June 25, 2025 • 68 mins
Everyone knows that diplomatic positions come with a variety of perks and protections, as well as serious responsibilities. But what if you were able to enjoy some of the benefits of being a diplomat, without all those pesky rules and regulations? While it may sound thoroughly illegal, shadow diplomats are very much real -- and a subject of growing concern. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel discover the troubling secrets of a hidden world rife with crime, corruption and conspiracy.
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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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My name is Matt, my name is now They called
me bed Here. We're joined as always with our super
producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
we all remember our recent two part series on diplomatic immunity.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Who could forget there's a golden time for the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
We don't want to have plausible deniability on that. Oh man,
I'm already mess it up. Cover blown.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
We dove deep into fact, fiction, corruption, and controversy surrounding
these strange, this strange sort of rubric we collectively call
diplomacy a modern civilization. Please check out the series. We
get weird with it. But folks, remember this everything we
(01:27):
talked about in those previous two chapters that applies to
the formal official stuff. As we teased earlier in Part two,
there's an entirely different layer of diplomacy the public does
not know about largely. So what do you guys think
you want to get into some shadow diplomacy?
Speaker 4 (01:50):
WHOA, I think I unmeeded my mic and it like
pinged the spring on my micar that is. But to
answer your question, Ben, we also have to dig these
particular rud to vegas as to diplomatics.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
As tourists, not diplomats. Here are the facts, all right,
diplomacy is weird. It's utterly necessary. Uh, you know, we
talked about it a little bit. But something like diplomacy
existed ever since the world's first human tribes and then
(02:36):
later civilizations figured out they did not have to kill
each other dot dot dot immediately.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, that's always nice. Uh outsiders show up, Oh they
must die way better if you can say, oh, hello, outsider,
how goes the because that's how they talked.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Hail fellow. Thing that looks like us that we culturally
do not acknowledge. What is the thing? Yeah? Yeah, what
that's going?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
So all of this created what you might call a
new subclass of the old social strata, with rulers sending
envoys to enemies and allies in order to partake of
a certain gentleman's agreement. You know, this whole idea of
killing the messenger being a sort of a bad move, right, like,
(03:26):
not particularly tenable. Otherwise, how are we going to talk
to each other if I have to send my man
to parley with thee and then I get his head
back in a basket.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Doesn't really encourage an open discourse.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, And over time, as tribes become kingdoms and kingdoms
become states and you know, humanity of all civilization, you
get rules, like established rules that everybody decides to kind
of follow, although they are broken over and over and
over again.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah. Yeah, this gentleman's agreement idea is a good comp
we would call it because as it evolved, even the
most bitter of rivals would most of the time but
very much not all of the time, allow safe passage
for messengers. And there's a reason to this. It's not
(04:16):
because these it's not because history is filled with nice people.
It's because communication and the information delivered via communication was
often more valuable than Russian into blind conflict. Russian into
blind conflict, keep it. Later, you'd see aristocrats who are
(04:39):
functioning as dignitaries. They were speaking with batonomy, They were
on behalf of the regime that birthed them, and we
kid thee not. It's very weird for us as Americans
to acknowledge that once upon a time, winning the genetic
lottery of birth was the only qualification to be a diplomat.
(05:02):
So wild man, and you know, at the same time,
this stuff is evolving, right, it starts to get we've
set this years back. But you can trace human civilization
in just a couple of categories or milestones. First you
start with the family, right. Then you create the tribe.
(05:23):
Then you find usually a religion, right. And then, as
Matt was saying earlier, you find a state, which creates
a civilization. And so what we see is in step
with this rise of communication, this rise of sophisticated civilization.
Another subclass of diplomacy waxes and waves. These are spies,
(05:49):
informants of every imaginable demographic, right, slaves, curtures, merchants, tourists,
people who can plausibly travel far and wide, like we
talked about in some sabotage or oss episodes. People who
can be in important rooms without being noticed and without
being questioned. You know what I mean. I know we're
(06:10):
talking about nuclear weapons, but that guy's just room service.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah, Well that's why something like the United Nations
is so important, because you can actually get people together
and from all of these modern states and just have conversations, right,
rather than jumping to any kind of conflict. You can
go there and you could talk, and you can make resolutions,
and you can say things that really don't do anything,
(06:39):
but at least you're saying them so that everyone else
knows the position of your country or your kingdom.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And we were talking off air about some shows and
episodes of different shows that we very much enjoy. Obviously,
of course our touch point here to borrow that word
is Shaggy, the legendary musician who always says it was
not me, it wasn't, it wasn't in He's got a
(07:08):
whole song about it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I did a thing, but it was not me. But
I did a thing but it was not.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Me, And we must find out who, in fact it was,
isn't because of the joke of that song that it
definitely was him.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yes, okay, cool bottom, one camera, got it. That's right.
This is the thing the present practice of diplomacy emerged from.
As as you're describing all this patchwork of off the
book's agreements and if you look deeper into the modern day,
we find more and more legacies of these older systems.
(07:43):
Every government knows these loopholes, they know them very well.
And the weirdest thing about it, if you really look
into it, the weirdest thing about it is no one
at the top, no one with the ability to change
this imperfect system, actually wants to change it. They wanted
(08:03):
to continue on. I mean, first I would say, nobody's
figured out a better system. Diplomacy is like a busted
up used car. You know, did you guys ever have
a crappy car? Definitely? Yeah? Wait I wrote it in
a car? Maybe? Yeah, I think so. I had a
real bad.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Like Toyota situation for a while. It would overheat all
the time. And it did have a sixteen Dix changer
in it though, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But Matt, how about you, Every car I've driven has
been mint.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
That's I was about to say, like, say, mid you're
a car record.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I mean, diplomacy is like a used car with a
slippery transmission. You know, the windows don't always work, There
are a bunch of oil leaks you can't ever find,
and everybody across the globe looks around, and de Neiro
shrugs and says, better to have a car at all. Right,
So we keep driving this broken thing that we call diplomacy.
(09:03):
When we drive it around the world, everybody just tops
off the oil and hopes we can keep it running
for as long as possible. But there's a second reason
this system exists, and this gets us to tonight's show.
What is that second reason.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Well, that second reason may well be the most important reason,
and this is that everyone also knows how to weaponize
these loopholes and imperfections, which is a big part of
what we've been talking about, especially when it comes to
the kind of sabotage of parliamentary procedure, which I think
this perfectly describes, this weaponization of this kind of thing
(09:42):
that this is of course focused more on weaponizing some
of these conditions, these special dispensations that are allowed from
this system that started with the best of intentions, but
as of course, like many things, morphed into something not
quite resembling its original form.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, no matter what country you look, no matter how
you vote, or what your ideology may be, you have
to realize the people at the top have all made
a unanimous calculation. Knowing what is broken with diplomacy, they say,
allows us to clock when enemies get up to Shenanigan's.
(10:19):
And further, they say, if we are smart boys, we're
smart chaps. This allows us to leverage those same problems
to our advantage. What could go wrong? It's messy stuff.
Please please check out our earlier series for in depth
explorations of this, along with multiple deeply disturbing examples. The
(10:42):
most bizarre thing we have to realize is all of
that is formalized, all of the stuff we talked about
in those first two chapters. It's real. As Matt said,
the United Nations has encyclopedias about this. Actually there's a
ton of references, policies, rules, and to your point, Noel,
(11:06):
gentlemen's agreements, Diplomatic immunity is real. Some people have pulled
off wild, heinous things as a result, but they can
be punished by their country of function or by their
country of origin. Essentially, if you push the envelope too
too far, de quorum be damned. There are gonna be consequences.
(11:30):
But it's still it's a shady game, you know. That's
why there's another class a diplomat that We teased a
bit in Part two of Diplomatic Immunity. There are folks
out there who don't have any bona fides. Really, they
don't have, you know, their International Studies degree from Georgetown.
(11:52):
They might just be a celebrity like Angelina Jolie. They
might be a good will ambassador.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Or they might be an actual facts national security advisor.
But they're operating outside of the primary channels, the channels
that anyone in the public from any country would ever
know about unless they chose to make it known.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Oh and they might be retired as well, from official life.
You might hear these folks called honorary consoles. That's sort
of the Jedi term. They're a handful of other equally
vague terms. These are credentials that can be granted by
either the origin country or the country of destination. As
(12:41):
far as the rest of the world is concerned, these positions,
as far as the public's concerned, these positions don't really exist.
You see a headline every so often when something goes wrong,
but they are collectively called, and with a shout out
to our friends at Pro Publica and the International Consortium
(13:03):
of Journalists, are collectively called shadow diplomats. So what is
it these folks do. We'll tell you after a word
from our sponsors, the League of Nations. Here's where it
gets great. You know, I was looking through all my
(13:26):
encyclopedia sets and oed kind of things at home, and
I could not find a definition of shadow diplomacy. So
maybe we can break it down.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, it's interesting. So you will see many a news
article online that refers to shadow diplomacy or shadow diplomat
work or something to this level. And they're often talking
about unofficial channels or even sometimes an official person like
Jake Sullivan who was working as a National security advisor,
(14:01):
having secret meetings in places that we mentioned in previous
episodes like Vienna or in Bangkok, or just going to
places where there isn't going to be an official meeting
between countries, but they meet like and have discussions, right
high level discussions for things like this. But you'll also
have you'll also find articles that are discussing the exact
(14:23):
type of person that we mentioned before the break, somebody
who is unofficially acting on behalf of a country that
would not you know, not be making any kind of
decisions or making official statements on behalf of let's say
the United States, but they're doing it so it is
very strange. It's almost like it's a tough thing to
describe because it's someone doing work almost for nothing.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Sometimes volunteers, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beneath the surface of the
formal negotiations that you'll hear press releases about, there is
a network of unofficial envoys, former officials. Business tycoons are
very popular, as well as celebrities, VIPs like the decayed
(15:09):
aristocracy of Western Europe, politically connected fixers. You know, Kissinger
was super deep into this kind of stuff. They have
a lot of influence on international policy. They hold conversations
the public does not know about. A shadow diplomat is
(15:29):
a true smoky back room operative. They have little to
no diplomatic credentials. They got, as you were saying, Matt,
no salary, no official like bullet pointed list of responsibilities
or job duties, no official budget. Again official even if
(15:49):
they're deemed honorary consoles kind of like a professor emeritis position.
They are volunteers, so they leverage nepoti, networking, personal connections. Right,
let's get past the red tape. I went to Cambridge
with this guy's cousin, so I'll just go visit him
(16:12):
in Vienna. And sometimes there's subject matter experts as well, right,
Like I'm Eric Prince, I know about mercenaries. Let me
have this conversation over in West Africa.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I want to ask you guys about a specific situation
that I couldn't ascertain whether it would be considered shadow
diplomacy or regular diplomacy or something.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Else other it's diplomacy.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Plus maybe I just don't know, because in my mind
when I think diplomacy, I think officials sitting down. It's
a sanctioned meeting of some sort. It is known on
both sides. Everybody's aware that it's happening, and everybody's cool
that happening, and even public statements are made, Hey we're
having talks that kind of thing. There's a situation right
(17:01):
after the Chinese spy balloon situation went down in the
United States, I think it was twenty twenty three, and
this guy, Jake Sullivan, who was at the time the
National Security Advisor under President Biden, went over to Vienna
and met with this guy named Wang Yie, who was
I guess an equivalent person on the Chinese side. And
(17:22):
there were crazy tensions happening between the two countries, right,
and there's all kinds of public statements being made by
the you know, the presidents of both countries, by other
official people within the countries, and these statements are pretty
adversarial in the moment as it's happening. Yet, these two
guys of high level positions within the state departments of
(17:43):
their countries are hanging out at a bar in Vienna
and then hanging out, you know, at a hotel in Bangkok,
and then hanging out in Washington, hanging out in Beijing,
and it's just the two of them having talks, and
those talks end up being kind of the crux of
how China and the United States move forward from you know,
a diplomatic standpoint. Is that shadow diplomacy because it's just
(18:07):
two advisors hanging out talking, or is that regular diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Matt, because in
our previous episodes on Diplomatic Immunity, we depicted just such
a situation, a little bit more off the books version
of it, where in our three characters are at a
cafe coolincidentally in Vienna, and we all dictated which coffee
(18:37):
orders we would have. I believe you wanted something in
a shoe, Is that correct? Bailey's from a shoe. Bailey's
from a shoe.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That's the only way, the only way to take it.
But but like, so that is that just diplomacy then?
Is that what we're saying?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me spend this out a little
bit more if I could. So. The idea then is
that there is not a clear demarcation or inflection point, right,
a clear border between what counts as official un statement
and some guys hanging out at a cafe. What we
(19:13):
see there is that these people had credentials for specified roles, right.
Their parent governments have a list of things that they
are supposed to do, and these guys are on salary. However,
to your question, they are arguably functioning a little outside
(19:34):
their remit. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
The public only found out about this after Jake Sullivan
was on some show or he was giving a talk
and he mentioned these talks that he had with Wang Yi.
And that's the only reason anybody knows that it happened.
And those are the primary talks that occurred. It wasn't
between President g and President Biden at the time, it
was these guys well metotomy.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Again, it was via their proxies, just like an aristocrat
would go to Hungary, right and say, I am not
the king, but I'm kind of the king in this conversation.
So yeah, we did Joe Biden, but I'm kind of
Joe Biden for this one. It reminds me of the
Six Party talks with our friends in Pyeongyang, wherein you
(20:21):
would have legends like Christopher Hill go up and say, hey,
I'm not the president, but for the purposes of this conversation,
I kind of speak for him, you know what I mean,
I know what he wants to order on the menu.
It's weird because the best way to picture the concept,
(20:43):
the nice word we use is honorary console. That's when
your government kind of backs you up, kind of backs
you up, they give you a little bit of a
letter of mark, as we used to call it. I
think the best way to describe it for anyone unfamiliar
is through Star Wars. These people have powers Summer Jedi
(21:03):
Summer Sith. The Jedi version represents in a foreign location
speaking on behalf of their uh their home destination, and
they assist citizens. They as Nolan say, promote trade and
diplomatic relations, but they do not have full official, formal
(21:25):
consular powers. Yeah. So yeah, like sending the worm to
Kim Jong. I love that you brought that. I was
about that on daily Yeah, that was his name. Or
you could argue Curtis Jackson sending signals that he's going
to go to Donald Trump and ask him to not
(21:47):
pardon Sean Combs, which is also yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Okay, so it's like it's more like Steven Segall.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Steven Skull and Russia would be another example. Yeah. Oh,
or in the US, Steven sg maybe operating. I don't
know how well he can walk at this point. Oh
too many sweeps of the leg. Yeah, we've all seen
the video where he was just or he's doing battle.
(22:19):
He can hear it. He can real ti chi master
that guy. But but honorary consoles are important because they
can often if they're by the book, if they're doing
the right thing, they can often work in regions where
there is no official embassy right enemy states, there is
no official consulate, frozen relations and you have citizens from
(22:42):
your home country, the nationals living in that place. If
you can't get the DOS Department of State to advocate
for them, then you need to fix it. So an
honorary consulate is sometimes a ceremonial position and some times
it's a fixer. It's a person who gets stuff done.
(23:03):
And this is an old idea. As we said, you know,
back in earlier evenings, city states empires, they relied on
local individuals. The Levats had this right Eurasia Western Europe
figured out how to weaponize it, kind of like the
ancient art of assassination. Both continue today, shadow diplomacy and
(23:25):
what do we call it now? Targeted targeted killings? Oh
say advertising? Similar? Yeah, targeted advertising. I like that isn't
that funny too? Though?
Speaker 4 (23:35):
How the term diplomatic has kind of come I mean,
I guess it always has meantphis but to say something
in a nice way as not to piss somebody off,
but also to be kind of stern about it, right, Like,
it's it's sort of a skill having, you know, the
ability to negotiate in these ways and sort of sweet
(23:55):
talk a little bit. But to your point, Ben, the
weaponization this whole system is really what we're talking about today.
So the folks that we're talking about the Jedi, for
all intents and purposes from the boring.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Star Wars movies.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Let's just be real, the one about the trade embargoes
and with the weird alien guys at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Those those were a little bit dull.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
But whatever, we can enjoy Star Wars, however, we wish the.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Jedi or boring.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
No. I think the movies, the later movies are the
prequels where it was really really focused on trade wars
and all of this diplomatic stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
That stuff was pretty boring.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, now we need to go back and watch them
with a keen eye.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I guess you're probably right. Maybe they've aged interestingly. But again,
for the purposes of this discussion, these are our Jedi,
these diplomats. They don't necessarily have mind control powers, but
we're not talking about them right now.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
We are talking about more of the Sith Lord.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Versions, right the chaotic, evil versions of these diplomats, the
so called rogue diplomats who are able to leverage these
communicays in carefully calculated, many times untraceable actions in order
to manipulate the machinations of government and potentially advance absolutely
(25:13):
egregious criminal activities.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah. Another comparison that is unfortunately timely would be to
consider US nuclear submarines some of the most dangerous vessels
on the human planet. They're dangerous because the enemy forces
never know what they're up to or where they're at.
Think about it, guys, right now, think about Hormuz. You know,
(25:39):
a nuclear sub can slip across borders, and just so,
a shadow diplomat can bypass a lot of formal diplomatic rules.
They can avoid public scrutiny, as Matt was saying, they
can get a job done without tripping the wrong wires.
A lot of these folks have previously held rules in
the international sphere, but now they're yeah, you know, retired.
(26:03):
This is a funny part, darkly funny, gallows humor funny.
Under certain circumstances, these individuals, they will always be described
as individuals by their proponents. They enjoy the benefits of
an official diplomat or console, but they don't have to
follow all the rules. We're talking about limited immunity. One
(26:26):
of our show's favorite things diplomatic pouches. Oh my gosh,
diplomatic containers. You can't search my stuff, TSA, here's my
little badge.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Well, I mean it's not for nothing that the idea
of these rogue diplomats is often used as like plot
devices and like spy thrillers and things. And typically when
you have a character in one of these types of
movies that's shown to be a diplomat, they're often sketchy.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
That's sort of like the vibe of how these roles.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Have kind of devolved to the point where it's sort
of infected the you know, pop cultural zeitgeist in a way.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Right, Yeah, guys, Just to take it back to Jake Sullivan,
former National Security Advisor. Interestingly enough, he got out of
the game, the official game as President Trump came into office.
Then he went over to the Harvard Kennedy School to
become a member of the faculty. Guess what his official
position is, guys.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
What's his official position, Matt He is.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
The Kissinger Professor of the Practice of state Craft and
World Order.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Oh, no comment.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Indeed, that is an ironic title, if ever there was one.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So now he's a professor, right, and in state Craft
and World Order. So you just I'm not saying that's
the sith Lord.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
That's what that title is. That's what that means.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I'm just saying, this guy would be perfect to just
you know, slip into another country on official business for
Harvard and have.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Talks and everybody's doing their best. That's very diplomatic. Thank you,
thank you. The benefits of this kind of secondary system
are clear right now here in the English speaking world.
The term shadow already has some negative quantitations. Yeah, but
(28:21):
let's remember there are things in the UK, like the
shadow Parliament that just means the party that doesn't control
that weird archipelago right now, they have their own system
ready and waiting, so they can jump in if they
ever get whatever passes for voting in that strange land.
(28:44):
This secondary system, what we call shadow diplomacy, is therefore
not inherently evil. However, it is ripe for corruption. We
mentioned our hypothetical Vienna example early right, and I love
the Sullivan episodes there as well, or the Sullivan anecdotes,
(29:06):
because a lot of stuff happens in this way. It's
not you know, it's not a big paparazzi ridden soare
or gala or big conference. It's a couple of folks
probably in not the most popular cafe or as said earlier,
(29:28):
a bar, just having a polite conversation, you know, from
far enough away from across the room. These guys may
look like just strangers, and it just happens that one
of them has some news, maybe some photographs, and maybe
a proposition. That hypothetical situation we built in our previous
(29:51):
episodes is based in fact, and it is based on
situations that occur more often than the public would assume,
at least until a twenty twenty two Pro public investigation
along with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Oh just
(30:13):
say the name, We hope you folks are okay. ICIJ
Pro PUBLICA, thank you for your work. Please be safe,
please please please be safe.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
And we're talking one hundred and sixty different journalists from
across the globe.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
REPUBLICA does great work.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
And they, you know, really do kind of enlist some
of the best folks out there do investigative journalism. And
the piece begins by stating that the media and governments
quote around the world have four years described isolated incidents
of criminal behavior and other misconduct bends doing the fingers,
you know, the ones could be one of two fingers
(30:51):
among so called honorary consoles. The honorary also just kind
of by its very nature, just means you didn't really
kind of I don't know, I mean, but then again,
it also sort of means that you earned it by
your actions. That you maybe didn't go through the proper channels,
but you're such a baller and you've done things in
this field that we're just going to bestow this title
(31:13):
and all of the sweet perks that go along with
it upon you.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Right, thank you for your donation. Also true, also true. Yeah,
this investigation, we're bringing it up because it's phenomenal and
it doubtlessly got some gumshoe reporters in a little bit
of hot water. Yeah, you know, we got to bring
it back. It proves, along with other investigations internationally and
(31:43):
scattered about domestically, that there is a massive amount of misuse, exploitation,
and weaponization involved of this term we describe honorary console.
It's it's massive. I know, we've all read it, and
we've read it. Launched this saying, you know, give credit
to you, Matt for saying at the end of our
(32:05):
part two on diplomatic immunity, that we had to talk
about this because this investigation, again it's like three years ago. Now.
I don't know why I'm tilt my hat like that.
It's three years ago now, and at the time it
identified no less than five hundred current or former honorary
councils accused of crimes, convicted of some crimes and then
(32:29):
also convicted and then getting away skirting the law. They
lean on some fancy language our friends at ICIJ and
sometimes instead of saying convicted or accused, they'll say embroiled
(32:50):
in controversy, I did my pants, my trousers were embroiled
in controversy. Yeah, embroiled.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
It's so funny, the timid, kind of tepid language of diplomacy.
Oftentimes it's just all these stand in phrases that you know,
sort of take the sting out a little bit, but
not really because we kind of know what they mean.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh yeah, this is a whole series, by the way,
so if you ever want to go down the rabbit
hole there. I don't even know how many articles there
are that pro public put out at the time, but
there's a whole thing on specific crhymes. There's a whole
thing on the threat of what this stuff can do
to the world, and like how corruption kind of seeps
(33:38):
its way in through the cracks of diplomacy here and
well and specifically, how you can become one of these
honorary console shadow rogues just with a little bit of
money going through specific channels, but with private corporations that
will like offer you a position essentially to be this
(34:00):
thing that functions in this way. It's very creepy, very weird.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
Well and clearly there's no elections or public you know,
input involved in any of this, but is it is?
I mean, what does it take to get one of
these types of posts? You have to there has to
be somebody within a government that bestows this upon you.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's not just you know, they're not just passing them
out right. I have a really exciting pitch for you know.
Okay that that I said earlier and we'll do it
on air. Uh before we continue, We've got to say
that again. You're you're gonna hear a lot of disturbing
stuff as you explore with us tonight, folks, But it
is mission critical to understand that honorary consoles or shadow
(34:45):
diplomats do need to exist. There are there are good
apples or there are good batchers in that bag. Yeah,
a lot of them are not. We're talking about serious crimes,
you know, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking. Arms dealers are huge
(35:07):
for getting their semi consular license, so there's there's also unfortunately,
human trafficking. There's a ton of fraud. It goes up
to murder, corruption, embezzlement because they can't catch you. You're
in and out. Like Dennis Reynolds said, like a demon's whisper.
Money laundering is huge, you know. And then you get
(35:31):
to a particular concern in the West would be representatives
of terrorist groups. Particular concern for non US aligned countries
is going to be off the books operations by the
US or the West, but usually in the US in
(35:51):
ways that those destination countries consider to be terrorist acts.
So like everybody is ser Man is the spider Man meme.
At this point, they're all pointing to each other and
they're saying you no, you no, you no you, We're
the good guys. It's tough. It's tough. There's arrangement for
(36:13):
mass casualty events. We know that that's proven from Hillsbola,
out of Lebanon. Other governments are clearly in on this.
There is a distressing and purposeful lack of oversight as
of twenty twenty five. If I'm recalling correctly. Still, seventy
eight countries are on record currently refusing to name the
(36:36):
people they have appointed as honorary consoles. So let's really
think about that. Almost eighty countries in the International Order
have been asked to name their honorary consuls. They all
have to name their official formal diplomatic staff, but something
like eighty countries at this point have been asked the
(36:59):
question and said, nah, we got other stuff to discuss.
How about the World Cup? Who's who's going to have
the World Cup this year? It's here, isn't it. Yeah
we won that one.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Yeah cool, I mean in Georgia, in Atlanta. I actually
I was so not keyed into that stuff. I just
found this out. Someone has told me, like to avoid
downtown some good to note, good note.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Did you get a weird off the book's note? Yeah,
it was exactly. Someone slid me a piece of paper.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
They said you were always cool to me.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
In Highway seventy five eighty five at all costs, which
is kind of just general Atlanta advice.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
But sometimes you gotta do it. To this earlier point,
we don't want to lose it. You can find private
companies and proxy semi state companies and actual governments offering
to appoint you as an honorary council or a shadow
diplomat via what you will call pay to play schemes.
(38:01):
It reminds us of the Golden passports. Remember we talked
about that. I think we circulated amongst ourselves price points.
If you give the right countries enough money, you just
become a citizens.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Did you hear about the Trump thing that the golden
Green card or the gold card? Apparently it's proved to
be quite popular, which maybe isn't surprising, but it also
you've got to wonder like who's pulling up the money
for that, and how much oversight is it into what their.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Actual business is shadow citizens at that right point.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
So I'm thinking about some of these corporate interests and
then intersecting that with what we know about resource extraction
and how important that is to global politics and conflict
right and hot war. And I was looking at something
from I don't know this outlet geopolitical monitor might be bogus,
(38:57):
who knows. They were to talking about specifically the Taliban
and their control of Afghanistan's mineral deposits and the mining
industries across the country, and then all of the different
I would say almost corporate slash political consoles that end
up flowing through the country attempting to gain more and
(39:20):
more influence and then more and more control over some
of the iron and other minerals that are in the
earth there. And it's it was interesting the way it
was talked about because it was this line between corporate
and political, which is a really weird line sometimes. Well yeah, yeah,
(39:41):
I m oh yeah. Some of these groups that offer
that kind of service right where they're going to how
would you how would you put it? These consultants right
that are also sometimes.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Consoles another amorphist fields that that can mean a lot
of things a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Well, and in the end they're all vying for control
over those natural resources without firing weapons, right, but they're
doing it quietly.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah. One of the scariest versions of a conversational ICBM
is let's have a little chat just you and me,
you know. And I sound a little bit British there,
but they taught us how to say that. Here's the pitch.
We tease this pitch. If you are hearing this and
(40:32):
you're not put off by our weird Jedi sith lord comparison,
and you're not put off by Matt's excellent observation regarding
the fuzzy lines between corporations and states. We want to
pitch you a job pursuing to Article sixty eight of
(40:53):
the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Yes, that's why honorary
consoles are real. The United States has a website has
a web page wherein you can apply to be an
honorary console. Was that your pitch to me? Ben from
really pitch to you? Know? You think I should try?
(41:15):
Do I qualify? Ah? Well, it's gotta make my case.
Somebody got you gotta come in with just a galvanizing pitch,
you know what I mean, and a gallon of money
more than a gallon a metric. It's not always about
the money. It's about the message. Yeah, it's about the resources,
you know what I mean. If you just go up there,
(41:36):
if you rock up hypothetically and say, hey, I got
a hot line on some lithium, then you might get
the phone call. But do do keep in mind, folks.
By virtue of applying to this, go to state dot
gov forward slash, honorary dash, consular dash officers Dash post.
(42:00):
By applying, you will likely encourage the eye of pallanteer
the eye of Sourrod. You will be on a list.
But hey, you know what I mean, maybe we've already
left the barn on that one because you're listening to
a show called stuff they don't want you to know.
How about this? How about this? What if we pause
(42:23):
and have a word from our good friends at Mackenzie
and then get to get to some specific examples of
crime and I don't know, Matt, No, maybe just some
stuff that we think is a little dice m and
(42:45):
we're back.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
So more than thirty honorary consuls have been sanctioned by
various governments who who do have the ability to sanction
individual human people. At least nine have been provably linked
to terrorist groups like you mentioned Ben. Oftentimes that's hesbalah.
But again, we only know the ones who got caught,
(43:06):
and you know that seems to indicate there are many
who did not. So why don't we get right into
that part and the hesblah of.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
It all, the husbla of it all. Yeah, the US
is on record at multiple points even up to recent years,
arguing to the international community that hebela and also North Korea,
the Eastern European theater are using honorary diplomatic status in
(43:38):
intentional and well organized ways with very very little oversight.
In twenty twenty two, and again we're leaning on one
hundred and sixty journalists here, the US Treasury Department sanctioned
to Hesbela financiers and said, hey, you're funneling money through
(44:01):
Guinea through the African nation at Guinea. And no judgment here, folks,
but we need to understand there are five countries that
sound like Guinea. There's Guiata, which is northeastern South America,
There's Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, three different countries on
the African continent. And then of course there's Papua New
(44:23):
Guinea over north of Australia. So they're talking about Guinea,
regular Guinea, signature Guinea out in Africa, and this was
being used as a very effective way to move money
around sanctions to wash the money. Makes sense.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
So David Asher, who is a former senior counter terrorism
finance advisor.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Which is the thing I was about to say, imagine
that first, imagine that first date, what do you do?
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Yeah, I am a senior after terrorism finance advisor what
does that becus I cannot tell you for the Department
of Defense, by the way, And he had.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
This to say about the Hesbelah of at All Hesbla.
He said, has.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Realized that if they use these honorary consoles, they can
basically move stuff with impunity and no one is ever
going to bust them. You flash your diplomatic passport, no
questions asked.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Hey, well that's a big deal, right, So just this
we talked about those diplomatic pouches and the things you
could potentially move with them and how large they can be. Right,
if it's not just a pouch, if you imagine a
purse or a bag or something, you know, the size
that you could fit in your personal carry on or
whatever on an airplane. It could be something that you
(45:45):
are shipping like huge, probably not a shipping container, maybe,
though I've never yes.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
No, definitely, oh yeah, do it? Yeah, okay, all right,
well well that's this whist.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
But think of what you could fit into that thing.
And we know for a fact that these kinds of
things are moving through But then then if you're so
we're talking counter terrorism finance, right, how do folks who
seek to carry out acts of terrorism, Get those weapons
moved around, get the money moved around to pay for
those weapons, to pay for all the human beings that
(46:18):
are gonna be doing all the stuff, and their meals
and their housing. How do you do that? Well, potentially,
at least according David Asher, you use the cover of
diplomatic community.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
One hundred percent. Check out our episode on freeports too,
remember that way. Oh Yeahanger, I'm just selling art. I'm
a tourist, you know what I mean. I just love this.
I do have to stop. Thanks to Dylan. We cut
a part of me just cackling off Mike because uh,
(46:54):
we do owe an apology. I'm sorry I sounded prejudiced
against the Swiss. I love the Swiss. We officially do
very diplomatic.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
But I feel better now you do.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Great good we have. We have calmed the waters. Don't
get us. We love your watches. So parts of Africa
and the Middle East or what we call MINA right
Middle East, North Africa, but also most of the African continent, uh,
will be rife with allegations of shadow diplomacy. This is
(47:29):
where we see our Eric princes, our Blackwaters, our Wagner Group,
things like that. If you thought gas station gambling was
a grift of friends and neighbors. Those are pennies in
comparison to what's happening here off the books, and as
we all know, Eastern Europe is another theater of intense
(47:50):
concern the current Russian government. We're not going to covey
on this. It's just true. The current Russian government seeks
by hook or by crooked, by carrot or by stick
to re establish control over former Soviet satellite states, and
they have leveraged the honorary console loophole to massive effect
(48:13):
mass effect the game mass effects are we doing references?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Reference never not referencing never not reference in in r
all right, So two again volunteer consoles to Matt's point
in North Macedonia a few years back.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
They got caught out. Because they're volunteers, they can create
their own offices, right, which are not consulates. They may
as well just be in an office park somewhere. They
were using those as bases for Russian propaganda campaigns to
persuade the public of various Eastern European nations against joining NATO,
(48:58):
the North Atlantic Tree, the organization. You know, the public
always says, the propaganda is not as dangerous as ballistic weapons.
But I think the four of us would argue propaganda
can be just as impactful, right.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
I yeah, I mean the idea itself is the thing
that generally gets someone to pick up a weapon. If
you're talking about a resistance force or something like that. Obviously,
official soldiers or something are compelled by their superiors, and
those superiors are compelled by partly the diplomatic stuff, but
also you know, the resource stuff. But sorry, I'm getting
(49:41):
off course here. I'm just thinking about Marco Rubio, and
I can't stop thinking about him, because he's the guy
that replaced Jake Sullivan as the National Security Advisor, the
guy who's like having secret talks. And I'm just imagining
Marco Rubio, the guy that we've watched to go through
multiple elections, and like Marco, we said, well, no.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
I don't know about that glasses water.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I don't want to. I don't want to insult the guy.
We've just watched him in the public sphere, you know,
be himself, attempting to win over everybody.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Waffling in the public eye.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
But I'm just imagining him sitting across the table in
Vienna and being the guy this stuff is relying on him.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
The man has no riz Let's just say, can we
at least say that he's a little awkward, doesn't seem
like he's got the skill set.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Again, I have nothing against the person. I just know
what I've.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Seen, right, Yeah, And that's part of the issue. We
only know what we have seen. We only know what
we have learned, you know. And and that's a tricky
thing too, because I'll I'll dovetail on that with you, Matt,
let's build that together. You know me. It reminds me
(50:51):
of something you said at the top of the show,
the reference to the OSS Office of Strategic Services. They're
sitting and saboteurs, similar to citizens saboteurs. These diplomats, these rubios,
if you will, these Sullivans, they don't have the same
level of oversight you expect from an official diplomat. Right, Sullivan,
(51:16):
functioning in his outlined role, the role for which he
gets paid, is very different from some of the exercises
and adventures he took abroad. He was technically a tourist
in some of these things, just having conversations. And part
of this is due to the murky electricity of functioning
(51:39):
at that depth. But the more important thing is governments
who provide you this honorary console position, hon or off
the books, because sometimes it's not on paper. Just to
be clear, they always want an arms length of what
we call plausible deniability. So let's say you've got a
guy and your guy doing dirt, right, he's supposed to
(52:02):
have some conversations, maybe move some money, maybe move some weapons,
maybe get a couple of high value individuals to and
fro across a border, and then you get caught, and
then you can have this superpower as a country, and
you can go back to the country that caught you
in the cookie jar, and you can say, what weapons
(52:24):
trafficking you're telling me, the honorable Reverend Jeremiah run Gun
Sith is selling weapons to terrorists. He's also not actually
a reverend Holy Cheapers run Guns. No, that guy inane
he was at my cousin's wedding. Well, we're as surprised
(52:44):
as you. We did not even know his real name.
Now that sounds like a made up example.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Right, Yeah, But there are statements from like official statements
from countries that discuss just how little the state has
to do with the stuff that they're honorary and not honorary.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
What's the opposite of honorary official podcaster? Well, you know,
it would be something something to do with like being shamed.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I oh, dishonorable console be admonished. Yeah, sure, for sure,
I were sind by minutes and give them to the dishonorable.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Yes, I remember when we had that phase. For gosh,
must have been a year where where we started to say,
I yield my time to each other. We did say
that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
Yeah, you know what, there's something kind of diplomatic and
gentlemanly about that, and I yield my time.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Got Speaking of Spain and dishonor, did you hear about
the recent trend in Barcelona of folks running through uh
with squirt guns, with water guns and spraying all all
the tourists beautiful cafes.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
I've heard about that. Yeah, and I persuade by your Cathia.
There's videos of it. Actually, no, wait a minute, Oh
you know what.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
It's a sequence that happens in the White Lotus in
Thailand where that show takes place.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
There's literally a very similar.
Speaker 4 (54:12):
Thing to exactly what you're describing, and they have to
run away from the locals who are totally punking them
with squirt guns.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
So this must be a global phenomenon. Western Europe is
not reacting well to what they see as over tourism.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Agree, Yeah, well there's I didn't know anything about it,
and as a young kid who rode through Barcelona and
hung out in those cafes, I feel terrible, but.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah, I was just there.
Speaker 4 (54:36):
I didn't get squirt gunned, thankfully, and I tried to
always when I'm traveling not be a dick, of course,
but yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Well I'm sorry to do this thing on the side here,
but it's like just knowing that the amount of rent
that you have to pay or that is being offered
there that is so high for the tourists to come
through in rent an apartment for a week or two
weeks or whatever, is reducing the ability for human beings
that actually live there in Barcelona to be able to
afford rent. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Yeah, yeah, it's true, it's happening, and there is validity
to the issue. And right, you know, we're not the
Tourism Board of Spain officially.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
But what do they have to say about this whole thing.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Well, one time back in twenty nineteen, the Government of
Spain said consuls act completely autonomously and are not controlled
by this state they represent. The Spanish government has no
chance of intervening in their affairs.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
No chances.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
Dylan beat me. What the fuck? Like, why would you?
Why would you say that? You know what I mean?
That's like the president of the United States. I don't
care about the politics on this one. That's like the
President of the United States saying, hey, guys, wants the
navy like gets out of site from the shore. We
(55:57):
don't know what they do, you know what I mean. Crazy,
They're just a couple of wild boys on a boat.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
It's I'm a magic of these video games where you
just summon a creature and then it kind of just
acts on its own. However it's gonna act, and then
Spinch is over there, going all right, you're a console.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Oh, oh my god? How long does this summon last? Yeah?
Make no mistake though. This plausible deniability is exactly why
this practice exists. It occurs also in Asia, in Myanmar,
in the international black Hole of Laos. Also our friends
in Yongyang we discussed previously. It's kind of like in
(56:36):
that theater. It's kind of like the Shenanigans in Eastern Europe.
How Russia has orchestrated these things with these three Asian
countries widely suspected of being operated as proxies for factions
of the Chinese government. It doesn't stop there. You know,
(56:59):
the shadow diplomats, Sith and Jedi alike, they're all around
the globe. This is old beings. It's an open secret.
It goes past. You know, we always talk about human stuff,
and we usually have to talk about just the Six continents.
Shadow diplomacy goes to the Seventh Continent, it goes to Antarctica,
(57:20):
it goes to outer space. Think about it. We got
a small population on the Iss, they're international. We got
small pockets of populations in different research facilities in Antarctica.
Are they are functioning in some way similar to shadow diplomats?
They simply have to, Oh for sure.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
We've got a Japanese car maker rolling through and producing
the best reusable rocket prototype that has existed in.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
A long time, Sala Honda.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
Yeah. Well, SpaceX is blowing theirs up. Like as they're testing.
There's gonna be some weird talks in back room chats
with you know, official spacefaring private corporations and state run
space stuff.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
Yeah yeah, And if you can't make it to Vienna,
meet us at Dave Andbusters. We'll have a little chat.
Yeah yeah, you're like the main one. No, we've outlined
the primary benefits, issues and consequences of this dangerous game,
and we have dogged rightly so on some cartoonishly heinous villains.
(58:31):
It's our remit. But please, folks, fellow conspiracy realists, lest
you assume we are blinded by the American dream, please
remember Western Europe, the British and the French in particular,
practically invented this stuff. The United States learned it from
them and is still catching up. The US currently has,
(58:53):
or had, It's a vast roster of these off the
books individuals functioning in some version of this capacity, dotting
the sheep's wool or the big leaf of something like
diplomacy and puppeteering chaos abroad. The entire time, those South
American governments did not fall by themselves. I don't know
(59:16):
how much we want to say about that.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Well, we also had the Jedi versions, right, we had.
We had certain very influential chefs who are on television
at the time who would roll through and do positive
stuff and just nudge someone a little bit because they
were a fan. Like there's good stuff and horrifying things.
As you said, with the fall of many A government
(59:39):
and the coup, coup after coup after coup, there's also
this other thing that happens. And I wonder if this
happens with countries across the world, and it is not
just a US thing, but the I think it is
shadow diplomacy when there's a changing of the guard between
elected officials, like let's say a president or or a
(01:00:00):
prime minister, the moment or the time between the president
who is going out of office, that lame duck presidency
thing that occurs with all elected officials right the time
before the new guy comes in. How do we categorize
the back channeling. Let's say people traveling tomorrow lago and
(01:00:21):
meeting with elect President elect Trump while Biden is still
officially the acting president. Is that shadow diplomacy or is
that just a It's kind of a weird gray area
to me.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
It depends upon who is representing whom in those conversations. So,
for instance, if it is just to spend this out
loose rubric would be if it is a if it
is like Noel Brown, the owner of NOL what company
do you own? I think it's a synth company? Oh sure,
(01:00:56):
why not? I like Loose Rubric.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
By the way, can I just say, can I steal
that from my scenth company, Loose Rubric Synths.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
So Noel Brown, the owner of Loose Rubric Synths based
in Augusta, Georgia. Right, a US company goes down to
mar A Lago or what have you to speak with
the President elect, then that would not be shadow diplomacy.
That would be more like lobbying. However, if Noel Brown,
(01:01:29):
the founder of Loose Rubric Synths, is representing a foreign
power that maybe gave him the seed capital to start
this legendary musical empire, right, then he might be speaking
on behalf of another country, another operator. So to your
point again about the lines getting murky, and Noel, I'm
(01:01:52):
sorry that I implied you were acting treasonously. You have nine.
Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
Thank you very much, Ben. I appreciate the diplomatic pass.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
And I'm a fan of Loose Rubric. The other one
I made it up, man, I stole it from you.
Fifteen fifteen NOL Sensha does that answer the question does
that get us?
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
I maybe I'm just I think it's just tough for
me to understand sometimes with with those times in between
power shifts, where talks are happening that are going to
happen and will happen when that new person is in
power officially, but it's almost like setting the stage for
(01:02:32):
official diplomatic stuff with shadow diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
One hundred percent. Yeah, it's the interim, right, It's that
liminal space that's where you want to push to position
yourself on the curve. For instance, We're going to have
an episode in the near future, god willing, about who
really controls the far right of Japan. This stuff gets interesting.
(01:03:02):
I actually don't know if we'll be able to do
that episode, but we do have to say this. The
United States is no better, no in no way unique,
uh in no way streets ahead of any other country
morally speaking, ethically speaking, everyone does this, just like targeted
killings or assassinations. Here in the States, we use our
(01:03:26):
own little utility belt of euphemisms. Our folks are out
there right now, you know, and the morrow Lagos abroad
right during those uh, those interims between passage of power
and ruling and The way we will talk about it
is the phrases like advancing American interest, not advancing democracy,
(01:03:52):
not advancing human rights, Advancing American interest.
Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
Interests being typically a stand in for business, Yes, sir,
yeap business and control of resources and real estate.
Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
There is a reason certain foreign governments will not allow
tourists to take photographs in certain places. You don't have
to agree with things that the rulers of this human
world say, but you should never assume they're dumb. There's
a reason they do the stuff they do. I don't know, man,
(01:04:26):
we're recording this on Friday, twentieth of June twenty twenty five.
We don't know what the world will look like when
you hear this, folks, days, decades, centuries in the future.
Do you think this will still be around in centuries?
Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
It seems a little odd. I mean, I just mean
that maybe there isn't a better way, But mustn't there be?
Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
You tell us, I think there's always going to be.
Hopefully I pray that diplomacy is around, right, because that's
the only.
Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
Way system as it exists, you know, like in this stage.
Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
But yeah, as a concept is great.
Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah, Well, I just don't see how there could possibly
be an alternative unless you've got just a bunch of
AI representatives that hang out and you know, find the
most common denominator in the desires of both countries or
six countries together and create this little thing. Oh well,
here is clearly the option.
Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
And then instead of an amber alert, your implant pings
with the conclusion of the AI overlords, the technicoccracy.
Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
I meant to say, technocracy exists. The technicocracy will ping
you right in your ear grosser and grosser, shout out
iggy pop and they'll say uh, They'll say, hey, according
to this thing that we the entity smarter than you
have concluded. Now how no one can wear crocs? People
(01:06:03):
will riot?
Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
Yeah, yeah, So we hope you find this active confluence
of confirmed conspiracy is fascinating. As illuminating as we do.
We want to hear about your adventures. We've talked at
length here, so we pass the torch to you, especially
if you've ever been a tourist. Let us know what
(01:06:25):
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can find us on the internet. You can call us
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Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
You can find us in all those places. We exist
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or we have video content Galora for you to enjoy,
and on Facebook with our Facebook group. Here's where it
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stuff show.
Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
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Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My name is Matt, my name is now They called
me bed Here. We're joined as always with our super
producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
we all remember our recent two part series on diplomatic immunity.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Who could forget there's a golden time for the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
We don't want to have plausible deniability on that. Oh man,
I'm already mess it up. Cover blown.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
We dove deep into fact, fiction, corruption, and controversy surrounding
these strange, this strange sort of rubric we collectively call
diplomacy a modern civilization. Please check out the series. We
get weird with it. But folks, remember this everything we
(01:27):
talked about in those previous two chapters that applies to
the formal official stuff. As we teased earlier in Part two,
there's an entirely different layer of diplomacy the public does
not know about largely. So what do you guys think
you want to get into some shadow diplomacy?
Speaker 4 (01:50):
WHOA, I think I unmeeded my mic and it like
pinged the spring on my micar that is. But to
answer your question, Ben, we also have to dig these
particular rud to vegas as to diplomatics.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
As tourists, not diplomats. Here are the facts, all right,
diplomacy is weird. It's utterly necessary. Uh, you know, we
talked about it a little bit. But something like diplomacy
existed ever since the world's first human tribes and then
(02:36):
later civilizations figured out they did not have to kill
each other dot dot dot immediately.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, that's always nice. Uh outsiders show up, Oh they
must die way better if you can say, oh, hello, outsider,
how goes the because that's how they talked.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Hail fellow. Thing that looks like us that we culturally
do not acknowledge. What is the thing? Yeah? Yeah, what
that's going?
Speaker 4 (03:05):
So all of this created what you might call a
new subclass of the old social strata, with rulers sending
envoys to enemies and allies in order to partake of
a certain gentleman's agreement. You know, this whole idea of
killing the messenger being a sort of a bad move, right, like,
(03:26):
not particularly tenable. Otherwise, how are we going to talk
to each other if I have to send my man
to parley with thee and then I get his head
back in a basket.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Doesn't really encourage an open discourse.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, And over time, as tribes become kingdoms and kingdoms
become states and you know, humanity of all civilization, you
get rules, like established rules that everybody decides to kind
of follow, although they are broken over and over and
over again.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Yeah. Yeah, this gentleman's agreement idea is a good comp
we would call it because as it evolved, even the
most bitter of rivals would most of the time but
very much not all of the time, allow safe passage
for messengers. And there's a reason to this. It's not
(04:16):
because these it's not because history is filled with nice people.
It's because communication and the information delivered via communication was
often more valuable than Russian into blind conflict. Russian into
blind conflict, keep it. Later, you'd see aristocrats who are
(04:39):
functioning as dignitaries. They were speaking with batonomy, They were
on behalf of the regime that birthed them, and we
kid thee not. It's very weird for us as Americans
to acknowledge that once upon a time, winning the genetic
lottery of birth was the only qualification to be a diplomat.
(05:02):
So wild man, and you know, at the same time,
this stuff is evolving, right, it starts to get we've
set this years back. But you can trace human civilization
in just a couple of categories or milestones. First you
start with the family, right. Then you create the tribe.
(05:23):
Then you find usually a religion, right. And then, as
Matt was saying earlier, you find a state, which creates
a civilization. And so what we see is in step
with this rise of communication, this rise of sophisticated civilization.
Another subclass of diplomacy waxes and waves. These are spies,
(05:49):
informants of every imaginable demographic, right, slaves, curtures, merchants, tourists,
people who can plausibly travel far and wide, like we
talked about in some sabotage or oss episodes. People who
can be in important rooms without being noticed and without
being questioned. You know what I mean. I know we're
(06:10):
talking about nuclear weapons, but that guy's just room service.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah, Well that's why something like the United Nations
is so important, because you can actually get people together
and from all of these modern states and just have conversations, right,
rather than jumping to any kind of conflict. You can
go there and you could talk, and you can make resolutions,
and you can say things that really don't do anything,
(06:39):
but at least you're saying them so that everyone else
knows the position of your country or your kingdom.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
And we were talking off air about some shows and
episodes of different shows that we very much enjoy. Obviously,
of course our touch point here to borrow that word
is Shaggy, the legendary musician who always says it was
not me, it wasn't, it wasn't in He's got a
(07:08):
whole song about it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I did a thing, but it was not me. But
I did a thing but it was not.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Me, And we must find out who, in fact it was,
isn't because of the joke of that song that it
definitely was him.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yes, okay, cool bottom, one camera, got it. That's right.
This is the thing the present practice of diplomacy emerged from.
As as you're describing all this patchwork of off the
book's agreements and if you look deeper into the modern day,
we find more and more legacies of these older systems.
(07:43):
Every government knows these loopholes, they know them very well.
And the weirdest thing about it, if you really look
into it, the weirdest thing about it is no one
at the top, no one with the ability to change
this imperfect system, actually wants to change it. They wanted
(08:03):
to continue on. I mean, first I would say, nobody's
figured out a better system. Diplomacy is like a busted
up used car. You know, did you guys ever have
a crappy car? Definitely? Yeah? Wait I wrote it in
a car? Maybe? Yeah, I think so. I had a
real bad.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Like Toyota situation for a while. It would overheat all
the time. And it did have a sixteen Dix changer
in it though, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
But Matt, how about you, Every car I've driven has
been mint.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
That's I was about to say, like, say, mid you're
a car record.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
I mean, diplomacy is like a used car with a
slippery transmission. You know, the windows don't always work, There
are a bunch of oil leaks you can't ever find,
and everybody across the globe looks around, and de Neiro
shrugs and says, better to have a car at all. Right,
So we keep driving this broken thing that we call diplomacy.
(09:03):
When we drive it around the world, everybody just tops
off the oil and hopes we can keep it running
for as long as possible. But there's a second reason
this system exists, and this gets us to tonight's show.
What is that second reason.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
Well, that second reason may well be the most important reason,
and this is that everyone also knows how to weaponize
these loopholes and imperfections, which is a big part of
what we've been talking about, especially when it comes to
the kind of sabotage of parliamentary procedure, which I think
this perfectly describes, this weaponization of this kind of thing
(09:42):
that this is of course focused more on weaponizing some
of these conditions, these special dispensations that are allowed from
this system that started with the best of intentions, but
as of course, like many things, morphed into something not
quite resembling its original form.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah, no matter what country you look, no matter how
you vote, or what your ideology may be, you have
to realize the people at the top have all made
a unanimous calculation. Knowing what is broken with diplomacy, they say,
allows us to clock when enemies get up to Shenanigan's.
(10:19):
And further, they say, if we are smart boys, we're
smart chaps. This allows us to leverage those same problems
to our advantage. What could go wrong? It's messy stuff.
Please please check out our earlier series for in depth
explorations of this, along with multiple deeply disturbing examples. The
(10:42):
most bizarre thing we have to realize is all of
that is formalized, all of the stuff we talked about
in those first two chapters. It's real. As Matt said,
the United Nations has encyclopedias about this. Actually there's a
ton of references, policies, rules, and to your point, Noel,
(11:06):
gentlemen's agreements, Diplomatic immunity is real. Some people have pulled
off wild, heinous things as a result, but they can
be punished by their country of function or by their
country of origin. Essentially, if you push the envelope too
too far, de quorum be damned. There are gonna be consequences.
(11:30):
But it's still it's a shady game, you know. That's
why there's another class a diplomat that We teased a
bit in Part two of Diplomatic Immunity. There are folks
out there who don't have any bona fides. Really, they
don't have, you know, their International Studies degree from Georgetown.
(11:52):
They might just be a celebrity like Angelina Jolie. They
might be a good will ambassador.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Or they might be an actual facts national security advisor.
But they're operating outside of the primary channels, the channels
that anyone in the public from any country would ever
know about unless they chose to make it known.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Oh and they might be retired as well, from official life.
You might hear these folks called honorary consoles. That's sort
of the Jedi term. They're a handful of other equally
vague terms. These are credentials that can be granted by
either the origin country or the country of destination. As
(12:41):
far as the rest of the world is concerned, these positions,
as far as the public's concerned, these positions don't really exist.
You see a headline every so often when something goes wrong,
but they are collectively called, and with a shout out
to our friends at Pro Publica and the International Consortium
(13:03):
of Journalists, are collectively called shadow diplomats. So what is
it these folks do. We'll tell you after a word
from our sponsors, the League of Nations. Here's where it
gets great. You know, I was looking through all my
(13:26):
encyclopedia sets and oed kind of things at home, and
I could not find a definition of shadow diplomacy. So
maybe we can break it down.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yeah, it's interesting. So you will see many a news
article online that refers to shadow diplomacy or shadow diplomat
work or something to this level. And they're often talking
about unofficial channels or even sometimes an official person like
Jake Sullivan who was working as a National security advisor,
(14:01):
having secret meetings in places that we mentioned in previous
episodes like Vienna or in Bangkok, or just going to
places where there isn't going to be an official meeting
between countries, but they meet like and have discussions, right
high level discussions for things like this. But you'll also
have you'll also find articles that are discussing the exact
(14:23):
type of person that we mentioned before the break, somebody
who is unofficially acting on behalf of a country that
would not you know, not be making any kind of
decisions or making official statements on behalf of let's say
the United States, but they're doing it so it is
very strange. It's almost like it's a tough thing to
describe because it's someone doing work almost for nothing.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Sometimes volunteers, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beneath the surface of the
formal negotiations that you'll hear press releases about, there is
a network of unofficial envoys, former officials. Business tycoons are
very popular, as well as celebrities, VIPs like the decayed
(15:09):
aristocracy of Western Europe, politically connected fixers. You know, Kissinger
was super deep into this kind of stuff. They have
a lot of influence on international policy. They hold conversations
the public does not know about. A shadow diplomat is
(15:29):
a true smoky back room operative. They have little to
no diplomatic credentials. They got, as you were saying, Matt,
no salary, no official like bullet pointed list of responsibilities
or job duties, no official budget. Again official even if
(15:49):
they're deemed honorary consoles kind of like a professor emeritis position.
They are volunteers, so they leverage nepoti, networking, personal connections. Right,
let's get past the red tape. I went to Cambridge
with this guy's cousin, so I'll just go visit him
(16:12):
in Vienna. And sometimes there's subject matter experts as well, right,
Like I'm Eric Prince, I know about mercenaries. Let me
have this conversation over in West Africa.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
I want to ask you guys about a specific situation
that I couldn't ascertain whether it would be considered shadow
diplomacy or regular diplomacy or something.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Else other it's diplomacy.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
Plus maybe I just don't know, because in my mind
when I think diplomacy, I think officials sitting down. It's
a sanctioned meeting of some sort. It is known on
both sides. Everybody's aware that it's happening, and everybody's cool
that happening, and even public statements are made, Hey we're
having talks that kind of thing. There's a situation right
(17:01):
after the Chinese spy balloon situation went down in the
United States, I think it was twenty twenty three, and
this guy, Jake Sullivan, who was at the time the
National Security Advisor under President Biden, went over to Vienna
and met with this guy named Wang Yie, who was
I guess an equivalent person on the Chinese side. And
(17:22):
there were crazy tensions happening between the two countries, right,
and there's all kinds of public statements being made by
the you know, the presidents of both countries, by other
official people within the countries, and these statements are pretty
adversarial in the moment as it's happening. Yet, these two
guys of high level positions within the state departments of
(17:43):
their countries are hanging out at a bar in Vienna
and then hanging out, you know, at a hotel in Bangkok,
and then hanging out in Washington, hanging out in Beijing,
and it's just the two of them having talks, and
those talks end up being kind of the crux of
how China and the United States move forward from you know,
a diplomatic standpoint. Is that shadow diplomacy because it's just
(18:07):
two advisors hanging out talking, or is that regular diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Matt, because in
our previous episodes on Diplomatic Immunity, we depicted just such
a situation, a little bit more off the books version
of it, where in our three characters are at a
cafe coolincidentally in Vienna, and we all dictated which coffee
(18:37):
orders we would have. I believe you wanted something in
a shoe, Is that correct? Bailey's from a shoe. Bailey's
from a shoe.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
That's the only way, the only way to take it.
But but like, so that is that just diplomacy then?
Is that what we're saying?
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let me spend this out a little
bit more if I could. So. The idea then is
that there is not a clear demarcation or inflection point, right,
a clear border between what counts as official un statement
and some guys hanging out at a cafe. What we
(19:13):
see there is that these people had credentials for specified roles, right.
Their parent governments have a list of things that they
are supposed to do, and these guys are on salary. However,
to your question, they are arguably functioning a little outside
(19:34):
their remit. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
The public only found out about this after Jake Sullivan
was on some show or he was giving a talk
and he mentioned these talks that he had with Wang Yi.
And that's the only reason anybody knows that it happened.
And those are the primary talks that occurred. It wasn't
between President g and President Biden at the time, it
was these guys well metotomy.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Again, it was via their proxies, just like an aristocrat
would go to Hungary, right and say, I am not
the king, but I'm kind of the king in this conversation.
So yeah, we did Joe Biden, but I'm kind of
Joe Biden for this one. It reminds me of the
Six Party talks with our friends in Pyeongyang, wherein you
(20:21):
would have legends like Christopher Hill go up and say, hey,
I'm not the president, but for the purposes of this conversation,
I kind of speak for him, you know what I mean,
I know what he wants to order on the menu.
It's weird because the best way to picture the concept,
(20:43):
the nice word we use is honorary console. That's when
your government kind of backs you up, kind of backs
you up, they give you a little bit of a
letter of mark, as we used to call it. I
think the best way to describe it for anyone unfamiliar
is through Star Wars. These people have powers Summer Jedi
(21:03):
Summer Sith. The Jedi version represents in a foreign location
speaking on behalf of their uh their home destination, and
they assist citizens. They as Nolan say, promote trade and
diplomatic relations, but they do not have full official, formal
(21:25):
consular powers. Yeah. So yeah, like sending the worm to
Kim Jong. I love that you brought that. I was
about that on daily Yeah, that was his name. Or
you could argue Curtis Jackson sending signals that he's going
to go to Donald Trump and ask him to not
(21:47):
pardon Sean Combs, which is also yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Okay, so it's like it's more like Steven Segall.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Steven Skull and Russia would be another example. Yeah. Oh,
or in the US, Steven sg maybe operating. I don't
know how well he can walk at this point. Oh
too many sweeps of the leg. Yeah, we've all seen
the video where he was just or he's doing battle.
(22:19):
He can hear it. He can real ti chi master
that guy. But but honorary consoles are important because they
can often if they're by the book, if they're doing
the right thing, they can often work in regions where
there is no official embassy right enemy states, there is
no official consulate, frozen relations and you have citizens from
(22:42):
your home country, the nationals living in that place. If
you can't get the DOS Department of State to advocate
for them, then you need to fix it. So an
honorary consulate is sometimes a ceremonial position and some times
it's a fixer. It's a person who gets stuff done.
(23:03):
And this is an old idea. As we said, you know,
back in earlier evenings, city states empires, they relied on
local individuals. The Levats had this right Eurasia Western Europe
figured out how to weaponize it, kind of like the
ancient art of assassination. Both continue today, shadow diplomacy and
(23:25):
what do we call it now? Targeted targeted killings? Oh
say advertising? Similar? Yeah, targeted advertising. I like that isn't
that funny too? Though?
Speaker 4 (23:35):
How the term diplomatic has kind of come I mean,
I guess it always has meantphis but to say something
in a nice way as not to piss somebody off,
but also to be kind of stern about it, right, Like,
it's it's sort of a skill having, you know, the
ability to negotiate in these ways and sort of sweet
(23:55):
talk a little bit. But to your point, Ben, the
weaponization this whole system is really what we're talking about today.
So the folks that we're talking about the Jedi, for
all intents and purposes from the boring.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
Star Wars movies.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Let's just be real, the one about the trade embargoes
and with the weird alien guys at the beginning.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Those those were a little bit dull.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
But whatever, we can enjoy Star Wars, however, we wish the.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Jedi or boring.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
No. I think the movies, the later movies are the
prequels where it was really really focused on trade wars
and all of this diplomatic stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
That stuff was pretty boring.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Yeah, now we need to go back and watch them
with a keen eye.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
I guess you're probably right. Maybe they've aged interestingly. But again,
for the purposes of this discussion, these are our Jedi,
these diplomats. They don't necessarily have mind control powers, but
we're not talking about them right now.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
We are talking about more of the Sith Lord.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
Versions, right the chaotic, evil versions of these diplomats, the
so called rogue diplomats who are able to leverage these
communicays in carefully calculated, many times untraceable actions in order
to manipulate the machinations of government and potentially advance absolutely
(25:13):
egregious criminal activities.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Yeah. Another comparison that is unfortunately timely would be to
consider US nuclear submarines some of the most dangerous vessels
on the human planet. They're dangerous because the enemy forces
never know what they're up to or where they're at.
Think about it, guys, right now, think about Hormuz. You know,
(25:39):
a nuclear sub can slip across borders, and just so,
a shadow diplomat can bypass a lot of formal diplomatic rules.
They can avoid public scrutiny, as Matt was saying, they
can get a job done without tripping the wrong wires.
A lot of these folks have previously held rules in
the international sphere, but now they're yeah, you know, retired.
(26:03):
This is a funny part, darkly funny, gallows humor funny.
Under certain circumstances, these individuals, they will always be described
as individuals by their proponents. They enjoy the benefits of
an official diplomat or console, but they don't have to
follow all the rules. We're talking about limited immunity. One
(26:26):
of our show's favorite things diplomatic pouches. Oh my gosh,
diplomatic containers. You can't search my stuff, TSA, here's my
little badge.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Well, I mean it's not for nothing that the idea
of these rogue diplomats is often used as like plot
devices and like spy thrillers and things. And typically when
you have a character in one of these types of
movies that's shown to be a diplomat, they're often sketchy.
Speaker 3 (26:52):
That's sort of like the vibe of how these roles.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Have kind of devolved to the point where it's sort
of infected the you know, pop cultural zeitgeist in a way.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Right, Yeah, guys, Just to take it back to Jake Sullivan,
former National Security Advisor. Interestingly enough, he got out of
the game, the official game as President Trump came into office.
Then he went over to the Harvard Kennedy School to
become a member of the faculty. Guess what his official
position is, guys.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
What's his official position, Matt He is.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
The Kissinger Professor of the Practice of state Craft and
World Order.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Oh, no comment.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Indeed, that is an ironic title, if ever there was one.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
So now he's a professor, right, and in state Craft
and World Order. So you just I'm not saying that's
the sith Lord.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
That's what that title is. That's what that means.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
I'm just saying, this guy would be perfect to just
you know, slip into another country on official business for
Harvard and have.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Talks and everybody's doing their best. That's very diplomatic. Thank you,
thank you. The benefits of this kind of secondary system
are clear right now here in the English speaking world.
The term shadow already has some negative quantitations. Yeah, but
(28:21):
let's remember there are things in the UK, like the
shadow Parliament that just means the party that doesn't control
that weird archipelago right now, they have their own system
ready and waiting, so they can jump in if they
ever get whatever passes for voting in that strange land.
(28:44):
This secondary system, what we call shadow diplomacy, is therefore
not inherently evil. However, it is ripe for corruption. We
mentioned our hypothetical Vienna example early right, and I love
the Sullivan episodes there as well, or the Sullivan anecdotes,
(29:06):
because a lot of stuff happens in this way. It's
not you know, it's not a big paparazzi ridden soare
or gala or big conference. It's a couple of folks
probably in not the most popular cafe or as said earlier,
(29:28):
a bar, just having a polite conversation, you know, from
far enough away from across the room. These guys may
look like just strangers, and it just happens that one
of them has some news, maybe some photographs, and maybe
a proposition. That hypothetical situation we built in our previous
(29:51):
episodes is based in fact, and it is based on
situations that occur more often than the public would assume,
at least until a twenty twenty two Pro public investigation
along with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Oh just
(30:13):
say the name, We hope you folks are okay. ICIJ
Pro PUBLICA, thank you for your work. Please be safe,
please please please be safe.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
And we're talking one hundred and sixty different journalists from
across the globe.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
REPUBLICA does great work.
Speaker 4 (30:30):
And they, you know, really do kind of enlist some
of the best folks out there do investigative journalism. And
the piece begins by stating that the media and governments
quote around the world have four years described isolated incidents
of criminal behavior and other misconduct bends doing the fingers,
you know, the ones could be one of two fingers
(30:51):
among so called honorary consoles. The honorary also just kind
of by its very nature, just means you didn't really
kind of I don't know, I mean, but then again,
it also sort of means that you earned it by
your actions. That you maybe didn't go through the proper channels,
but you're such a baller and you've done things in
this field that we're just going to bestow this title
(31:13):
and all of the sweet perks that go along with
it upon you.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Right, thank you for your donation. Also true, also true. Yeah,
this investigation, we're bringing it up because it's phenomenal and
it doubtlessly got some gumshoe reporters in a little bit
of hot water. Yeah, you know, we got to bring
it back. It proves, along with other investigations internationally and
(31:43):
scattered about domestically, that there is a massive amount of misuse, exploitation,
and weaponization involved of this term we describe honorary console.
It's it's massive. I know, we've all read it, and
we've read it. Launched this saying, you know, give credit
to you, Matt for saying at the end of our
(32:05):
part two on diplomatic immunity, that we had to talk
about this because this investigation, again it's like three years ago. Now.
I don't know why I'm tilt my hat like that.
It's three years ago now, and at the time it
identified no less than five hundred current or former honorary
councils accused of crimes, convicted of some crimes and then
(32:29):
also convicted and then getting away skirting the law. They
lean on some fancy language our friends at ICIJ and
sometimes instead of saying convicted or accused, they'll say embroiled
(32:50):
in controversy, I did my pants, my trousers were embroiled
in controversy. Yeah, embroiled.
Speaker 4 (33:01):
It's so funny, the timid, kind of tepid language of diplomacy.
Oftentimes it's just all these stand in phrases that you know,
sort of take the sting out a little bit, but
not really because we kind of know what they mean.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Oh yeah, this is a whole series, by the way,
so if you ever want to go down the rabbit
hole there. I don't even know how many articles there
are that pro public put out at the time, but
there's a whole thing on specific crhymes. There's a whole
thing on the threat of what this stuff can do
to the world, and like how corruption kind of seeps
(33:38):
its way in through the cracks of diplomacy here and
well and specifically, how you can become one of these
honorary console shadow rogues just with a little bit of
money going through specific channels, but with private corporations that
will like offer you a position essentially to be this
(34:00):
thing that functions in this way. It's very creepy, very weird.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
Well and clearly there's no elections or public you know,
input involved in any of this, but is it is?
I mean, what does it take to get one of
these types of posts? You have to there has to
be somebody within a government that bestows this upon you.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
It's not just you know, they're not just passing them
out right. I have a really exciting pitch for you know.
Okay that that I said earlier and we'll do it
on air. Uh before we continue, We've got to say
that again. You're you're gonna hear a lot of disturbing
stuff as you explore with us tonight, folks, But it
is mission critical to understand that honorary consoles or shadow
(34:45):
diplomats do need to exist. There are there are good
apples or there are good batchers in that bag. Yeah,
a lot of them are not. We're talking about serious crimes,
you know, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking. Arms dealers are huge
(35:07):
for getting their semi consular license, so there's there's also unfortunately,
human trafficking. There's a ton of fraud. It goes up
to murder, corruption, embezzlement because they can't catch you. You're
in and out. Like Dennis Reynolds said, like a demon's whisper.
Money laundering is huge, you know. And then you get
(35:31):
to a particular concern in the West would be representatives
of terrorist groups. Particular concern for non US aligned countries
is going to be off the books operations by the
US or the West, but usually in the US in
(35:51):
ways that those destination countries consider to be terrorist acts.
So like everybody is ser Man is the spider Man meme.
At this point, they're all pointing to each other and
they're saying you no, you no, you no you, We're
the good guys. It's tough. It's tough. There's arrangement for
(36:13):
mass casualty events. We know that that's proven from Hillsbola,
out of Lebanon. Other governments are clearly in on this.
There is a distressing and purposeful lack of oversight as
of twenty twenty five. If I'm recalling correctly. Still, seventy
eight countries are on record currently refusing to name the
(36:36):
people they have appointed as honorary consoles. So let's really
think about that. Almost eighty countries in the International Order
have been asked to name their honorary consuls. They all
have to name their official formal diplomatic staff, but something
like eighty countries at this point have been asked the
(36:59):
question and said, nah, we got other stuff to discuss.
How about the World Cup? Who's who's going to have
the World Cup this year? It's here, isn't it. Yeah
we won that one.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Yeah cool, I mean in Georgia, in Atlanta. I actually
I was so not keyed into that stuff. I just
found this out. Someone has told me, like to avoid
downtown some good to note, good note.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
Did you get a weird off the book's note? Yeah,
it was exactly. Someone slid me a piece of paper.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
They said you were always cool to me.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
In Highway seventy five eighty five at all costs, which
is kind of just general Atlanta advice.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
But sometimes you gotta do it. To this earlier point,
we don't want to lose it. You can find private
companies and proxy semi state companies and actual governments offering
to appoint you as an honorary council or a shadow
diplomat via what you will call pay to play schemes.
(38:01):
It reminds us of the Golden passports. Remember we talked
about that. I think we circulated amongst ourselves price points.
If you give the right countries enough money, you just
become a citizens.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
Did you hear about the Trump thing that the golden
Green card or the gold card? Apparently it's proved to
be quite popular, which maybe isn't surprising, but it also
you've got to wonder like who's pulling up the money
for that, and how much oversight is it into what their.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Actual business is shadow citizens at that right point.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
So I'm thinking about some of these corporate interests and
then intersecting that with what we know about resource extraction
and how important that is to global politics and conflict
right and hot war. And I was looking at something
from I don't know this outlet geopolitical monitor might be bogus,
(38:57):
who knows. They were to talking about specifically the Taliban
and their control of Afghanistan's mineral deposits and the mining
industries across the country, and then all of the different
I would say almost corporate slash political consoles that end
up flowing through the country attempting to gain more and
(39:20):
more influence and then more and more control over some
of the iron and other minerals that are in the
earth there. And it's it was interesting the way it
was talked about because it was this line between corporate
and political, which is a really weird line sometimes. Well yeah, yeah,
(39:41):
I m oh yeah. Some of these groups that offer
that kind of service right where they're going to how
would you how would you put it? These consultants right
that are also sometimes.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Consoles another amorphist fields that that can mean a lot
of things a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Well, and in the end they're all vying for control
over those natural resources without firing weapons, right, but they're
doing it quietly.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah. One of the scariest versions of a conversational ICBM
is let's have a little chat just you and me,
you know. And I sound a little bit British there,
but they taught us how to say that. Here's the pitch.
We tease this pitch. If you are hearing this and
(40:32):
you're not put off by our weird Jedi sith lord comparison,
and you're not put off by Matt's excellent observation regarding
the fuzzy lines between corporations and states. We want to
pitch you a job pursuing to Article sixty eight of
(40:53):
the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Yes, that's why honorary
consoles are real. The United States has a website has
a web page wherein you can apply to be an
honorary console. Was that your pitch to me? Ben from
really pitch to you? Know? You think I should try?
(41:15):
Do I qualify? Ah? Well, it's gotta make my case.
Somebody got you gotta come in with just a galvanizing pitch,
you know what I mean, and a gallon of money
more than a gallon a metric. It's not always about
the money. It's about the message. Yeah, it's about the resources,
you know what I mean. If you just go up there,
(41:36):
if you rock up hypothetically and say, hey, I got
a hot line on some lithium, then you might get
the phone call. But do do keep in mind, folks.
By virtue of applying to this, go to state dot
gov forward slash, honorary dash, consular dash officers Dash post.
(42:00):
By applying, you will likely encourage the eye of pallanteer
the eye of Sourrod. You will be on a list.
But hey, you know what I mean, maybe we've already
left the barn on that one because you're listening to
a show called stuff they don't want you to know.
How about this? How about this? What if we pause
(42:23):
and have a word from our good friends at Mackenzie
and then get to get to some specific examples of
crime and I don't know, Matt, No, maybe just some
stuff that we think is a little dice m and
(42:45):
we're back.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
So more than thirty honorary consuls have been sanctioned by
various governments who who do have the ability to sanction
individual human people. At least nine have been provably linked
to terrorist groups like you mentioned Ben. Oftentimes that's hesbalah.
But again, we only know the ones who got caught,
(43:06):
and you know that seems to indicate there are many
who did not. So why don't we get right into
that part and the hesblah of.
Speaker 3 (43:14):
It all, the husbla of it all. Yeah, the US
is on record at multiple points even up to recent years,
arguing to the international community that hebela and also North Korea,
the Eastern European theater are using honorary diplomatic status in
(43:38):
intentional and well organized ways with very very little oversight.
In twenty twenty two, and again we're leaning on one
hundred and sixty journalists here, the US Treasury Department sanctioned
to Hesbela financiers and said, hey, you're funneling money through
(44:01):
Guinea through the African nation at Guinea. And no judgment here, folks,
but we need to understand there are five countries that
sound like Guinea. There's Guiata, which is northeastern South America,
There's Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, three different countries on
the African continent. And then of course there's Papua New
(44:23):
Guinea over north of Australia. So they're talking about Guinea,
regular Guinea, signature Guinea out in Africa, and this was
being used as a very effective way to move money
around sanctions to wash the money. Makes sense.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
So David Asher, who is a former senior counter terrorism
finance advisor.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Which is the thing I was about to say, imagine
that first, imagine that first date, what do you do?
Speaker 4 (44:58):
Yeah, I am a senior after terrorism finance advisor what
does that becus I cannot tell you for the Department
of Defense, by the way, And he had.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
This to say about the Hesbelah of at All Hesbla.
He said, has.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Realized that if they use these honorary consoles, they can
basically move stuff with impunity and no one is ever
going to bust them. You flash your diplomatic passport, no
questions asked.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
Hey, well that's a big deal, right, So just this
we talked about those diplomatic pouches and the things you
could potentially move with them and how large they can be. Right,
if it's not just a pouch, if you imagine a
purse or a bag or something, you know, the size
that you could fit in your personal carry on or
whatever on an airplane. It could be something that you
(45:45):
are shipping like huge, probably not a shipping container, maybe,
though I've never yes.
Speaker 3 (45:51):
No, definitely, oh yeah, do it? Yeah, okay, all right,
well well that's this whist.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
But think of what you could fit into that thing.
And we know for a fact that these kinds of
things are moving through But then then if you're so
we're talking counter terrorism finance, right, how do folks who
seek to carry out acts of terrorism, Get those weapons
moved around, get the money moved around to pay for
those weapons, to pay for all the human beings that
(46:18):
are gonna be doing all the stuff, and their meals
and their housing. How do you do that? Well, potentially,
at least according David Asher, you use the cover of
diplomatic community.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
One hundred percent. Check out our episode on freeports too,
remember that way. Oh Yeahanger, I'm just selling art. I'm
a tourist, you know what I mean. I just love this.
I do have to stop. Thanks to Dylan. We cut
a part of me just cackling off Mike because uh,
(46:54):
we do owe an apology. I'm sorry I sounded prejudiced
against the Swiss. I love the Swiss. We officially do
very diplomatic.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
But I feel better now you do.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Great good we have. We have calmed the waters. Don't
get us. We love your watches. So parts of Africa
and the Middle East or what we call MINA right
Middle East, North Africa, but also most of the African continent, uh,
will be rife with allegations of shadow diplomacy. This is
(47:29):
where we see our Eric princes, our Blackwaters, our Wagner Group,
things like that. If you thought gas station gambling was
a grift of friends and neighbors. Those are pennies in
comparison to what's happening here off the books, and as
we all know, Eastern Europe is another theater of intense
(47:50):
concern the current Russian government. We're not going to covey
on this. It's just true. The current Russian government seeks
by hook or by crooked, by carrot or by stick
to re establish control over former Soviet satellite states, and
they have leveraged the honorary console loophole to massive effect
(48:13):
mass effect the game mass effects are we doing references?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Reference never not referencing never not reference in in r
all right, So two again volunteer consoles to Matt's point
in North Macedonia a few years back.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
They got caught out. Because they're volunteers, they can create
their own offices, right, which are not consulates. They may
as well just be in an office park somewhere. They
were using those as bases for Russian propaganda campaigns to
persuade the public of various Eastern European nations against joining NATO,
(48:58):
the North Atlantic Tree, the organization. You know, the public
always says, the propaganda is not as dangerous as ballistic weapons.
But I think the four of us would argue propaganda
can be just as impactful, right.
Speaker 2 (49:17):
I yeah, I mean the idea itself is the thing
that generally gets someone to pick up a weapon. If
you're talking about a resistance force or something like that. Obviously,
official soldiers or something are compelled by their superiors, and
those superiors are compelled by partly the diplomatic stuff, but
also you know, the resource stuff. But sorry, I'm getting
(49:41):
off course here. I'm just thinking about Marco Rubio, and
I can't stop thinking about him, because he's the guy
that replaced Jake Sullivan as the National Security Advisor, the
guy who's like having secret talks. And I'm just imagining
Marco Rubio, the guy that we've watched to go through
multiple elections, and like Marco, we said, well, no.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
I don't know about that glasses water.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
I don't want to. I don't want to insult the guy.
We've just watched him in the public sphere, you know,
be himself, attempting to win over everybody.
Speaker 3 (50:10):
Waffling in the public eye.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
But I'm just imagining him sitting across the table in
Vienna and being the guy this stuff is relying on him.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
The man has no riz Let's just say, can we
at least say that he's a little awkward, doesn't seem
like he's got the skill set.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Again, I have nothing against the person. I just know
what I've.
Speaker 3 (50:30):
Seen, right, Yeah, And that's part of the issue. We
only know what we have seen. We only know what
we have learned, you know. And and that's a tricky
thing too, because I'll I'll dovetail on that with you, Matt,
let's build that together. You know me. It reminds me
(50:51):
of something you said at the top of the show,
the reference to the OSS Office of Strategic Services. They're
sitting and saboteurs, similar to citizens saboteurs. These diplomats, these rubios,
if you will, these Sullivans, they don't have the same
level of oversight you expect from an official diplomat. Right, Sullivan,
(51:16):
functioning in his outlined role, the role for which he
gets paid, is very different from some of the exercises
and adventures he took abroad. He was technically a tourist
in some of these things, just having conversations. And part
of this is due to the murky electricity of functioning
(51:39):
at that depth. But the more important thing is governments
who provide you this honorary console position, hon or off
the books, because sometimes it's not on paper. Just to
be clear, they always want an arms length of what
we call plausible deniability. So let's say you've got a
guy and your guy doing dirt, right, he's supposed to
(52:02):
have some conversations, maybe move some money, maybe move some weapons,
maybe get a couple of high value individuals to and
fro across a border, and then you get caught, and
then you can have this superpower as a country, and
you can go back to the country that caught you
in the cookie jar, and you can say, what weapons
(52:24):
trafficking you're telling me, the honorable Reverend Jeremiah run Gun
Sith is selling weapons to terrorists. He's also not actually
a reverend Holy Cheapers run Guns. No, that guy inane
he was at my cousin's wedding. Well, we're as surprised
(52:44):
as you. We did not even know his real name.
Now that sounds like a made up example.
Speaker 2 (52:50):
Right, Yeah, But there are statements from like official statements
from countries that discuss just how little the state has
to do with the stuff that they're honorary and not honorary.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
What's the opposite of honorary official podcaster? Well, you know,
it would be something something to do with like being shamed.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
I oh, dishonorable console be admonished. Yeah, sure, for sure,
I were sind by minutes and give them to the dishonorable.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Yes, I remember when we had that phase. For gosh,
must have been a year where where we started to say,
I yield my time to each other. We did say
that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (53:36):
Yeah, you know what, there's something kind of diplomatic and
gentlemanly about that, and I yield my time.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
Got Speaking of Spain and dishonor, did you hear about
the recent trend in Barcelona of folks running through uh
with squirt guns, with water guns and spraying all all
the tourists beautiful cafes.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
I've heard about that. Yeah, and I persuade by your Cathia.
There's videos of it. Actually, no, wait a minute, Oh
you know what.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
It's a sequence that happens in the White Lotus in
Thailand where that show takes place.
Speaker 3 (54:10):
There's literally a very similar.
Speaker 4 (54:12):
Thing to exactly what you're describing, and they have to
run away from the locals who are totally punking them
with squirt guns.
Speaker 3 (54:17):
So this must be a global phenomenon. Western Europe is
not reacting well to what they see as over tourism.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
Agree, Yeah, well there's I didn't know anything about it,
and as a young kid who rode through Barcelona and
hung out in those cafes, I feel terrible, but.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yeah, I was just there.
Speaker 4 (54:36):
I didn't get squirt gunned, thankfully, and I tried to
always when I'm traveling not be a dick, of course,
but yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (54:42):
Well I'm sorry to do this thing on the side here,
but it's like just knowing that the amount of rent
that you have to pay or that is being offered
there that is so high for the tourists to come
through in rent an apartment for a week or two
weeks or whatever, is reducing the ability for human beings
that actually live there in Barcelona to be able to
afford rent. It's crazy.
Speaker 3 (55:02):
Yeah, yeah, it's true, it's happening, and there is validity
to the issue. And right, you know, we're not the
Tourism Board of Spain officially.
Speaker 2 (55:15):
But what do they have to say about this whole thing.
Speaker 3 (55:19):
Well, one time back in twenty nineteen, the Government of
Spain said consuls act completely autonomously and are not controlled
by this state they represent. The Spanish government has no
chance of intervening in their affairs.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
No chances.
Speaker 3 (55:35):
Dylan beat me. What the fuck? Like, why would you?
Why would you say that? You know what I mean?
That's like the president of the United States. I don't
care about the politics on this one. That's like the
President of the United States saying, hey, guys, wants the
navy like gets out of site from the shore. We
(55:57):
don't know what they do, you know what I mean. Crazy,
They're just a couple of wild boys on a boat.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
It's I'm a magic of these video games where you
just summon a creature and then it kind of just
acts on its own. However it's gonna act, and then
Spinch is over there, going all right, you're a console.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Oh, oh my god? How long does this summon last? Yeah?
Make no mistake though. This plausible deniability is exactly why
this practice exists. It occurs also in Asia, in Myanmar,
in the international black Hole of Laos. Also our friends
in Yongyang we discussed previously. It's kind of like in
(56:36):
that theater. It's kind of like the Shenanigans in Eastern Europe.
How Russia has orchestrated these things with these three Asian
countries widely suspected of being operated as proxies for factions
of the Chinese government. It doesn't stop there. You know,
(56:59):
the shadow diplomats, Sith and Jedi alike, they're all around
the globe. This is old beings. It's an open secret.
It goes past. You know, we always talk about human stuff,
and we usually have to talk about just the Six continents.
Shadow diplomacy goes to the Seventh Continent, it goes to Antarctica,
(57:20):
it goes to outer space. Think about it. We got
a small population on the Iss, they're international. We got
small pockets of populations in different research facilities in Antarctica.
Are they are functioning in some way similar to shadow diplomats?
They simply have to, Oh for sure.
Speaker 2 (57:41):
We've got a Japanese car maker rolling through and producing
the best reusable rocket prototype that has existed in.
Speaker 3 (57:48):
A long time, Sala Honda.
Speaker 2 (57:50):
Yeah. Well, SpaceX is blowing theirs up. Like as they're testing.
There's gonna be some weird talks in back room chats
with you know, official spacefaring private corporations and state run
space stuff.
Speaker 3 (58:08):
Yeah yeah, And if you can't make it to Vienna,
meet us at Dave Andbusters. We'll have a little chat.
Yeah yeah, you're like the main one. No, we've outlined
the primary benefits, issues and consequences of this dangerous game,
and we have dogged rightly so on some cartoonishly heinous villains.
(58:31):
It's our remit. But please, folks, fellow conspiracy realists, lest
you assume we are blinded by the American dream, please
remember Western Europe, the British and the French in particular,
practically invented this stuff. The United States learned it from
them and is still catching up. The US currently has,
(58:53):
or had, It's a vast roster of these off the
books individuals functioning in some version of this capacity, dotting
the sheep's wool or the big leaf of something like
diplomacy and puppeteering chaos abroad. The entire time, those South
American governments did not fall by themselves. I don't know
(59:16):
how much we want to say about that.
Speaker 2 (59:18):
Well, we also had the Jedi versions, right, we had.
We had certain very influential chefs who are on television
at the time who would roll through and do positive
stuff and just nudge someone a little bit because they
were a fan. Like there's good stuff and horrifying things.
As you said, with the fall of many A government
(59:39):
and the coup, coup after coup after coup, there's also
this other thing that happens. And I wonder if this
happens with countries across the world, and it is not
just a US thing, but the I think it is
shadow diplomacy when there's a changing of the guard between
elected officials, like let's say a president or or a
(01:00:00):
prime minister, the moment or the time between the president
who is going out of office, that lame duck presidency
thing that occurs with all elected officials right the time
before the new guy comes in. How do we categorize
the back channeling. Let's say people traveling tomorrow lago and
(01:00:21):
meeting with elect President elect Trump while Biden is still
officially the acting president. Is that shadow diplomacy or is
that just a It's kind of a weird gray area
to me.
Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
It depends upon who is representing whom in those conversations. So,
for instance, if it is just to spend this out
loose rubric would be if it is a if it
is like Noel Brown, the owner of NOL what company
do you own? I think it's a synth company? Oh sure,
(01:00:56):
why not? I like Loose Rubric.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
By the way, can I just say, can I steal
that from my scenth company, Loose Rubric Synths.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
So Noel Brown, the owner of Loose Rubric Synths based
in Augusta, Georgia. Right, a US company goes down to
mar A Lago or what have you to speak with
the President elect, then that would not be shadow diplomacy.
That would be more like lobbying. However, if Noel Brown,
(01:01:29):
the founder of Loose Rubric Synths, is representing a foreign
power that maybe gave him the seed capital to start
this legendary musical empire, right, then he might be speaking
on behalf of another country, another operator. So to your
point again about the lines getting murky, and Noel, I'm
(01:01:52):
sorry that I implied you were acting treasonously. You have nine.
Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
Thank you very much, Ben. I appreciate the diplomatic pass.
Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
And I'm a fan of Loose Rubric. The other one
I made it up, man, I stole it from you.
Fifteen fifteen NOL Sensha does that answer the question does
that get us?
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
I maybe I'm just I think it's just tough for
me to understand sometimes with with those times in between
power shifts, where talks are happening that are going to
happen and will happen when that new person is in
power officially, but it's almost like setting the stage for
(01:02:32):
official diplomatic stuff with shadow diplomacy.
Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
One hundred percent. Yeah, it's the interim, right, It's that
liminal space that's where you want to push to position
yourself on the curve. For instance, We're going to have
an episode in the near future, god willing, about who
really controls the far right of Japan. This stuff gets interesting.
(01:03:02):
I actually don't know if we'll be able to do
that episode, but we do have to say this. The
United States is no better, no in no way unique,
uh in no way streets ahead of any other country
morally speaking, ethically speaking, everyone does this, just like targeted
killings or assassinations. Here in the States, we use our
(01:03:26):
own little utility belt of euphemisms. Our folks are out
there right now, you know, and the morrow Lagos abroad
right during those uh, those interims between passage of power
and ruling and The way we will talk about it
is the phrases like advancing American interest, not advancing democracy,
(01:03:52):
not advancing human rights, Advancing American interest.
Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
Interests being typically a stand in for business, Yes, sir,
yeap business and control of resources and real estate.
Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
There is a reason certain foreign governments will not allow
tourists to take photographs in certain places. You don't have
to agree with things that the rulers of this human
world say, but you should never assume they're dumb. There's
a reason they do the stuff they do. I don't know, man,
(01:04:26):
we're recording this on Friday, twentieth of June twenty twenty five.
We don't know what the world will look like when
you hear this, folks, days, decades, centuries in the future.
Do you think this will still be around in centuries?
Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
It seems a little odd. I mean, I just mean
that maybe there isn't a better way, But mustn't there be?
Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
You tell us, I think there's always going to be.
Hopefully I pray that diplomacy is around, right, because that's
the only.
Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
Way system as it exists, you know, like in this stage.
Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
But yeah, as a concept is great.
Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah, Well, I just don't see how there could possibly
be an alternative unless you've got just a bunch of
AI representatives that hang out and you know, find the
most common denominator in the desires of both countries or
six countries together and create this little thing. Oh well,
here is clearly the option.
Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
And then instead of an amber alert, your implant pings
with the conclusion of the AI overlords, the technicoccracy.
Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
I meant to say, technocracy exists. The technicocracy will ping
you right in your ear grosser and grosser, shout out
iggy pop and they'll say uh, They'll say, hey, according
to this thing that we the entity smarter than you
have concluded. Now how no one can wear crocs? People
(01:06:03):
will riot?
Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
Yeah, yeah, So we hope you find this active confluence
of confirmed conspiracy is fascinating. As illuminating as we do.
We want to hear about your adventures. We've talked at
length here, so we pass the torch to you, especially
if you've ever been a tourist. Let us know what
(01:06:25):
happened to the degree with which you are comfortable. You
can find us on the internet. You can call us
on the telephone. You can send us an email. It's true.
Speaker 4 (01:06:34):
You can find us in all those places. We exist
at the handle conspiracy Stuff on XFKA, Twitter, on YouTube,
or we have video content Galora for you to enjoy,
and on Facebook with our Facebook group. Here's where it
gets crazy. I got to shuffle up the order, keep it,
keep it fine on Instagram and TikTok. However, where conspiracy
stuff show.
Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three STDWYTK. When you call in, you are in a
three minute voicemail within there. Please give yourself a cool
nickname and let us know in that message if we
can use your name and message on the air. If
you would not like to use your voice to contact us,
(01:07:12):
but instead your words, why not instead send us a
good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, quid pro quo, larice, Join us here in
the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:07:50):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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