June 5, 2025 • 61 mins
On paper, non-governmental organizations often sound like something everyone can get behind: these institutions are often dedicated to addressing some of the most dangerous, long-running problems on the planet. It may be surprising, then, to learn that a growing number of nations are taking increasingly aggressive actions to ban NGOs, especially foreign ones. Supporters of NGOs argue these nations are attempting to fight progress in hopes of saving their own corrupt regimes -- but the opponents inside these countries claim many of those do-gooder NGOs are more sinister than they'd have you believe: instead of saving the world, critics argue, these insitutions are foreign-owned fronts for everything from illegal activities of intelligence agencies to acts of industrial espionage, forced regime change and more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to our classic episode. Fellow conspiracy realist. I think
we should start this one by thanking everyone who legitimately
volunteered their time and their energy to work with an NGEO. Legitimately.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah yeah, because some of them are great and the
stuff they do is awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah yeah, I GEO non governmental organization. It's something everybody
can get behind you. Like imagine you're on your first
date and you're, you know, you're meeting and mysterious lady
and see what do you what do you do for work?
And then she says, well, I've dedicated my life to
saving children from old land mines.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, I sell loose cigarettes by the wah wah. You
know what I mean. We're a match made in heaven.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Is measurements?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Is that like some sort of it's a shade of
like convenience stores.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I thought you mean, like by the truck low by
the wah wah.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I like that too. I like it as a unit
of measurement.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know, there's a non governmental organization in South Carolina
that I just learned about called El Cheapo Gas and
they're everywhere and.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
They're an in GEO. No no, but I guess technically
there are non governmental organization Yeah, yeah, So what is
not a government in geo really is? You know, in
many cases the term comes from international aid. It comes
from attempting to create solutions in step with, but distinct
(01:40):
from government efforts. So like, the US can support green
Peace in different capacities, but you can't work at green
Peace and then fulfill certain government positions, yes, or you
can't have worked in those positions and then join green Peace. Dude?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Can I just say? I just googled el Cheapo Gas
and their website links directly to the most GeoCities web
one point zero website of all time, and the url
is Summer's Oil and it says Adobe flash Player is
no longer supporting of.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It is wild man. So you're saying, don't use your
credit card there.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So it's entirely possible. He's in the same code that
four Chan was.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I guess I think you're also saying that everybody outside
of el Chiapo is a non geo cities organization under construction.
So our classic episode today is why don't nations trust
in geos?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And as we enter this world of usaid going away
and goos are going to be doing a lot more
of the work out there in other countries, right, So
let's keep that in mind as we listen to this episode.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
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 iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
My name is Matt, my name is name.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly, you are
here and that makes this stuff they don't want you
to know. In today's episode, we're revisiting a topic we
picked up in twenty fourteen, both as a video and
as a short audio podcast. This is something that may
(03:46):
be controversial to some people, it may be personal to
some of us listening today, and we're going to do
our level best as always to stay objective. We're talking
about non governal organizations the street name NGOs. Most of
us are vaguely aware of these institutions, and oddly enough,
(04:09):
they're defined by what they are not rather than what
they actually are. They're just non governmental. The whole definition
is the thing that they are not in the name.
And that's tricky because this is an umbrella term. It
encompasses everything from you know, the Red Cross or the
Red Crescent to Greenpeace, from the World Wildlife Fund to
Oxfam and so many, many, many, many more. And typically
(04:33):
these organizations are going to focus on a distinct set
of concerns or problems, right human rights, equality or fighting dysentery.
It's usually the kind of stuff every human being can
get behind, you know, solving world hunger. It's philanthropy, Yeah,
saving the cute animals.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, doing the right thing.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I always confuse philanthropy with philandering. Those aren't the same thing,
are they?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
In a way? They both mean lover of men, that's true,
a lover of humanity, It's true. I confuse them as well.
In goos are all about distribution. And it might surprise
many of us, especially people who have donated to one
cause or another. Might surprise us to learn that NGOs
are not as squeaky clean and as utopian as their
(05:21):
proponents would have us believe. In fact, many people, a
growing number of people will argue that these institutions and
organizations are at the very least disingenuous, maybe even evil.
We'll get to that, but first things first, what exactly
is this term we're throwing around? What is an NGO?
(05:41):
Here are the facts?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Are all pals at the Oxford English Dictionary have a
fabulous definition for what an NGO is. They define it
as a nonprofit organization that operates independently of any government,
typically one whose purpose is to address a social or
political issue. And in fact, the term non governmental organization
(06:05):
was created in Article seventy one of the Charter of
the United Nations in nineteen forty five. And that's when
select a club I guess you could call it of
international non state agencies were given observer status to some
of this body's meetings.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, so that means that, let's just make up an example.
Let's just say the Red Cross is now allowed to
hang out in the room during meetings that might might
be applicable to its mission right to save lives. They
don't get to vote because they're not countries. They can
(06:49):
maybe make some speeches, right, but the big thing is
they do not have voting power. And there are other
entities that have observer status in the United Nations. This
is different because that Select group of organizations and institutions
that were allowed to be called non governmental organizations were
(07:10):
already very, very politically connected. They were already kind of
in the room. Now they just get the name drop
in the official designation. But again, like you said, Noel,
they are addressing social or political issues. The only common
factor that these this original group had back in forty
five was that they were not government agencies and they
(07:33):
weren't technically businesses. They weren't making money hand over fist,
or if they were, that was a secondary aim.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, well there isn't the idea that their nonprofit or
not for profit, right and go's like, that's the whole
one of the major points.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Right, got right. Now they can distribute money, yes, very
into distribute today, they can distribute money or funding to
take donations and take donations of course from any number
of donors. But they're not supposed to keep it and
roll it over. They're supposed to invest it in their mission.
(08:09):
So originally the UN said, okay, you're going to be
advocating for human rights, you're gonna be advocating for the
environment or quote unquote development, another umbrella term that can
be very tricky. So an NGO really can be any
kind of organization so long as it's ostensibly independent from
(08:32):
government influence. And as you said, Matt, is not for profit.
There are a ton of them now and they're just
going to keep growing.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, if you check out Nonprofitaction dot org, and this
is a group that tracks the stats that pertain to NGOs,
they estimate that they're listen to this, roughly ten million
non governmental organizations worldwide that are functioning. And I mean
that's a lot, right if you think about that, and
(09:03):
has been mentioned. They're not out there trying to make
profit for things, but they are trying to function and quote,
you know, do good, do some kind of social good.
So they are trying to get in as much money
as they can through donations and as we'll see later
other means. Let's just go to a fact here. In
twenty eleven, people donated one point two billion dollars to
(09:27):
various non governmental organizations, and then just three years later,
by twenty fourteen, that number had risen to one point
four billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
So by twenty thirty, this number is expected to make
the meteoric rise up to two point five billion.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So more than twice what it was in twenty eleven.
They are also huge employers. We're talking about a gigantic
mass of people. Two quick examples. There are more than
six hundred thousand NGOs in Australia and their employees may
up eight percent of the Australian workforce. Wow, eight percent
doesn't sound huge until you think of, you know, the
(10:06):
fact that it's the entire nation and continent of Australia.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
What do you think that's Australia a part.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Oddly enough, not that much. The NGO industry is huge
in the United States as well as Western countries. Part
of the reason it seems so big is because again
the term has so much leeway. It encompasses so much stuff.
You know, one INNGO can be doing something entirely different
and irrelevant to the aims or activities of another in GEO.
(10:37):
But get this, if all the NGOs in the world
were a country, they would have the fifth largest economy
in the world. That's according to John Hopkins. So they're here,
they're here to stay. They're growing. You know, as as
we pointed out, they are going to be at least
a two point five billion dollar business within the next
(10:59):
you know, ten years.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And a ton of people worldwide depend on them, both
for employment and perhaps for some aspect of their lives,
whether it's from water being treated and cleaned in some
remote part of the earth, or you know, shelter being
provided and created as in, you know, talking about development.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
On the good side at least, yeah, on the good side, right,
we're throwing and already. Yeah, So I'm just.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Trying to remind everybody that, you know, we mentioned at
the top here are like a lot of people think
these things are evil in a general sense. We're just
making sure to point out that there is real good
that is occurring. Yes, it gets so complicated, we haven't
hit it yet, so maybe we'll save some of this
discussion for later.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Hashtag not all NGOs. Yes, And this becomes incredibly important
as we continue, because our big question is what do
NGOs do. Their activities include, but are not limited to,
the stuff we just named environmental work, advocacy, human rights,
social betterment. And sometimes this will happen on a large,
somewhat abstract scale, and sometimes it'll happen very locally, like
(12:11):
this NGO is just providing this specific type of water
pump to a specific region on a continent or we're
just passing out life straws. That's what we're doing. Life
straws are great, by the way, They're incredibly reasonable. If
you don't have one, and if you, like me, believe
in building go bags for your home or your car,
(12:33):
you need a life straw.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
We should can't. We've talked about this. Why don't we
have something I want you to know, branded life straws.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I would love that.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And you talk about we came up so you can
like drink out of like a puddle with one of those. Yes,
that's pretty cool. Yeah, I would do it just for
the novelty of drinking out of a puddle.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah. The only I think the only problem is that
they can't filter some heavy metals. So according to the
latest reports, life straws are not has used in the
continental US as we would have wanted to believe, because
the pollution is rampant. A different episode, what no, oh man,
(13:09):
different episode. So that's a story for a different day.
But inngos are on the front lines, in the trenches
of combating these problems and making a world in twenty
eighty five or world in thirty twenty a place where
people would still like to live So the thing is
they're not all created equally and they have different broad categories.
(13:33):
The two big divisions are what we would call operational
NGOs and advocacy or campaigning in geos. They overlap, but
they are different entities.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
So operational inngos actually have to mobilize resources in the
form of their financial donations, things like raw materials, volunteer labor,
so that they can actually keep these projects in pros going.
It's a really difficult and complex process with a lot
(14:04):
of moving parts, and these NGOs usually have some kind
of hq A built in bureaucracy and all kinds of
support and field staff. Then you've got advocacy or campaigning
NGOs that carry out kind of similar types of activities,
but there's kind of a different balancing act that goes
on between them. You still have to raise money, of course,
(14:25):
it's the name of the game for any NGO, but
on a much smaller scale, and it serves more of
a symbolic function and kind of strengthening the identification with
a particular cause that donors might have. I mean, it
sort of goes into the whole idea of the that's
not pure vanity, but there is something of a status
(14:47):
symbol involved in participating in some of these NGOs, and
this kind of bolsters that so when you persuade people
to donate time, it becomes more valuable. Successful campaigning NGOs
have the ability to kind of get large numbers of
people to mobilize for very specific issues and types of events.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, the advocacy campaigning in goos are think of them
as the raising awareness in gos. Sure we'll have funding,
we want to keep the lights on. It's more important
to us that we get people to volunteer X amount
of days out of the year, et cetera. And these distinctions,
like a lot of on paper distinctions, get real muddy
when we go to the field operational NGOs. You know,
(15:31):
if the impact of their projects doesn't seem like it's
really moving the needle, then they'll go of course they'll
go into campaigning. What are they going to say, No,
we don't do that here. And these operational NGOs, especially
the big ones, always run regular campaigns, or at least
they support other affiliated organizations that are running campaigns. And
(15:54):
then sometimes on the other side in goos that are
campaigning in gos feel like they cannot ignore immediate real
problems in their policy domain. So like, if you are
an NGO that wants to raise awareness and support in
society for human rights or for women's rights, then you
may say, you know, the problem here is happening so blatantly,
(16:18):
it's so pervasive, and we have the tools to fix it,
So we can't hold off. We can't just have a
raise awareness dinner or gala. We need to put the
money directly into assisting the victims of these crimes so
they can trade back and forth. They're a bit mercurial,
a bit chameleon like. And there are other NGOs that
(16:41):
specialize outside of these primary functions, right.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, there's a whole other kind of arm of NGOs
called the research institute. You've probably heard of these before.
They're really great. One of their primary things they do
is to increase knowledge and understanding. And these you know,
range across the whole spectrum, of course, from those you
know who are just looking to promote academics like the
(17:08):
non political issues out there that are going to help
our world become a better place to then you know,
sending out information across the world or across a population
for campaigning to get more money in right, to then
spread more awareness. So it's kind of just like a
nice little cycle thereof send us some money so we
can let other people know this cool thing that you
(17:28):
know now that you.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Know who we are, and think tanks operate in this
realm too, oh for sure. Right, seriously, your political affiliation
and no people hate to hear this, but in this conversation,
your political affiliation does not apply. It does not matter.
What we're about to tell you is very true. The
majority of the time that a politician has a smart
(17:52):
policy plan, it didn't come from them, because they're typically
not going to be professors. It came from think tanks,
it came from ng it came from places like alec
al e c.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And a lot of.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Times these groups are on the ground somewhere that have
the best visibility for a problem or a big issue,
right absolutely, which so it's we're not saying that's necessarily bad.
It's just perhaps a bit disingenuous when you get that
messaging from a politician.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, politicians are disingenuous, say
it is, so we.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Kind of we all know this and we're all jaded
to some extent at this point, but it is I
think good just to know what you were saying, Ben,
that these NGOs a lot of times have a heavy
hand in policy making.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Absolutely, but I think to your point, Matt, they're able
to be more specialized, right, so they can, you know,
really have the smarts specifically to deal with a particular
problem like climate change, or to really help develop a
policy where every aspect has been fully thought out and
vetted before. You know, these politicians may be shop around
for what they consider to be the best form of
(19:02):
that plan, and then they go with the one that
maybe has the best backing or the most bona fides right.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Right, or what their masters allow them to endorse, which
I know sounds super cynical, but you're right, it's not
a bad thing. It's actually very very good thing that
politicians lean on this expertise because to your point, Noel, Uh,
these organizations are more nimble and they will tend to
have a depth of understanding that can get lost in
a big bureaucratic machine. But okay, so I know we're
(19:31):
getting a little in the weeds here. There is one
great hilarious way to think of NGO's and to differentiate them,
and it goes like this, Bingo Ingo, gong Go Ingo
and of course Quongo love that band.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Wait was Ingo twice?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Uh Ingo e nng o and then Ingo maybe Ingo?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Okay, yeah, oh ngo ingore go Ingo Okay, out, I
gotta got it.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Okay, can go bango bongo?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
All right, so let's let's do these.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
You're ready to go blanco?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Oh boy, here we go. Just so somebody just take
this from this moment on and you will have all
the examples in audio format. Let's just go through them
really quickly.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
These are the real ones too, He's the real Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Let's just go around. Robin Sure, is there a one
in particular you want to hit, Ben Sure?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
BINGO stands for Business Friendly International NGO. Think of something
like the Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
NGO E nng O. That's an environmental NGO. Think of Greenpeace,
perhaps the World Wildlife Fund.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
I'm touring between this being my favorite or the number five.
But we've got gong go government organized non governmental organization
such as International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I'm sorry, government organized non governmental organization.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I swear to you that's the real thing. That just means,
That means that that blasted right past it. That means
that a government said, Okay, we're gonna set aside money,
We're gonna give it to this place. We're going to start,
you know, to your example, the International Union for Conservation Nature.
But then you know, you all go ahead, yeah, yeah,
take the money and run. And then we have INGO
(21:14):
I n g O, an international NGO.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Like OXFAM, and finally quango I love it, a quasi
autonomous NGO. An example here would be the International Organization
for Standardization. Highly important thing.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I propose that we that we start an NGO to
change the pronunciation of quango to quango. It just sounds
so much more fun. I feel like I know a
guy there must there's a guy who lives in our
neighborhoods somewhere whose street name is probably quango.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Then there could be the obvious ted nugent tie in
and call it quango tango.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
There we go. Wow, I hope his last name is
Tango Quango tango. If you're listening, that's just cool.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We were just in Los Angeles and I always think
of that road.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's an outlier because like sunset Cosmo and
someone in the back is just like Kwa.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It's probably as great significance to somebody somewhere.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
My favorite Los Angeles adjacent name for a town is
Rancho Cucamonga.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yes, pretty fabulous. It feels fancy just hearing it.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It does.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So all of these things, the the bingo, ingo gongo
and ingo quango wongo, they all, they all get their
money from a couple of easily identifiable places or types
of places. Membership dues. You're you're a member of World
Wildlife Fund or whatever. So every month or every year
you you give them money because you want wild animals
(22:48):
to still be a thing when your kids.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Grow up and you get a really fancy, lovely calendar.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Or private donations. Uh, there's a there's a very clever
thing that we'll go back to this. The other two
are the sale of goods and services right by this
mug by this t shirt, a portion of the proceeds
blah blah blah. And the other one is grants you
apply to a government or another organization, they give you
money to accomplish a name. Going back to number two,
private donations. The very very clever thing about private donations
(23:19):
may may make me sound like a jerk to say
it is that it is not altruism for a philanthropist
to donate. Sure, maybe they want to help that cause,
but they're also saving so much money in write offs
when they donate as much when they donate a portion
of their own proceeds.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Wait a minute, so is NPR and one of these.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Well, it's definitely a nonprofit. But I wonder that's a
good question then, because it receives so much government money.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It does, but it also does what you're talking about
with the pledge drives and the private donations and also
lots of grants. You always hear, you know, this funded
by a grant from the Johnny and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
any Cacy Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, exactly,
all the big ones. So even if it's not, it
certainly functions in a similar way to some of these
(24:10):
NGOs that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Absolutely, and as big MPR fans, both on the federal
and regional level, we just want to say we know
that you probably don't like doing the pledge drives either,
so sol draw onward, folks. We're doing a great job. Yeah,
but Ben, yes, are.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
These groups they sound eerily similar to those special interests
people are always accusing politicians of pandering too.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
That's right, It's absolutely right, because they are special interests.
Their special interests just happen to be ostensibly again on
the surface, beneficial. You are absolutely not wrong. They are
very much special interest groups. I do want to I
do want to bust a scam real quick. While we're
on the concept of private donations, this happens all the time.
(24:57):
If you go to your local grocery store, especially around
the holidays, you know you're ringing, You're buying magazines, dog
food and egg whites and I don't know whatever else,
shoe cleaner.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I'm getting a real picture of your life, Ben, I'm taking.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
To duct tape something to burn your fingerprints off. Whatever.
And then at the end of the transaction, they say,
would you like to donate to this holiday fund? Would
you like to donate a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars right,
and they ask you right at the register. It's very
easy to say yes. Here's what's happening with that. Those
companies are taking that money that they're they're getting from
(25:34):
individual grocery store customers, they're pulling it into a single
fund and they're using it to make a large charitable
donation that offsets their tax burden. So what you're actually doing,
what you're actually doing now, you are helping people on
the way, but what you're actually doing is paying that
grocery store taxes for them.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Man Kroger, Why would you do me wrong like that?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I just that's I'm pretty sure that's what's going on.
I would love to be wrong.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I think that's called a loophole, ben and that's what
they're they found it.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
But don't you feel like a jerk sometimes, like do
you want to donate and you say no? You know,
what do you say, like, I don't want children to
have toys? I think dogs should just die?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I think my problem, just
personally speaking personally here is that I am so embarrassed
by the thought of denying a one dollar donation. At
any point, when someone points at me and says, would
you like to donate? You're already paying just click this thing.
I have to say yes. So if you ever want
(26:41):
to squeeze money out of me, just make it look
like seem like a charitable donation and hit me while
I'm doing a transaction.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Do you typically give handouts to handhandlers I did for
a long time. Then what happened? Mat who hurts you?
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I just ooh, I could tell you an actual story.
I know. Yes, we're going to take a break. Geez, Paul,
he's just staring at me.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
He is.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
We're gonna go do a break soon, I promise. I
gave a gentleman in a wheelchair more money than I
generally would and.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Then he got up and walked away, didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
He No, he he took it, like just snatched it
from me and then just wheeled off really quickly. But
was very much just like I got away with it
kind of thing. I don't know the way the way
I felt afterwards. And then I also went to I
went to school at Georgia State in downtown, and I
(27:37):
think it just the interaction, that type of interaction occurs
so frequently, get numb to it. Well, it's tough because
if you want to truly help someone in that type
of situation, just handing them cash that is transferable in
that moment probably isn't the best way to do it.
Many times that's gonna be enabling perhaps behavior that is
(27:58):
already occurring. But again, I don't have all the answers,
you know, one thing you can do is donate to
an organization like ones that we're talking about today, right, Yeah,
But then you don't really know exactly where your money's going,
and probably only a small portion of it is going
to truly helping those people anyway. Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
That's perfect. That's perfect. That's the point, because what if
there's more to the story behind these NGOs. Why do
some governments want to ban non governmental organizations? And what
if the goals of these organizations on paper are not
their actual goals on the ground. Will attempt to answer
(28:39):
some of these questions after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
So you know, like, like many of the things we
talk about on this show, things are not always as
they seem. There's a problem here. It turns out that,
at least in a few cases, folks are quite right
to distrust inngos in the way that Matt had the
inkling of a minute ago before the break back. In
(29:13):
nineteen sixty seven, Mike Wallace, the seasoned television journalist, helped CBS.
Mike Wallace led an investigation into reports of CIA front companies,
only to find that the CIA regularly used front companies
as a way to circumvent laws domestic and international alike.
(29:39):
For example, the sixty seven investigation found that the CIA
was functioning under the title the Bureau of Public Roads.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, the BPR.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
So it's all kind of a smoke screen. So let's
dig into this starting with intelligence agency assets.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So really quickly before we completely I just want to
give everyone the tools to look at this if they
want to on their own. It was called CBS News
Special Report with Mike Wallace and the title was in
the Pay of the CIA and American Dilemma.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, you can watch the entire thing on YouTube. We
think it's very much worth your time. Also, keep in
mind that all the disturbing stuff you hear about in
that investigation happened back in nineteen sixty seven. This is
from the fifties to the sixties, and.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
CBS News one of the largest providers of information, a
media company. They were the ones helming this investigation and
giving this information to the American public.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Here's what they found. So the CIA created front companies.
It's not explosive news to anyone, but they use these
front companies to donate to legitimate charitable organizations, some of
which existed beforehand, right, and some of which were also
probably custom made. Wallace characterized these charitable funds, these institutions
(31:07):
and foundations as part of the country's financial power structure.
And he's very blunt about it. Yes, it says, these
are large aggregations of private money. They are influencing policy
and influencing culture with very few checks on their activities,
very like when I say check, I mean checks and
balances style, very little oversight.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Well, and it's weird too, because as they're tracing these things. Right,
Let's just give an example of something like the it
was called the Granary Fund, right, and it's this organization
that takes money in directly from the CIA, right. And
it's literally just money goes from the CIA to this
thing called the Granary Fund. And CBS News tried to
(31:51):
track down where this place was, and they found that
it had an address in Boston, Massachusetts, at this one
place in this one you know, room or suite within
that building. They got up to that suite and it
was actually a law firm of hemenway in Barns, and
the person that actually signs all the checks and all
(32:12):
of the financial and tax documents for this granary fund
was one of the major guys there at this law firm,
who also happens to be a part of the CIA,
if you'll look him up and who's who. And then
you realize that that granary fund is donating to all
these other funds, you know, like charitable organizations and true
(32:36):
real life funds. And then you realize, wait, that money
that those real funds have is all mixed in with
this CIA money. And we're talking about thousands and thousands
of dollars.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
This isn't chump change, and this is a great money
laundering exercise, you know what I mean. Car washes are
for schmucks and amateurs.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Now, so isn't that extortion not extortion fraud? I mean,
if people are taking your money and then it's just
going into this imaginary smoke screen pot.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Well, what do you mean taking your money?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You're talking about taxes, you're talking about donations, donations.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Well, in this case, it's the CIA funneling money, taxpayer
money into a fake account or a false company. Then
that company is donating to a real fund and then
those funds get distributed fun So it's.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Not individual donations that are just going off into space, like.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
But it is it's taxpayer donations essentially, right, But that's
just theft.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Then it's not donations at all, right, I think I
think the question. I think the question here is are
inngo's bilking individual donors, right, Like, yes, Like Paul signs up,
Paul signs up for the International Institution for the Proliferation
of Applebee's and they want to build Applebee's in developing
(33:54):
countries across the world. And then he finds out that
his you know, two hundred dollar a year donation is
actually going to build Chili's or something like that. You know,
like if it's not doing I think legally, when you
donate that money, they can do whatever they want with it.
And I think now I would like to say there's
(34:17):
some more oversight for charities because you can see all
these sites rating charities on their trustworthiness and so on,
and there are a lot of other like predatory things
that purport to be charities but aren't really. They just
sound alike, you know, and they're there to you know,
bilk people out of money. Here's the thing. By donating
(34:37):
through these front companies, the CIA specifically other organizations did
this to the KGB. In their time, they were huge
fans of doing this. But by donating through front companies,
the CIA is muddying the financial waters, making it increasingly
difficult to track where this cash goes. And again it
is taxpayer money and more importantly, what it is spent on.
(35:00):
I mean, it makes sense. Think of it this way.
Let's say the four of us had, you know, no
plans for the weekend, and so we decided to destabilize
a region of the world or promote regime change in
a country, but do a geopolitical worries, concerns, norms, laws,
all that jazz. We cannot risk and open war. We
(35:20):
can't just send people in to depose the leader. We
can't have a hot war on our hands. Heck, we're
at the point where, you know, we can't even get
intelligence agency employees over the border as long as they
are acknowledged to be intelligence agency employees, because what we
can do instead is get members of an NGO over
(35:42):
the border. Right. So, now, our operative Matt, Frederick, Matt,
what's your spy name?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Cranberry sauce.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Okay, so Matt Cranberry Sauce, Frederick Operative Cranberry Sauce can't
get in. But uh, you know, Cranberry Matthews, the member
of the Red Cross or the Society for the Betterment
of the Pangolin, can absolutely get into the country.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I think it's actually Barry Cranston.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Barry Cranston. There we go, and this guy Cranston can,
if he's careful, gather like minded students from local universities,
disaffected utes to utes, uh in areas with high unemployment,
arm them with weapons smuggled in by someone else, teach
them guerrilla tactics, and boom, you've got a quote unquote
(36:35):
student union, slash rebel force, slash terrorist group. And so
back in Washington, as politicians can say, we morally support
the goals of this student union, spread in freedom, spread
in democracy, morally support, only we do not have an
(36:56):
attachment to them. And that's when it goes to the politically,
that's when it goes to plausible deniability. The president may
really think that somehow, in a country where guns are
generally banned, a bunch of college kids got together, got
armed with military grade weaponry.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
They had what started as a stand in or a
sit down, turned into a full scale of rebellion.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Right right, right, and suddenly just they pulled out of
the top hat of their asses, the most ass hats,
their ass hats, thank you. They pulled out the most
effective protests and counterinsurgency techniques that the human civilization has discovered.
They just made it up, right, I mean, sell me
(37:42):
a bridge.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
That that's what I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
That sounds so hypothetical, Ben all right, yeah, yeah, you
know the Ted talking here, But this is a hypothetical scenario.
This happened in the past, this might be happening right
now as we record this episode, and Dollars to Donuts,
it's going to happen again in the future, which then
you think.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
In that CBS special, they did specifically track the Granary
Fund donations that went through this little spider spider web
of money flow. They tracked it to specifically student union
foundations that were operating internationally. So it's just it's already
ringing true.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, I mean, and I don't want to vilify everybody,
you know, like students, students are doing things, and grassroots
groups are an important part of challenging authoritarian regimes, but
sometimes they're not as grassroots as they appear to be.
And it's a pickle for sure. We actually have. We
(38:46):
have many, many cases of NGOs and media outlets that
are completely more or less independent. They're doing what they
say on the label right. Unfortunately, we have many examples
of mediats and in geos that are controlled, infiltrated, or
manipulated by intelligence services. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, and.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
It also doesn't mean we're going to talk about it
right now because we're going to take a quick word
from our sponsor and special thanks to that NGO that
was sponsoring us.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Maybe not, it's all Illumination Global Unlimited.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
You're doing God's work.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Now, that is a fine example of a non governmental organization.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
That that's just an n O, non organization.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Non organization would go, I'm a proud member of a
non organization. It's true. Though maybe we're over emphasizing this
a little, but it's it's all to the good. Of course,
the vast majority of people working at these organizations are
not inherently bad. They're not members of specter are something.
In fact, it's plausible. I mean, it's almost certain that
(40:05):
many many people within these organizations, from volunteers to career staffers,
have no idea there's any ulterior motive at play, you
know what I mean. It's like you could work at
the States Apartment and have no idea that the it
guy down the hall is actually a CIA asset because
he just fixes your email, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, is he?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
And that course doesn't mean all NGOs are currently fronts
or even compromised, but it makes you think.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
It does make you think the collaboration between NGOs and
intelligence services is kind of you know, like Bill Cosby
and Hollywood in the nineties. It's an open secret. In
twenty ten, Joe mcspeeden is great a great name for
an agency official for international development. In fact, he launched
(41:01):
a social media messaging network in Cuba called Zunzunio that
was very much resembling Twitter, and it was used by
thousands of Cubans who were unaware that the project was
actually designed to essentially infiltrate their privacy and monitor their
(41:21):
communications to get a sense of what was going on
on the ground there in Cuba.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, and according to the AP from twenty fourteen, it
was also to stir up unrest within the country by
affecting the populace like that was one of the goals
of this thing whoops or you know, score, depending.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
On which side you know.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Another example, Ben, I know this was one of your favorites,
was the National Endowment for Democracy or NED, which was
funded by the US Congress.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
This comes to us from an investigative reporter named Robert
Perry pa R r. Y. Perry writes that NED National
Endowment for Democracy took over the CIA's role of influencing
electoral outcomes and destabilizing governments that got in the way
of US interests. So do you have a left wing,
duly elected president who's a little bit to leftist? Is
(42:21):
this guy? Does this guy have the nerve to nationalize
that country's resources they're oil, their gas, they're heavy metals,
their timber, or to alter.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
The currency that is being exchanged for those resources.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah, you know what I mean, as far as it
seems like, as far as the geopolitical apparatus is concerned,
people can burn flags all they want, so long as
they buy those flags with dollars US dollars. That's I mean.
You know, there's a case to make that the real
flag of a country is its currency.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
What was the name of the care We did an
episode earlier today, Ben and I ridiculous history about Ernest
Hemingway's younger brother who tried to declare a sovereign nation
on a raft and he had a really cool name
for the currency of New Atlantis, right, scruples, scruples.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Because they thought wealthy people should have a lot of scruples. Right, Yeah,
that's a that's a true story.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
But this is this is this thing we're talking about
destabilizing governments that the United States, specifically the CIA has
an issue with. That's an interest in, all right, but yes,
for various strategic reasons. It's just it's rough that that's
the avenue through which it's occurring, through these supposedly you know,
(43:46):
good organizations that are trying to do good for a world.
This is really bothering me.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Guys, you're saying you just think it's inherently ichy and wrong.
It feels very ichy.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's so cloak, I mean, it is, Okay, it's so
perfectly cloak and dagger, I suppose. And yet once you'd
think that once it's found out that this kind of
thing is occurring, let's say, from those reports, that nineteen
sixty seven report from CBS, once that's found out you'd think, oh, well,
maybe that ended right. We figured that out and the
world figured it out. It's over now.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, that's the thing, though I wish there were a
better response than Yeah, that's the thing. That's a big
oo for me.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Man.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, places like NED or organizations like NED, these kind
of slush funds for foreign policy operations that are a
little that are not above the board. This is a
prolific practice. And it's only a practice because it works.
It's not like everybody chose a theme just for the
sake of esthetics. There's undeniable proof that the CIA has
(44:50):
conspired and is likely conspireen as we speak, to execute
illegal campaigns in other countries using NGOs and charities as
co again not necessarily the fault of the charities, not
the fault of the NGOs. In fact, there's a case
to be made that these innocent people may have their
lives put in danger if one of these intelligence operations
(45:14):
goes wrong.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
But you know, with this being such an open secret,
like you said, and with that sixty seven investigation uncovering
so much of this cloak and daggery, surely you know
sovereign nations are hipped to this and don't want this
kind of influence infiltrating their borders. Surely we would feel
the same from ngeos from other countries, you know, masquerading
behind this idea of do good ory this veil. Right.
(45:38):
Aren't there laws that would prevent this kind of stuff
from happening.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
It's a good question. There are a lot now Before
we anybody in the more skeptical side of the audience
relegates this to the land of alarmism and sensationalism in
tinfoil hattery. Note that other world powers are very aware
of this strategy have participated in it on their own.
(46:01):
You can see again in that sixty seven investigation there's
a little bit of what aboutism on the side of
people who say, yeah, the CIA does do these dirty
deeds thun dirt cheap to other countries, but that other
powers are doing the same thing. Like there's this fantastic
(46:22):
footage of a Russian organized huge concert. It was a blowout,
but it was all to make the great idea of
Cold War communism more palatable and to make it cool.
It was a war for the hearts and minds. And
we also know that people take this seriously because many
(46:42):
other countries have made laws explicitly banning inngo's foreign owned
in geos from their borders. Amnesty International was a very
interesting source on this because they're you know, they're pro
and GEO. Well what could go wrong, right, and they
do great work. They say that governments across the world
are increasingly attacking in geos by creating laws that subject
(47:05):
them in their staff to surveillance, bureaucratic hurdles, and the
ever present threat of imprisonment. And they have a lot
of examples here too.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yes, and we have a quote here from Amnesty International.
It says in the past two years alone, almost forty
pieces of legislation that interfere with the right to assemble
and are designed to hamper the work of civil society
organizations have been put in place or are in the
works around the world. These laws commonly include implementing ludicrous
(47:34):
registration processes for organizations, monitoring their work, restricting their sources
of resources, and in many cases, shutting them down if
they don't adhere to the unreasonable requirements imposed on them.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Yeah, so this could be killing people with the thousand
paper cuts of paper work, you know, like you need
you need approval to assemble or to hold this meeting
right to tell people about d the benefits of sanitation,
or to teach people how to for being totally totally
(48:08):
benevolent about it. Let's say you're trying to teach people
how to operate and maintain a solar power phone charging station,
right and valuable. That's great stuff. And then let's say
the country and what you're trying to do, this doesn't
care for your whole the cut of your jib, and
so they say, okay, to hold this class where you
(48:29):
teach this, you have to get approval from this authority,
and that authority has to approve it sixty days before
you do this. However, that approval can only be submitted
thirty days before you have the things. So now you're
in to catch twenty two bureaucratically. It's weird. It's a
(48:51):
weird flex for sure. But we also have examples of
specific countries who have started banning or excluding NGOs. Make
no mistake because of these concerns that spies may be
infiltrating the country via NGOs.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
So Pakistan's Ministry of the Interior rejected registration applications from
eighteen international NGOs in October of twenty eighteen, and they
dismissed all of the appeals that came without giving a reason.
They are clearly very suspicious of these agencies. Just in general,
(49:28):
in Saudi Arabia, the government can deny licenses to new
organizations and disband them a step further, even if they
are deemed to be quote harming national unity. And this
has affected human rights groups, including women's human rights groups,
who have not been able to register and operate freely
in the country. This is a really good example of like,
(49:49):
you know, a couple of bad apples spoiling the bunch,
you know, I mean, because as we said at the
top of the show, clearly there is good work being
done by these NGOs. Well because of a few bad actors,
everyone that's like, you know, everyone kind of gets screwed, right.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Well, it's also a convenient reason to keep things as
they are, right, Like, if you're talking especially about women's
rights groups operating in Saudi arabia's absolutely right. I mean,
if you can just ban a group that is advocating
for a certain thing because of reason a.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Potential threat to our sovereignty or whatever.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, you know, and and that that phrase, like I'd
love to get your take on that phrase been national
harming national unity.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean same sex equality is seen
as harming national unity. That's right. Arabia, that's right.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
That's that's kind of what we're talking about. And you
can kind of see that at play, that kind of
phrasing at play in countries across the world, even ones
that you, you know, you may live in right now
that you identify with as like having this equality thing down, Pat,
Perhaps perhaps it's not that way. That's right.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
I mean, the very basis of your national unity could
be on the wrong side of human rights.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
In general as a whole. Yeah, those aveiled shade at
the United States, by the way, just everybody's aware.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Okay, well take off cantail in general. But this is
an interesting case, and I'm glad you brought it up
because in the case of Saudi Arabia, yeah, there might
be some insidious intelligence agency activity going on, but it's
also just as likely it's more likely that a lot
of those in geos are getting shut down because they
(51:34):
are advocating for things that in the West are seen
as in alienable human rights. Bell Reus goes a little
bit further. Any in GEO that can operate in the
country is closely observed scrutinized by the state. And if
you work for any in GOO who tried to register
(51:55):
and got rejected, you have committed a crime and you
may be in prison, and you may also just disappear.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
You should probably get out.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Yeah, these are just a few examples. Other countries Azerbaijan,
China and of course Russia have introduced more registration and
reporting requirements and if you don't comply, you can be
thrown in prison. Which is it sounds weird, you know,
to say that you didn't complete some paperwork, so now
(52:26):
you're going to jail, possibly for a long long time,
especially if you're foreign national, right, because usually we think, well,
if you don't do paperwork, right, you get a fine
for being late, you know.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, unless it's I'm trying to think of like a
really bad traffic violation where you actually end up having
to go to jail for a couple of days if
you don't fill out your paperwork i e. Pay or
show up.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Sure, yeah, I guess for people on probation, that's paperwork
that can get you in trouble. But we mentioned Russia.
Maybe the lead a little bit here. Russia is one
of the most well known anti in GEO organizations. They
a few years back banned all NGOs that they considered undesirable.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
The government has regularly labeled NGOs who receive foreign funding
as foreign agents, which is a term that you could
very easily correlate to ones that are a little more
direct like spy, traitor, enemy of the state. The government
(53:34):
applies this kind of thinking so broadly, not only thinking
actual legislation, that even an organization that supports people with
say diabetes, actually gets could be subject to fines, put
on a blacklist of foreign agents, and forced to close.
This is not hypothetical. This actually happened in October of
(53:57):
twenty eighteen. Medical Environment, until women's groups, all of these
have also come under serious scrutiny and fire from the
Russian government, and all of these moves have really galvanized
the developing world and launched a kind of a renaissance
of anti NGO legislation.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Yeah, and so for anyone listening now who has dedicated
their life to service, thank you for being one of
the good forces in the world, even though I'm sure
at times it feels like you are outnumbered. If you're
having a hard time trying to understand why these countries
would so profoundly distrust in Geo's, think about it this way.
(54:41):
If you are in the US or Australia or wherever
you're listening to this show, imagine how you would feel
if there were organizations from say China or Russia or
Iran popping up in the capitol, popping up in your town,
and they were funneling hundreds of of millions of dollars
(55:01):
given to them by their parent government just to influence
your local politics. Right, so now now it doesn't matter
how you vote, because there is a new special interest
group in town. They have more money than you could
ever raise, and they have a bigger say, even though
they don't live where you live.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
And even if it's not specifically influencing politics, but it's
influencing some kind of social norm or movement, right you know,
just that perhaps your immediate area doesn't agree with I mean,
that would be that would be very strange if it
was coming, If that money is coming and influence is
coming from outside of your own country, that it would
(55:42):
certainly feel.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Odd, and it feels like an attack on sovereignty. You know,
this would understandably here in the US, this would generate
a lot of anger if people were aware of this,
especially if these groups tried to tilt an election one
way or another. But suppose they weren't just trying to
tilt an election. They had success doing that, and now
they wanted to upend the system of government. This is
(56:06):
something that the US financed NGOs have done in the past,
or sorry, people operating out of those NGOs. Again, the
NGOs may have no knowledge of what's actually happening, and
this has occurred numerous times. This is rinse and repeat
because again it works, and the story is not over.
Our only conclusion we can make is that NGOs are
(56:26):
not going away. The CIA is pretty open about the
fact that they dig it. They're like, we like working
with these guys.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
Yeah, they actually have a term for They coin it
deep cooperation between the agency and these NGOs, and they
refer to this whole process as quote information sharing end quote.
Speaker 4 (56:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
So I don't know, it seems pretty unlikely that that's
the end of the story.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Yeah, so let's really quickly let's mention something that that
CBS News special report to talk about and that is
the Security Act of nineteen forty seven, just to give
an idea of why, why the heck is the CIA
operating in this way, Because as we learned back back
in the old days in our school books, we learned
(57:13):
that the Central Intelligence Agency is in fact an intelligence agency,
and it is meant to carry out what would be
called intelligence in all the various ways we've talked about
on this show numerous times. Yeah, gathering information, right, But
because of that Security Act of nineteen forty seven, they
(57:34):
were essentially ordered through this Act to do a whole
bunch of other things, and all of these things that
they would have to do then and now are currently
having to do our duties quote as directed by the
President and his National Security Council. And that phrase is
so vague it allows essentially whoever the standing president is
(57:57):
and the National Security Council, which have elected officials, are
in there. They get to direct the CIA outside of
the Director of the CIA, or at least nudge very
harshly what they need to do and what they should
be interested in.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
It reminds me of the term, which I've always found
weird and a little creepy, serving at the pleasure of
the president.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yeah, it's like you're going to a Chick fil a.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Well, and in that case, it doesn't matter who the
president is, because if you've got we talked about it
in an episode not long ago, But if you've got
you know, a security council with officials that have been
on there for a long time, who see a big picture,
who see the chess moves, I can only imagine what
things occur, what other countries perhaps should be very much
(58:47):
aware of.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Well said, And that's a great question. Are other nations
right to be concerned? Is there a solution to this problem?
Or's the money gotten too good? Is the system too effective?
The question it's not whether the machine is broken, because
you know, there's an argument to be made that the
people who are running this thing love it. It's doing
what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
To know exactly what it's doing, and then and what
their role in all of it is for sure, right,
it reminds me very much of diplomatic immunity and functioning
out of embassies. Yeah, yeah, I was thinking the same
thing when it in terms of the uh, the aid
workers or whatever, the NGO employees being able to get
kind of carte blanche. Uh, that's that's the sort of
the root of some of these laws where they're like, no,
(59:30):
you can't come anymore, we don't want you.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
We know what you did. Are you familiar with the
term Cranberry?
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Oh, I know a guy named Cranston.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Lock him up. But we want to we want to
hear from you, as we said earlier, if you have been,
if you have been abroad or here in the US,
we're in your home country helping out with a non
governmental organization. Thank you for the work you're doing. Thank
you for making the world a better place, because for pizza,
we need the help. And if you have, if you
(01:00:04):
have experience with anything sketchy going on in one of
these organizations, we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
So like the Peace Corps would be one, right, Yeah,
a lot of people go to the Peace Corps.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's an upstanding, fine organization. Everything's
fine about in the Peace Corps.
Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
There used to be a statue for the founder of
the Peace Corps at our old office. I remember, you know,
that's where you that's when you made it. When you
have a statue, that's a flex made And that's our
classic episode for this Evening We can't wait to hear
your thoughts. It's right let us know what you think.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
You can reach to the anmlic Conspiracy Stuff where we
exist on Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok
or Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
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Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
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Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Stuff 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.
Welcome to our classic episode. Fellow conspiracy realist. I think
we should start this one by thanking everyone who legitimately
volunteered their time and their energy to work with an NGEO. Legitimately.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah yeah, because some of them are great and the
stuff they do is awesome.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah yeah, I GEO non governmental organization. It's something everybody
can get behind you. Like imagine you're on your first
date and you're, you know, you're meeting and mysterious lady
and see what do you what do you do for work?
And then she says, well, I've dedicated my life to
saving children from old land mines.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Holy crap.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah, I sell loose cigarettes by the wah wah. You
know what I mean. We're a match made in heaven.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Is measurements?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Is that like some sort of it's a shade of
like convenience stores.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I thought you mean, like by the truck low by
the wah wah.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I like that too. I like it as a unit
of measurement.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know, there's a non governmental organization in South Carolina
that I just learned about called El Cheapo Gas and
they're everywhere and.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
They're an in GEO. No no, but I guess technically
there are non governmental organization Yeah, yeah, So what is
not a government in geo really is? You know, in
many cases the term comes from international aid. It comes
from attempting to create solutions in step with, but distinct
(01:40):
from government efforts. So like, the US can support green
Peace in different capacities, but you can't work at green
Peace and then fulfill certain government positions, yes, or you
can't have worked in those positions and then join green Peace. Dude?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Can I just say? I just googled el Cheapo Gas
and their website links directly to the most GeoCities web
one point zero website of all time, and the url
is Summer's Oil and it says Adobe flash Player is
no longer supporting of.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
It is wild man. So you're saying, don't use your
credit card there.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
So it's entirely possible. He's in the same code that
four Chan was.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
I guess I think you're also saying that everybody outside
of el Chiapo is a non geo cities organization under construction.
So our classic episode today is why don't nations trust
in geos?
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
And as we enter this world of usaid going away
and goos are going to be doing a lot more
of the work out there in other countries, right, So
let's keep that in mind as we listen to this episode.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
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 iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
My name is Matt, my name is name.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly, you are
here and that makes this stuff they don't want you
to know. In today's episode, we're revisiting a topic we
picked up in twenty fourteen, both as a video and
as a short audio podcast. This is something that may
(03:46):
be controversial to some people, it may be personal to
some of us listening today, and we're going to do
our level best as always to stay objective. We're talking
about non governal organizations the street name NGOs. Most of
us are vaguely aware of these institutions, and oddly enough,
(04:09):
they're defined by what they are not rather than what
they actually are. They're just non governmental. The whole definition
is the thing that they are not in the name.
And that's tricky because this is an umbrella term. It
encompasses everything from you know, the Red Cross or the
Red Crescent to Greenpeace, from the World Wildlife Fund to
Oxfam and so many, many, many, many more. And typically
(04:33):
these organizations are going to focus on a distinct set
of concerns or problems, right human rights, equality or fighting dysentery.
It's usually the kind of stuff every human being can
get behind, you know, solving world hunger. It's philanthropy, Yeah,
saving the cute animals.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, doing the right thing.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I always confuse philanthropy with philandering. Those aren't the same thing,
are they?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
In a way? They both mean lover of men, that's true,
a lover of humanity, It's true. I confuse them as well.
In goos are all about distribution. And it might surprise
many of us, especially people who have donated to one
cause or another. Might surprise us to learn that NGOs
are not as squeaky clean and as utopian as their
(05:21):
proponents would have us believe. In fact, many people, a
growing number of people will argue that these institutions and
organizations are at the very least disingenuous, maybe even evil.
We'll get to that, but first things first, what exactly
is this term we're throwing around? What is an NGO?
(05:41):
Here are the facts?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Are all pals at the Oxford English Dictionary have a
fabulous definition for what an NGO is. They define it
as a nonprofit organization that operates independently of any government,
typically one whose purpose is to address a social or
political issue. And in fact, the term non governmental organization
(06:05):
was created in Article seventy one of the Charter of
the United Nations in nineteen forty five. And that's when
select a club I guess you could call it of
international non state agencies were given observer status to some
of this body's meetings.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, so that means that, let's just make up an example.
Let's just say the Red Cross is now allowed to
hang out in the room during meetings that might might
be applicable to its mission right to save lives. They
don't get to vote because they're not countries. They can
(06:49):
maybe make some speeches, right, but the big thing is
they do not have voting power. And there are other
entities that have observer status in the United Nations. This
is different because that Select group of organizations and institutions
that were allowed to be called non governmental organizations were
(07:10):
already very, very politically connected. They were already kind of
in the room. Now they just get the name drop
in the official designation. But again, like you said, Noel,
they are addressing social or political issues. The only common
factor that these this original group had back in forty
five was that they were not government agencies and they
(07:33):
weren't technically businesses. They weren't making money hand over fist,
or if they were, that was a secondary aim.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yeah, well there isn't the idea that their nonprofit or
not for profit, right and go's like, that's the whole
one of the major points.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Right, got right. Now they can distribute money, yes, very
into distribute today, they can distribute money or funding to
take donations and take donations of course from any number
of donors. But they're not supposed to keep it and
roll it over. They're supposed to invest it in their mission.
(08:09):
So originally the UN said, okay, you're going to be
advocating for human rights, you're gonna be advocating for the
environment or quote unquote development, another umbrella term that can
be very tricky. So an NGO really can be any
kind of organization so long as it's ostensibly independent from
(08:32):
government influence. And as you said, Matt, is not for profit.
There are a ton of them now and they're just
going to keep growing.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, if you check out Nonprofitaction dot org, and this
is a group that tracks the stats that pertain to NGOs,
they estimate that they're listen to this, roughly ten million
non governmental organizations worldwide that are functioning. And I mean
that's a lot, right if you think about that, and
(09:03):
has been mentioned. They're not out there trying to make
profit for things, but they are trying to function and quote,
you know, do good, do some kind of social good.
So they are trying to get in as much money
as they can through donations and as we'll see later
other means. Let's just go to a fact here. In
twenty eleven, people donated one point two billion dollars to
(09:27):
various non governmental organizations, and then just three years later,
by twenty fourteen, that number had risen to one point
four billion dollars.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
So by twenty thirty, this number is expected to make
the meteoric rise up to two point five billion.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
So more than twice what it was in twenty eleven.
They are also huge employers. We're talking about a gigantic
mass of people. Two quick examples. There are more than
six hundred thousand NGOs in Australia and their employees may
up eight percent of the Australian workforce. Wow, eight percent
doesn't sound huge until you think of, you know, the
(10:06):
fact that it's the entire nation and continent of Australia.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
What do you think that's Australia a part.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Oddly enough, not that much. The NGO industry is huge
in the United States as well as Western countries. Part
of the reason it seems so big is because again
the term has so much leeway. It encompasses so much stuff.
You know, one INNGO can be doing something entirely different
and irrelevant to the aims or activities of another in GEO.
(10:37):
But get this, if all the NGOs in the world
were a country, they would have the fifth largest economy
in the world. That's according to John Hopkins. So they're here,
they're here to stay. They're growing. You know, as as
we pointed out, they are going to be at least
a two point five billion dollar business within the next
(10:59):
you know, ten years.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
And a ton of people worldwide depend on them, both
for employment and perhaps for some aspect of their lives,
whether it's from water being treated and cleaned in some
remote part of the earth, or you know, shelter being
provided and created as in, you know, talking about development.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
On the good side at least, yeah, on the good side, right,
we're throwing and already. Yeah, So I'm just.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Trying to remind everybody that, you know, we mentioned at
the top here are like a lot of people think
these things are evil in a general sense. We're just
making sure to point out that there is real good
that is occurring. Yes, it gets so complicated, we haven't
hit it yet, so maybe we'll save some of this
discussion for later.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Hashtag not all NGOs. Yes, And this becomes incredibly important
as we continue, because our big question is what do
NGOs do. Their activities include, but are not limited to,
the stuff we just named environmental work, advocacy, human rights,
social betterment. And sometimes this will happen on a large,
somewhat abstract scale, and sometimes it'll happen very locally, like
(12:11):
this NGO is just providing this specific type of water
pump to a specific region on a continent or we're
just passing out life straws. That's what we're doing. Life
straws are great, by the way, They're incredibly reasonable. If
you don't have one, and if you, like me, believe
in building go bags for your home or your car,
(12:33):
you need a life straw.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
We should can't. We've talked about this. Why don't we
have something I want you to know, branded life straws.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
I would love that.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
And you talk about we came up so you can
like drink out of like a puddle with one of those. Yes,
that's pretty cool. Yeah, I would do it just for
the novelty of drinking out of a puddle.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Yeah. The only I think the only problem is that
they can't filter some heavy metals. So according to the
latest reports, life straws are not has used in the
continental US as we would have wanted to believe, because
the pollution is rampant. A different episode, what no, oh man,
(13:09):
different episode. So that's a story for a different day.
But inngos are on the front lines, in the trenches
of combating these problems and making a world in twenty
eighty five or world in thirty twenty a place where
people would still like to live So the thing is
they're not all created equally and they have different broad categories.
(13:33):
The two big divisions are what we would call operational
NGOs and advocacy or campaigning in geos. They overlap, but
they are different entities.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
So operational inngos actually have to mobilize resources in the
form of their financial donations, things like raw materials, volunteer labor,
so that they can actually keep these projects in pros going.
It's a really difficult and complex process with a lot
(14:04):
of moving parts, and these NGOs usually have some kind
of hq A built in bureaucracy and all kinds of
support and field staff. Then you've got advocacy or campaigning
NGOs that carry out kind of similar types of activities,
but there's kind of a different balancing act that goes
on between them. You still have to raise money, of course,
(14:25):
it's the name of the game for any NGO, but
on a much smaller scale, and it serves more of
a symbolic function and kind of strengthening the identification with
a particular cause that donors might have. I mean, it
sort of goes into the whole idea of the that's
not pure vanity, but there is something of a status
(14:47):
symbol involved in participating in some of these NGOs, and
this kind of bolsters that so when you persuade people
to donate time, it becomes more valuable. Successful campaigning NGOs
have the ability to kind of get large numbers of
people to mobilize for very specific issues and types of events.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, the advocacy campaigning in goos are think of them
as the raising awareness in gos. Sure we'll have funding,
we want to keep the lights on. It's more important
to us that we get people to volunteer X amount
of days out of the year, et cetera. And these distinctions,
like a lot of on paper distinctions, get real muddy
when we go to the field operational NGOs. You know,
(15:31):
if the impact of their projects doesn't seem like it's
really moving the needle, then they'll go of course they'll
go into campaigning. What are they going to say, No,
we don't do that here. And these operational NGOs, especially
the big ones, always run regular campaigns, or at least
they support other affiliated organizations that are running campaigns. And
(15:54):
then sometimes on the other side in goos that are
campaigning in gos feel like they cannot ignore immediate real
problems in their policy domain. So like, if you are
an NGO that wants to raise awareness and support in
society for human rights or for women's rights, then you
may say, you know, the problem here is happening so blatantly,
(16:18):
it's so pervasive, and we have the tools to fix it,
So we can't hold off. We can't just have a
raise awareness dinner or gala. We need to put the
money directly into assisting the victims of these crimes so
they can trade back and forth. They're a bit mercurial,
a bit chameleon like. And there are other NGOs that
(16:41):
specialize outside of these primary functions, right.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah, there's a whole other kind of arm of NGOs
called the research institute. You've probably heard of these before.
They're really great. One of their primary things they do
is to increase knowledge and understanding. And these you know,
range across the whole spectrum, of course, from those you
know who are just looking to promote academics like the
(17:08):
non political issues out there that are going to help
our world become a better place to then you know,
sending out information across the world or across a population
for campaigning to get more money in right, to then
spread more awareness. So it's kind of just like a
nice little cycle thereof send us some money so we
can let other people know this cool thing that you
(17:28):
know now that you.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Know who we are, and think tanks operate in this
realm too, oh for sure. Right, seriously, your political affiliation
and no people hate to hear this, but in this conversation,
your political affiliation does not apply. It does not matter.
What we're about to tell you is very true. The
majority of the time that a politician has a smart
(17:52):
policy plan, it didn't come from them, because they're typically
not going to be professors. It came from think tanks,
it came from ng it came from places like alec
al e c.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
And a lot of.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Times these groups are on the ground somewhere that have
the best visibility for a problem or a big issue,
right absolutely, which so it's we're not saying that's necessarily bad.
It's just perhaps a bit disingenuous when you get that
messaging from a politician.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, politicians are disingenuous, say
it is, so we.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Kind of we all know this and we're all jaded
to some extent at this point, but it is I
think good just to know what you were saying, Ben,
that these NGOs a lot of times have a heavy
hand in policy making.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Absolutely, but I think to your point, Matt, they're able
to be more specialized, right, so they can, you know,
really have the smarts specifically to deal with a particular
problem like climate change, or to really help develop a
policy where every aspect has been fully thought out and
vetted before. You know, these politicians may be shop around
for what they consider to be the best form of
(19:02):
that plan, and then they go with the one that
maybe has the best backing or the most bona fides right.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Right, or what their masters allow them to endorse, which
I know sounds super cynical, but you're right, it's not
a bad thing. It's actually very very good thing that
politicians lean on this expertise because to your point, Noel, Uh,
these organizations are more nimble and they will tend to
have a depth of understanding that can get lost in
a big bureaucratic machine. But okay, so I know we're
(19:31):
getting a little in the weeds here. There is one
great hilarious way to think of NGO's and to differentiate them,
and it goes like this, Bingo Ingo, gong Go Ingo
and of course Quongo love that band.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Wait was Ingo twice?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Uh Ingo e nng o and then Ingo maybe Ingo?
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Okay, yeah, oh ngo ingore go Ingo Okay, out, I
gotta got it.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Okay, can go bango bongo?
Speaker 2 (20:01):
All right, so let's let's do these.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
You're ready to go blanco?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Right?
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Oh boy, here we go. Just so somebody just take
this from this moment on and you will have all
the examples in audio format. Let's just go through them
really quickly.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
These are the real ones too, He's the real Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Let's just go around. Robin Sure, is there a one
in particular you want to hit, Ben Sure?
Speaker 1 (20:21):
BINGO stands for Business Friendly International NGO. Think of something
like the Red Cross.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
NGO E nng O. That's an environmental NGO. Think of Greenpeace,
perhaps the World Wildlife Fund.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
I'm touring between this being my favorite or the number five.
But we've got gong go government organized non governmental organization
such as International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I'm sorry, government organized non governmental organization.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I swear to you that's the real thing. That just means,
That means that that blasted right past it. That means
that a government said, Okay, we're gonna set aside money,
We're gonna give it to this place. We're going to start,
you know, to your example, the International Union for Conservation Nature.
But then you know, you all go ahead, yeah, yeah,
take the money and run. And then we have INGO
(21:14):
I n g O, an international NGO.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Like OXFAM, and finally quango I love it, a quasi
autonomous NGO. An example here would be the International Organization
for Standardization. Highly important thing.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I propose that we that we start an NGO to
change the pronunciation of quango to quango. It just sounds
so much more fun. I feel like I know a
guy there must there's a guy who lives in our
neighborhoods somewhere whose street name is probably quango.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Then there could be the obvious ted nugent tie in
and call it quango tango.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
There we go. Wow, I hope his last name is
Tango Quango tango. If you're listening, that's just cool.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
We were just in Los Angeles and I always think
of that road.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's an outlier because like sunset Cosmo and
someone in the back is just like Kwa.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
It's probably as great significance to somebody somewhere.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
My favorite Los Angeles adjacent name for a town is
Rancho Cucamonga.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yes, pretty fabulous. It feels fancy just hearing it.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
It does.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So all of these things, the the bingo, ingo gongo
and ingo quango wongo, they all, they all get their
money from a couple of easily identifiable places or types
of places. Membership dues. You're you're a member of World
Wildlife Fund or whatever. So every month or every year
you you give them money because you want wild animals
(22:48):
to still be a thing when your kids.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Grow up and you get a really fancy, lovely calendar.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Or private donations. Uh, there's a there's a very clever
thing that we'll go back to this. The other two
are the sale of goods and services right by this
mug by this t shirt, a portion of the proceeds
blah blah blah. And the other one is grants you
apply to a government or another organization, they give you
money to accomplish a name. Going back to number two,
private donations. The very very clever thing about private donations
(23:19):
may may make me sound like a jerk to say
it is that it is not altruism for a philanthropist
to donate. Sure, maybe they want to help that cause,
but they're also saving so much money in write offs
when they donate as much when they donate a portion
of their own proceeds.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Wait a minute, so is NPR and one of these.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Well, it's definitely a nonprofit. But I wonder that's a
good question then, because it receives so much government money.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
It does, but it also does what you're talking about
with the pledge drives and the private donations and also
lots of grants. You always hear, you know, this funded
by a grant from the Johnny and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation,
any Cacy Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, exactly,
all the big ones. So even if it's not, it
certainly functions in a similar way to some of these
(24:10):
NGOs that we're talking about.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Absolutely, and as big MPR fans, both on the federal
and regional level, we just want to say we know
that you probably don't like doing the pledge drives either,
so sol draw onward, folks. We're doing a great job. Yeah,
but Ben, yes, are.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
These groups they sound eerily similar to those special interests
people are always accusing politicians of pandering too.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
That's right, It's absolutely right, because they are special interests.
Their special interests just happen to be ostensibly again on
the surface, beneficial. You are absolutely not wrong. They are
very much special interest groups. I do want to I
do want to bust a scam real quick. While we're
on the concept of private donations, this happens all the time.
(24:57):
If you go to your local grocery store, especially around
the holidays, you know you're ringing, You're buying magazines, dog
food and egg whites and I don't know whatever else,
shoe cleaner.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I'm getting a real picture of your life, Ben, I'm taking.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
To duct tape something to burn your fingerprints off. Whatever.
And then at the end of the transaction, they say,
would you like to donate to this holiday fund? Would
you like to donate a dollar, five dollars, ten dollars right,
and they ask you right at the register. It's very
easy to say yes. Here's what's happening with that. Those
companies are taking that money that they're they're getting from
(25:34):
individual grocery store customers, they're pulling it into a single
fund and they're using it to make a large charitable
donation that offsets their tax burden. So what you're actually doing,
what you're actually doing now, you are helping people on
the way, but what you're actually doing is paying that
grocery store taxes for them.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Man Kroger, Why would you do me wrong like that?
Speaker 1 (25:57):
I just that's I'm pretty sure that's what's going on.
I would love to be wrong.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I think that's called a loophole, ben and that's what
they're they found it.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
But don't you feel like a jerk sometimes, like do
you want to donate and you say no? You know,
what do you say, like, I don't want children to
have toys? I think dogs should just die?
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I think my problem, just
personally speaking personally here is that I am so embarrassed
by the thought of denying a one dollar donation. At
any point, when someone points at me and says, would
you like to donate? You're already paying just click this thing.
I have to say yes. So if you ever want
(26:41):
to squeeze money out of me, just make it look
like seem like a charitable donation and hit me while
I'm doing a transaction.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Do you typically give handouts to handhandlers I did for
a long time. Then what happened? Mat who hurts you?
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I just ooh, I could tell you an actual story.
I know. Yes, we're going to take a break. Geez, Paul,
he's just staring at me.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
He is.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
We're gonna go do a break soon, I promise. I
gave a gentleman in a wheelchair more money than I
generally would and.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
Then he got up and walked away, didn't.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
He No, he he took it, like just snatched it
from me and then just wheeled off really quickly. But
was very much just like I got away with it
kind of thing. I don't know the way the way
I felt afterwards. And then I also went to I
went to school at Georgia State in downtown, and I
(27:37):
think it just the interaction, that type of interaction occurs
so frequently, get numb to it. Well, it's tough because
if you want to truly help someone in that type
of situation, just handing them cash that is transferable in
that moment probably isn't the best way to do it.
Many times that's gonna be enabling perhaps behavior that is
(27:58):
already occurring. But again, I don't have all the answers,
you know, one thing you can do is donate to
an organization like ones that we're talking about today, right, Yeah,
But then you don't really know exactly where your money's going,
and probably only a small portion of it is going
to truly helping those people anyway. Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
That's perfect. That's perfect. That's the point, because what if
there's more to the story behind these NGOs. Why do
some governments want to ban non governmental organizations? And what
if the goals of these organizations on paper are not
their actual goals on the ground. Will attempt to answer
(28:39):
some of these questions after a word from our sponsor.
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
So you know, like, like many of the things we
talk about on this show, things are not always as
they seem. There's a problem here. It turns out that,
at least in a few cases, folks are quite right
to distrust inngos in the way that Matt had the
inkling of a minute ago before the break back. In
(29:13):
nineteen sixty seven, Mike Wallace, the seasoned television journalist, helped CBS.
Mike Wallace led an investigation into reports of CIA front companies,
only to find that the CIA regularly used front companies
as a way to circumvent laws domestic and international alike.
(29:39):
For example, the sixty seven investigation found that the CIA
was functioning under the title the Bureau of Public Roads.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, the BPR.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
So it's all kind of a smoke screen. So let's
dig into this starting with intelligence agency assets.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
So really quickly before we completely I just want to
give everyone the tools to look at this if they
want to on their own. It was called CBS News
Special Report with Mike Wallace and the title was in
the Pay of the CIA and American Dilemma.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, you can watch the entire thing on YouTube. We
think it's very much worth your time. Also, keep in
mind that all the disturbing stuff you hear about in
that investigation happened back in nineteen sixty seven. This is
from the fifties to the sixties, and.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
CBS News one of the largest providers of information, a
media company. They were the ones helming this investigation and
giving this information to the American public.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Here's what they found. So the CIA created front companies.
It's not explosive news to anyone, but they use these
front companies to donate to legitimate charitable organizations, some of
which existed beforehand, right, and some of which were also
probably custom made. Wallace characterized these charitable funds, these institutions
(31:07):
and foundations as part of the country's financial power structure.
And he's very blunt about it. Yes, it says, these
are large aggregations of private money. They are influencing policy
and influencing culture with very few checks on their activities,
very like when I say check, I mean checks and
balances style, very little oversight.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Well, and it's weird too, because as they're tracing these things. Right,
Let's just give an example of something like the it
was called the Granary Fund, right, and it's this organization
that takes money in directly from the CIA, right. And
it's literally just money goes from the CIA to this
thing called the Granary Fund. And CBS News tried to
(31:51):
track down where this place was, and they found that
it had an address in Boston, Massachusetts, at this one
place in this one you know, room or suite within
that building. They got up to that suite and it
was actually a law firm of hemenway in Barns, and
the person that actually signs all the checks and all
(32:12):
of the financial and tax documents for this granary fund
was one of the major guys there at this law firm,
who also happens to be a part of the CIA,
if you'll look him up and who's who. And then
you realize that that granary fund is donating to all
these other funds, you know, like charitable organizations and true
(32:36):
real life funds. And then you realize, wait, that money
that those real funds have is all mixed in with
this CIA money. And we're talking about thousands and thousands
of dollars.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
This isn't chump change, and this is a great money
laundering exercise, you know what I mean. Car washes are
for schmucks and amateurs.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Now, so isn't that extortion not extortion fraud? I mean,
if people are taking your money and then it's just
going into this imaginary smoke screen pot.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Well, what do you mean taking your money?
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You're talking about taxes, you're talking about donations, donations.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Well, in this case, it's the CIA funneling money, taxpayer
money into a fake account or a false company. Then
that company is donating to a real fund and then
those funds get distributed fun So it's.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Not individual donations that are just going off into space, like.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
But it is it's taxpayer donations essentially, right, But that's
just theft.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Then it's not donations at all, right, I think I
think the question. I think the question here is are
inngo's bilking individual donors, right, Like, yes, Like Paul signs up,
Paul signs up for the International Institution for the Proliferation
of Applebee's and they want to build Applebee's in developing
(33:54):
countries across the world. And then he finds out that
his you know, two hundred dollar a year donation is
actually going to build Chili's or something like that. You know,
like if it's not doing I think legally, when you
donate that money, they can do whatever they want with it.
And I think now I would like to say there's
(34:17):
some more oversight for charities because you can see all
these sites rating charities on their trustworthiness and so on,
and there are a lot of other like predatory things
that purport to be charities but aren't really. They just
sound alike, you know, and they're there to you know,
bilk people out of money. Here's the thing. By donating
(34:37):
through these front companies, the CIA specifically other organizations did
this to the KGB. In their time, they were huge
fans of doing this. But by donating through front companies,
the CIA is muddying the financial waters, making it increasingly
difficult to track where this cash goes. And again it
is taxpayer money and more importantly, what it is spent on.
(35:00):
I mean, it makes sense. Think of it this way.
Let's say the four of us had, you know, no
plans for the weekend, and so we decided to destabilize
a region of the world or promote regime change in
a country, but do a geopolitical worries, concerns, norms, laws,
all that jazz. We cannot risk and open war. We
(35:20):
can't just send people in to depose the leader. We
can't have a hot war on our hands. Heck, we're
at the point where, you know, we can't even get
intelligence agency employees over the border as long as they
are acknowledged to be intelligence agency employees, because what we
can do instead is get members of an NGO over
(35:42):
the border. Right. So, now, our operative Matt, Frederick, Matt,
what's your spy name?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Cranberry sauce.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Okay, so Matt Cranberry Sauce, Frederick Operative Cranberry Sauce can't
get in. But uh, you know, Cranberry Matthews, the member
of the Red Cross or the Society for the Betterment
of the Pangolin, can absolutely get into the country.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I think it's actually Barry Cranston.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Barry Cranston. There we go, and this guy Cranston can,
if he's careful, gather like minded students from local universities,
disaffected utes to utes, uh in areas with high unemployment,
arm them with weapons smuggled in by someone else, teach
them guerrilla tactics, and boom, you've got a quote unquote
(36:35):
student union, slash rebel force, slash terrorist group. And so
back in Washington, as politicians can say, we morally support
the goals of this student union, spread in freedom, spread
in democracy, morally support, only we do not have an
(36:56):
attachment to them. And that's when it goes to the politically,
that's when it goes to plausible deniability. The president may
really think that somehow, in a country where guns are
generally banned, a bunch of college kids got together, got
armed with military grade weaponry.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
They had what started as a stand in or a
sit down, turned into a full scale of rebellion.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Right right, right, and suddenly just they pulled out of
the top hat of their asses, the most ass hats,
their ass hats, thank you. They pulled out the most
effective protests and counterinsurgency techniques that the human civilization has discovered.
They just made it up, right, I mean, sell me
(37:42):
a bridge.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
That that's what I mean.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
That sounds so hypothetical, Ben all right, yeah, yeah, you
know the Ted talking here, But this is a hypothetical scenario.
This happened in the past, this might be happening right
now as we record this episode, and Dollars to Donuts,
it's going to happen again in the future, which then
you think.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
In that CBS special, they did specifically track the Granary
Fund donations that went through this little spider spider web
of money flow. They tracked it to specifically student union
foundations that were operating internationally. So it's just it's already
ringing true.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, I mean, and I don't want to vilify everybody,
you know, like students, students are doing things, and grassroots
groups are an important part of challenging authoritarian regimes, but
sometimes they're not as grassroots as they appear to be.
And it's a pickle for sure. We actually have. We
(38:46):
have many, many cases of NGOs and media outlets that
are completely more or less independent. They're doing what they
say on the label right. Unfortunately, we have many examples
of mediats and in geos that are controlled, infiltrated, or
manipulated by intelligence services. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean they're bad, and.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
It also doesn't mean we're going to talk about it
right now because we're going to take a quick word
from our sponsor and special thanks to that NGO that
was sponsoring us.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
Maybe not, it's all Illumination Global Unlimited.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
You're doing God's work.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Now, that is a fine example of a non governmental organization.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
That that's just an n O, non organization.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Non organization would go, I'm a proud member of a
non organization. It's true. Though maybe we're over emphasizing this
a little, but it's it's all to the good. Of course,
the vast majority of people working at these organizations are
not inherently bad. They're not members of specter are something.
In fact, it's plausible. I mean, it's almost certain that
(40:05):
many many people within these organizations, from volunteers to career staffers,
have no idea there's any ulterior motive at play, you
know what I mean. It's like you could work at
the States Apartment and have no idea that the it
guy down the hall is actually a CIA asset because
he just fixes your email, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yeah, is he?
Speaker 1 (40:29):
And that course doesn't mean all NGOs are currently fronts
or even compromised, but it makes you think.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
It does make you think the collaboration between NGOs and
intelligence services is kind of you know, like Bill Cosby
and Hollywood in the nineties. It's an open secret. In
twenty ten, Joe mcspeeden is great a great name for
an agency official for international development. In fact, he launched
(41:01):
a social media messaging network in Cuba called Zunzunio that
was very much resembling Twitter, and it was used by
thousands of Cubans who were unaware that the project was
actually designed to essentially infiltrate their privacy and monitor their
(41:21):
communications to get a sense of what was going on
on the ground there in Cuba.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, and according to the AP from twenty fourteen, it
was also to stir up unrest within the country by
affecting the populace like that was one of the goals
of this thing whoops or you know, score, depending.
Speaker 3 (41:44):
On which side you know.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Another example, Ben, I know this was one of your favorites,
was the National Endowment for Democracy or NED, which was
funded by the US Congress.
Speaker 4 (41:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
This comes to us from an investigative reporter named Robert
Perry pa R r. Y. Perry writes that NED National
Endowment for Democracy took over the CIA's role of influencing
electoral outcomes and destabilizing governments that got in the way
of US interests. So do you have a left wing,
duly elected president who's a little bit to leftist? Is
(42:21):
this guy? Does this guy have the nerve to nationalize
that country's resources they're oil, their gas, they're heavy metals,
their timber, or to alter.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
The currency that is being exchanged for those resources.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Yeah, you know what I mean, as far as it
seems like, as far as the geopolitical apparatus is concerned,
people can burn flags all they want, so long as
they buy those flags with dollars US dollars. That's I mean.
You know, there's a case to make that the real
flag of a country is its currency.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
What was the name of the care We did an
episode earlier today, Ben and I ridiculous history about Ernest
Hemingway's younger brother who tried to declare a sovereign nation
on a raft and he had a really cool name
for the currency of New Atlantis, right, scruples, scruples.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
Because they thought wealthy people should have a lot of scruples. Right, Yeah,
that's a that's a true story.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
But this is this is this thing we're talking about
destabilizing governments that the United States, specifically the CIA has
an issue with. That's an interest in, all right, but yes,
for various strategic reasons. It's just it's rough that that's
the avenue through which it's occurring, through these supposedly you know,
(43:46):
good organizations that are trying to do good for a world.
This is really bothering me.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Guys, you're saying you just think it's inherently ichy and wrong.
It feels very ichy.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
It's so cloak, I mean, it is, Okay, it's so
perfectly cloak and dagger, I suppose. And yet once you'd
think that once it's found out that this kind of
thing is occurring, let's say, from those reports, that nineteen
sixty seven report from CBS, once that's found out you'd think, oh, well,
maybe that ended right. We figured that out and the
world figured it out. It's over now.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Yeah, that's the thing, though I wish there were a
better response than Yeah, that's the thing. That's a big
oo for me.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Man.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, places like NED or organizations like NED, these kind
of slush funds for foreign policy operations that are a
little that are not above the board. This is a
prolific practice. And it's only a practice because it works.
It's not like everybody chose a theme just for the
sake of esthetics. There's undeniable proof that the CIA has
(44:50):
conspired and is likely conspireen as we speak, to execute
illegal campaigns in other countries using NGOs and charities as
co again not necessarily the fault of the charities, not
the fault of the NGOs. In fact, there's a case
to be made that these innocent people may have their
lives put in danger if one of these intelligence operations
(45:14):
goes wrong.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
But you know, with this being such an open secret,
like you said, and with that sixty seven investigation uncovering
so much of this cloak and daggery, surely you know
sovereign nations are hipped to this and don't want this
kind of influence infiltrating their borders. Surely we would feel
the same from ngeos from other countries, you know, masquerading
behind this idea of do good ory this veil. Right.
(45:38):
Aren't there laws that would prevent this kind of stuff
from happening.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
It's a good question. There are a lot now Before
we anybody in the more skeptical side of the audience
relegates this to the land of alarmism and sensationalism in
tinfoil hattery. Note that other world powers are very aware
of this strategy have participated in it on their own.
(46:01):
You can see again in that sixty seven investigation there's
a little bit of what aboutism on the side of
people who say, yeah, the CIA does do these dirty
deeds thun dirt cheap to other countries, but that other
powers are doing the same thing. Like there's this fantastic
(46:22):
footage of a Russian organized huge concert. It was a blowout,
but it was all to make the great idea of
Cold War communism more palatable and to make it cool.
It was a war for the hearts and minds. And
we also know that people take this seriously because many
(46:42):
other countries have made laws explicitly banning inngo's foreign owned
in geos from their borders. Amnesty International was a very
interesting source on this because they're you know, they're pro
and GEO. Well what could go wrong, right, and they
do great work. They say that governments across the world
are increasingly attacking in geos by creating laws that subject
(47:05):
them in their staff to surveillance, bureaucratic hurdles, and the
ever present threat of imprisonment. And they have a lot
of examples here too.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yes, and we have a quote here from Amnesty International.
It says in the past two years alone, almost forty
pieces of legislation that interfere with the right to assemble
and are designed to hamper the work of civil society
organizations have been put in place or are in the
works around the world. These laws commonly include implementing ludicrous
(47:34):
registration processes for organizations, monitoring their work, restricting their sources
of resources, and in many cases, shutting them down if
they don't adhere to the unreasonable requirements imposed on them.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Yeah, so this could be killing people with the thousand
paper cuts of paper work, you know, like you need
you need approval to assemble or to hold this meeting
right to tell people about d the benefits of sanitation,
or to teach people how to for being totally totally
(48:08):
benevolent about it. Let's say you're trying to teach people
how to operate and maintain a solar power phone charging station,
right and valuable. That's great stuff. And then let's say
the country and what you're trying to do, this doesn't
care for your whole the cut of your jib, and
so they say, okay, to hold this class where you
(48:29):
teach this, you have to get approval from this authority,
and that authority has to approve it sixty days before
you do this. However, that approval can only be submitted
thirty days before you have the things. So now you're
in to catch twenty two bureaucratically. It's weird. It's a
(48:51):
weird flex for sure. But we also have examples of
specific countries who have started banning or excluding NGOs. Make
no mistake because of these concerns that spies may be
infiltrating the country via NGOs.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
So Pakistan's Ministry of the Interior rejected registration applications from
eighteen international NGOs in October of twenty eighteen, and they
dismissed all of the appeals that came without giving a reason.
They are clearly very suspicious of these agencies. Just in general,
(49:28):
in Saudi Arabia, the government can deny licenses to new
organizations and disband them a step further, even if they
are deemed to be quote harming national unity. And this
has affected human rights groups, including women's human rights groups,
who have not been able to register and operate freely
in the country. This is a really good example of like,
(49:49):
you know, a couple of bad apples spoiling the bunch,
you know, I mean, because as we said at the
top of the show, clearly there is good work being
done by these NGOs. Well because of a few bad actors,
everyone that's like, you know, everyone kind of gets screwed, right.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Well, it's also a convenient reason to keep things as
they are, right, Like, if you're talking especially about women's
rights groups operating in Saudi arabia's absolutely right. I mean,
if you can just ban a group that is advocating
for a certain thing because of reason a.
Speaker 3 (50:22):
Potential threat to our sovereignty or whatever.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Yeah, you know, and and that that phrase, like I'd
love to get your take on that phrase been national
harming national unity.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean same sex equality is seen
as harming national unity. That's right. Arabia, that's right.
Speaker 2 (50:39):
That's that's kind of what we're talking about. And you
can kind of see that at play, that kind of
phrasing at play in countries across the world, even ones
that you, you know, you may live in right now
that you identify with as like having this equality thing down, Pat,
Perhaps perhaps it's not that way. That's right.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
I mean, the very basis of your national unity could
be on the wrong side of human rights.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
In general as a whole. Yeah, those aveiled shade at
the United States, by the way, just everybody's aware.
Speaker 1 (51:12):
Okay, well take off cantail in general. But this is
an interesting case, and I'm glad you brought it up
because in the case of Saudi Arabia, yeah, there might
be some insidious intelligence agency activity going on, but it's
also just as likely it's more likely that a lot
of those in geos are getting shut down because they
(51:34):
are advocating for things that in the West are seen
as in alienable human rights. Bell Reus goes a little
bit further. Any in GEO that can operate in the
country is closely observed scrutinized by the state. And if
you work for any in GOO who tried to register
(51:55):
and got rejected, you have committed a crime and you
may be in prison, and you may also just disappear.
Speaker 2 (52:02):
You should probably get out.
Speaker 1 (52:03):
Yeah, these are just a few examples. Other countries Azerbaijan,
China and of course Russia have introduced more registration and
reporting requirements and if you don't comply, you can be
thrown in prison. Which is it sounds weird, you know,
to say that you didn't complete some paperwork, so now
(52:26):
you're going to jail, possibly for a long long time,
especially if you're foreign national, right, because usually we think, well,
if you don't do paperwork, right, you get a fine
for being late, you know.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, unless it's I'm trying to think of like a
really bad traffic violation where you actually end up having
to go to jail for a couple of days if
you don't fill out your paperwork i e. Pay or
show up.
Speaker 1 (52:51):
Sure, yeah, I guess for people on probation, that's paperwork
that can get you in trouble. But we mentioned Russia.
Maybe the lead a little bit here. Russia is one
of the most well known anti in GEO organizations. They
a few years back banned all NGOs that they considered undesirable.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
It's true.
Speaker 3 (53:13):
The government has regularly labeled NGOs who receive foreign funding
as foreign agents, which is a term that you could
very easily correlate to ones that are a little more
direct like spy, traitor, enemy of the state. The government
(53:34):
applies this kind of thinking so broadly, not only thinking
actual legislation, that even an organization that supports people with
say diabetes, actually gets could be subject to fines, put
on a blacklist of foreign agents, and forced to close.
This is not hypothetical. This actually happened in October of
(53:57):
twenty eighteen. Medical Environment, until women's groups, all of these
have also come under serious scrutiny and fire from the
Russian government, and all of these moves have really galvanized
the developing world and launched a kind of a renaissance
of anti NGO legislation.
Speaker 1 (54:19):
Yeah, and so for anyone listening now who has dedicated
their life to service, thank you for being one of
the good forces in the world, even though I'm sure
at times it feels like you are outnumbered. If you're
having a hard time trying to understand why these countries
would so profoundly distrust in Geo's, think about it this way.
(54:41):
If you are in the US or Australia or wherever
you're listening to this show, imagine how you would feel
if there were organizations from say China or Russia or
Iran popping up in the capitol, popping up in your town,
and they were funneling hundreds of of millions of dollars
(55:01):
given to them by their parent government just to influence
your local politics. Right, so now now it doesn't matter
how you vote, because there is a new special interest
group in town. They have more money than you could
ever raise, and they have a bigger say, even though
they don't live where you live.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
And even if it's not specifically influencing politics, but it's
influencing some kind of social norm or movement, right you know,
just that perhaps your immediate area doesn't agree with I mean,
that would be that would be very strange if it
was coming, If that money is coming and influence is
coming from outside of your own country, that it would
(55:42):
certainly feel.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Odd, and it feels like an attack on sovereignty. You know,
this would understandably here in the US, this would generate
a lot of anger if people were aware of this,
especially if these groups tried to tilt an election one
way or another. But suppose they weren't just trying to
tilt an election. They had success doing that, and now
they wanted to upend the system of government. This is
(56:06):
something that the US financed NGOs have done in the past,
or sorry, people operating out of those NGOs. Again, the
NGOs may have no knowledge of what's actually happening, and
this has occurred numerous times. This is rinse and repeat
because again it works, and the story is not over.
Our only conclusion we can make is that NGOs are
(56:26):
not going away. The CIA is pretty open about the
fact that they dig it. They're like, we like working
with these guys.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
Yeah, they actually have a term for They coin it
deep cooperation between the agency and these NGOs, and they
refer to this whole process as quote information sharing end quote.
Speaker 4 (56:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
So I don't know, it seems pretty unlikely that that's
the end of the story.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Yeah, so let's really quickly let's mention something that that
CBS News special report to talk about and that is
the Security Act of nineteen forty seven, just to give
an idea of why, why the heck is the CIA
operating in this way, Because as we learned back back
in the old days in our school books, we learned
(57:13):
that the Central Intelligence Agency is in fact an intelligence agency,
and it is meant to carry out what would be
called intelligence in all the various ways we've talked about
on this show numerous times. Yeah, gathering information, right, But
because of that Security Act of nineteen forty seven, they
(57:34):
were essentially ordered through this Act to do a whole
bunch of other things, and all of these things that
they would have to do then and now are currently
having to do our duties quote as directed by the
President and his National Security Council. And that phrase is
so vague it allows essentially whoever the standing president is
(57:57):
and the National Security Council, which have elected officials, are
in there. They get to direct the CIA outside of
the Director of the CIA, or at least nudge very
harshly what they need to do and what they should
be interested in.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
It reminds me of the term, which I've always found
weird and a little creepy, serving at the pleasure of
the president.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Yeah, it's like you're going to a Chick fil a.
Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (58:23):
Well, and in that case, it doesn't matter who the
president is, because if you've got we talked about it
in an episode not long ago, But if you've got
you know, a security council with officials that have been
on there for a long time, who see a big picture,
who see the chess moves, I can only imagine what
things occur, what other countries perhaps should be very much
(58:47):
aware of.
Speaker 1 (58:48):
Well said, And that's a great question. Are other nations
right to be concerned? Is there a solution to this problem?
Or's the money gotten too good? Is the system too effective?
The question it's not whether the machine is broken, because
you know, there's an argument to be made that the
people who are running this thing love it. It's doing
what they wanted.
Speaker 3 (59:08):
To know exactly what it's doing, and then and what
their role in all of it is for sure, right,
it reminds me very much of diplomatic immunity and functioning
out of embassies. Yeah, yeah, I was thinking the same
thing when it in terms of the uh, the aid
workers or whatever, the NGO employees being able to get
kind of carte blanche. Uh, that's that's the sort of
the root of some of these laws where they're like, no,
(59:30):
you can't come anymore, we don't want you.
Speaker 1 (59:32):
We know what you did. Are you familiar with the
term Cranberry?
Speaker 2 (59:37):
Oh, I know a guy named Cranston.
Speaker 1 (59:40):
Lock him up. But we want to we want to
hear from you, as we said earlier, if you have been,
if you have been abroad or here in the US,
we're in your home country helping out with a non
governmental organization. Thank you for the work you're doing. Thank
you for making the world a better place, because for pizza,
we need the help. And if you have, if you
(01:00:04):
have experience with anything sketchy going on in one of
these organizations, we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
So like the Peace Corps would be one, right, Yeah,
a lot of people go to the Peace Corps.
Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's an upstanding, fine organization. Everything's
fine about in the Peace Corps.
Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
There used to be a statue for the founder of
the Peace Corps at our old office. I remember, you know,
that's where you that's when you made it. When you
have a statue, that's a flex made And that's our
classic episode for this Evening We can't wait to hear
your thoughts. It's right let us know what you think.
Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
You can reach to the anmlic Conspiracy Stuff where we
exist on Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok
or Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
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Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
We are the entities that read every single piece of
correspondence we receive. Be aware, yet not afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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