Behind the Bastards - Part Two: RAM- Lifestyle Fascism

Episode Date: March 18, 2021

Garrison Davis is joined again by Robert Evans to continue to discuss the Rise Above Movement.FOOTNOTES: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2020/11/18/an-american-white-supremacists-new-home-in-serbia/ https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/nov/27/rams-revival-and-the-ongoing-struggle-against-mmas-far-right-fight-clubs https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/sep/11/far-right-fight-clubs-mma-white-nationalists https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/24/russia-neo-nazi-football-hooligans-world-cup https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/2/22/in-the-wake-of-hanau-an-annual-neo-nazi-rally-is-banned-in-sofia https://www.ocweekly.com/white-supremacist-fight-clubs-apparel-company-based-in-huntington-beach/ https://www.mic.com/articles/191775/godaddy-the-right-brand-charlottesville-rioters-fundraiser https://www.propublica.org/article/robert-rundo-denis-nikitin-hooligans-europe-hate-group https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/the-terrifying-rise-of-alt-right-fight-clubs/ https://web.archive.org/web/20201120002242/https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2020/10/22/a-portrait-of-the-fascist-as-a-young-man/ https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/rise-above-movement-ram Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup? Back in the 1930s, a Marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the U.S. and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition, treason, and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to Let's Start a Coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you find your favorite shows. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut? That he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new

podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences in a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever

you get your podcasts. Fuck Dropbox. I don't like Dropbox. I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast where I don't like Dropbox very much. And also I talk about the worst people in all of history, some of whom are the folks who make Dropbox because it has stopped working, used to work fine, used to work great, used to be easy to just drag and drop shit, share it. Now it's a giant pain in the ass every time we need to use it. So I don't know, am I saying that people should go out and commit crimes against Dropbox corporate property? Yes. Yes, I am. I am specifically and legally actionably urging people to do that. This has been my favorite intro of yours, Robert.

Thank you. Thank you. That's what we need. Go out and crime, my children. Go out and crime. Anti-Dropbox action. Yeah, exactly. ADA, baby. I got that tattoo right on my chest. Our guest today is the same as our guest in part one, Garrison Davis, who is actually our reversed guest. And I am the guest on my own podcast learning about the rise above movement. Ram. Yeah. And now the not Ram, the the name. Yeah, the remnants of haha. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, that was good. That was good. You got to lean into shit like that, Garrison. Never admit, never admit mistakes. That wasn't a mistake. That was that was a pun. Puns are never mistakes, except when they are. Okay. Anyway, when we when we last hi,

it's Garrison again from the Twitter and podcast or whatever. When we last left off for Ram members, got convicted for their violent actions in Charlottesville, and another four got their charges dropped. Chief among them was Ram co-founder and leader Robert Rondo. When when let when let out of jail in 2019 in June, he decided to flee to Eastern Europe on more of those extended vacations. So he so he gets out of he gets out of jail. He's not super thrilled about law enforcement and never like never actually is we'll talk about later, but he decides to leave the states because he thinks that if he gets in the states, he'll just get into more trouble. So he goes to Eastern Europe, where he tries to build up a media

slash clothing brand of athletic lifestyle fascism, which that kind of stuff has a lot of established roots in that area and the whole section of the world. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Ukraine is huge with that shit. Yeah. Yeah. And all all all all these France, Russia, all of that stuff has a lot of a lot of this kind of thing. But this isn't the first time he actually would attempt to do something like this. Remember in the in the in the pro-publica thing and in the within when they interviewed the right member, the right member said that they wanted to stop going to rallies as much after that, you know, someone after they murdered someone in Charlottesville. So after after that, with the right coming under a whole

bunch of more scrutiny for like kind of the first time, because again, they killed someone in broad daylight, the the Rams violent actions got put on a little little bit of a pause. And so they stopped doing in person rallies as much. And they started instead by focusing on building a flashy lifestyle MMA clothing brand here in the States. In lieu of their white nationalist MMA clubs, including brand inspirations like the Russian based White Rex, Thor's Steiner, which is another one based in Germany, which we'll get into a little bit more in a bit. And yeah, there's there's one in France, too, but I forget its name. So in in January, 2018, Rob Rondo and Ram secretly started the quote, the right brand

clothing company. I say I say secretly because at the time no one knew was associated with Ram. Nothing on their website was tied to Ram, except all of the models for their clothing products was all Ram members. So if you were like following the anti anti racist action stuff, you could like be like, Oh, this is the same dude posing in these photos for this. This is they're probably the same people. And eventually we found out like they were they were it was the same guys doing like running both. The right brands motto was style identity revolt, which is is yeah. Anyway, any kind of regular Republican or conservative and probably even some liberals wouldn't find much of a problem with their site or products. It wasn't super explicit

about what's promising as later branding attempts would be. But the now defunct website is riddled with dog whistles. The homepage bills itself as a nationalist apparel company committed to bringing you the highest quality goods. Our products are designed both for casual and active lifestyles made for our people by our people. So again, that's, you know, our our people quote unquote meaning meaning meaning white people. Their website's actually kind of it's kind of a hooch to to scroll around on because it's very stupid. And they they they followed. Okay, that was so precious. The the about section of their website reads quote the right brand was founded by a mix of frontline patriots from all around America that wanted to take part in creating a counterculture

to the Marxist and degenerate ideals that are constantly being forced upon us from big corporate Hollywood and media and liberal campuses. So no note on their grammar there. I'm not correcting their grammar from their website. I'm just doing one for one. I just want to point out that you went full Canada in that a boat section and thoroughly divided gonna be even more white than they are. That's the only way to take them down. You got to go. You got to go even whiter. You got to burn all of your salt. Throw your pepper in the sea. Continuing their about section modeling after successful European and patriotic and nationalist movements, we created a coalition of apparel and accessories

based on these concepts. All of the founders are young activists that have been at some has have been at some of the biggest events in around the country and personally been on the front page for their boldness and stood against the waves of the left. At the right brand clothing, we have gone out of our way to reach out to companies and movements in Europe that are engaged in the same battles we are. We procure a selection of their products and have made them available for sale here in the United States. This helps keep slash our guys slash employed and able to sustain their struggle against the European Union and other sub subversive forces. So slash our slash is a white nationalist dog missile for being like someone being a Nazi,

essentially, which you know, that started on 4chan, right, Robert? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The slash our thing. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's I mean, as far as I know, that's where that started. Okay. With internet culture, like who the hell like I haven't got popularized on the chance for sure. The right brand prides itself on having a quote ethical supply chain. Quote, our supply chain is free from forced unpaid labor child labor and human trafficking. We are also committed to sourcing only from companies and individuals who share slash our values slash when we purchase products from Europe, we are supporting families and communities that believe in traditional values. Though American fiscal support through American

fiscal support, we are furthering our mutual shared ideals to us, ethically sourcing materials and services also includes us not giving any money to our shared enemies or those who do not align with slash our values slash. So they're not even being that subtle because they're putting the slashes in there. So I don't I don't know what quite their audience was for this. I mean, their company did not last too long partially because a lot of their members got charges and were sent to jail during, you know, before their trials. But they never got super popular. They never their clothing company never really took off. The products themselves are kind of just pretty basic athletic gear with various designs on them. Some are adorned with like

Viking imagery and runic letters. Other shirts read Alpine division. They had they had an anti communist action shirt with crossed rifles. One of their one of their popular designs says revolt against modern, which is a little Julius Evola reference, which I will talk more about later under a section titled activism. They sell fuck antifa stickers and modern white youth stickers. So the stickers are a little bit more explicit about what what they're doing. The the modern white youth stickers depicts the dangers of wrath, feminism, homosexuality, third world immigration, white guilt, cultural Marxism, communism, drugs and and and degeneracy being forced onto young white people. It's a weird design. I don't know how to describe it.

Besides just that, it's like these things are getting like fed into this young white person's mouth or whatever. Very silly. And honestly, sounds like a fucking white Aryan resistance comic from the 1990s. Honestly, kind of based, right? Feminism, homosexuality, third world immigration, white guilt, cultural Marxism, communism, drugs and degeneracy. Not all terrible. I mean, most of those are actually pretty fine. Yeah, I'm a big fan of degeneracy. So honestly, I would not protest if this was getting injected into me. Let's see. The right brand's goal was to both set up an American version of White Rex in the style of, you know, the MMA white nationalist lifestyle brand to help spread their propaganda

and recruit young men. But also it was to get the guys that ran a job because they all kind of got in trouble and their tree trimming business kind of fell apart after Charlottesville. So they started this to kind of try to keep themselves employed. So that's pretty funny. To be fair, the right brand was kind of semi-open about where their funds were going. They broke it down into four sections on their website. One section read sponsorship. We here at the right brand believe in healthy, believe heavily in athleticism for today's youth as a way to fight against the left onslaught of degeneracy and drug culture that they promote. We need a youth that is strong in their mental and physical capabilities to lead our way.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to read the rest of it. They're talking about sponsoring athletes with gear and clothing and looking to make sure they can pay people's local gym memberships and trying to get people involved in boxing, MMA, jujitsu, wrestling, Muay Thai, bodybuilding, and other physical sports. Their funds also go to political activism for the few groups that promote healthy ideals and the values we will reach out and help them with our shared goals. It's always so fucking silly to me that these guys are so into MMA and so into Muay Thai, and they're also fundamentally anti, not just anti-globalization, but anti-cultural interchange.

They're against the idea of cultures mingling and mixing. The entire idea of MMA is to take the best things from different cultures of martial arts and mix them together. It's like multi-culturalism in a sport. What does the first word of MMA stand for? Mixed. Yeah, okay. Yeah. So, sponsorship, political activism. The other thing that the right brands money goes to is legal matters. Yeah, they have a lot of those. From time to time, patriots will get singled out for noble actions by fake news or legal prosecution. We will make sure these patriots are not alone and undefended. Their actions will be appreciated. And the last thing their money goes to is to expand, to further the messages of

white nationalist ideals, they did not put white in there, and healthy values. So when you buy a shirt, you're not just buying a piece of fabric, but you're supporting the fight for all of our freedoms and our identities in a new way forward, which is very inspirational here in Nazi, I guess. So they did kind of lay it out. But most of their funds, I'm assuming, were going to pay for their gym memberships. This is what I'm kind of getting out of this. And yeah, I was trying to give the ramp people a job after they all kind of got in trouble at the tree trimming business because people didn't want to hire Nazis to trim their tree trimming Nazi business. Yeah. A few months after Ram started their clothing company, some members embarked on a European

tour to network with similar white nationalist MMA lifestyle groups all across Europe, in their own words, to bridge the gap between the two nationalist scenes. Because Ram really was trying to be the kind of American version of these groups that have existed in Europe for a while. And I mean, thankfully, it never never really took foot that much. But I still think it probably could or something similar probably could. Yeah. Very soon. Because there have been other ways in which kind of the MMA scene has been a little bit sort of infected by far right politics. Like a good example would be kind of some of the people who go on Joe Rogan show, obviously, like that's a vector. And I wonder if like maybe part of the reason why the explicitly

fascist stuff like that Ram has been doing hasn't gone as far hasn't infected the scene as far as it might have is because there's kind of like already something of an inoculation in that area to it. Like a milder version has spread and maybe there's not as much appetite for the more extreme stuff because people have already bought into some aspects of that stuff and they don't necessarily want to. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's an interesting question. Somebody knows a goddamn thing about MMA might might might look at it. Yeah, I'm not if you couldn't tell from the way I look if you've seen me in videos. I'm not really an MMA person. I am more of a run very quickly person. So I'm really not the best person to comment on an MMA stuff because running is

generally the best self defense. Yeah, most of what I do is run on run and climb tall buildings, which I enjoy doing a lot. So yeah, they were trying to bridge the gap between the two nationalist scenes. The big event they attended and networked at was the annual sword and shield festival in Germany. A mixed martial arts tournament and a far right slash white nationalist conference held on Hitler's birthday. The two day Nazi festival draws in about 1000 attendees and is put on by Germany's National Democratic Party. Yeah, so you should be able to tell what the National Democratic Party is based on their name. If you replace the word democratic with, I don't know, a different word. Anyway, the event itself consists of speeches, metal concerts,

and a big merch room and a martial arts and a martial arts tournament. It is essentially Comic Con for Nazis. That is kind of what I'm getting out of this. They have like this giant merch room they can meet like, you know, famous lots of people. It's just it's just Comic Con for, you know, fascists. Yeah, Comic Con for fascists. Oh boy, I bet the bathrooms are just filled with steroid needles. I mean, just just just dripping. Like you wash your hands and you get HGH on them from the sink. Oh, that sounds great. The oddly enough, I mean, or maybe not oddly enough, but the the MMA portion of the event is the largest white nationalist combat sports event in the entire world. So like this is actually like a very big deal in these kind of these kind of circles.

On the same trip, the RAM team also stopped in France for the white nationalist boxing event put on by the Nazi group, a generation identity, who is kind of similar to like white wrecks and like, you know, they're the clothing brand thing, but also generation identity inspired the U.S. space group, then the Europa on more of like the race realism type of things. So I know identity Europa has like a different name now and it's kind of defunct. So that's probably good. But I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure we haven't seen the last of that type of thing. So about a week after the Sword and Shield Festival, Rob Rondo and Ben Daley and another member, Robert Smithson. They have a lot of Roberts. They've Rob Rondo. Yeah, Robert Bowman, Robert

Smithson. Complicated and troubled people. It's all these people born in the 80s named Robert. It's it's a lot of them. Anyway, how are they? Two Roberts and a Ben headed out to Ukraine. Two attended. Two attended. Fascist do love R&B. They had to go to Ukraine to attend an MMA competition at a nightclub in Kiev that puts on events for white supremacists. Rob Rondo actually competed in this one and he lost. So that's good. And then whilst in Ukraine, they also hung out with Dennis Nikitin, who is the founder of the neo-naziathletic MMA lifestyle brand White Rex, which we have talked

about a little bit, which was, again, one of the main inspirations for Ram in the first place. Nikitin was one of the first to notice the declining popularity of skinhead culture and then tried to replace it with combining MMA subculture with fall right political ideologies when he founded White Rex back in 2008. And it's been growing ever since. Around the same time Nikitin met with Ram, he also spoke with The Guardian in an interview. In an interview, he said this, quote, if we kill one immigrant every day, that's 365 immigrants a year, but tens of thousands will come anyway. I realize we're fighting the consequences, but it's not the underlying reason. So now we must fight for the minds, not in the streets,

but on social media. So he's basically saying, even if we kill one immigrant today, still thousands are more going to come. So it's kind of a losing battle. We have to stop focusing on street stuff and go back to social media stuff and try to fight for the minds of people. But again, this was kind of like the opposite of what Ram was trying to do back in 2017. But after this European tour, Rob Rondo seems to take statements like this to heart. He, with them departing from the heavy street based action emphasis that Ram had in 2017, opting instead for more of a focus on propaganda and media than they had even before. In the next few months, they put more work into their YouTube channel and didn't attend

any street actions. Although this was also partially due to Ram coming under increased scruency as 2018 marched on with ProPublica and Frontline putting together the wildly appraised pieces on the group, despite the research themselves being based on it and Northern California Anti-Racist Action and J. Canneran's work. So yay, whatever. Let's see. So October in 2018, Ram members get arrested. So again, eight initially got arrested. Four is going to get let off later. But in the wake of these arrests, they started selling free the four stickers after only four people were arrested. And then after the next week, four more people got arrested. So then the website was completely shut down because they

didn't want to run it because it was just those guys running the website and manually putting packages in the mail after. So they got completely shut down. So good. Yay. Thanks, thanks, Comrade FBI for doing that 600 days too late. Which leads us back to June of 2019 with Rondo's charges being dropped and him getting out of jail and almost immediately the Ram GAB account went active again with posts such as never take a plea deal, always fight for the truth. And they can lock us up. They can lie about us, but they can't stop an idea whose time has come. So that's good that he got to post on GAB again. I'm sure he really was missing out. Run on GAB. Rondo also claimed that the FBI seized all of like the sold Ram merchandise

that they weren't able to ship out. So maybe that's true. And the FBI just has Ram stuff in a warehouse somewhere, which I think is kind of funny. But to raise money, Rondo teamed up with a different far right clothing company to sell Ram shirts and merch before eventually trying to start his own clothing company again, because he seems really set on this idea of trying to sell these clothes and products. Speaking of products, do you know where you can buy Nazi merchandise, Robert? Oh, very nice, Garrison. I mean, you might be able to buy Nazi merchandise from our ads because Black Rifle Coffee has been in them a couple of times. But as a general rule, and we're the only

podcast that can promise that as a general rule, none of our sponsors are Nazis. Here's the ads. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI sometimes, you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse.

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about a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart. And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space, 313 days that changed the world. Listen to The Last Soviet on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science?

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that this stuff's all bogus, it's all made up? Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, we're back talking about Rob Rondo and him trying to flee to other countries again, again, again. He loves fleeing to other countries. He has whole YouTube videos that are just tutorials for how to flee to other countries. It's great. That is, I mean, you know, do what you know, right? Do what you love and the money will come. I watched so many hours of his YouTube channel and it wasn't good. But man, if I ever need to flee to Ukraine, I know how now. I've been given the tools and the information

that I can successfully flee to Ukraine. The thing is, Robert, you have to fly out of South America. That's the problem because if you try if you try to fly out of Mexico, because like, I'm assuming my travel flight is going to be blocked from the States. Yeah, no. Yeah. I mean, really, like what I'm guessing you want to do is you want to cross the border on foot into Mexico because they never check your passport. You want to have a bunch of cash in pesos on you. You want to travel through Mexico on foot or in vehicles. And then you want to cross the border from Mexico into Guatemala or wherever on foot and then fly out from somewhere in Central America. It's not Mexico. Yeah. The thing that got Rondo in trouble is that he kept

trying to fly out from Mexico itself. And the problem is when the planes were flying, they crossed over Florida, which is technically American airspace. So that flagged Rondo because he can't cross American airspace. So what you guys need to do is go way south and then fly and then fly to like Central Europe. Don't go to London. You have to fly. You have to kind of stay in the middle and this way you'll be able to fly to Ukraine, Serbia, wherever. But you have to get very south. As south as you can walk, essentially. It's really the only way to get there. Yeah. Anyway, back to the podcast, I guess. For the rest of 2019, after Rondo got out of prison, or I guess technically jail, not prison, he tried to fly under the radar. So, yeah, he was kind of

laying it low for most of 2019 after he got out of the jail. So before I get to 2020, I'd like to go into a little bit about Rondo's backstory. Robert Paul Rondo, born April 28th of 1990. He was born in Queens, New York. His first real political belief as a kid was just a dislike of cops. And oh boy, he hates police and law enforcement. Because he's one of those Nazis that sees the police as like an obstacle to being able to hurt and kill leftists and non-white people. And he sees them as a force that just oppresses the right and protects the elite and protects them. So he sees police as someone protecting rich people and Jewish people. So something he'll talk about, or something we'll see in video, is him doing ACAB graffiti

and stuff. A few days ago, I saw Andy Noe posting about ACAB graffiti with anti-Semitic stuff. He's like, oh, look at the anti-Semitic leftists. And like, no, that's Nazi graffiti because Nazis are also not Nazis also hate cops. Just because you hate the cops doesn't mean you are also good. Yeah. Um, O.J. Simpson, not a fan of the cops. Ted Kaczynski, not a fan of the cops. Not a fan of the cops. And then to some degree, the proud boys now, I mean, a little bit. They're increasingly not fans of the cops. There is a split going on. As we're reading this, it's becoming increasingly clear that Enrique Tario, head of the proud boys, was arrested today, flying into to D.C. See what he should have done is he should have gone to South America.

And then flown into the ocean and then taken both to the coast. Oh, yeah. One can hope. Yeah. But when I was like deep into proud boy groups this summer for like online chats, um, whether police are an ally or obstacle and a presser of the right was one of the most, like, debated topics. Um, but by far the most debated topic on these proud boy chats were discourse around Jewish people. Um, because again, not proud boys are just a fascist group. Um, so yeah, uh, Rondo's initial reason to, uh, that he says that got him to start to hate the cops before he was a Nazi is a really interesting story and like very, uh, relatable. Um, so Rondo was the young, was a, was a young teenager in New York, um, out one night putting up some

shoe polish graffiti with some friends of his, not, not racist graffiti, just like regular, you know, kid graffiti. Um, the, uh, so they were like tagging like a bus stop or something and police pulled up. Um, the group of teens had to all lay down on the sidewalk. Um, an officer went up to Rondo and basically said, Hey kid, just tell us what you all tagged and we'll just write you a ticket and you can, and you can go on home. No big deal. Um, so Rondo told the officer what he did and then the officer put Rondo in a cop car and Rondo spent six months in juvenile detention. That's because they always lie the cops. Yeah. Um, so this interaction understandably got Rondo to just develop a very strong dislike of police. Um, and yeah,

if this never happened, Rondo may not have actually become a Nazi because this, um, we'll talk later about how present, how the present system can turn, uh, has a way of turning young kids into Nazis. Um, yeah. So real, real stupid. I mean, and like Rondo like looks back at this moment and like, and like lasts about it. It's like, yeah, I was a stupid kid. I believed the cops. Um, you should never believe the cops should I mean, you're a Nazi. Look, even a Nazi is going to be right every now and again, you know? Um, yeah. I mean, for example, they're right about coats. They weren't bad at coats. I mean, they have good built coats. They have good coats. Okay. You know, and pretty solid assault rifles and good anti

aircraft weapons. Like they weren't bad at everything is what I'm saying. So after, after Rondo Robert Evans defending the Nazis, I don't know why I got onto this straight. Are you going to like wave your Mauser on on web on the web? Well, no, this is a pre Nazi gun, but I do want to get an STG 44, which is is is a wonderful firearm and was produced by slave labor, but the money's not going back to crop anymore. So it's ethically fine, I think. It's it's ethically ambiguous, ambiguous. There we go. Everything's good. All right. Yeah, ambiguity. After Rondo got out of juvie, he got involved with the original flushing crew, which was like a multicultural neighborhood gang in Queens, who got into fights

with MS 13. In 2009, when Rondo was about 18, MS 13 shot one of his best friends. And then in response, Rondo stabbed a member of MS 13 that that he ambushed. Rondo got charged with a gang assault and was sent to prison and was sent sent to state prison for like 20 months. It was in this stint in prison that Rondo became a Nazi. So he he went into prison just, you know, he was part of a neighborhood gang in Queens, because MS 13 were a problem. So he was in like, he was in like an opposing gang, but got sent to prison for stabbing MS and MS 13 guy, and then went to prison and he came out of prison, a Nazi post post release, he moved to Southern California. And again, a few years later, he would start DIY division later renamed Ram. So yeah, it's like

he got out of prison in like 2010. No, in like 2011, 2012. And then in like 2016 is when he eventually is when he started DIY division, but he became involved with the camera skins and stuff in in in between there. So yeah, again, showing how the prison system kind of has a way of perpetuating these problems and is probably not great. And yeah, yeah, I mean, and it always has right like when Adolf Hitler, when he tried to overthrow the legally elected government of Germany was was sent to prison for like a year in the prison that was kind of more like a resort where he got to be there with all of his friends, and he had his room and board taken care of. And he got to spend the whole year focusing on his ideas. And he wrote Mein Kampf during his time in prison.

That's what it came out of prison is traditionally not necessarily the worst thing in the world for fucking Nazis. We could also talk about ISIS and how it came together in Camp Buka, Iraq, which is a US detention facility, like there's a prisons bad as a rule, you know, every now and then you run into someone who's like, yeah, that person probably needs to be kept away from the rest of the human race like Paul Manafort. But our prison system tends to do more harm than good, even when people we can all agree are bad get put in it. It's a bad system. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, back back to more recent times. Like I mentioned, Rondo laid low for most of 2019, after his rioting charges were dropped. But as 2020 rolled around, he started to get more active.

Most of his time this year, he's spent in Eastern Europe, hopping around to different countries. He says he's left the US due to, quote, nonstop harassment from the American law enforcement. Which just sounds really funny. Rondo has also kind of given up on the US. He's like he's urged a lot of his fans to try to leave the country and join the National's cause elsewhere. I'm going to quote from a really good article in the New York Review about Rondo, quote, whereas Ram once hoisted banners that rallies declaring defend America. Rondo now believes, as he told the podcast interviewer in a podcast he was on, that the country is, quote, collapsing. He has urged his fellow right wing dissidents to fly to flee the United States and if possible,

obtain foreign passports to avoid travel restrictions like the no fly list. So again, this is part of his videos where he tells people how to avoid no fly lists and how to flee to other countries and stuff. Very, very fun YouTube channel that really should not exist at all. And he has Nazi imagery in all of his videos. I don't know why YouTube still lets him on there, maybe because YouTube doesn't have a problem with Nazis. So since this time, Rondo has also dropped all pretexts of not really being a Nazi. He doesn't use dog whistles anymore. He just, you know, is full, is full, is full on. In Europe, he's gotten an eight tattooed on each shoulder, making, you know, an 88 High Hitler reference. On his abdomen,

he has a dagger emboldened with the phrase, me no frigo, or I don't care, the motto of the Italian black shirts. And on top of it, he has a huge son in red on his right elbow. So really, really going all out there. Yeah. Rondo's first notable public appearance was in February 2020 in Budapest, where he was seen and posted a video attending a neo-fascist rally to commemorate wartime Hungarian volunteers in the Germany's SS division. This appearance not only attracted attention from journalists and fascists, but also federal prosecutors. And in March, a motion was filed to appeal his charges. Just two weeks after his appearance in Budapest at the Nazi rally,

he was in Sofia, Bulgaria for an annual massive neo-Nazi march that's been going on since 2003. And for the first time, the Nazi gathering was actually banned by local authorities just days after a fascist attack in Germany killed nine people. So there was this fascist attack in Germany killed nine people. And then Bulgarian authorities kind of tried to cancel this neo-Nazi massive rally. He has a horrible haircut. Rondo? Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. It's not great. I mean, I'll talk, I mean, I'll bring this up a little bit later. I'll be talking about his personal aesthetic. Yeah. So this big Nazi rally got canceled, well, quote, unquote, canceled by the authorities. But people still showed up. There was a small commemoration to

a Nazi collaborating general taking place during the day. And later, a nightly torch burning march was heavily surveilled by local police. Nothing really happened. But at the time, Rondo had an alibi of sorts. He just started a new propaganda project called Media to Rise, Nationalist Entertainment. Rondo describes it as a right wing alternative to something like vice. Quoting Rondo here, quote, another way of creating a counterculture to the left is by covering everything from demonstrations, concerts and creating our own entertainment within the nationalist lifestyle way. So he repeatedly says he wants to create a right wing alternative to vice, which is a funny phrase to say in the first place, considering what vice is.

The founder of vice found it. One of the founders of vice founder, the Proud Boys. Yeah. Not that vice is a right wing outlet, because I wouldn't call that fair. But yeah, very, still very funny. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so far, they've put out just two actual episodes averaging like an eight minutes each. But on his YouTube channel, he has like dozens of other vlog style videos, giving different tips on how to travel if you're a terrorist, propaganda tips, how to put together your own gang, how to interact with police, how to stay motivated with the left always winning, which lol is a video topic he has is how to stay motivated with the left always winning. As I find funny, because usually I don't think of the left as always winning.

No, really not ever. Videos with like fighting tips, workout routines, and how to do graffiti and banner drops. Also, he seems very triggered when people tell him that banner drops are silly and graffiti is not good activism. He gets very triggered and makes lots of videos defending banner drops, which is like whatever, sure. But I like I like how upset he gets when people call his activism stupid, which is just always fun to watch them get upset. While in Europe, Rendo has been traveling around a lot, but he seems to be mainly setting up base in Serbia. Having learned a little from his poor opsec in the past or poor online opsec in the past, all of these vlog videos has Rendo in front of locations that he thinks looks very cool, which makes them

relatively identifiable. The online investigation website, Bellingcat, has tracked Rendo throughout all of 2020. Rendo was first spotted in Serbia in March in a video titled Thoughts and Tea with Robert Rondo. Just nice. Jesus Christ. Sorry. I just think it's very funny. First these fuckers take the beach. Now they want to take tea time. They want to take tea time. I mean, look, he's always been a little fashy. Okay, we can look at the history of the British empire and acknowledge that. I mean, fair enough, but I don't like it, Robert. And they're trying to take your name, your beautiful first name. Thank you. So many Roberts in RAM. It should just be renamed Robert above whatever. Okay. I saw the point and what you were going for there.

Okay. So the setting of this tea video was quickly tracked to being a cafe in Belgrade, Serbia. In another video posted in July, Rendo was at an event with many members of the Serbian nationalist group, the Hero Foundation. The video also features a free RAM banner referencing the RAM members that are still locked up. Also in July, Rendo could be seen on Serbian TV at a fashist event in which he calls himself like Roman, but he gets like interviewed by an anchor at this like fashist event on Serbian live TV. So that's great. It's funny. The next month, Rendo posted a whole free RAM themed video with video composed of footage composed of different fashist groups all around the world putting up free RAM graffiti and banners.

Now, this video actually has been taken down from YouTube. So great job, YouTube, for doing literally the bare minimum, but still leaving his channel up and all those other videos on how to fly if you're a terrorist up, but whatever. Well, hey, that's good information. Everybody needs to know how to escape criminal charges against you by fleeing the country. That's just important. Yeah. Yeah. The footage from countries, so there's countries from like no different fashist groups all around the world. Countries included are Ukraine, shocker, Serbia, shocker, Greece, shocker, Germany, shocker, Poland, shocker, Italy, shocker, Scotland, Russia, Canada, Canada inside the

province of Alberta, because of course that's like the one place. Yeah, the Texas of Canada. Yeah. Yeah. That's where I'm going to be fleeing is the mountains of Alberta. That's my plan. That's also where one of my favorite musicians, Cor Blunt, comes from. He's the guy who does that getting down on the mountain song that we play when we go up to go shoot on the mountain gear. Yeah. Yeah. That's a fun song. Yeah. And then in the states, we have footage from the states of Indiana, Washington, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Florida, and California in San Diego and Huntington Beach. So a lot of groups putting up free RAM stuff for this video collaboration. Anyway, in August, someone shadow boxing and covered up in a t-shirt wrapped like a ninja mask

with all of the with all of Robert's Rondo's tattoos can be seen in a Serbian nationalist rap music video, which is awesome. Weird sentence. But like so like they have footage of Rondo shadow boxing in a mask. That's like that's like a t-shirt. But the t-shirt is a rise above movement t-shirt because you can see the word above on the side. So like he just used one of his own t-shirts he sells as this mask. And you can see him like shadow boxing in the background, which is kind of funny. Incredibly stealthy. Yeah. So Rondo got a little bit upset that Bellingcat kept kept identifying where he was. So with everyone kind of knowing that Belling that that that Rondo is is, you know, constantly being tracked.

Yeah, he's constantly being bad at not being tracked. And yeah, he's constantly being geolocated to Serbia. And then so eventually Rondo started out just actually being open about where he was and started like, you know, making fun of Bellingcat for being able to like, like referencing Bellingcat for being able to like track where he was. But he eventually started being like saying, yeah, I am in Serbia. Yeah, so in September in a podcast appearance, he actually said that he had left Serbia now. So he's saying, oh yeah, I was in Serbia, Bellingcat tracked me. They're stupid. I hate Bellingcat, whatever. But now I've left Serbia. Except in the video he posted on October 1st, sitting on a lake,

said Lake got geolocated by Bellingcat to Lake Perjuak in Serbia. So he's not. If people who are good at geolocating want to know where you are and you post any pictures outside in a decent number of different pictures you could post inside, they will find you. I did this later on, which we'll talk about at the end of the episode. Because I know where he is now. Yeah. Yeah. So very fun. He got, after he said he left Serbia, he got tracked to being in Serbia again, like the next month. Serbia is pretty great. On October 28, Rondo posted a photo on his Telegram channel of an anti-antifa, anti-BLM, anti-drug sticker that he had presumably put up on a bus stop. A journalist at Bellingcat recognized some of the background in the photo

and actually went to confirm the spot in person the next day. And yeah, it was the same spot in the middle of downtown Belgrade in Serbia. Amazing. Yeah. So with enough online digging, social media and social media stocking, people at Bellingcat were able to learn a bit more about the video production of Rondo's Media to Rise project and find a few of the locations in other videos. I'll quote from a Bellingcat article from November 18th. On October 30th, Luke, oh boy, this is a rough last name. Luca. Luca Karadzewski. I don't know. You're doing great, buddy. Yeah. Falling in the footsteps of Robert Evans. Anyway, on October 30th, this Luca guy, a 19-year-old Belgrade videographer, photographer and web designer posted a public Instagram story

showing Robert Rondo being interviewed by an unknown TV crew. This guy lists W2R, the official short name of Rondo's company, which is like a will to rise. He posted that as a client on his personal website, and he was listed as the creator of a few of these videos that Rondo was posting. A quote from this guy after he got interviewed by Bellingcat via email, Rob Rondo reached out to me looking for someone to hire who can do good enough videos and photos. He added that, quote, I'm not much into political things. I was just hired by Rondo to record a few behind the scenes videos. In the background of the Instagram story, near the end, the words Smurf a cappa, God, Smurf a cappa, whatever, can be seen. Nailing it, nailing it. The key,

Garrison, we don't know how to pronounce something, is just to barrel on ahead with confidence and assume that you can retroactively make it right. I've changed the pronunciations of dozens of words for everyone in the world now. That's probably true, some degree. You just have to be confident and know that you're right, no matter what the truth is. Yeah, it doesn't matter that her name is Ariana Grande. She'll be Ariana Grande to Robert till the day he dies. Exactly. That's why everyone calls her Ariana Grande now. Yeah. Because of confidence. What's what's the what's the fake Beyonce from that from the Christmas episode? Anyway, this Smurf a cappa is a European paper manufacturer whose factory is in

Belgrade. And so then this was, thanks to this, Bellicat was able to geolocate the exact location of the video to a nearby site along the river that goes through that goes through Belgrade. They visited the site in person confirming this was not only the indeed the site of the indeed the site of the video, but the location also had free RAM graffiti beside it and featured RAM social media events being advertised. And so after after repeatedly being shown to be in Serbia, particularly particularly Belgrade, November 8, Rondo posted a video to his telegram, but he opens by saying, so we're here in Belgrade, you know, cleaning up the neighborhood, doing some beautiful artwork for the locals as he's surrounded as as he's surrounded by fascist

graffiti that he does just a tour of the area. So yeah. But Rob Rondo is looking for more than an more than an extended vacation. It's quite likely he's trying to look for legal residency here in Serbia because per public records, Rondo, Incorporated in LLC in Serbia back in July with the name Will to Rise, the same name as his new athletic fascist clothing company. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Doesn't he know that his haircut is like not cute and that he should just stop trying to be. So I can give you one of his phone numbers and you can send him a message if you want. Yeah, we could. We could call him on the show. He's got a bad haircut.

His haircut is not cute and not like I don't want. Your hair looks like trash, bro. So are you skipping leg day? I've noticed your legs are not. Yeah, your legs, man. He might leap right through that phone and go after you, Garrison. Jump over all the police lines. Yeah. So via via via public records, people were able to find two addresses for Rondo in Serbia, quoting Bellingcat again, quoting Bellingcat again. But Rondo's incorporation of a company in Serbia may not simply be for business purposes. In Serbia, a foreigner who incorporates a company can apply for temporary residency for up to a year at a time and can renew this residency with a new application every year. In short,

this would allow Rondo to build a semi-permanent legal base in a European country without having to worry about visa free regulations that limit American citizens to spending no more than 90 days in Serbia within a half a year period. So he's basically trying to move to Serbia permanently and maybe trying to get out of legal prosecution in the states if his charges get appealed. This is a little bit unclear because Serbia's extradition policy is like brand new and it's never been used before. So we don't really know the details of this. Can I just say we would not advertise his clothing line on our show? No. But do you know what we will advertise, Sophie?

Black Ripple Coffee, maybe. Is Black Ripple Coffee and Hope God? If they sneak on. And all of the other fine sponsors of the podcast, including accidental and intentional sponsors. Perhaps WeWork, maybe. That was funny. I mean, I enjoy. I'm OK with the WeWork ads because they're trash, but they're also doomed thanks to the virus. So we're just taking some of their last money before they finally fall apart. How about you say some for your snacks? So WeWork or your fucking water infused with fruit that you give people? I don't think they're providing that anymore. Yeah, probably not.

Probably my favorite ad was when you talked about Michael Bloomberg on the show and then like immediately after Michael Bloomberg had played, which was perfect. That was great. We gladly took his money, to be honest. I bought some shit he would have hated with his money. Well, here's here's some more ads, hopefully for Michael Bloomberg. If he's running, if he's still running presidential ads now, it should be great. If he would, that'd be fun. Anyway. Yeah, give us some money, gloomy. During the summer of 2020, some Americans suspected that the FBI had secretly infiltrated

the racial justice demonstrations. And you know what? They were right. I'm Trevor Aronson, and I'm hosting a new podcast series, Alphabet Boys. As the FBI, sometimes you got to grab the little guy to go after the big guy. Each season will take you inside an undercover investigation. In the first season of Alphabet Boys, we're revealing how the FBI spied on protesters in Denver. At the center of this story is a raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking man who drives a silver hearse. And inside his hearse was like a lot of guns.

He's a shark. And not in the good and bad ass way. And nasty sharks. He was just waiting for me to set the date, the time, and then for sure he was trying to get it to happen. Listen to Alphabet Boys on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lance Bass, and you may know me from a little band called NSYNC. What you may not know is that when I was 23,

I traveled to Moscow to train to become the youngest person to go to space. And when I was there, as you can imagine, I heard some pretty wild stories. But there was this one that really stuck with me. About a Soviet astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. It's 1991, and that man, Sergei Krekalev, is floating in orbit when he gets a message that down on Earth, his beloved country, the Soviet Union, is falling apart.

And now he's left defending the Union's last outpost. This is the crazy story of the 313 days he spent in space. 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science? The problem with forensic science in the criminal legal system today is that

it's an awful lot of forensic and not an awful lot of science. And the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price. Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. I'm Molly Herman. Join me as we put forensic science on trial to discover what happens when a match isn't a match and when there's no science in CSI.

How many people have to be wrongly convicted before they realize that this stuff's all bogus. It's all made up. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What a thrilling ad from Mr. Bloomberg airing in January or February 2021. Dropped a lot more F-bombs than I expected. I just enjoyed Garrison like

stuttering through saying, go Mike, but with authority. I mean, yeah, I was channeling my Michael Bloomberg and my Joe Biden there. I know it was really good. Yeah, they all just got younger and Garrison visibly aged by 35 years. Oh, shit. That's, well, that's probably good. I can hide in Alberta easier now. If I look less like a twink, it'll be easier to blend in.

All right. Anyway, as I mentioned, Will to Rise, Rendo's new lifestyle brand of fascism. It's just the right brand for the company all over again, but even more openly fascy. They have the same like ethical supply chain line for this time with this description. At Will to Rise, we make sure all of our products are designed to be created by those who share our values and identities. All products are made in Eastern Europe, so not only are they made in Europe, but they're also made in Europe. Those who share our values and identities, all products are made in Eastern Europe, so not a single hand touches the production line that is not like my own.

In doing this, we keep our people employed and keep all funds within our ranks, something not many other brands can claim. So good. It's like not aesthetically cute and just is like, just like the font is like too big for the T-shirt. Oh, are you looking at the Will to Rise website? Yeah, it's just like not. I would not wear it.

My favorite thing about the Will to Rise website is that I don't know what problem it has, but it takes like 10 seconds to load every time I change pages. Yeah, this is not. It's very slow. It's not great. It's very slow. It's very, it's very, very good. I'm going to text you a picture of my least favorite shirt for you to observe.

I'll talk about some shirts here. Yeah, I'll talk about some shirts right now. Please, please, Garrison. It's really ugly. Yeah. So on their site, they sell, they sell RAM shirts. They sell white Rex shirts with a, oh, sorry. I'm going to, I'm going to miss Francis.

Falling, flange, flange. Phalanges. Yeah. Phalanges. Anyway, the Spanish fashion symbol. Oh, wow. That's a hideous shirt. Yes, it is.

The thought criminal one. My God. The thought criminal shirt where the font is put. Oh, the thought criminal shirt. Yeah. Oh, that was pretty good. It's just like, and like the person who's modeling it doesn't help. Like, can I just say?

I mean, they have very flashy tattoos. They have very flashy tattoos and clearly are wearing the wrong size. They have a, they have a, they have a reject poison embrace struggle shirt, which is like, you know, a straight edge shirt. That's good. Do you, do you have, do you see their old ideals, new style shirt? No, I, I, I'm seeing the aggressive clothing company shirt. I'm also the one I'm, what I'm enjoying is for the thought criminal shirt, the text below it.

We have all committed the crime of having too much to think. So we've been brand thought criminals. Who made this website? A sentence, guys. Not a sentence from the thought criminals. Maybe you should have spent some time thinking about how to write a fucking sentence. Yeah, but the website's very poorly coded. It takes, it's very slow.

Um, they have a, what? What? Old ideas, new style. You fucking look so. Oh, yeah. Oh, it's great. Oh, it's really good. Yeah.

Robert, Robert, Robert Peepe, the one I just sent you, it's pretty fucking. Oh yeah. They were like, you know what? For this one, the model should have no tattoos. Oh, it's very good. It's so hideous. Old ideals, new style, is that like a boxer? Yeah, it is a boxer.

Okay. And he's like all Greek. And on the, on the Navy version of the shirt. Faker like Trump. On the Navy version of the shirt, you can see Rob Rondo modeling himself with a backwards baseball cap and sunglasses with his son and red tattoo on the side. Yeah. Oh, amazing.

Absolutely. Oh, the thought, the thought of criminal, the thought criminal shirt is very fun. It's the guy has very large pecs and it looks very silly. Yeah. He's, he's wearing a deliberately too tight shirt. They also have several like really awkward fitting like cargo joggers and like cargo shorts. They have a, so they have a bottoms section of the website, which I think is a very funny name.

I do too. Do. And they also sell custom Rhodesian shorts. Yeah, I see that. And the guy definitely, definitely skipped leg day is what I have to say. We've talked about the Rhodesians a few times on this show and how it was a white supremacist utopia in Africa that lost a war to continue existing when they accidentally put all of their oil in one place and it got blown up. Yeah.

The Rhodesians military famously wore like very short shorts into combat for a period of time. Yeah. And so white nationalists love Rhodesian shorts. The funny thing about the Rhodesian shorts is that the Rhodesian military banned their soldiers from wearing them because their very, very white legs made it incredibly easy to spot them in the bush and they kept getting shot to death. I mean, Robert, you need to check out the Rhodesian shorts on the website because they are very short and you can see everyone's very white legs and it's great.

Yeah. Yeah. And that way you can shoot them in the bush more easily. I support the shorts. No notes. Yeah. Rhodesian shorts were a secret comrade. This is such a weird photo, especially the one where you can see that this guy skipped

leg day and also has a not nice bum. Like it's just like not well shaped at all. And Sophie never butt shames on the podcast. I never butt shamed like I am pro butt all the way, but this is not a nice ass, guys. For being in a section called bottoms, it's not that good of a, it's very flat. And also, if you look at the lower left calf, he has a very faded sun and red tattoo that just looks ugly. Like it's just, it's half faded, so it looks just really aesthetically unpleasing.

In the not great bum photo, I do like that there's like a, like he's like gripping his fist. Yes, he is. He is gripping his fist and he's holding something. He's holding a black thing. I don't know what it is. Maybe a phone. I mean, I was going to be really inappropriate, but maybe I shouldn't.

No, I'm 18 now. It's fine. Oh, that's right. Forgot that you're of legal age. I mean, it's just like he's holding like, I don't know. It's just like his really tiny balls that he clearly has cut. I don't know. There's a lot happening.

Okay. That went in a different direction than I thought. Yeah, it's just like not it. Also, the crotch shot. Not a good crotch shot. It's bad. Like normally, like, you know, it's like Mike Pence getting the COVID vaccine bad in the like ripples, but you can clearly tell not.

No, it's not good. Anyway, it's not good. Skipped leg day. What can I say? They skipped leg day. This is what happened. So yeah, they sell the Rhodesian shorts. Amiri had a fashion stickers, lots of fascist iconography.

In fact, if you look at the sticker section of the website, they've actually brought out a lot of symbols on the website itself because they like, I guess we'll get in trouble if they display them. I don't know. But I think that's fun. But they also sell shirts from Pride France, another Nazi MMA brand with a with a with a the shirt has a son on rad and a raccoon that says respect nature, which again ties into Julia Sabola and eco fascism, which I'll talk about later

towards the end, which I'm not not not thrilled about. But yeah, they sell stuff from a whole bunch of other fascist companies as well on their on their own website. Um, yeah, like, um, but all right, let's let's do it. Let's do it. We're nearing to the end here. So let's do a retrospective on Rondo. So okay, looking looking at Rondo now, he's he's very different than the Rondo

circa 2017. He's he's no longer clamoring to get into fistfights with fistfights with teenagers in black block. He's carefully trying to craft an aesthetic of fascism that hasn't quite gained popularity in the States yet. But I think one that very well could. But, um, if you look at his more recent videos compared to his past videos, he's still trying to he's still trying to offer he's still trying to offer an

alternative to the nerdy meme based right and the larpy tactical militia right. But instead of just focusing on physically confronting your ideological enemies, as Ram used to say, there's more of a focus on encouraging classic real world propaganda techniques like street graffiti, banner drops and advising younger guys to get off the internet more and to create smaller crews of like minded Nazis in real life to accomplish various direct actions, you know, beyond just fighting in Tifa. Quoting from a really good article in the new in the New York review by a great

journalist named Ali Winston, quote, it remains to be seen what Rondo does with all of this Eastern European education on how to be structured. Said a long time investigative, said a long time investigator of white power groups who who was not authorized to speak on the record. But in recent interviews, the investigator noted appears Rondo's approach to organizing has grown more sophisticated. He's quote maturing, the investigator said, comparing Rondo now to Thomas Metser, the former Klansman and founder of the group White Aryan Resistance,

who's an ideologue revered by the hammer skins and other skin head groups. So we and I think that's accurate. We have really seen a maturing of Rondo in the past few years. If you look at the stuff he puts out now, compared to stuff he puts out in 2017, he is much more polished. He's much more kind of put together and trying to be more of like a mentor figure to younger guys as opposed to like this like street brawler. And even now, I can see Rams influence spreading in the in the in the young new

right in the States. When Rondo got out of jail, he connected and seemingly mentored a fascist youth organization called revolt through tradition. From what I can tell, revolt, if you're familiar with uprising, a guide from Portland, revolt through tradition is essentially the fascist YLF from what I can kind of gather here. Youth liberation front. Yeah. Yeah.

Because like they have a lot of the same aesthetics. They're kind of, you know, anti-modernism, anti-tech. I don't want to say anti-civ because they're not anti-civilization, but they're they're anti-modern society in the same way, you know, a fascist is in terms of like a fascist, like a Julius Savola fascist, which I might very well write a bachelor's episode on later because I think, you know, his influence on Ram and stuff like revolt, revolt through tradition is is going to be more concerning when I see like intersection with eco-fascism and this kind of, you know, very

direct based kind of fascist. We talked about Avola a little bit on our Savitri Devi episodes, and he's someone who worries me a lot. I mean, for one thing, he's Steve Bannon's favorite philosopher. Like he's actually extremely influential, but not in a way like he like the vast majority of people, even people who consider themselves knowledgeable about fascism have never heard his name because he's he's not like a very showy influencer. But he influences people that you do know. And he's yeah, he's a very serious person to be concerned about.

I mean, he's been dead for years, but his ideas, his writing. Yeah. I mean, Amazon sells tons of Avola books, which is very bad. Oh, it's great. They like what they like they feature is a book, a handbook for right wing youth, which they should not be selling. It's a very dangerous text that should not be sold on Amazon. Like that shouldn't be happening. That's very bad. Bezos bad.

Yeah, shocker. He's a big supporter of revolting through tradition. Yeah. So revolt has released a few videos, very reminiscent of Ram's early stuff, while also drawing a little bit from Adam Waffen style videos. But, you know, they practice physical training, except they've learned from Ram's mistakes. And in all the videos, they're wearing a sensibly black block from their website. Quote, revolt for tradition is a meta political organization and a movement, not a club.

We seek to we seek others to build a community through education, culture, activism and health and the healthy lifestyle. We seek those who are willing to stand up for something. They have topics, they've articles of topics from like European martial arts to the war, the warrior mentality. Here's that again. And standing against standing against degeneracy and modernism. And, you know, very much like anti anti modern society, anti tech,

people need to go into the woods, you know, reminiscent of, you know, Ted Kaczynski stuff. And, you know, Julie Savola was saying the same things back in his day. Yeah. So a lot of this kind of stuff from seeing popping up more. And when this intersects with eco fascism, I think we're going to have a real problem. Yeah. We're seeing a lot of and like revolt is actively growing. Like their telegram is very active. They're posting more videos on YouTube. I'm seeing like their membership grow from from, you know,

watching what kind of videos they put out, you know, a year ago compared to now. They have different, you know, people in different cities popping up now, different kind of chapters. So like it is, it is very, it's an active, it's an active problem because they're actively recruiting like youth and, you know, like, like, you know, teens and people in their young 20s to try to, you know, get into this very, you know, like metapolitics kind of thing. Because like their goal is to get people out of electoralism.

And they're active on like social media and everything. Yeah. Social media, Facebook, Twitter, Parler. Do they have a pod? They don't have a pod, but I'll talk, I'll talk, I'll talk about pod podcasting soon. So Rondo is trying to start one. Oh, good. Oh, I'm sure he should let me know if he needs some advice. She's among that advice will be to drink 409. But yeah, basically the goal, Rondo and, you know,

Revolter traditions goal is to, you know, take disenfranchised youth who are, you know, on the right and try to get them to go beyond electoralism, you know, try to break them out of the electoral cycle, you know, walk away from the Republican party and start doing like actual direct actions. This is called like metapolitics trying to combine political activism, but not in the framework of electoralism, trying to bring it into like, you know, just the mainstream culture and how you live your everyday life.

Yeah. So with the right getting more and more disenfranchised and disaffected with Trump's loss, I can see groups like this growing substantially than the next four years, the same way anti-fascists grew under, you know, the previous four years. Yeah. Rondo actually also sells Revolter traditions stickers on his website. Yeah, which I've seen, I've seen, I've seen stickers getting posted in Seattle, all across the south, all across the east coast, west coast. I'm seeing Revolter traditions stickers pop up in a lot of spots.

Yeah. I'm particularly kind of watching this group right now. I'm going to quote the New York, the New York review article again, for more on this topic, quote, Rondo also drew on the writings of fascist philosopher, Julie Savola, to conceive of the rise above movement as a metapolitical organization that would foster its own culture, making it independent of Western commercial culture, which Rondo believes is sapping the vitality of white Americans with mainstream TV, substance addiction, junk food and multicultural values. Following of all this teaching, he believes the right can provide wayward white youth

with a direction and purpose in life through political and physical education. This would equip young cadrats to, quote, revolt against the modern world in the words of Avola, and that ram made that basically its credo, to prepare them to confront ideological impotence. They did nothing with electoral politics, but they did everything with street politics and building a counterculture, Rondo said of Casa Proud, an Italian fascist organization. So again, focus on moving away from electoralism and building a culture within the youth to kind of get more nationalist ideas into the mainstream that is achievable not through electoral politics, but through direct action.

So yeah, what Rondo himself brought to this project was a degree of charisma that made him able to recruit others, quoting him again, everything we can do that's outside the mainstream, outside of their poison, outside of their poison we need to do. So again, trying to get out of the mainstream and getting out of electoralism. So yeah, I mean, Rondo does have a weird kind of charisma, like he's not, he's not, I don't know, like I watched so many Rondo videos in the past month or so. And he definitely has something that he is getting much better at engaging with audiences over video and over audio. He's definitely learning how to do that.

So earlier, like last month, I geolocated a new Robert Rondo video back to Serbia, because actually Rondo was in the States in November. And then we kind of didn't know where he was. He posted a new video in December, and he was back in Serbia, back in Belgrade. I posted, I found the exact location of the video that I posted on Twitter about. And I had like people in my comments saying that I shouldn't be talking about Rondo because he's too attractive and charismatic, potion quote, which I will push back on, like. Have they seen his haircut? Like if you're problem with people posting about Rondo, look at Hitler. Okay. That was that was okay.

But like my point is like, if you're saying I shouldn't like people shouldn't talk about these guys because they're too charismatic and attractive, maybe you should do some inner thinking, because I think there's a way to talk about these guys. And the fact that you're calling him attractive, instead of focusing on all the bad things, I think maybe you should do some reflection. I don't know. It's just a weird, weird, weird, weird thing, because there needs to be a way to talk about and worrying about what these guys are trying to do and what they're going to and how they're going to try to recruit youth in the next four years, because they are going to, they're going to try to recruit a lot of

deceptive teens and deceptive people in their 20s. So the federal appeal on Rondo's charges is still being granted. And and if he has to face another trial, which is still a big if, because we don't know that it depends on if it depends if the appeal gets granted. So but but even if he does have to face trial, his mark has been left. And at this point, it's just kind of reducing how much, how much that the how much the marquee's left can spread. Right. Will we have to deal with only a few branch off organizations or many, many more? Right. Are we going to have to mainly focus them like Revoltor tradition and the remnants of Ram? Or is this going to spread, you know, wildly and, you know, impact the stuff the same way

like the Proud Boys will? I don't know yet. What his conviction for, you know, what his conviction on his violence set a precedent for a fashion street violence for federal charges or what he becomes a martyr? I don't know. I don't I don't really know what that's going to do because, I mean, Ben Daly is already arrested and in federal prison. So I don't know how much I mean, Rondo was more, you know, visible, but I don't know if his conviction would really be meaningful in any way or if he'll just turn him into more of a martyr. I'm not sure about that either. And all this depends if he tries to flee and if which would be very funny if he tries to flee again, or if he tries to still still still hiding in Serbia, because Serbia does have a

brand new extradition treaty, but no one's been no one's ever been extradited through the treaty before. It just started in 2019. So we don't know if that'll actually hold. Sure. Yeah. So I mean, and if he does feel that means is that I'll have more fun and more geolocation nerds will have more fun trying to find him. In the meantime, he has like three YouTube channels that we can try to, I don't know, they probably shouldn't exist. He has, yeah, they're called like media to rise in different variations of thereof. He shouldn't have YouTube channels. He does not see stuff in all of them. This should not be happening. And just a few days ago, as of this recording, he announced he's starting a podcast. Oh, good. Yeah. Really getting. Stay the fuck away from our

platform. So his podcast, he says it's going to be about nationalist lifestyle, activism, like love it, demos, demonstrations, brawls, competitions, and how to deal with law enforcement. He said it's he said it's not about theory. It's not about political commentary. It's about actual, you know, metapolitics, like it's actually like about getting you politics to be part of just your everyday culture and everyday life. So Robert, for you guys, you know, you you guys have, we'll have a new podcasting rival and something something for me, the one that does us in something for me that's going to be interesting is he also announced he's making a short film. So I have a new rival in the short film scene. And he said it's a short film with costumes. He was very happy.

He's very happy that they had costumes in the short film. I bet those costumes are very exciting. So we have that to look forward to. He's he's still he's he's he's he's still in Serbia. He's still in Belgrade or Belgrade. He posted a video like two days ago of him at his factory in Belgrade. So he's he's still there. And I relocated him there back in December. So he's absolutely still in in in Serbia. Yeah. YouTube channels, podcast, short film. He shouldn't have YouTube channels. So if we can get those down, I know if if we can bully YouTube enough to take those down, that would be good. Yeah. Because they really shouldn't. They really shouldn't have that. Do better. I mean, YouTube. Yeah, do better. Also, good luck with your podcast.

I don't know. Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously, good luck with your podcast. Podcasting Solidarity, of course. Yeah, that's the most important thing. That's basically all I have on a Robert Rondo and Resvet Movement and their flashy lifestyle brands that they're trying to develop and sell very bad t-shirts for and Rhodesian shorts. Yeah. I mean, critical support to Rhodesian shorts. All right, everybody. Real helpers of the cause. This has been Behind the Bastards. We'll be back next week with more terrible people and at some point in the future to talk about Julius Avola or maybe to talk about ITS, which is you're all going to really enjoy learning about when when that becomes appropriate.

So exciting. Yeah. Really, really not thrilled about. Yeah. I mean, I see Avola stuff, revolted tradition stuff. When we get more people. Eco-fascism, baby. Yeah. It's eco-fascism. It's going to be, it's going to be a real issue. It's going to kill somebody, someone listening to this podcast knows. And don't forget to follow Garrison on Twitter at Hungry Bowtie. At Hungry Bowtie. And if you want to buy better fitting t-shirts, you have a t-public store. So I have heard Behind the Bastards. Yeah. And 100% of our profits go to Nata Noxie. Funding my gym membership. All right. Hi. Garrison Davis here with a little, a little hot, steamy Robert Rondo updates. Sorry. I don't know why I phrased it like that. But we do have an update on our not friend Robert Rondo

since I recorded the first few episodes of this back in January. Of course, that was before the siege at the Capitol and a whole bunch of stuff has kind of happened since then. Starting with starting with Rondo himself. It was reported in February that here, I will just read a headline from Global Voices. It's also reported by various other news outlets. This is, this is legit. Here is the headline, quote, Serbia expels US neo-Nazi after investigative website Bellingcat outed his location. So Robert Rondo has actually been kicked out of Serbia during February, which is really interesting. So he is not going to be allowed to stay in Serbia anymore. He is not, he's, and he's, he's presumably not there at the moment. We'll still need to figure out where he

is in the future, but he will probably not be in Serbia because he's not, not, not allowed to be there anymore. Now there's a various other places around the globe that he could be trying to stay in the Ukraine nearby in Russia. So, so that, that is, that is very interesting that he's no longer in Serbia after months and months of reporting from Bellingcat, showing that he is still there. And then I still confirmed in December that he was still there. So that is, that is, that's really interesting. Of course, it's always good to know where guys like this are. But, you know, this, this is good for the people in Serbia and the people in the city he was in that he's not going to be there anymore. That is, that is, that is good. The other interesting piece

of rondo information and updated intel that we have is that then in March, so the following month, the appeal to reinstate his rioting charges was granted. So the, the federal charges he has against him are now able to be prosecuted against once again. The, the, the ninth, ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the, the Federal Riding Act does not violate free speech and that the charges that he was charges, charges he was charged with do not do not actually violate free speech laws. So they went back on the 2019 ruling that a federal judge made, which is very, you know, appeals on the federal level are not very common for them to be granted. So this is, this is really interesting that he is going to, that he is, he possibly might go to trial now on these

rioting charges. Let's see. And so these rioting, I know back in 2018, there was, it was like 600 days from the time that he did those violent assaults and then got arrested, charged for it. So now it being like 2021, I don't know how many, that's so, so many more days. It's more than 12, more than one, more than like, it's probably more than 1,300 or 1,400 days since he did these violent assaults and is actually going to go to, if he's going to go to trial for them, it'll be, you know, upcoming here. So that's, that's, that's, it's been a long time, but it is, it is nice to see that he will be facing some consequences for him, you know, randomly attacking people in Black Hoodies and beating children up on the ground.

So those charges are reinstated. So those are the two main Rendo updates. Now, again, we don't know where he's at the moment. He could, you know, best guesses are Ukraine or Russia. They have different extradition rules, but we're not sure if Ukraine and Russia is going to let him stay there. We know, we know, we know he has friends there, but I'm not sure what the government's going to do when they, if they find out that he's, you know, trying, trying to live there. So that's everything on the Rendo side. On the other, on the other side of things, remember, are also not friends at Revolt through Tradition, the kind of fashy traditionalist youth group inspired by Julie Savola. They have now been pretty

effectively de-platformed after the January 6th riots at the Capitol. And I mean, more than riots, they were trying to, you know, do a fascist coup. So all of Revolt through Tradition's websites, YouTube channels, social media accounts, all of them have been yanked. They're all, they are all gone. The really the only, really the only thing they have left is their Telegram channel, which makes recruiting much more difficult. So it is fantastic to have them not be given, you know, their Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube platforms, as well as their website, which was honestly a well-designed website. So that it is very good to see that happen. This is, you know, this is a great example of an effective use of de-platforming. No one

really is making a big deal out of it. No one, you know, it's not like it's a big show. It's just, yeah, quietly, these things are getting taken down. And that makes, that makes the, that makes the recruiting possibilities much more, much more difficult. Speaking of YouTube channels, let's check Rundos. So Rundos still does have some of his YouTube channels up. I know he had a lot, but it looks like some of his previous ones have been deleted. But that's not, you know, that's, so that that is good. That is good that he has less channels now. He has less videos, but still he still does have at least at least two channels up right now on on YouTube. I think all media to rise and documentary series media to rise. So his his main channel was taken down.

That's great. But we still have these other channels that he's trying to, you know, recruit off of. So that that is the status of Rondo and Revolta tradition at the moment. Revolta tradition is kind of in shambles because they don't know what to do now that they basically have no internet presence that normies can see. And Rondo is looking for a new hope because he's been kicked out of Serbia. So that's that's what's happened since then, you know, not enough information to warrant a whole other episode. I just thought I would tack this on to the end. So have have a wonderful day. The rest of you beautiful humans don't don't don't try to do a fascist queue and then have your Twitter accounts and YouTube deleted and don't start a fascist clothing company doesn't

doesn't seem to work out well. This is this is Garrison Davis signing off. What would you do if a secret cabal of the most powerful folks in the United States told you, hey, let's start a coup. Back in the 1930s, a marine named Smedley Butler was all that stood between the US and fascism. I'm Ben Bullitt. I'm Alex French. And I'm Smedley Butler. Join us for this sordid tale of ambition treason and what happens when evil tycoons have too much time on their hands. Listen to let's start a coup on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you find your favorite shows. Did you know Lance Bass is a Russian trained astronaut that he went through training in a secret facility outside Moscow, hoping to become the youngest person to

go to space? Well, I ought to know because I'm Lance Bass. And I'm hosting a new podcast that tells my crazy story and an even crazier story about a Russian astronaut who found himself stuck in space with no country to bring him down. With the Soviet Union collapsing around him, he orbited the earth for 313 days that changed the world. Listen to the last Soviet on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. What if I told you that much of the forensic science you see on shows like CSI isn't based on actual science and the wrongly convicted pay a horrific price? Two death sentences and a life without parole. My youngest, I was incarcerated two days after her first birthday. Listen to CSI on trial on the iHeart

radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.