Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
A zone media, Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison.
This is a little special episode today. I'm joined by
Alex from Corvallis Antifa and Hank, who's using a pseudonym
for personal safety from the Left Coast Right Watch Team.
Hello to you both, and thank you so much for
joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hey, what's happening? Thank you so much for having us,
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Good to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
So today we're gonna be talking about this group called
White Lives Matter. I guess Originally White Lives Matter was
like a slogan and like a very very loose group
from like twenty fifteen, or at least it kind of
started in twenty fifteen as a reaction to the growing
Black Lives Matter movement. I know, I definitely saw this.
(00:50):
This phrase propagated via like memes, flyers, billboards, and other
forms of propaganda as a way to like seed white
nationalist rhetoric to the then like growing and burgeoning.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
All right, Yeah, so there was a formation that was
kind of like an NSM splinter formation that happened in
an in reaction to the initial Black Lives Matter protests
in twenty fifteen. The White Lives Matter that we're talking
about today is a different formation entirely that utilizes sort
of the same slogan. They are a group that started
(01:23):
in like twenty twenty one and have been organizing primarily
on telegram and have grown really rapidly across the country
of the years since.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, like we can see the early use of this
phrase spread by you mentioned the National Socialist Movement, along
with a few other kind of collections of neo Nazis,
the Aryan Resistance Society and the Aryan Nationalist Alliance. But
then things kind of like died down. It was just
it was like a slogan you could see at rallies,
but it wasn't it wasn't anything like too prominent, honestly.
But then we had this big second wave in twenty
(01:53):
twenty one with telegram channels promoting a White Lives Matter
March or a series of martians held across the country
on like April eleventh. This batch of rallies were mostly
a failure, in part due to the efforts of anti
fascists who worked disabotage the planning of these rallies ahead
of time. Of the rallies that did eventually take place,
(02:15):
really only a handful of white supremacists showed up and
most were outnumbered by anti fascist counter demonstrators. So then
after this initial event with these with this like big
batch of like of like channels on Telegram, which is
this like encrypted messaging platform based out of Russia. It's
not very good. Don't use it unless you're trying to
infiltrate a Nazi group. But after these like failed rallies,
(02:40):
White Lives Matter kind of turned into yet another one
of these like networks for white supremacists and neo Nazis
that advocate quote unquote pro white activism. Typically this includes
like putting up white nationalists like stickers around neighborhoods, hanging
large banners with fascist rhetoric or Nazi imagery, flyering, and
just spreading propaganda online. With the occasional like in person rally,
(03:02):
I think you can see kind of the peak of
like the White Lives Matter slogan, at least was when
it was propagated to the degree that Kanye west Ward
on a T shirt during his little Nazi era back
in twenty twenty two. And I think now you see
White Lives Matter as like a network. It overlaps and
crosses over a lot with like similar groups like the
(03:23):
GDL that's the Going Defense League, as well as the
National Socialist Club and Patriot Front to some degree. I
guess one thing that I wanted to talk about is that,
and this is mentioned in the Corbalis and TIFA article
on the organ chapter of White Lives Matter, is like
this idea of hiding your power level, which we used
to talk about it a little bit more. I think
(03:44):
in some ways a little bitch Nazis kind of blew
their cover back around twenty twenty, but now you see
kind of more attempts to try to seed a white
nationalist rhetoric into other kind of right wing spaces, to
push them farther along that radicalization pathway, and to have
a discussion at least a little bit about how White
Lives Matter specifically tries to hide their power level like
(04:07):
kind of disguise the level of like overt fascism that
they're really proposing by employing this like quote unquote to
like pro white rhetoric.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Yeah, so White Lives Matter as a national organization is
extremely like conscious of what they would describe as like
their optics. They are very intent on like radicalizing who
they perceive to be everyday white people into sort of
fascist politics, and in their national level manuals and the
(04:36):
materials that they provide the leaders of statewide organizations, they
specifically talk about stuff like not displaying Nazi flags or
using like neo Nazi rhetoric despite that being what they believe.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
But their sort of goal is to.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Use more innocuous styles of sloganeering, like you know, the
phrase like white lives matter and protect white baities, stuff
like that as ways to kind of opened the.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Door to get people to.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Become interested in a more like overtly national socialist politic
that they can radicalize people to who like join their group.
And you see a lot of groups like Active Clubs,
Pedatriot Front other sort of white nationalist formations using the
national wlm org as sort of a way to recruit
to their own organizations with this sort of more innocuous,
(05:26):
subtle style of propaganda.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
Yeah, and like one other thing that's pointed out in
the in the Corvalis and TIFA article is like they
don't just do agit prop, Like they're not just a
group that is composed of only doing stickering. There's been
multiple instances when their online propaganda as well as their
like in person stickering escalates to real to like real violence.
(05:49):
Last year, a twenty eight year old from New Jersey
attacked an anti racism concert at a church. He yelled
White Lives Matter at attendees through smoke pumps at the church,
and then tried to bear spray the crowd. I think
inadvertently bear sprague himself, which he then recorded a video
talking about and posted online. Later in air fifteen and
(06:09):
high capacity magazines were found in his home alongside White
Lives Matter of propaganda, and later that year, a twenty
year old male associated with White Lives Matter firebombed a
church in Ohio, and the church was picked as a
target because it planned to host two drag events. After
being arrested, police found six firearms and dozens of loaded
magazines alongside Nazi paraphernalia. This guy also wrote a manifestor
(06:31):
defending his actions and specifically stating that he was happy
about it because people online were proud of him. And
you can even go back to the White Lives Matter
rallies back in twenty twenty one, especially the one in
Huntington Beach which saw a degree of physical violence. It's
important not just not to just write these groups off
as being like, oh they only do banner drops, oh
they only do stickers, because not only is like propaganda
(06:53):
really important part of growing the number of them out there,
but they also do real world of violence.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
It's also important to talk about like the ways that
WOLM is organizationally connected to like more like scary elements
of the neo Nazi right. Recently, Left Coast Right Watch
published proof that Matthew Allison, who was one of the
leaders of the Terrogram Collective who was recently arrested, was
responsible for some of the national WLM like propaganda that
(07:23):
they published, which is quite concerning. So, you know, even
these groups that are more movementarian in nature and are
trying to appeal to you know, you know more quote
unquote normy white people are like directly in bed with
people who are like associated with mass shooters and like terrorists.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeap specifically try to like groom people into becoming mass shooters. Yes,
I mean, and like that's why I think specifically with
both these guys who did physical violence, you can see
violence as like as like an escalatory thing for the
person who's like doing it, right, you start off with
rowing a mol tough cocktail and then later you might
do a mesh shooting. It's like a testing ground. You
can see the same thing with you know, bear macing
(08:04):
and anti racism concert. The fact that both these guys,
specifically the one in Ohio had like a lot a
lot of guns and like we're in America, there's a
lot of guns around, but having that many guns and
had loaded magazines in Ohio as a twenty year old
with all of that Nazi paraphernalia like that, that is
what a Nazi mess shooter's like bedroom looks like. And
(08:26):
these are not like isolated incidents. I guess let's take
a bit of a break and we will come back
to talk about specifically the organ chapter of White Lives
Matter and what they've been getting up to the past
few months. All right, So after Krala Santifa leaked like
(08:51):
chat logs from the organ White Lives Matter group back
in twenty twenty one, the chapter went dormant, and then
it restarted earlier this year. I guess, Alex, can you
walk us through kind of the rebirth of White Lives
Matter orgon?
Speaker 4 (09:05):
Yeah, So, the way that WOLM works as a national
organization is there's like a series of groups that all
kind of are extant, like they there are groups, and
then people would like apply to be with the national
org to be like a leader of a state group.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
So back when WOLM initially.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Began as a thing in twenty twenty one, our group
was running the Oregon chapter and exposed several people who
tried to join that group. And then after that like
interest in that organization became, it stopped existing for several years. Yeah,
Then earlier this year we noticed that somebody had taken
(09:46):
over the chapter and had started engaging in some stickering
and some propaganda. So we were like, well, you know,
we may as well join this group and see what's up.
So we infiltrated the organization, gathered information about the membership,
and published that information online in order to warn the
(10:07):
communities that these guys in habit about their activities. The group,
you know, was doing stuff that was not like extremely intense,
like they were doing stickers, they did two banner drops
or three banner drops successfully rather but in their chat
we also found that they were talking a lot about
like you know, military training and escalating.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
And you know, even though this group kind of.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
Like seemed very low key and was like not doing anything,
you know, super scary. Like the stuff they're talking about
is concerning, and they're getting organized and they're getting to
know each other, so we put a kibosh on them.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
So it looks like, according to your research, the new
leader is this guy named Cruz Dean Walters.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah, yeah, so Cruz.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
Is marine kind of wash out who lives in McMinnville. Again,
until very recently, was living a double life. He was
living with his mom and his fiance, neither of who
knew about his racist beliefs, and now knew he was
a highly incompetent leader who you know, uh, really had
(11:15):
a tremendous number of security flaws in his organization, you know,
as is evidenced by the fact that we were able
to you know, infiltrate and destroy it in a matter
of just a few months.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
But you know, it is worth noting that, like the
group grew.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
From just a handful of people to you know, doing
banner drops with like, you know, six or seven folks
in just a couple, you know, a couple of short months.
So like, even though these groups can kind of be
benign if there winds up being somebody who is like
particularly patched it behind the channel, like they can transform
into something less benign very very quickly. And that's something
(11:53):
we want to impart to other anti fascists across the country,
is there are all these channels and they might be
seen kind of like benign now that they can turn
to something very malignant very quickly.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
I wanted to ask specifically about Cruise's radicalization. It's written
in your piece that he was radicalized in part by
the GDL, the Going Defense League, and participated in the
city council desk squads, as reported by our own Molly Conger,
and then just seemingly like just getting bored of just
calling into city council meetings to yel slur's, he then
(12:26):
like coued the organization. So I'm curious if you ever
wrote about or talked about his background with the GDL
and his like apparent boredom at their particular style of
like a white supremacist activism.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
Yeah, so he I think was just kind of like
sitting on the internet as like a fucking, you know, dorky, lonely,
sad little man, and you know, got into the GDL.
For those who have the fortune of not knowing. The
GDL is sort of this network of like really grotesque,
highly cringey, racist Twitch streamers or not on Twitch anymore,
(13:03):
but like you know there's streamers.
Speaker 1 (13:04):
Nonetheless, they've been banned from Twitch.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
But yeah, but yeah, so they have this program called
the City Council Death Squad where they will like call
into like your local city council meeting and just like
yell slurs at the bleeder municipal employees that have to
sit and watch. They did one in Corvalis, and like
watching the footage was just like watching like these like
(13:28):
grown men acting like children, like you know, hollering at
like random like city councilor twenty three or whatever. It's
it's really like pathetic. So and I think, you know,
Cruise kind of saw.
Speaker 2 (13:40):
That and many do you know, the GDL is.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Just a tremendously fucking pathetic organization. And he was like
kind of decided that he wanted to get more involved,
and he chose to get involved with WLM as opposed
to like another neo Nazi formation because WLM is like
a really really easy entry point and has a very
like you know, kind of base politic. It's not like
you know Patriot Front or an active club where there
(14:05):
are you know, membership requirements and you have to engage
in certain amounts of organizing activity or whatever. It's just
very easy for you know, your lazy Nazi to engage with.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Absolutely, it definitely feels like the lazy person's option who
doesn't want to go through the work of being vetted
by like actual like larger organizations.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Yeah, and he he took over the chapter from an
even lazier Nazi named Christian Coats who lives in Portland, Orion,
who is like this old school bonehead from the two
thousands who like has some hate crime charges from like
I think, like attempting to and failing to assault some
black teams in like two thousand and seven. So Christian
(14:46):
had in the interceding years between us destroying the initial
iteration of w Olm taking it over and basically done
like zilch with it. He posts like one photo on
the channel. Ever, but then he got taken over by
this dude Cruise who grew the organization from like just
a few people to you know, being a reasonable street
presence in a short number of months, obviously at the
(15:10):
expense of including an anti fascist Infiltrader and you know,
also just a true coterie of scumbags and idiots in
the in the group.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
One of the other guys that you've identified is I
don't know how to say his last name, but Casey
I want to say Nutson.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Oh yeah, Casey Knutson, who.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
After being kicked out of both the Proud Boys and
Patriot Front, made his own group in twenty twenty two,
the Rose City Nationalists, which is kind of the laughing
stock of all white supremacist groups in the PNW, and
the group has the group has largely fallen apart after
being just extensively investigated and exposed by local anti fascists,
almost to a comical extent.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Yeah, our psalms, Rose City Antifa and the Stunftown Research
Collective have been kind of going through and just you know,
ripping up are RCN and RCIEN is at this point
more or less just Casey and this fella named Jaron Huber,
who is an absolute like freak. He's got a bunch
(16:10):
of tattoos all over his face. He was arrested for
kicking a puppy nearly to death and beating up his
grandfather just.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Real scum back Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, they're they all have like domestic violence.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
Charges and you know, are just real nightmare folks. The
funniest thing about Rose City Nationalists is they gotten this
conflict with the Proud Boys that I believe it was
in Oregon City where they got just absolutely washed by
some drunken Proud Boys on the street. Not because of
like ideological issues, but just because they like have you know,
(16:45):
interpersonal issues between Casey and the Portland chapter of the
Proud Boys. It was, you know, they are truly just
a laughing stock and are just like you know, I
hate to use the term, but kind of like loll
coals at this point.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
No, I mean, And one thing that that you like
document is just how many of these guys are like
domestic abusers and like this is not uncommon for like
these types of fellows, but also cruz like both admitted
to stealing a gun and also abusing his wife and
threatening other family with firearms. And this is like a
trend across as so many of the people exposed in
(17:20):
these articles. Is the extent to which they're all in
viewed in like disposal abuse, child abuse. It's just it's
one of the very consistent factors.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Yeah, misogyny is you know, one of the very very
core parts of neo Nazism and white nationalism.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
And yeah, there's a really really horrible like section of
texts in our article that where Cruz discusses like.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Physically hitting his fiance and then threatening his brother with
a firearm. And yeah, it's really really common that these
people have domestic abuse charges. Multiple people in w LM
Oregon have histories of domestic abuse, including Jaron Huber and
Casey Newton Morey to other members and yeah, it's just
anytime you look at the Nazi group, there's a dude
(18:04):
who beats his wife.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
And it kind of barn on. As long as we've
been doing this work, we've been seeing it.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I'd like to talk now about the second in command
of White Lives Matter Oregon, this small business owner in
Couse Bay named Michael Witt Gaiton Byne who usually just
goes by Wit now. Witt has been a part of
the White Lives Matter Oregon banner drops, and I was
also responsible for a lot of the stickering that gets
(18:31):
done as he leaves stickers across the truck stop bathrooms
up and down the coast. Now, WIT's kind of a
fascinating fellow to me. He has shockingly bad op SEC,
kind of one of the worst examples I've ever seen.
His very easily recognized custom flatbed truck can be seen
at banner drops in August, and it even appears in
(18:52):
their own like propaganda videos for another banner drop in September.
He like talked about his just like utter disregard for
off SEC in one of the audio archives that you
have hosted on Left Goes Right. Watch what else can
you tell us about kind of wits background here.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Yeah, so Wit is a Nazi, and I believe his
mother is actually you know, he said at one point
his mother was like quote awakened to the truth about
the Jews or something like that. So he seems to
come from at the very least an anti Semitic family,
But he himself is certainly a Nazi, and I think
he has believed he can operate with impunity in kus Bay.
(19:31):
So I think it's less that he has that ob
second more, I believe he seems to think of himself
as living in a world where it's okay to be
a Nazis. We can talk a little bit more about that,
but yeah, he runs a company called Wit Industries, which
he's claimed does business from Mexico to Russia. He works
in the marine, marine and maritime industry within the Port
(19:51):
of kous Bay and Koos County. We know that he's
gotten about a quarter million dollars in public contracts, primarily
from the Port of kuz Bay, but also the Port
of Umqua, the City of North Bend, Koo's County, South
Coast Education Service District.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
That's just what we've found so far.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
It can be pretty difficult to find, you know, even
though this is public money, it can still be sort
of a pretty difficult process to get public records and
things like that.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
But you know, we know that the Port of kus Bay.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Alone has awarded him like two hundred and nineteen thousand
dollars in contracts for work ranging from hydraulics repairs and
replacements on vessels on the bridge.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
He's also painted the state dredge and the trailer and
things like that. You mentioned him using his work vehicle.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
So he he has stated, and this is from you know,
information we have from the port els Antifa infiltration. He
stated that part of his goal is to build a
white supremacist called in kous Bay. He wants to get
guys elected to mayor and city council and things like that.
And he actually was using White Lives Matter to crew
(21:00):
guys to come and work for him. He was recruiting
a guy named land and Calhoun, who is also an
alleged pedophile.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
And we got in the LIFEUS very Watch article.
Speaker 5 (21:09):
But if he got this alleged pedophile land And to
come and work for him, they met in White Lives
Matter and he said, hey, come work for an all
white organization where we can come and build the movement together.
And as far as we know, it does appear that
land And has moved there, who's planning to move there
in this fall?
Speaker 3 (21:26):
We believe he's currently there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
I like to kind of go by some of these
points one by one, because he's he's certainly like a
worrying figure. The fact that he's using his income, which
is largely derived of government contracts, to like specifically like
fund white Herm's detectivity in the PNW and like use
his own company resources to grow the number of far
right extremists in cus Bay, specifically his plans of like
(21:52):
having them eventually like occupied positions of local government. It's
a degree of like long term planning that isn't always
present in some of these types of guys. You know,
plans are one thing, but when you actually have a
business that you are like hiring people to move to
this town to like actually build this plan up like,
it shows the degree of hutspa. I guess on his
(22:13):
part that he's actually like doing this. It kind of
reminds me of the Rise Above Movements tree trimming business,
but that was just to pay bills. They had no
plans to like slowly actually just like take over a
small town. There's a lot of these businesses that are
run by Nazis that primarily hire other Nazis. But the
degree to which that Michael Wit is able to operate
(22:37):
without much oversight and just get all of this money
from local government is certainly worrying.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I know.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
He stated that one of his employees like prints out
all of his White Lives Matter stickers and has gotten
help from employees to do one banner drop outside Roseberg
and has a history of hiring far right people, conspiracy theorists,
and like monetarily supporting them to help them continue their
own far right activism.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
Yeah, and you mentioned his employees that were printing the
stickers for him. That was before he hired Land and
so yeah, he already has guys that are that are
doing this.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
And the Port.
Speaker 5 (23:12):
I think it's important to point out that the Port
of cous Bay, it's public body. The commissioners are elected
by the governor and they're confirmed by the organ Senate,
you know, or yeah, the Oregon Senate, I believe it.
So this is a state body that is giving state
funding to this nazi and I think that's really important
to name.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
It's also like just to give people.
Speaker 5 (23:33):
A little bit of the geography because it's a small
town that actually geographically takes quite.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
A while to like drive from North Bend to Coos Bay.
Speaker 5 (23:43):
And Witt lives right over by the Charleston Marina, and
we know he's pretty in bed with the marina folks there.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
There was a.
Speaker 5 (23:51):
Big organ Department of Transportation grant to the state level
that the Port had written that Wit would have.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Been one of the like people making money.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
He was written officially into this grant for it was
a three point five million dollar grant.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
That Wit was written into. Right, so they're like his friends,
you know, like they're like, yeah, they're writing him into
these grants. WIT's office is over there.
Speaker 5 (24:13):
On Ocean View Boulevard, which is right next to the
Confederated Tribes of Kuzlower m Kuan Soyslaw Indians tribal housing
office and right next to one of their casinos. And
just to give folks the terrain of where he's living
and kind of operating too.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Yeah, hello, Garrison from the future, just cutting in to
say something that Hank said, but I got a little
bit garbled in the voice modulation, so I just want
to stay a little bit more clearly here. There's some
other events that can help contextualize what Wit is doing
in kus Bay, because currently in Kous County there's this
sort of intense far right power grab that is slowly happening.
(24:52):
Some people might know of this radio host named Rob Taylor.
He's said to be one of the guys who coordinated
the breaching of the Oregon Capital in late December, which
was basically a test run for January sixth, and he's
hosted people with the far right group Patriot Prayer. He
has an old gab account, which was essentially like Nazi
Twitter before Twitter just became Nazi Twitter under Elon Musk.
(25:14):
So this guy is like very comfortable and associates with
extremely far right people as well as engaged in a
level of activism in Oregon at least. So that's Rob Taylor,
the radio guy. There's this other person named Rod Taylor
who's a Kuse County commissioner who actually was a January
sixth insurrectionist. He was arrested at the capitol on j
(25:35):
six Now Michael went to Geitonbeine has also previously employed
this guy named Matt Wilbanks who's a buddy of Rob Taylor.
He runs this blog called the Daily Resistor and also
one of the Kouse County neighborhood watch groups in the
Empire District of Couse Bay, which is mostly just focused
on like doxing and harassing homeless people. And these guys
(25:57):
are also part of various mega groups like Citizens Restoring Liberty,
and Witt himself is a part of this network. He
has attended Citizens Restoring Liberty events. He's also an admin
on a Telegram channel called the organ Patriot Alliance, which
is like this mega patriots organizing channel on Telegram. Nominally,
these mega types typically say that they are you know
(26:19):
not for Nazis. They are against Nazis, they are against pedophiles,
and yet they are associating with Wit here who employs
a pedophile and is a Nazi. But one other thing
that Hank said that I want to reiter rate is
that Kusebe is also a contested space. Although there is
this intense far right power grab happening, there's also a
(26:41):
whole bunch of other much more positive activism. Hank pointed
to the tribal communities fighting for indigenous sovereignty, as well
as environmentalist groups calling bs on the port's greenwashing of
all their projects. So it's not just that like everyone's
Nazis now in kus Bay. Yes, wit is an and
people should be concerned about that, but it is a
(27:02):
contested space home to a diverse group of people who
are also fighting for good things. We're now going to
have an ad break and then return to talk more
about White Lives Matter Oregon. Okay, we are back, and uh, Alex,
(27:26):
you said you wanted to add something on this point
about twos Bay being a contested space.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Yeah, I think one thing that is important to just
like throw on to what Hank is saying about Who's
Bay as a contested space. Is like, it's not entirely
unheard of for neo Nazis to kind of try to
do these projects of like moving a bunch of people
to certain usually rural areas to you know, try to
(27:52):
take them over, you know, most notably like Leaf, North Dakota,
where Crane Com tried to take over. But well, I
think has been shown really repeatedly is that these projects
have failed because the communities that live there, you know,
even if their rural communities, even if they're small towns,
don't have it and are willing to fight back. And
that's what we're really hoping to see from folks on
(28:14):
the Oregon South coast being willing to push back against
this sort of thing like was done in Leath and
you know, forcing these people out of the institutions they're
trying to inhabit.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, and especially with someone like Michael here, because he's
like hiring people who advocate going much farther than white
lives matter to actually engage in like paramilitary training, hiring
someone who is like not just accused of being a pedophile,
but has admitted to Michael that his family like hates
him because of an allegation that he's that he's touched someone,
and that Michael himself witnessed this guy Calhoun being quote
(28:48):
unquote hands on with an eight year old girl while
they were meeting together in Cuspe. There's like that side
of it. And then you have him like posting on
telegram about like wanting the day of the rope to
come fast, kind of like an old like Nazi slogan
about like racial like lynchings and like furthering racial conflict,
as well as like sharing instructions from the Meme Waffen
(29:09):
telegram channel about how to make Maltov cocktails. I believe
we've talked about Meme Waffen on the show before. So
he's like doing all of this type of stuff that's
like so much more obviously objectionable, while also trying to
like make like space for himself within like the mega community,
right being the admin of this Oregon Patriots Alliance telegram channel,
which is like also an attempt just to like further
(29:30):
the radicalization of these like mega centric members by like
inundating them with more explicit kind of fascistic propaganda, but
on like a slower level. And then there are multi
million and multi billion dollar government projects to improve the
port that is expected to receive funds from And I
feel like this is something that's pretty pretty objectionable and
it should be easy to stop, but it requires like
(29:52):
attention and it requires a degree of public pressure to
make sure that the government, both state and federal, are
not giving to like an explicit neo nazi who hires
alleged pedophiles to fund like right wing activism across the
Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Yeah, totally, And I think it's important to point out too,
like you know, cous Bay is in this process.
Speaker 5 (30:14):
They have the Innermodal Port of kus Bay, which is
like a two point three billion dollar project where they
want to become like you know, they want to be
as big of a port as Oakland, California or whatever.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
And you know, one of the things, I mean, my understanding.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
From talking to folks in cus Bay is that it's
just greenwashed capitalism that will be destructive to the environment.
It won't actually bring the community the kind of like
people are like what about bike lanes, you know, like
there's like community infrastructure people want in cus Bay and
dredging the port is not that, you know. And I
think there's also like a couple of examples of that
(30:51):
is it will destroy eel grass, which is a really
important marine habitat and also source of storage carbon. It'll
destroy indigenous cultural resources or impact those spaces. And you know,
we haven't seen the exact financials yet for what this
project will be, but it's a two point three billion
dollar project that involves dredging, you know, which is.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Sort of deepening and widening the port and the channels.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
And we know that Witt has gotten money, for example,
to work on the state dredge and do work on it.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
So I think it's very.
Speaker 5 (31:23):
Possible that Wit would be until the Port takes the
stand and says, hey, we're not funding this Nazi who
uses his work truck to do Nazi stuff. I think
people should be really concerned about this port money going
back to help build a Nazi community that he's trying
to build there.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, and like to your previous point, like the fact
that he's able to be so flagrant about his white
supremacist beliefs, the way that he doesn't feel like he
needs to care about OPSEC because he has a job
that's like irreplaceable, Like he provides a service to this
community that he feels like no one else can do.
Therefore he is secure in that, like you can't allow
them that level of comfortability, and that's something that has
to be like opposed due to both like public pressure
(32:05):
and research that like you have done, as well as
the crucial work from Corbel Sentivo.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Yeah, you know, I think just to add to like,
like groups like the Oregons Bay Area, which is like
a popular Facebook group has been doing a really great
job like raising just talking about with and what's going on.
I think largely we really haven't seen much response from
the Port of kus Bay or the governor who's confirming
(32:31):
these commissioners, Like largely the sort of institutions of power
are not yet responding, and so I think that's something
that both local folks in Kusbey could be pressuring and
also at a statewide level, right, Like this is state
funding and the Port of Causbe development has.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Federal funding too, But I think those are places where
where there could really.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Be a lot more pressure being applied, and I think
a lot more people should be talking about all of
this as well, as we mentioned earlier, you know, with
WIT claims to have a reputation and work and.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
Contracts all up and down the entire West coast.
Speaker 5 (33:08):
So certainly if they're listeners in here in Oakland or
Alaska or Washington or wherever you might.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
Be who know the name Wit.
Speaker 5 (33:15):
Gayton Vine or Wit Industries, and you want to send
in a tip to Cornell's Antifa.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Or whatever like us right watch, we would be.
Speaker 5 (33:22):
Really happy to hear what you know about this guy,
because we know we know he's working in other communities,
which we would love details or.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Any tips folks might have.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah, would either of you like to kind of add
anything else before we close out and point people towards
both your work and where to send information to.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Yeah, I guess the thing that I would just close
out with is WLM is not just an organ problem,
it's a national problem. I know this podcast reaches folks
all across the country.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
If you are somebody who is Antifa curious or.
Speaker 4 (33:55):
Is interested in making a difference in your community, it's
a group with really verbal security.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Culture, and it might be worth taking a gander at that.
And then you know, God.
Speaker 4 (34:06):
It feels so silly to do a podcast plug, but
please check out our work at CV Antifa dot no
blogs dot org. We're also on Twitter, at CV against
fash and Instagram at CV Antifa, and you know, we
have lots of articles exposing neo Nazis in Oregon and
across the country, and you might just find somebody in
(34:26):
your community who sucks.
Speaker 5 (34:28):
Thank Yeah, I'll just add, you know, if you want
to see the of course, the leftist right Watch article
gives a really deep dive on what and also information
for public use has posted like the financials, so if
you really want to like get into the numbers, it's
worth looking there. And yeah, just to reiterate, I mean,
I think Kosbay and so many other places are really
(34:48):
contested spaces, and I think these Nazis want us to
believe that they're in charge and that they're powerful, and
they have this idea that they can operate with impunity
and it's really not true. Like we've seen small and
rural towns take down Nazis all over this country, and
I think that will continue. And I think that, yeah,
(35:08):
like what tactics in ways people might do that from
place to place can look different.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
But I just you know, encourage folks to.
Speaker 5 (35:16):
Dig into your local Nazis and get together and figure
out how to how to mess them up. You know,
and it's a it's a good way to have fun
with your friends. And uh, and we can do it,
you know, and and we need we need to be
doing it. I mean, there just shouldn't be state money
going to help a Nazi build a white supremacist utopia.
I mean, that's the that's the history of this country, right, Like,
(35:38):
that's the history of.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Colonization, that's the history of Oregon specifically. So yeah, it's
a time to do something else.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
Yeah, and antifa isn't just for you big city folk,
you know those most of living rural communities can and.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
Should be involved in these struggles.
Speaker 4 (35:54):
And it is something that like, is not just something
that happens in Portland.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
People in rural ore are.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Doing anti fascism and we'll continue to do it and we'll.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Continue to win.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Thank you both so much. I will leave links to
your orgs and your articles in the description below. Thank
you for listening. And yeah, if you are anti fa curious,
give it a shot. It is indeed, then it could happen.
Speaker 6 (36:21):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can now find
sources for it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions.
Thanks for listening.