Are NGOs the tools of foreign agents?

They're supposed to help people across the planet -- so why doesn't everyone trust NGOs?

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back. This is the show about the stuff they
don't want you to know. My name is Matt uh Hi.

(00:23):
I'm Ben. I don't know why I did it that way.
I thought it was pretty good. Did I mess up
your flow? No? No, the flow was great. Yeah. I
thought you were killing it, you know, I was telling
you this earlier. Ben, I've been listening to way too
much sin Bay and uh, just get it out of
your system. Just do it, man, I'm not I'm not gonna.

(00:43):
I'm not gonna do it because I would butcher anything
that that. Man. Just do the one part. Uh No,
I see because a lot of it. I can't even
quote a lot of the music that in the rap
that I've been listening too lately, thanks to you, sir,
I can't quote anything, and I can't listen to it
loud the way I want to. In my car piece
piece piece, that's the best one that I can say

(01:04):
that your okay. Well, So anyway, today we're talking about
n g O S Yes, non governmental organizations and front companies,
now front companies. This is a subject that we've tackled
before via video, and it's something that happens all the

(01:27):
front companies happen all the time, and they're designed so
that you would never know. That's the whole point of them.
And really, if you look around you you're probably looking
at one right now. Somewhere there's one. There's a sign
somewhere in your vision that maybe a front company for something, right,
And it's important for us to point out, of course,

(01:49):
that not all front companies are illegal. This is a
time honored business practice. You know, quite a few corporations
own multiple uh finger quote competing brands, from your local
grocery store to your local car dealership. And the idea

(02:10):
of this is that they can make money off either
end of your decision. Yeah, and and they can also
make money at various points in the process of say
manufacturing a product or and then selling a product or
just if you think about the life cycle of something
like a computer, right, a massive corporation could own parts

(02:32):
of the software, could own parts of the hardware, could
own even parts of the users experience that happens outside
of either of those and Uh, that's that's really good
point that is often called we're talking about horizontal vertical integration, right, sure,
and of first owns the trees. Yeah, I know, that's great. Yeah,

(02:52):
And you should also remember that front companies come in
all different sizes. You could have, you know, a little
bodega that, let's say is a front company for I
don't know, selling drugs. Then you could have right, thank
you Dave Chappelle for teaching me about that. And then
you know, you could have something like a non governmental
organization that functions all over the world that might be

(03:16):
a front for an intelligence agency. Right. And that's where
we get to the heart of it. That's where we
get to the stuff they don't want you to know
about NGOs. So, by our definition of front company is
a subsidiary or shell company that shields another UH company
or entity from liability or scrutiny. One example I was
thinking about this in the United States would be a

(03:39):
lot of people have a problem with the Koch brothers, right,
but the Koch brothers own a boatload of companies because
we're a family show. I'm saying boatload of companies. I
saw you in your head trying to decide which word
I got close. Yeah, but this and and I'm not
saying one thing one way or the other about their
out fit politically or morally, but I am saying that

(04:04):
when you are a business of that level, there are
also a lot of clever accountability and responsibility things you
can get away with. In their case, a lot of
it's probably taxation. But in the case of something like
an intelligence agency, we're talking more about um being able

(04:24):
to have plausible deniability. And this takes us to something
that we were very interested in earlier when we did
a video on Russia and in g O's because the
number one man in Russia and that there are polls
that proved that recently ruffled some international feathers. Right, that's right.
He passed some laws requiring that foreign based NGOs and

(04:49):
foreign sponsored NGOs register and submit themselves to this higher
level of scrutiny that they weren't subject to before, because
he suspects that there are intelligence agencies working inside of them,
maybe just small little bits like an agent here, an
agent there. But uh, you know, he seems to think

(05:10):
that he's got some pretty good evidence, or at least
he truly believes it. Now We had some comments on
our video that came out about this lassie where one
person in particular, I can't remember your name right now,
but you said, why are you calling these pro democracy?
That's not cool. What I should have taken pains to
do is say that that's how the West presents them. Uh.

(05:32):
This was not an attempt by us to manipulate people,
but that is that is how the West presents these groups. Oh,
they're they're just idealistic students banning together for uh vague words. Yeah.
In the US, if you use in that word democracy,
it's one of those words that we've talked about in

(05:55):
the previous episode about perhaps thought what is it? What
is the thought term inating cliche? Yeah, I mean you
just use that word democracy here in the West and
especially in the US, it's uh, everything else around that
word seems. Oh that's totally fine, that's good. Yeah, it's
like hitting base in the great tag game of rhetoric.
You know, freedom, liberty, dignity, honor. I would say maybe,

(06:20):
with the exception of dignity, all three of those words
are incredibly malleable, and they've been used to make a
lot of strange things. I mean, let's not forget that
the official name of North Korea is the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea R right. Yes, and before we get
too far off topic, you know, thank you for writing

(06:42):
in and telling us that you want to clarify that. Also,
one of the big questions is is Vladimir Putin crazy?
I mean, we're not gonna say he's not an angel,
but we do know that, Uh, this question, this concern
of his, Uh, he's not the first to have it,

(07:02):
and uh maybe it sounds crazy as it sounds, So
that's the question for you. Uh, having GEO has been
used this way before as cover. Yes, yes, absolutely they have.
Oh okay, yeah, Back in the day, the CIA would
secretly fund sometimes they'd create often they would even run
supposedly private NGOs, and they'd make propaganda with these things.

(07:27):
They would provide cover cover for agents and operations all
over the place. One example would be the National Endowment
for Democracy or ned AH. Yes, their website describes them
as a private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and
strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. That sounds great,
it sounds beautiful. Yeah, but it turns out that this

(07:52):
group came about in the wake of some dirty revelations
about the CIA. Someone finally got into that dust closet
survived to tell the tale, and we learned about attempted
assassinations on heads of state, actions successful and unsuccessful at
destabilizing foreign governments, illegal spine. Way before anybody knew about

(08:16):
the level of spine that we would have today. Yeah,
way before there were concerns about any of that stuff.
And it led to the formation of the Select Committee
to supervise the agency to the CIA, and the Select
Committee on Intelligence is this purpose was to oversee the
federal intelligence stuff like that all of their activities and

(08:37):
and while oversight and stability came in, it seemed to
signal that the CIA, at least their uh, their party,
that they were having over there assassinating people and uh
all kinds of coups and plots that they were forming.
It seems like it was over. It seemed that way. Ah.
But here's here's one of the problems with this. The

(08:58):
the idea of intervening in the affairs of a foreign
government outside of the declarations of war has always been very,
very sticky. It's one of those rules that many governments
seemed to break, some more than others. But uh, you know,
there's no secret that most countries, even allies, have have

(09:21):
a couple of backup plans in case something goes wrong,
and they always want to have more information, right. They
want an asymmetrical uh information relationship mean they want to
know more than even their friends know. Uh, and they
don't want to tell other people. So spine is part
of the game. Uh. So they didn't really stop spying. No,

(09:44):
they started in g O's Uh. Like as we said,
the National Endowment for Democracy was meant to be part
of US foreign policy from the jump. Uh. The guy
who made it was named Alan Weinstein. He worked at
Brown Georgetown beforehand, the Washington Post, the Washington Quarterly, the

(10:05):
Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies. Uh, and he
also had some ties with Zebeg new Brazilski and Henry Kissinger.
In Matt this guy says a lot of what we
do today was done covertly twenty five years ago by
the CIA, so he admits it. Well, there we go.

(10:26):
We have a guy who ran one of these NGOs
talking about it and admitting to it. And of course
we have to say, I feel like you and I
both should point this out Uh, we're not saying that
all NGOs are bad. Just like we said in the video.
It's such a large definition, right, there are millions of
them best in the US. Right, So, uh, we're just

(10:50):
talking about the ones that you could think of as
the squeaky wheels. You could say that we're just talking
about the bad ones, or you could say that we're
just talking about the ones they got caught. Both of
those would be true. Well, there you go, Thank you,
thank you for that copy of ben. I think we're safe.
So there are a couple other places where NGOs were
accused of being clandestine, like in egypt Um where these

(11:14):
U S proxies and two two thousand twelve were basically
looked at and said and they said, hey, some fishiness
going on here. Like who specifically, Well, Salon, as in
Salon dot com specifically lists the Center for International Private
Enterprise c i PE, the International Republican Institute, and the

(11:37):
National Democratic Institute. There's democratic in there again, and also
the a f L c i OS Free Trade Union Institute,
which this one had a long history of working closely
with the CIA. Now, ladies and gentlemen, listening to this show,
you'll start to notice a pattern. A lot of these
means are just vague, kind of dry sounding. How could

(11:59):
you are you with them? Positive? Just yeah, yeah, you
know it would be like the Southwestern Association for Good Things, right,
How would you disagree with that? Or the International Coalition
for Fun Times. You know, I, I know I'm being

(12:20):
a little bit cynical, but the thing of the matter
is that there's so many institutions like this, not just
think tanks, right, And we know that think tanks play
a instrumental role in policy, especially in the West, but
they're they're all around us and in many ways for
the average person, at least here in the United States,

(12:42):
these are unknown factors that are moving the world in
ways we don't really imagine, and you can't see it
most of the time. No, It's like what I c
P said about music. Do you remember that? Yeah, time
and a Place is that? How does it work? Yeah? Right? Um? Now,

(13:07):
I know we've also probably got some listeners who are saying, hey, guys,
I volunteered with the nin GIO, or I have worked
with the nin GIO, I was in the Peace Corps
for instance, or something like that, and we are not
at all saying that you were involved in some sort
of skull degree. Nor are we saying that many of
these organizations are inherently bad. The Peace Corps actually, because

(13:30):
of concerns about this, they have a a pretty strong
stance on anyone with military experience trying to join the Core.
They can't let it happen because if it, if in
any way they're in GEO is seen as a UM
as seen as a threat or a compromise or tool

(13:51):
of US policy, then a lot of innocent people could die. Frankly,
well yeah, and a lot of their good work that
they do wouldn't be able to be done because I
get kicked out of places. Probably. So what do you
think though? This is one of my favorite parts of
the show, And what what do you think about Vladimir
Putin's claim? I think I don't think he's crazy. I

(14:13):
think he's paying attention. I mean, you gotta remember, every
country does this. It's not just the US putting people
in NGO's intelligence companies. He I'm sure he has done
it during his decades with the k g B. Oh. Yeah, well,
I'm sure he knows things. I'm sure there's intelligence that
he has that you and I don't have. UM. You know,
and it's it's also this weird thing because just the

(14:36):
fact that an intelligence agency works with an NGO doesn't
mean it's bad, because you get intelligence needs to be
gathered by you know, the good guys, whatever that means,
by the side that you know that is represented by you.
It's a great thing if your country or your whatever
it is that you live under his gathering intelligence. It's

(14:58):
gonna keep you safer the rightically, theoretically, But the bad
thing is when it's abused. And you know, that's a
that's a tough subject as well, are a tough thing
to really think about. How do you abuse an intelligence agency? Well,
assassinations seems to be an abuse, right, yes, and that's

(15:18):
I think that's well said in their defense, because we
do want to show both sides of this argument. The CIA,
we found some quotations from their website regarding in geos.
They have a fairly extensive, um thorough explanation their stance,
and one of their big concerns seems to be how
they share information within geos, what sort of information they share?

(15:42):
All right, And here's that quote. Information sharing is part
of a larger story of the rise of NGOs and
they're growing competence of the need for reform of intelligence
culture so that government analysts are rewarded for integrating all
available source material into their work and engaging with non
governmental experts, and of globalization, where agile partnerships between formal

(16:04):
state structures and civil society are constantly emerging. The need
to share is recognized by government and NGOs. It already
occurs in many places between professionals who have learned to
cross this cultural divide. Ah, there we go. That last
sentence might be the most important there, Matt, the cultural divide, Right,

(16:27):
it already occurs, I think too. It already occurs between
professionals who have learned to cross the cultural divide. So
what they're implying here, of course, is that, uh, the
CIA and various NGOs have already worked together extensively, and
that's that's understood. We also know that other intelligence agencies

(16:49):
and other countries are doing this as well. But what
it really says to me is that the CIA isn't
necessarily inside a lot of these ngo those, or at
least the little tendrils of these NGOs. They're just gathering
the information from the people who are not maybe not
officially CIA operatives or on the payroll, maybe just assets. Yeah,

(17:12):
they're just they are they're sharing this information between that
cultural divides. What it seems. Well, they could also be moonlighting,
Let's remember, because the best sort of covert intelligence operative
is the one that nobody knows about. Right. I I
know this. I know this sounds so paranoid and and

(17:33):
so much like uh Cold War mentality, But it is
true that this stuff came from the Cold War, and
it's also true that it still happens. So one of
my concerns or something I'd like people to think about
after you listen to this show, is that when you
hear about protests rising in countries, you know, the so

(17:56):
called Arab Spring for instance, and when you or about
protests in Eastern Europe brother hotspots around the world, it's
important to ask yourself how did these come about? Where
did these groups come from? Where do they derive their income? Uh?

(18:17):
And you know, even in the case of terrorist groups
that have formed, Like one thing that was really interesting
about that isis video we did is when we found
out that people have claimed they had their funding from
robbing a central bank and then said, yeah, we're not
really sure that that happened, right. Yeah, So we have

(18:40):
access to so much information now that it's very easy
to get uh, sort of overwhelmed. But ask yourself the
next time that you hear, oh, the uh, Students Union
for a Better Republic of Democratic Freedom has started protests
and and the government is reacting violent, like you know,

(19:00):
an insert country here, Maybe look them up and see
see where they come from, and who funds them, and
how long they've been around and what they want, you know,
look at leaflets. It's so interesting to look at the
small groups organizing and say that what you mentioned, the
Arab spring in Egypt, it's interesting when you look at

(19:22):
the materials that were handed out. And then also remember
when the Occupy protests were going on here in the
United States and you had hipped me to reports that
there were people planted in the crowd who were trying
to incite violence. Was that ever proven agent provocateurs? Yeah,

(19:42):
it's difficult to prove an agent provocateur. One thing that
I have found through various studyings of video is look
at the boots. Look at the shoes. Yeah, yep, because
they're specifically issued shoes for police officers. And if you
if you suspect an agent provocateur. Look at the shoes.

(20:06):
That's so. That's so strange though, because you would think
that if someone were doing something like that, they would
have also considered their outfit. You would think that the
best evidence that I've seen, that's how that's how you
prove it, but not in a court of law, just
to you know, the hearts and minds of people that
want to believe that that was an agent provocateur. So

(20:28):
now it's time for us to hear what you guys think.
We're really fascinated by this, this concept of these protests
groups maybe not being quite what they seem because it's
something that I don't know about you, but it reminds
me of that propaganda book, you know, fomenting discent, yes,

(20:51):
against a certain thing, but then you can manipulate that
descent if you if you can steer the group right.
Yeah by written by the father of public relations, who
we seem to continually return to on this show. But
enough about us, uh, let us know what you think
about the idea of these uh four an NGOs or

(21:11):
even protest groups being something more than they appear to be.
Have you ever worked at an NGO? Tell us about it.
Do you ever see anything weird or maybe you can't
tell us about it? We'd love to hear either way. Yeah,
that's a really good point. We'd also love to hear
any ideas you have for upcoming topics or episodes that

(21:32):
we should cover. And oh, we should just take a
moment too and say thank you so much for writing
to us about the ghost story. We appreciate that we
will hopefully be doing that more. Right, No, all super
producer and all not given a shout out to our
super producer Noll. He just raised, uh raised a hand
in solidarity there. Okay, alright, So on that note, we

(21:58):
are heading out for the week. We hope you have
a good one. If you are a fan of the internet,
check out our stuff. You can find us on Twitter
and Facebook, where we are always posting things that don't
always make it into our show. We just had some
revelations about some just uh long lost ships discovered in
the Arctic and possible identity of Jack the Ripper, although

(22:21):
we're pretty skeptical. Yeah, we're a little skeptical that. And
then also, uh, everything that they're finding in Stonehenge. Oh man,
that is cool. Yeah, this is probably old news by
the time you hear this episode, but check out our
Facebook for the latest things that you might not see
on the mainstream news. Oh and one last thing, I
would like to say thank you from Ben and I

(22:43):
to all of you if you subscribe to our YouTube channel,
because as of this publishing, we should be at two
hundred thousand subscribers. That's amazing. Yeah. I I know that
that might not be a big deal to a lot
of people, but we are pro foundly grateful because just
being a couple of guys on the internet, well, I

(23:05):
don't I didn't think either of us expected. I don't understand.
We appreciate it and it's amazing and join us as
we continue searching the void for those dark things they
don't want you to know. You can email us, use
that old email. It's okay, it's not gonna hurt you.
It's it's it's fine. We are conspiracy at how stuff

(23:26):
works dot com. From more on this topic another unexplained phenomenon,
visit test tube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You can
also get in touch on Twitter at the handle at
conspiracy stuff.