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Patron Bonus Episode - Kissinger in a sack
44 Plays1 year ago
It's another free patron bonus episode (largely because we realised there was some Patreon admin/fallout we failed to mention in the main episode)!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Conspiracy Theme
00:00:07
Speaker
It's the podcast's guide to the conspiracy patron bonus episode.
19th-Century Presidents: Cleveland & Garfield
00:00:16
Speaker
Okay, Josh, hit me with your favourite 19th century US presidents. 19th century? That's 1800s. I'm pretty sure I know absolutely none. I'm definitely not looking them up on Wikipedia right now. When was Garfield?
00:00:36
Speaker
But, I mean, Jim Davis invented him in the 80s, I think. Maybe the late 70s. I'm actually not entirely sure of my history of Garfield the cat. Was there a Garfield? No, and I know what I'm thinking of. I'm thinking of Grover. Grover Cleveland. Not Andrew Garfield. Not Andrew Garfield. The fictional US president from the UK. The amazing Spider-Man. No, number one, definitely Grover Cleveland, because he's called Grover.
00:01:04
Speaker
And also he's the guy who screwed up the whole numbering system because he's the guy who had two non-continuous presidencies. So he was both the 22nd and 24th president, which is why people always mix things up. So they say Joe Biden is the 46th president, but he's only the 45th person to be president because Grover Cleveland was president twice. So nice they voted from twice. Yep.
00:01:34
Speaker
What have we got? Can't go past, can't go past good old Grover. Benjamin Harris, who the hell is he? Sorry, Harrison. Chester A. Arthur is in there. There is a Garfield, James A. Garfield. There we go. Okay, so it's definitely Grover first, Garfield second. Ulysses Grant, he got a bit of a pickle at one point, didn't he?
00:02:00
Speaker
Didn't he get involved in a civil war of some kind? Some kind. Old Abraham Lincoln's in there, but still. Distant third behind Grover and Garfield, surely.
Trump's Legal Challenges & Online Threats
00:02:10
Speaker
I mean, I speak to a lot of Americans and they're just turning off their wireless due to this. God, there was a lot of the Martin Van Buren. That's a name I've heard of. John Quincy, Adam. Gotta love Quincy. No, no, actually, I thought the Addams family. Well, a bit of that as well.
00:02:29
Speaker
da da da da da da da da da da da da da da
00:02:33
Speaker
He's Quincy and he's Adams. He's something, something, Sladdams. He sold someone for... The Madams? He's John Quincy Adams. And the first president of the 19th century was, of course, Thomas Jefferson. So good for him. Of Jefferson Airplane fan. Yeah, exactly. What does this have to do with anything?
00:03:01
Speaker
Well there's a former US president by the name of Donald J. Trump and he's making threats online about the indictment in Washington DC along the lines of if you come for me I'm coming for you which some people are reading as if I become president
00:03:23
Speaker
Don't expect me to be nice to you because you're coming after me now because I tried to steal an election. And the Department of Justice really would like him to stop doing that because I don't want him intimidating witnesses.
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, I've heard some on the right have been reporting it as sort of the government's trying to gag Donald Trump and they're saying he's not allowed to say certain specific things regarding witnesses and the like. But yes, he's certainly not helping his case. The other thing I've heard, so we talked last time about the whole
00:04:05
Speaker
our First Amendment thing and how some people have been saying, he's got this First Amendment defense, he's allowed to say stuff and yet the indictments were very clear to say that this isn't about his first, you know, this isn't about him exercising free speech, it's about him doing other things. The other defense of her coming up is a lot of did Trump
00:04:26
Speaker
Did Trump know what he was saying was untrue? Was Trump actively lying? Or did he not know that what he was saying was untrue and stuff like that? Which I believe also the indictment covers it. People have pointed out the indictment both covers the even if he believed it, he was being told he was wrong consistently. And also just because you think you're doing the right thing isn't actually a defense in law.
00:04:56
Speaker
Yes, I heard the analogy today on people. People were essentially saying that Donald Trump. Who the hell knows what's going on? The defense was who the hell knows what's going on in Donald Trump's head. He could believe anything. He could have been through who the hell knows what. Someone said it's kind of the analogy of what's okay that my client shot two or three people because he had his eyes closed at the time. He was simply just
00:05:18
Speaker
Firing bullets in you here could have been anything. He didn't know. He didn't know he was killing people. He literally thought they were possessed by demons and by killing them would set them free. That's actually not a defence against murder. I mean, you might get an insanity plea out of it, but you're still going to go down for committing a crime. They go, oh, Josh, because you were hallucinating, we're going to let you go free
Infiltration of Patriot Front & Legality of Doxxing
00:05:40
Speaker
this time.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yes, so there's been some interesting prospective defences that have been showing up. They sound like they'll be successful, but who knows? No, with the American legal system, who knows is the right answer. So what have those rapscallions at the Patriot Front been up to?
00:06:00
Speaker
So, what happened was, and I believe this was last year, actually I don't think there's a date as to, oh no, November 2021, so actually a year before last. In Seattle, a group of Patriot Front members welcomed a new member to their clique who turned out to actually be a left-wing activist who had changed his name and joined Patriot Front to gain information on what those members were up to.
00:06:30
Speaker
This new member ended up doxxing the Patriot Front members and exposing their activities, including the things they were saying, which got leaked to their employers, they got fired from their jobs, and so now they're suing the infiltrator for doxxing them.
00:06:49
Speaker
Hmm, do they? Yeah, is the right response there? Because, I mean, doxing is generally considered a bad thing, even, and so, yes, you're doxing bad people, but it's the fact that the people you're doing it to are horrible human beings. And we're deliberately hiding their activities from public view. Yeah, so I guess, do they have a case?
00:07:16
Speaker
This is the question. And what's interesting is the suit that the Patriot Front members have put forward is actually quite explicit in describing their ideology. So they describe in their suit that, you know, the group's ideology is about reforging our people born to this nation of European race as a new collective capable of asserting our right to cultural independence.
00:07:42
Speaker
And it describes the group's actions as provocative, but non-violent. So they're going, we're definitely racist, but we're not violent racists. And this was unfair to dox our provocative views to our employers.
00:08:01
Speaker
And so what is this just coming before the courts now? Why are we talking about it in the year of our Lord 2023? Because it seems that they have just put forward the suit now so it was it was recently filed in the US District Court for Western Washington and Yeah, it's going to be a legal battle as to whether there are protections for doxing ultra right extremists
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah. It's one of those things where I'm going, yeah, this is an interesting case because I support the exposure of Nazis, but I can also see that under the law, they... Might be too worried.
00:08:44
Speaker
Well, no, I'm not actually so worried about the worrying precedent. I'm not concerned about Nazis being doxxed. It's more the law might not allow for that to be a legal activity.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's giving me flashes of the whole Blurred Lines, Robin Thicke thing where they got done for copying Marvin Gaye, which everybody thought was good because Blurred Lines was a shitty song and they seem to be bad people.
00:09:20
Speaker
But the effect of it has been basically to mess with the entire music industry now that they've set the precedent that you can get sued for making a song that just sounds a bit like someone else's song. So yes, the worry there would be that yes, a precedent gets set, but the precedent is wide enough that it makes problems for everyone.
Elon Musk's Legal Battles & Twitter Controversy
00:09:42
Speaker
Talking about making problems for everyone, Elon Musk. He does like to make problems for everyone himself, possibly more than others, but he's got enough money that it doesn't matter, I guess. Although I think he's running out of it.
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, to people like him who are really... Well, yeah, actually, that is true. He's rich enough that he will never fall, unless the revolution comes. And then, to quote the Encyclopedia Galactica, who's probably one of the first against the wall. Probably, yeah. Just as we're the writers of the Encyclopedia Galactica.
00:10:16
Speaker
So anyway, what's happening at the moment, there's... well, basically Mr Musk, who was all about freedom of speech when he was first taking over Twitter, appears to be... Rather against freedom of speech if people are criticising him or his business. So there's an organisation called the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which basically puts out reports about disinformation and misinformation on social media.
00:10:45
Speaker
Musk is claiming that the major reason why advertisers have fled Twitter slash X as a platform is that the CCDH basically put out a report that made advertisers flee by overstating the prevalence of disinformation and misinformation, hate speech and the like on Twitter slash X. So he's suing them for doing that particular thing.
00:11:13
Speaker
Right, because it's harmed him materially? Basically. So he's going for loss of advertising revenue. Now, the CCDH is going, well, we are going to fight this because we think we're doing valuable work. And most other people are going, look, the reason why advertisers have fled Twitter slash X
00:11:40
Speaker
is maybe in part the disinformation misinformation problem, but largely in part due to one Elon Musk and his rather fickle approach towards content moderation. Particularly fickle when it comes to he moderates the speech of people he doesn't like and doesn't moderate the speech of people he does like. Yes, so I see that the
00:12:09
Speaker
They're going after them on fairly technical grounds from the look of it that they're saying that they breached. I'm still not calling it X. I'm saying they breached Twitter's terms of service by scraping the site for data so they could analyze things. Yeah, so this is the usual thing that Twitter does when it launches any attack on a rival or an opponent. It makes the claim that they were illegally harvesting information using Twitter's APIs.
00:12:38
Speaker
often alliding the fact that until recently, use of those APIs was free and was not restricted. So they go, look, these days you can't use those APIs to scrape the starter. And people are going, but this starter is historical. It was gained before you put those restrictions in place.
00:12:59
Speaker
But some people I see who is this Lou Pascalis, founder of the advertising consultancy AJL Advisory, basically says, I believe advertisers long ago decided that Twitter was not a safe place for their advertising investments, strictly because of the antics of Elon Musk, says that the CCDH research is just another data point and a very long list of data points, which are repelling advertisers.
00:13:28
Speaker
So yeah, I don't know. Musk got lots of money. He seems like the sort of person who could shove a lawsuit like this through, so I don't even know.
US Historical Interventions: Nixon, CIA & Kissinger
00:13:42
Speaker
What we do know is that the good character of Richard Nixon is under attack. It is, right. So what are they saying about Tricky Dicky?
00:13:52
Speaker
So recent files have revealed that Nixon had a role in a plot to block Allende from the Chilean presidency. So essentially... Clearing in another country's elections. I know, I know. So this is, we're taking this from the Guardian, the opening paragraph, I think is actually kind of
00:14:15
Speaker
The gist of the story, days before Salvador Alinde's confirmation as Chile's president in 1970, US President Richard Nixon met with a right-wing Chilean media mogul to discuss blocking the socialist leader's path to the presidency, newly declassified documents have revealed. So there are new documents out which paint Richard Nixon in a rather bad light. Oh dear, next you'll be telling me the CIA's involved.
00:14:46
Speaker
The CIA should be anywhere near South or Central America. I mean, honestly, it'd be his belief. I know, I know. But I wanted to say that it's all made better by the fact that at the end they quote a person called Antonia Fonk. But making light of a person's name just because it sounds awesome is perhaps not being fully respectful.
00:15:05
Speaker
Yes, with Richard Helms.
00:15:14
Speaker
to the subject matter, which also... Henry Kissinger gets referenced here. Of course he bloody does. To quote again, transcripts of a telephone call Nixon made to his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, the following day are also among the revelations, during which Kissinger confesses it's probably too late to prevent an Allende government and dismisses the Chilean armed forces as a pretty incompetent bunch.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, and as they say, neither one of them showed any remorse that General Schneider was dying. Here we go. The CIA provided one of these conspirators with life insurance policy and hush money, while another received guns, ammunition, and $50,000 in cash to carry out the plot, which involved the kidnap of General Rene Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces, who is considered loyal to the Constitution,
00:16:05
Speaker
The attempt was botched and General Schneider died three days later of the gunshot wounds he sustained when his cows ambushed on the 22nd of October 1970. And so as they're saying in this phone call between Nixon and Kissinger, neither of them appears to give a shit at all that this guy is dying from gunshot wounds due to this botch. They probably thought it was an inconvenience. They were, they probably did, yes.
00:16:31
Speaker
So, of course, Allende actually did take the presidency, but it didn't stop the CIA from spending years and years and years trying to undermine his role. And then, yeah, eventually that was when old Pinochet came in, and I assume things worked out fine.
00:16:49
Speaker
The words I've got here are bloody coup d'etat. And then many thousands died. Oh, and then 17 years of military rule. Oh, would you look at that. CIA backed coup ended up making things worse. I mean, it's astounding. It's absolutely astounding. Good thing that never happened again.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yes, one of luckily. I mean it's a shame that in the main episode we talked about the invasion of Iraq in 2003 because I think that kind of shows that actually we're just taking the piss now. We really really are. So yeah I mean
00:17:28
Speaker
doesn't tell us anything about the character of Richard Nixon or Henry Kissinger or the CIA or the US foreign policy in general that we didn't already know, but I guess it's nice to have. But as the people who declassified the documents pointed out, it is kind of astounding that we're learning more about how bad these people were.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, I talked about this in our episode a few weeks ago, but that Behind the Bastards six-parter on Henry Kissinger is just the level of
00:18:04
Speaker
of disinterest, of apathy. People doing stuff that they think might have a bit of benefit for themselves or their mates and are literally incapable of caring about the thousands if not millions of deaths that they're fairly directly responsible for. It all gets a little bit disheartening. Yeah. And he's 100 years old and he's not fucking dead yet. What the hell's going on?
00:18:31
Speaker
I mean I have to assume he has actually made a pact with the devil. Have you watched that show, what's it called, Inside Man? The Netflix animated show about people working for a... I have not watched it. At one point they go up against the enemies, the Illuminati, who are run by Jay-Z and Beyonce, Lin-Manuel Miranda and a guy who's never identified by name but who is clearly Henry Kissinger.
00:19:01
Speaker
And then eventually they get them all on hallucinogens or something and Henry Kissinger finally realizes what a horrible person he is and commits suicide on this spot. So that's nice. Yeah. I mean, it's the right way to go. Well, yeah, I mean the right way to go probably would have been beaten to death with a sack of rocks about 60 years ago.
00:19:25
Speaker
Best time to plant trees 20 years ago, second best time is now. Second best time to beat Kim Riegesinger to death with a sack of rocks. Good
Casual Farewell & Final Goodbye
00:19:35
Speaker
thing that these episodes are behind the table. To any secret service operatives who are listening, surely you have better things to do. Surely.
00:19:48
Speaker
Right. Well, I think we're done. I think we're done. We are done. We are done for another week. So thank you patrons for being our patrons. Here is probably the wrong point to say that if your payments had been declined, you might need to sign up as our patrons again. Yeah, because they didn't mean to claim you won't hear them. Because if you use your payments and you've been claiming them here in this episode now, but maybe we should have said that in the main one. Doesn't matter.
00:20:11
Speaker
Everything will work out, it always does, especially for Henry Kissinger. Actually, maybe we will put this one out for free after all. Maybe. Just so that patrons can hear that bit right there. Maybe. We should have put that in the main episode. Probably should have. There you go. You heard it here first.
00:20:28
Speaker
I guess. Or in the many other podcasts that you subscribe to on Patreon. You seem to be fickle with your spending. There's people in their Patreons sloshing their money around like
00:20:43
Speaker
Like judges? Yeah, there was a crude sexual reference involved. I couldn't bring myself to release it. Shame. Right, put me into this. I'm putting a pin in it. Staking a claim. You're putting a pin. Sticking a thing in another thing. In your crude sexual innuendo. Yep, I'm going to put a thing in a thing and say goodbye. Goodbye!