Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Covert Infiltration
28 Plays3 years ago
Josh and M discuss how someone infiltrated and then reported back on six months undercover with Action Zealandia - Aotearoa New Zealand's "premiere" white nationalist/supremacist group.
—
Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
You can also contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
Why not support The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy by donating to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/podcastersguidetotheconspiracy
or Podbean crowdfunding? http://www.podbean.com/patron/crowdfund/profile/id/muv5b-79
Recommended
Transcript
Humor and White Nationalism
00:00:00
Speaker
So, white nationalism. Not really seeing how we can do a jocular intro to this one? We could just replay Betelforte trying not to mention the war. Or sing the classic World War II, Anthony Hitler's only got one ball. Hitler's got no balls at all. Or some version of the Mitchell and Webb routine about not knowing we're the baddies.
00:00:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's all been done before. We could combine them. A meta joke about white nationalism and supremacism mixed in with, in retrospect, a joke about Germans which isn't about racism? Yes. And you think that's a good idea? No, but it is an idea. Okay. Don't mention that Hitler only has one ball because then he'll work out he's a baddie.
00:00:50
Speaker
Hmm, now that seems bad in a completely new way. Ah, don't mention that Hitler's a baddie. No, no, no, that's precisely how we got it to this mess in the first place. Apparently it's controversial to say Nazis are bad now.
00:01:05
Speaker
Okay, one more try. Something, something Hitler, something, something Waldorf-Seller, something, something John Cleese is a dick. I mean, it needs refinement, but that's as good as I think we're going to get.
Introductions: Hosts and Lockdowns
00:01:19
Speaker
Don't you feel this opening sketch was a bad idea?
00:01:31
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton.
00:01:41
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. I am Josh Addison here in Auckland, New Zealand, back in lockdown. And not in any lockdown that I'm aware of. It's Dr. M. Denteth in Zhuhai, China. It's true. I am not locked down. I am living free and easy with emphasis on free and probably some emphasis on easy, but not as much emphasis on easy, mostly free.
00:02:04
Speaker
No, so the shoe is on the other foot, eh? Now who's the one? Both feet, Sean. I'm not quite sure where you're going with shoe on other feet. Sean would be cut off, but anyway. There's a reason why I'm stuck in this office, Joshua. It's because of the tragic, tragic lacing up my boots accident.
00:02:22
Speaker
But yes, no, we're back in lockdown here in New Zealand.
New Zealand's COVID-19 Situation
00:02:26
Speaker
If you've been, if you're not from New Zealand and have been paying attention to the news, there was a little bit of a, it was sort of reported to begin with as New Zealand locks down after only one community case, which is technically true, but it's because we know that where there is one community case, there will be many more already that we don't know about. So the immediate lockdown is to stop us. And sure enough, a couple of days later, it's now up to 21, I think.
00:02:50
Speaker
Yes, and indeed, actually, the reason why lockdown was kind of recommended by the advisors who are, by the nature of their name, advising the government is that because the first case they found they could not directly link to the border, that did suggest that the virus has been circulating in the population for at least a week for the symptoms to appear and people to report them and to be tested.
00:03:14
Speaker
So the fact there's one case in the community implies, given it's not the border case, that there are probably several cases in the community. And I believe they now have a tentative link to the border, which would date the ingress around about the 9th of August.
00:03:33
Speaker
which is less than two weeks ago, which is actually a positive sign in that it's likely to be relatively constrained. Although I say relatively constrained, the case is on the North Shore. The North Shore has an awful lot of schools and we seem to have cases of the virus being present in school populations. So, containershed.
00:03:58
Speaker
Yes, we have a school, we have a person who's tested positive who a couple of days before had been to church with a couple of hundred people. We've had people being around the city, being in the presence of lots of people. I'm a little bit confused, actually. They've identified a case which through the whole sort of genomic sequencing thing appears to be the looks like the person who brought it into the country, someone who came from Australia. The index case.
00:04:25
Speaker
the index case indeed, someone who came from Australia and was in managed isolation where they tested positive. But what's confusing me though is that when they're coming up with the places of interest, the places where if you've been there, you need to go and get a test,
00:04:41
Speaker
They still want him to look back a week or so further into the past than when this person arrived in the country. So I don't know if they're just being thorough in making sure or what. And of course, the other thing is, although we think we know who the index case is, we still haven't established a link between them and the first person who we found with it in the community. So there's still some chain to be established there.
00:05:04
Speaker
But until we know what's going on, the entire country is in lockdown at the moment. Chances are, since it hasn't been spotted anywhere in the South Island or anywhere outside of Auckland yet, as far as I know, the rest of the country will probably be able to relax in a few days. But it looks like in Auckland at least, we're into it for another week or two.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yes, it'll be interesting to see exactly what happens in the next few days. If case numbers start escalating dramatically as a kind of exponential COVID-19 Delta cases are found, you'll be in lockdown for a while. If it turns out we've dodged another bullet, then who knows, maybe by this time next week, you'll be broadcasting from a crowded church
00:05:47
Speaker
Maybe, yeah. In the middle of a school. One of those church, well, I mean, there are church schools, I say that facetiously, but I probably won't be attending one, but I could. Who knows? I've always said you should go back to school, Joshua. Church school, dun dun. Yes. I mean, it sounds like we're trying to get a spin-off going, and I really don't think this part's going to work out. Joshua's gone back to school in a church.
00:06:14
Speaker
No. In fact, I don't think this whole preamble is working out anymore now that we've got past the important Covid-related information, so maybe we should just pile straight into the main section of this episode. Yes, but I'm trying to avoid the main section of the episode because the main section of the episode is depressing. Well, it's a bit depressing, but so's a lot of the stuff we talk about sometimes. Yes, I suppose that's true. I'll play a sting.
00:06:43
Speaker
Yes, now we mentioned this last week, I'm pretty sure, what we were going to talk about this time, because just over a week ago now, I think, there are an interesting set of articles in the local news.
Action Zelandia Report
00:06:57
Speaker
I'm trying to look up the date of the story and it's not showing me the bloody date. There we go.
00:07:02
Speaker
Two weeks ago. So yes, the 9th of August, when COVID-19 likely entered the country and there was a story about white supremacists as a cover story, I think this deserves
00:07:20
Speaker
If it doesn't, I don't know what does. Well, precisely. But yes, there are a couple of articles in Critic, which is the University of Otago student magazine, where they said that someone from there had spent six months working undercover with the group Action Zealandia. Now, we've talked about Action Zealandia before, haven't we?
00:07:38
Speaker
Indeed, we had an entire episode devoted to an interview with Byron Clark talking about actions Alandia and their podcast, where they've been presenting the views of people like Kerry Bolton, the country's most notable white supremacist, far right intellectual.
00:07:59
Speaker
And so, yes, this person basically is reported back and talked about a lot of unsettling things that this white supremacist group has been getting up to. Now, what's notable about this story is that in many respects, what the three articles in critic, the University of Otago student magazine, actually attest to are technically things we already knew. So there isn't much in the way of new information.
00:08:29
Speaker
But what's interesting about these stories is that, of course, actions of Landia denies the truth of what we already know and claims that they are just a benign social club for white guys who are proud of their ancestry and their citizenship, who simply want to go about engaging in sporty like activities and certainly don't have any specifically racist views and certainly aren't going around
00:08:57
Speaker
drawing links to other fascist organizations around the world. So what we're going to talk about here are things that we have actually mentioned in the past, but are things which are denied by the organization that we're looking at.
00:09:11
Speaker
So what's really important about what critic has done here is that by sending someone in for six months to gather information, we have firsthand evidence that actions land here has been lying profusely about their activities and their goals. Even if it turns out we never believe those lies. We now have evidence to show that the lying lies are lying lies.
00:09:36
Speaker
Yes, so this person spent six months pretending to be a white supremacist, which, as you can imagine, probably wasn't a lot of fun. Indeed, I think they even mentioned that in one of the articles, that spending six months pretending to be a white supremacist is not a great time.
00:09:54
Speaker
No, no, they found it very stressful. They thought to the extent that a couple of times they thought they had blown their cover because they kind of, I think, because they couldn't keep up the requisite amount of hatefulness.
00:10:10
Speaker
This reminds me of a story from my youth back when I was planning to be a Catholic priest and went over to Pimble in Sydney, Australia to inquire into joining the Jesuits. And talking with the novice master there, the novice master said, look, I have a particular way to tell whether a novice is suitable for entering the priesthood or whether we should send them back into the community so they can be a secular helper to the Roman Catholic Church. And he said, the method is simply this.
00:10:40
Speaker
I will surprise them at some point in the day and say, are you meant to be here? And if it takes them more than a second to respond, that's it. They're out of the order. And I imagine that there's something very similar when it comes to being policed by the senior membership of actions land here.
00:10:59
Speaker
and that if they get just ever so slightly suspicious of you, they will put you on the spot and expect immediate responses. Because if you even slightly hesitate in espousing, say, white supremacist or white nationalist views, then the members of actions of Landia are probably going to go
00:11:19
Speaker
I don't think this person's heart is in it. And given they're a paranoid organization in the first place, they're probably then going to think, I think this person might be a plant. So you're spending six months being on your toes about this stuff cannot be pleasant.
00:11:37
Speaker
Yes, so one of the things, as you say with the paranoia, is that all of the members of actions are landier, you pseudonyms, even amongst themselves. So although we know the identities of some of the key figures, most of the people don't actually know who each other are, which obviously helps if you're going in undercover. I was a little bit confused. They made it sound like
00:12:03
Speaker
It's sometimes the actual reporter who went undercover suggests their identity is still being kept secret, obviously, to avoid harassment. There's an article in The Herald which
00:12:16
Speaker
talked to the Features Editor at Critic and kind of made it sound like they were the one and identified them by name, which seemed odd to me since elsewhere they were trying to keep it. I'm not sure if it was just a misunderstanding and the editor was speaking for the reporter, but either way, we won't use the name here just in case.
00:12:36
Speaker
Yes, I mean, I was also confused by this as well because it is true that the critic pieces are guest editorials as published by the editor of the guest editorial sections of critic. And I think that maybe the Herald got a little bit confused there between someone being the editor of a section and someone being a guest editor and thinking one plus one equals two, where in this case, one plus one equals God knows.
00:13:05
Speaker
But anyway, so as to the article itself, this unknown individual reporter met with six different members of Action Zalandia, apparently had voice calls with two of their leaders and was in their online chats
00:13:24
Speaker
for most of this year. This person, this, well, I say person, actions of India apparently does not admit woman. It's a male only organization.
00:13:37
Speaker
So he was involved in message boards and again with the sort of the paranoia, the messaging was tightly controlled to make sure that, you know, what goes on tour stays on tour, nothing leaves the chat room itself.
00:13:56
Speaker
um and in particular the sort of the I gather the sort of the jokiness was discouraged because they know that can um we've all seen examples of people getting in trouble from for saying the wrong thing in the wrong place yes so there's one example in one of the editorials about the way in which one of the members of actions landia talking about kind of racial purity and the like made a joke about we should only have sex with our siblings
00:14:24
Speaker
And then one of the senior members of Actions, Alandia, went, look, delete all of these messages. We do not want any message of this type getting out because we know how this is going to be presented, even though we know it was presented as a joke in the first instance. So they are very, very, very straight on controlling their messaging because they don't want anything bad to get out about their organization, even if it turns out it's jocular.
00:14:52
Speaker
Yes, the cynic in me thinks they know full well that people would take anything like that. They can find out of context and make them look bad because that's exactly what they would do to other people. But in terms of what this person found out about actions of India and the membership of itself, I mean, actions of India apparently is a relatively small group, only about 30 people nationwide. But of course, it doesn't actually take a large group of people to do a large amount of damage.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yes, indeed, as we saw back with the terrorist incident down in Ototahin, it only requires one terrorist to shoot up two mosques and kill 53 people. So it doesn't, yeah, the small numbers aren't necessarily reason to write them off as no threat. Yes, indeed, actually, this is something which has been a big discussion with respect to lone wolf terrorism in the US in particular.
00:15:47
Speaker
which is it really isn't the number of terrorists you need to be concerned with in this particular respect. It's how likely are they to act upon their ideologies. And the worry is, is that given what happened at Otatai and the mosque shootings, we know that there are people out there with beliefs of this type who are willing to, in quotes, go to battle over their belief systems.
00:16:15
Speaker
Another fact about the membership, apparently they're mostly aged between 18 and 35. I'm not quite sure
00:16:23
Speaker
How did they get that if people's identities remained anonymous? So one of the members is 42 and is a remaining member of the prior movement, the Dominion movement. So I think they're basically indexed from, look, we've got one person and we know their age, 42, and we're taking that to be the kind of upper bound of membership age.
00:16:47
Speaker
And we've got a few examples of people whose ages we also know from messages we've got from our six months of infiltration. And that allows us to get a medium, a mode, a mean, an average, and any other quantitative statistical analysis you want to do.
00:17:02
Speaker
So it seems to be mostly younger men. That Kerry Bolton fellow, I've seen his videos, he's no spring chicken. But he's not a member of actions land here. He's kind of an associate of actions land here.
00:17:20
Speaker
Kerry, if you listen to the podcasts that he's done with the Action Zelandia senior membership, admires Action Zelandia and thinks if he was younger he would join, but he does take it to be a youth movement and he is not a youth.
00:17:37
Speaker
But yes, the Dominion movement is interesting because immediately following the shootings in Ototahi Christchurch, obviously the outpouring of grief and outrage, the white nationalists were smart enough to know that, OK, now's not the time to be a visible white nationalist. And the Dominion movement itself basically collapsed almost immediately.
00:18:03
Speaker
Um, but as we sort of seen, and as this article shows, they never, they didn't actually go away, did they? They just kind of went underground and into places like actions Alandia, who try to keep most of the, most of what they're doing off the radar. Yes, I believe under the leadership.
00:18:19
Speaker
of the Dominion movement basically has evaporated and disappeared, and actions landier kind of filled in that void. But I also think they probably took a lot of the membership of the Dominion movement into their organization as they were founded.
00:18:35
Speaker
So, I mean, it does seem there's pointed criticism by Action Zelandia around the way the Dominion movement was rung and the fact that it collapsed so quickly after the mosque shootings. There's a kind of impression you get from the way that Action Zelandia talk about things, that if the Dominion movement had had a spine, to use terrible toxic language here, they could have withered that storm and they would have been fine, but instead they collapsed under public pressure. So I think the leadership went away
00:19:05
Speaker
and Action Zalandia was then formed and those people who were sympathetic or members of the Dominion movement probably then kind of glommed on to this new organization.
00:19:14
Speaker
So, the actual process of becoming a... Now, one thing I wasn't quite clear on, did this person actually become an actual vetted member of Action Zalandia, or did they just hang out in the chat rooms with Action Zalandia members? I'm assuming that if they got into the chat room, they became a vetted member.
00:19:37
Speaker
I mean, because I mean, they went on hikes with these people. They're on the message boards with these people. They met some of these people in person. Action Zalandie, given the secrecy that goes around everything they do, probably doesn't just have random associates turn up. You'd have to be a vetted member to find out about the activities. So yes, I'm assuming they were, to use terrible gang terminology, a fully-blooded member of Action Zalandie.
00:20:06
Speaker
And certainly they know plenty about the vetting process, I presume, because they went through it themselves. You need to have a voice call with a senior member to be vetted. You're asked about your political beliefs, drug and alcohol use and fitness. This is one of those groups, obviously, that's all about, well, has a lot of
00:20:28
Speaker
that sort of very, very quote unquote manly thing about being fit and healthy and good examples of their race. After they've been vetted over the telephone or internet call, I suppose it is 2021, they do need to meet a person in person or come along to a group event in order to be fully, fully vetted.
00:20:56
Speaker
Interesting that they're worried about they don't want to consist entirely of outcasts, of society's outcasts. I don't know, is that just an image thing? They don't want the media to be saying, oh, look, these are just randos who've glommed on to this toxic ideology because their lives are so crap.
00:21:17
Speaker
um or is it more part of the the the whole supremacist part of white supremacists they want to feel like they're the the cream of society yes i do think what they want are the uber metrics to be able to join the organization and it seems that at the moment they're only attracting cucks no chance only cucks
00:21:40
Speaker
That's a shame, by which I mean it isn't. No, not at all. Let us be clear, we do not want good people joining bad organisations. I'm not saying we don't want Chads joining bad organisations. I don't think we actually should have any discussion about whether we think Chads are good or bad. I suspect actually I think we think Chads are bad. I think this kind of stereotyping of... I think the terminology is kind of...
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, in fact, actually, I'm regretting using all of these words right now. Let's just back up, back right up. I've been cut by my own words. You had. So that's the membership and the process of becoming a member, but as to what they're actually up to,
00:22:24
Speaker
So, I mean, one of the things they said is that they have been fairly active in trying to form links with white nationalist groups overseas, which, I mean, I know we've seen the terrorist shooter from Christchurch gets letters from all over the world or has people sending, attempting to send letters to him from all over the world and was receiving them for a while, I think,
International Fascist Connections
00:22:49
Speaker
until somebody put a stop to that.
00:22:50
Speaker
So yes, there is this worldwide network out there which they would very much like to be a part of. Yes, in fact, actually, as we'll talk about in a moment, they've had a bit of a problem with their trying to hook up with fascist groups in Australia. But yes, they are part of a movement to try and get a kind of global fascist youth movement going on worldwide.
00:23:12
Speaker
And indeed actually looking at the website because occasionally i do pop over to the actions land your website to find out what awful things they're saying now they had an entire post about how they had joined in with the bull lives matter day of protest a month or so ago which.
00:23:32
Speaker
to my great dismay, had a picture of white supremacists in Romania standing in front of a Romanian monument with a Boa Lives Matter flag. And I was going, no, no, not Romania, please not Romania. And I don't even know why I'm surprised by this because
00:23:52
Speaker
one time where I was out buying jewellery because people may be aware I like to wear a lot of rings I'm not wearing any at the moment because I find that I click and collect them or sign recordings it's not a good idea to wear jewellery whilst recording a podcast and I went into this silverware store and I was looking through all the rings they had and I noticed an iron cross ring which is the symbol of the fascist organization in many Eastern European societies and then I looked around the rest of the store and went
00:24:22
Speaker
That's a fascist symbol. That's a fascist symbol. That's a fascist fly. I think I'm in a fascist silverware store. And so I backed out of the store very, very slowly. So yes, they are engaging in trying to get into this kind of global fascist movement. And indeed, this is personal information. This wasn't information that was in the article itself. But I have been told
00:24:48
Speaker
that actions of land here to a large extent has given up on trying to turn the country fascist and really want to get on the gravy train of becoming fascist commentators overseas in the hope that they can get funding from the kind of the global fascist, the people who are funding organizations in Western and Eastern Europe.
00:25:12
Speaker
So much of their outreach isn't just about getting other fascists to talk with them. It's all about finding out how can we become one of those fascists who gets flown around the place to talk at rallies about fascism back home. So there's a certain kind of outreach going on there for financial gain. Who's the local? Who's a bit of a darling of the conservative right in the States?
00:25:37
Speaker
Oh, Trevor Loudon. Trevor Loudon, yeah, yeah. I mean, he's a libertarian rather than a fascist. But he is very much, not only is he a darling in the US, a friend of the show, Marty Orr, got in contact with me the other day to say that Trevor Loudon was in Boise, Idaho.
00:25:56
Speaker
giving talks to the local Republicans there, and Marty was demanding a kind of swap. If Trevor Loudon is allowed to go to Boise, Idaho to give talks, then Marty Orr should be allowed to come to New Zealand to take refuge from what's going on in the U.S. And frankly, I think it would benefit both Nasha. Definitely.
00:26:20
Speaker
But back to actions of India, so that's their larger aims. In terms of their beliefs, obviously white supremacism, there's a lot of your great replacement theory in all of that business. Apparently they're anti-vaxxers as well.
00:26:39
Speaker
They are. They take it that vaccines are a way of depopulating the Earth's population on the podcast. And we'll talk about the podcast towards the end of this discussion. They've intimated this is part of a Jewish plot to depopulate the world. So they are recommending that their members do not get the COVID-19 vaccine. Right.
00:27:03
Speaker
I'm actually okay with that, I think. But it seems an interesting mesh between the whole sort of fit and healthiness and not wanting to have anything to do with vaccines, although I suppose you could say they're of the sort that believes their natural immunity due to their healthy drug-free lifestyles. We'll see off that. And also their Christian faith, Joshua.
00:27:29
Speaker
I mean, there's an entire Christian set of belief systems about you don't need a vaccine. God will protect you, which is someone pointed out on Twitter the other day. The Old Testament is filled of examples of God sending plagues to wipe out people he doesn't like. I've heard that a bunch and I there's that old, old story. I've seen people I've seen it sort of quoted in popular culture, but it's been around for ages of the whole the person in a flood
00:27:59
Speaker
There's the Christian sort of parable of a person. There's a flood coming. And when it's announced, somebody drives past in your car and says, you know, hey, come with me. I'll get you out of here before the flood comes. And the guy says, no, no, my faith in God will save me. And then the floodwaters start rising and the person is forced to shelter inside the house. And someone rose past in a boat in the flooded waters and says, hey, quick, hop on my boat. I'll
00:28:24
Speaker
I'll save you from the floodwaters." And he says, no, no, thank you, but my faith in God will save me. And then the waters rise even higher and he's forced to sit on the roof of his house because they're that high. And rescue team comes by in a helicopter and says, you know, hop in, we'll save you, don't worry. And he's, no, no, thank you, but fine, I'm fine. I have faith that God will save me.
00:28:44
Speaker
And then the floodwaters rise even higher. He's swept away and drowns and winds up in heaven. And when he gets to heaven, he says, God, look, I don't understand. I had faith in you this whole time. Why didn't you save me? And God says, what do you mean save you? I sent you a car. I sent you a boat and I sent you a helicopter.
00:29:00
Speaker
And yeah, as soon as I hear people saying, honor your God, God will keep me safe. Yes, he will, by giving you a bloody vaccine, by inventing, by I'm quite certain that a good number of the people inventing these sorts of things are people of faith anyway. And yes, I just automatically go to that and think you people are foolish.
00:29:21
Speaker
And indeed, actually, in a lot of mainstream Christianity, the typical interpretation of the parable of the loaves and the fishes, where Jesus seems to miraculously produce bread and fish to feed the populace, is not taken to be a miracle in the sense that Jesus made
00:29:40
Speaker
food out of whole cloth was the idea that there was a massive sharing event going on that wasn't common for feasts of that particular time and people shared their food and it turned out there was more than enough food to feed the crowd. So there's an entire, you know, there's an entire aspect of mainstream Christianity that goes look miracles don't need to be miraculous
00:30:03
Speaker
in the sense of supernatural intervention, sometimes by this kind of God's intervention on the world, we're talking about people reaching out to help one another in a kind of Christian charity. And now I'm beginning to feel the podcast is taking a decidedly religious turn.
00:30:21
Speaker
From two people who are devout atheists. We've turned the R, but it still bugs me when I see people using their faith wrong, quite frankly. Well, precisely.
00:30:34
Speaker
Anyway, we're possibly getting on this tangent because who wants to talk about the bloody fascists at Action Zealand here, but we started so we'll finish. Now, we do know, although they use pseudonyms, even when talking to each other, that their leader is this fellow called James Fairbird. And he's a guy who's made the news here not too long ago because he was a member of the New Zealand Armed Forces. Well, it's the Army Reserves, I believe.
00:30:59
Speaker
Was it? I don't know. He certainly had army connections, which was a bit of a worry. But yes, he left the army reserves late last year after these links of his two actions, Alandia, were made public.
00:31:15
Speaker
And he doesn't seem like the nicest fellow. A couple of arrests under his belt. One for vandalism, one for breaching his parole conditions after being convicted for vandalism. He was also stopped at the border because he was going over to Australia to spend time with Thomas Seawell, who's a member of the Australian National Socialist Network. National Socialists.
00:31:45
Speaker
That really does. Yeah. Now, apparently, Fairburn was ousted as leader back in either April or May. The dates seem a little bit iffy here after he was arrested for breaching his bail conditions.
00:32:01
Speaker
and another senior member of actions landia took over temporarily. This person has the pseudonym of Fred. Now under Fred's leadership, the group actually went from political actions to largely what it claims to be, which is a community building exercise orientated group for young white men who love their country.
00:32:24
Speaker
But at some point, about a month or so later, Theoburn returned, and the group has once again returned back to political activism. And this is apparently the source of some discontent and actions land here, and that some members would rather be a health-focused group than a politically active one.
00:32:45
Speaker
When we say political activism or political actions, I've read a fair bit about putting up of posters and things like that, making their views visible.
00:32:58
Speaker
I see one of their members is up on espionage charges, although is that related to white supremacism, or is that just what the guy gets up to in his private time? This is, I mean, this is an open question and that this stuff has been tried, I believe, under a military tribunal, although I think they were at one stage arguing it could go into the criminal court. So we, it's a bit hard to talk about because there's a whole bunch of sub-judicial things going on here.
00:33:28
Speaker
but it does appear to be at least somewhat tangentially related to the action Zalandia work.
00:33:36
Speaker
But carrying on with the political, what they would really like is to actually infiltrate New Zealand's political parties so that they could presumably actually start getting their views more widely heard, I suppose. And I mean, I guess the dream would be to actually put their views into practice via parliament. But that certainly would be a long way off.
00:34:01
Speaker
And as you say, possibly they acknowledge actually out of the realms of possibility in New Zealand. But yes, when you only have 30 members, it's going to be very hard to take over a political party. But they've looked at two parties in particular.
00:34:16
Speaker
They've looked at the New Zealand National Party, which is our standard centre-right party currently led by Judas Collins, which they've identified as being somewhat weak and thus pliable in our current political situation, which seems like a fear assessment. National is not doing particularly well
00:34:37
Speaker
and they're not doing particularly well with a leader, Judith Collins, who seems to be quite happy to engage in racist rhetoric around the country of Aotearoa and New Zealand at the moment. So I think they've identified that there is at least a possibility of doing something to get national on board. The problem is national is very big,
00:34:59
Speaker
National has a very set hierarchy in its party structure and it's also very much controlled by the rich donors who control the kind of the board and the executive board that runs national. So 30 cucks without much money are probably not going to be in a situation to be able to rejuvenate national into a national socialist party.
00:35:24
Speaker
So the other party they're looking at is good old social credit. Now social credit used to be the third biggest party in the country and no longer is but still does technically exist.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a name that I've heard, but I don't really know much more than that about them. They're not a particularly large presence. Apparently, though, they were started by a fellow called Clifford Douglas in the early 20th century, and he argued that
00:35:59
Speaker
The name Social Credit comes with the fact that he argued that big banks needed to be broken up and that international Jewry were behind those big banks. Obviously, there was no shortage of antisemitism in the early Social Credit Party. Apparently, the group reformed in the 1970s and booted out the antisemitic members, although whether all trace of them has gone is up to question, I understand.
00:36:29
Speaker
Yeah, so social credit still does exist. When I was in Kirikiri Roa last year for the 2020 election, I could have cast a vote for social credit. They were running a candidate in my electorate. And it is the case, if you spend some time looking at local and general election candidates, you'll find the occasional social credit member has managed to persist.
00:36:55
Speaker
in some region for quite some time. And when you start reading their manifestos, they are certainly very weird. A whole social credit economic system is contra-orthodox economics at this particular moment. There's probably an entire episode to be made on social credit, their conspiracy theories and how they kind of recast themselves afterwards. We should probably put that on the list of future episodes to do.
00:37:25
Speaker
But it isn't clear that even though they ejected the anti-Semitic members in the 70s, that some of those members haven't kind of crawled back. Because in the 70s, social credit was a large party. So when they did their ejection of the anti-Semitic members of the party base, they will kind of rejuvenate themselves and look like a sensible alternative to national or labor.
00:37:49
Speaker
But eventually that kind of collapsed and social credit has completely disappeared from the electoral landscape to the point where you don't know anything about it. And it's possible that in that time, those anti-Semitic members who were rejected have managed to kind of crawl back or be the only members left willing to take on the social credit name. But yeah, it doesn't look like they're going to have much luck in any case there.
Public Image vs. Reality
00:38:20
Speaker
which is kind of the end of the information on their aims and goals and what have you apart from the whole idea of their goal of presenting themselves as a benign, perfectly respectable organization. As we've said, they want to be seen as just a group of people who happen to be white and are proud of the fact that they're white and don't take it any further than that.
00:38:49
Speaker
like doing a bunch of men doing manly things in the outdoors, having a hike, getting a bit of fresh air, and happening to have a vaguely common ethnic heritage. But try as they might though, that's not really what they are, and it does eventually start coming out in the things they say and do.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yes, so they're quite good at staying on message when it comes to their website. So when you've got copy, you can sit down, you can edit the racism out of copy, or at least make the racism very cryptic. But they've got a podcast.
00:39:29
Speaker
And they're not very good at staying on message when it comes to recording the podcast. There's a kind of glee in their voice when they talk about certain subjects. They make jokes about Jewish conspiracies on the podcast in a way which is meant to come across as being good natured, but really doesn't sound like anything other than, oh, we're joking about this thing we really do believe.
00:39:56
Speaker
So yes, they're trying desperately hard to stay on message and present the idea that they are just a benign political organization of young men who like being fit and healthy and love their country. And then their podcast exists as a document that goes, yeah, there's a lot more going on here.
00:40:18
Speaker
And of course we have the situation where someone spent six months infiltrating their ranks to get a clear indication of what they say behind the scenes.
00:40:29
Speaker
And maybe that's a good thing to talk about, finally. The whole infiltration thing, because we've looked at the Sunstein and Vermeule paper, where they basically recommended the infiltration of conspiracist networks, and then old Curtis Hagen was having nothing of that. And as I recall, Lee Basham wasn't too fond of it either. Although
00:40:53
Speaker
First of all, there are two bits of infiltration. There's actions of India wanting to infiltrate the likes of political parties, but then, of course, there's the critic reporter who successfully infiltrated them. I noticed, though, that at least in the goal of the
00:41:10
Speaker
The critic reporter, in the case of the critic reporter, their goal wasn't to spread disinformation and try to sort of damage the group from within. They were simply finding out information and then getting out and reporting that to the rest of us. So I don't think the likes of your Curtis Hargens and your Lee Bations would have a problem with what they did, would they?
00:41:33
Speaker
I wouldn't think so in part because the worry about the Sunstein and Vemühl hypothesis is the idea it would be the state engaging in this infiltration, and the state basically infiltrating groups that are saying bad things about the state. The state doesn't want people to believe, which automatically sounds ever so slightly suspicious.
00:41:54
Speaker
The critic, sorry, critic, not the sitcom, the critic, although god, if only they were making more of that, critic is not as far as I'm aware an organ of the New Zealand government.
00:42:09
Speaker
As far as I'm aware, it is a student magazine for the University of Otago, probably run on a pittance, and they were simply doing some investigative reporting of an organization that was not going to be interviewed, or at least not interviewed in a way where they would give truthful and sincere answers to a reporter's questions.
00:42:32
Speaker
So if someone infiltrates the group, they do their reporting and then they get out. So that's not the kind of cognitive infiltration that Sunstein and Vermeule were talking about. Although it is still interesting that it shows that there are certain kinds of infiltration that we take to be not problematic, or at least not entirely problematic.
00:42:55
Speaker
versus the idea that if the government was engaging in activities of this kind, which presumably the Secret Service might be doing, then we start to become a little bit suspicious about their motivations. Indeed, we know that the Secret Service in Aotearoa, New Zealand, has engaged in infiltration of left-wing activist groups.
00:43:19
Speaker
And we take that to be a very, very suspicious thing to do, especially when dealing with environmentalist groups that are protesting against polluting industry. So yes, there's a worry that when the state does it, there's something weird going on there about the power relationship.
00:43:39
Speaker
When it's a student rag engaging in doing this kind of thing, that power relationship is nowhere near as clear. And indeed, we can probably give a story about how this is a fairly benign or at least standard investigative tool when you're trying to investigate whether people are doing bad things behind the scenes.
00:43:58
Speaker
But it is all still very interesting to a podcast. It's about conspiracy theories. We have an organization which itself is fairly conspiratorial. They're very definitely acting in secret in many cases, but taking great pains to keep their activities and their opinions secret.
00:44:18
Speaker
They also promote various conspiracy theories, your anti-Jewish stuff, your great replacement stuff. But we also have, of course, Critic Magazine operating a conspiracy against their conspiracies. It's conspiracies all the way down. It's true. It's just one conspiracy after the other. Indeed, are we part of the conspiracy, Joshua?
00:44:41
Speaker
We most certainly. Yeah, so actually we probably are because given that we did that episode on Action Zalandia's podcast and we talked with people who were investigating Action Zalandia who are keeping themselves anonymous and thus we're using Byron Clark as a mouthpiece and that sounds that sounds if I'm playing Byron's role there.
00:45:02
Speaker
Byron was doing good work there, but he was also kind of speaking on behalf of another organization. Then we're quite definitely part of a conspiracy conspiring against people who are conspiring, who are probably being conspired against by other groups as well. So basically, there's a whole bunch of overlapping conspiracies here, of which we are a part of at least one of them. Or are we? Or are we? Are we?
00:45:27
Speaker
Are we? Are we? See, now it just sounds like a sound. Are we? Yes.
Conclusion and Future Topics
00:45:35
Speaker
Now, we did have some other information about Nazis in New Zealand, but we're pretty much reaching the time when an episode would normally happen. I think we've kind of talked enough about Nazis in New Zealand so far. Maybe we can save this for next week or another time or a bonus episode.
00:45:49
Speaker
Precisely. I had a worry that maybe talking about the pieces from Critic may not take up the four hours, so I had a little bit of additional information about a Nazi in our midst, not literally Josh and my own midst, but the midst of the country of Aotearoa, New Zealand. But I think we can probably do the story when we take a look at the Willy Huber story generally.
00:46:16
Speaker
Because we have kind of danced around the SS officer who died in the South Island thing by talking about it. We should probably do a special episode on that. So we've actually got two episodes.
00:46:28
Speaker
to do now. We've got social credit and we've got Nazi war criminals who die not answering for their crimes in our home country to look at. So much more work to do. But that's all for now. So after this, of course, if you're a patron, you'll get to listen to the bonus episode that we're about to record where we'll be looking at what Vinny Eastwood and Billy TK got up to the last couple of days.
00:46:57
Speaker
If you're a fan of Schadenfreude, I think this might be the episode for you. I thought their work in the 80s was great, but the 90s albums they released were quite terrible. Early Schadenfreude, you can't go past it. Yeah, precisely. We're going to look at Scottish people stealing Edinburgh Castle, or trying to.
00:47:19
Speaker
Of course, we have to follow up what that pillow guy in America's been up to because last week, I think it was just before he was about to bring down the entire government and see Trump installed. So let's check in and see whether or not that actually happened. And then a little bit of Russians and chimpanzees.
00:47:42
Speaker
Precisely. Chimpan A to Chimpan C. Oh, you'll never make a monkey out of me. That's entirely true. Now, I would normally, normally I would be quite happy to sit back and let you go through the entire Stottle Planet of the Apes I want to get off. But I think we're right about at the end. So maybe we should end this episode. Maybe you can start the next, maybe you can start the bonus episode with that. I don't know.
00:48:06
Speaker
I don't know if that's a threat or a promise to our people who might want to become patrons, specifically to hear that episode. And if you do want to become a patron, go to patreon.com and search for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy. And if you're already a patron, well, you don't have a choice. The episode's there and you have to listen to it. That's the law. If you are legally obliged.
00:48:25
Speaker
But at any rate, let's bring this one to a close before we jump onto our Russian monkeys. And that simply leaves me to say goodbye to you, Russian monkeys and everyone else. And for me to say valet, Sean Lock. Valet. Oh right, Sean Lock. Yeah, that was a shame. Yeah.
00:48:48
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy is Josh Addison and me, Dr. M.R.X.Denteth. You can contact us at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com, and please do consider supporting the podcast via our Patreon. And remember, they're coming to get you, Barbara.