Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 81: Rich People Are Deeply Diseased (w/ special guest Brendan O'Connor)

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

Friend of the show Brendan O'Connor (@_grendan) stops by to talk about his recent article in Sludge, which looks at the rise of anti-immigrant environmentalists and the millionaires who are funding them. Read Brendan's article here: https://readsludge.com/2019/01/07/colcom-foundation-anti-immigrant-funds-environmental-groups/ Also PLEASE check out our Patreon and like and subscribe: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty -- we post weekly episodes there, just $5 a month gets you all access to them!!!

All right. Let's get that off the air. As much as I like Steely Dan, can't be getting sued by... They will sue. Steely Dan will sue. They strike me as the type that... Would sue your ass.

Like the Lars Ulrich types. Oh, yeah. You know? If you used a note of one of their songs, they'd be in on that shit. In fact, didn't somebody do an interpolation of a Steely Dan song, like a rapper, and then they sued the fuck out of them?

I think it was Kanye. Was it Kanye? Yeah. It was off the Graduation album. What do you think that is? Why do you think some artists are so quick on the trigger, the Sue trigger? They're just like fuck that shit.

You can't use it. That's my intellectual property. And it's like Steely Dan's like. I mean, you know. If you ever. You can like Steely Dan, but there's not a lot of method to the madness there. They write songs about mixed drinks.

If you ever catch me using the term intellectual property in relation to anything I've ever created, please slap the fuck out of me. No. Anybody has full permission to jack any of our intellectual property. Yeah, we don't believe

in copyright law. Coincidentally, we also have never had an original thought, so take that up with whoever we stole it off of. Coincidentally, we're notorious plagiarists who steal all of our shit from shit already out there. Alright, let's get these levels correctly. So, welcome to the show. Today we're going to have a guest on.

Welcome to the show. Today we're gonna have a guest on. But before we do that, I want you to lay out for me. I thought you were gonna say, I want you to do a thought experiment. All philosophers love thought experiments. All libertarian right-wing philosophers love thought experiments. Love thought experiments.

I do too. You know? I think that my biggest. I count myself among them. My biggest struggle is being genetically a libertarian right winger. You know what I mean? I'll be honest with you. Optics.

I even look like one. You look like a guy that would have a libertarian talk radio show set in the desert southwest. You even have the white trash beard. Oh, yeah. Patchy. I do, too. I don't know why I'm casting aspersions. Well, but your look is more utilitarian, therefore more socialist.

Leftist. You look a little more leftist than I do. I look like I make. I paid $80 for this goddamn sweatshirt. No, no, no, in the weird way that this works out, that's leftist. Me, I look like Glenn off of Breaking Bad. Isn't that his name?

I look like I make meth. Glenn, are you talking about? I thought that was his name. No, you know that libertarian guy in season three who Walt teams up with? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that his name? I think that's right.

Anyways, in the style of true- Let's not retread that, girl. Yeah. In the style of a true libertarian right winger, I want you to lay out for the audience what you laid out for me. I think it was yesterday. You have to be more specific.

You're firing off conspiracy theories to me at a hyper speed. But I'm talking specifically about. Okay, okay, so check this out. The NFL. So I saw some, you know, one of those goofy like left wing memes that was like, you know, basically just making fun of the Patriots for cheating

and how the NFL needs like, you know, like last year the Eagles, yet another symbol of, Right. You know, national pride. Of American national pride, right. Yeah, won the Super Bowl. You got the Patriots, the Eagles, yet another symbol of national pride. Of American national pride, right. You've got the Patriots, the Eagles. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Since 9-11, before 9-11, how many Super Bowls did the Patriots win?

Zero, right? Goosey. Okay. right? Goosey. Okay. After 9-11 they're getting ready to win their seventh eighth something like that. Seventh I think.

Right. Seventh. Yeah. So yeah. I mean the Rams could win but let's call it what it is. Well they've been to like nine right? Or something? The era of Trump. Patriots couldn't win. Here's where it gets a little interesting. Patriots have played in eight Super Bowls.

Okay. Do you know who the two teams they lost to were? The only two Super Bowls the Patriots lost were to the New York, as in the side of 9-11 Giants. And the other one was last year to the Eagles, like we discussed, yet another symbol of national pride. And the thing is, they notoriously cheat and use very American tactics to get the edge. Spying.

All right. Yes, they do. You're right. They do cheat. Rigging. Rigging. They are probably funded by the CIA or FBI. Don't surprise me.

There is another element to this, though. Tom Brady, super right-wing guy. Made in a lab. Made in a lab. The guy was made in a 9-11 lab. In a 9-11 lab. And it's interesting if you think about this. Tom Brady was like a nobody.

Right. Like a seventh-round draft pick, like just kind of a Mr. Insignificant Throwaway guy that goes on to be the greatest. Right, right. A little too convenient. A little too convenient. They made him in a lab,

dropped him off at Michigan. That's where he went to college at. He probably has no history before that. That was just to throw us off. No memories. That was probably just to throw us off the scent, though. Like, oh yeah, he's just a good boy from Michigan. They implanted memories in his head.

You know what I'm saying? So, like, he has artificially inserted memories of, like, a childhood and lost his virginity and his first kiss and everything. If you're sitting around with bated breath waiting for Tom Brady to show symptoms of CTE because he's fucking past 40 still playing NFL football. Not going to happen. Because he was made in a lab. Tom Brady to show symptoms of CTE because he's fucking past 40 still playing NFL football. Because he was made in a lab. They made the inside of his brain with those cushions

they put on the inside of football helmets. You're damn right. They said, how do we give this guy the brain of a woodpecker? Because a woodpecker's brain is insulated from the banging. So Tom Brady, fact. First man with a woodpecker brain.

Well, this kind of goes into what we were saying with the Patreon episode over the weekend. Like, some things are just too damn convenient, you know? And in the era that we live in where things are too convenient all the time, it kind of can feel like you live in a simulation. It can. No, it can't.

No, I'm with you. There was another aspect to this, though. The way that you debuted it to me was in relation to, I guess, the Patriots were playing the Chiefs, correct? Yeah. In the Super Bowl, is that who they're playing? No, that's who they played in the playoffs. Okay.

The wild card game. To go to... No, to go to the Super Bowl. Oh, okay. All right. I never understood the wild card game. Is it like third place?

No. It's not the time for that. All right. Fair enough. Well, I thought it was an interesting and compelling theory. It made sense. I think it's got legs. I think it's got legs.

I think it imparts truths to our... The only reason that they lost that Super Bowl to the Giants was because the Giants backup quarterback that year was Jared, the Pillsbury throw boy, Lorenzen, who's easily, easily one of the most fascinating people that ever lived. Why? Period. Why's that?

The guy, too, he wasn't so, like, the guy was like a superior athlete but just struggled with weight problems his whole life. Right. Like, he almost weighs like 500 pounds now. Oh. So not great at his level. And you know how last week I was bagging on Northern Kentucky and we needed to drag all the rich people out

and force them into the river? I do remember this. Jared Lorenz in one of the few good bright spots that Northern Kentucky's ever produced. Well, we'll save him then when the moment comes to drown the Catholics of northern Kentucky in the national bathtub, a.k.a. the Ohio River. We'll have the hefty lefty doing the honors. Just, are you ready for your baptism, boy?

Man, that's, it's been a, it's been a crazy week. The little fucker's been like all over the news, like went to the White House. Getting a book deal. I made that up. He probably will, though.

He probably will. I say some Christian book publisher will be like. Yeah, go to your local Martell's. It'll be like the Colin Burpo, that kid that went to heaven. Colton Burpo. Colton, whatever. Yeah, he died and local Martell's. It'll be like the Colin Burpo, that kid that went to heaven. Colton Burpo. Colton, whatever.

Yeah, he died and went to heaven. That's another simulation thing. That's not a real name. Colton Burpo. Colton Burpo. Wait, did you ever go to Christian bookstores when you were a kid? I used to love them, man.

Yeah. I used to go all the time. I used to buy CCM CDs. No, we used to go all the time. I used to buy like CCM CDs. No, we'd buy Audio Adrenaline and- I did too. And a cool Bible. Did you buy a cool Bible? I bought a cool Bible.

What kind of cool Bible did you get? It was like orange and brown. It was like padded. Do what? Camo. No, but that would have been pretty tight. Yeah. There was that place over in Wise that's a beauty parlor and a coffee shop.

Yeah. And they have NASCAR-themed Bibles there. That's funny you said it. It's a coffee shop slash beauty shop, and they sell NASCAR-themed Bibles. But that's not their like. That's not what reels you in. It's just like if you're here for the coffee, check out our selection of NASCAR Bibles.

Well, you know, in today's economy, everything's everything, right? You can go into a hardware store and buy fucking dildos. Yeah, exactly. Which are hardware in their own way when you really think about it. So, yeah. So that's a good theory, Tom. Good conspiracy theory. Well done.

I like the work that you put in there connecting those dots. I've not heard that theory before. So good job. Nice. Well, today we're going to talk about another fascinating person, fascinating people. By that we mean some deeply diseased people. Deeply diseased. Deeply diseased people. Deeply diseased. Deeply diseased people. I mean, to the fucking bone fucking flesh falling off the fucking marrow fucking just.

Look at my notes. I wrote rich people equals deeply diseased. Theme of season three, y'all, is we're going to introduce you to a different kind of deeply disease rich person every week. And because there's no shortage of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I read that I read that Did you read that thing in BuzzFeed yesterday? Or I think it was earlier this week.

I don't read BuzzFeed anymore. They've been discredited. They've been discredited. You know, the latest debacle. Are they canceled? Is BuzzFeed canceled? BuzzFeed is canceled. No, no, no. Some people got mad because of some story. I forgot what it was.

I wonder which story. Was it the Michael Cohen thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. I never understood that. If I see Michael Cohen's name, my eyes glass over. It's just, for me, Michael Cohen's kind of like, and even like Robert Mueller. It's just, for me, Michael Cohen's kind of like, and even like Robert Mueller

and stuff like that are like, kind of like, shit, I don't know. Like Bob Dylan, like somebody you should be into but you just

don't ever think about their music really. Right. Robert Mueller is like Bob Dylan in a lot of ways. He's like, hey man, we gotta get to bombing this Russia thing. You do it better, Dylan, than I do. Give me Bob Dylan as Robert Mueller. He's, okay.

Russian prostitutes peeing on the president and taking video of it, and it's across 4th Street. I don't know why you don't pull Dylan out more often. I think it's your best one. You like that one? You think that one's good? You're right. I keep it in the back pocket quite a bit.

That's your best one. Investigating the president. Looks like he took a big fat turd on a hotel outside Moscow. God damn it. Oh, shit. You're right. I should break that one out more. But no, I mean, I totally ignore that when it comes out usually.

So, anyways, wait, that got me off track. BuzzFeed. Did you read that thing in BuzzFeed about the two guys that created the sort of conspiracy theory around George Soros in the 2000s to get Viktor Orban, the Hungarian

president, elected? No, but that doesn't strike me as elementary level anti-Semitism to elect a far right fascist government. It seems par for the course. Well, it's fascinating because the guys behind it helped get Netanyahu elected also in 96.

They were like the sort of campaign managers behind his campaign when he ran against Shimon Perez. Shimon Perez. Yeah, you said. I know Shimon Perez. I know, but there's no way you knew he was running against Netanyahu in 96. There's no way. My first guess would have been Yitzhak Rabin, but I guess he was assassinated a little earlier.

94, I believe. Yeah. I believe. I believe he was shot by a little earlier than that. 94, I believe. Yeah. I believe. He was shot by a gun down in the streets. Got a prosecutor, a special prosecutor case, bringing it in front of the government and the whole nation and the whole state. So anyway, you kind of left me there. What was the deal about the BuzzFeed?

Okay, so these guys, they came up with this guy. His name is Arthur Finkelstein, and his friend, his protege, his name was something Birnbaum. I can't remember his first name. But he was basically really close with Nixon in the early 70s and Reagan, and he practiced this thing. I think he called it negative politics or something. I don't remember what it was.

But anyways, he started this whole sort of new kind of campaign in which you deploy the most negative, moralistic shit about your opponent possible until you just wear people down in a sort of war of attrition to where they become so, I guess, worn down and demoralized by the negativity of the campaign that all they can do is vote for that person. So Netanyahu was a good example.

Trump was another one. You know, Reagan. Like, and these guys pioneered that style. It's the politics of demoralization. Pretty much, yeah. Okay. I didn't do a service there. But they also, to get Orban elected elected they did this with soros they needed a

bogeyman you know they needed a big bad villain and the guy they picked was soros which fueled you know this entire anti-semitic like and one of the guys like the guy now burn bomb denies it he's like no we didn't we didn't mean for it to be anti-Semitic, therefore I don't regret it. I'd do it again. Deeply diseased. Well, I guess the point I was trying to make with that is we need to start doing the same, but only against rich people.

Not in an anti-Semitic way or a conspiracist way or a globalist way or anything like that, but just on a one-to-one basis. And we're going to do that today with today's episode, I think. The archetype we're going to be talking about today is the Enviro-Nazi. The Enviro-Nazi rich guy. Yes, the Enviro-Nazi rich guy The Enviro-Nazi Yes the Enviro-Nazi rich guy In particular

John Tanton Who was If you didn't do the reading Is Now correct me if I'm wrong Terrence He's the head of Colcom He gets money from Colcom He gets money from Colcom

I thought he was the Like the guy behind Colcom We're gonna be talking about a foundation from Colcom Foundation. He gets money from Colcom. Okay. I thought he was the guy behind Colcom. We're going to be talking about a foundation called Colcom. And John Tanton is the shooter. Well, now he's fucking old and retired and probably about to die. Yeah. But specifically who we're talking about is old American money, aristocrats. Yeah.

People who are so deeply inbred, they look like their faces are melting constantly. We're talking about the Rockefellers. We're talking about the fucking Carnegies. We're talking about the fucking, the fucking, who else am I leaving out here? Who else is one of those silent families? The Melons. The Melons. Literally, is what we're talking about today. I thought the Carne families? The Melons. The Melons.

Literally, is what we're talking about today. I thought the Carnegies and the Melons were kind of... They were close confidants, but they were... I just got that from the name of the school. Good job. But I figure all these people kind of run together. Yeah, yeah. People who look at America and say, we've got to get the Jews and the immigrants out of here.

Yeah, that's... They've got that kind of weird New England accent. William F. Buckley, transatlantic accent. Real authentic people. You've got real authentic people down here. Well, let's take five, and then we will be right back with our guest. This week it is Brendan O'Connor, so don't go anywhere. Thank you. Can you hear us okay, Brendan?

I can, yeah. Okay, cool. All right. Well, today we're joined by a longtime friend of the show. First time caller. First time caller. First time caller. Long time first time. That's right, Brendan O'Connor.

Patreon supporter. Patreon supporter, that's right. So go to the Patreon. Join our friend Brendan here. Brendan, I guess you could say for the last two years or so, I mean, if not more, I mean, you've been writing sort of pretty extensively about the far right in this country. But, you know, you write about a lot of other things, too.

But, you know, if you've kept up with his work, I'd say you're pretty well versed in the movements and developments of the far right. Would you say that's accurate? I do my best. I do my best. I know a thing or two. Yeah, yeah. Just compliment yourself a little bit, you know.

No, no, no. None of that around here. So the reason we wanted to have you on today, Brendan, is because we wanted to tell a story. We wanted to tell a very interesting story that sort of aligns with the things that

me and Tom have experienced in our sort of day-to-day lives as activists where we live. But, you know, but that also brings in some of the things you write about. Namely, environmentalism and Nazis? What? The intersection of Nazism and environmentalism. Right, right. What? Strange bad fellow. Say and environmentalism. Right, right. What?

Strange bad fellow. Say more about that, Brennan. Yeah, so I, in the course of my travels across the American far right, I have come across a particular sliver of the the uh far right donor class where over the course of the past half century or so there's been a notable convergence of um people who are very concerned about the environment, very concerned about conservationism, and people who are also very concerned about

what in polite language they call population control. Right. A lot like. And what most of us would probably understand to be eugenics or nativism, this kind of deeply racist, anti-immigrant sentiment that these things have of, um, it's a heady brew. It's a heady brew of, um, of, yeah, of, of, of, of concern for the environment, concern about like the number of people, uh, and then that immigration, um, is a kind of, uh, they see this as a kind of X factor, um, that the more immigration there is the worse that is for the environment right um yeah and and and there's there's a particular a particular set of people who really um

hold hold this hold this to be self-evident yeah so um if you're gonna save the rare green-breasted mango hummingbird in Wisconsin, we gotta get the Mexicans out. Just can't have one without the other. Yeah, you joke, but that's literally kind of the case. So you recently wrote this piece that it was in the website, it's called Sludge, correct? The article's called Greenwashing Hate, Anti-Immigrant Colcom Foundation Funds Dozens of Environmental Groups. So I guess let's just start out, you know, who is the Colcom Foundation?

You know, where do they get their money and what do they fund? fund so the colcum foundation um is based in pittsburgh and uh it was for a long time um it's a private foundation and it was the kind of primary funding vehicle for a woman named cordelia scaife may who is a an heir or an heiress to a branch of the pittsburgh's famous melon family um and the scaife melon and scaife families um and the colcombe foundation was was her um her private funding vehicle for she as a philanthropist um is what she used to give money to the causes that she believed in um these causes included conservationism and population control uh yeah and um she over the course of her life developed a very close who is now kind of understood to be the intellectual architect of the contemporary anti-immigrant movement. He founded a number of think tanks and nonprofits that Cordelia Scaife May then funded over the course of her life.

then funded uh over the course of her life and then after her death in i think 2004 she put she didn't have any kids so she put all of her money into the colcomb foundation added up to um almost half a billion half a billion dollars 441 million dollars altogether um that is now just churning out churning out funding um for these anti-immigration groups but then also the the vast majority of the funding goes to these anti-immigration groups um but then also a lot the colcom gives a lot of money to uh environmental groups most of which are sort of uh apolitical like try try to um you know keep a narrow focus on environmental issues but some of which actually do actually have like uh convey a like broader progressive message. Right. Yeah.

And, and, and this, this dynamic is something that I was interested in exploring and that other like activists and other journalists, like I am not the first person to kind of come upon this information. But yeah, this is a,

this is a, this is what, this is what we call a contradiction. Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of the organizations, well, not a lot, but I was looking through the major grants given by the Colcom Foundation. And it's really crazy because at least three of them. We've worked pretty intimately. Yeah, yeah.

I'm very well aware of the people that work in the organizations and know them almost on a personal level so I mean it just goes to show you that like a lot you know and I sort of talked about this in the essay I wrote about non-profits is that like the constant like drive to get funding and to actually bring what they consider to be progressive change into the world, that drive becomes compromised at some point down the road. who have their own agenda, and their agenda is either just to protect their money from being expropriated through taxes or to try to reduce population and to purify the country. I don't know. It's interesting when i was reading this i you know at first blush you know to the uninitiated it kind of seems like you know environmentalism and this sort of

nativism and all this stuff aren't really compatible but i was thinking about it just like on a local level like the biggest figure in our town that sort of casts a shadow over the environmental movement and, you know, all these, the arts communities and all this stuff is this guy, Harry Cottle, who was, you know, to a lot of people, not really super well known, but was kind of the first guy that like shone a light nationally on like issues of mountaintop removal, coal mining, and like, you you know the sort of

shabby conditions people were living in as a result of you know just the generations long um hammerlock that the coal industries had on you know eastern kentucky appalachia in general and then toward the end of his life he had sort of abandoned all hope in his people and he's you know had this liaison with william stokely the famous eugenicist i think it was at ucla maybe yeah i think so or somewhere like that and when i was a kid you know like four or five years old stokely came to electric county where we're based out of and they wanted to do this program they were doing like a focus group thing of sorts in the basement of the library to see how many people would be interested

in getting sterilized if they were paid to do so. Yeah. Well, and so a lot of these- And this is a guy that's still venerated in the environmental movement today in Appalachia, is quoted often. I was just at a Sierra Club conference, and like, you know, when I say I'm from Wattsburg,

that's the first thing that clicks in these people says, oh, Harry Cottle, and I'm just like, you know, when I say I'm from Wattsburg, that's, you know, the first thing that clicks in these people says, oh, Harry Coddle. And I'm just like, yeah. Well, a lot of environmentalists and environmental nonprofits and people that work in them, it's kind of hard to generalize. But there is this sort of, you know, obviously you have the progressive people who have a pretty good understanding of ecology and have a pretty good sort of framework for who's actually destroying the environment. But then there's people like Cordelius Kaifme or Tucker Carlson or whoever who say that the people that are actually destroying the environment are poor people and immigrants. And that's where they're coming at it from. And so, you know, without any clear lines of demarcation, you can easily see how that can seep into, you know, because the environmental movement is largely just structured around nonprofits and

maybe the Green Party, you can easily see how that can sort of bleed into those places and institutions. Yeah. I mean, and it's funny that you brought up sterilization because actually one of the things that Holcomb Foundation funds is a, I'm still trying to like learn more about this, but basically they fund a group that does sterilization research um because this is something that they want to encourage um and and and yeah and i mean like this history is super the history of all these things are kind of super complicated like i mean like another kind of parallel example um that you're reminding me of is like today like we think of

planned parenthood as this kind of like paragon of like progressive um of progressive values um of feminist values i mean we also know that's kind of complicated by like what we've learned recently about their labor practices but like historically uh plain parenthood like had close ties to the eugenics movement because the eugenics movement in the united states was not in like in the first half of the century was not something that was limited to the right. Like, there were lots of people that thought that eugenics sounded like a good idea. And we still kind of live with the legacy of that in a lot of ways. Yeah.

Margaret Sanger, who basically founded Planned Parenthood, was a good friend of the Mellon family and of Cordelia Scaife-May. And I was reading this obituary of Cordelia Scaife-May after she passed in 2005. And they said that in her living room, she kept a portrait of Margaret Sanger. And on her bumper sticker, or on her Mercedes, she had a bumper sticker that said, stop the stork.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So, I mean, like, these people early on were very, you know, consumed with the idea of population control. Yeah. And another thing that is just crazy to me, you know, earlier as you were talking, I just need to say for the audience, earlier as you were talking, you cut out right as you were talking about John Tanton. And it just cut out his name. So I've just, you know, people were wondering who we were talking about. We were talking about this guy named John Tanton, who is a eugenicist and a Nazi sympathizer.

And he receives a lot of money from Cordelia Scaife May's foundation. But she is a very fascinating person. And I sent you a message on Twitter that is, you know, this thing that we've been joking about on the show for a few weeks is that rich people are deeply diseased. That's so weird. She is the prime example of this. She's deeply diseased.

So, so weird. She's the prime example. She's deeply diseased. So, so weird. And, okay, so there's a thing, there's a couple things I want to talk about with Cordelia Escafame before we get into the particulars. Lay it on me. Lay it on me. The first is that, you know, it's amazing to me how much philanthropy is supported and tied into old wealth in this country. Like the Mellon family and the Carnegie family and the Rockefellers.

These are America's aristocrats. And all very much the subjects of conspiracy. Yes. And they're all true. It's like the general contours are absolutely true. Yeah, right. Well, and it's like I said to you, it's just like American Hab are absolutely true. Yeah, right. Well, and it's like I said to you, it's just like American Habsburg shit.

It really is. And so that's this really crazy thing. Like we have this idea in this country that like, you know, we are anti-aristocratic and the, you know, the foundations of our country is egalitarian. We didn't carry over the nobility of Europe. And that's just not true.

I mean, most of philanthropy now comes from just a few families. You know, and that money just sort of like seeps out, trickles down in many ways. But, you know, so the Mellon family that she was an heiress to made their money in the famous Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh. and the famous Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh. They also made a lot of money in Alcoa, which if you live down here, Alcoa is a huge name because they have several aluminum plants down here in East Tennessee and Kentucky. And they made their money in a lot of different ways.

But one thing that I found really fascinating about Cordelia Scaife May, it's fascinating on a terrifying level, is that she funded the American distribution of a novel called Camp of the Saints. You ever heard of that? I sure have. Yes. It is basically the Turner Diaries. It is essentially it's it's about it's written.

It's a french novel it's written about like the decline and fall of france as a result of population overpopulation and migration yeah it's really yeah immigration specifically exactly so it's like a foundational text of it's steve bannon's favorite book is it really that's where i had heard of it from that. I didn't even know that. She brought that book to the United States. She is singularly responsible for that book being published in English in the United States.

What do you call those? Intrusive species? Invasive species. Right, right. She brought it. Well, that's actually an interesting point because one of the links you made in your article was to the – I can't remember his name now. Maybe Michael Phelan or Miguel – he wrote the – Matthew Phelan, who wrote Menace of Ecofascism.

It's about like invasive species is this thing that a lot of these anti-globalists kind of rally around now the ones that like on the right have a sort of anti-capitalist critique it's like they you know they're saying like oh the environment is being destroyed because we're bringing all these things over here and you know diseases and everything else and it becomes an inroad for them to build a sort of anti-capitalist alliance on the foundation of environmentalism but their view of it's incredibly fascist thing anyways um so yes we have we have that to look forward to yes exactly um so you know she okay so you know that's one thing she did another you know she's given a lot of money for several i just want to read some of these groups.

Council of Conservative Citizens, Californians for Population Stabilization. She's given a lot of money to this guy Samuel T. Francis, who is opposed to, quote, all efforts to mix races of mankind, and has given a lot of money to, as you said earlier, this guy, Dr. John Tanton. And so I want to talk a little bit about him because he's incredibly important to what's going on right now with the government shutdown, with the wall and with Trump's immigration platform. And so, yeah, just talk a little bit about him, you know, the money that he received, his agenda, the groups that he is behind and how that's related to Trump.

Yeah, so, I mean, the short version is that he founded a ton of different organizations and a lot of them have the one that you mentioned, Californians for Population Stabilization. Like they have these kinds of names where it's like seemingly kind of innocuous. Yeah, there's one that's like Center for Immigration Reform or something like that. Yeah, so the three big ones are Center for Immigration Studies, Federation for American Immigration Reform or FAIR, and Numbers USA. federation for american immigration reform or fair and numbers usa um and two of those center for immigration studies and and federation for american immigration reform have they have the southern poverty law center as identifies them as as hate groups which now cis is suing the splc over which will be interesting to see how that turns out um but these groups now um they they were for a long time kind of on

on the margins of uh republican party politics because immigration politics in the United States has, has really changed a lot, like over, over the course of the past century and even over the course of the past 30 years. Yeah. And they started exerting more and more influence kind of really in the wake of as a reaction to i think the massive uprising of documented and undocumented immigrants in 2006 um like when there was all of this there there was increased energy for um immigration reform cis numbers usa and fair capitalized on that figuratively and literally to provide the policy framework for reaction and for backlash. And now in every federal agency that touches immigration policy,

former staffers from these think tanks and nonprofits are serving as political appointees. So these are people who are really helping to shape and carry out the Trump administration's immigration policy as we have come to see it over the course of the past two years. Yeah, there was one article you linked to that was, I was reading it and it was, it's fascinating because I didn't even know about any of this really until, you know, I read your article and started digging into this. There was one article that you read about how the line between Trump's policy and the policies of these anti-immigration groups is just blurred.

There's really no distinction anymore so like a lot of the things that have been normalized just in the last couple years like biometric tests and uh you know increased militarization and all this obviously this was going on during the obama years and everything but a lot of these things that have become sort of normalized in the realm of policy just began in these far right you know fascist uh think tanks organizations ngos and this really speaks a lot to the failure of liberals and obama too because it's like you know by not uh building any kind of base that could counter this they've really just and more than that just like

actually implementing the same fascist policies just with a nicer face on it they've really just helped to normalize these things yeah um i mean i i think it it can't be overstated enough. uh how how many of the premises they are willing to grant um namely that like the border is something that needs to be defended or something that need like that that there is that there is this place that we that we call the border and uh it requires uh uh uh fortification um of some kind whether that's literally in the form of a wall or in the kind of i mean the the the democrat democratic party's version of the wall is just like drones like it's functionally the same thing in terms of uh well it it's functionally the same for the people who people who are um trying to apply for asylum people who uh are have been displaced um and and and are trying to immigrate it's fun it's it is to be fair it is functionally different for like the white nationalist base um like there is a function of like they want the wall to exist because it has symbolic resonance and that's not nothing.

But yeah, like there but there is still this kind of fundamental agreement that like immigration needs to be controlled and the border needs to be enforced. And that's like it's not so much a weakness of the Democrats as they just think they just, they agree. Right. I think that that's true. Well, it's funny. It's like right, literally like an hour before we started recording this, that, you know, it was in New York times had this story about how the, the Democrats are willing to give

Trump even more money as long as there's not a wall, you know, like Tom was joking, like, not a cent more than 5.7 billion. That's so crazy. But, you know, one of the things that I thought was interesting about your article is that so the consequences of this and of these policies and of this sort of like normalization and these other things is, you know, it's fascinating that Cordelia Scafme was from Pittsburgh, part of this very wealthy Pittsburgh family. And, you know, you fast forward a few years and, you know, the headquarters of her foundation are, as you say, just five miles away from the Tree of Life synagogue that Robert Bowers did. This killed 11 people and injured seven more.

It just goes to show you how this funding apparatus, this large sort of group of nonprofits and individuals and everything, it has real world consequences. And I thought your piece was interesting because it just showed perfectly how those consequences literally just play out down the street. I don't know. It's pretty bleak. Sure is. Yeah. But the thing is about these foundations and about Colcom specifically and about the nonprofits and everything, their message of environmental protection and conservation and everything

is that they themselves don't even really believe it. On one hand, they'll be like, oh, we care about the environment. And they try to paint this picture as if immigrants are making America dirty. You know, like you had that quote from Tucker Carlson where he says, I actually hate litter, which is one of the reasons I'm so against illegal immigration. It produces a huge amount of litter. Yeah, it's so absurd. So that's obviously, they tell on themselves obviously because that's what they actually are trying to do. They're trying to paint a portrait of the immigrant that can easily be demonized and that people can sort of rally around and against. But on the other hand, as you point out, I'm just quoting from your

article, approximately $91 million of Colcom's assets are held in private hedge funds and venture capital firms, many of which invest heavily in the fossil fuel industry. And then they've got more than $8 million in stocks and bonds and extractive and energy businesses. So they don't actually believe in this environmental protection stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's all smoke and mirrors, as far as I can tell. Right. Well, it's interesting. I don't know.

It's funny because you forwarded me the article and I was reading it. I was like, oh, little did I know. I'm so naive and ignorant. I didn't really know the extent to which the far right and environmentalism was intertwined. But in a world that is becoming warmer, it's displacing more people as a result of global warming and climate change, these things are more pertinent than ever. They're more relevant than ever. And so I think know, I think it's important to point out, you know, where they're getting their money. And also to point out that people that are ostensibly on our side are taking money from them as well. And that's an indictment on the nonprofit industry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

part of what's weird about this is that like, like it would, I think it would like, it would be going too far to say that like, uh, you know, these like kind of environmental nonprofits are, um, you know,

like supporting some kind of white nationalist agenda by virtue of having taken this money like i don't really think that that true is that that that is true as such and i mean like you like you guys know as well as anyone like the kind of bind that groups like this are in where like you know where where they are like if somebody comes to you and like has money to give you like you're going to take their money right right right um especially for especially for something like environmental work but like what what this kind of shows to me and then like the matt phelan's piece the menace of eco-fascism uh shows this really well

and then um another reporter uh gabby del valle wrote a piece for the nation that shows i think from like from a slightly different angle that like the groundwork absolutely exists for a like reconvergence of like far-right politics and with grounded in like environmentalism with like a kind of anti-capitalist sheen and like there are people on on the european far- right and the american far right who are like it may be it may be the i think is the kind of thing where it's like the conditions for it aren't quite right yet like we haven't quite gotten i don't know man richard ojeta announced he's gonna run for president that seems like a perfect fit yeah yeah maybe wrong so i i my point is that like it you know like the the stage is set but like but but nobody has i was gonna say that nobody has walked onto it yet but like

maybe fucking richard or jenna is it just seems like you know you know vote for trump and right right it's weird that you know that shit is so weird, man. I such an opportunist. Yeah. Well, without a, you know, it's,

it's kind of complicated because like a lot of rich people just want to protect the environment because they, you know, they want a place to vacation. You know, they want, they're horrified by the mountains being torn down and, you know, they want to do something about it. It's got nothing to do with the people that actually live there.

They'd rather protect salamanders and birds and everything. And, you know, in during the forensic coal years, during the years when there was this incredibly reactionary campaign to demonize environmentalists that's the image of the environmentalists they you know glommed on to and that they put out there and so then they were able to sort of fold the entire liberal world view into that and um so you would literally talk to some coal miners who would be like i don't have a job because of a fucking salamander like you know what i mean it's just like and you know and and i obviously care about salamanders i care about the environment and want to protect it i mean i was an environmentalist for years i still am articulating myself well but You're a recovering environmentalist. I am.

Well, I think it's interesting because at the end of the Friends of Cole era is when the environmental groups really had to, I mean, that's kind of really how the just transition stuff in Appalachia really kicked off because then they realized, oh, we can't be the salamander people. We have to start putting emphasis and start caring about what's going on in these communities and jobs and all this kind of stuff. Yeah. But then it was pretty much too little too late.

And the way that they did it was tried to do it was through markets. that's not grounded in, you know, I don't know, people, community, then, yeah, that's going to produce some really bad stuff. And, you know, if you are an environmentalist, you know, you've just got to be extra wary of that. Keep your eyes peeled, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, did you have anything you wanted to add, Tom, or ask or contribute?

No, I was going to plug in there. I forget. I think I missed my crack to get in there. Say again? I was. Missed your crack. I missed my lane. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I'm sorry we were talking about the point I was going to make was you see people like just these mega rich people like the people that run Duke Energy and stuff like the gas companies starting to funnel money into anti-coal causes and stuff like that.

And it's like, I forgot where that fits in in this discourse here, but we had a little. Well, it's kind of like the coal-com thing, giving money to environmentalist causes and at the same time having an asset portfolio and a stock portfolio filled with... They're hedging their bets. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, Exxon is doing the same thing. asset portfolio and a stock portfolio filled with the hedge and their bets yeah yeah i mean yeah like i mean exxon like is doing the same thing like i mean if if there's if there's one company that is more responsible for catastrophic climate change than exxon i don't know what it is but now

they are like they're hedging their bets like They're investing in green energy and green infrastructure. But as you say, it's still dependent on the logic of markets and the profit motive. And I think it's clear to anybody on the left that that is always going to bring you back to the same place where you're looking to make money and we're going to end up in the same catastrophe that we're trying to get away from until you break that logic. Right. Well, the interesting thing about it is that like when rich people want to you know conserve things when they want to protect the environment and everything

it's just this really bizarre sort of um cognitive dissonance because it's like you realize that the environment you know is the way it is because we extract resources for profit is the way it is because we extract resources for profit. There's no, there's that's, that's all there is to it. It's like we take mountains apart to get the coal out, to burn it for profit.

And so that means it's just rampant. It's, and it's totally tied to markets. And so it's just like rich people trying to actually protect that is, um, it's not going to result in anything. You know, it might result in a few conservation tracks and stuff like that but it's not going to actually um solve the problem and so in that sort of contradiction that's where sort of fascists can step in and and you know people like you know cordelia scaife may and other people who can say

well okay so then the problem is poor people the problem is immigrants we can do something about that and we'll put millions of dollars to it and um you know through the sort of decades-long process of that then you get this guy trump trying to build a wall and inciting all this you know hatred towards immigrants and other things. It's, I don't know, it's got to stay on your toes, I guess. And that's why we all have to vote for Bernie Sanders. That's why you got to get out the vote, man. That's why you got to get out the vote.

GTFO. Don't forget to register to vote yeah don't forget vote Ojeda early and often oh no Jesus Christ I probably shouldn't say that a lot of leftists would run with that it's amazing how he slipped through the filter

like that yeah for sure well well you know that i think that's pretty much everything i wanted to to to cover um you know there was one other thing and this again just shows you how ignorant and and you know i don't know i guess focused on other things there's just one other thing that I thought was pretty fascinating that I wrote down was one of these groups, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, took a lot of money to, you know, make videos and stuff about people who had been killed by immigrants. And one of the campaigns they really ran with was um for what was her name kate

kate steinle yes yeah you know and so it for a while there they were calling the wall like kate's wall and they wanted kate's law is this the one like her parents stepped in and was like no quit using my daughter as like your football or whatever yeah yeah i think her parents that's the one that's most recent like maybe a couple months ago it was that that was more recent kate kate the kate finally incident was i think in 2017 right i think you're right yeah i don't i don't know that her i don't remember if her her parents weighed in on it yeah what's interesting because i didn't i hadn't even heard of this so i started reading and you know you've got richard spencer and all these right um you know nazis and white nationalists and everybody um just pouring all kinds of you know time and resources into this

campaign you know and the way that it mirrors you know certain elements of how they demonize jews and nazi germany and everything it really just it's so disturbing it's so truly disturbing and um you know it's but the thing about it is that you know through reporting like yours and other people who point this out is that like you can see where the money comes from and how these sort of campaigns and things get started and So, you know, thank you for all your hard work Brendan you do a very good job fine It's scrambling my brain Look you would have to be superhuman for it not to scramble Only Tom here is part superhuman. That's why I'm so excited to talk to you, Tom.

Stop, stop. Well, I don't have much more to add. I just want to tell everybody to go check out, you know, Brendan's work. You've also written a lot for other sites, you know, Splinter, right? And where else can people find your work, Brendan? Oh, God. I'm not sure why they would want to. I'm freelance now.

I was at Splinter for a while. What's your Twitter handle? Follow me on Twitter. Maybe find Brendan at the happy hour meetup of Young Socialist and Sean McGill. How dare you? Who do you think you are? You don't have a lid. Oh, man.

That was the bleakest thing I think I might have read this week. I mean, so, I mean, this is really weird. And this is completely off topic. But, like, I just want to, like, push a little bit of a counter narrative here that there is some really interesting things happening in amongst media workers like people who work in media

young people who are coming to understand themselves as a class and like as people who like sell their labor yes whose labor is exploited yeah and and and you know like that like to me like as i mean full disclosure this is something that i'm like very involved in um but like that's very exciting and i think that's really important and i think that that's like way more important than like politically for,

I think it was way more important politically than like stuff like what's gets written about in, in, in five 38. Um, because like, you know, when, when people who, and, and to be fair, like they're like, most of the people that work in in media in new york city are like downwardly mobile like upper middle class like come come from comfortable backgrounds not everybody far from everyone but definitely that's like probably i would venture i guess it's the overwhelming majority but like when those when those people come to understand

themselves as workers like that changes the way that they write about the world. Yeah. It changes the way that they, like, understand the things that are happening outside of New York City. And so, like, media people get a bad rap, but, like, and fair enough, because there's a lot of really terrible we're like we're mostly pretty terrible um but but like um i just want to like and i don't know if any of them are any of them are listening or or if if any it like i just want to like acknowledge that uh there there are good there's good organizing happening in the media world.

And and hopefully in the long run that that will start to change people's consciousness. together to struggle against, you know, this very basic fundamental fact of our society, which is that you have a manager and his interests are not yours and he will fuck you over, you know, the first chance he gets. And, you know, it's funny, you know, right after I got fired for the essay that I wrote, Tom was like, you know, these nonprofit workers need to sort of look towards what y'all are doing in the media and sort of unionize in the same way. Like that's a very good, you know, model and a very good example of like what nonprofit workers should do as well, because it's very similar. I mean, it's not the New York media, but it is like your sort of structure in, you know, in political economy. It is very similar.

You're of the sort of professional nature. And we all have in common, we have no calluses on our hands. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, well. For sure. Dishpan hands. Right, right.

I'm glad you threw that in there because that's something that I think a lot of our listeners need to hear, whether they work in the media or a nonprofit or whatever. Yeah. Well, Brendan, we won't take up any more of your time, but this has been a really fun interview. We'll have to do it again. Yeah. I'll come back and talk about electoralism. Yeah.

That's what we always go back to when we're drawing content. We get a lot of mileage out of that. Are you against it now or are you still for it? I am against it, I guess, in the grand scheme of things. I think that it can be a good place for the working class to gain make gains okay get them gains uh but jesus christ but i don't think that um look this like we have got to uh as the left we have to be able to see a society beyond what we have. And and, you know, I think the problems in front of us are so immense.

They're so profoundly immense that like just tinkering with them and trying to reform them aren't going to do anything. We need revolutionary transformation. If electoralism can get us there, and if the working class wants to use that to get us there, then I'm all in. And I think that communists, people that consider themselves communists, need to try to figure out a way to build a revolutionary consciousness within that movement. But if the working class is not interested in that, and if electoralism does not make us, you know,

point in that direction, then we need to fucking abandon it and, you know, I don't know, build a, like I said, a revolutionary class consciousness in the working class. I'm going to walk in here one day and have a Bernie 2020 shirt on, like Hulk Hogan when he went NWO. Terrence is going to walk in here one day and have a Bernie 2020 shirt on like Hulk Hogan when he went NWO.

Terrence is going to have a coronary. I just need to update my spreadsheet on what does Terrence think about voting this week. Sounds like right now it's like maybe. Is it Bernie bitch? What is it? Say it right now who's like maybe. Yeah. Is it Bernie, bitch? What is it?

Say it right now who you're voting for. Oh, man, this is so embarrassing that I voted for Jill Stein the last two elections. Hell yeah, dude. Hell yeah. That's so metal. My protest votes. Yeah, if I couldn't have crystals and live in a tiny house. You know, whatever.

If Bernie's the candidate, I'll fucking vote for him, but I'm not going to. I think this is kind of a, it's like there's a difference between like punching one in for somebody and then like going and beating the bushes and, you know. Well, look, I was talking to Tom the other day everybody's gonna fucking vote for Bernie that's like I was talking to Tom the other day and what I said is that if they'll let us in if you know the sort of

our revolution or whatever wants to let us in if they'll have us as guests then it is our duty to try to carve out a space in that movement that is revolutionary, that is highly skeptical of this nation's institutions and electoral institutions and processes. To the extent that the working class is interested in that, and if they show interest in Bernie,

then we absolutely have to do that. But it is not our job to build the case for him. I'll say this anecdotally, and this is a little bit building the case. But anecdotes. Strictly anecdotes. So my mom

just retired. She worked for the city of Whitesburg for almost 30 years. This sounds like a stump speech. Kind of is. I'm going to challenge Hal Rogers for Kentucky 5 five i don't know if you knew this but he served on city council man he ran elections so and i lost two more after that so my mom worked for city weisford for almost 30 years single parent never made more than 13 bucks an hour and she retired in may and has had to go back to cleaning offices to earn a little extra money on the side. She's on Medicare, but as it turns out, Medicare costs a little bit every month, even in retirement.

So I think that's something we need to talk about with Medicare for All and all that stuff. And so I was talking to her the other day, and she brings up to me unprompted that she's hearing that Bernie's going to run and breaks down in tears and says, we got to get behind him. So I don't know. You know, if that's a source of hope for people. I didn't say no to that. That's a source of hope for people. How do I say no to that?

Now, Tom's mom is crying. Look, it's like I said. We use that situation to our advantage. I don't think that – I'm incredibly concerned that if Bernie does win, it'll wind up just repeating 2008 and we'll just keep on this same sort of process that we do where they get an office, they sell us down the river the first chance they get, whatever. You know, I'm not one of these people that's like the people for Bernie want jobs in his campaign or administration or whatever. I mean, you know, we got to have at least some amount of good faith as we engage in all this but I just I have concerns

and I think that I think that working people are smart and if you can if you make an honest effort in the space that his campaign creates to criticize the fuck out of it and out of the whole process

that could be pretty advantageous for us and so um i i don't i do not condone it but um but i am all about using it cynically he wants plausible deniability if it all goes to pot that's what it is no i have always hated presidential elections i'll always look i'm always the ink i'm always going to be the angsty 16-year-old. You're always going to have concerns. I'm always going to be a concerned citizen. Right, right, right.

But anyways, I need to work on articulating that a little better. No, I got you. Click it. Okay, before we. No, I got you. Click it. Okay, before I wrap up, I have a question. And this is a sincere question, and I'm only a little bit embarrassed to be asking this on the record, but I want to get you guys on the record about it. Yeah, okay, all right.

Ah, fuck. Y'all. Y'all. What do you think i have a lot of thoughts this is one of my favorite subjects yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah have you talked about this on the pod before people sort of okay so like i'm right so like i'm from new jersey I went to college in Ohio. Now I live in New York. I refer to people as y'all. Okay.

Would refer to a group of people as y'all. All right. Because it, oh my God, I could just heard my girlfriend say, oh no. That's how you. Good gender plural it is second person pronoun right right rolls off the tongue yeah right it does it's fun to it's fun to say i didn't grow up saying it but but you know i i feel like i feel like i uh i feel like I own it.

Yeah, yeah, okay. But what do you think about that? Tom, maybe you want me to go first or do you want to go first? Go first. All right. You know me. I, you know, always have to dismantle sacred cows, and I think it's hilarious if people in Canada use y'all. Whatever pisses off the people. The y'all stars. The y'all and whatever whatever pisses off the people uh

y'all stars the y'all stars as me and tom called him i'm all for it and so uh yeah if people in fucking saskatchewan want to start using y'all i think it's hilarious y'all's definitely went mainstream i think i think you were into y'all before anybody else was into y'all well no not necessarily not necessarily i'm not not saying that what i'm saying is that yeah you're right i think in terms of gender neutrality and all that stuff it's good there's a phenomenon in this sort of like um you know me and terrence refer to it as the all-star movement but it's like sort of this like um this new south thing where like all these james beard award-winning restaurants that pay their dishwashers $2 an hour,

and they're reviving the cuisine of the Geechee peoples of South Carolina that were brought here to work the rice and sugarcane fields and all this shit. And those people do something I call the gratuitous, y'all. Yeah. Where they'll just try to just inject it as much as they can in a sense and it just sounds so jarring to me like to me a good y'all should sound like the intrusive r that english people use it's just like it just helps the sentence flow better you know yeah the what you know like english people like the intrusive r yeah do that for me so like if if you're an English person and like a word you use in the middle of a sentence

ends in A, you'll put an R on the end. Yeah, yeah. Like America. Or they'll say Obama. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Obama. Obama. Obama.

Yeah, Obama. Obama. Yeah. Right. A good y'all should kind of sound like that. Just like it should be, it should have a utility I think. Yeah. All think. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, no, there is a bourgeois movement in the South. Of course, like I said, me and Tom have identified it. We've called it the y'all star movement or whatever. It's the entire gun culture. Yes, it's entirely bourgeois. So if the working classes want to use y'all, that's great because I think it probably pisses off the bourgeois um so if the working classes want to use y'all uh that's great because i think it probably pisses off the bourgeois but they want to use it for their own sort of like holler cred because you got to realize the all-stars want more than anything they want holler cred they want to they want to be able to be like oh yeah no i'm i uh i'm from east kentucky like you know my my great

great great great grandparents are from East Kentucky anyways. Right. And so that's... Sure you are bad. They want to be real authentic people. Real authentic people. They want to be like Cordelia Scaife May. It's so funny.

Earlier when I was reading about her, I just kept saying her name in that voice to myself. We've got to get the Jews and immigrants out of this country. We've got to purify it. Jesus Christ, that's terrifying. Wash the streets of the litter with real authentic people. No, yeah, no. You know, y'all, I support you using it, Brendan You have my full support

If anybody gives you any scuff Just send them to me Give the Tribble a stamp of approval Hell yeah That's all I've ever wanted You know, we're all about Smashing culture anyways Like I said, Tom

The only governmental appointment I ever want after the revolution is I want to lead the Appalachian Regional Commission and just bust people's doors in and steal their fucking cast iron skillets and banjos. Just my program of Appalachian culture eradication. Jesus Christ. Oh, man. We're talking real revolution hours, baby. Yeah.

We'll get you set up. We'll get you set up right quick. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Brendan. Yeah, man. It was fun.

It was a lot of fun yeah let's do this again sometime soon yeah yeah maybe even in real life we might be coming up there in mayish yeah if all yeah if all goes according to plan right right all right um and earlier i missed your twitter handle could you tell the audience once again what that is? I would love nothing more. It's at underscore Grendan with a G. Okay. G-R-E-N-D-A-N. Great.

All right. Well, you can find Brendan on Twitter where you can find all of us because that's where we're imprisoned. That's where we live. That's where we live. So, anyway. See you in hell, you rotten motherfuck we live so anyway see you in hell you're out motherfuckers we'll see you later brennan all right y'all see ya