September 26, 2025 • 65 mins
In theory, democracy empowers the people -- a citizen's vote is the primary campaign contribution. However, theory and practice are often two very different things. In tonight's episode, Ben, Matt and Noel peel back the layers on a global conspiracy: a worldwide, well-funded network with deep ties to the US government; a meta-think tank created to make more think tanks. They touch everything from tobacco to climate change, from crafting laws to (allegedly) aiding in government overthrow. For those in the know, the group is simply called "Atlas."
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Episode Transcript
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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 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. 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. This is gonna be a wild ride.
This will probably end up being a three episode series.
Maybe we get into it this way to the degree
(00:51):
that we're comfortable answering. Have any of us donated to
political parties?
Speaker 4 (00:56):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
When I was a young man. I did this once,
very young man, because as idealistic and I believe that
my money would help someone somewhere and I could change
things just by donating ten dollars, I would do it.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
The first part, your money did help someone somewhere.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
For the price of a cup of coffee a day,
you two could have democracy.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
And I used to be won't get into it, but yeah,
I used to do some political activity in more idealistic
days as well. I mean for a lot of us
right now. If you're talking about financial donation, the answer
is no, what do you mean? Partially because of cynicism,
right and then partially due to the fact that it's
(01:39):
very tough and challenging economy right now. But donation doesn't
have to be just financial. People donate their time, their expertise,
their ideas. Some people fly solo in this regard. You know,
you could say that a single protester in a small
town is making a political donation through their time right
and their activism. But most most people, I think, tend
(02:02):
to partner up with pre existing groups. And this is
where we get to something really interesting. A fellow conspiracy
realist we'll call him Noah, reached out to us a
while back and hipped us to something called the Atlas Network.
Had you guys heard of this before before Noah hyptos
do it?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
I want to say it came up in a podcast
that I was listening to, but I can't quite remember
the details.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was unaware of it, and when Noah first I
think it was a voicemail that Noah sent in. When
when I first heard of it, I really thought it
was something I and Rand associatd.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Oh, yeah, we have to say that at the top
to be fair. Atlas Network themselves says Nope, not named
after Atlas Shrugged. But as we were talking about a
little off air, we have questions on that one. And
I also had I was not aware of Atlas Network
before he reached out. Noah, and we love learning things,
(03:02):
especially disturbing things. But what is Atlas Network exactly? Why
do they seem in the shadows? Well, Noah, some would
say they like it that way. Let's get into it.
After a word from our sponsor, here are the facts.
(03:23):
Our story begins with an Englishman named Sir Anthony George
Anson Fisher or A.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Gaff Herolds of Freedom.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Always starts with an Englishman.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
This kind of stuff. Yeah, not the profile, but I
think you're right, nol a Gaff. Let's learn about him.
He was born into a wealthy family. This isn't a
coming up from the mud story. But he made good
on his socioeconomic opportunities. He's a Royal Air Force veteran.
He graduated the top schools of his day. He became
(03:56):
a phenomenally successful chicken businessman, similar to us Fring. Some
might argue.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Similar to Rick Ross with all his chickens that go
quack quack quack.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's right. Yes, similar to Rick Ross, who has been
mentioned pretty often on this show. We know Agaff. We
know Sir Fisher was galvanized and inspired during the horrors
he experienced in World War II, including allegedly witnessing the
(04:24):
death of his own brother who was also serving. This
put him on a lifelong ideological mission and his idea.
His thesis was this, if I can help make Earth
a more economically free, more prosperous place, then I can
help create a world without war.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Sounds really great. And in World War Two he was
he was an RAF pilot who actually was He took
part in the Battle of Britain, so one of the
one of the biggest things that happened in World War Two,
at least from you know, a British perspective, you can
imagine how this guy was looked up to. And he
was an entrepreneur. He was big in the chicken business,
(05:07):
as we're saying. If you want to learn more about that, guys,
I would send you on over to Atlas Network's own
YouTube channel, where in twenty seventeen, a gentleman named Daniel Hannan,
who we can talk about more if we want to.
But this guy gave a Toast to Freedom wherein he
talks specifically about the chicken business and that mister Fisher,
(05:32):
how mister Fisher brought chickens to the masses.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah. Yeah, So we'll jump around in time a little bit, right. So,
originally Agath wants to go into politics. It makes sense.
He's a war hero, he's got a high level academic
bona fides, and he is very worried. He's really unhappy
with the post World War two government of the UK,
(05:58):
the labor government in particular, saying, you guys are doing
your nationalizing industry. You're doing central economic planning, which is
pretty communist to me. I think you're making a welfare
state and I think it's going to lead to totalitarianism.
And I've got to find some people. He did the
smartest thing you can do. He said, I've got to
(06:18):
find some people who know more than me. I've got
to find some experts. And he gets inspired by the
granddaddy of neoliberalism, Friedrich Hayek, the author of a book
called The Road to Serfdom, and Hyak doesn't just immediately
paddle on him. Instead, he says, don't waste your time
in politics, dude.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, he basically said, waste your time on the things
that influence politics.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Right, yeah, yeah, the idea.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, he said, think tanks are the best way to
create real political change. And Fisher hop too. We're going
to throw a lot of very vague organization names at
you and this one, folks just will let it wash
over us because they're all pretty samy sounding. He visits
something in the States called the Foundation for Economic Education,
(07:08):
pretty vague, and that's where he learns about the poultry business,
about battery chicken raising. And then when he goes back
to England, he starts this outfit Bucksted Chickens.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Is that real Bucks died And it's amazing. It's like
the ex is like an edgy stand in for.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, this is the company that makes him a millionaire
over time. And he was already he already had family money.
And he sticks to his guns. You know, he doesn't
just become a quiet guy who shows up in a
fundraiser once a year. He invests his personal profits in
his ideology and he starts creating stuff.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Yeah, that chicken money can go a long way to
creating stuff, and some of that stuff included the Institute
of Economic Affairs, which was in staunch opposition to the
current economic concepts and policies of the time.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, nailed it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Just for a little more context on the chicken thing there, guys,
I didn't realize that when we did our chicken episode,
this guy is credited, at least within the mythos of
the Atlas Network for essentially creating and or revolutionizing the
broiler chicken business in the United Kingdom or in Britain.
So it you know, you can imagine how much money
(08:28):
is in there. Right When we talked about the number
of chickens that are produced and eaten across the world,
it was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah. Factory farming, yes, the S word we're using. Yes,
he's a factory farming founder and popularized it indeed throughout Europe.
Over the decades. He and his affiliates involved in these
think tanks and these ideological campaigns. They say, look one off,
think tanks aren't enough, we need something bigger, and they
(09:01):
keep creating stuff. They created something called the International Institute
for Economic Research in nineteen seventy one, which was later
renamed the International Policy Network or IPN, so all in all,
without getting two into the weeds, he helped create a
Baker's dozen or so of related organizations that had the
same They had different focuses, but they had the same
(09:23):
ideological push at their core, and they all sounded kind
of samey.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
And these aren't the same as lobbying groups, right, I mean, like,
this is a different way of influencing policy.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You can do a lot with a think tank. I
would just say, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You can do lobbying as part of it, kind of
the way that a car also has an air conditioning unit,
but it's it's still a car. So they write a
lot of white papers, they do a lot of networking,
and they do a lot of quiet funding. And the
way that they succeed with this quiet funding. The second
revolution that Fisher leads after factory farming of chickens, is
(10:01):
the idea of a meta think tank, I think tank
that births other organizations and supports them.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
An incubator if you will, there you go, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Chicken metaphors, Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I like it. So, after all these iterations of these
vaguely named groups, IPN leads to the creation of the
Atlas Network in nineteen eighty one, and it originally is
meant to bring all of Fisher's previous one off things together,
sort of like how you had individual superhero movies and
(10:37):
then you had the Avengers.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, and they're all five oh one c three organizations. Guys.
That means tax free baby.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Oh take that religion, But yeah, they are. They are,
especially Atlas because Atlas is US based. Fisher would later
move to the States. It was originally called the Atlas
Economic Research Foundation. Thank goodness they change the name because
just hearing foundation and Economic over and over again. I
don't know about you, guys, been the research for this.
(11:08):
My eyes started to glaze over. It's like, how are
we supposed to tell the difference between all of these
things that are just a word salad of the same
five words.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
It does do your head, and god, it's true.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I'm looking up just really quickly. Let's even let's do
it right now. We're going to get in this further.
But if I'm just going to go off of the
organizations that are currently on the atlasnetwork dot org website,
Foundation for Economic Freedom, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs,
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, African Students for Liberty
(11:39):
Ideas Beyond Borders. It's just like what it just kind
of okay.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yeah, And after this, by the way, folks, after we
get through this series, we do want you to know
that you have the option on Atlas's website to become
a partner yourself.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
And that's not just to become a member, right.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Right, Yeah, if you come up with your own vague
sounding organization and you pitch it and it's in the
part of the world that they're interested in, like maybe
or pretty much all of Latin America, definitely East Africa,
you know what I mean, or just make them a pitch, like, hey,
what do you guys know about Tuvalu?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
You know, they've got a couple of bulleted points there
that just say exactly what you need to do and
you might get some of that grant money.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, the wallet will open. So this is why you
hear people calling Atlas a think tank that creates think tanks.
That's pretty meta. At liass Network itself, we spend a
lot of the time on their website, by the way, guys,
Atlas Network describes itself as quote a nonprofit that aims
to secure the right to economic and personal freedom for
all individuals.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
Dope, ms fine, Yeah, I like freedom.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I like the individual.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Right right, we like surviving in an economy. Exactly. It's
as if you heard of a charity that said, we're
trying to stop people from kicking puppies, you know what
I mean? Like, are you pro animal torture? Are you
anti freedom? My guy?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So imagine you put out this call, right or this
you you've created this thing, right, you got what do
we say? A handful of a dozen organizations that make
up this version of Atlas network. And then they want
to bring more, they want to start more. Have they
been pretty yes?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Yeah, no, yes, seriously, what is it?
Speaker 5 (13:38):
It isn't it on par with McDonald's in terms of
like how broad their reach is?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, so McDonald's operates in around one hundred and nineteen countries.
This is not the perfect analogy. It should have been
a chicken restaurant. But Atlas has expanded, including everything the
Koch brothers do and all these other organizations. So it
went from like twelve ish think tanks to six hundred
various things like think tanks, well less than six hundred.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Shout out to the Cato Institute and the Koch Brothers and.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
The Heritage Foundation shout out to I mean, just picture it.
They're probably in the club.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
And I mean, at the end of the day, isn't
it somewhat apolitical or at least politics agnostic. Like it's
not like they're going for a particular you know, left
or right lean. It's more of like an overall goal
they're trying to achieve, right, Yeah, I think that's that's
the way to put it. Yeah, because critics will tell
(14:37):
you that Atlas is a shadowy network of right wing
think tanks. But Atlas itself, they say, we are nonpartisan, right,
We're pushing these ideas of economic freedom and personal freedom,
which should be something anybody can get behind. Well, And
whether or not that's true or not, it does kind
of call attention to the idea that like, sometimes whether
(14:58):
you're on the left or the right, at a certain
level of government, it all becomes about kind of the
same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Fingers on a hand, you know what I mean. They
look separate until you see the palm. But yeah, it's
what we call neoliberal ideology, which here in the US
both big political parties are very much a fan of
the idea that free markets and globalism will ultimately be
(15:24):
the tide that carries all vessels.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
For sure, And definitely check out the Economic Policy Institute
or the Roosevelt Institute or any of the other many
think tanks that exist on the opposite side of the
spectrum than the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, because these different organizations, their goals don't
always one hundred percent a line, but they team up
on specific stuff that they want to see changed. So
back to our restaurant analogy. If Atlas was in the
restaurant business, they wouldn't be like McDonald's making in individual stores. Instead,
(16:01):
they would make entire restaurant brands, and unless you were
very careful, you would never know how deeply these different
restaurants are all connected.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And as we found with research for this episode, it
makes searching for specifics and details about actions really difficult
because if you imagine the search terms that you'd have
to put in to successfully track down one of the
six hundred organizations that are a part of this group,
right then tracking, you know, tracking it and finding the
(16:34):
right information becomes extremely difficult. When the information is this busy.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
It's not entirely dissimilar from the way, like you know,
corporations have all kinds of little sub organizations, and there
are these like org charts that kind of spiderweb their
way out to the point where it can get really convoluted,
like ge you know, like the whole thirty Rock scenario.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah, we know that part of this obfuscation seems purposeful,
and then another part of it is just a function
of how many things these other organizations with very similar
names do any given day. So luckily we were able
to well we'll get into it, but we looked at
(17:14):
some specific cases of controversies. They can help you trace
the line of conspiracy. We'll look at some larger conspiracies.
We'll also see we'll see things that are very clearly
one off front groups as well, which are a little
easier to trace.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And then we'll do an entire episode on the National
Endowment for Demarcower.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Our third episode is on our own boys. Yeah, the
second CIA or the CIA sidekick, whichever term you'd like.
So what we're saying is Atlas is this hidden kaiju
of neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism again, socioeconomic theory that says free
market capitalism is the holy grail. Almost said holy ghosts,
(17:54):
but it's gonna save everything. It's gonna save the world
if we just free these gosh darn markets, if we.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Individual freedom allowed through whatever mechanisms the government ends up
actually doing.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
And hey, they mean the government should have less of
a say in that, you know, right, So there's nothing
wrong with people getting their views out there. That's one
beautiful thing about democracy when it works. Everybody gets a
voice in the room, even if not everyone agrees, and yes,
even if some people say very stupid things, they get
(18:28):
to do that.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well, and ultimately this is an exercise in looking at
a group of people that are extremely effective at it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Oh yeah, I mean the Atlas. Atlas is like a
training camp. It's it's ideologically similar to the School of
the Americas in a way because they take people and
they give them expertise, networking, financial support and grants for
all sorts of conservative groups or free market initiatives or
(18:58):
you know, libertarian thing tanks through the world. Originally they
just wanted to focus on Fisher's first organizations, but now,
as we said, they've expanded. They're forty four years old
and as of twenty twenty three, the organization had an
annual revenue of twenty eight point eight million dollars that
we know about. And that's where I think we kind
(19:20):
of have to pause and spend a little bit of time,
because doesn't that number seem low?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I was thinking of some low Yes, well, with these groups,
this is revenue, right, And maybe I'm wrong here, but
I imagine there's a ton of investment money that is
funneled through these things that grows and grows and grows
so that they can give out things like the Templeton
Freedom Awards, where sure every year they give out like
four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know, in these
(19:48):
various grants and things like that, on top of all
the other grants that they end up giving out. And
I imagine the way this functions is you've got rolling
investment funds that just build and build and build, and
then that's the money that actually ends up being operational,
or at least for the most part.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Maybe, so that's not transparent, like we don't see those.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's much more difficult too, depending on the country. There
are different laws about how their financials have to be publicized,
and it's more murky in some places than it is
in others. But I think what we are all on
the same page about is that the official, seemingly small
number for the revenue is just a very tiny facet
(20:29):
of a very large iceberg because it's not counting money
that moves in other ways. It's kind of like how
the Coca Cola company. Actually it's an empire, yes, but
most of its employees are going to be subcontracted through
some other thing, right, There are actually very few full
(20:50):
time Coca Cola employees. When you look at the size
of the organization.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And remember it's a nonprofit organization, right, so it is
not profit driven, is functioning to fuel itself and to
perhaps give out money for things. It's just it's murky.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's murky on purpose by design, a clever design. And
the revenue to that point is most of the revenue
goes to their overhead cost as an organization, So on
paper it makes sense for a five oh one C three.
They're not making a ton of money for Atlas as Atlas,
but they are managing and moving a lot more money,
(21:31):
and that's the money that gets hidden often.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, because it's not about profit guys, it's about hearts
and minds.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
On their website, it's not about financial profit.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
They actually say hearts and minds, yes, yes, they love it.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
They're nuts for it. They're like that SNL cowbell sketch.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah. And legislation, actionable legislation.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, that's the real profit. But still there's no denying
they've been successful. Jolly good tickety boo. Right, this is British.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Ultra tickety boo Pip pip.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Double plus good. Yes, But critics disagree because, depending upon
whom you ask, this powerful obscure group is responsible for
all sorts of shenanigans that are at the very least controversial,
things like fueling economic chaos, climate change, conspiracies, overthrowing government,
(22:23):
helping to overthrow governments, making sure people ignore the dangers
of smoking, all kinds of stuff. So what the heck
is going on? Maybe we pause for a word from
our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. The conspiracy is true.
(22:44):
It is absolutely true. We're not trying to ruffle any feathers.
We know these things could be sensitive, but it is true.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
What's the conspiracy?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It's okay, it's true. Caveat asterisk. It's true in that
Atlas is often associated with controversial things. The supporters will
say no, there's not a conspiracy afoot. You can find
all the answers that you want. You just have to
ask the right questions. We're not No one's trying to
cover anything up. We're just like ALEC or any number
(23:16):
of other similar organizations that are often in our network.
We talk to politicians right like you were saying. No,
We lobby, we write policy papers, we talked to the media.
We put out our handpicked pundits to push for our cause.
We draft legislation and policy. We're a helpful force.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah. Remember that guy I mentioned, Daniel Hannan m M.
Do we know who he is? Like? Does that name
ring true to anybody out there? This is this guy
was a member of Parliament in the UK and he
was one of the loudest voices for Can we guess
(23:59):
the big thing he was pushing for Brexit?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, it's unfair that I'm pretending to.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Get Well, that's fine, but this guy is ah. He
is a member of let's say the Atlas network. If
he had a pin, it would be on his lapel.
As he gave a speech in twenty seventeen that you
watch the YouTube video for and you know when you
see that somebody like that is in the upper echelons
(24:27):
of power and still a member of this thing. You
can see that this type of legislation and movement that
we're talking about is actually happening and not you know,
not just at the local grassroots levels.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. That's an excellent observation. I mean,
Atlas is one of the top think tanks in all
of the United States, and it has a lot of
weight to swing as political capital and connections to burn. Right,
no one's denying that. But let's so we had to
look into how this power structure works in practice some
of the con traversies. This will help us learn why
(25:02):
at least the critics are so concerned. Let's start with
big Tobacco, super duper deep with Atlas. They love it.
Smoke them if you got them right.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
They have had, according to Tobacco Statistics dot org, a
longstanding funding relationship with the tobacco industry.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Trade groups like British.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International, Altria and Philip Morris International
have all contributed heaps of money in support of Atlas Partners.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
For agen decades.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Atlas Partners, right, uh huh, so not directly to our
buddies at the network. But the Atlas board members, this
is where these kind of organizations get really fascinating. The
Atlas board members often come straight up from private industries
that private industries that share, that share the goals, right,
(25:56):
or that already employ Atlas, And it's become such a
vent diagram, especially when you throw in politics.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
We talked about the revolving door of private and public
service that happens here as well. There's one example be
jose Renee Skull. He's an Atlas board member, but before
he was an Atlas board member, he was a Philip
Morris man in South America and Asia before he officially
joined up with Atlas, and he was working with them
(26:24):
hand in glove well before officially joining. And he had
a quote. I don't think you put it in here,
but he had a quote where he said he described
his time in Asia by saying, essentially, it was my
job to make the air rain Marlborough's Now that makes sense,
I mean it's his job. Yeah, he's meat points for honesty.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
What's that company cover the world?
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Sherwin Williams. Yeah, God, what a sinister logo.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But with Marboro.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
But with Marlborough's the relationship is so deep and it's
not a PSA campaign about the dangers of tobacco. That's
not what they're paying at Lists to do. Instead, let's
go to an example from the University of Baths Tobacco
Tactics in twenty twenty, they noted the following.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
In a nineteen eighty eight letter to Philip Morris, Atlas
then CEO Alejandro Chauffain explained, it uses industry donations to
select and fund individuals or organizations to help establish them
as a legitimate organization that can spread ideas about and
these are individual rights again, limited government.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
And free enterprise. So quite literally, like you.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
Said, Ben, smoke them if you got them, this is
a right.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
So this is the Atlas CEO talking to Philip Morris
the company and explaining what Atlas does with the money.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, they say, we find individuals, thought leaders or influencers
we would call them now and or organizations, and we
helped train them and fund them so that they look
legit and they can help carry the message. They can
help change the way people see in this case tobacco use.
And the internal documents from the Tobacco giants themselves say
(28:18):
that they had a couple of ideas. They wanted to
frame tobacco as a personal choice. Who were you to
tell me what to do, big brother. They wanted to
say that any anti tobacco legislation was Orwellian government overreach.
And in addition, Atlas also did a lot of underground,
backroom damage control by attacking science.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. And you may recall this
growing up. I think I was about ten years old
around the time that there was a lot of information
coming out from health officials about secondhand smoke and how
dangerous that was. I don't know about you guys, but
I had parents of friends who would like smoke in
the car driving somewhere, and we're in the back seat
(29:02):
and the parents up there smoking, and we thought it
was fine up until about nineteen ninety three, or you know,
right around that time, when it was kind of stated
by a lot of officials by the US Environmental Protection
Agency that second hand smoke contributes to lung cancer. And
so how did Atlas respond to that?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Ooh, they were clever, clever boys. They used a hidden
hand method, which is almost directly descended from the work
of Edward Berneze, the father of public relations. They go
to a guy named Fred Singer. Fred is the director
of something called the Science and Environmental Policy Project or SEP.
STEP sounds cool until you realize that SEP is a
(29:45):
creation of a Philip Morris pr firm called APCO Associates.
So they're paying at every step to obscure a little
more of their source, right, because they can't have Fred
go up and say, hey, I talk to guys who
make billions off cigarettes, and they say it's cool, and.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
They say it's fine.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
They see you need to chill the f out. So
he instead he writes an op ed and nobody knows
that Philip Morris is supporting this. Nobody knows the Atlas
network is coordinating a lot of the stuff. In his
op ed says, look, the guys at the EPA, they're
not jerks. They're just drawing bad conclusions on junk science.
(30:30):
And they didn't think about indoor air quality. So well
intentioned but wrong and kind of dumb.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, just you know what. The science isn't there.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yet, guys, science isn't there yet. He also made a
report funded by a different group called the Tobacco Institute
that tried to entirely discredit any connection between secondhand smoke
and lung cancer. We could do a whole limited series
on big tobacco and Atlas especially. We're talking about Latin
(31:01):
America in the nineties, and then we're talking about the
Asian theater. This was not someone's pet project. It wasn't
a one time thing. This wasn't is a coordinated global
effort to keep tobacco money rolling in. And the best
example is vapes.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Oh yeah, for sure. I just want to make that
connection right now here.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Individual freedom is the thing that gets pushed and talked about, right.
It is individual freedom for you to choose to smoke
that cigarette, and it is important that you get to
choose that, right. That's what we're fighting for. That's what
we're pushing for. That's the hearts and minds thing that
we're putting out there. But ultimately, it is so that
(31:43):
these massive corporations can continue manufacturing and selling cigarettes and
then manufacturing and selling more cigarettes. So in the end,
it's actually about the individual freedom of a corporation and
or individuals that benefit from that corporation.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, same reason why a lot of military conflicts throughout
history are phrased in terms of ideology, but they're really
about resource control, you know what I mean, That's what
that's look like. When former President Barack Obama, people don't
like to hear this, but when he said we're engaging
(32:21):
in conflicts in Libya to protect American interest, was he
really talking about democracy or was he talking about global
control of currency?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
See? Yes, And in that case, you know, the individuals
actually get harmed by all of those pursuits. The same
thing with the smoking here, right, If the EPA puts
out this damning report about secondhand smoke and the response is, oh, no,
that's not right, that's not going to happen. There's a
knowledge there and operating knowledge that people are going to
(32:53):
probably get cancer if we keep doing this thing. But
that doesn't matter compared to pushing for the individual rights
and freedoms of whatever this organization or company that they
are trying to prop up.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
You know what be interesting to see this is a tangent.
I didn't think of it until just now. It'd be
interesting to visit the headquarters of some of these tobacco
companies and see if you can still smoke inside. Yeah,
you have to go out to the smoking section, right.
I don't know, it'd be interesting. That's a lapeline.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Somebody who's been inside the Philip Morris HQ let us know.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Recently, Yes, because I'm sure everybody was lighting up in
like the eighties. Of course, Uh, we got to talk
about the vape thing again. This might end up being
a series, but this gives us a specific example of
what we're talking about with front networks.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yeah, Atlas has played a huge role.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
In the battle that you're talking about, ben over vape legislation,
which we know has been a sticky subject in terms
of accusations of companies marketing them to kids and certain
flavored ones being outlawed and all.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Of that good stuff.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
So, through groups like the World's Vapor Alliance, which is
a delightful name, Atlas and Big Tobacco launched a European
tour going through eight different countries touting the practice or
the benefits I guess of vaping over smoking. The idea
of the electronic cigarette could save nineteen million lives in Europe.
(34:24):
They argued, this as well as the idea that vaping
is ninety five percent less harmful than smoking.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Do you guys remember a couple of folks that we
interacted with one ture Do, and it was all about
a type of cigarette that essentially heats up the tobacco, yes,
the way similar things would for cannabis, but you're not
actually smoking tobacco. You're vaping it.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Put these little tobacco cartridges into them and they kind
of heat it up to vaporized temperature, and then that's
how you're spoking. But it is still it's not like
some sort of nicotine solution.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
It is actually tobacco.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It's yeah, out in Asia. I don't think these things
are legal in the US yet, but out in Asia
there's a very popular thing where you buy you buy
these cartridges that look something like a cigarette, almost like
a candy cigarette, and then you pop them into what
looks like a little walkie talkie vapor thing, and that
that's tremendously popular over there.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I just wonder it just when I think back on
hearing the spiel, you know, the selling points of that
kind of thing, it feels very similar here. Okay, well
let's just continue.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah, sorry, Yeah, we've got some war stories, you know,
well they'll be in the second book maybe, but yeah, yeah,
World's Vapor Alliance first off badass name, especially after all
the other names we had to sit through. Yeah, this
is a winner.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Well, and let's note that's it's vapor vap e R,
not v A p o.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
R, right, because it's personal activity. It's personal action gask
not you know, for whom the vape heats, heats for
the whatever. They're not all going to land. The idea
here is that they would travel around just like a
stop smoking campaign you may have seen in the United States,
and they would say that big government is like they
(36:16):
would say, we're trying to help people. We're doing harm reduction,
which was a phrase that Big Tobacco and Atlas loved.
And the way we're doing this is by making it
easier for people to vape. And the issue is that
big government is in the way of progress, you know,
so really those nineteen million lives are kind of falling
(36:36):
at their feet. They're restrictions on vaping, all those pesky taxes,
all those unfair bands on flavored vape juices, you know
what I mean. We like, we're the good guys here,
we're grass roots.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yeah. Well we're also one organic.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah oh yeah yeah. Because their minibus did not have
carbon emissions, it was a green vehicle, which was smart
that they got in front of that, and they said, look,
all we're trying to do is amplify. And this is
a quote from an excellent lamand investigation. We're trying to amplify.
Quote the voice of passionate vapors around the world.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
All the vapors around the world.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Shout out to the journalists Stefan Horel h O r
e L. Please read that. It's a long read and
it's phenomenal. It's excellent. So their tour and stick is
very much a propaganda war hearts and minds. They got
a selfie quarter. They set up this this ironic. We'll
see why in a second. They set up astro turf.
They have a tent where you can get assistance writing
(37:41):
to politicians, small gifts, little swag bags. They got everything
you need, right. Why is it funny that they put
astro turf out on their pop.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Up, Well, astro turf Generally that term would be used
about making something look like it's grassroots.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, ding ding ding nail on the head, A free
vapor to you, sir, first price.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Thank you, just what I always wanted.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Yeah, astroturfing is huge in this particular situation, this idea
of conspiring to make these goals appear to be part
of some sort of organic, from the ground up, bootstrappy
type movement that is spearheaded by the public for real reasons,
you know, the passionate vapors as you said, right, Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
We're just trying to make the world a better place.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
I just want to be blow doomsdays out here with
with my giant vape.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
So here's why it's astroturfing in this case, based on
excellent work of journalists, we can see a daisy chain
of funding that gives lie to the narrative of grassroots organizations.
World Vapors Alliance is assisted by a pr company called
Red Flag. Oh oh, write Little Pallenteer. Red Flag does
(39:06):
a lot of similar astroturfing operations. Most notably, in twenty seventeen,
they ran a campaign in Europe called Freedom to Farm Farm. Yeah, yeah,
food freedom, what's not to love?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Gosh man.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
It is one of the situations though, where the name
likes as liberating and egalitarian as it sounds, what could
be the exact opposite involvements, which is where we're about
to see Monsanto, the opposite of freedom to farm, the
freedom to cower in their shadow.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
Basically if you are a small farmer.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, it turns out this grassroots movement of freedom to
farm activists had very few actual farmers, humble or otherwise involved.
The ultimate goal of freedom to Farm was to allow
glyphosate throughout Europe on an industrial scale.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
And just to reiterate a funded by Monsanto slash Bayar
who acquired Monsanto bay or such a central batty and
a lot of these corporates, you know, conspiracies.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I wonder if they had any of those terminator seeds
going on in that push too.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Yeah, that's that's freedom to plant right over the next one.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
So Red Flag is UH an organization with a certain
focus and expertise put diplomatically and World Vapor Alliance itself
is a front created by something love this name called
the Consumer Choice Center.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Dang, that sounds reliable, sounds like something I should go to.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yeah itself. CCC is a global grassroots movement.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
UH.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
It is funded by Japan Tobacco International, British American Tobacco
for Morris International, Altria, the co orchestrated Students for Liberty,
and of course the Star of tonight's show the Atlas Network.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Well, that's a humdinger right there. I don't know what
that means.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
I can't get away with late books at the library,
you know what I mean. I can't even give them
the slide on the fees for me.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
But ultimately for you. None of this is None of
this is illegal, right. Not a thing we've talked about
is illegal.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
No, this is a bit.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
This is just like just I don't know, it's just.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Immoral and illegal are two very different things, I guess, right, especially.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I mean, especially when you get to this level of
money and network and an influence. Moral and illegal, as
you said, are two different things. It's like, was there
anything illegal about Elon musk recent financial parkour with Tesla
that absolutely brought their prices back up?
Speaker 5 (41:57):
What do you do being a just boughtish crap time?
Speaker 4 (42:00):
That's called being a whale.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
Basically, when you have that much capital at your disposal,
you can't affect significant changes in the market, which is
not technically considered market manipulation, or is market manipulation even legal.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
It's kind of one of those things where it's like
I'm smart, I did it, I knew how to do it.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Exactly right. I just man, grassroots, I don't know, are
there any real grassroots movements left anyway? Like I say,
all these moves are not inherently illegal, and that's because
these are very well funded, very clever, and above all,
extremely careful enterprises. They hire top minds from the worlds
(42:39):
of psychology and advertising to socially engineer these outcomes. They
have extremely well paid legal beagles as well as super
sharp accountants, all to keep things on the right side
of the law if ever a situation goes sideways or
the optics get too bad. But we have to ask,
if these declared goals are in good faith, then why
(43:00):
would you obscure the sources of funding. Why wouldn't you
be transparent?
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Right?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
If there's nothing hinky afoot, As Chuck would say, it.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Makes me think about a few other organizations that had
some interesting funding we've interacted with.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Hmmm, oh, man, I'm trying to read your mind.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I think you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Oh, Blockbuster, Yep, that's it, That's what it was. Thank
god they went down.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Of course, our corporate overlords, Dave and Busters, do check
it out, folks.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Uh huh, that's it.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I just wanted to squeeze the Dave of Buster's thing
in there. Anyway we're saying it makes you think we're
gonna take a pause for a word from our sponsors,
and we're back. Another example of controversy related to Atlas
that people call conspiracy is the against laws protecting the environment.
(44:02):
We all remember the environment right overrated.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
Well, that was great back when it was great.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I liked it's early work.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Now there's still some good bits, but it does seem
like it's maybe on its way out.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yeah it was once this missed as a fanciful Internet rumor,
but there's hard proof that big oil companies knew as
far back as the seventies and likely earlier, that widespread
consumption of fossil fuels like coal, gas, and petrol absolutely
wreak havoc on Earth's natural state. And before you feel
bad for gas prov excellon Royal Dutch and the rest,
(44:39):
just remember they too found a friend in Atlas, especially
BP and Royal Dutch Shell.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Hey, and as we go through this, go ahead and
check back through our catalog, because we've done I don't
know a dozen episodes on big oil and different things.
The first one is back in twenty twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Guys, Yeah, great for the show, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Learn about the petro dollar. Learn about Oh didn't we
interview somebody a while back that was all about this
specific thing about pre knowledge from exon. Do you guys
remember this at all?
Speaker 3 (45:14):
We may have. This would be different from the DuPont story, right,
is that.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
That DuPont story?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Definitely a similar conspiracy occurred with DuPont.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Okay, I can't remember the name of it. I know
we interviewed somebody that had made a whole show about
this very thing, and it was just it was crazy
to learn. But we can actually see the other side now,
like the influence side, rather than the like the big
oil action side.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Royal, Dutch Shell and British Petroleum or BP were some
of Sir Fisher's first big corporate donors, all the way
back in the nineteen sixties, which means they were down
with Atlas before it existed. If we go to Jeremy Walker,
senior lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney, will get
(46:08):
a better look at this. Walker is the author of
a book called More Heat Than Life, The Tangled Roots
of Ecology, Energy and economics, and he has been studying
the Atlas network for a long long time. As far
as people outside of Atlas go, he's probably a world
expert on the organization.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
This is going to sound really familiar. Going back to
Brene's stuff, he was talking with the New Republic and
he talks about how Sir Fisher, through this thing, the
Institute of Economic Affairs, which existed before Atlas Network, quote,
would get these professors to write short, digestible articles, often
around things like currency conversion or sort of things that
(46:50):
were fairly technical to the non economists. Then quote, they
would have these wealthy donors to the IEA, that's the
Institute of Economic mcafairs, who would buy copies and send
them to all the schools and the universities for free.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, not even asking the school to pay shipping. And
this is this is, by the way, a successful hacker
publishing conspiracy that occurs today. Have you ever wondered why
so many ghost written politicians books end up on the
New York Times bestseller list. It's not because people are
reading them. It's because a different campaign associates buy them
(47:27):
in bulk, and they know exactly how to do it
to goose the numbers.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Dude, have you ever been in a doctor's office or
a dentist's office and seen the little brochures around that
have a lot of writing from actual people who clean teeth,
actual dentists, actual doctors telling you how great whatever medication
is or treatment is, and all this stuff. It's all
kind of the same thing.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I love it too, because you're bringing up one of
my favorite new folklore obsessions. We always hear the phrase
nine out of ten dentists mentioned it in the past,
but I am just obsessed with the idea of the
tenth dentist.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
You know what this deal is.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
This rogue, the rogue dentist.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Yes, he's the one that's.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah, are you writing a story about how this one
dentist like discovers the conspiracy and goes down the rabbit
hole and tries to stop it?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
There is a I am writing a dental based horror
story that I'm almost done with. And I think about
a haunted tooth. Uh no spoilers, spooky, but we've talked
to I think you and I talked about that when
a little off air baby. Uh yeah, excited about that,
but yeah that that thankfully, as far as we know
is going to be a work of fiction. This is
(48:40):
real life manipulation of people. Right, So if you're a school,
are you going to turn down a free book? Probably not?
Who would also R I P R inbox anyway? That
why are they sending out this stuff that Matt, as
you said, is technical, right, is very much not for
the lay folk to It's because it establishes the bona
(49:02):
fides of the authors in question, and it normalizes their
work or its presence across campuses, and that means their
next work becomes normalized as well. So you could just
push a little further each time, with each new article,
each in paper, each monograph, so long as no one
asks why the later work seems skeptical about the science
(49:24):
linking fossil fuels to ecological collapse, Because now you're not
just some random guy paid by a shadowy organization. Right now,
your doctor Frankenfurt from earlier, and you wrote pretty competently.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Earlier doctor Frankenfur, author of.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's a great boy author of And
then you get some of your buddies who are in
on the same grift to write the little blurbs at
the back of your book and they get an author
of as well.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Oh, bonus points if you can get somebody actually influential
on there.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Yeah, and at each point your manufactory credibility.
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Well, here here's a quote to give some good contact
to this from Walker. The think tank method allowed corporations
to say things that they couldn't say themselves without appearing
to be merely speaking to their own profit motives. Serious switch,
m M, yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's weird.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
I was trying to think of a more wholesome comparison.
The wholesome version I can think of as this. Let's
say you're a kid in elementary school and you have
a crush on a classmate, but you can't tell them yourself, right,
that would be just social suicide. So instead, you get
a more reputable buddy to go approach a friend of
(50:50):
the person you have a crush on, and they start saying,
you know a lot of people are saying this would
be a great couple.
Speaker 5 (50:56):
Well, there's the inverse of that too, the cowardly move
of getting a friend to break up with somebody for you.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, but in this case, you're making it seem as
though it's a good thing. It's a positive action. That
you can take, or belief that you can hold. It's
like they it's good to believe this, it's good to
do this, And there's something so insidious about that to
me when when there's knowledge that oh, potentially this is
(51:23):
actually a harmful action or even a harmful belief, well.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
And inherent in it is just outright dishonesty.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
You know.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
It's a way of like the disguising your true motives
and hiding behind like a pr line of some sort
of like manufactured concern for your customers or for the
public will, like behind the scenes, you're completely working against
against their best interests.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Yeah, this is asymmetrical info war, you know, corporations, we're
using these tactics to push the overall government of the
United Kingdom further and further toward their end goals, right,
and their end goals are pretty quantitative, more profit less regulation,
fewer legal consequences for companies involved, you know what I mean.
(52:09):
That's part of why every so this didn't catch on
with the American public. But every so often you might
hear a politician try to campaign on what they call
tort reform. Do you remember hearing that phrase?
Speaker 5 (52:21):
It is essentially making it harder to I mean, I
one version of it is making it harder to sue doctors.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Right, Yeah, that was one of the big that was
one of the big pillars of it most recently in
the US and Atlas, by the way, especially in the beginning,
they were very focused on Latin America in particular, with
some support from the US government. This is where the
oil boy C suite types were terrified about growing leftist
(52:53):
movements in the nineteen eighties, people who might nationalize oil
resources or fossil fuel resources, people who might come up
with even more pesky regulations or tax schemes, you know
what I mean. So again, this is the shadow of Bernez.
In nineteen eighty four, Atlas funded the creation of something
(53:14):
called seed Dice. Okay, oh yeah, sorry, Center for the
Dissemination of Economic Information.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
Yeah great, Yeah, that Sea Dice better.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Yeah, it's a little better. Okay.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I'm so glad they're disseminating it though, you know, yeah,
exactly good.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Yeah, these names just give you semantic satiation after a time.
So fast forward, if you're from Venezuela familiar with it,
you might recognize this organization because if you fast forward
a few decades after their origin story. Sea Dice is
one of the big players in the downfall of Who
Go Chavez? Who Go Chavez? Of course on this show,
(53:56):
is most famous for having his own talk show podcast
and it was just wild.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, and having a three part series on our YouTube channel,
which you should definitely check out.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
Yes, yeah, good call. I forgot about that one. Then
there's a work. In nineteen eighties Brazil, they used proxies
to cripple environmental regulations and indigenous activism. You can trace
the rise of the now convicted Bolsonaro directly back to
Atlas because they created and funded and directed a thing
(54:28):
called the Free Brazil Movement of twenty fourteen. Freedom meeting,
more profit, fewer regulations, more quote unquote personal freedom.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Yeah, from the tyranny of folks telling you what you
can and can't do, how much oil you can and
can't buy cigarettes.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Who are you Government of Brazil to tell us that
we got to keep some part of the Amazon around.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
We need wood products.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Exactly? Oh man, Oh yeah, yeah. I wouldn't be surprised
if there were a couple of light propaganda attempts, like
you know, in fact, the Amazon is a really dangerous
place all.
Speaker 5 (55:12):
Those snakes and predatory animals, you.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
Know, and get rid of them. Who needs them?
Speaker 3 (55:17):
They're they're calling it the original favella clean evil. But yeah,
so from the perspective of Atlas leadership, again, no bad
guys in the story. Environmentalists and their proposed regulatory policies
were themselves cancerous to society, and no matter where you go,
(55:39):
the giveaway is you can see a uniform argument at play.
The authors and experts share a party line. In this case,
the line is consistently anti environmental regulation. One example is
nineteen ninety one the Macinaw Institute, which is a fun name.
I don't know why. I just like the word Macanaw.
(56:00):
For now we know that nineteen ninety one they cherry
picked a rogues gallery of benighted economic theory to say
that arguing for environmental regulation was not just reactionary but
anti human. Why are you so worried about one kind
of bird when your decisions, however well intentioned they may be,
(56:23):
will sacrifice the economic freedom of potentially millions of people.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
You may hear something ringing in your mind about recent
news over the past five years about waters being polluted,
and then the story comes out, or some expert will
come on television and talk about, why are we so
worried about this one tiny little species of fish? Who
gives a crap about that? It's anti human and anti
American to do all this other stuff, when in fact,
(56:50):
the real problem there is the polluting of waters right
by industrial runoff and waste and all these other things.
But what they're trying to spin it as who gives
a about this thing that's not us, that's not about us,
what we do every day when we wake up in
the morning and have our coffee. And you can just
see how little things like that can be spun. And
(57:11):
you're no longer even talking about the energy regulation at all.
Speaker 3 (57:16):
Yeah, Rock Flag and Eagle, Am I right, Charlie, He's
got a point. This is the art, this is the
conversational parkour. Just like anybody with media training knows that,
no matter what an interviewer asks, you answer the question
you wish they had asked, right, And that's kind of
what's happening here. It's sith level stuff ethics asie. It's
(57:37):
very clever and effective, but if you include ethics, it's
just reprehensible. The guy who mentioned earlier I love the
way he says his name nol Chauffon.
Speaker 4 (57:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
He leaves in twenty eighteen. He leaves Atlas in twenty
eighteen and goes on to head a think tank named
the Acton Institute, which is part of the Atlas Network.
Speaker 2 (58:03):
Only on the Atlas Network.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
I love it. Yeah. Actin Institute for the climate change
stuff is really interesting because they have a big history
in spinning anti climate legislation through the perspective of Christian religion.
So that's their parkour move. They created another thing called
the Cornwall Alliance out of Tennessee. The Cornwall Alliance is
(58:26):
famous for a twelve part series they came out with
called Resisting the Green Dragon. It's available on DVD.
Speaker 4 (58:34):
What's the Green Dragon?
Speaker 3 (58:37):
It's the it's environmental activist.
Speaker 5 (58:40):
Oh, that's hilarious. I've never heard it put that way before.
Speaker 4 (58:46):
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
The regulation these environmental uh these eco terrorist propose is
part of a grand spiritual deception and the implication is
that if you are a true Christian, you we'll see
through the charade of big secular government pretending to save
the world by preventing Christian businesses from making an honest
(59:08):
dollar that's kind of a hat on a hat. Isn't
it a little complicated?
Speaker 4 (59:13):
Man?
Speaker 2 (59:14):
There's so much deception in hiding it. It's really I
don't know. It feels like there's too much to talk
about here, guys. There's so much more we need to
get into. Agreed, Like I'm thinking about if we go back.
Can I read off just three headlines that we found
that are from news organizations that speak to the activities
(59:35):
of the atlass network that we haven't even touched on yet.
Here's rue from twenty seventeen. It's from the Intercept Sphere
of Influence, How American libertarians are remaking Latin American politics.
It's all about activities that the Atlas Network had been
doing in many countries in Latin America. It's a huge article.
There's a lot that we could cover in there. There's
(59:56):
one from The Guardian called how a conservative US network
undermined indigenous energy rights in Canada. So we've got Latin America,
we got Canada. This one's from twenty twenty two, and
one from this year from the Australian broadcasting company. How
Atlas Network a master a global network of free market
think tanks and reached into Australia and New Zealand, so like,
(01:00:16):
think about the global reach of those three stories alone,
about the influence that they're having on politics and legislation.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Right, and why the names are so purposely vague and boring,
and a lot of these things. Also, there's a lot
of great academic research about this out now, and you'd
be surprised how much of it is freely available online.
Even if it's a little bit dry, it's important and
always remember that if you go to an academic source
and you find a paper or a study that you
(01:00:47):
really want to read but you don't have access to it,
you can write to the academic, the professor, the researcher
who did the work, and nine times out of ten
they will be more than happy to send you a copy.
We've tried this, we know it works. I'd like to
read just a few mentions of some more academic works.
(01:01:10):
Merchants of Doubt, Absolute banger. This is about how a
handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco
smoke to global warming. Featuring our panels with ATLAS. The
International Journal of Health Planning and Management has a great
write up. The at LIAS Network a strategic ally of
the tobacco industry, and that that one is open source
(01:01:32):
as well. There's just tons of info out there once
you know where to look.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Well, and don't forget these organizations specialize in giving out
grants and getting you to do research, you to put
out papers, you to get that information out there. So
we have to remember that individual journalists, individual professors, individual
(01:01:56):
anybody is not untouchable when it comes to this stuff.
You have to choose who you end up believing and trusting.
But it is just just keep that in mind when
you go out there and you're doing your own research
into this stuff. It's murky on purpose, and it's even
murky in the things that maybe you would even like
to believe right as you're going through.
Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
It, and you know full disclosure. You see this in
any university of note and anything tank or research institute,
because people often end up chasing funding, chasing grants just
to make a living. I remember at Georgia Tech, which
is home to a ton of incubators, a lot of
(01:02:39):
state craft, especially in the fields of technology and nuclear proliferation,
there were countless things like this right where you had
to you as a member of a college you had
to have some serious come to Jesus moments about how
far your ethics were willing to go right now, how
comfortable you were with knowing or not knowing the true
(01:03:01):
source name of a funding opportunity. It's rough out there
is what we're saying, and it's bigger than vapes. It's
bigger than a cigarette, it's bigger than hip hop. It's
largely invisible to the public, but these conspiracies are real.
Our second episode in this series is going to be
all about the CIA sidekick we mentioned little guy called
(01:03:23):
NED the National Endowment for Democracy. In the meantime, we'd
love to hear if you have experience with front groups
of this nature. We can't wait to have you on
the show. So drop us a line, give us a call.
Speaker 5 (01:03:38):
Find us on the internet by all means, hit us
up at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on
Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy,
on x FKA, Twitter, and on YouTube Video Content galor
for YouTube peruse and hopefully enjoy on Instagram at TikTok. However,
we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
If you want to give us a call, our number
is one eight three three STD WYTK. What is your
Maco Mupsey's name for an innocuous think tank.
Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Other than Illumination Global Unlimited, which is real.
Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
Yes, that's very painfully real. Yes, terrifyingly real.
Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
When you call in, you've got three minutes, give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. If you
would like to instead send us an email, you can.
Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes a
proxy void writes back, what do we mean? There's one
way to find out conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Stuff I 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.
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 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. 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. This is gonna be a wild ride.
This will probably end up being a three episode series.
Maybe we get into it this way to the degree
(00:51):
that we're comfortable answering. Have any of us donated to
political parties?
Speaker 4 (00:56):
I have not.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
When I was a young man. I did this once,
very young man, because as idealistic and I believe that
my money would help someone somewhere and I could change
things just by donating ten dollars, I would do it.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
The first part, your money did help someone somewhere.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
For the price of a cup of coffee a day,
you two could have democracy.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
And I used to be won't get into it, but yeah,
I used to do some political activity in more idealistic
days as well. I mean for a lot of us
right now. If you're talking about financial donation, the answer
is no, what do you mean? Partially because of cynicism,
right and then partially due to the fact that it's
(01:39):
very tough and challenging economy right now. But donation doesn't
have to be just financial. People donate their time, their expertise,
their ideas. Some people fly solo in this regard. You know,
you could say that a single protester in a small
town is making a political donation through their time right
and their activism. But most most people, I think, tend
(02:02):
to partner up with pre existing groups. And this is
where we get to something really interesting. A fellow conspiracy
realist we'll call him Noah, reached out to us a
while back and hipped us to something called the Atlas Network.
Had you guys heard of this before before Noah hyptos
do it?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
I want to say it came up in a podcast
that I was listening to, but I can't quite remember
the details.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
I was unaware of it, and when Noah first I
think it was a voicemail that Noah sent in. When
when I first heard of it, I really thought it
was something I and Rand associatd.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Oh, yeah, we have to say that at the top
to be fair. Atlas Network themselves says Nope, not named
after Atlas Shrugged. But as we were talking about a
little off air, we have questions on that one. And
I also had I was not aware of Atlas Network
before he reached out. Noah, and we love learning things,
(03:02):
especially disturbing things. But what is Atlas Network exactly? Why
do they seem in the shadows? Well, Noah, some would
say they like it that way. Let's get into it.
After a word from our sponsor, here are the facts.
(03:23):
Our story begins with an Englishman named Sir Anthony George
Anson Fisher or A.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Gaff Herolds of Freedom.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Always starts with an Englishman.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
This kind of stuff. Yeah, not the profile, but I
think you're right, nol a Gaff. Let's learn about him.
He was born into a wealthy family. This isn't a
coming up from the mud story. But he made good
on his socioeconomic opportunities. He's a Royal Air Force veteran.
He graduated the top schools of his day. He became
(03:56):
a phenomenally successful chicken businessman, similar to us Fring. Some
might argue.
Speaker 5 (04:01):
Similar to Rick Ross with all his chickens that go
quack quack quack.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
That's right. Yes, similar to Rick Ross, who has been
mentioned pretty often on this show. We know Agaff. We
know Sir Fisher was galvanized and inspired during the horrors
he experienced in World War II, including allegedly witnessing the
(04:24):
death of his own brother who was also serving. This
put him on a lifelong ideological mission and his idea.
His thesis was this, if I can help make Earth
a more economically free, more prosperous place, then I can
help create a world without war.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Sounds really great. And in World War Two he was
he was an RAF pilot who actually was He took
part in the Battle of Britain, so one of the
one of the biggest things that happened in World War Two,
at least from you know, a British perspective, you can
imagine how this guy was looked up to. And he
was an entrepreneur. He was big in the chicken business,
(05:07):
as we're saying. If you want to learn more about that, guys,
I would send you on over to Atlas Network's own
YouTube channel, where in twenty seventeen, a gentleman named Daniel Hannan,
who we can talk about more if we want to.
But this guy gave a Toast to Freedom wherein he
talks specifically about the chicken business and that mister Fisher,
(05:32):
how mister Fisher brought chickens to the masses.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah. Yeah, So we'll jump around in time a little bit, right. So,
originally Agath wants to go into politics. It makes sense.
He's a war hero, he's got a high level academic
bona fides, and he is very worried. He's really unhappy
with the post World War two government of the UK,
(05:58):
the labor government in particular, saying, you guys are doing
your nationalizing industry. You're doing central economic planning, which is
pretty communist to me. I think you're making a welfare
state and I think it's going to lead to totalitarianism.
And I've got to find some people. He did the
smartest thing you can do. He said, I've got to
(06:18):
find some people who know more than me. I've got
to find some experts. And he gets inspired by the
granddaddy of neoliberalism, Friedrich Hayek, the author of a book
called The Road to Serfdom, and Hyak doesn't just immediately
paddle on him. Instead, he says, don't waste your time
in politics, dude.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah, he basically said, waste your time on the things
that influence politics.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
Right, yeah, yeah, the idea.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Yeah, he said, think tanks are the best way to
create real political change. And Fisher hop too. We're going
to throw a lot of very vague organization names at
you and this one, folks just will let it wash
over us because they're all pretty samy sounding. He visits
something in the States called the Foundation for Economic Education,
(07:08):
pretty vague, and that's where he learns about the poultry business,
about battery chicken raising. And then when he goes back
to England, he starts this outfit Bucksted Chickens.
Speaker 5 (07:18):
Is that real Bucks died And it's amazing. It's like
the ex is like an edgy stand in for.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Yeah, this is the company that makes him a millionaire
over time. And he was already he already had family money.
And he sticks to his guns. You know, he doesn't
just become a quiet guy who shows up in a
fundraiser once a year. He invests his personal profits in
his ideology and he starts creating stuff.
Speaker 5 (07:48):
Yeah, that chicken money can go a long way to
creating stuff, and some of that stuff included the Institute
of Economic Affairs, which was in staunch opposition to the
current economic concepts and policies of the time.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, nailed it.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Just for a little more context on the chicken thing there, guys,
I didn't realize that when we did our chicken episode,
this guy is credited, at least within the mythos of
the Atlas Network for essentially creating and or revolutionizing the
broiler chicken business in the United Kingdom or in Britain.
So it you know, you can imagine how much money
(08:28):
is in there. Right When we talked about the number
of chickens that are produced and eaten across the world,
it was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah. Factory farming, yes, the S word we're using. Yes,
he's a factory farming founder and popularized it indeed throughout Europe.
Over the decades. He and his affiliates involved in these
think tanks and these ideological campaigns. They say, look one off,
think tanks aren't enough, we need something bigger, and they
(09:01):
keep creating stuff. They created something called the International Institute
for Economic Research in nineteen seventy one, which was later
renamed the International Policy Network or IPN, so all in all,
without getting two into the weeds, he helped create a
Baker's dozen or so of related organizations that had the
same They had different focuses, but they had the same
(09:23):
ideological push at their core, and they all sounded kind
of samey.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
And these aren't the same as lobbying groups, right, I mean, like,
this is a different way of influencing policy.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
You can do a lot with a think tank. I
would just say, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
You can do lobbying as part of it, kind of
the way that a car also has an air conditioning unit,
but it's it's still a car. So they write a
lot of white papers, they do a lot of networking,
and they do a lot of quiet funding. And the
way that they succeed with this quiet funding. The second
revolution that Fisher leads after factory farming of chickens, is
(10:01):
the idea of a meta think tank, I think tank
that births other organizations and supports them.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
An incubator if you will, there you go, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Chicken metaphors, Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I like it. So, after all these iterations of these
vaguely named groups, IPN leads to the creation of the
Atlas Network in nineteen eighty one, and it originally is
meant to bring all of Fisher's previous one off things together,
sort of like how you had individual superhero movies and
(10:37):
then you had the Avengers.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, and they're all five oh one c three organizations. Guys.
That means tax free baby.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Oh take that religion, But yeah, they are. They are,
especially Atlas because Atlas is US based. Fisher would later
move to the States. It was originally called the Atlas
Economic Research Foundation. Thank goodness they change the name because
just hearing foundation and Economic over and over again. I
don't know about you, guys, been the research for this.
(11:08):
My eyes started to glaze over. It's like, how are
we supposed to tell the difference between all of these
things that are just a word salad of the same
five words.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
It does do your head, and god, it's true.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
I'm looking up just really quickly. Let's even let's do
it right now. We're going to get in this further.
But if I'm just going to go off of the
organizations that are currently on the atlasnetwork dot org website,
Foundation for Economic Freedom, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs,
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, African Students for Liberty
(11:39):
Ideas Beyond Borders. It's just like what it just kind
of okay.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
Yeah, And after this, by the way, folks, after we
get through this series, we do want you to know
that you have the option on Atlas's website to become
a partner yourself.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
And that's not just to become a member, right.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Right, Yeah, if you come up with your own vague
sounding organization and you pitch it and it's in the
part of the world that they're interested in, like maybe
or pretty much all of Latin America, definitely East Africa,
you know what I mean, or just make them a pitch, like, hey,
what do you guys know about Tuvalu?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
You know, they've got a couple of bulleted points there
that just say exactly what you need to do and
you might get some of that grant money.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Yeah, the wallet will open. So this is why you
hear people calling Atlas a think tank that creates think tanks.
That's pretty meta. At liass Network itself, we spend a
lot of the time on their website, by the way, guys,
Atlas Network describes itself as quote a nonprofit that aims
to secure the right to economic and personal freedom for
all individuals.
Speaker 5 (12:50):
Dope, ms fine, Yeah, I like freedom.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
I like the individual.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Right right, we like surviving in an economy. Exactly. It's
as if you heard of a charity that said, we're
trying to stop people from kicking puppies, you know what
I mean? Like, are you pro animal torture? Are you
anti freedom? My guy?
Speaker 2 (13:17):
So imagine you put out this call, right or this
you you've created this thing, right, you got what do
we say? A handful of a dozen organizations that make
up this version of Atlas network. And then they want
to bring more, they want to start more. Have they
been pretty yes?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Yeah, no, yes, seriously, what is it?
Speaker 5 (13:38):
It isn't it on par with McDonald's in terms of
like how broad their reach is?
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, so McDonald's operates in around one hundred and nineteen countries.
This is not the perfect analogy. It should have been
a chicken restaurant. But Atlas has expanded, including everything the
Koch brothers do and all these other organizations. So it
went from like twelve ish think tanks to six hundred
various things like think tanks, well less than six hundred.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Shout out to the Cato Institute and the Koch Brothers and.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
The Heritage Foundation shout out to I mean, just picture it.
They're probably in the club.
Speaker 5 (14:16):
And I mean, at the end of the day, isn't
it somewhat apolitical or at least politics agnostic. Like it's
not like they're going for a particular you know, left
or right lean. It's more of like an overall goal
they're trying to achieve, right, Yeah, I think that's that's
the way to put it. Yeah, because critics will tell
(14:37):
you that Atlas is a shadowy network of right wing
think tanks. But Atlas itself, they say, we are nonpartisan, right,
We're pushing these ideas of economic freedom and personal freedom,
which should be something anybody can get behind. Well, And
whether or not that's true or not, it does kind
of call attention to the idea that like, sometimes whether
(14:58):
you're on the left or the right, at a certain
level of government, it all becomes about kind of the
same thing.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Fingers on a hand, you know what I mean. They
look separate until you see the palm. But yeah, it's
what we call neoliberal ideology, which here in the US
both big political parties are very much a fan of
the idea that free markets and globalism will ultimately be
(15:24):
the tide that carries all vessels.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
For sure, And definitely check out the Economic Policy Institute
or the Roosevelt Institute or any of the other many
think tanks that exist on the opposite side of the
spectrum than the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, because these different organizations, their goals don't
always one hundred percent a line, but they team up
on specific stuff that they want to see changed. So
back to our restaurant analogy. If Atlas was in the
restaurant business, they wouldn't be like McDonald's making in individual stores. Instead,
(16:01):
they would make entire restaurant brands, and unless you were
very careful, you would never know how deeply these different
restaurants are all connected.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And as we found with research for this episode, it
makes searching for specifics and details about actions really difficult
because if you imagine the search terms that you'd have
to put in to successfully track down one of the
six hundred organizations that are a part of this group,
right then tracking, you know, tracking it and finding the
(16:34):
right information becomes extremely difficult. When the information is this busy.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
It's not entirely dissimilar from the way, like you know,
corporations have all kinds of little sub organizations, and there
are these like org charts that kind of spiderweb their
way out to the point where it can get really convoluted,
like ge you know, like the whole thirty Rock scenario.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Yeah, we know that part of this obfuscation seems purposeful,
and then another part of it is just a function
of how many things these other organizations with very similar
names do any given day. So luckily we were able
to well we'll get into it, but we looked at
(17:14):
some specific cases of controversies. They can help you trace
the line of conspiracy. We'll look at some larger conspiracies.
We'll also see we'll see things that are very clearly
one off front groups as well, which are a little
easier to trace.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
And then we'll do an entire episode on the National
Endowment for Demarcower.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Our third episode is on our own boys. Yeah, the
second CIA or the CIA sidekick, whichever term you'd like.
So what we're saying is Atlas is this hidden kaiju
of neoliberal ideology. Neoliberalism again, socioeconomic theory that says free
market capitalism is the holy grail. Almost said holy ghosts,
(17:54):
but it's gonna save everything. It's gonna save the world
if we just free these gosh darn markets, if we.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Individual freedom allowed through whatever mechanisms the government ends up
actually doing.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
And hey, they mean the government should have less of
a say in that, you know, right, So there's nothing
wrong with people getting their views out there. That's one
beautiful thing about democracy when it works. Everybody gets a
voice in the room, even if not everyone agrees, and yes,
even if some people say very stupid things, they get
(18:28):
to do that.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Well, and ultimately this is an exercise in looking at
a group of people that are extremely effective at it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Oh yeah, I mean the Atlas. Atlas is like a
training camp. It's it's ideologically similar to the School of
the Americas in a way because they take people and
they give them expertise, networking, financial support and grants for
all sorts of conservative groups or free market initiatives or
(18:58):
you know, libertarian thing tanks through the world. Originally they
just wanted to focus on Fisher's first organizations, but now,
as we said, they've expanded. They're forty four years old
and as of twenty twenty three, the organization had an
annual revenue of twenty eight point eight million dollars that
we know about. And that's where I think we kind
(19:20):
of have to pause and spend a little bit of time,
because doesn't that number seem low?
Speaker 2 (19:25):
I was thinking of some low Yes, well, with these groups,
this is revenue, right, And maybe I'm wrong here, but
I imagine there's a ton of investment money that is
funneled through these things that grows and grows and grows
so that they can give out things like the Templeton
Freedom Awards, where sure every year they give out like
four hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you know, in these
(19:48):
various grants and things like that, on top of all
the other grants that they end up giving out. And
I imagine the way this functions is you've got rolling
investment funds that just build and build and build, and
then that's the money that actually ends up being operational,
or at least for the most part.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
Maybe, so that's not transparent, like we don't see those.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's much more difficult too, depending on the country. There
are different laws about how their financials have to be publicized,
and it's more murky in some places than it is
in others. But I think what we are all on
the same page about is that the official, seemingly small
number for the revenue is just a very tiny facet
(20:29):
of a very large iceberg because it's not counting money
that moves in other ways. It's kind of like how
the Coca Cola company. Actually it's an empire, yes, but
most of its employees are going to be subcontracted through
some other thing, right, There are actually very few full
(20:50):
time Coca Cola employees. When you look at the size
of the organization.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
And remember it's a nonprofit organization, right, so it is
not profit driven, is functioning to fuel itself and to
perhaps give out money for things. It's just it's murky.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
It's murky on purpose by design, a clever design. And
the revenue to that point is most of the revenue
goes to their overhead cost as an organization, So on
paper it makes sense for a five oh one C three.
They're not making a ton of money for Atlas as Atlas,
but they are managing and moving a lot more money,
(21:31):
and that's the money that gets hidden often.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, because it's not about profit guys, it's about hearts
and minds.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
On their website, it's not about financial profit.
Speaker 5 (21:40):
They actually say hearts and minds, yes, yes, they love it.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
They're nuts for it. They're like that SNL cowbell sketch.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Yeah. And legislation, actionable legislation.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Yeah, that's the real profit. But still there's no denying
they've been successful. Jolly good tickety boo. Right, this is British.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Ultra tickety boo Pip pip.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Double plus good. Yes, But critics disagree because, depending upon
whom you ask, this powerful obscure group is responsible for
all sorts of shenanigans that are at the very least controversial,
things like fueling economic chaos, climate change, conspiracies, overthrowing government,
(22:23):
helping to overthrow governments, making sure people ignore the dangers
of smoking, all kinds of stuff. So what the heck
is going on? Maybe we pause for a word from
our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. The conspiracy is true.
(22:44):
It is absolutely true. We're not trying to ruffle any feathers.
We know these things could be sensitive, but it is true.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
What's the conspiracy?
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It's okay, it's true. Caveat asterisk. It's true in that
Atlas is often associated with controversial things. The supporters will
say no, there's not a conspiracy afoot. You can find
all the answers that you want. You just have to
ask the right questions. We're not No one's trying to
cover anything up. We're just like ALEC or any number
(23:16):
of other similar organizations that are often in our network.
We talk to politicians right like you were saying. No,
We lobby, we write policy papers, we talked to the media.
We put out our handpicked pundits to push for our cause.
We draft legislation and policy. We're a helpful force.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah. Remember that guy I mentioned, Daniel Hannan m M.
Do we know who he is? Like? Does that name
ring true to anybody out there? This is this guy
was a member of Parliament in the UK and he
was one of the loudest voices for Can we guess
(23:59):
the big thing he was pushing for Brexit?
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Yeah, it's unfair that I'm pretending to.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Get Well, that's fine, but this guy is ah. He
is a member of let's say the Atlas network. If
he had a pin, it would be on his lapel.
As he gave a speech in twenty seventeen that you
watch the YouTube video for and you know when you
see that somebody like that is in the upper echelons
(24:27):
of power and still a member of this thing. You
can see that this type of legislation and movement that
we're talking about is actually happening and not you know,
not just at the local grassroots levels.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. That's an excellent observation. I mean,
Atlas is one of the top think tanks in all
of the United States, and it has a lot of
weight to swing as political capital and connections to burn. Right,
no one's denying that. But let's so we had to
look into how this power structure works in practice some
of the con traversies. This will help us learn why
(25:02):
at least the critics are so concerned. Let's start with
big Tobacco, super duper deep with Atlas. They love it.
Smoke them if you got them right.
Speaker 5 (25:12):
They have had, according to Tobacco Statistics dot org, a
longstanding funding relationship with the tobacco industry.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Trade groups like British.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International, Altria and Philip Morris International
have all contributed heaps of money in support of Atlas Partners.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
For agen decades.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Atlas Partners, right, uh huh, so not directly to our
buddies at the network. But the Atlas board members, this
is where these kind of organizations get really fascinating. The
Atlas board members often come straight up from private industries
that private industries that share, that share the goals, right,
(25:56):
or that already employ Atlas, And it's become such a
vent diagram, especially when you throw in politics.
Speaker 4 (26:03):
Right.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
We talked about the revolving door of private and public
service that happens here as well. There's one example be
jose Renee Skull. He's an Atlas board member, but before
he was an Atlas board member, he was a Philip
Morris man in South America and Asia before he officially
joined up with Atlas, and he was working with them
(26:24):
hand in glove well before officially joining. And he had
a quote. I don't think you put it in here,
but he had a quote where he said he described
his time in Asia by saying, essentially, it was my
job to make the air rain Marlborough's Now that makes sense,
I mean it's his job. Yeah, he's meat points for honesty.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
What's that company cover the world?
Speaker 4 (26:49):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Sherwin Williams. Yeah, God, what a sinister logo.
Speaker 2 (26:53):
But with Marboro.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
But with Marlborough's the relationship is so deep and it's
not a PSA campaign about the dangers of tobacco. That's
not what they're paying at Lists to do. Instead, let's
go to an example from the University of Baths Tobacco
Tactics in twenty twenty, they noted the following.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
In a nineteen eighty eight letter to Philip Morris, Atlas
then CEO Alejandro Chauffain explained, it uses industry donations to
select and fund individuals or organizations to help establish them
as a legitimate organization that can spread ideas about and
these are individual rights again, limited government.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
And free enterprise. So quite literally, like you.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
Said, Ben, smoke them if you got them, this is
a right.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
So this is the Atlas CEO talking to Philip Morris
the company and explaining what Atlas does with the money.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
Yeah, they say, we find individuals, thought leaders or influencers
we would call them now and or organizations, and we
helped train them and fund them so that they look
legit and they can help carry the message. They can
help change the way people see in this case tobacco use.
And the internal documents from the Tobacco giants themselves say
(28:18):
that they had a couple of ideas. They wanted to
frame tobacco as a personal choice. Who were you to
tell me what to do, big brother. They wanted to
say that any anti tobacco legislation was Orwellian government overreach.
And in addition, Atlas also did a lot of underground,
backroom damage control by attacking science.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Ah, yeah, that makes sense. And you may recall this
growing up. I think I was about ten years old
around the time that there was a lot of information
coming out from health officials about secondhand smoke and how
dangerous that was. I don't know about you guys, but
I had parents of friends who would like smoke in
the car driving somewhere, and we're in the back seat
(29:02):
and the parents up there smoking, and we thought it
was fine up until about nineteen ninety three, or you know,
right around that time, when it was kind of stated
by a lot of officials by the US Environmental Protection
Agency that second hand smoke contributes to lung cancer. And
so how did Atlas respond to that?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Ooh, they were clever, clever boys. They used a hidden
hand method, which is almost directly descended from the work
of Edward Berneze, the father of public relations. They go
to a guy named Fred Singer. Fred is the director
of something called the Science and Environmental Policy Project or SEP.
STEP sounds cool until you realize that SEP is a
(29:45):
creation of a Philip Morris pr firm called APCO Associates.
So they're paying at every step to obscure a little
more of their source, right, because they can't have Fred
go up and say, hey, I talk to guys who
make billions off cigarettes, and they say it's cool, and.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
They say it's fine.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
They see you need to chill the f out. So
he instead he writes an op ed and nobody knows
that Philip Morris is supporting this. Nobody knows the Atlas
network is coordinating a lot of the stuff. In his
op ed says, look, the guys at the EPA, they're
not jerks. They're just drawing bad conclusions on junk science.
(30:30):
And they didn't think about indoor air quality. So well
intentioned but wrong and kind of dumb.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, just you know what. The science isn't there.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Yet, guys, science isn't there yet. He also made a
report funded by a different group called the Tobacco Institute
that tried to entirely discredit any connection between secondhand smoke
and lung cancer. We could do a whole limited series
on big tobacco and Atlas especially. We're talking about Latin
(31:01):
America in the nineties, and then we're talking about the
Asian theater. This was not someone's pet project. It wasn't
a one time thing. This wasn't is a coordinated global
effort to keep tobacco money rolling in. And the best
example is vapes.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Oh yeah, for sure. I just want to make that
connection right now here.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Individual freedom is the thing that gets pushed and talked about, right.
It is individual freedom for you to choose to smoke
that cigarette, and it is important that you get to
choose that, right. That's what we're fighting for. That's what
we're pushing for. That's the hearts and minds thing that
we're putting out there. But ultimately, it is so that
(31:43):
these massive corporations can continue manufacturing and selling cigarettes and
then manufacturing and selling more cigarettes. So in the end,
it's actually about the individual freedom of a corporation and
or individuals that benefit from that corporation.
Speaker 3 (32:00):
Yeah, same reason why a lot of military conflicts throughout
history are phrased in terms of ideology, but they're really
about resource control, you know what I mean, That's what
that's look like. When former President Barack Obama, people don't
like to hear this, but when he said we're engaging
(32:21):
in conflicts in Libya to protect American interest, was he
really talking about democracy or was he talking about global
control of currency?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
See? Yes, And in that case, you know, the individuals
actually get harmed by all of those pursuits. The same
thing with the smoking here, right, If the EPA puts
out this damning report about secondhand smoke and the response is, oh, no,
that's not right, that's not going to happen. There's a
knowledge there and operating knowledge that people are going to
(32:53):
probably get cancer if we keep doing this thing. But
that doesn't matter compared to pushing for the individual rights
and freedoms of whatever this organization or company that they
are trying to prop up.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
You know what be interesting to see this is a tangent.
I didn't think of it until just now. It'd be
interesting to visit the headquarters of some of these tobacco
companies and see if you can still smoke inside. Yeah,
you have to go out to the smoking section, right.
I don't know, it'd be interesting. That's a lapeline.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Somebody who's been inside the Philip Morris HQ let us know.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Recently, Yes, because I'm sure everybody was lighting up in
like the eighties. Of course, Uh, we got to talk
about the vape thing again. This might end up being
a series, but this gives us a specific example of
what we're talking about with front networks.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Yeah, Atlas has played a huge role.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
In the battle that you're talking about, ben over vape legislation,
which we know has been a sticky subject in terms
of accusations of companies marketing them to kids and certain
flavored ones being outlawed and all.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
Of that good stuff.
Speaker 5 (34:02):
So, through groups like the World's Vapor Alliance, which is
a delightful name, Atlas and Big Tobacco launched a European
tour going through eight different countries touting the practice or
the benefits I guess of vaping over smoking. The idea
of the electronic cigarette could save nineteen million lives in Europe.
(34:24):
They argued, this as well as the idea that vaping
is ninety five percent less harmful than smoking.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Do you guys remember a couple of folks that we
interacted with one ture Do, and it was all about
a type of cigarette that essentially heats up the tobacco, yes,
the way similar things would for cannabis, but you're not
actually smoking tobacco. You're vaping it.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
Put these little tobacco cartridges into them and they kind
of heat it up to vaporized temperature, and then that's
how you're spoking. But it is still it's not like
some sort of nicotine solution.
Speaker 4 (35:02):
It is actually tobacco.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It's yeah, out in Asia. I don't think these things
are legal in the US yet, but out in Asia
there's a very popular thing where you buy you buy
these cartridges that look something like a cigarette, almost like
a candy cigarette, and then you pop them into what
looks like a little walkie talkie vapor thing, and that
that's tremendously popular over there.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
I just wonder it just when I think back on
hearing the spiel, you know, the selling points of that
kind of thing, it feels very similar here. Okay, well
let's just continue.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah, sorry, Yeah, we've got some war stories, you know,
well they'll be in the second book maybe, but yeah, yeah,
World's Vapor Alliance first off badass name, especially after all
the other names we had to sit through. Yeah, this
is a winner.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Well, and let's note that's it's vapor vap e R,
not v A p o.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
R, right, because it's personal activity. It's personal action gask
not you know, for whom the vape heats, heats for
the whatever. They're not all going to land. The idea
here is that they would travel around just like a
stop smoking campaign you may have seen in the United States,
and they would say that big government is like they
(36:16):
would say, we're trying to help people. We're doing harm reduction,
which was a phrase that Big Tobacco and Atlas loved.
And the way we're doing this is by making it
easier for people to vape. And the issue is that
big government is in the way of progress, you know,
so really those nineteen million lives are kind of falling
(36:36):
at their feet. They're restrictions on vaping, all those pesky taxes,
all those unfair bands on flavored vape juices, you know
what I mean. We like, we're the good guys here,
we're grass roots.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
Yeah. Well we're also one organic.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Yeah oh yeah yeah. Because their minibus did not have
carbon emissions, it was a green vehicle, which was smart
that they got in front of that, and they said, look,
all we're trying to do is amplify. And this is
a quote from an excellent lamand investigation. We're trying to amplify.
Quote the voice of passionate vapors around the world.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
All the vapors around the world.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Shout out to the journalists Stefan Horel h O r
e L. Please read that. It's a long read and
it's phenomenal. It's excellent. So their tour and stick is
very much a propaganda war hearts and minds. They got
a selfie quarter. They set up this this ironic. We'll
see why in a second. They set up astro turf.
They have a tent where you can get assistance writing
(37:41):
to politicians, small gifts, little swag bags. They got everything
you need, right. Why is it funny that they put
astro turf out on their pop.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Up, Well, astro turf Generally that term would be used
about making something look like it's grassroots.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
Yeah, ding ding ding nail on the head, A free
vapor to you, sir, first price.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Thank you, just what I always wanted.
Speaker 5 (38:11):
Yeah, astroturfing is huge in this particular situation, this idea
of conspiring to make these goals appear to be part
of some sort of organic, from the ground up, bootstrappy
type movement that is spearheaded by the public for real reasons,
you know, the passionate vapors as you said, right, Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
We're just trying to make the world a better place.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
I just want to be blow doomsdays out here with
with my giant vape.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
So here's why it's astroturfing in this case, based on
excellent work of journalists, we can see a daisy chain
of funding that gives lie to the narrative of grassroots organizations.
World Vapors Alliance is assisted by a pr company called
Red Flag. Oh oh, write Little Pallenteer. Red Flag does
(39:06):
a lot of similar astroturfing operations. Most notably, in twenty seventeen,
they ran a campaign in Europe called Freedom to Farm Farm. Yeah, yeah,
food freedom, what's not to love?
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (39:24):
Gosh man.
Speaker 5 (39:24):
It is one of the situations though, where the name
likes as liberating and egalitarian as it sounds, what could
be the exact opposite involvements, which is where we're about
to see Monsanto, the opposite of freedom to farm, the
freedom to cower in their shadow.
Speaker 4 (39:41):
Basically if you are a small farmer.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
Yeah, it turns out this grassroots movement of freedom to
farm activists had very few actual farmers, humble or otherwise involved.
The ultimate goal of freedom to Farm was to allow
glyphosate throughout Europe on an industrial scale.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
And just to reiterate a funded by Monsanto slash Bayar
who acquired Monsanto bay or such a central batty and
a lot of these corporates, you know, conspiracies.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
I wonder if they had any of those terminator seeds
going on in that push too.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Yeah, that's that's freedom to plant right over the next one.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
So Red Flag is UH an organization with a certain
focus and expertise put diplomatically and World Vapor Alliance itself
is a front created by something love this name called
the Consumer Choice Center.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
Dang, that sounds reliable, sounds like something I should go to.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
Yeah itself. CCC is a global grassroots movement.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
UH.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
It is funded by Japan Tobacco International, British American Tobacco
for Morris International, Altria, the co orchestrated Students for Liberty,
and of course the Star of tonight's show the Atlas Network.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Well, that's a humdinger right there. I don't know what
that means.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
I can't get away with late books at the library,
you know what I mean. I can't even give them
the slide on the fees for me.
Speaker 2 (41:19):
But ultimately for you. None of this is None of
this is illegal, right. Not a thing we've talked about
is illegal.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
No, this is a bit.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
This is just like just I don't know, it's just.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Immoral and illegal are two very different things, I guess, right, especially.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
I mean, especially when you get to this level of
money and network and an influence. Moral and illegal, as
you said, are two different things. It's like, was there
anything illegal about Elon musk recent financial parkour with Tesla
that absolutely brought their prices back up?
Speaker 5 (41:57):
What do you do being a just boughtish crap time?
Speaker 4 (42:00):
That's called being a whale.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
Basically, when you have that much capital at your disposal,
you can't affect significant changes in the market, which is
not technically considered market manipulation, or is market manipulation even legal.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
It's kind of one of those things where it's like
I'm smart, I did it, I knew how to do it.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Exactly right. I just man, grassroots, I don't know, are
there any real grassroots movements left anyway? Like I say,
all these moves are not inherently illegal, and that's because
these are very well funded, very clever, and above all,
extremely careful enterprises. They hire top minds from the worlds
(42:39):
of psychology and advertising to socially engineer these outcomes. They
have extremely well paid legal beagles as well as super
sharp accountants, all to keep things on the right side
of the law if ever a situation goes sideways or
the optics get too bad. But we have to ask,
if these declared goals are in good faith, then why
(43:00):
would you obscure the sources of funding. Why wouldn't you
be transparent?
Speaker 4 (43:04):
Right?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
If there's nothing hinky afoot, As Chuck would say, it.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Makes me think about a few other organizations that had
some interesting funding we've interacted with.
Speaker 3 (43:16):
Hmmm, oh, man, I'm trying to read your mind.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
I think you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
It's tough.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Oh, Blockbuster, Yep, that's it, That's what it was. Thank
god they went down.
Speaker 3 (43:31):
Of course, our corporate overlords, Dave and Busters, do check
it out, folks.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Uh huh, that's it.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
I just wanted to squeeze the Dave of Buster's thing
in there. Anyway we're saying it makes you think we're
gonna take a pause for a word from our sponsors,
and we're back. Another example of controversy related to Atlas
that people call conspiracy is the against laws protecting the environment.
(44:02):
We all remember the environment right overrated.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
Well, that was great back when it was great.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
I liked it's early work.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
Now there's still some good bits, but it does seem
like it's maybe on its way out.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yeah it was once this missed as a fanciful Internet rumor,
but there's hard proof that big oil companies knew as
far back as the seventies and likely earlier, that widespread
consumption of fossil fuels like coal, gas, and petrol absolutely
wreak havoc on Earth's natural state. And before you feel
bad for gas prov excellon Royal Dutch and the rest,
(44:39):
just remember they too found a friend in Atlas, especially
BP and Royal Dutch Shell.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Hey, and as we go through this, go ahead and
check back through our catalog, because we've done I don't
know a dozen episodes on big oil and different things.
The first one is back in twenty twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
Guys, Yeah, great for the show, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Learn about the petro dollar. Learn about Oh didn't we
interview somebody a while back that was all about this
specific thing about pre knowledge from exon. Do you guys
remember this at all?
Speaker 3 (45:14):
We may have. This would be different from the DuPont story, right,
is that.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
That DuPont story?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Definitely a similar conspiracy occurred with DuPont.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Okay, I can't remember the name of it. I know
we interviewed somebody that had made a whole show about
this very thing, and it was just it was crazy
to learn. But we can actually see the other side now,
like the influence side, rather than the like the big
oil action side.
Speaker 1 (45:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
Royal, Dutch Shell and British Petroleum or BP were some
of Sir Fisher's first big corporate donors, all the way
back in the nineteen sixties, which means they were down
with Atlas before it existed. If we go to Jeremy Walker,
senior lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney, will get
(46:08):
a better look at this. Walker is the author of
a book called More Heat Than Life, The Tangled Roots
of Ecology, Energy and economics, and he has been studying
the Atlas network for a long long time. As far
as people outside of Atlas go, he's probably a world
expert on the organization.
Speaker 2 (46:28):
This is going to sound really familiar. Going back to
Brene's stuff, he was talking with the New Republic and
he talks about how Sir Fisher, through this thing, the
Institute of Economic Affairs, which existed before Atlas Network, quote,
would get these professors to write short, digestible articles, often
around things like currency conversion or sort of things that
(46:50):
were fairly technical to the non economists. Then quote, they
would have these wealthy donors to the IEA, that's the
Institute of Economic mcafairs, who would buy copies and send
them to all the schools and the universities for free.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Yeah, not even asking the school to pay shipping. And
this is this is, by the way, a successful hacker
publishing conspiracy that occurs today. Have you ever wondered why
so many ghost written politicians books end up on the
New York Times bestseller list. It's not because people are
reading them. It's because a different campaign associates buy them
(47:27):
in bulk, and they know exactly how to do it
to goose the numbers.
Speaker 2 (47:31):
Dude, have you ever been in a doctor's office or
a dentist's office and seen the little brochures around that
have a lot of writing from actual people who clean teeth,
actual dentists, actual doctors telling you how great whatever medication
is or treatment is, and all this stuff. It's all
kind of the same thing.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
I love it too, because you're bringing up one of
my favorite new folklore obsessions. We always hear the phrase
nine out of ten dentists mentioned it in the past,
but I am just obsessed with the idea of the
tenth dentist.
Speaker 4 (48:04):
You know what this deal is.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
This rogue, the rogue dentist.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Yes, he's the one that's.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah, are you writing a story about how this one
dentist like discovers the conspiracy and goes down the rabbit
hole and tries to stop it?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
There is a I am writing a dental based horror
story that I'm almost done with. And I think about
a haunted tooth. Uh no spoilers, spooky, but we've talked
to I think you and I talked about that when
a little off air baby. Uh yeah, excited about that,
but yeah that that thankfully, as far as we know
is going to be a work of fiction. This is
(48:40):
real life manipulation of people. Right, So if you're a school,
are you going to turn down a free book? Probably not?
Who would also R I P R inbox anyway? That
why are they sending out this stuff that Matt, as
you said, is technical, right, is very much not for
the lay folk to It's because it establishes the bona
(49:02):
fides of the authors in question, and it normalizes their
work or its presence across campuses, and that means their
next work becomes normalized as well. So you could just
push a little further each time, with each new article,
each in paper, each monograph, so long as no one
asks why the later work seems skeptical about the science
(49:24):
linking fossil fuels to ecological collapse, Because now you're not
just some random guy paid by a shadowy organization. Right now,
your doctor Frankenfurt from earlier, and you wrote pretty competently.
Speaker 2 (49:40):
Earlier doctor Frankenfur, author of.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
Right, yeah, yeah, that's a great boy author of And
then you get some of your buddies who are in
on the same grift to write the little blurbs at
the back of your book and they get an author
of as well.
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Oh, bonus points if you can get somebody actually influential
on there.
Speaker 3 (50:00):
Yeah, and at each point your manufactory credibility.
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Well, here here's a quote to give some good contact
to this from Walker. The think tank method allowed corporations
to say things that they couldn't say themselves without appearing
to be merely speaking to their own profit motives. Serious switch,
m M, yeah, yeah, it's uh, it's weird.
Speaker 3 (50:27):
I was trying to think of a more wholesome comparison.
The wholesome version I can think of as this. Let's
say you're a kid in elementary school and you have
a crush on a classmate, but you can't tell them yourself, right,
that would be just social suicide. So instead, you get
a more reputable buddy to go approach a friend of
(50:50):
the person you have a crush on, and they start saying,
you know a lot of people are saying this would
be a great couple.
Speaker 5 (50:56):
Well, there's the inverse of that too, the cowardly move
of getting a friend to break up with somebody for you.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, but in this case, you're making it seem as
though it's a good thing. It's a positive action. That
you can take, or belief that you can hold. It's
like they it's good to believe this, it's good to
do this, And there's something so insidious about that to
me when when there's knowledge that oh, potentially this is
(51:23):
actually a harmful action or even a harmful belief, well.
Speaker 5 (51:26):
And inherent in it is just outright dishonesty.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
You know.
Speaker 5 (51:30):
It's a way of like the disguising your true motives
and hiding behind like a pr line of some sort
of like manufactured concern for your customers or for the
public will, like behind the scenes, you're completely working against
against their best interests.
Speaker 3 (51:46):
Yeah, this is asymmetrical info war, you know, corporations, we're
using these tactics to push the overall government of the
United Kingdom further and further toward their end goals, right,
and their end goals are pretty quantitative, more profit less regulation,
fewer legal consequences for companies involved, you know what I mean.
(52:09):
That's part of why every so this didn't catch on
with the American public. But every so often you might
hear a politician try to campaign on what they call
tort reform. Do you remember hearing that phrase?
Speaker 5 (52:21):
It is essentially making it harder to I mean, I
one version of it is making it harder to sue doctors.
Speaker 3 (52:30):
Right, Yeah, that was one of the big that was
one of the big pillars of it most recently in
the US and Atlas, by the way, especially in the beginning,
they were very focused on Latin America in particular, with
some support from the US government. This is where the
oil boy C suite types were terrified about growing leftist
(52:53):
movements in the nineteen eighties, people who might nationalize oil
resources or fossil fuel resources, people who might come up
with even more pesky regulations or tax schemes, you know
what I mean. So again, this is the shadow of Bernez.
In nineteen eighty four, Atlas funded the creation of something
(53:14):
called seed Dice. Okay, oh yeah, sorry, Center for the
Dissemination of Economic Information.
Speaker 4 (53:22):
Yeah great, Yeah, that Sea Dice better.
Speaker 3 (53:26):
Yeah, it's a little better. Okay.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I'm so glad they're disseminating it though, you know, yeah,
exactly good.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Yeah, these names just give you semantic satiation after a time.
So fast forward, if you're from Venezuela familiar with it,
you might recognize this organization because if you fast forward
a few decades after their origin story. Sea Dice is
one of the big players in the downfall of Who
Go Chavez? Who Go Chavez? Of course on this show,
(53:56):
is most famous for having his own talk show podcast
and it was just wild.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, and having a three part series on our YouTube channel,
which you should definitely check out.
Speaker 3 (54:07):
Yes, yeah, good call. I forgot about that one. Then
there's a work. In nineteen eighties Brazil, they used proxies
to cripple environmental regulations and indigenous activism. You can trace
the rise of the now convicted Bolsonaro directly back to
Atlas because they created and funded and directed a thing
(54:28):
called the Free Brazil Movement of twenty fourteen. Freedom meeting,
more profit, fewer regulations, more quote unquote personal freedom.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
Yeah, from the tyranny of folks telling you what you
can and can't do, how much oil you can and
can't buy cigarettes.
Speaker 3 (54:48):
Who are you Government of Brazil to tell us that
we got to keep some part of the Amazon around.
Speaker 2 (54:56):
We need wood products.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
Exactly? Oh man, Oh yeah, yeah. I wouldn't be surprised
if there were a couple of light propaganda attempts, like
you know, in fact, the Amazon is a really dangerous
place all.
Speaker 5 (55:12):
Those snakes and predatory animals, you.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
Know, and get rid of them. Who needs them?
Speaker 3 (55:17):
They're they're calling it the original favella clean evil. But yeah,
so from the perspective of Atlas leadership, again, no bad
guys in the story. Environmentalists and their proposed regulatory policies
were themselves cancerous to society, and no matter where you go,
(55:39):
the giveaway is you can see a uniform argument at play.
The authors and experts share a party line. In this case,
the line is consistently anti environmental regulation. One example is
nineteen ninety one the Macinaw Institute, which is a fun name.
I don't know why. I just like the word Macanaw.
(56:00):
For now we know that nineteen ninety one they cherry
picked a rogues gallery of benighted economic theory to say
that arguing for environmental regulation was not just reactionary but
anti human. Why are you so worried about one kind
of bird when your decisions, however well intentioned they may be,
(56:23):
will sacrifice the economic freedom of potentially millions of people.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
You may hear something ringing in your mind about recent
news over the past five years about waters being polluted,
and then the story comes out, or some expert will
come on television and talk about, why are we so
worried about this one tiny little species of fish? Who
gives a crap about that? It's anti human and anti
American to do all this other stuff, when in fact,
(56:50):
the real problem there is the polluting of waters right
by industrial runoff and waste and all these other things.
But what they're trying to spin it as who gives
a about this thing that's not us, that's not about us,
what we do every day when we wake up in
the morning and have our coffee. And you can just
see how little things like that can be spun. And
(57:11):
you're no longer even talking about the energy regulation at all.
Speaker 3 (57:16):
Yeah, Rock Flag and Eagle, Am I right, Charlie, He's
got a point. This is the art, this is the
conversational parkour. Just like anybody with media training knows that,
no matter what an interviewer asks, you answer the question
you wish they had asked, right, And that's kind of
what's happening here. It's sith level stuff ethics asie. It's
(57:37):
very clever and effective, but if you include ethics, it's
just reprehensible. The guy who mentioned earlier I love the
way he says his name nol Chauffon.
Speaker 4 (57:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
He leaves in twenty eighteen. He leaves Atlas in twenty
eighteen and goes on to head a think tank named
the Acton Institute, which is part of the Atlas Network.
Speaker 2 (58:03):
Only on the Atlas Network.
Speaker 3 (58:05):
I love it. Yeah. Actin Institute for the climate change
stuff is really interesting because they have a big history
in spinning anti climate legislation through the perspective of Christian religion.
So that's their parkour move. They created another thing called
the Cornwall Alliance out of Tennessee. The Cornwall Alliance is
(58:26):
famous for a twelve part series they came out with
called Resisting the Green Dragon. It's available on DVD.
Speaker 4 (58:34):
What's the Green Dragon?
Speaker 3 (58:37):
It's the it's environmental activist.
Speaker 5 (58:40):
Oh, that's hilarious. I've never heard it put that way before.
Speaker 4 (58:46):
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
The regulation these environmental uh these eco terrorist propose is
part of a grand spiritual deception and the implication is
that if you are a true Christian, you we'll see
through the charade of big secular government pretending to save
the world by preventing Christian businesses from making an honest
(59:08):
dollar that's kind of a hat on a hat. Isn't
it a little complicated?
Speaker 4 (59:13):
Man?
Speaker 2 (59:14):
There's so much deception in hiding it. It's really I
don't know. It feels like there's too much to talk
about here, guys. There's so much more we need to
get into. Agreed, Like I'm thinking about if we go back.
Can I read off just three headlines that we found
that are from news organizations that speak to the activities
(59:35):
of the atlass network that we haven't even touched on yet.
Here's rue from twenty seventeen. It's from the Intercept Sphere
of Influence, How American libertarians are remaking Latin American politics.
It's all about activities that the Atlas Network had been
doing in many countries in Latin America. It's a huge article.
There's a lot that we could cover in there. There's
(59:56):
one from The Guardian called how a conservative US network
undermined indigenous energy rights in Canada. So we've got Latin America,
we got Canada. This one's from twenty twenty two, and
one from this year from the Australian broadcasting company. How
Atlas Network a master a global network of free market
think tanks and reached into Australia and New Zealand, so like,
(01:00:16):
think about the global reach of those three stories alone,
about the influence that they're having on politics and legislation.
Speaker 3 (01:00:25):
Right, and why the names are so purposely vague and boring,
and a lot of these things. Also, there's a lot
of great academic research about this out now, and you'd
be surprised how much of it is freely available online.
Even if it's a little bit dry, it's important and
always remember that if you go to an academic source
and you find a paper or a study that you
(01:00:47):
really want to read but you don't have access to it,
you can write to the academic, the professor, the researcher
who did the work, and nine times out of ten
they will be more than happy to send you a copy.
We've tried this, we know it works. I'd like to
read just a few mentions of some more academic works.
(01:01:10):
Merchants of Doubt, Absolute banger. This is about how a
handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco
smoke to global warming. Featuring our panels with ATLAS. The
International Journal of Health Planning and Management has a great
write up. The at LIAS Network a strategic ally of
the tobacco industry, and that that one is open source
(01:01:32):
as well. There's just tons of info out there once
you know where to look.
Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Well, and don't forget these organizations specialize in giving out
grants and getting you to do research, you to put
out papers, you to get that information out there. So
we have to remember that individual journalists, individual professors, individual
(01:01:56):
anybody is not untouchable when it comes to this stuff.
You have to choose who you end up believing and trusting.
But it is just just keep that in mind when
you go out there and you're doing your own research
into this stuff. It's murky on purpose, and it's even
murky in the things that maybe you would even like
to believe right as you're going through.
Speaker 3 (01:02:18):
It, and you know full disclosure. You see this in
any university of note and anything tank or research institute,
because people often end up chasing funding, chasing grants just
to make a living. I remember at Georgia Tech, which
is home to a ton of incubators, a lot of
(01:02:39):
state craft, especially in the fields of technology and nuclear proliferation,
there were countless things like this right where you had
to you as a member of a college you had
to have some serious come to Jesus moments about how
far your ethics were willing to go right now, how
comfortable you were with knowing or not knowing the true
(01:03:01):
source name of a funding opportunity. It's rough out there
is what we're saying, and it's bigger than vapes. It's
bigger than a cigarette, it's bigger than hip hop. It's
largely invisible to the public, but these conspiracies are real.
Our second episode in this series is going to be
all about the CIA sidekick we mentioned little guy called
(01:03:23):
NED the National Endowment for Democracy. In the meantime, we'd
love to hear if you have experience with front groups
of this nature. We can't wait to have you on
the show. So drop us a line, give us a call.
Speaker 5 (01:03:38):
Find us on the internet by all means, hit us
up at the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist on
Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where it gets crazy,
on x FKA, Twitter, and on YouTube Video Content galor
for YouTube peruse and hopefully enjoy on Instagram at TikTok. However,
we're Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
If you want to give us a call, our number
is one eight three three STD WYTK. What is your
Maco Mupsey's name for an innocuous think tank.
Speaker 3 (01:04:10):
Other than Illumination Global Unlimited, which is real.
Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
Yes, that's very painfully real. Yes, terrifyingly real.
Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
When you call in, you've got three minutes, give yourself
a cool nickname and let us know if we can
use your name and message on the air. If you
would like to instead send us an email, you can.
Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes a
proxy void writes back, what do we mean? There's one
way to find out conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
Stuff I Don't Want you to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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