are other antifa conspiracies out there, and some of them might surprise you, I guess because first group the anti antifa conspiracies, the anti anti fascist conspiray, I don't.

Know, yes, And to jump into these anti antifa conspiracies, it would be really helpful if you could take your mind back to the good old days of Batman.

And now when I say the good old days of Batman, I mean just before Ben Affleck got involved.

So like.

Around the time of Batman begins in the Dark Knight, there is specifically in the Dark Knight there is this amazing scene where mikeel Kaine comes in and he says, some men just want to watch world Bone And I think he's right now, I'm just joking.

I don't know if he's right or not, but that is the accusation of Antifa or groups calling themselves out or people identifying themselves as that and wearing you know, shirts that have it written on them that are usually black.

But the concept here is that, you know, the true motives behind this group or people believing that is the abs It's essentially chaos, but the absolute dissolution of any kind of government, any kind of ruling faction that exists, and just bringing us all back to zero.

It kind of reminds me of mister Robot in a way, like it reminds me a bit of the F Society from from that show and series.

Just occurred to me that maybe the F Society stands for like F society.

Yeah, this is very true.

Yeah, well the problem here is that they're not you know, people making this accuisation aren't necessarily wrong, but they also aren't necessarily right either.

There's it's all of this stuff.

It's such a great area because there's probably some truth in that concept that there are people who identify themselves as Antifa that would like to see some of the major you know, governing bodies and governments across the world just kind of having to start over at least to some degree, right, I mean there anarchists are real.

Anarchists are probably at least to an extent involved in Antifa gatherings, let's say, or people who identify themselves as that.

But how much or how little like what that actual influence is.

We just have no idea.

We honestly nobody has any idea.

Yeah, it's true.

I mean it ties into the other, the other anti antifa idea of subverting the rule of law.

Right, Sometimes it's a billionaire individual like Soros, Sometimes it's a group accused of one world ordering the planet, like the CFR or something.

And then sometimes it's just plain old anarchists want to see the world burn.

This does tie d though, with the other conspiracy of using well intentioned movements to as a vehicle to push for a different, unrelated violent agenda.

This thing works, though, That's the problem with this one.

We know even the most cursory study of human history shows that people are easily led and easily misled.

So this idea is that factions of Antifa, whatever their origins, whatever their motivations may actually be, will infiltrate an otherwise peaceful protests or movement and then try to push it further and further toward radicalization and violence.

Like you know, like let's say, Nol, Matt, Alexis, and Paul are all it at a prot test, a peaceful protest against the closing of the local Applebee's, and then some other guy that no one has met shows up and is like, yeah, they should keep the apple bees open.

As a matter of fact, you know, if you think about it, we should burn down the chilis next to the street, you know, this the next street over.

We're like, no, we're peaceful apple Bee's people.

They're like, yeah, well, you can't be a peaceful Applebee's person if you're not also burning down that Chili's.

Well, isn't this a lot of the same stuff we covered in the Agent Provocateurs episode.

I mean it really they do kind of go hand in hand, the idea of someone infiltrating a cause that has one particular aim that could well be peaceful protests, and then trying to kind of cause i don't know, cause division within those ranks and try to convince people to lash out and do violent things in the interest of either co opting that movement or potentially even having the protest be shut down, you know, to aid theirular you know, viewpoints, or you know, would you say these things are related, Ben.

Yeah, absolutely, you know that's I would categorize that as a left wing Antifa conspiracy.

So that's the that's the crazy part you'll hear about the right wing antifa conspiracies.

But you may be surprised to learn organizations that are political, that are affiliated with the political left are often themselves not automatically fans of what they consider antifa.

Part of that is the agent provocateur question.

You know, we've covered that in other episodes.

But that's not a conspiracy theory.

That's an active conspiracy tactic.

It happened before, it's maybe happening now.

In my opinion, it probably is happening now, and it will definitely happen in the future.

Uh.

We know also that left a lot of left wing institutions, movements, and groups have a huge problem with antifa direct action and they say that this this action, violent action, whatever the motivation or intention on the part of protesters, creates more problems than it solves.

So what makes antifa in particular different from other movements.

We'll talk more about that after a quick break, and we're back with the question what makes antifa different?

Why is it so special?

Why is it popping up now more than in the past.

And we've discussed that it's historically been a thing for for a while.

There are some purported crimes of the Antifa movement, or you know, the multiple movements that exist under this kind of umbrella.

One of them is something called black block tactics.

Yeah, and when you're talking about black block, this is something you've undoubtedly heard about or seen videos of somewhere, if not on live leaks than in other places.

Generally speaking, you would describe a black block that's bloc as a group that deploys some kind of violent tactic in you know, one form or another during a protest that is occurring for another completely other reason or you know, an individual reason for that protest, the black block would be there independently, right and they would be doing things like we've seen vandalism, destruction of some kind of property occurring, you know, while the protest is going on.

A lot of times a group that we would call a black block would be targeting sites of significance to probably the economy.

That's a very popular one to government.

You know, any kind of building like a city hall or something, a bank, headquarters of a large corporation, there would be what would be considered or described as rioting.

They would, you know, do something.

This one's a little lighter fair, but you know, demonstrating without a permit or outside of a free speech zone.

I think that's an important one.

When we were what is in Chile in Santiago, we saw a lot of kind of black block things, but they were escalating in step with the police, you know, and a lot of South and Central America has heavily militarized police forces.

But calling and demonstrating illegally it sounds like a small thing, but if you withdraw the legal means to demonstrate, then every demonstration is illegal.

I think there's some tricky things that legal authorities can do there.

Well.

Yeah, and even the act of demonstrating you are knowingly bringing about a police response, right, so if it if it's not legal to do that, you know that's going to happen.

So then essentially a group like this would or functioning as this would prepare they preferre defenses essentially you know, barricades.

They would encourage others to come out, you know, with them and do the same thing.

They would provide perhaps weaponry or other equipment for others, as well as providing medical care on site for anybody who's injured in their efforts.

So why are they called this why Black blocks bloc?

By the way, they are known for really leaning heavily on remaining anonymous, wearing black clothes, covering their face, and identifying marks like tattoos.

That being said, though, these are all things that are any protesters are going to be doing now a lot of especially with the pandemic, it can be a lot harder to differentiate these groups.

And we in our episode about protesting one oh one, we made it pretty clear that it's a good idea to cover any identifying marks, et cetera.

But here's the thing moving in a unified mass, the being they can't get us all.

And that's true of any kind of I don't know, I don't want to characterize this as like a gang or any kind of thing like that.

That's not the same thing.

But that is a tactic that folks that are saying like motorcycle gangs would employ they ride in a group because you can't chase down everybody.

You think people can divide and conquer and split and just kind of cause the authorities to be overwhelmed.

Yeah, and that's still sort of the case, right, That sort of works for any I mean, that's the reason why if you want to get away with a robbery of a small business, you go in with twenty people and you move out fast.

There is a power in numbers.

It's an arguable, but it might not always make you anonymous.

In the future, the surveillance state has been expanding.

We've been in a massive expansion this phase of that since post nine to eleven.

It hasn't stopped since.

Pretty in the future, it's conceivable that it doesn't matter what you wear or where you leave your phone, authorities will be able to find you or at least make a plausible case against you and then proceed from there.

Probably another tactic that differentiates Antifa in the mind of the mainstream media is property damage.

It and it can feel pretty you know.

I don't know about anybody else again speak for anybody else, but it feels a little off and pretty cold when you're seeing protests about massive injustices and loss of human life.

And then the first thing someone in authority says about it is like, we have to protect the corporate building, you know what I mean?

Like, what what is the hierarchy?

Where do where do people stand in relation to property?

It's an ongoing argument in this country.

So the idea here is that antifa is different from a lot of other protests groups or ideologies because purposeful physical violence is in place somehow.

So in twenty seventeen, Active is self identifying as Antifa or Black Block.

We're accused of throwing.

Molotov cocktails causing one hundred thousand dollars worth of damage in the Berkeley protest February seventeenth, twenty seventeen.

So that's like one example.

You can find a bunch of other examples as as well, and they're often What's weird about this is a lot of the accusations of violence against people or against property on the side of protesters is leveled at antifah when it's when people calling themselves Antifa show up as counter protesters to write wing events, you know, unit the ride or like a I don't know what I making up a plausible title in my head would be like freedom rally, I don't know, sort of like.

In movies that don't have a lot of budget, where you see products and it's like a jug of milk that just says milk, you know, or like a thing of juice that just says orange juice.

Nice.

It's like that.

But the thing here, though, that's interesting is that proponents of Antifa, their supporters or people who say, you know, they identify with this or related movements, they'll argue that the media is misleading people that what is characterized as purposeful violence is often instead self defense.

And this is something you brought up, Matt, that I think is a very very interesting thought that doesn't get addressed often enough.

Oh yeah, sure.

And it goes back to the nineteen thirties again, this time instead of in Germany, in Britain, and they had their own anti fascist movement there Antifa when there was a group gaining in popularity, a political group gaining popularity.

They were known as British Union of Fascists, at least according to reporting done by Vox and around that time, in nineteen thirty six, this group was attempting to have a large parade.

Okay, this is place called Cable Street in London there and what this group did, the British anti fascist group did was actually throw homemade bombs and bricks and other weapons at this group attempting to have a parade down the street to the point where they had to leave.

The whole point here was to preemptively attack them in self defense, and which sounds crazy, but the reasoning here is to defend against the possibility that a fascist group would eventually come to power, right, so they're defending themselves now for what the future would hold if this group came to power.

It's it's logically difficult, but imagine if you could have done that prior to the Nazis getting to power, and you did it effectively enough where the Nazi just had to go home and be sad.

Yeah, but but that's the time travel question.

You don't know what happens because you're changing the timeline and history is obdurate.

History doesn't always hinge on one person.

Guarantee you if you go back in time in that era of Germany, pre rise of Nazi power and Adolf Hitler, and you kill Aidolf Hitler as a child, there will probably still be a Nazi party there will just be a different lunatic making speeches and you'll be locked up because you went back in time.

And as far as they can tell, you just killed a baby.

That's it.

You're not a hero.

Yeah, well, you know, it does go back to the United States campaign of preemptive strikes against a lot of countries in the Middle East that were occurring in the early two thousands, like they might attack us someday.

Yeah, it's weird because I think anybody listening with a critical enough mind can see both sides of that.

I think you can see the concept of wanting to protect yourself against a group that may arise to power that would be very dangerous at least that you believe personally that would be very dangerous, and also that you're not You can't predict the future.

That's man.

It is just okay, it's a it's a complicated process of thinking through.

Well, let's look at it from another side too.

I think this is a tremendously important thought.

So let's flip flip it a little bit, flip the narrative and say what if in the halls of power?

The argument is, look, we're playing fast and loose with the Constitution.

We're cutting some corners because we are preemptively defending the country because Antifa may be you know, primarily known as protesting groups now, but we think they're going to be terrorists.

That's not just the thought experiment that's litter early.

What's what's happening or what's what's kind of in the mix in the in the dirty, dirty cauldrid known as Twitter.

Well, and that's sort of where we get to the point we are in terms of the rhetoric surrounding Antifa and the way it's used to label folks that may have, may have nothing to do with it, may not identify as it, or even align with any of these concepts, but it's something that the President has used quite effectively to label folks who disagree with him or his policies or with protests, to to kind of you know, malign or in some way diminish the idea of a peaceful protest or the idea of the cause that a protests might represent.

By labeling folks as Antifa and consequently labeling Antifa as a terrorist organization, this is something that he has pushed for.

In June, he tweeted the something to that effect and this is absolutely in line with the administration and the Justice Department's ongoing argument that antiphok groups are the source of violence in all recent protests.

And yet if you've been paying attention, it's not one thing.

So it's that absolute leaning into this kind of bundling up of labeling this, you know, multiple kind of splintered groups into as one thing, all of which must be about the exact same thing, which is violence, disruption, agitating, and you know, just basically characterizing it as being against the rule of law.

Yeah, and of course, you know, anyone can have any intention they want at any time, just like an opinion.

But when it comes to the law, there are tricky things there.

The US doesn't really have the legal mechanism to do what the current administration wants to have done.

The US government only formally designates foreign groups as terrorist organizations or ftos, and that means the actions have to be taken internationally through a larger organization.

Right, the Soros theory would have to be real and Antifa or people identifying as that.

To your point, Matt, they do exist in other countries.

It's not an American enterprise.

It started in Europe.

But those folks are acting autonomously.

They just sort of agree that they would like to use the same methods.

So it doesn't seem like that meets the requirements for the State Department to label it a terrorist organization.

But again, what's in a name, what's in a designation?

Federal law enforcement already uses domestic terrorism categories to organize and describe cases right where they bring up the name or the phrase antifah, And then there are already a host of anti terrorism laws that authorities can use against what are called domestic extremists.

So we get we really quickly fall into legalese here, But as we know, in a post nine to eleven world, that kind of kind of legalese is too often words and wind, you know what I mean, and the practice, the practice can be very very different.

On the ground, we should say, of course, that people who identify as anarchists and activists using these tactics disagree, surprise, surprise, with the administration's claims.

They say there's not any evidence.

And then some other people say, well, shouldn't you consider designating far right extremist groups terrorists?

As well?

Fair question?

Yeah, I mean, remember when the FBI tried to label Juggalos as a terrorist organization.

Oh I thought it was just a gang.

Yeah, that's it.

Sorry, my potato, patato.

No, they're very different.

But no, you're absolutely right.

It does point to a political motive.

One cannot, at least at the very least, it's hard to argue with that.

It is weird that the Anti Defamation League actually had some information on this, and their findings were that well, well over seventy percent of murders that would be considered extremist essentially that have occurred within the United States were committed by groups that they would describe as far right or a white supremacist.

That's pretty interesting.

Seventy percent of those at least according to the Anti Defamation League.

And you know, as you can probably imagine, if you don't believe that statistic, if you don't agree with a group or organization like the Anti Defamation League, you probably disagree with that statement, right or do you believe it's the opposite.

A lot of this ends up coming down to belief, unfortunately, So what has the government itself done in response to these concepts about antifa and the rumors and conspiracies that have been roiling up around them.

Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, you know what I mean.

The problem is that there's not a unified response the US.

The current US administration maintains a view that ANTIFAJ should be considered a terrorist group and subject to the considerations that definition includes.

But Mark Bray, the author you mentioned at the top.

Matt says that this is an attempt to control the conversation and shift it away from what he describes as widespread socioeconomic discontent in the US, which you know, goes across all levels.

We're being honest, and there's not like one group of people.

There's not one large group of people that's super happy, right, And he says that there's a mathematical problem here.

He believes that there are literally not enough members of various ANTIFAG groups out there to be doing all the stuff that the DOJ, by the way, and the administration are claiming that they have done.

So yeah, and then you'll see other of course, the ideas in municipal, regional level governments, state level governments may differ.

Your individual mileage may vary.

That's the problem.

There was a report by a national counter terrorism unit in January of twenty twenty I want to say that found the same thing they were, Like, no one's on the same page about this.

We have these serious gaps.

I don't know if we can go out and call a group terrorist and just keep changing the definition of what terrorism is or what that group is until we get it to work, because.

That's a little bit like, well, far be it for me to say the.

F word fascism?

Right, Yeah, it's a little bit right to like, Look, we all love improvisation, love improv yes, and is such a such a beautiful panacea balm?

But does improvisation belong in these kind of things?

Does it belong in government?

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, I guess it's true.

But there's definitely a lot of things that don't belong in government, but we see them every day, and improvisations certainly become a big one.

Yes, And this is an ongoing story.

Sorry I'm not above, but this is an ongoing story because right now, if this would if this perspective was pushed through and this designation became closer to being a reality, no one really knows what would happen.

We haven't been to that like part of constitutional argument.

Yet.

Constitutional scholars are the majority of them are like, Okay, this would be illegal, but no one can No one has one hundred percent proof about that.

Like we, it would be an argument.

And while it was being an argument, you can bet your bottom dollar that forces on the ground would just act like, you know, the argument have been decided in whichever way they wish, whatever that way might be, And that's where we're at.

We tried on this one to give an objective view of antifought and the conspiracies and the differing narratives about it, and also the huge again, the huge, the tremendous problems with definitions.

If I start calling people pop farts and the definition of a pop fart is that I think you're a pop fart, then it just depends on what kind of day I'm ating right as to whether or not you were prosecuted as a pop fart.

That's just yeah.

Best pop farts out there are definitely strawberry frosted, just so everybody's aware.

I like the cinnamon sugar ones myself.

I can't stand them, really, Okay, I guess, uh, I guess we're on two sides of the pop part divide here.

My friend, I'm a Smores guy.

I like the Spores Ones two.

No, I like this Smores one too, because they've got the Graham cracker or kind of crust you know that really sets them apart.

But it's the same as like, you know, this labeling thing is something that we see too in in in political rhetoric, where people are given kind of insulting nicknames and it starts to kind of sink into the public con when you repeat something enough.

Our brains tend to bucket things in those ways that you were talking about.

Then at the top of the show, our brains look for patterns, and that could be something as simple as saying, you know, farty binn Bolan, but before you know it, people think Ben Bollen's got a flatulence problem.

I'm sorry, I'm just sticking with the fart thing here, you know.

But it's it's true, and the words are very powerful and Antifa because it's such a pithy, little brand name sounding thing.

It's something that's very easy to lump folks into, even if you don't really know what it is, which a lot of people don't seem to.

So we would love to know your opinion about all of this.

Are you extremely anti antifa or are you down with whatever that cause represents?

You know?

According to you, are you like Chandler, We're a steck of Charlotte, North Carolina, who, according to the intercept, wrote wrote a message to the FBI and was all like, hey, I lead Antifa over here in Charlotte.

What's up?

And then they totally came out to his house to have a little chat with him.

Read the intercept.

By the way, that story is called, he tweeted that he was the leader of Antifa.

Then the FBI asked him to be an informant.

It's fantastic, but you know, how really, how do you feel about this?

What do you think about it?

We would love to know your opinion, especially if you identify as Antifa or you are part of a group that would consider themselves Antifa.

We'd love to hear from you and just know your story.

You can contact us anonymously, by the way, if you wish to do that through an email or through a phone call that you can just you can talk to us if you're worried about your own safety or privacy.

Right yeah.

Also, while you're at it, what's your where are you at with this whole pop tart pop fart thing.

You know, we want your opinions.

You are the most important part of this show and this has nothing to do with anything.

But I don't know about you all.

I'm curious.

Why is it normal in the US the candy for breakfast?

Let us know.

Let us know about the antifas stuff first.

That should be the priority you can get in com.

People should be eating bacon, right, just bacon.

Just bacon, you know it.

Let us know.

You can find us in so many ways.

As Matt said, you can find us on Facebook.

You can find us on Instagram, you can find us on Twitter.

Of the three, we highly recommend our Facebook community page.

Here's where it gets crazy.

You can also find us as individuals online.

Yeah, if you'd like to do so.

You can find me on Instagram.

I am at how now, Noel Brown.

If you want to know my Instagram handle and your upset, you're gonna have to listen to another episode of Stuff they don't want you to know to figure out my handle.

Well played, Matt, Wait, hold the audience hostage, my man.

Oh, the master at work, changing the rules as we go.

Doing a chef kiss for you man.

Okay, yeah, you can also so I've been building out some survival kits for friends and families.

You can watch a little bit more of that at Ben Bolan on Instagram.

You can also find me on Twitter at Ben Bolan HSW.

But I hate social media, you might be saying, we of all people get it.

If you have a message you'd still like to relate to us, we have a phone number you can call.

That's right.

You can reach us at one eight three three STDWYTK.

Leave a message at the sound of Ben's dulcet tone, and I think they're what three and a half minutes is ish apiece, So you know, try to be brief if you can, but feel free to leave a couple if you need to continue the story.

And now we've got a weekly outlet for these wonderful messages from you the most important part of the show, So bring them on and you might hear yourself with the show.

Please be sure to let us know if you want to remain anonymous, if you want us to take your name out entirely.

We've been taking last names out just to standard operating procedure, but just let us know if you want what level of anonymity you wish, and we.

Will honor that, and just as a counterpoint, the shorter and sweeter you make your message, no matter if it's a suggestion or comment or whatever, the better, because honestly, we're still in the midst of June messages right now, trying to make our way through, so hopefully very soon we will catch up.

But it's a relatively good problem to have.

These are these are really great stories, and we're finally at a place where we can actually kind of push some of those out for all of you to hear.

I'm personally excited about it.

Me too.

I think we're all excited.

Just shorter and sweeter could be better if you wanted to, if you wanted to.

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