November 18, 2025 • 55 mins
Ben here, with a Classic episode. Fellow Conspiracy Realists, way back in 2019 I asked Matt and Noel what we really know about the US Civil Rights movement. Our exploration remains relevant today: The US Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s sparked nationwide protests, marches and action, resulting in fundamental changes for a nation that had long touted democracy and equality abroad while oppressing vast swathes of its own citizens at home. It remains one of the most significant times in recent history, but there's another twist to the story -- half a world away, the USSR joined the movement... though its intentions for dong so were anything but altruistic.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Folks has often said that history may not repeat itself,
but it does rhyme. George Lucas. That's George Lucas. Yeah,
the same one from Star Wars or different George's one.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, yeah, I bet you. There's some.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
There's some other, probably more than one. There's probably a
group of people named George Lucas, and that just haunts them.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm more of a fan of Lucas George myself. There's
probably several Lucas. Georgie's out there is Georgia. It's a
viable last name.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Sure, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I know a guy with last name George. Several Actually,
like it's weird. He's cool, he's cool. He used to
rap with me. Oh cool?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Who was his first name? Boy?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
No, no different George. I wonder a great example.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Also a great example. And here's an example of what
we argue is history repeating itself or rhyming with itself. Possibly.
This is our episode from twenty twenty on Russia's can
your raittorial involvement with the US Civil Rights movement?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It sounds crazy, but we made a whole episode about it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's real.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul. Mission
control decands, most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
We're coming to you somewhat live from a dark, stormy
mid morning here in Atlanta, Georgia. And you know, one
(01:59):
of the things I think we've all been thinking about
in our crew is that history is a disturbing thing.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Some things are further away than they seem. Others are
much more recent than people, governments, and institutions would like
to admit. I mean, just think about this. You know,
April nineteen ninety was more than thirty years ago, and
as recently as the nineteen sixties, black citizens in the
(02:30):
United States were legally prevented from voting. This struggle against
institutionalized discrimination, racism, oppression. It continues today, and this struggle
is often collectively referred to as the Civil Rights Movement.
The story of amazing people struggling against massive systemic forces
(02:52):
hell bent on making sure the practice of the law
did not measure up to the promises it made. And
there is something else to this story about civil rights
in the nineteen sixties. It's a twist you won't find
in most history books. But first things first, here are
the facts.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Yeah, so, I mean, just a little bit on what
the civil rights movement is. I think probably most people
are very familiar with this, but just to lay a
little bit of groundwork in context the civil rights movement,
it's generally referred to a series of strategies and activities
taken up by many different groups in the United States
between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty eight in order
to end racial segregation and discrimination in the country, while
(03:33):
also acquiring legal recognition for the rights that are already
guaranteed under the Constitution. And again, as we can see
just by turning on the news today, we've still got
a ways to go before those things are really and
truly accomplished. But it's crazy how between nineteen fifty four
(03:55):
and nineteen sixty eight so much work was done and
progress was made in a relatively short period of time.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
And while the.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Aims of the movement centered on justice for the African
American community. They also push for equal rights for people
of all races.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, it's astonishing when you think about it. Despite centuries
of oppression through institutions and through physical violence and more,
a single generation was able to influence crucial legislation, was
able to profoundly shift attitudes of a prejudice culture. And
(04:32):
when this generation is doing it, they didn't have the Internet,
they didn't have social media or any of the modern
tools of communication that most people listening use every day.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yeah, we can't really overstate how important and crucial the
Internet has been in so many modern uprisings, from the
Arab Spring to what we're seeing now with the protests
in the United States and across the world. So much
sparked and proliferated by social media Twitter and in stace
Facebook videos, you know, live streams, the access to information instantly,
(05:05):
that just wasn't the case in these days. So it's
extra impressive and just really astonishing at how much was
accomplished without those tools.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, it really shows the importance of anyone who had
a camera, who was willing to use that camera. You know,
from fifty four to sixty eight people who were willing
to write words and release them in a publication about
what was happening the struggles of the civil rights movement.
Then they were going up against some intense issues. And
(05:37):
just some examples of those if you look at what's
known as the Jim Crow laws that existed in a
lot of Southern states within the US. These were laws
that blatantly reinforced and propped up white supremacy within those
Southern states, and in particular, there's legislation that existed that
(05:58):
did things like kept schools and other public places racially segregated.
Laws that tried to or attempted and were effective in
preventing black people from voting. There were things like pulling taxes,
literacy tests and you know, think about that, a literacy
test in order for you to be able to cast
(06:18):
your vote as a citizen of a country.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And by literacy test, that's not like the quick red
fox jumps over the lazy brown dog or whatever that's
that's saying, hey, read this mandarin, this thing literally written
in mandarin, or you can't vote.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
And honestly, even if it was more basic than that
or something, you know, not obviously completely set up for
someone to fail. I mean, you know, the folks that
were being forced to take these tests didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Have access to the same level of education.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
That you know, people of other races did, so it
was set up to fail even if you didn't push
it to those egregious levels.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You know, yes, and you know, as egregious as that is.
There were also laws that would prevent you possibly from
marrying the person that you love or that you wanted
to marry, if that person was not of the same
race as you.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, misigenation, right.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, and it is just you know, it's unthinkable in
these days, those kinds of laws. But that wasn't the
only these were And by the way these laws were
struck down through the efforts of all of these people,
or at least to the most part, the laws were stricken.
But it doesn't mean attitudes fully changed, right, And it
wasn't the only thing they were up against.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Right, And there are you know, now here in twenty twenty,
we as a species are seeing the same patterns enacted again,
like violence against citizens.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The galvanizes communities and organizations to push for change.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Consider the case of.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Emmitt Till, fourteen year old boy a black child who
was from Chicago traveled down to the town of Money,
Mississippi to visit relatives. He was forcibly removed from his
relatives home. He was brutally beaten, he was tortured, he
was ultimately murdered. And when this case received national attention
(08:20):
in the media, it galvanized the movement. It got people
out into the streets and into their communities. Then there's
the issue, of course, like you mentioned Matt school segregation,
specifically cases like Brown versus the Board of Education. And
these are just a few cases. There are many, many more.
These are just like some of the notable incidents that
(08:43):
children are taught about, hopefully taught about in school today.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Well, and not to mention things like the ku Klux
Klan were essentially just so enmeshed within these power structures.
Like police officers in the South were often also members
of the ku Klux Klan, and their agendas would be aligned.
You know, they certainly wouldn't necessarily wear their you know,
(09:08):
ku Klux Klan hoods while on duty, but then they
would go carry out whatever maybe they didn't feel comfortable
doing in their officers' uniforms after hours.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You know, they would take the law into their own hands.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
And you know, I've talked about this in the show before,
but the Watchmen series on HBO really does a fantastic
job of even though it's like a you know, sci
fi comic book based type series, it does an incredible
job of painting a picture of what this dynamic was like.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
And of course, these laws, these power structures, that's what
they are. They're power structures, right, They're they're meant to
mandate the way an individual is treated by a society
and mandate the way an individual inner society treats other
(10:00):
members of their own society. These are white supremacist power structures,
and they are older than this country. The white supremacist
here in the US and the time of civil rights
initially had a massive advantage. They controlled the media at
the time, they controlled vast swaths of industry because originally
(10:22):
they were the only people who could own the land
right and who could own the businesses, and that naturally
leads to them owning the government in practice, even though
that's not what it's supposed to be on paper. If
you read the legal documents found in this country, and
these forces opposed to the push for equality during the
(10:45):
Civil Rights movement, they did use all the levers of
power at their disposal, legal and criminal. They wanted to
squash the movement, and when possible, they wanted to terrify
or vilify any allied, non black groups that may empathize
with people seeking equality. I mean not just talking about
other like groups that were out marching. We're talking about
(11:08):
people who were listening to the radio or watching television
at their house. They would be you know, bombarded with
headlines about the dangers of unrest, right and it makes
me think a little bit about like workers' rights, you know,
struggles like with you know, union busting and things like that.
And I only mention that because it's another example of
(11:30):
if people in power have something to lose by some
level of organization, they will do whatever they can to
squash that by any means necessary. And obviously this is
much more of a human rights you know, like it's
so much more deeply entrenched thing. It's more than just
controlling money and power. There is a deep seated hatred
(11:54):
and racism in those in power that really fueled a
lot of this behavior as well. Not just the money
and not just the idea of controlling you know, workers
and things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
I just I'm inherently distrustful often of any anybody that
has so much to lose, you know, by people asking
for the right thing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
To be done.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
So, I don't know, it's a little easy to get
disenchanted with all this kind of stuff, but it's also
incredibly inspiring to look into the history of some of
the groups and the individuals that really took this movement
to the next level and created this, you know, blueprint
for where we are now, at least in terms of
activism and not accepting this kind of status quo.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah. One of the first groups you could look at
were called the Freedom Writers. It was a group that
got together on May fourth, nineteen sixty one, group of
people from varying walks of life, different races, who left Washington,
d C. On a bus. They were headed toward New
Orleans and along the way there were actions taken on
(13:04):
the bus that seem you know, it seems very strange
to talk about it today in twenty twenty, but literally
changing where they were sitting on the bus became a
revolutionary act. There were white freedom Writers who moved to
the blacks only section on that bus and black writers
(13:26):
who moved to the whites only section on the bus.
And it was it was something that angered people who
who knew that these meet these norms that were in place,
and these regulations were in place, and they knew what
they were doing was violating the norms, right, the the
(13:49):
you can't really call them regulations, but the rules that
were put forth on that particular bus and in buses
everywhere in especially the South. They knew what they were
doing was perfectly legal according to a recent Supreme Court
case or several Supreme Court cases. But they also knew
that there would be people who would be so angry
(14:12):
that this action was being taken. They were just hoping
that the government or they were testing to see whether
or not the government would respond to help them just
prove that these things. You know, it does not matter
where anybody sits on the bus.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, yeah, because again, an eloquently written line or two
of legal ease feels good, right, it feels good to
know that's real. But how much does it matter. It
matters when it is enforced, right, it matters when it
is upheld. So the freedom writers, you know, we're mentioning
(14:50):
some groups, notable individuals. There are many, many, many more
stories were just giving you a high level look at
civil rights in the nineteen sixties. These people, like you said, Matt,
they knew what they were doing was legal, but they
did not know whether it would be enforced or whether
the people who were supposed to enforce the law would
indeed do their jobs. They knew their lives were on
(15:12):
the line, and they were beaten. The buses were you know,
people were throwing stones at them, their tires were slashed.
More than three hundred Freedom Writers were arrested during the trip,
and it never finished its trip to New Orleans ultimately.
So that's that's one group. Maybe we can talk about
some of the notable individuals associated with the movement.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Where we record in Atlanta, Georgia is often kind of
referred to as one of the cradles of the civil
rights movement. That's largely because of doctor Martin Luther King Junior,
who was a Baptist minister and the first president of
the Southern Leadership Conference or the SCLC, and you know,
considered probably the most prominent leader. There's even discussion of
(16:01):
her where he wouldn't have considered himself a leader, like
he was jumping off of work that had been done
by others as well, but he is, you know, history
has sort of crowned him as being the leader of
the civil rights moan. We just wanted to put that
out there that there were many leaders of the civil
rights movement and he was just probably the most front
and center one. But doctor King was incredibly instrumental in
(16:24):
executing nonviolent protests that sort of followed the practices of
Mahama Gandhi and the idea of not meeting violence with
violence and doing things like sit ins and peaceful marches
and all of that. And some of the most famous
events that he organized were the Montgomery bus boycott and
(16:46):
the nineteen sixty three March on Washington, which is where
he delivered, of course, his incredibly powerful and iconic I
Have a Dream speech, and he was in car it
was locked up many times and for an extended period
of time. When he was incarcerated for civil disobedience in
nineteen sixty three, he wrote one of his most famous texts,
(17:09):
which should be the Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he
included the famous quote injustice anywhere as a threat to
justice everywhere, and then in nineteen sixty five, he began
to speak out against America's involvement in the Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
War, and then in early nineteen sixty eight, Martin Luther
King Junior made his way to Memphis, Tennessee. It was
you know, you can get into the full story of this,
and it's probably an episode for another day. I believe
we've talked about it on this show before the day
of his assassination. I know he made a video about
it back in the day. But he went to Memphis,
(17:45):
Tennessee in support of sanitation workers there in the city
who know their safety was at risk every day they
were work, and they were being severely underpaid for the
work they were doing, and he went there to support them.
He gave a speech on April third, nineteen sixty eight.
He was at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple there in Memphis,
(18:06):
and this is where you get his mountaintop speech. I
would read a quote here, but it's actually his words
are very tightly controlled, so we probably should not include
it in this. But you can look up the Mountaintop
speech and find all of the text there. What is
important to say here is that he seemed to at
(18:28):
the end of that speech signal that he was not
going to make it to the end of the struggle
of the civil rights movement and all of these movements
that essentially he is a part of, signaling that perhaps
he wasn't long for this world. And the next day,
on April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, he was shot on
(18:50):
the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel there in Memphis, Tennessee,
a single bullet, shot in the face. And you know,
I think it's needless to say here, but that assassination
is highly contentious in a lot of places, and for
very good reason.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, highly contentious is about the most diplomatic way to
phrase that. A couple of points here. One thing that
would be a profound, provable factual illustration of institutions and
power structures at play and how they work is that
many of the same companies that fought against civil rights
(19:31):
definitely vilified leaders like doctor King, especially while he was alive,
and government agencies too. Now they're the same institutions, the
very same institutions that will cherry pick quotes and put
them up because they want to appear to be doing
(19:57):
the right thing. But don't forget you know it wasn't
that long ago that those same institutions were trying to
shut this person and this community and this movement down.
You know what I mean, The FBI broke the laws
that it made multiple times with doctor King, And you
(20:20):
know that brings us to another notable.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Figure, right.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
El Haj Malik el Shabaz born as Malcolm Little, better
known today as Malcolm X, spent ten years in prison,
and while within the prison system, he converted to the
Nation of Islam. When he was released in nineteen fifty two,
he became a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, and
today he's credited for increasing the group's membership from four
(20:47):
hundred to an estimated forty thousand over just the course
of eight years.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Yeah, and many of Malcolm X's messages were a good
bit different than those of MLK because he didn't embrace
the whole peaceful protest thing nearly to the same degree.
He saw violence as absolutely a legitimate response to violence
(21:14):
being done on his community. And you can kind of
sum it up in this quote where he says, if
violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If
it is wrong to be violent defending black women and
black children, and black babies and black men. Then it
is wrong for America to draft us and make us
violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is
right for America to draft us and teach us how
(21:35):
to be violent and defense of her, then it is
right for you and me to do whatever is necessary
to defend our own people right here in this country.
He said those words in November of nineteen sixty three
during a speech in New York City. A year later,
he left the Nation of Islam and converted to traditional
Islam while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to Mecca.
(21:57):
And when he returned to the US, he had sort
of ideologically shifted a bit and was a little more
optimistic towards the idea of a peaceful resolution to the
fight for civil rights. And you can sum that up.
And another quote that he made in February of nineteen
sixty five, he.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Said, it is a time for martyrs now, and if
I am to be one, it will be for the
cause of brotherhood. That's the only thing that can save
this country. And on February twenty first, only two days
after he said those words, he was at a New
York City ball or a place called the Audubon Ballroom,
(22:37):
and he was about to give a speech, he was
preparing for that, and you know, according to the official story,
some members of the Nation of Islam again, according to
the official story, shot and killed him. And there you know,
there are a ton of documentaries you can watch, in
books you can read about this assassination. And again, same
(22:59):
kind of deal. The official story is very contentious.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
That is extremely diplomatic of us to call it highly contentious.
I when I recommend the autobiography of Malcolm X, which
was published in nineteen sixty five. It's Malcolm X with
Alex Haley. This this is a book that should be
in your local school system.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
And you know, if you wanted to watch Netflix, there
is currently in twenty twenty, as we're recording this in June,
a series you can watch called Who Killed Malcolm X?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And again, you know, for many of our listeners in
the audience today, this this is hopefully stuff that was
already already very well known, right, but it turns out
that there is more to the story of civil rights.
It's something here in the US. It's something that doesn't
get reported in a lot of school textbooks, doesn't really
(23:58):
get mentioned almost first. Almost every single concept we have
just mentioned has conspiratorial aspects of its own, and some
of these, like the death of doctor King, have been
covered in previous episodes that we have done, and there
are tons of resources out there.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Uh, there are clear there are clear.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Uh contradictions in the official story, and then things that
we know to be facts, and we can't make any mistake.
You know, Matt, you mentioned that that idea about doctor
the speech that doctor King gave before the assassination. You
know you could interpret that also as saying, you know,
(24:43):
this is bigger than one person, right, this is this
is bigger than me. And that's correct because many people
have died. But this movement, make no mistake, it continues,
and racism is still shockingly apparent to end who bothers
to explore modern statistics. But the civil rights movement had
(25:06):
another ally. It was a foreign group halfway around the world,
and they let us know if you think they wanted
to help, because they wanted to at least appear to
assist this struggle for equality, not because they necessarily cared
about the concept of justice, but because they saw in
(25:28):
the US civil rights movement an opportunity to attack their
greatest rival, Russia, you see, had hatched a movement all
its own.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And we'll talk about that right after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Here's where it gets crazy. Let's call this the Russian angle.
The Soviet government then, as the as the Russian government
does today, excelled in what are known as covert influence campaigns.
You see, when you look at the global context here,
(26:14):
the beginning of the Civil War coincides with the beginnings
of what we've referred to as the civil rights movement today,
and the two became intertwined, both in how the USSR
sought to exploit racial strife and how the Cold War
itself propelled the cause of civil rights forward. This is
(26:39):
a fascinating story that should should be told more often.
As far back as nineteen twenty eight, the USSR saw
the stark racial inequality and divisions in the United States
as an opportunity to weaken their primary rival in what
we know of as the Cold War today.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
As far back as nineteen twenty eight, the USSR really
looked upon this divide, this racial inequality, and the struggle
that it led to as an opportunity to weaken US
as a nation. So initially, like they had a plan,
and they had sort of like a I don't know,
(27:21):
kind of a smokescreen, sort of altruistic cause that they
were hiding behind or at least using it as bait,
which was the notion of pushing for self determination in
what they're called the Black Belt. In order to do this,
they would recruit Southern individuals of color who would be
all about these aims, and a lot of this work
(27:42):
came from something known as the Common Tern or the
Communist International, which sought to spread the Communist revolution around
the world. And in nineteen thirty, the Common Turn escalated
these goals the goals of its covert and decided to
work towards establishing an entirely separate black state in the
(28:06):
Southern United States, which would kind of give them like
a base camp and a base of operations to spread
that Communist revolution to North America.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. The USSR deployed a
tactic that is still still viable today and still used today.
Starting from an understandable point like let's create it. Let's
have a racially equal society. That is, who would have
a problem with that, But then take take that movement
(28:40):
and co opt it, begin to push it to become
a vehicle for the aims of the USSR in the
Cold War.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And this is.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You know, this is like kind of a high level
origin story, but there are notable, real concrete actions that
this program took.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, there are things here. It just seems it seems
like it's out of a comic book or something to me,
the actions that were taken by the USSR in this time.
And then some of them feel like, oh, well, that's
just a good or right thing to do. But then
there's this underlying wave of you know what we keep
(29:23):
saying here, of what the true intentions were. And by
the way, we learned about this part here from an
article in The New Yorker that was written by Jilani
Cobb in twenty eighteen. It's called the enduring Russian propaganda
interests in targeting African Americans. And if you look at
that article, you're going to hear a couple of stories,
(29:45):
or a bunch of stories of specific actions taken. And
one of those was in nineteen thirty two, when the
Soviet government invited a group of black American artists, including
the poet Langston Hughes to go to Russia and to
make a movie, to make a movie that could then
be used as propaganda, both internally within the United States
(30:07):
and externally, to be sent out to other countries and
used by the Soviet Union to show how terrible and
wrong the United States was.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And it's so.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Tough because it was, I mean it was the situation
was dire and terrible, and it was going to be
used against the country as a whole and the government
in particular.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And you said the magic word, Matt, propaganda, right, there
was something we know from the evidence that the motivations
of the Soviet government at the time were also based
on what they perceived as propaganda value, and they were
(30:50):
based on exploiting people for the economic benefit of the USSR.
No follow the money. We have to remember again, like
when when this stuff is initially happening in the nineteen
thirties are the height of what I find myself increasingly
referring to as the First Great Depression. The Soviet Union
(31:13):
advertised itself in real slick, real slick ads, We're a
worker's utopia, we are free evil that ethnic, national, and
religious division. History, of course, would prove that this was not.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
True, but the propaganda worked, so in addition to luring
thousands of white American workers, the program brought over African
American workers as well, and also sharecroppers with the promise
of the freedom to work and live unburdened by the
violent restrictions of Jim Crow. So in return, they were
(31:53):
expected to help the Soviet Union build their cotton industry
in Central Asia. Several hundred individuals answered this call, and
though many eventually went back or here's you know, the
kicker died in imprisonment and in the gulags because they
(32:14):
weren't cooperating to the extent that they were expected.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Because again, this whole thing is not altruistic.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
It's a tool for you know, capitalizing on people's misfortune
in an effort to just you know, screw over the
United States. It's the most opportunistic, kind of just callous
thing I could really imagine during a time like this.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I'm just going to give you another article here to
read if you choose to do so. It's from The
New York Times, written by Jennifer Wilson in twenty seventeen,
titled When the Harlem Renaissance Went to Communist in Moscow.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And they're approving conspiracies here too. One particularly illuminating example
comes from September nineteen fifty. The governor of Arkansas at
the time with I don't want to make fun of
him for his name, but his name was Orville Fabus.
That's it's just a weird name. He deployed the National Guard,
(33:15):
the National Guard to keep nine children from integrating the
central High school they're in Little Rock. This standoff was
covered by newspapers around the world, and many of these newspapers,
to their credit, pointed out this massive discrepancy, right, not
just the discrepancy between what the law says and what
(33:37):
the people who are supposed to be the law keepers do,
but they noted the discrepancy between the values America was
expressing and spreading, in some cases forcing around the world
versus how it behaved at home, you know what I mean.
And this was a great point the Soviet the Soviet
(33:57):
factions take advantage of this opportunity. In Komsomolskaya Pravda, the
newspaper of a communist youth organization in the USSR, it
ran this story that had a lot of photographs that
were actual photographs, you know, and this wasn't photoshopped or anything,
(34:17):
and they were about this conflict, and they said with
the headline troops advance against children. That's just one but
we wanted to give you a specific source and a
specific story.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
That sounds terrible. Ben if I saw that headline, I
would be shocked.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Troops it's like mean politicians murder old lady, you know,
like that's the equivalent.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's definitely shocking.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Awe.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Right, Well, yeah, and I'm just gonna make a reference
to headlines that are circulating today as we're recording this
that are just as bad with the violence that's being
carried out against protesters. But let's you know, let's just
remember that that is happening now, that is our current situation.
(35:00):
And let's jump back to the situation. And here the
propaganda push. You know, by the way, that was just
one of the stories. Right, this is a common occurrence.
It's happening over and over and over again as other
events unfold, and the propaganda push led to international consequences
for the United States. There were things that actually happened
(35:21):
to us because of the reporting. And again it's the
same deal that it's right to report on that, but
how it's used then can be called into question. So
according to a legal historian, Mary Dudziak, and this is
a quote here, the Russian objective then was to disrupt
(35:42):
US international relations and undermine US power in the world
and undermine the appeal of US democracy to other countries.
And the propaganda was working.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Oh yeah, because because again it started to impact the
people in power. They were directly impacted. They started to
care too. Diplomats and you know, visiting countries across the globe,
US diplomats noticed that they were being increasingly questioned on
the hypocrisy of the US, Like, yes, ambassador, I see
(36:16):
your arguments about capitalism and about you know, democracy, but
everybody in the world knows about your your country's record
with this profound violence against people who want the same
thing that you're saying you're going to give to us.
(36:38):
And there's a there's a moment that history hinges upon.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Here.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
There was a tour of Latin America. Richard Nixon was there.
He was the vice president at the time, he wasn't
yet president, and he was he was, you know, going
out for like a photo op, shake some hands, make
nice internationally geopolitically, but he was greeted instead with protesters,
(37:02):
all of whom were screaming little rock at him because
they knew about this story.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Yeah, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles complained that
the situation was killing foreign policy.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
It was just really bad business.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
And that the effect that it was having on Asia
and Africa would ultimately be worse for US, the United
States than Hungary was for the Russians. Ben, with your
international affairs background, can you unpack that for us a
little bit?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yeah, I wanted to ask I wanted to ask you
all about this, and like you said, well, that is
an actual quote from the Secretary of State at the time.
It sounds like their concern is much less, Hey, maybe
we should change something and much more. Well, this is
this is making the Cold War tougher for us.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, we need to start controlling this narrative a little
more tightly. Guys.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
They're talking and you know, they're talking about domestic violence
in Hungary and how it played. Essentially, they're saying everything
but bad pr It feels like that's what they were
worried about, more so than the actual hypocrisy. But also,
unless we make the mistake of thinking that this operation,
(38:22):
the series of operations, was entirely altruistic. I think we
pointed out earlier that it wasn't. A lot of people
also don't know this, doctor Martin Luther King was the
target of a KGB campaign as well. You know, the
FBI tried numerous things to intimidate, to discredit, desmear, to depower,
(38:45):
to kill Martin Luther King. Yes, yes, exactly exactly, to
turn Martin Luther King. But the KGB wanted to exploit
him as well. They wanted to turn him into a
political insurgent against DC. And when he refused to play ball,
he found himself in a terrible situation. Both the FBI
(39:05):
and the KGB were after him, they were trying to
undermine him at the same time.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I can't imagine being in that situation. And again, like,
go back and listen to our episode on cointelpro Do.
We have other numerous episodes where you can get more
information just about some of that. You know, the FBI
and other intelligence agency's involvement in the in the civil
rights movement.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Well yeah, and then like like you know, I mean,
this stuff is unequivocally real. These organizations are ruthless and
we'll stop at nothing to exploit their quote unquote targets
or you know, their assets or whatever. And they were
both like kind of jockeying for uh, you know, turning
King and making him kind of like a tool for
(39:51):
their ends. And then you know, as as you said, Matt,
when he wouldn't play, then he made powerful, powerful enemies
on both sides. And I just you know, it just
seems like an absolutely rock in a hard place type situation.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Just you know, wouldn't wish that of my worst enemy.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
But all of this was moving towards a bigger picture
kind of end game, and we're going to talk about
what that was and how things turned out.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
After a quick word from our sponsor, we've returned.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Here's a dilemma for those of us in the crowd
who might consider, you know, consider themselves staunchly anti Russian, right,
not even anti ussr but anti Russian in general. While
this massive propaganda conspiracy was not created, let's be honest,
(40:49):
not created out of altruistic or noble reasons, it played
a huge part in the positive change that occurred in
the in the US, I mean in the fifties and sixties.
The international pressure created by these propaganda campaigns motivated US
politicians to push through things like the Civil Rights Act
(41:13):
and the Voting Rights Act and this, And do you.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Know why they did that.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Didn't do it because they said, Hey, that's right, this
is the right thing to do. These politicians and policymakers
did this because they thought it was an issue of
national security. It was a military motivation.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
American leaders made refuting the Soviet narrative about American racism
a national security issue critical for maintaining US international leadership
and promoting relationships with what was then called the Third World.
And it wasn't a small impact either.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, we've got a specific quotation here. This is on
the legal record. The US literally admitted what you said,
mat It wasn't a backdoor congress. In their amicus brief
for Brown versus Board of Education, which we mentioned at
the top of the show, they said the following.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
Quote, racial discrimination has an adverse effect upon our relations
with other countries. Racial discrimination has furnished grist for the
communist propaganda mills, and it raises doubts even among friendly
nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the
democratic faith.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Oh, that's a lot to unpack.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Sounds kind of fanatical too, doesn't it.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
I never heard it referred to as the Democratic faith.
That's like very cultish sounding, and it's very much saying, hey,
the only reason we should maybe calm down some of
this systemic racism is because of the pr stuff that
Matt was talking about earlier.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
If you really think about it, these moves against the
United States, the government and the system as a whole,
like in an attempt to weaken hurt the power of
the US. The end result here was that the Soviet
Union improved the United States. It made it a better place.
(43:14):
Even if it was just incremental, it was noticeable and
measurable the positive change that their propaganda campaigns had on
the US.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So, when you think about it, by attempting to weaken
or destroy the United States, the USSR actually made it
a better place. That is one of the strangest, most
important points to take away from this, right.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
Yeah, I mean, you know, whatever the motivation, right, we
talked about the pr ness of the whole thing, and
how oops, we better do a better job because it's
making us look bad to other countries. But then whatever
the reasoning behind it is, it did affect some change.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Does that cheapen it? I don't know.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
It's hard to even look at it in those terms,
because any positive change in something as important as race
racially charged laws is going to be a positive net
result no matter what the people in powers and motivations
actually are.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
It's like we're going to change the hearts and minds.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
It's more like affecting something that's going to affect them
and their bottom line or the perception of you know,
the government.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Well.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah, and while while this international pressure certainly forced the
hand to some extent of you know, the power structures
within the United States to at least acknowledge a few
things and you know, make a few changes, it doesn't
mean that it fixed everything. You know, the international pressure
(44:54):
was helpful, and I think it is in every instance
where other countries is especially countries that are so closely
aligned or allied with, you know, a place like the
United States or are going to force them at least
to an extent to take action. And it again, it
doesn't mean that it's all fixed now, because I mean,
(45:17):
look what is happening in our world today as we're
recording this on June fifth, twenty twenty. You know, the
recent stories that have been coming out as we were
I'm just a little peak behind the curtain when we
were preparing to record this, when we were writing this episode,
the shooting of a maud arbery had just happened, and
(45:39):
you know, look at what's happened over just the course
it was. It was a course of a few days,
I believe, yes, or it was a week's well, it.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Was a week or so. I don't know the exact timeline.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
But time has been filling very compressed and or expanded lately,
depending on the day. And then stuff like this just
adds to it, and in terms of like what even
is time? But yeah, it got to the point where, too,
when I was seeing the George Floyd story pop up,
I almost was confused. I thought it was referencing the
(46:15):
other I can't breathe story, the gentleman who was held
down for selling loose cigarettes in New York. And then
I realized, oh no, this is brand new, and that's
and then everything changed.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I think that's a very good point. I also think
another way to look at it is you could say
that nothing had changed, you know, right now, covert influence
campaigns continue to date, the USSR is gone right, debatably.
We have an episode on that. But people will always
(46:51):
use a tactic so long as it works. I believe Matt,
you had pointed out you would point out that the
New Yorker verified this just a few years back.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
That's correct. Just got a quote from the article from
the New Yorker, and this is the article we mentioned before,
the enduring Russian propaganda interests in targeting African Americans. And
here's just a piece from that article. It just says
the Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports on attempted Russian
interference in the twenty sixteen presidential election, which highlighted how
(47:22):
those efforts targeted African Americans. And if you continue reading through,
it discusses how half of the Facebook advertisements that were
created by this organization called Internet Research Agency or IRA,
and these you know, at least according to the article
and according to intelligence, they were backed by the Kremlin,
(47:43):
and they were said to be influencing Americans around the
twenty sixteen presidential election. And what they were referencing in
attempt to change the way people were thinking about that election.
They were referencing race.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
And again, whenever, whenever you run into an organization that
has like a bland beij wallpaper kind of name, like
Internet Research Agency or you know that's the same as
like people for things, right, Uh, you have to you
(48:21):
have to watch out. But of course the answer is obvious.
This the goal if if your goal is destabilization, or
if you want to if you want to push a
large group of people in a specific way, you go
with what works. And the Internet Research Agency, the FSR,
(48:45):
the Federated States of Russia. Really, if we're being honest,
does this because it works and because it is true,
it is true that there is enormous inequality. It's not
like somebody over in Saint Petersburg just had a light
bulb moment and made this all up. And you know,
as that old meme says, modern problems require modern solutions. One,
(49:10):
there are noticeable differences between the old campaigns and the
new propaganda conspiracies. Nowadays, your friendly secret Russian correspondence on
social media are likely to play both sides, by which
we mean the same people that are pushing out anti
Clinton messages in twenty sixteen. At the same time those
(49:33):
same organizations were pushing out anti Republican messages, they were
doing it on purpose.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
It's the same way that giant corporations often donate equal
amounts of money to different political parties.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Depending on who can help, you know, because it.
Speaker 5 (49:50):
Depends from day to day who's going to be in
power and who can help them and which thing is
actually going to sway positive change for them.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
So it's like hedging your bets.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
There's really no ideological cole reasoning behind it.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
I would just say that the instances of corporations uh
splitting donations in that way you're right, is to maintain
their own power no matter who else is in power.
In this case, it is to equally erode the trust
that you know, American voters or American citizens have in
the system that supports them and the system that you
(50:24):
know they pay taxes to. And and that seems to
be why it's so effective in making everyone just feel
like there's something wrong. However, in this instance, there is
something wrong. So it's odd. It's it's just odd to
think about all of this, every everything that we've talked
(50:46):
about today. It is is a strange thing to wrap
your head around.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
And you know, I know a lot of us listening
today are thinking about about the book Foundations of Joe
Pauls right this. You know, there's a lot of debate
about how relevant or irrelevant the author is right now,
how much people are reading Tea leaves here. But one
(51:14):
of the things we have to remember here is this
is literally a conspiracy. It is a technique, It is
a tactic, and it has an aim, and it is continued,
it is continued, renovated for nearly a century, the idea
of this propaganda. And make no mistake you, regardless of
(51:35):
where you live, regardless of what you believe, regardless of
which social media platform is your favorite, you are the target.
Speaker 5 (51:43):
Also, it's possible to say that the aims of these
programs have become even more if it was even possible,
even more cynical. At least, the Russian conspiracy of the
civil rights movement was.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Somewhat ideologically sound.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
They had a flavor of of positive ideological spin in it.
They wanted to create a black state and they wanted
to empower workers. But I don't know, man, I still
feel like a lot of that was smoking mirrors as well,
just to like bait people into supporting their cause, to
destabilize the United States. But whatever the case might be,
(52:18):
whatever you may think about that. Inequality is in theory
the enemy of the communist revolution, and yet, like democracy
in the United States, communism and practice fell far short
from the ideas that they set out on paper. Communism
in theory, we always say, sounds pretty great. Oh, everyone
(52:38):
gets a piece, you know, you work hard, you get
you know, your fair share.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
That sounds great. What could go wrong?
Speaker 5 (52:44):
Well, I think it's the ultimate corruptibility of human.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Beings that goes wrong. And that's the same thing that
we see with democracy.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Sounds real great, Constitution's all well and good, but you
can't change everybody's worst instincts as human beings, and power
a corrupts people, and that's what we see time and
time again.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
But I do think this is a fascinating story.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
And I actually want to thank Lauren Bright Pacheco, who
I worked with some other shows and continue to work with.
She's the one who turned us on to this topic.
It was something that her son had been really into
and told her a lot about and I'd never heard
of it, and we discussed it as a team and
decide we wanted to check it out. So thanks Lauren
for the for the tip.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Yeah, and there's certainly more to discuss here, but for
today we're gonna have to end off here. We would
love to know what you think about all of this.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Are there? You know?
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Are there articles or books or movies or facts or
anything else that you want to alert your fellow conspiracy
realists too. You can check out our Facebook group. It's
called Here's where it Gets Crazy. You can share all
of that information. Links there that are going to be helpful.
You can reach out to us. We are on Twitter
(54:00):
and Facebook and Instagram. On Twitter and Facebook we are
conspiracy Stuff and Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. If you
don't want to do that, you can always give us
a call.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
That's correct. You can reach us any time. We are
one eight three three st d WYTK. We look forward
to hearing from you. You have three minutes let us know.
If you do not want your name or your comments
revealed on air, and if you hate the phone, then
we have one more way. You can always reach us,
(54:33):
regardless of the day, the time, or the place. You
can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 5 (54:38):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
If they don't want you to know, is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Folks has often said that history may not repeat itself,
but it does rhyme. George Lucas. That's George Lucas. Yeah,
the same one from Star Wars or different George's one.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, yeah, I bet you. There's some.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
There's some other, probably more than one. There's probably a
group of people named George Lucas, and that just haunts them.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm more of a fan of Lucas George myself. There's
probably several Lucas. Georgie's out there is Georgia. It's a
viable last name.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Sure, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
I know a guy with last name George. Several Actually,
like it's weird. He's cool, he's cool. He used to
rap with me. Oh cool?
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Who was his first name? Boy?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
No, no different George. I wonder a great example.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Also a great example. And here's an example of what
we argue is history repeating itself or rhyming with itself. Possibly.
This is our episode from twenty twenty on Russia's can
your raittorial involvement with the US Civil Rights movement?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It sounds crazy, but we made a whole episode about it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It's real.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
We're joined as always with our super producer Paul. Mission
control decands, most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
We're coming to you somewhat live from a dark, stormy
mid morning here in Atlanta, Georgia. And you know, one
(01:59):
of the things I think we've all been thinking about
in our crew is that history is a disturbing thing.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Some things are further away than they seem. Others are
much more recent than people, governments, and institutions would like
to admit. I mean, just think about this. You know,
April nineteen ninety was more than thirty years ago, and
as recently as the nineteen sixties, black citizens in the
(02:30):
United States were legally prevented from voting. This struggle against
institutionalized discrimination, racism, oppression. It continues today, and this struggle
is often collectively referred to as the Civil Rights Movement.
The story of amazing people struggling against massive systemic forces
(02:52):
hell bent on making sure the practice of the law
did not measure up to the promises it made. And
there is something else to this story about civil rights
in the nineteen sixties. It's a twist you won't find
in most history books. But first things first, here are
the facts.
Speaker 5 (03:08):
Yeah, so, I mean, just a little bit on what
the civil rights movement is. I think probably most people
are very familiar with this, but just to lay a
little bit of groundwork in context the civil rights movement,
it's generally referred to a series of strategies and activities
taken up by many different groups in the United States
between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty eight in order
to end racial segregation and discrimination in the country, while
(03:33):
also acquiring legal recognition for the rights that are already
guaranteed under the Constitution. And again, as we can see
just by turning on the news today, we've still got
a ways to go before those things are really and
truly accomplished. But it's crazy how between nineteen fifty four
(03:55):
and nineteen sixty eight so much work was done and
progress was made in a relatively short period of time.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
And while the.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Aims of the movement centered on justice for the African
American community. They also push for equal rights for people
of all races.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, it's astonishing when you think about it. Despite centuries
of oppression through institutions and through physical violence and more,
a single generation was able to influence crucial legislation, was
able to profoundly shift attitudes of a prejudice culture. And
(04:32):
when this generation is doing it, they didn't have the Internet,
they didn't have social media or any of the modern
tools of communication that most people listening use every day.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Yeah, we can't really overstate how important and crucial the
Internet has been in so many modern uprisings, from the
Arab Spring to what we're seeing now with the protests
in the United States and across the world. So much
sparked and proliferated by social media Twitter and in stace
Facebook videos, you know, live streams, the access to information instantly,
(05:05):
that just wasn't the case in these days. So it's
extra impressive and just really astonishing at how much was
accomplished without those tools.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Yeah, it really shows the importance of anyone who had
a camera, who was willing to use that camera. You know,
from fifty four to sixty eight people who were willing
to write words and release them in a publication about
what was happening the struggles of the civil rights movement.
Then they were going up against some intense issues. And
(05:37):
just some examples of those if you look at what's
known as the Jim Crow laws that existed in a
lot of Southern states within the US. These were laws
that blatantly reinforced and propped up white supremacy within those
Southern states, and in particular, there's legislation that existed that
(05:58):
did things like kept schools and other public places racially segregated.
Laws that tried to or attempted and were effective in
preventing black people from voting. There were things like pulling taxes,
literacy tests and you know, think about that, a literacy
test in order for you to be able to cast
(06:18):
your vote as a citizen of a country.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
And by literacy test, that's not like the quick red
fox jumps over the lazy brown dog or whatever that's
that's saying, hey, read this mandarin, this thing literally written
in mandarin, or you can't vote.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
And honestly, even if it was more basic than that
or something, you know, not obviously completely set up for
someone to fail. I mean, you know, the folks that
were being forced to take these tests didn't.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Have access to the same level of education.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
That you know, people of other races did, so it
was set up to fail even if you didn't push
it to those egregious levels.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
You know, yes, and you know, as egregious as that is.
There were also laws that would prevent you possibly from
marrying the person that you love or that you wanted
to marry, if that person was not of the same
race as you.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yeah, misigenation, right.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Yes, and it is just you know, it's unthinkable in
these days, those kinds of laws. But that wasn't the
only these were And by the way these laws were
struck down through the efforts of all of these people,
or at least to the most part, the laws were stricken.
But it doesn't mean attitudes fully changed, right, And it
wasn't the only thing they were up against.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Right, And there are you know, now here in twenty twenty,
we as a species are seeing the same patterns enacted again,
like violence against citizens.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
The galvanizes communities and organizations to push for change.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Consider the case of.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Emmitt Till, fourteen year old boy a black child who
was from Chicago traveled down to the town of Money,
Mississippi to visit relatives. He was forcibly removed from his
relatives home. He was brutally beaten, he was tortured, he
was ultimately murdered. And when this case received national attention
(08:20):
in the media, it galvanized the movement. It got people
out into the streets and into their communities. Then there's
the issue, of course, like you mentioned Matt school segregation,
specifically cases like Brown versus the Board of Education. And
these are just a few cases. There are many, many more.
These are just like some of the notable incidents that
(08:43):
children are taught about, hopefully taught about in school today.
Speaker 5 (08:48):
Well, and not to mention things like the ku Klux
Klan were essentially just so enmeshed within these power structures.
Like police officers in the South were often also members
of the ku Klux Klan, and their agendas would be aligned.
You know, they certainly wouldn't necessarily wear their you know,
(09:08):
ku Klux Klan hoods while on duty, but then they
would go carry out whatever maybe they didn't feel comfortable
doing in their officers' uniforms after hours.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
You know, they would take the law into their own hands.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
And you know, I've talked about this in the show before,
but the Watchmen series on HBO really does a fantastic
job of even though it's like a you know, sci
fi comic book based type series, it does an incredible
job of painting a picture of what this dynamic was like.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
And of course, these laws, these power structures, that's what
they are. They're power structures, right, They're they're meant to
mandate the way an individual is treated by a society
and mandate the way an individual inner society treats other
(10:00):
members of their own society. These are white supremacist power structures,
and they are older than this country. The white supremacist
here in the US and the time of civil rights
initially had a massive advantage. They controlled the media at
the time, they controlled vast swaths of industry because originally
(10:22):
they were the only people who could own the land
right and who could own the businesses, and that naturally
leads to them owning the government in practice, even though
that's not what it's supposed to be on paper. If
you read the legal documents found in this country, and
these forces opposed to the push for equality during the
(10:45):
Civil Rights movement, they did use all the levers of
power at their disposal, legal and criminal. They wanted to
squash the movement, and when possible, they wanted to terrify
or vilify any allied, non black groups that may empathize
with people seeking equality. I mean not just talking about
other like groups that were out marching. We're talking about
(11:08):
people who were listening to the radio or watching television
at their house. They would be you know, bombarded with
headlines about the dangers of unrest, right and it makes
me think a little bit about like workers' rights, you know,
struggles like with you know, union busting and things like that.
And I only mention that because it's another example of
(11:30):
if people in power have something to lose by some
level of organization, they will do whatever they can to
squash that by any means necessary. And obviously this is
much more of a human rights you know, like it's
so much more deeply entrenched thing. It's more than just
controlling money and power. There is a deep seated hatred
(11:54):
and racism in those in power that really fueled a
lot of this behavior as well. Not just the money
and not just the idea of controlling you know, workers
and things like that.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
I just I'm inherently distrustful often of any anybody that
has so much to lose, you know, by people asking
for the right thing.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
To be done.
Speaker 5 (12:16):
So, I don't know, it's a little easy to get
disenchanted with all this kind of stuff, but it's also
incredibly inspiring to look into the history of some of
the groups and the individuals that really took this movement
to the next level and created this, you know, blueprint
for where we are now, at least in terms of
activism and not accepting this kind of status quo.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Yeah. One of the first groups you could look at
were called the Freedom Writers. It was a group that
got together on May fourth, nineteen sixty one, group of
people from varying walks of life, different races, who left Washington,
d C. On a bus. They were headed toward New
Orleans and along the way there were actions taken on
(13:04):
the bus that seem you know, it seems very strange
to talk about it today in twenty twenty, but literally
changing where they were sitting on the bus became a
revolutionary act. There were white freedom Writers who moved to
the blacks only section on that bus and black writers
(13:26):
who moved to the whites only section on the bus.
And it was it was something that angered people who
who knew that these meet these norms that were in place,
and these regulations were in place, and they knew what
they were doing was violating the norms, right, the the
(13:49):
you can't really call them regulations, but the rules that
were put forth on that particular bus and in buses
everywhere in especially the South. They knew what they were
doing was perfectly legal according to a recent Supreme Court
case or several Supreme Court cases. But they also knew
that there would be people who would be so angry
(14:12):
that this action was being taken. They were just hoping
that the government or they were testing to see whether
or not the government would respond to help them just
prove that these things. You know, it does not matter
where anybody sits on the bus.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Yeah, yeah, because again, an eloquently written line or two
of legal ease feels good, right, it feels good to
know that's real. But how much does it matter. It
matters when it is enforced, right, it matters when it
is upheld. So the freedom writers, you know, we're mentioning
(14:50):
some groups, notable individuals. There are many, many, many more
stories were just giving you a high level look at
civil rights in the nineteen sixties. These people, like you said, Matt,
they knew what they were doing was legal, but they
did not know whether it would be enforced or whether
the people who were supposed to enforce the law would
indeed do their jobs. They knew their lives were on
(15:12):
the line, and they were beaten. The buses were you know,
people were throwing stones at them, their tires were slashed.
More than three hundred Freedom Writers were arrested during the trip,
and it never finished its trip to New Orleans ultimately.
So that's that's one group. Maybe we can talk about
some of the notable individuals associated with the movement.
Speaker 5 (15:36):
Where we record in Atlanta, Georgia is often kind of
referred to as one of the cradles of the civil
rights movement. That's largely because of doctor Martin Luther King Junior,
who was a Baptist minister and the first president of
the Southern Leadership Conference or the SCLC, and you know,
considered probably the most prominent leader. There's even discussion of
(16:01):
her where he wouldn't have considered himself a leader, like
he was jumping off of work that had been done
by others as well, but he is, you know, history
has sort of crowned him as being the leader of
the civil rights moan. We just wanted to put that
out there that there were many leaders of the civil
rights movement and he was just probably the most front
and center one. But doctor King was incredibly instrumental in
(16:24):
executing nonviolent protests that sort of followed the practices of
Mahama Gandhi and the idea of not meeting violence with
violence and doing things like sit ins and peaceful marches
and all of that. And some of the most famous
events that he organized were the Montgomery bus boycott and
(16:46):
the nineteen sixty three March on Washington, which is where
he delivered, of course, his incredibly powerful and iconic I
Have a Dream speech, and he was in car it
was locked up many times and for an extended period
of time. When he was incarcerated for civil disobedience in
nineteen sixty three, he wrote one of his most famous texts,
(17:09):
which should be the Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he
included the famous quote injustice anywhere as a threat to
justice everywhere, and then in nineteen sixty five, he began
to speak out against America's involvement in the Vietnam.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
War, and then in early nineteen sixty eight, Martin Luther
King Junior made his way to Memphis, Tennessee. It was
you know, you can get into the full story of this,
and it's probably an episode for another day. I believe
we've talked about it on this show before the day
of his assassination. I know he made a video about
it back in the day. But he went to Memphis,
(17:45):
Tennessee in support of sanitation workers there in the city
who know their safety was at risk every day they
were work, and they were being severely underpaid for the
work they were doing, and he went there to support them.
He gave a speech on April third, nineteen sixty eight.
He was at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple there in Memphis,
(18:06):
and this is where you get his mountaintop speech. I
would read a quote here, but it's actually his words
are very tightly controlled, so we probably should not include
it in this. But you can look up the Mountaintop
speech and find all of the text there. What is
important to say here is that he seemed to at
(18:28):
the end of that speech signal that he was not
going to make it to the end of the struggle
of the civil rights movement and all of these movements
that essentially he is a part of, signaling that perhaps
he wasn't long for this world. And the next day,
on April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, he was shot on
(18:50):
the second floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel there in Memphis, Tennessee,
a single bullet, shot in the face. And you know,
I think it's needless to say here, but that assassination
is highly contentious in a lot of places, and for
very good reason.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, highly contentious is about the most diplomatic way to
phrase that. A couple of points here. One thing that
would be a profound, provable factual illustration of institutions and
power structures at play and how they work is that
many of the same companies that fought against civil rights
(19:31):
definitely vilified leaders like doctor King, especially while he was alive,
and government agencies too. Now they're the same institutions, the
very same institutions that will cherry pick quotes and put
them up because they want to appear to be doing
(19:57):
the right thing. But don't forget you know it wasn't
that long ago that those same institutions were trying to
shut this person and this community and this movement down.
You know what I mean, The FBI broke the laws
that it made multiple times with doctor King, And you
(20:20):
know that brings us to another notable.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
Figure, right.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
El Haj Malik el Shabaz born as Malcolm Little, better
known today as Malcolm X, spent ten years in prison,
and while within the prison system, he converted to the
Nation of Islam. When he was released in nineteen fifty two,
he became a spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, and
today he's credited for increasing the group's membership from four
(20:47):
hundred to an estimated forty thousand over just the course
of eight years.
Speaker 5 (20:53):
Yeah, and many of Malcolm X's messages were a good
bit different than those of MLK because he didn't embrace
the whole peaceful protest thing nearly to the same degree.
He saw violence as absolutely a legitimate response to violence
(21:14):
being done on his community. And you can kind of
sum it up in this quote where he says, if
violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If
it is wrong to be violent defending black women and
black children, and black babies and black men. Then it
is wrong for America to draft us and make us
violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is
right for America to draft us and teach us how
(21:35):
to be violent and defense of her, then it is
right for you and me to do whatever is necessary
to defend our own people right here in this country.
He said those words in November of nineteen sixty three
during a speech in New York City. A year later,
he left the Nation of Islam and converted to traditional
Islam while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia to Mecca.
(21:57):
And when he returned to the US, he had sort
of ideologically shifted a bit and was a little more
optimistic towards the idea of a peaceful resolution to the
fight for civil rights. And you can sum that up.
And another quote that he made in February of nineteen
sixty five, he.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Said, it is a time for martyrs now, and if
I am to be one, it will be for the
cause of brotherhood. That's the only thing that can save
this country. And on February twenty first, only two days
after he said those words, he was at a New
York City ball or a place called the Audubon Ballroom,
(22:37):
and he was about to give a speech, he was
preparing for that, and you know, according to the official story,
some members of the Nation of Islam again, according to
the official story, shot and killed him. And there you know,
there are a ton of documentaries you can watch, in
books you can read about this assassination. And again, same
(22:59):
kind of deal. The official story is very contentious.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
That is extremely diplomatic of us to call it highly contentious.
I when I recommend the autobiography of Malcolm X, which
was published in nineteen sixty five. It's Malcolm X with
Alex Haley. This this is a book that should be
in your local school system.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
And you know, if you wanted to watch Netflix, there
is currently in twenty twenty, as we're recording this in June,
a series you can watch called Who Killed Malcolm X?
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And again, you know, for many of our listeners in
the audience today, this this is hopefully stuff that was
already already very well known, right, but it turns out
that there is more to the story of civil rights.
It's something here in the US. It's something that doesn't
get reported in a lot of school textbooks, doesn't really
(23:58):
get mentioned almost first. Almost every single concept we have
just mentioned has conspiratorial aspects of its own, and some
of these, like the death of doctor King, have been
covered in previous episodes that we have done, and there
are tons of resources out there.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Uh, there are clear there are clear.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Uh contradictions in the official story, and then things that
we know to be facts, and we can't make any mistake.
You know, Matt, you mentioned that that idea about doctor
the speech that doctor King gave before the assassination. You
know you could interpret that also as saying, you know,
(24:43):
this is bigger than one person, right, this is this
is bigger than me. And that's correct because many people
have died. But this movement, make no mistake, it continues,
and racism is still shockingly apparent to end who bothers
to explore modern statistics. But the civil rights movement had
(25:06):
another ally. It was a foreign group halfway around the world,
and they let us know if you think they wanted
to help, because they wanted to at least appear to
assist this struggle for equality, not because they necessarily cared
about the concept of justice, but because they saw in
(25:28):
the US civil rights movement an opportunity to attack their
greatest rival, Russia, you see, had hatched a movement all
its own.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
And we'll talk about that right after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Here's where it gets crazy. Let's call this the Russian angle.
The Soviet government then, as the as the Russian government
does today, excelled in what are known as covert influence campaigns.
You see, when you look at the global context here,
(26:14):
the beginning of the Civil War coincides with the beginnings
of what we've referred to as the civil rights movement today,
and the two became intertwined, both in how the USSR
sought to exploit racial strife and how the Cold War
itself propelled the cause of civil rights forward. This is
(26:39):
a fascinating story that should should be told more often.
As far back as nineteen twenty eight, the USSR saw
the stark racial inequality and divisions in the United States
as an opportunity to weaken their primary rival in what
we know of as the Cold War today.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
As far back as nineteen twenty eight, the USSR really
looked upon this divide, this racial inequality, and the struggle
that it led to as an opportunity to weaken US
as a nation. So initially, like they had a plan,
and they had sort of like a I don't know,
(27:21):
kind of a smokescreen, sort of altruistic cause that they
were hiding behind or at least using it as bait,
which was the notion of pushing for self determination in
what they're called the Black Belt. In order to do this,
they would recruit Southern individuals of color who would be
all about these aims, and a lot of this work
(27:42):
came from something known as the Common Tern or the
Communist International, which sought to spread the Communist revolution around
the world. And in nineteen thirty, the Common Turn escalated
these goals the goals of its covert and decided to
work towards establishing an entirely separate black state in the
(28:06):
Southern United States, which would kind of give them like
a base camp and a base of operations to spread
that Communist revolution to North America.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yeah, no, that's an excellent point. The USSR deployed a
tactic that is still still viable today and still used today.
Starting from an understandable point like let's create it. Let's
have a racially equal society. That is, who would have
a problem with that, But then take take that movement
(28:40):
and co opt it, begin to push it to become
a vehicle for the aims of the USSR in the
Cold War.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And this is.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
You know, this is like kind of a high level
origin story, but there are notable, real concrete actions that
this program took.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, there are things here. It just seems it seems
like it's out of a comic book or something to me,
the actions that were taken by the USSR in this time.
And then some of them feel like, oh, well, that's
just a good or right thing to do. But then
there's this underlying wave of you know what we keep
(29:23):
saying here, of what the true intentions were. And by
the way, we learned about this part here from an
article in The New Yorker that was written by Jilani
Cobb in twenty eighteen. It's called the enduring Russian propaganda
interests in targeting African Americans. And if you look at
that article, you're going to hear a couple of stories,
(29:45):
or a bunch of stories of specific actions taken. And
one of those was in nineteen thirty two, when the
Soviet government invited a group of black American artists, including
the poet Langston Hughes to go to Russia and to
make a movie, to make a movie that could then
be used as propaganda, both internally within the United States
(30:07):
and externally, to be sent out to other countries and
used by the Soviet Union to show how terrible and
wrong the United States was.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And it's so.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
Tough because it was, I mean it was the situation
was dire and terrible, and it was going to be
used against the country as a whole and the government
in particular.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
And you said the magic word, Matt, propaganda, right, there
was something we know from the evidence that the motivations
of the Soviet government at the time were also based
on what they perceived as propaganda value, and they were
(30:50):
based on exploiting people for the economic benefit of the USSR.
No follow the money. We have to remember again, like
when when this stuff is initially happening in the nineteen
thirties are the height of what I find myself increasingly
referring to as the First Great Depression. The Soviet Union
(31:13):
advertised itself in real slick, real slick ads, We're a
worker's utopia, we are free evil that ethnic, national, and
religious division. History, of course, would prove that this was not.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
True, but the propaganda worked, so in addition to luring
thousands of white American workers, the program brought over African
American workers as well, and also sharecroppers with the promise
of the freedom to work and live unburdened by the
violent restrictions of Jim Crow. So in return, they were
(31:53):
expected to help the Soviet Union build their cotton industry
in Central Asia. Several hundred individuals answered this call, and
though many eventually went back or here's you know, the
kicker died in imprisonment and in the gulags because they
(32:14):
weren't cooperating to the extent that they were expected.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Because again, this whole thing is not altruistic.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
It's a tool for you know, capitalizing on people's misfortune
in an effort to just you know, screw over the
United States. It's the most opportunistic, kind of just callous
thing I could really imagine during a time like this.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I'm just going to give you another article here to
read if you choose to do so. It's from The
New York Times, written by Jennifer Wilson in twenty seventeen,
titled When the Harlem Renaissance Went to Communist in Moscow.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And they're approving conspiracies here too. One particularly illuminating example
comes from September nineteen fifty. The governor of Arkansas at
the time with I don't want to make fun of
him for his name, but his name was Orville Fabus.
That's it's just a weird name. He deployed the National Guard,
(33:15):
the National Guard to keep nine children from integrating the
central High school they're in Little Rock. This standoff was
covered by newspapers around the world, and many of these newspapers,
to their credit, pointed out this massive discrepancy, right, not
just the discrepancy between what the law says and what
(33:37):
the people who are supposed to be the law keepers do,
but they noted the discrepancy between the values America was
expressing and spreading, in some cases forcing around the world
versus how it behaved at home, you know what I mean.
And this was a great point the Soviet the Soviet
(33:57):
factions take advantage of this opportunity. In Komsomolskaya Pravda, the
newspaper of a communist youth organization in the USSR, it
ran this story that had a lot of photographs that
were actual photographs, you know, and this wasn't photoshopped or anything,
(34:17):
and they were about this conflict, and they said with
the headline troops advance against children. That's just one but
we wanted to give you a specific source and a
specific story.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
That sounds terrible. Ben if I saw that headline, I
would be shocked.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
Troops it's like mean politicians murder old lady, you know,
like that's the equivalent.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
It's definitely shocking.
Speaker 4 (34:40):
Awe.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Right, Well, yeah, and I'm just gonna make a reference
to headlines that are circulating today as we're recording this
that are just as bad with the violence that's being
carried out against protesters. But let's you know, let's just
remember that that is happening now, that is our current situation.
(35:00):
And let's jump back to the situation. And here the
propaganda push. You know, by the way, that was just
one of the stories. Right, this is a common occurrence.
It's happening over and over and over again as other
events unfold, and the propaganda push led to international consequences
for the United States. There were things that actually happened
(35:21):
to us because of the reporting. And again it's the
same deal that it's right to report on that, but
how it's used then can be called into question. So
according to a legal historian, Mary Dudziak, and this is
a quote here, the Russian objective then was to disrupt
(35:42):
US international relations and undermine US power in the world
and undermine the appeal of US democracy to other countries.
And the propaganda was working.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Oh yeah, because because again it started to impact the
people in power. They were directly impacted. They started to
care too. Diplomats and you know, visiting countries across the globe,
US diplomats noticed that they were being increasingly questioned on
the hypocrisy of the US, Like, yes, ambassador, I see
(36:16):
your arguments about capitalism and about you know, democracy, but
everybody in the world knows about your your country's record
with this profound violence against people who want the same
thing that you're saying you're going to give to us.
(36:38):
And there's a there's a moment that history hinges upon.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Here.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
There was a tour of Latin America. Richard Nixon was there.
He was the vice president at the time, he wasn't
yet president, and he was he was, you know, going
out for like a photo op, shake some hands, make
nice internationally geopolitically, but he was greeted instead with protesters,
(37:02):
all of whom were screaming little rock at him because
they knew about this story.
Speaker 5 (37:07):
Yeah, and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles complained that
the situation was killing foreign policy.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
It was just really bad business.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
And that the effect that it was having on Asia
and Africa would ultimately be worse for US, the United
States than Hungary was for the Russians. Ben, with your
international affairs background, can you unpack that for us a
little bit?
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Yeah, I wanted to ask I wanted to ask you
all about this, and like you said, well, that is
an actual quote from the Secretary of State at the time.
It sounds like their concern is much less, Hey, maybe
we should change something and much more. Well, this is
this is making the Cold War tougher for us.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, we need to start controlling this narrative a little
more tightly. Guys.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
They're talking and you know, they're talking about domestic violence
in Hungary and how it played. Essentially, they're saying everything
but bad pr It feels like that's what they were
worried about, more so than the actual hypocrisy. But also,
unless we make the mistake of thinking that this operation,
(38:22):
the series of operations, was entirely altruistic. I think we
pointed out earlier that it wasn't. A lot of people
also don't know this, doctor Martin Luther King was the
target of a KGB campaign as well. You know, the
FBI tried numerous things to intimidate, to discredit, desmear, to depower,
(38:45):
to kill Martin Luther King. Yes, yes, exactly exactly, to
turn Martin Luther King. But the KGB wanted to exploit
him as well. They wanted to turn him into a
political insurgent against DC. And when he refused to play ball,
he found himself in a terrible situation. Both the FBI
(39:05):
and the KGB were after him, they were trying to
undermine him at the same time.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
I can't imagine being in that situation. And again, like,
go back and listen to our episode on cointelpro Do.
We have other numerous episodes where you can get more
information just about some of that. You know, the FBI
and other intelligence agency's involvement in the in the civil
rights movement.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
Well yeah, and then like like you know, I mean,
this stuff is unequivocally real. These organizations are ruthless and
we'll stop at nothing to exploit their quote unquote targets
or you know, their assets or whatever. And they were
both like kind of jockeying for uh, you know, turning
King and making him kind of like a tool for
(39:51):
their ends. And then you know, as as you said, Matt,
when he wouldn't play, then he made powerful, powerful enemies
on both sides. And I just you know, it just
seems like an absolutely rock in a hard place type situation.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
Just you know, wouldn't wish that of my worst enemy.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
But all of this was moving towards a bigger picture
kind of end game, and we're going to talk about
what that was and how things turned out.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
After a quick word from our sponsor, we've returned.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Here's a dilemma for those of us in the crowd
who might consider, you know, consider themselves staunchly anti Russian, right,
not even anti ussr but anti Russian in general. While
this massive propaganda conspiracy was not created, let's be honest,
(40:49):
not created out of altruistic or noble reasons, it played
a huge part in the positive change that occurred in
the in the US, I mean in the fifties and sixties.
The international pressure created by these propaganda campaigns motivated US
politicians to push through things like the Civil Rights Act
(41:13):
and the Voting Rights Act and this, And do you.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Know why they did that.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Didn't do it because they said, Hey, that's right, this
is the right thing to do. These politicians and policymakers
did this because they thought it was an issue of
national security. It was a military motivation.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
American leaders made refuting the Soviet narrative about American racism
a national security issue critical for maintaining US international leadership
and promoting relationships with what was then called the Third World.
And it wasn't a small impact either.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah, we've got a specific quotation here. This is on
the legal record. The US literally admitted what you said,
mat It wasn't a backdoor congress. In their amicus brief
for Brown versus Board of Education, which we mentioned at
the top of the show, they said the following.
Speaker 5 (42:08):
Quote, racial discrimination has an adverse effect upon our relations
with other countries. Racial discrimination has furnished grist for the
communist propaganda mills, and it raises doubts even among friendly
nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the
democratic faith.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Oh, that's a lot to unpack.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
Sounds kind of fanatical too, doesn't it.
Speaker 5 (42:34):
I never heard it referred to as the Democratic faith.
That's like very cultish sounding, and it's very much saying, hey,
the only reason we should maybe calm down some of
this systemic racism is because of the pr stuff that
Matt was talking about earlier.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
If you really think about it, these moves against the
United States, the government and the system as a whole,
like in an attempt to weaken hurt the power of
the US. The end result here was that the Soviet
Union improved the United States. It made it a better place.
(43:14):
Even if it was just incremental, it was noticeable and
measurable the positive change that their propaganda campaigns had on
the US.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
So, when you think about it, by attempting to weaken
or destroy the United States, the USSR actually made it
a better place. That is one of the strangest, most
important points to take away from this, right.
Speaker 5 (43:43):
Yeah, I mean, you know, whatever the motivation, right, we
talked about the pr ness of the whole thing, and
how oops, we better do a better job because it's
making us look bad to other countries. But then whatever
the reasoning behind it is, it did affect some change.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
Does that cheapen it? I don't know.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
It's hard to even look at it in those terms,
because any positive change in something as important as race
racially charged laws is going to be a positive net
result no matter what the people in powers and motivations
actually are.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
It's like we're going to change the hearts and minds.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
It's more like affecting something that's going to affect them
and their bottom line or the perception of you know,
the government.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Well.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
Yeah, and while while this international pressure certainly forced the
hand to some extent of you know, the power structures
within the United States to at least acknowledge a few
things and you know, make a few changes, it doesn't
mean that it fixed everything. You know, the international pressure
(44:54):
was helpful, and I think it is in every instance
where other countries is especially countries that are so closely
aligned or allied with, you know, a place like the
United States or are going to force them at least
to an extent to take action. And it again, it
doesn't mean that it's all fixed now, because I mean,
(45:17):
look what is happening in our world today as we're
recording this on June fifth, twenty twenty. You know, the
recent stories that have been coming out as we were
I'm just a little peak behind the curtain when we
were preparing to record this, when we were writing this episode,
the shooting of a maud arbery had just happened, and
(45:39):
you know, look at what's happened over just the course
it was. It was a course of a few days,
I believe, yes, or it was a week's well, it.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
Was a week or so. I don't know the exact timeline.
Speaker 5 (45:54):
But time has been filling very compressed and or expanded lately,
depending on the day. And then stuff like this just
adds to it, and in terms of like what even
is time? But yeah, it got to the point where, too,
when I was seeing the George Floyd story pop up,
I almost was confused. I thought it was referencing the
(46:15):
other I can't breathe story, the gentleman who was held
down for selling loose cigarettes in New York. And then
I realized, oh no, this is brand new, and that's
and then everything changed.
Speaker 1 (46:31):
I think that's a very good point. I also think
another way to look at it is you could say
that nothing had changed, you know, right now, covert influence
campaigns continue to date, the USSR is gone right, debatably.
We have an episode on that. But people will always
(46:51):
use a tactic so long as it works. I believe Matt,
you had pointed out you would point out that the
New Yorker verified this just a few years back.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
That's correct. Just got a quote from the article from
the New Yorker, and this is the article we mentioned before,
the enduring Russian propaganda interests in targeting African Americans. And
here's just a piece from that article. It just says
the Senate Intelligence Committee released two reports on attempted Russian
interference in the twenty sixteen presidential election, which highlighted how
(47:22):
those efforts targeted African Americans. And if you continue reading through,
it discusses how half of the Facebook advertisements that were
created by this organization called Internet Research Agency or IRA,
and these you know, at least according to the article
and according to intelligence, they were backed by the Kremlin,
(47:43):
and they were said to be influencing Americans around the
twenty sixteen presidential election. And what they were referencing in
attempt to change the way people were thinking about that election.
They were referencing race.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
And again, whenever, whenever you run into an organization that
has like a bland beij wallpaper kind of name, like
Internet Research Agency or you know that's the same as
like people for things, right, Uh, you have to you
(48:21):
have to watch out. But of course the answer is obvious.
This the goal if if your goal is destabilization, or
if you want to if you want to push a
large group of people in a specific way, you go
with what works. And the Internet Research Agency, the FSR,
(48:45):
the Federated States of Russia. Really, if we're being honest,
does this because it works and because it is true,
it is true that there is enormous inequality. It's not
like somebody over in Saint Petersburg just had a light
bulb moment and made this all up. And you know,
as that old meme says, modern problems require modern solutions. One,
(49:10):
there are noticeable differences between the old campaigns and the
new propaganda conspiracies. Nowadays, your friendly secret Russian correspondence on
social media are likely to play both sides, by which
we mean the same people that are pushing out anti
Clinton messages in twenty sixteen. At the same time those
(49:33):
same organizations were pushing out anti Republican messages, they were
doing it on purpose.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
It's the same way that giant corporations often donate equal
amounts of money to different political parties.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
Depending on who can help, you know, because it.
Speaker 5 (49:50):
Depends from day to day who's going to be in
power and who can help them and which thing is
actually going to sway positive change for them.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
So it's like hedging your bets.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (49:58):
There's really no ideological cole reasoning behind it.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
I would just say that the instances of corporations uh
splitting donations in that way you're right, is to maintain
their own power no matter who else is in power.
In this case, it is to equally erode the trust
that you know, American voters or American citizens have in
the system that supports them and the system that you
(50:24):
know they pay taxes to. And and that seems to
be why it's so effective in making everyone just feel
like there's something wrong. However, in this instance, there is
something wrong. So it's odd. It's it's just odd to
think about all of this, every everything that we've talked
(50:46):
about today. It is is a strange thing to wrap
your head around.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
And you know, I know a lot of us listening
today are thinking about about the book Foundations of Joe
Pauls right this. You know, there's a lot of debate
about how relevant or irrelevant the author is right now,
how much people are reading Tea leaves here. But one
(51:14):
of the things we have to remember here is this
is literally a conspiracy. It is a technique, It is
a tactic, and it has an aim, and it is continued,
it is continued, renovated for nearly a century, the idea
of this propaganda. And make no mistake you, regardless of
(51:35):
where you live, regardless of what you believe, regardless of
which social media platform is your favorite, you are the target.
Speaker 5 (51:43):
Also, it's possible to say that the aims of these
programs have become even more if it was even possible,
even more cynical. At least, the Russian conspiracy of the
civil rights movement was.
Speaker 2 (51:56):
Somewhat ideologically sound.
Speaker 5 (51:58):
They had a flavor of of positive ideological spin in it.
They wanted to create a black state and they wanted
to empower workers. But I don't know, man, I still
feel like a lot of that was smoking mirrors as well,
just to like bait people into supporting their cause, to
destabilize the United States. But whatever the case might be,
(52:18):
whatever you may think about that. Inequality is in theory
the enemy of the communist revolution, and yet, like democracy
in the United States, communism and practice fell far short
from the ideas that they set out on paper. Communism
in theory, we always say, sounds pretty great. Oh, everyone
(52:38):
gets a piece, you know, you work hard, you get
you know, your fair share.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
That sounds great. What could go wrong?
Speaker 5 (52:44):
Well, I think it's the ultimate corruptibility of human.
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Beings that goes wrong. And that's the same thing that
we see with democracy.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
Sounds real great, Constitution's all well and good, but you
can't change everybody's worst instincts as human beings, and power
a corrupts people, and that's what we see time and
time again.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
But I do think this is a fascinating story.
Speaker 5 (53:06):
And I actually want to thank Lauren Bright Pacheco, who
I worked with some other shows and continue to work with.
She's the one who turned us on to this topic.
It was something that her son had been really into
and told her a lot about and I'd never heard
of it, and we discussed it as a team and
decide we wanted to check it out. So thanks Lauren
for the for the tip.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Yeah, and there's certainly more to discuss here, but for
today we're gonna have to end off here. We would
love to know what you think about all of this.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
Are there? You know?
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Are there articles or books or movies or facts or
anything else that you want to alert your fellow conspiracy
realists too. You can check out our Facebook group. It's
called Here's where it Gets Crazy. You can share all
of that information. Links there that are going to be helpful.
You can reach out to us. We are on Twitter
(54:00):
and Facebook and Instagram. On Twitter and Facebook we are
conspiracy Stuff and Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. If you
don't want to do that, you can always give us
a call.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
That's correct. You can reach us any time. We are
one eight three three st d WYTK. We look forward
to hearing from you. You have three minutes let us know.
If you do not want your name or your comments
revealed on air, and if you hate the phone, then
we have one more way. You can always reach us,
(54:33):
regardless of the day, the time, or the place. You
can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 5 (54:38):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
If they don't want you to know, is a production
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