One of the largest covert operations in history occurred in Lebanon, where exploding pagers and walkie-talkies injured thousands - prompting disturbing, dangerous questions. Japan's corporate culture makes it so difficult to resign that people are hiring third-party 'resignation experts.' The US denies allegations that the CIA may have masterminded a failed plot to murder Venezualan leader Nicolás Maduro. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We are joined with our guest super producer, Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here. That makes
this the stuff they don't want you to know. It
is quite a week for strange news. We're going to
visit some folks across the Pacific. We're going to go
(00:51):
on air with some conversations we had had in the
past about different ambitious attempts at grass roots regime change.
We'll call it. We'll see some bribery. Well, we'll also
just for anybody listening right now, if you have a pager,
no judgment. If you have a pager, move it across
(01:12):
the room.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
A pager? What is it? Nineteen ninety five, Oliver Bay
I had one. I had a bright green, translucent Motorola pager.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yes, hopefully you don't need to be worried about your pager.
If you know, if you're.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
A doctor or a drug dealer, a work production mine
never mine never injured me, you know, physically anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
The ones I had injured me emotionally exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That's that's clear. All those mean spirited pager codes that
were flying around.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Is it really nine one one? Is it really nine
one one? Or do you just want me to tell
you what Jennifer said about you in middle school?
Speaker 5 (01:53):
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
No, I mean, it's not nine one one, it's eight
zero zero eight five?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Is it really? Boobs? Guys? Is it really?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
We're fans and we've returned. Listen, folks, fellow conspiracy realist.
We are recording this on the evening of September eighteenth,
twenty twenty four, and our breaking news story should be
(02:23):
considered just that we don't have all the facts. Very
few people do. But I was talking with the guys
earlier when I got the news and it quickly spread
around the world. There was a massive pager attack on
affiliates of his Belah.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
But not like an interruption of service attack, like where
all of a sudden people's pages didn't work. It was
something quite different. Ben right, Yes, sir, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
This is.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
In contrast to a denial of service. This was a
quote unquote service that the people affected certainly did not welcome,
nor did they expect it. And to intro into this,
I think it's important for us to note the events
were going to describe here occurred just a few days ago.
(03:15):
As a matter of fact, as we were gearing up
for things. In the past twenty four hours, another attack occurred,
another mass attack with exploding walkie talkies. This is going
to be an episode in the future. Right now, we
want to set the stage and answer some questions that
are on everybody's mind. To really understand what happened, you
(03:38):
need to go back to October of nineteen ninety five
and a guy a lot of people don't remember his name,
Kamil Hamad, met with operatives of shin Bet. Without getting
too into the weeds, that's Israel's counter terrorism outfit. And
when this guy met with shin Bet, he came to
(04:00):
him and he said, look, I need funding and I
need Israeli identity cards for myself and for my family.
And shin Bett, like a lot of good intel organizations
will do, said well, now we've got you by the
short and curls right now, you work for us. We
(04:22):
will inform on you and your bosses will murder you
as a result. So he agreed to cooperate. He went
in thinking that he was the deal maker, and he
came out at the wrong end.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Of a deal.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So what they did is they gave him a cell phone,
and they were upfront. They told him this was bugged
so that they could listen in on his conversations. What's
more important is what they did not tell Hamad. They
did not tell him that this bugged phone also contained
fifteen grams of explosives.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
WHOA I mean, that was my initial question, because there's
part of me that almost wondered, is this some way
of hijacking a device and causing it to overheat to
the point.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Where it would injure somebody. But it's deeper than that.
It's it's potentially like someone got in on the supply
chain of the product or planted a tampered with product
that these individuals ended up using. That just seems so complicated.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Which we'll get to. That's the twenty twenty four event.
We're still like October nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
But yeah, you're describing that it is possible, right to
do that, but with one person.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Right, Yeah, that's what I'm hoping to do. Yeah, like
the president here, which doesn't get as reported as widely
as it should. Takes us to not Kamil Hamad. Kamil
Hamad was not the target of this operation. Instead, the
Intel was targeting a guy named yahe Ayash that is
(06:00):
spelled yahya Ayyash. During his lifetime, this guy was known
as the prime or chief bomb maker of Hamas. And
so when the Chinbet gives Kamal Hamad this cell phone
(06:20):
that he knows is bugged, he knows is tapped. Essentially,
what they're doing is waiting for him to give it
to someone who will give it to Ayash. And so
Hamad gives the phone to one of his nephews, his nephew,
and he knows that this guy, the chief bombmaker of Hamas,
(06:43):
regularly uses this nephew's phones. And then fast forward It's
January fifth, nineteen ninety six. Ayash's father calls him on
this bugged phone. Aosh answers, and then and Israeli playing
flying overhead, picks up the conversation, relays it to command.
(07:05):
They confirm this is the guy they're looking for on
the phone, and they remotely detonate the device. They kill
him instantly.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Effective, brutal effective.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
And this is what leads us to the news that
everybody saw. On Tuesday, an attack in Lebanon across the
country of Lebanon caused pagers to explode. Thousands of people
were injured. At current count, twelve are dead as a
result of the pager attack because the day after this evening,
(07:41):
as we record, walkie talkies associated with Hesbola affiliates also exploded.
This is something that I would say is not unprecedented
therefore in terms of the principle or the concept, but
it is unprecedented, I would argue in terms.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Of the scale of the operation. To your earlier point,
it's it's wild. I mean, and you know, we don't
know much yet. I mean, we will hopefully by the
time we do this full episode, but like you know,
we certainly know there are things like defects and phones
that you have to get recalled because the lithium batteries
can heat up to the point of injuring people. I mean,
(08:22):
there have been like lawsuits filed but against cell phone
manufacturers for like people getting horribly burned, but this sounds
even worse than that, and like more immediate. We hear
we're hearing a lot about injuries to people's eyes and
faces because they're holding the thing up to look at
it when the call comes in.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah, but they got a buzz notification, right, And you
can see you can see a lot of video of
the aftermath, which is horrified. You can also see a
couple of videos that just happen to be caught on
things like CCTV and what you'll what you'll see there
is somebody gets a buzz like soap, they into their pocket,
(09:01):
they hold up the thing and it explodes with much
more force than you know, an overheated lithium ion battery.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, and Asia probably doesn't even take one of those.
I mean, they're so underpower they don't need much.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, No, that's a really good point. It was said,
it was known that the pager definitely got a signal.
There were some kind of strange code that was displayed,
you know, on the on the display there on the
pager right before it went off, and it was like
a like a couple of second delay.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I think I maybe heard on public radio today that
these were meant to be like proprietary communications from HESBELA.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Yes, yeah, this was meant to be what we would
call sequestered or discrete comms for Hesbelos. So if you
had your own pager already, your CIV pager or your
civy phone, that would not be connected. This is to
message people in this organization because there is, as you
(10:03):
can objectively understand, there is a great deal of concern
about security of communication because HESBLA, being a proxy of Iran,
has been at war with Israel for quite some time. Look,
we know that this is ideologically deep for people. We're
(10:24):
not here to talk about the ideology necessarily. We're here
to explore what appears to be an insidiously successful covert operation,
a genuine conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, can we quickly just talk about what Heswela is.
I think sometimes people get confused about some of these
organizations and groups and just to get people to run
down on like because Hesbela is a vast and multifaceted thing. Sure.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
HESBLA is a political party, Lebanese Shia Islamist political party
and also a paramilitary group. So if you talk to
some people in Lebanon, they're going to say this is
not a terrorist group, right, These are more akin to
freedom fighters However, it is an open secret that Hebela
(11:18):
receives a lot of funding from the nation of Iran,
which is currently a theocracy, and Iran has different statements
about this, you know what I mean, kind of like
Russia writes laws about any Russian president. One notable thing
that happened in the pager attack was that the Iranian
(11:40):
ambassador was also injured. So one of the first questions
that the international community is asking is why did you
have a direct plug in to hisbolo?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Holy crap, the plot dickens. I mean, now, that's wow,
that's very I didn't even think about that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It's a big deal. It's a good question.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
It's a big deal and a good question.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
This is where we get to something that was brought
up a little bit earlier, but let's get to it.
Initial conversation and speculation concerned the idea of how an
attack could happen. Is it theoretically possible that malicious code
could have been used to simply overheat a battery right,
(12:26):
resulting in all of these things going off at once.
That does not appear to be the case. Pagers again,
are you know, not super advanced technology. They're not all
cloud connected to.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
The point, probably why they use these instead of cell
phones or instead of smart devices, because it's so siloed
and low tech.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And I keep thinking about I rewatched it too many times.
I keep thinking about the scene and Breaking Bad spoilers
three to one. I keep thinking about the scene and
Breaking bad. Wherein Walter White ordered hits on a ton
of people all in the same two minutes in the
US prison system. Do you guys remember that?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Huh, I didn't. I don't remember what clever mcguy vermethod
he used to do that, but I do remember that
plot point he got a biker gang ye had inside
people in different prisons from this back. What was so
this you're saying, just the level of precision and comms
kind of reminded you of that.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, but in this case also innocent people were injured,
and perhaps more importantly, this is real life. Now, another
thing we have to think about here. When these explosions
occur again simultaneously or near simultaneously, it tells us some
very important things. The first thing it tells us is
(13:46):
that this came from the same signal, right. The second
thing it tells us is it's important mission critical to
figure out the provenance of this pager supply and speculation
is going for Hungry to Taiwan right now. And then
the third thing I think it tells us to be
(14:07):
quite clear, is that there was somebody waited. They put
explosives in these things. They put grams of explosives in pagers,
and they didn't immediately pull the trigger.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, they waited.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
And the question then is why did they wait without
sounding to James Bondi about it. It was probably because
the plan was getting close to being exposed, so it
was time to maximize the leverage.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It's hella, James bond all of it. It's crazy. It's
like an exploding pen.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
The big question I have, guys, is if they were
a if whoever did this right was able to gain
access to all those devices. These are just like a
pretty simple send receive signaled device right usually with radio signals.
If they took the time and were able to gain
access to all those things and put explosives in them,
(15:06):
what makes us think that they weren't also enabled with
some kind of listening device or tracking device.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Like original story Ben told was exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Exactly like and you're doing it across an entire organization,
and it makes guys, it makes me think about the
stories we've heard in the past from listeners in read
online about let's say, a federal agent from any country
that intercepts an Amazon package or something that's ordered that
has a device in it, like a new computer or
(15:39):
a phone or something like that that gets it gets intercepted,
and then something gets meddled with just enough to where
it can be useful in the future. And it can
be that kind of thing you're talking about, Ben, where
it's a tool that now you have and you can
use it when you need.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
It right and you don't want The main thing you
want to protect will be what we call methods, right,
and I know we're going a little over again. We
will have an episode on this pretty soon. Another question
I had was immediately, what's next. There's a lot of
scuttle but in the policy wonk field, in the war
(16:15):
maker field right now, over whether or not this is
the harbinger of a large scale ground invasion, which is
very dangerous for innocent people. Here's what I learned when
I thought what's next? The goal was not to instantly
kill everybody with these pages. I imagine again whomever did it
(16:41):
was hoping to fatally injure as many people as possible.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
We know that message, we know at.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Least a dozen or dead. Worse than sending a message
more dangerous listening because now that you have that network identified,
you can look at things like hospital roots, which ambulances
are picking someone up?
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Where are they going? Right?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
How many of these people in these places? How many
folks have similar injuries?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Well?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, because we're talking about the network of individuals that
this opposition force is interested in. Right, So you're you're
absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
So are you saying that they don't already know who
these people are? Yes? How would they? So they cast
a wide net. Does that mean that maybe potentially civilians
got a hold of these devices too? Quite possibly. That's
why I use the phrase affiliates. Yes, And that's why
it's important to say that, you know, in Lebanon, Hasbola
(17:40):
is considered a political party, right, so there are people
who are not you know, out at the front lines
of the border trying to murder folks they ideologically identify
with certain tenets of that party. And then if you
just so this part up, if you assassinate a few people,
but then you have already hijacked the enemy's communication network.
(18:05):
They are identifying their forces to you, and then right
after that they followed up with the walkie talkies.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
I wish we had time to talk about the providence,
but it's going to have to be an episode.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, it's definitely a full episode, just to think about it. Guys,
the CFR, the Council and Foreign Relations that you know them.
They describe Hesbella as a terrorist organization because the United
States has designated hesbel as a terrorist organization. Does this
attack not feel like a terrorist attack or an act
(18:41):
of terrorism? Both of these where car you know, and
completely unexpected, and then just the fear that it generates.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
I will say as we end this, before we go
to a break, there is what we could see as
public possible public like motivation, which is the attent at assassination.
Hezbola earlier failed to assassinate a guy named moshe Yah alone,
and this may have been a reaction to it, or
(19:13):
methods may have been exposed.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
We do know, we do know that.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
The question on everybody's mind, and a lot of you guys,
friends were asking you about this, friends of family. We
do know the question on a lot of people's minds
right now. Is my stuff safe? You know, like my
kid just got a phone? Is my kid safe? What
could happen next?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Gears? It could be other classes of devices that are
affected too, as we've already seen two. I mean, you
could easily argue that those are both kind of more
low tech radio wave based devices. And to my understanding,
it's usually radio waves that are used to trigger bombs
a lot of the time. But I guess surely there's
advancements in bomb making and triggering.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Well, your device would have to have explosives in it
to be triggered, right, of course.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I guess. I just mean like it creates this sense
of fear as to what's next, Like Ben was saying,
like could it be in an iPhone? Could it be
in you know, my razor or whatever?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You know?
Speaker 4 (20:10):
And here's why, as we go to ad break, here's
why people are kind of other points I want to
get to. Yeah, yeah, we'll do an episode here. Here's
why people have been concerned candidly about the idea of
a large scale ground war. It's because you're removing command, right,
and a lot of hisbela command by the way, didn't
(20:30):
use these pagers. They were communicated to by people who
had these pages, so that the heads of the organization
are not entirely gone. You remove command, you create fear, right,
you break comms, and then by doing so, you remove
the ability for the enemy to respond, and that is
(20:55):
an arguable part of the calculus. This enigmatic what's next
question is still haunting the world right now. We don't
know what's going to happen. We know that as targeted
as these things may appear on paper, there are inevitably
civilians bystanders injured, and the question always becomes what happens next.
(21:24):
So we'll be back with a full episode. We know
this is heavy stuff. We're here with you. We got
your back, folks. Let's go to the app break.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And we've returned and we are going to travel over
to Venezuela for the first story here. Maybe we'll get
to the second one and we might just focus on Venezuela.
We'll see. But guys, Venezuela in July had an election
and somebody that we've talked about a lot on this show,
mister Maduro himself, won a third term as the leader
(21:57):
of Venezuela, much to the chagrin of pretty much the
world and the opposition that he faced there in Venezuela.
People are saying, uh, yeah, it really does seem like
they're just covering up that he lost the election and
just saying he won, and they being, you know, the
powers that he, mister Maduro as a leader currently has,
(22:19):
the levers that we just talked about with regards to
other countries on the show, where once you have that power,
you can do things like turn courts and legislatures and
other powers in your favor to do things like cover
up the results of an election.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
You know, the US has done it for less I mean,
right in terms of being instrumental.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
In coups, Oh yeah, carrying out a coup in another country.
There was a story from July. Ben I don't know
if we actually talked about it, but you had it
in the dock there to talk about at the end
of July that there was a failed coup in twenty
twenty in Venezuela something like that. I can't remember the specifics.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah, it's been a fertile soil for attempted non consensual
regime change.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Oh yes, to just go back to that election, for
one more minute. The National Electoral Council of Venezuela also
known as the CNE, declared Maduro the winner on July
twenty eighth, and it was ratified by the Supreme Court
a couple of weeks later. But you know, the official
documentation of that election, the things like the what they
(23:30):
call the disaggregated data or data from the vote tally sheets,
has not been published in a bunch of other countries,
including the US, to saying this election is not right.
Something is sour here, at least with those with the
official reporting on that election. And you guys, I didn't
(23:50):
realize the opposition leader who was going up against Maduro
in that election had to get the heck out of there.
He had to leave because he was facing some pretty
serious charge, really freaky stuff. He flew to Spain because
there was an arrest warrant out for him, accusing him
of terrorism and conspiracy.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
That's what I accuse.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Anybody disagrees with me about anything down, I'm like a
freaking terrorist and you're inspiring case a Dias are clearly
a superior sandwich. Someone arrests this.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Man and this all transpired like after the election was called,
then all of a sudden, these charges were filed.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yes, and then he had to leave. The opposition leader
there who had to go to Spain and was charged
with that stuff was Edmundo Gonzalez, and he was you know,
he went out publicly and said, hey, this vote was stolen,
this isn't right, and he became an enemy really quickly.
So why are we talking about all this? Oh, because
it's context to this story that was written in CNN.
(24:51):
It is titled US says claims of CIA plot to
kill Maduro are categorically false. That's in quotations. Yes, after
Venezuela rest six foreigners. Okay, so let's just get in
this state department says no, no, no, there's nothing. There's
no base to these accusations that somebody was trying to kill.
His name is Nicholas Maduro. By the way, I think
(25:12):
we just lovingly calling him Maduro again mentioned before in
that episode. It is one of my favorite foods that
exists on this planet. A good Maduro or Maduro's usually.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
What is that I don't think I know about this food, Matt.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
That is a ripened plantain that has been somewhat fried
in that's sweet and.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Delicious I don't know that I've had a Maduro. N Oh,
it's so good. All right, we'll hang out later and
get sack, but not this Madru. I don't think we
care for this.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
We're not hey, hey, we're not involved. We're giving you
the strange news. As a matter of fact, none of
us have officially visited Venezuela in Quba officially.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, this guy Maduro seems like a real pill. Matt Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah. Maduro, who was famously the number two for a
long time to Hugo Chavez, which we've done a whole
video series and talked about numerous times. He had some
weirdness going on, right.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Yeah, you can see. I hope YouTube hasn't pulled it down.
They're tricky with that kind of media. This guy, in
the midst of running Venezuela, also was known for having
his talk show that went on in excess of four
hours where you could just call him live yeah and
(26:25):
ask him stuff and then you know, off the cuff,
he would he would have this big at least in
the public facing persona. He would have big Uncle energy
where someone would say, hey, sir, we are hungry, retired,
crime is out of control, and he would just say
something like mothers are the most important part of this country.
(26:45):
Give that woman thousands of dollars, you know at buyer
a house, all right, next caller, Which is not the
way you're supposed to run a government.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, but he did have a team of people that
just went out and bought houses. No, I'm just joking.
I can't confirm that. So so there was allegedly some
kind of attempt on Nicholas Maduro's life, at least according
to Venezuela's official apparatus there and the State Department here
in the US says no, that's categorically false. That did
(27:15):
not occur. But they did. Venezuela did arrest six people,
that has been confirmed. Those six people include a US
Navy seal, which you know Navy seals. Guys, what separates
someone who I don't know is in the Navy versus
someone who is a Navy seal?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Badassory, I mean, Navy is like your a sailor or
you're on a ship. But I mean, I understanding, so
you can be a pilot too. But isn't a Navy
seals like a special ops kind of individual?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
That is my understanding. I just didn't know, if you
guys had anything further on that. I know, Navy seal
training is historically some of the most intensive stuff you
can go through.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Brutal.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, if you ever, if you want to ever feel
palpable tension in a room, hang out with some Army
rangers and Navy seals and just you know, ask them
if they want to arm wrestle and stand back.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Don't ask them if they want to arm wrestle.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Special ops we call it small unit specialization as well,
often ordered or tasked with identifying, capturing, and or terminating
high level targets or sometimes reconnaissance, just getting behind very
difficult enemy lines, getting the lay of the land. And
(28:37):
I think we talked about this in maybe July twenty
twenty four on Strange News that maybe that's a different one.
Oh yeah, because that's the twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, this was a whole separate thing in twenty twenty
where there were two green berets that were arrested.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Exactly, and again the government, the US government, we should say,
did make statements disavowing any kind of green lighting of
this activity. Right, So, yeah, it is possible just to
be objective, it is possible that these folks simply had
their own experience and their own expertise and leveraged that
(29:17):
of their own agency and volition to push for something
they wanted to happen without checking in with chain and command.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Completely possible.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
And guys, this Navy seal has been named a bunch
of times. We're not going to say his name on
here just because it doesn't well, maybe it does matter.
We don't have to say his name. There are two
other Americans that were also arrested, and then three other people,
and Venezuela is alleging that this was a full on,
like an action, a destabilizing action that was supposed to
(29:50):
take place. They say that they seized four hundred US
rifles that were linked directly to this plot, which implies,
if true, that these were guys who were going to
recruit a bunch of other people in country in Venezuela
to take some kind of action that is much larger
than just six human individuals. Right, four hundred guns, That's
(30:14):
that's a lot of people. But that could also mean
that it's some kind of weapons trade or you know,
black market weapons deal thing going on, which I don't know. Weirdly,
feels more likely to me, but maybe maybe I'm out
of my depth here when it comes to, you know,
some kind of attempted coup versus making some money on
some rifles, and I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Ay you raise a you raise really interesting point there too,
because I think it was not just the CIA that
was accused of involvement, but the Interior Minister was saying
Spain's intel agency was there, Yeah, like named a rogues
gallery of possible actors.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Well, yeah, there was a citizen and two Spanish citizens
who were arrested. So I don't know, three Americans, two
Spanish citizens, and one Czech citizen.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Do you think do you think it's possible that there
was some kind of internal dissent in like, let's say,
so the CIA, as you as you point out, has
publicly responded, which they don't always do, but has publicly
responded and said, hey, nope, hashtag not it, not us.
(31:34):
Is it possible that there would be factions in that
organization who decided to you know, yeah, pony up their
own bones.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Aren't there? Like? I mean, we know that there's wheels
within wheels and a lot of these massive branches of
governments and military branches, you know, so maybe if this
was some kind of siloed operation, like a black op
of some kind, is that what you mean then?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah? I think right. I mean that's what you're saying.
It's an unknown, it's an unknownn wait no.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
No no, it's a no no, it's a.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
No no, it's a new unknown.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
No.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Also yeah, again, to be clear for anybody in general
who's listening, we are not saying anything. We are asking questions,
and I think that's totally fine.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yea, wildly.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
I do love the point you made, Ben, I don't
know exactly how you put it, something about the CIA
just saying hey, not us. I'd love the idea of
the CIA being known for having a reputation for just
coming out and saying, oh are bad guys? That was us? Yeah, sorry,
anytime they get accused of something, Ah, shucks, you.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Gotta the CIA's new motto transparency.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Or aucks you got shuts od jeepers.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
We're the real Apple Dumpling Gang, the twenty first cent.
But yeah, I mean you're you're bringing up, though, something
that's that's incredibly important because we know that there were
multiple things that have been framed as coup attempts or
even described as coup attempts by the people involved. What
(33:18):
makes the CIA come out and say not it right?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Like you know, typically you think they would just not
dignify it with a response.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I I don't know, what do you think? Seriously, do
you guys have any ideas of why this idea would
be auspicious?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
It's weird. Maybe the denial is part of the op
in a way.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Possible, Yeah, it's I mean, if we had to guess,
and again just guessing, then one of the reasons you
would do this is to kind of maintain the boundaries
and parameters of your current geopolitical rivalry. Honestly, and this
is a terrible comparison kind of like how when somebody
(34:01):
stole the secret recipe for Coca Cola and tried to
sell it to Pepsi and then PEPSI said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no,
not us. We're going to turn this to the authorities.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Guys, Sorry, quick off, quick aside. Did you see that
the Kentucky Fried Chicken original recipe secret spice blend was
leaked by a relative of Colonel Sanders.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
It's the ones closest to you.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
And then I always hurt the ones we.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Love, my God, we need to impose sanctions on.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
That person, and the internet collectively shrugged because no one
likes KFC anymore.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Wait, wait, Ben, has the CIA issued a statement?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Where is job rule? It's a good question, then it's
a good question.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Hey, guys, just quickly we can end this out here.
There's a lot going on between the US and Venezuela
right now. Sanctions were just imposed on them by the
United States. Sanctions on officials who are you know, they're
in that close relationship with Nicholas Maduro, who may have
actually helped change and cup up the election, right, make
(35:02):
it so that Moduro won. So, yeah, the US and
post sanctions on several of those people. That was on Thursday, y'all,
September twelfth, as we record this. Then just before that,
the US, I think, yeah, the US seized I think
it was like the private plane or basically the air
force one of Venezuela when it was in the Dominican Republic.
(35:24):
They just said hours now, but.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Also not it. Yeah, they called dibbs and then not it.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's very very weird, y'all.
So there's more to come here. Look up this. We're
not gonna talk about this story. Just look it up.
And I want to make sure you're aware of this.
Look up New York fire chief bribery scheme. Just look
it up, read about it. I'm sure we're going to
talk about it at some point in the future. Yeah.
(35:54):
If you ever thought, man, the firearm department doesn't get
to my house as quickly as it seems to to
a lot of these other houses, well, if you're in
New York City, there's probably a reason for that.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Gotta pay to play baby, a lot of money, apparently,
pay to blaze.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
All right, be right back after a word from our.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Sponsor, and we're back with one more piece of strange news. Matt.
I just wanted to do a quick micro story. Mentioned
that your second story tease made me think of there
was a story that I read about a woman in
Greece I believe, who was setting fires in order to
(36:36):
flirt with firemen. That's a true story. It's a true story.
To the scene, a real firebug. Oh my god, it's
crazy we keep meeting like this. I know, it's bizarre. Yeah,
I just wanted to had to get a gander at
those beefcake firemen rushing to the scene and their sexy uniforms.
But anyway, that's not all my story's about today. My
(36:59):
story is about the work day, the workplace. It's a
workplace story specifically centered around the work culture in Japan,
which I know we've talked about numerous times as being
particularly hard and harsh. A regular, you know, work day
in Japan is nine to nine, it's my understanding, with
(37:22):
people typically staying as late as eleven and sometimes twelve.
A lot of folks have probably seen viral images of
Tokyo salarymen passed out on park benches and in train
stations because they have to go out drinking with their
bosses and they get hammered and the train stop running,
so they just kind of fall where they lay, and
(37:45):
that's part of the culture as well. Well. Another part
of the culture is apparently it's quite difficult in Japan
to quit your job. It's something we take for granted.
I think maybe here in America, in addition to all
that other stuff, we have a lot more protections in
this country, minimal though they may seem to the average
blue collar or hell even white collar worker here in America,
(38:08):
But in Japan, ad just don't have this to the
point where many folks report the when they try to
quit their jobs, they are relentlessly shamed, hounded, harassed, borderlines
stalked by their superiors. There's a really great article in
the Wall Street Journal that outlines a situation where somebody
(38:29):
who attempted to quit their job, an employer literally came
to their house knocking on their door, came to their
apartment knocking on their door. There are stories of folks
trying to quit their job only to be held up
in weeks of meetings, told that this is going to
ruin their life, is going to ruin their future. All
of this stuff just absolutely browbeating type behavior. And you know,
(38:50):
in Japan there's also kind of a culture of non
confrontation that is possibly, i think likely what these employers
and companies are taking advantage of. That despite being an
untenable situation workplace situation where you know that people feel
like their mental health suffering toxic environments, they find it
(39:11):
really difficult to quit, to the point where in recent
years a handful of companies offering a service have sprung
up wherein you can hire someone to quit your job
for you, and they basically cover all of the bases
in terms of giving notice, setting parameters for kind of
(39:33):
no contact, even making sure that equipment or uniforms or
any company property are returned. But it's just this buffer
that for the price of like you know, a night
out maybe with friends, like a date night, two hundred
bucks roughly American, you can hire these agencies to phone
(39:55):
your employer and quit on your behalf and you don't
ever have to see or talk to these people again.
There are sort of more bespoke versions of this that
are a little more expensive, about four hundred dollars. In
the case of hiring a firm to quit a military job,
because of the nature of that and the government ties
(40:15):
of that kind of employment, they offer a lawyer to
do the quitting for you, a company cited in this
Wall Street Journal article too timid to tell the boss
you're quitting, there's a service for that by Miho Inada.
The name of this company is Momori, which I think
(40:36):
literally translates in English to I can't take it anymore.
And so this is one of the companies that does
all of this legwork for you when you want to
quit a job. It's pretty wild that it requires that
because I mean, it's certainly not illegal in Japan to
quit your job, but there is such a kind of
(40:57):
deference to authority figures and a sort of power dynamic
in inequality that employers are bullying people into staying in
jobs they hate. And the kicker is this, Japan actually
has a worker shortage, so you don't have to be
(41:19):
beholden to your current employer because there's probably something else
out there that you can snap up pretty quickly. And
this is partially why there's been such a spread of
these companies who are now also consulting with employers who
are looking for people who have recently quit jobs. So
they'll call Memory and say, hey, do you have any
candidates that I might be able to ring up for
these open positions. So with that, i'd really love to
(41:41):
hear what you guys think, especially you've been with your
experience abroad, if you've witnessed any of this toxic workplace culture,
and what you guys think of this kind of service
and how popular it's becoming.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Well, I'm trying to imagine a situation where I felt
like my boss was too legit for me to quite well, sorry,
I'm so sorry. No, but where I be afraid to
resign and I did not understand it. I didn't have
the personal perspective on it because I've I don't know
about you, guys, I've known a lot of people who
(42:12):
have resigned from positions over the years, or have left
a position to go to another job, or that specific
instance where you're like, I'm not going to work here anymore.
I just need to put in my two weeks notice.
Until I started reading this article that you shared with us,
and there's another CNN article. There are a couple of the
places that have articles on this, and they're describing I
(42:34):
couldn't fathom the number of overtime hours that people were
putting in. There's a story, there's a story in there
of somebody who put in one hundred and fifty nine
overtime hours in a single month before dying, literally experiencing
heart failure. Now it's nuts for me, because you have
to imagine that the stress levels in somebody who's going
through that must be incredibly high. Is that stress directly
(42:57):
related to the heart failure that that person experienced. It
seems to be so, at least it's written about it
that way. I don't know the science behind all of that,
but if you've got a huge number of people that
are going through that kind of stress, then yeah, this
kind of service makes a ton of sense and being
able to be that cold third party that says, here's
(43:20):
what my client is going to do, and it takes
the potential emotional encounter out of it, which is kind
of good.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Probably worth your money at that point, because it sounds
like some of these folks just can't muster up the
courage or the kind of grit. I guess to face
that because it is so off the charts, toxic and
meat spirited and manipulative. Understandable. Ben you have any experience
with this kind of thing that is from your travels
(43:51):
or just any perspective on why this would be so
necessary from a cultural.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
Standpoint, Yeah, it's definitely tough. The overtime is crazy. Overtime
here in the United States is pretty crazy as well.
But Japan's work culture has some serious objective obstacles that
will have to be tackled at some point. A lot
of it is the idea of face of preserving decorum
(44:19):
in conversation. Another thing that happens on the flip side
of this, which may help explain the emergence of these
sorts of agencies is that sometimes Japanese companies won't fire people. Instead,
they'll kind of quiet fire them, they'll sideline them from projects,
(44:42):
they'll just not give them work. You show up, you
have eight hours, nine hours in the day, and you
don't have anything to do. Right, you're literally rearranging paper clips.
You're just checking on the printer, making sure the coffee
is working. This is something that, unfortun only a lot
of people have experienced. And another thing that maybe missing,
(45:06):
I think from what we would call the salary man philosophy,
is that in places like the United States, which doesn't
have the same worker protections as maybe your EU countries.
But in places like the United States, it is not
abnormal to fire or to be fired, to resign, or
(45:28):
to somehow quit a job and then go to another
place in the same industry without your character or your
reputation being smirched. It's not necessarily a demerits people know
you get in situations. However, depending on the industry we're
talking about. In Japan, in corporate life, it can be
seen as a vast demerit, as a loss of face.
(45:51):
If you are God forbid fired, right, because that means
that you did something, or if you quit, that also
means that you did something. And so now the onus
is on you and you have this sort of scarlet
letter employment wise upon your characters. So there are reasonable,
(46:11):
valid and actionable needs that explain why this industry would
take off, because a big part of it too is
being able to not burn bridges to retain good relations
even after you were maybe no longer a colleague of
someone for sure.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
The article on CNN that Matt mentioned interview is somebody
named Shiori Kalamazo is the operations manager at the Monmuri
agency that does this and said that in the past
year alone this articles came out, like last month, they've
gotten more than eleven thousand inquiries. And the agency's located
in Manato, which is a very busy business district in Tokyo.
(46:55):
It's been around since twenty twenty two. And there's a
really telling quote from Kalamada that I think and on saying,
we sometimes get calls from people crying asking if they
can quit their job based on X y Z. We
tell them that it's okay and that quitting their job
is a labor right, and the thing it was something
I was trying to remember earlier. It just one last
(47:15):
point that I wanted to mention. Another thing that Kalamata
says is that most of the time the employers go
along with them and they're you know, quitting on behalf
of these other individuals, but about ten percent of them
insist on further negotiations involving lawyers. So there is just
this really entrenched culture of just not taking no for
(47:38):
an answer when it comes to, you know, the bosses
there in Japan. It's very very interesting. It does kind
of reading stuff like this does make me feel lucky
that we have the minimal labor protections that we do
have here in the good old United States. So that's
that one, guys.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
We have We have learned a lot, and thank you
for bringing that story, Noel. You know, we've got a
lot of listeners in Japan. We've got a lot of
people listening who are of Venezuelan extraction or providence or
may live in Venezuela now. And you know, we have
family members in Lebanon or of Lebanese origin, and there
(48:22):
is so much more to all of these stories. We
can't do this show without your help. So thank you
very much, fellow conspiracy realist, for tuning in. We would
love to hear from you. We want to hear your takes.
You know we've talked or otherwise. Right, We've got more
stuff on the way, and your our favorite part of it,
(48:44):
So please do reach out join us here in the dark.
We try to be easy to find through any number
of means.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Oh, do reach out. You can find us in the
Hamil Conspiracy Stuff where we exist, on Facebook with our
Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube where
we have video contents galore for you to enjoy, and
on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we
are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Hey, do you want to call us? Our number is
one eight three three STDWYTK. It's a voicemail system. It
gives you three minutes. That's all you got. Gotta make
it quick. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. If you've got more to say than can
fit in that three minutes, why not instead send us
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
We receive.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
We can't wait to hear from you. We're running behind
on some of these responses, but it's only because you
give us so much amazing and disturbing things.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
To think about.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
Shout out, by the way to Dan a, who has
recently persuaded us that Manchurian candidates can.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Now exist thanks to technology.
Speaker 4 (49:57):
So thank you, slash Man.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Dang it, Dan.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
If you want to be part of this, we'd love
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Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
We are joined with our guest super producer, Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here. That makes
this the stuff they don't want you to know. It
is quite a week for strange news. We're going to
visit some folks across the Pacific. We're going to go
(00:51):
on air with some conversations we had had in the
past about different ambitious attempts at grass roots regime change.
We'll call it. We'll see some bribery. Well, we'll also
just for anybody listening right now, if you have a pager,
no judgment. If you have a pager, move it across
(01:12):
the room.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
A pager? What is it? Nineteen ninety five, Oliver Bay
I had one. I had a bright green, translucent Motorola pager.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yes, hopefully you don't need to be worried about your pager.
If you know, if you're.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
A doctor or a drug dealer, a work production mine
never mine never injured me, you know, physically anyway.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
The ones I had injured me emotionally exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
That's that's clear. All those mean spirited pager codes that
were flying around.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Is it really nine one one? Is it really nine
one one? Or do you just want me to tell
you what Jennifer said about you in middle school?
Speaker 5 (01:53):
You know?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
No, I mean, it's not nine one one, it's eight
zero zero eight five?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Is it really? Boobs? Guys? Is it really?
Speaker 4 (02:02):
We're fans and we've returned. Listen, folks, fellow conspiracy realist.
We are recording this on the evening of September eighteenth,
twenty twenty four, and our breaking news story should be
(02:23):
considered just that we don't have all the facts. Very
few people do. But I was talking with the guys
earlier when I got the news and it quickly spread
around the world. There was a massive pager attack on
affiliates of his Belah.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
But not like an interruption of service attack, like where
all of a sudden people's pages didn't work. It was
something quite different. Ben right, Yes, sir, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
This is.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
In contrast to a denial of service. This was a
quote unquote service that the people affected certainly did not welcome,
nor did they expect it. And to intro into this,
I think it's important for us to note the events
were going to describe here occurred just a few days ago.
(03:15):
As a matter of fact, as we were gearing up
for things. In the past twenty four hours, another attack occurred,
another mass attack with exploding walkie talkies. This is going
to be an episode in the future. Right now, we
want to set the stage and answer some questions that
are on everybody's mind. To really understand what happened, you
(03:38):
need to go back to October of nineteen ninety five
and a guy a lot of people don't remember his name,
Kamil Hamad, met with operatives of shin Bet. Without getting
too into the weeds, that's Israel's counter terrorism outfit. And
when this guy met with shin Bet, he came to
(04:00):
him and he said, look, I need funding and I
need Israeli identity cards for myself and for my family.
And shin Bett, like a lot of good intel organizations
will do, said well, now we've got you by the
short and curls right now, you work for us. We
(04:22):
will inform on you and your bosses will murder you
as a result. So he agreed to cooperate. He went
in thinking that he was the deal maker, and he
came out at the wrong end.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Of a deal.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
So what they did is they gave him a cell phone,
and they were upfront. They told him this was bugged
so that they could listen in on his conversations. What's
more important is what they did not tell Hamad. They
did not tell him that this bugged phone also contained
fifteen grams of explosives.
Speaker 5 (04:58):
WHOA I mean, that was my initial question, because there's
part of me that almost wondered, is this some way
of hijacking a device and causing it to overheat to
the point.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Where it would injure somebody. But it's deeper than that.
It's it's potentially like someone got in on the supply
chain of the product or planted a tampered with product
that these individuals ended up using. That just seems so complicated.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Which we'll get to. That's the twenty twenty four event.
We're still like October nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
But yeah, you're describing that it is possible, right to
do that, but with one person.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Right, Yeah, that's what I'm hoping to do. Yeah, like
the president here, which doesn't get as reported as widely
as it should. Takes us to not Kamil Hamad. Kamil
Hamad was not the target of this operation. Instead, the
Intel was targeting a guy named yahe Ayash that is
(06:00):
spelled yahya Ayyash. During his lifetime, this guy was known
as the prime or chief bomb maker of Hamas. And
so when the Chinbet gives Kamal Hamad this cell phone
(06:20):
that he knows is bugged, he knows is tapped. Essentially,
what they're doing is waiting for him to give it
to someone who will give it to Ayash. And so
Hamad gives the phone to one of his nephews, his nephew,
and he knows that this guy, the chief bombmaker of Hamas,
(06:43):
regularly uses this nephew's phones. And then fast forward It's
January fifth, nineteen ninety six. Ayash's father calls him on
this bugged phone. Aosh answers, and then and Israeli playing
flying overhead, picks up the conversation, relays it to command.
(07:05):
They confirm this is the guy they're looking for on
the phone, and they remotely detonate the device. They kill
him instantly.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Effective, brutal effective.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
And this is what leads us to the news that
everybody saw. On Tuesday, an attack in Lebanon across the
country of Lebanon caused pagers to explode. Thousands of people
were injured. At current count, twelve are dead as a
result of the pager attack because the day after this evening,
(07:41):
as we record, walkie talkies associated with Hesbola affiliates also exploded.
This is something that I would say is not unprecedented
therefore in terms of the principle or the concept, but
it is unprecedented, I would argue in terms.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Of the scale of the operation. To your earlier point,
it's it's wild. I mean, and you know, we don't
know much yet. I mean, we will hopefully by the
time we do this full episode, but like you know,
we certainly know there are things like defects and phones
that you have to get recalled because the lithium batteries
can heat up to the point of injuring people. I mean,
(08:22):
there have been like lawsuits filed but against cell phone
manufacturers for like people getting horribly burned, but this sounds
even worse than that, and like more immediate. We hear
we're hearing a lot about injuries to people's eyes and
faces because they're holding the thing up to look at
it when the call comes in.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Yeah, but they got a buzz notification, right, And you
can see you can see a lot of video of
the aftermath, which is horrified. You can also see a
couple of videos that just happen to be caught on
things like CCTV and what you'll what you'll see there
is somebody gets a buzz like soap, they into their pocket,
(09:01):
they hold up the thing and it explodes with much
more force than you know, an overheated lithium ion battery.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, and Asia probably doesn't even take one of those.
I mean, they're so underpower they don't need much.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Yeah, No, that's a really good point. It was said,
it was known that the pager definitely got a signal.
There were some kind of strange code that was displayed,
you know, on the on the display there on the
pager right before it went off, and it was like
a like a couple of second delay.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I think I maybe heard on public radio today that
these were meant to be like proprietary communications from HESBELA.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
Yes, yeah, this was meant to be what we would
call sequestered or discrete comms for Hesbelos. So if you
had your own pager already, your CIV pager or your
civy phone, that would not be connected. This is to
message people in this organization because there is, as you
(10:03):
can objectively understand, there is a great deal of concern
about security of communication because HESBLA, being a proxy of Iran,
has been at war with Israel for quite some time. Look,
we know that this is ideologically deep for people. We're
(10:24):
not here to talk about the ideology necessarily. We're here
to explore what appears to be an insidiously successful covert operation,
a genuine conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Yeah, can we quickly just talk about what Heswela is.
I think sometimes people get confused about some of these
organizations and groups and just to get people to run
down on like because Hesbela is a vast and multifaceted thing. Sure.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
HESBLA is a political party, Lebanese Shia Islamist political party
and also a paramilitary group. So if you talk to
some people in Lebanon, they're going to say this is
not a terrorist group, right, These are more akin to
freedom fighters However, it is an open secret that Hebela
(11:18):
receives a lot of funding from the nation of Iran,
which is currently a theocracy, and Iran has different statements
about this, you know what I mean, kind of like
Russia writes laws about any Russian president. One notable thing
that happened in the pager attack was that the Iranian
(11:40):
ambassador was also injured. So one of the first questions
that the international community is asking is why did you
have a direct plug in to hisbolo?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Holy crap, the plot dickens. I mean, now, that's wow,
that's very I didn't even think about that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
It's a big deal. It's a good question.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
It's a big deal and a good question.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
This is where we get to something that was brought
up a little bit earlier, but let's get to it.
Initial conversation and speculation concerned the idea of how an
attack could happen. Is it theoretically possible that malicious code
could have been used to simply overheat a battery right,
(12:26):
resulting in all of these things going off at once.
That does not appear to be the case. Pagers again,
are you know, not super advanced technology. They're not all
cloud connected to.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
The point, probably why they use these instead of cell
phones or instead of smart devices, because it's so siloed
and low tech.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
And I keep thinking about I rewatched it too many times.
I keep thinking about the scene and Breaking Bad spoilers
three to one. I keep thinking about the scene and
Breaking bad. Wherein Walter White ordered hits on a ton
of people all in the same two minutes in the
US prison system. Do you guys remember that?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Huh, I didn't. I don't remember what clever mcguy vermethod
he used to do that, but I do remember that
plot point he got a biker gang ye had inside
people in different prisons from this back. What was so
this you're saying, just the level of precision and comms
kind of reminded you of that.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, but in this case also innocent people were injured,
and perhaps more importantly, this is real life. Now, another
thing we have to think about here. When these explosions
occur again simultaneously or near simultaneously, it tells us some
very important things. The first thing it tells us is
(13:46):
that this came from the same signal, right. The second
thing it tells us is it's important mission critical to
figure out the provenance of this pager supply and speculation
is going for Hungry to Taiwan right now. And then
the third thing I think it tells us to be
(14:07):
quite clear, is that there was somebody waited. They put
explosives in these things. They put grams of explosives in pagers,
and they didn't immediately pull the trigger.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, they waited.
Speaker 4 (14:23):
And the question then is why did they wait without
sounding to James Bondi about it. It was probably because
the plan was getting close to being exposed, so it
was time to maximize the leverage.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It's hella, James bond all of it. It's crazy. It's
like an exploding pen.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
The big question I have, guys, is if they were
a if whoever did this right was able to gain
access to all those devices. These are just like a
pretty simple send receive signaled device right usually with radio signals.
If they took the time and were able to gain
access to all those things and put explosives in them,
(15:06):
what makes us think that they weren't also enabled with
some kind of listening device or tracking device.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Like original story Ben told was exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Exactly like and you're doing it across an entire organization,
and it makes guys, it makes me think about the
stories we've heard in the past from listeners in read
online about let's say, a federal agent from any country
that intercepts an Amazon package or something that's ordered that
has a device in it, like a new computer or
(15:39):
a phone or something like that that gets it gets intercepted,
and then something gets meddled with just enough to where
it can be useful in the future. And it can
be that kind of thing you're talking about, Ben, where
it's a tool that now you have and you can
use it when you need.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
It right and you don't want The main thing you
want to protect will be what we call methods, right,
and I know we're going a little over again. We
will have an episode on this pretty soon. Another question
I had was immediately, what's next. There's a lot of
scuttle but in the policy wonk field, in the war
(16:15):
maker field right now, over whether or not this is
the harbinger of a large scale ground invasion, which is
very dangerous for innocent people. Here's what I learned when
I thought what's next? The goal was not to instantly
kill everybody with these pages. I imagine again whomever did it
(16:41):
was hoping to fatally injure as many people as possible.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
We know that message, we know at.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Least a dozen or dead. Worse than sending a message
more dangerous listening because now that you have that network identified,
you can look at things like hospital roots, which ambulances
are picking someone up?
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Where are they going? Right?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
How many of these people in these places? How many
folks have similar injuries?
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Well?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, because we're talking about the network of individuals that
this opposition force is interested in. Right, So you're you're
absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
So are you saying that they don't already know who
these people are? Yes? How would they? So they cast
a wide net. Does that mean that maybe potentially civilians
got a hold of these devices too? Quite possibly. That's
why I use the phrase affiliates. Yes, And that's why
it's important to say that, you know, in Lebanon, Hasbola
(17:40):
is considered a political party, right, so there are people
who are not you know, out at the front lines
of the border trying to murder folks they ideologically identify
with certain tenets of that party. And then if you
just so this part up, if you assassinate a few people,
but then you have already hijacked the enemy's communication network.
(18:05):
They are identifying their forces to you, and then right
after that they followed up with the walkie talkies.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
I wish we had time to talk about the providence,
but it's going to have to be an episode.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah, it's definitely a full episode, just to think about it. Guys,
the CFR, the Council and Foreign Relations that you know them.
They describe Hesbella as a terrorist organization because the United
States has designated hesbel as a terrorist organization. Does this
attack not feel like a terrorist attack or an act
(18:41):
of terrorism? Both of these where car you know, and
completely unexpected, and then just the fear that it generates.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (18:52):
I will say as we end this, before we go
to a break, there is what we could see as
public possible public like motivation, which is the attent at assassination.
Hezbola earlier failed to assassinate a guy named moshe Yah alone,
and this may have been a reaction to it, or
(19:13):
methods may have been exposed.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
We do know, we do know that.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
The question on everybody's mind, and a lot of you guys,
friends were asking you about this, friends of family. We
do know the question on a lot of people's minds
right now. Is my stuff safe? You know, like my
kid just got a phone? Is my kid safe? What
could happen next?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Gears? It could be other classes of devices that are
affected too, as we've already seen two. I mean, you
could easily argue that those are both kind of more
low tech radio wave based devices. And to my understanding,
it's usually radio waves that are used to trigger bombs
a lot of the time. But I guess surely there's
advancements in bomb making and triggering.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
Well, your device would have to have explosives in it
to be triggered, right, of course.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I guess. I just mean like it creates this sense
of fear as to what's next, Like Ben was saying,
like could it be in an iPhone? Could it be
in you know, my razor or whatever?
Speaker 2 (20:08):
You know?
Speaker 4 (20:10):
And here's why, as we go to ad break, here's
why people are kind of other points I want to
get to. Yeah, yeah, we'll do an episode here. Here's
why people have been concerned candidly about the idea of
a large scale ground war. It's because you're removing command, right,
and a lot of hisbela command by the way, didn't
(20:30):
use these pagers. They were communicated to by people who
had these pages, so that the heads of the organization
are not entirely gone. You remove command, you create fear, right,
you break comms, and then by doing so, you remove
the ability for the enemy to respond, and that is
(20:55):
an arguable part of the calculus. This enigmatic what's next
question is still haunting the world right now. We don't
know what's going to happen. We know that as targeted
as these things may appear on paper, there are inevitably
civilians bystanders injured, and the question always becomes what happens next.
(21:24):
So we'll be back with a full episode. We know
this is heavy stuff. We're here with you. We got
your back, folks. Let's go to the app break.
Speaker 2 (21:36):
And we've returned and we are going to travel over
to Venezuela for the first story here. Maybe we'll get
to the second one and we might just focus on Venezuela.
We'll see. But guys, Venezuela in July had an election
and somebody that we've talked about a lot on this show,
mister Maduro himself, won a third term as the leader
(21:57):
of Venezuela, much to the chagrin of pretty much the
world and the opposition that he faced there in Venezuela.
People are saying, uh, yeah, it really does seem like
they're just covering up that he lost the election and
just saying he won, and they being, you know, the
powers that he, mister Maduro as a leader currently has,
(22:19):
the levers that we just talked about with regards to
other countries on the show, where once you have that power,
you can do things like turn courts and legislatures and
other powers in your favor to do things like cover
up the results of an election.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
You know, the US has done it for less I mean,
right in terms of being instrumental.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
In coups, Oh yeah, carrying out a coup in another country.
There was a story from July. Ben I don't know
if we actually talked about it, but you had it
in the dock there to talk about at the end
of July that there was a failed coup in twenty
twenty in Venezuela something like that. I can't remember the specifics.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Yeah, it's been a fertile soil for attempted non consensual
regime change.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Oh yes, to just go back to that election, for
one more minute. The National Electoral Council of Venezuela also
known as the CNE, declared Maduro the winner on July
twenty eighth, and it was ratified by the Supreme Court
a couple of weeks later. But you know, the official
documentation of that election, the things like the what they
(23:30):
call the disaggregated data or data from the vote tally sheets,
has not been published in a bunch of other countries,
including the US, to saying this election is not right.
Something is sour here, at least with those with the
official reporting on that election. And you guys, I didn't
(23:50):
realize the opposition leader who was going up against Maduro
in that election had to get the heck out of there.
He had to leave because he was facing some pretty
serious charge, really freaky stuff. He flew to Spain because
there was an arrest warrant out for him, accusing him
of terrorism and conspiracy.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
That's what I accuse.
Speaker 4 (24:10):
Anybody disagrees with me about anything down, I'm like a
freaking terrorist and you're inspiring case a Dias are clearly
a superior sandwich. Someone arrests this.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Man and this all transpired like after the election was called,
then all of a sudden, these charges were filed.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yes, and then he had to leave. The opposition leader
there who had to go to Spain and was charged
with that stuff was Edmundo Gonzalez, and he was you know,
he went out publicly and said, hey, this vote was stolen,
this isn't right, and he became an enemy really quickly.
So why are we talking about all this? Oh, because
it's context to this story that was written in CNN.
(24:51):
It is titled US says claims of CIA plot to
kill Maduro are categorically false. That's in quotations. Yes, after
Venezuela rest six foreigners. Okay, so let's just get in
this state department says no, no, no, there's nothing. There's
no base to these accusations that somebody was trying to kill.
His name is Nicholas Maduro. By the way, I think
(25:12):
we just lovingly calling him Maduro again mentioned before in
that episode. It is one of my favorite foods that
exists on this planet. A good Maduro or Maduro's usually.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
What is that I don't think I know about this food, Matt.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
That is a ripened plantain that has been somewhat fried
in that's sweet and.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Delicious I don't know that I've had a Maduro. N Oh,
it's so good. All right, we'll hang out later and
get sack, but not this Madru. I don't think we
care for this.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
We're not hey, hey, we're not involved. We're giving you
the strange news. As a matter of fact, none of
us have officially visited Venezuela in Quba officially.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah, this guy Maduro seems like a real pill. Matt Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah. Maduro, who was famously the number two for a
long time to Hugo Chavez, which we've done a whole
video series and talked about numerous times. He had some
weirdness going on, right.
Speaker 4 (26:04):
Yeah, you can see. I hope YouTube hasn't pulled it down.
They're tricky with that kind of media. This guy, in
the midst of running Venezuela, also was known for having
his talk show that went on in excess of four
hours where you could just call him live yeah and
(26:25):
ask him stuff and then you know, off the cuff,
he would he would have this big at least in
the public facing persona. He would have big Uncle energy
where someone would say, hey, sir, we are hungry, retired,
crime is out of control, and he would just say
something like mothers are the most important part of this country.
(26:45):
Give that woman thousands of dollars, you know at buyer
a house, all right, next caller, Which is not the
way you're supposed to run a government.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
Yeah, but he did have a team of people that
just went out and bought houses. No, I'm just joking.
I can't confirm that. So so there was allegedly some
kind of attempt on Nicholas Maduro's life, at least according
to Venezuela's official apparatus there and the State Department here
in the US says no, that's categorically false. That did
(27:15):
not occur. But they did. Venezuela did arrest six people,
that has been confirmed. Those six people include a US
Navy seal, which you know Navy seals. Guys, what separates
someone who I don't know is in the Navy versus
someone who is a Navy seal?
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Badassory, I mean, Navy is like your a sailor or
you're on a ship. But I mean, I understanding, so
you can be a pilot too. But isn't a Navy
seals like a special ops kind of individual?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
That is my understanding. I just didn't know, if you
guys had anything further on that. I know, Navy seal
training is historically some of the most intensive stuff you
can go through.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Brutal.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah, if you ever, if you want to ever feel
palpable tension in a room, hang out with some Army
rangers and Navy seals and just you know, ask them
if they want to arm wrestle and stand back.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Don't ask them if they want to arm wrestle.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Special ops we call it small unit specialization as well,
often ordered or tasked with identifying, capturing, and or terminating
high level targets or sometimes reconnaissance, just getting behind very
difficult enemy lines, getting the lay of the land. And
(28:37):
I think we talked about this in maybe July twenty
twenty four on Strange News that maybe that's a different one.
Oh yeah, because that's the twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
Yeah, this was a whole separate thing in twenty twenty
where there were two green berets that were arrested.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
Exactly, and again the government, the US government, we should say,
did make statements disavowing any kind of green lighting of
this activity. Right, So, yeah, it is possible just to
be objective, it is possible that these folks simply had
their own experience and their own expertise and leveraged that
(29:17):
of their own agency and volition to push for something
they wanted to happen without checking in with chain and command.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Completely possible.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
And guys, this Navy seal has been named a bunch
of times. We're not going to say his name on
here just because it doesn't well, maybe it does matter.
We don't have to say his name. There are two
other Americans that were also arrested, and then three other people,
and Venezuela is alleging that this was a full on,
like an action, a destabilizing action that was supposed to
(29:50):
take place. They say that they seized four hundred US
rifles that were linked directly to this plot, which implies,
if true, that these were guys who were going to
recruit a bunch of other people in country in Venezuela
to take some kind of action that is much larger
than just six human individuals. Right, four hundred guns, That's
(30:14):
that's a lot of people. But that could also mean
that it's some kind of weapons trade or you know,
black market weapons deal thing going on, which I don't know. Weirdly,
feels more likely to me, but maybe maybe I'm out
of my depth here when it comes to, you know,
some kind of attempted coup versus making some money on
some rifles, and I don't know.
Speaker 4 (30:37):
Ay you raise a you raise really interesting point there too,
because I think it was not just the CIA that
was accused of involvement, but the Interior Minister was saying
Spain's intel agency was there, Yeah, like named a rogues
gallery of possible actors.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Well, yeah, there was a citizen and two Spanish citizens
who were arrested. So I don't know, three Americans, two
Spanish citizens, and one Czech citizen.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Do you think do you think it's possible that there
was some kind of internal dissent in like, let's say,
so the CIA, as you as you point out, has
publicly responded, which they don't always do, but has publicly
responded and said, hey, nope, hashtag not it, not us.
(31:34):
Is it possible that there would be factions in that
organization who decided to you know, yeah, pony up their
own bones.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Aren't there? Like? I mean, we know that there's wheels
within wheels and a lot of these massive branches of
governments and military branches, you know, so maybe if this
was some kind of siloed operation, like a black op
of some kind, is that what you mean then?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
Yeah? I think right. I mean that's what you're saying.
It's an unknown, it's an unknownn wait no.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
No no, it's a no no, it's a.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
No no, it's a new unknown.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
No.
Speaker 4 (32:11):
Also yeah, again, to be clear for anybody in general
who's listening, we are not saying anything. We are asking questions,
and I think that's totally fine.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yea, wildly.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
I do love the point you made, Ben, I don't
know exactly how you put it, something about the CIA
just saying hey, not us. I'd love the idea of
the CIA being known for having a reputation for just
coming out and saying, oh are bad guys? That was us? Yeah, sorry,
anytime they get accused of something, Ah, shucks, you.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Gotta the CIA's new motto transparency.
Speaker 3 (32:53):
Or aucks you got shuts od jeepers.
Speaker 4 (32:57):
We're the real Apple Dumpling Gang, the twenty first cent.
But yeah, I mean you're you're bringing up, though, something
that's that's incredibly important because we know that there were
multiple things that have been framed as coup attempts or
even described as coup attempts by the people involved. What
(33:18):
makes the CIA come out and say not it right?
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Like you know, typically you think they would just not
dignify it with a response.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I I don't know, what do you think? Seriously, do
you guys have any ideas of why this idea would
be auspicious?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
It's weird. Maybe the denial is part of the op
in a way.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Possible, Yeah, it's I mean, if we had to guess,
and again just guessing, then one of the reasons you
would do this is to kind of maintain the boundaries
and parameters of your current geopolitical rivalry. Honestly, and this
is a terrible comparison kind of like how when somebody
(34:01):
stole the secret recipe for Coca Cola and tried to
sell it to Pepsi and then PEPSI said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no,
not us. We're going to turn this to the authorities.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
Guys, Sorry, quick off, quick aside. Did you see that
the Kentucky Fried Chicken original recipe secret spice blend was
leaked by a relative of Colonel Sanders.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
It's the ones closest to you.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
And then I always hurt the ones we.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Love, my God, we need to impose sanctions on.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
That person, and the internet collectively shrugged because no one
likes KFC anymore.
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Wait, wait, Ben, has the CIA issued a statement?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Where is job rule? It's a good question, then it's
a good question.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Hey, guys, just quickly we can end this out here.
There's a lot going on between the US and Venezuela
right now. Sanctions were just imposed on them by the
United States. Sanctions on officials who are you know, they're
in that close relationship with Nicholas Maduro, who may have
actually helped change and cup up the election, right, make
(35:02):
it so that Moduro won. So, yeah, the US and
post sanctions on several of those people. That was on Thursday, y'all,
September twelfth, as we record this. Then just before that,
the US, I think, yeah, the US seized I think
it was like the private plane or basically the air
force one of Venezuela when it was in the Dominican Republic.
(35:24):
They just said hours now, but.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
Also not it. Yeah, they called dibbs and then not it.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's very very weird, y'all.
So there's more to come here. Look up this. We're
not gonna talk about this story. Just look it up.
And I want to make sure you're aware of this.
Look up New York fire chief bribery scheme. Just look
it up, read about it. I'm sure we're going to
talk about it at some point in the future. Yeah.
(35:54):
If you ever thought, man, the firearm department doesn't get
to my house as quickly as it seems to to
a lot of these other houses, well, if you're in
New York City, there's probably a reason for that.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Gotta pay to play baby, a lot of money, apparently,
pay to blaze.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
All right, be right back after a word from our.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Sponsor, and we're back with one more piece of strange news. Matt.
I just wanted to do a quick micro story. Mentioned
that your second story tease made me think of there
was a story that I read about a woman in
Greece I believe, who was setting fires in order to
(36:36):
flirt with firemen. That's a true story. It's a true story.
To the scene, a real firebug. Oh my god, it's
crazy we keep meeting like this. I know, it's bizarre. Yeah,
I just wanted to had to get a gander at
those beefcake firemen rushing to the scene and their sexy uniforms.
But anyway, that's not all my story's about today. My
(36:59):
story is about the work day, the workplace. It's a
workplace story specifically centered around the work culture in Japan,
which I know we've talked about numerous times as being
particularly hard and harsh. A regular, you know, work day
in Japan is nine to nine, it's my understanding, with
(37:22):
people typically staying as late as eleven and sometimes twelve.
A lot of folks have probably seen viral images of
Tokyo salarymen passed out on park benches and in train
stations because they have to go out drinking with their
bosses and they get hammered and the train stop running,
so they just kind of fall where they lay, and
(37:45):
that's part of the culture as well. Well. Another part
of the culture is apparently it's quite difficult in Japan
to quit your job. It's something we take for granted.
I think maybe here in America, in addition to all
that other stuff, we have a lot more protections in
this country, minimal though they may seem to the average
blue collar or hell even white collar worker here in America,
(38:08):
But in Japan, ad just don't have this to the
point where many folks report the when they try to
quit their jobs, they are relentlessly shamed, hounded, harassed, borderlines
stalked by their superiors. There's a really great article in
the Wall Street Journal that outlines a situation where somebody
(38:29):
who attempted to quit their job, an employer literally came
to their house knocking on their door, came to their
apartment knocking on their door. There are stories of folks
trying to quit their job only to be held up
in weeks of meetings, told that this is going to
ruin their life, is going to ruin their future. All
of this stuff just absolutely browbeating type behavior. And you know,
(38:50):
in Japan there's also kind of a culture of non
confrontation that is possibly, i think likely what these employers
and companies are taking advantage of. That despite being an
untenable situation workplace situation where you know that people feel
like their mental health suffering toxic environments, they find it
(39:11):
really difficult to quit, to the point where in recent
years a handful of companies offering a service have sprung
up wherein you can hire someone to quit your job
for you, and they basically cover all of the bases
in terms of giving notice, setting parameters for kind of
(39:33):
no contact, even making sure that equipment or uniforms or
any company property are returned. But it's just this buffer
that for the price of like you know, a night
out maybe with friends, like a date night, two hundred
bucks roughly American, you can hire these agencies to phone
(39:55):
your employer and quit on your behalf and you don't
ever have to see or talk to these people again.
There are sort of more bespoke versions of this that
are a little more expensive, about four hundred dollars. In
the case of hiring a firm to quit a military job,
because of the nature of that and the government ties
(40:15):
of that kind of employment, they offer a lawyer to
do the quitting for you, a company cited in this
Wall Street Journal article too timid to tell the boss
you're quitting, there's a service for that by Miho Inada.
The name of this company is Momori, which I think
(40:36):
literally translates in English to I can't take it anymore.
And so this is one of the companies that does
all of this legwork for you when you want to
quit a job. It's pretty wild that it requires that
because I mean, it's certainly not illegal in Japan to
quit your job, but there is such a kind of
(40:57):
deference to authority figures and a sort of power dynamic
in inequality that employers are bullying people into staying in
jobs they hate. And the kicker is this, Japan actually
has a worker shortage, so you don't have to be
(41:19):
beholden to your current employer because there's probably something else
out there that you can snap up pretty quickly. And
this is partially why there's been such a spread of
these companies who are now also consulting with employers who
are looking for people who have recently quit jobs. So
they'll call Memory and say, hey, do you have any
candidates that I might be able to ring up for
these open positions. So with that, i'd really love to
(41:41):
hear what you guys think, especially you've been with your
experience abroad, if you've witnessed any of this toxic workplace culture,
and what you guys think of this kind of service
and how popular it's becoming.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Well, I'm trying to imagine a situation where I felt
like my boss was too legit for me to quite well, sorry,
I'm so sorry. No, but where I be afraid to
resign and I did not understand it. I didn't have
the personal perspective on it because I've I don't know
about you, guys, I've known a lot of people who
(42:12):
have resigned from positions over the years, or have left
a position to go to another job, or that specific
instance where you're like, I'm not going to work here anymore.
I just need to put in my two weeks notice.
Until I started reading this article that you shared with us,
and there's another CNN article. There are a couple of the
places that have articles on this, and they're describing I
(42:34):
couldn't fathom the number of overtime hours that people were
putting in. There's a story, there's a story in there
of somebody who put in one hundred and fifty nine
overtime hours in a single month before dying, literally experiencing
heart failure. Now it's nuts for me, because you have
to imagine that the stress levels in somebody who's going
through that must be incredibly high. Is that stress directly
(42:57):
related to the heart failure that that person experienced. It
seems to be so, at least it's written about it
that way. I don't know the science behind all of that,
but if you've got a huge number of people that
are going through that kind of stress, then yeah, this
kind of service makes a ton of sense and being
able to be that cold third party that says, here's
(43:20):
what my client is going to do, and it takes
the potential emotional encounter out of it, which is kind
of good.
Speaker 3 (43:29):
Probably worth your money at that point, because it sounds
like some of these folks just can't muster up the
courage or the kind of grit. I guess to face
that because it is so off the charts, toxic and
meat spirited and manipulative. Understandable. Ben you have any experience
with this kind of thing that is from your travels
(43:51):
or just any perspective on why this would be so
necessary from a cultural.
Speaker 4 (43:55):
Standpoint, Yeah, it's definitely tough. The overtime is crazy. Overtime
here in the United States is pretty crazy as well.
But Japan's work culture has some serious objective obstacles that
will have to be tackled at some point. A lot
of it is the idea of face of preserving decorum
(44:19):
in conversation. Another thing that happens on the flip side
of this, which may help explain the emergence of these
sorts of agencies is that sometimes Japanese companies won't fire people. Instead,
they'll kind of quiet fire them, they'll sideline them from projects,
(44:42):
they'll just not give them work. You show up, you
have eight hours, nine hours in the day, and you
don't have anything to do. Right, you're literally rearranging paper clips.
You're just checking on the printer, making sure the coffee
is working. This is something that, unfortun only a lot
of people have experienced. And another thing that maybe missing,
(45:06):
I think from what we would call the salary man philosophy,
is that in places like the United States, which doesn't
have the same worker protections as maybe your EU countries.
But in places like the United States, it is not
abnormal to fire or to be fired, to resign, or
(45:28):
to somehow quit a job and then go to another
place in the same industry without your character or your
reputation being smirched. It's not necessarily a demerits people know
you get in situations. However, depending on the industry we're
talking about. In Japan, in corporate life, it can be
seen as a vast demerit, as a loss of face.
(45:51):
If you are God forbid fired, right, because that means
that you did something, or if you quit, that also
means that you did something. And so now the onus
is on you and you have this sort of scarlet
letter employment wise upon your characters. So there are reasonable,
(46:11):
valid and actionable needs that explain why this industry would
take off, because a big part of it too is
being able to not burn bridges to retain good relations
even after you were maybe no longer a colleague of
someone for sure.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
The article on CNN that Matt mentioned interview is somebody
named Shiori Kalamazo is the operations manager at the Monmuri
agency that does this and said that in the past
year alone this articles came out, like last month, they've
gotten more than eleven thousand inquiries. And the agency's located
in Manato, which is a very busy business district in Tokyo.
(46:55):
It's been around since twenty twenty two. And there's a
really telling quote from Kalamada that I think and on saying,
we sometimes get calls from people crying asking if they
can quit their job based on X y Z. We
tell them that it's okay and that quitting their job
is a labor right, and the thing it was something
I was trying to remember earlier. It just one last
(47:15):
point that I wanted to mention. Another thing that Kalamata
says is that most of the time the employers go
along with them and they're you know, quitting on behalf
of these other individuals, but about ten percent of them
insist on further negotiations involving lawyers. So there is just
this really entrenched culture of just not taking no for
(47:38):
an answer when it comes to, you know, the bosses
there in Japan. It's very very interesting. It does kind
of reading stuff like this does make me feel lucky
that we have the minimal labor protections that we do
have here in the good old United States. So that's
that one, guys.
Speaker 4 (47:58):
We have We have learned a lot, and thank you
for bringing that story, Noel. You know, we've got a
lot of listeners in Japan. We've got a lot of
people listening who are of Venezuelan extraction or providence or
may live in Venezuela now. And you know, we have
family members in Lebanon or of Lebanese origin, and there
(48:22):
is so much more to all of these stories. We
can't do this show without your help. So thank you
very much, fellow conspiracy realist, for tuning in. We would
love to hear from you. We want to hear your takes.
You know we've talked or otherwise. Right, We've got more
stuff on the way, and your our favorite part of it,
(48:44):
So please do reach out join us here in the dark.
We try to be easy to find through any number
of means.
Speaker 3 (48:51):
Oh, do reach out. You can find us in the
Hamil Conspiracy Stuff where we exist, on Facebook with our
Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy, on YouTube where
we have video contents galore for you to enjoy, and
on x FKA, Twitter, on Instagram and TikTok. However, we
are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Hey, do you want to call us? Our number is
one eight three three STDWYTK. It's a voicemail system. It
gives you three minutes. That's all you got. Gotta make
it quick. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. If you've got more to say than can
fit in that three minutes, why not instead send us
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (49:30):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
We receive.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
We can't wait to hear from you. We're running behind
on some of these responses, but it's only because you
give us so much amazing and disturbing things.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
To think about.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
Shout out, by the way to Dan a, who has
recently persuaded us that Manchurian candidates can.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
Now exist thanks to technology.
Speaker 4 (49:57):
So thank you, slash Man.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Dang it, Dan.
Speaker 4 (50:00):
If you want to be part of this, we'd love
for you to join us just off the edge of
the map here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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