Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 1/6/23 Angela McArdle and Nick Brana on the Rage Against the War Machine Rally
Episode Date: January 8, 2023Scott talks to Angela McArdle, chair of the Libertarian Party, and Nick Brana, Chair of the People’s Party, about the Rage Against the War Machine rally taking place in Washington D.C. on February 1...9. The three discuss the slate of speakers, make the case for building single issue coalitions and explain why this rally is important. Discussed on the show: RageAgainstWar.com LP.org PeoplesParty.org Angela McArdle is the Chair of the Libertarian Party. Follow her on Twitter @angela4LNCChair Nick Brana is the founder and National Chair of the People’s Party. He was the National Political Outreach Coordinator with Bernie 2016 and Electoral Manager with Our Revolution. Follow him on Twitter @nick_brana This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron,
Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism.
And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004.
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scott horton's show all right you guys on the line i've got angela mcardle she's chair of
the national libertarian party and i got nick branna he is chair of the national people's party
welcome the show guys how you doing doing great thanks for having me
Hey, Scott. Yeah, great to be with you. Okay, good deal. So you guys have invited me and I'll be there. February the 19th, it's a Sunday, according to my computer's calendar, in Washington, D.C. at the Lincoln Memorial, at the mall, as they call it there, in D.C. We're holding a huge anti-war rally, rage against the war machine. And all the info is at rage against.
War.com. Why don't you start Angela with telling us where you came up with this idea and
what it's all about? Well, Nick and I had been working on a couple of different projects
together and, you know, I think it's really important to work on things that you actually
agree with and find common ground and just explore issue coalitions. And we discovered that
the Libertarian Party and People's Party are both really passionate and staunch advocates of
you know, the anti-war movement and seeking international diplomacy. And so we were kind of
looking around thinking, why isn't anyone else spearheading a massive anti-war rally right now
and trying to get the message out about what's going on in Ukraine? And this, if this came sort of
right on the back of the campaign that the Libertarian Party had done to raise awareness about
the war in Yemen and how much it stung that people didn't seem that interested and didn't seem to
care. And we thought, you know, how do we make people care? How do we get attention? So we started
working on this event together. And it's been, it's been really fantastic. All right, Nick. So tell us
about the People's Party and your role in this. Yeah, absolutely. So at the People's Party,
we really formed as a party in 2021 after we held a big convention with a million people who
watched us right after the Democrat and Republican parties came very much out of.
of the Bernie campaign and watched him turn his back on the anti-war cause.
And so we were also thrilled to partner with the Libertarian Party to put on this event and
show that, you know, it really isn't left versus right.
It's everybody against the military industrial complex.
So we are very much looking forward to going to the Lincoln Memorial on, you know,
February 19th and raging against the war machine, this unbelievable war behemoth that now consumes
more than half of our discretionary budget in this country, $858 billion going to the military,
$110 billion additional on top of that going to Ukraine so that we can wage this war that is
also essentially liquidating our civil liberties in this country.
The first people getting banned from social media are people who are critics of the war,
always. And now, of course, we know, surprise, surprise. It's the government and the intelligence
agencies that run everything that are the ones who are behind that as well. So also taking away
our free speech, also sending all of our resources abroad to kill people, more than 100,000
people in this war that's now risking, becoming a nuclear third world war. So we need everybody
to come out with us and stand with us and rage against the war machine on February 19th. The
end of the rally, we're going to be marching to the White House and taking our demands right to
Joe Biden. Great. And now listen, it's just true, too, that I guess it's a legacy of Vietnam that
in the imagination of the major media, if the people aren't out in the street, there is no
anti-war movement. That's how they define it. So all the Facebook shares in the world are great
for getting people educated. But if you want for power to recognize that there's a population out there
that's sick and tired of this, and once an end to it, you got to show up. Isn't that right?
That's right. Yeah, you absolutely need to show up. A lot of people have asked if we're doing
satellite events all over the country. And while I really appreciate that interest,
what we really need more than anything is to drive people to this event in D.C. That is the
biggest thing. We're also going to be having some updates soon on our website of bus routes.
We have a couple of people who own busing companies who have graciously volunteered to get people to
the event if you live within about a four hour radius. So if you live within four hours of D.C.,
you're hesitant to make the drive. Get in touch with us over the next couple of weeks. Keep checking
for updates to see if you're major cities on the route. The more requests we get for different
cities, the more likely we are that we're going to send someone to pick you up. That's great.
Bussing people in. That's really something, you know, I have a radio show on KPFK in L.A.
And I was trying to pitch to them, okay, look, it's a few hundred dollar plane ticket. But
it'll be worth it. But we are talking about flying 1,500 miles. But, you know, obviously that's a big ask for people out on the West Coast. But for people who are within driving distance and now you're telling them, man, you don't even have to drive. Just, you know, show up at the local parking lot and we'll get you there. That should really help. I sure hope it does. All right. So tell us who all speaking at the thing other than me, of course. So we've got you, of course. I don't, I don't, I'm not
sure anyone is relevant besides you Scott but we've got jimmy door uh speaking of course uh we have
garland nixon uh we've got medea benjamin uh i know that uh we've got also supreme um for mutang
very excited um dan macadams uh who we've got joining us as well great wrong paul's right
and david swanson of world beyond war so we've got an awesome lineup and there's a whole bunch
more people who we expect to join us. We'll have speakers at the Lincoln Memorial and at the
White House. And we expected to be a combination of a rally and a party. And so because we got a rail
against the war machine in ways that we haven't before. You mentioned the guy from Wu-Tang
is coming. What other celebrities and entertainers do you have? Well, we've got several people
who've expressed interest in joining us. Rose McGowan has expressed some interest. We're going
to be reaching out to Lisa Kennedy. Who else have you got on your list, Nick? Yeah, we're inviting
MIA, famous singer, author of Paper Plains, and because she's been super aligned. So we've been,
you know, we've been looking what celebrities out there, what, especially musicians, singers,
have been challenging the war machine consistently. And unfortunately, it is a short list, you know,
MIA is one of them.
She's been taking on the CIA.
She's been taking on the military industrial complex.
She's been opposed to it all her life.
Hey, what about Ted?
And so another one is Roger Waters.
Roger Water, do you know what we've, we've invited Roger.
Roger, we definitely come out, join us.
You know, this is made for you.
I spoke at an action for Assange event with him in New York City a couple months ago.
And so those are the kinds of folks, you know, there's such a uniformity in Hollywood.
There's such a uniformity in Hollywood right now.
But we need people like that who have that perspective and who have the courage to speak out to come join us at the Lincoln Memorial.
Yeah.
Yeah, you need people who are firm enough in their convictions that they care more about their convictions than they care about the Democratic Party and fitting in with the consensus right now.
Absolutely.
Exactly.
Yeah, the liberal consensus is they love war. So we need the leftists. And so speaking of which,
what about Immortal Technique? Oh, I'd love to invite him out. I think he'd be a fantastic voice for this
event. Yeah, that's agreed. He would be amazing. I'm actually, I've been in touch with him. So I think
that would be fantastic. Great. All right. And look, you mentioned David Swanson there. I mean,
this guy, speaking of anti-war leftists, this guy wrote a book against World War II.
which is almost unheard of from the left.
But he knows that much about it
and is that deep in his conviction against war.
I've known the guy for 20-something years.
He never stopped fighting for a single day this whole time.
He's been great.
So I'm really thrilled to see that he's joining us as well.
Same here.
Yeah, David has been an amazing, of course, activist
as far as taking on the war machine for so long, I know.
We're going to join him on his radio program, actually, in a couple of weeks.
So very much looking forward to that.
He's been promoting the action to his whole network.
And so we're very grateful and happy to have him come and speak.
That's great.
Yeah, we've had a lot of support.
And we really appreciate that.
And we're starting to build a lot of momentum and support in the libertarian movement as well.
Clint Russell of Liberty Lockdown had us on recently.
We've asked him to get out.
He's interested in coming.
Some of the people from Gaze Against Groomers are interested.
incoming. We've got some veterans, veterans and gays against groomers who were very interested
in our events. So we are really finding out that there are actually a lot of people who are
really pissed off about this war. We just need to prompt people and give them a place where they
can make their voice known. Yeah. Well, folks, sad to say, they lied us into war. All of them.
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Well, and this goes to at least one theory of what we can do with this libertarian party now that the libertarian movement runs it.
You know, I mean, I know there's always electoral business to be done too, but kind of in the off seasons, I think we have this single issue coalition of however many tens of thousands of members and followers that we have that we could just switch off from one thing to another.
We can be the biggest anti-war group in America, and then the next month we can be the biggest pro-gun rights group in America.
And the time after that would be for, you know, repealing all the tariffs or whatever it is, whatever is the issue.
And so if we can mobilize people, we got an email list with however many tens of thousands on it, this should be a huge opportunity not just to stop a war, but also just to make a name for what the Libertarian Party is.
is now. You know, 20 years ago, they wouldn't speak out against the war in Iraq if you
poked them with a hot stick. But now we're at the forefront of the anti-interventionist
movement, which is where the Libertarian Party belongs. And so, but we need our membership to
show up. And just like I was saying with the Yemen thing, we do this for a little while,
then we do something else. That's fine. There are red flag laws. They're going to try to pass
all across this country in the next year. We can all come together on a state-by-state basis
to try to stop that legislation in the same way.
that we're all coming together to do this thing now with the People's Party and these other
leftists to put on this anti-war show. Absolutely. One of the things that I'd like to partner
maybe with the People's Party again in the future on would be to end the drug war. I think that is
something that we'll be able to unite again on. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of issues that people
who are politically motivated were perceived as being on the left and the right really agree on.
But really what it is is that we're outside of those paradigms, and we really do want to put, you know, human flourishing and prosperity first.
Sometimes we have different ideas about how we achieve that.
But when we try to operate from a values-based perspective, we usually do a pretty good job of finding common ground.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, and that's the thing, the single-issue coalition, right, where regardless of what we disagree on, we agree on this together this month, this week.
And if we find ourselves on the opposite side of another argument later, fine.
But this is the most important thing in the world.
I mean, as you said earlier, Nick, they're risking nuclear war now for a country that most
Americans couldn't find on a map if you gave them all day.
So exactly.
It's terrifying.
You have, and this isn't just us as commentators saying that, we're taking this directly
from the people who are the most involved in prosecuting this war.
Jen Stoltenberg said last month that he fears that this is going to become a direct war between the United States, NATO, and Russia in Ukraine.
And so that means a nuclear war.
You have David Petraeus, you know, the CIA's errand boy going on the Sunday shows and talking about how he, the CIA, and he's entertaining this kind of coalition of the willing that will invade Ukraine from the West and bolster their forces, possibly Polish, Romanian and American forces and whom out whatever NATO, whatever other NATO country you're talking about.
So then you're talking about direct fire and conflict between NATO forces and Russian forces in Ukraine because they know that Ukraine is going to lose this war.
And so that's why you see this increasingly desperate series of provocations coming from the Zelensky regime, this attack, this missile that fell in Poland, which is almost certainly something that was done intentionally as a way to try to draw Poland and NATO into the war.
Zelensky saying before that he believes that there should be preemptive nuclear strikes against Russia, this missile that now was intercepted by Belarus's air defense, these strikes from Ukraine deep into mainland Russia against nuclear air bases that are 150 miles from Moscow. I mean, the degree to which this regime in Ukraine is going is they really have no limits.
They will do anything to try to turn this into a world war and in nuclear war.
And so we have to stand up in our own governments.
There's a sister rally happening, a partner rally happening in London, the no to NATO,
no to war rally.
It's happening on the 25th.
And so we're making this.
That's George Galloway, the Workers Party in Britain.
And so we're making this an international week of action.
They're completely for that. MEPs, Claire Daly, and Mick Wallace are completely on board, looking to spread it to other European countries.
So we're looking to have an international week of rebellion against NATO, against the war machine, because those are the people who are driving us to the edge.
And when Ukraine loses, which it inevitably will, then the neocons are going to face a decision.
Do we send in that coalition of the willing, start a nuclear World War III?
Or do we accept that this is a world, a multipolar world with other rising powers?
And it's up to us in London, in Washington, D.C., the United States, the UK, the main countries
that are preventing any kind of agreement from being reached, having sabotaged the peace deal
in March between Russia and Ukraine that could have ended it right after it started.
It's up to us, the people in this country, to say, we're done with this war and we're done
with this war machine because otherwise the neocons that run this country and the military
industrial deep state, they will take this right up as far as we will let them right up to
oblivion.
All right.
All right, Angela, so what about right wingers, man?
You know, Darren J. Beatty at Revolver, not only is he good on Eastern Europe, but he's not
even a hawk on China, as you might expect populist right wing maga type character to be.
And, you know, I just saw his tweet that John Bolton is now officially announcing that he is running for president.
So the battle lines are drawn on the right.
The MAGA guys hate John Bolton and everything he stands for.
It seems like this is our chance to get them on the stage with Code Pink and say no hard feelings from Iraq war days.
Let's do the right thing together here.
The libertarians kind of leading the reconciliation of the populist left and right around this most important issue.
What do you think?
well we would invite everyone out to the rally absolutely we'd love to chat with anybody who is a republican or a democrat you know republicans are not excluded certainly from attending our event uh we want this to be a real unifying thing even though it's become very polarizing in the country um and we need voices like that to reach out to other right wingers as well and let them know like you know it's okay to speak out against this stuff for crying out loud even kevin mccarthy was calling the war in ukraine
into question saying he didn't think we should financially support it. So, like, you can't
be beat by Kevin McCarthy. That's just embarrassing. There you go. Good. And we still have some
time, too. It's just the beginning of January. So I think that's the issue. And can we get MAGA guys
and left us to show up and not just consider each other proud boys and Antifa and start fist
fighting, but realize that, no, in fact, we're not proud boys and Antifa. We're just Americans who
want an end of this war and we can get along and be friends together and maybe that's the example
that when the issue is so important people can put aside their differences for it absolutely because
none of that matters if we're all facing nuclear winter no one's going to care about your party
registration at that point no one cares we just need to get past this one of the great ironies of
this time uh scott is that there are more people on the right more in the maga movement who actually
understand than there is on the left to understand that there is a deep state and that it runs
this country because they they have confronted it to a degree which the left has not in recent
years. And that is because of the opposition to Donald Trump that you saw from the State
Department and from the establishment Republicans and of course the establishment Democrats.
And so that's something that is really interesting, a really interesting difference between now
and the Iraq War and the Vietnam War, especially, the Vietnam War, where you had, of course,
hundreds of thousands of people come out May Day, 1971, to protest that war, but where it was
primarily the left that was coming out and opposing the war. Now you have the left and the right
and everybody across the country, across the political spectrum, who sees through this kind of
deep state that's really controlling the country and which we're opposing, which we want to
abolish at Rage Against the War Machine. And so there's the potential to bring out a much
wider coalition, a much wider group of people. All right. So back to business. Angela,
give us the pitch, get people to show up, tell them where they can get the information,
tell them how they can help to coordinate other groups that they're involved in, to get them
involved and catch the bus and all the things they need to know to get us there, February the 19th
at the Lincoln Memorial.
You can find out more and reach out to us at Rage AgainstWore.com.
Definitely get in touch if you're interested in attending and you're trying to find a way to get there.
We'll get you in touch with someone who will help get you there.
We'll get you on the bus route.
We definitely still need donations.
We've been fundraising and it's going really well.
So please contribute, especially if you can't attend in person.
This is one way that you can support the event.
It helps us to make sure that we get a really quality stage sound system and all of that.
This is not a small-time event. This is a huge, huge event, and so we need a lot of support.
You can also see our list of demands at rage-againstwar.com. Let me run through them real quick.
Not one more penny for war in Ukraine. Negotiate peace. Stop the war inflation. Disband NATO.
Global nuclear de-escalation slash the Pentagon budget. Abolish the CIA and military industrial
deep state. Abolish war in empire. Restore civil liberties and free jewelry.
in Assange.
Sounds good to me.
All right.
Any last thing to add here, Nick, before we go?
Come out and join us because we are putting our demands at the level of the crisis that
is necessary.
And so come out.
Rock with us against the War Machine, February 19th, Lincoln Memorial.
We'll see you there.
All right.
I'm really excited about this.
I am very grateful that you guys have invited me to speak.
And I think it's going to be great.
I think there's going to be a great turnout.
I'm really looking forward to this.
And really the example that this sets about the possibilities of a new realignment in America
where people understand that the terms left and right are so outdated in so many ways.
And it really should just be the war party versus everybody else, right?
The Democratic Republicans versus the agents of foreign powers and banks and arms dealers
who seize control of our state.
Simple as that.
The people versus the power.
That's how it should be.
And you guys are doing such a great job of setting that example.
So everyone, please go and check out Rage AgainstWore.com.
And we will see you in D.C. on February the 19th.
Thank you both, Angela and Nick.
Amen.
Thanks, Scott.
The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A.
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