Part One: Roundtable on the Future of Terrorism

I was able to record these fine people. It's split up into two sections, so part one is coming out today, Part two is coming out to tomorrow. Highly recommend you listen to both, maybe maybe even back to back at some point because it does really give a nice rounded out um view of what we were talking about. So, without further ado, here is my discussion with I kind of know, well, not not a dozen, but of a lot a large amount of terrorism researchers. As we are

all uh in the woods. As you will soon find out, Welcome to it can happened here The Daily Show. I am Garrison Davis, and I am recording in an undisclosed location in the woods. Um. We are me and a few a few internet colleagues are all hiding from the

world for a week to reset our poisoned brains. But I'm gonna slightly re poison us here for about an hour to have a discussion about climate change and terrorism, because all we have a group of people here who are all well research the bad thing online a lot. So I'm going to try to try to use to take advantage of having this uh unique group of people all in one location to have this nice discussion for you guys. But yeah, specifically we want to we want to talk about how we how each of us has

an you know, quote unquote expert in certain fields. Um see climate change impacting, imply acting extremism and terrorism in the next in the next few decades. Um. And yes, we are recording in the forest, So if you hear sounds like we're in the forest, that's because we are. Um. You you guys already know me, or you probably do. But I'm gonna We're gonna go around a circle, probably starting on my left, um, introducing the people, and yeah, just give a brief a brief brief bio, however detail

do you want to get into. My name's Matt Taylor. I'm a journalist and researcher focusing on cults, um, conspiracy theories and extremism. And to day is my birthday, Happy Birthday, Matt. In the in the past, my name's THEO. I am a journalist and researcher as well. I mostly focused on the American militia movement and paramilitary groups. I'm toothpick Um with THEO, Matt Emmy and Big New Houses. Isn't here on terrorism? Bat that's that's a that's a podcast, by

the way, self plug um. My research and reporting focuses on mainly on conspiracy theories and where that overlaps with political extremism and the focus on connections between US in Europe, especially Germany. I'm Peter Smith. I'm a journalist with the Canadian Anti Hate Network and the host of the Unusual Show podcast. I'm Lily and I focus on extermism and kind of terrorism and data analysis. And I'm Emmy. I do digital propaganda and rhetoric. That that that is our

little crew. Um. Yeah, let's see what the first thing we kind of want to talk about, I'm guessing is how we see like small because like the podcast is more about like smaller local collapses, like we don't there's not gonna be one big class. Where is the small thing to start to fall apart? And how we see when small things all apart, what we do we see filling in those gaps. Specifically, I think this will tie into the militia movement a lot in a lot of ways. UM.

So yeah, you guys can start sprouting off your your knowledge. Yeah. So one of the things that I've been thinking of and following it. I don't know if this has made as much of an impact in US media. UM, but in the last month UM, parts of Germany and the Netherlands experienced UM, really bad flooding UM that that literally wiped out some villages in some towns. UM. And one of the things that we've seen in Germany is you know,

far right groups. UM. There isn't really a militia movement because it all laws there, but but far right groups rushing in UM and collecting aid and going for photo ops UH in those catastrophe areas. UM. And what that does make me think of and maybe THEO can talk

more about this. Eyes we've seen smilar stuff in the US with the militia moving marking themselves as you know, emergency preparedness UM or marking them selves in that way and positioning themselves where when you know the government is unable to respond, that these groups are able to come in UM and also using that for their messaging and for their rhetoric. Yeah. So, I mean that is something

that you see in the US. The biggest example Garrison and I talked about this earlier, but during the wildfires in Oregon last year, you saw checkpoints being established by militia groups, whether are already formed militia groups are kind of impromptu armed bands, And you also see that as like a big marketing thing. I know a lot of the Virginia based militias that I follow went out to Tennessee two one or two years ago when the tornadoes happened. Yeah,

they did a bunch of kind of aid and photo ops. Yeah. So, just not to docks myself, but I'm from Nashville. And then, uh, the beginning of in March, right before you own, someone just dropped a toy gun. Great job, guys. Yeah. So in the beginning of March of last year, right before COVID hit Nashville, we had a huge tornado go through Nashville itself and wipe out like two different neighborhoods and

then a rural town right outside of Nashville. But you saw a lot of like so the community that comes together in this really nice display of mutual aid to do all the clean up basically before any official cruise could get there. But with that you also sell like these far right groups coming in for photo ops and it just it normalizes their presence in heavily impacted areas

and it was not not ideal. Yeah, a lot of the American militia movement, especially the modern kind of post two thous strain of it, is dedicated on this idea of a complete breakdown of order or a loss of

civil order, however you conceive of that. And um, these like climate disasters that are going to hit areas are going to kind of provide a self fulfilling prophecy for these people to step in and say like, oh no, you need some sort of armed force, You need some sort of group of people to keep order and to

keep law in whatever way they conceive of that. Do think it's interesting you guys talking about kind of like the photo op thing that they do, Because when the wildfire has happened in Oregon, all of the actual like relief work was done by anti fascists, like we like people in Portland, we set up, you know, these these massive camps to help we know all these like you know, much more conservative people who who have who are to that wait their back to their homes and they were

all getting fed and all like their closes that were coming from anti fascists and the all the right did was do the arm checkpoints thing. But interesting that like in the South where there's less anti fascists, like you know, compared to the generals, compared to the Portland right, how some of those groups actually you do some of the relief effort um and that that's definitely not the case up here in the in the West coast. Oh yeah, I mean last year, I remember a few county level

militias that I follow in Virginia. We're like seriously doing relief work, like they were gathering food, they were taking out places affected by flooding in North Carolina, but tornadoes and Tennessee. It's not I wouldn't go so far as to call it mutual aid because it lacks the kind of ideological framework for that. But they are providing some sort of infrastructure for their guys. Yeah, yeah, with yeah, with with less of like the theory side of mutually.

But like, and I'm sure there's someone else who can speak more on this, but like from my perspective growing up in a super weird church, I see this in interacting, they see this like combining with local churches a lot as well. Um, I'm not sure there's anyone else here who could say something more intelligently than me about how

like religion will combine with these like kind of militia efforts. Well, I was like eco eco extremists, like on the far right, on the very very fringe far right, can start to like be very esoteric about there, you know, belief in climate change, and they start to sort of frame it as like a reason for the collapse, Um, that we need collapse, are attacking infrastructure, like for the purpose of somehow save in the planet, even though it's really not

going to get that anywhere. We really need to we have to do with a lot of our own work on the planet. We can't just destroy everything and see

if it working. Yeah, we can definitely bring up accelerationists and accelerationism as a as an over overarching thing that is you know, not just it not to be like horseshoe theory about it, but the accelation is that pops up a whole whole lot of areas, including areas of the left, where it becomes very unuseful, um and it can lead to like a lot of wasted time and

some destructive tendencies. I mean, I think that point kind of also provides an interesting through line between more mainstream militias and like the really esoteric brands of eco fascism or ecologically based extremism is that like they're both very influenced by like colonial schools of thought, like eco fascism and all that is kind of predicated on this idea of like Tera Noli's like there is this perfect empty wild land that we can have manifest destiny exactly, and

like so much of the ideas of order and um like peacekeeping that you find within more mainstream militia movements come from this exact same type of thinking, where it's

like a colonial order that you need to keep. Yeah, I know, there's a lot of a lot of people on the left who are in like the kind of like you know, green green, like like eCos socialist or like green anarchists kind of strange, so get very frustrated when people talk about eco fascism, which I can understand because no one really means the same thing when they talk about it. Sometimes they just mean any like any like quote unquote terrorism that has like has like an

environmental purpose. Some people, you know, when they think of eco fascists, we think of like overpopulation. Um. You know, there's a lot of different things they mean mean by it. But I know, we we've all had talks about like what we personally view as like eco fascism, because it's's it's it's not just eco streamism, Like eco streamism does not equal fascism. Like there is there's a whole bunch

of eco extremists who are very anti fascist. Um. And there is some who kind of bridge bridge the gap, you know, like like like id S has some more fascist tendencies, But I would not accurately call them fascist based on the type of stuff they do, with type of writing they do, they do not have, they do

not check all of the boxes. Um. But then then we do have people who I would accurately describe as eco fascists who have done who've done you know, mass shootings, who have a lot of eco who have eco fascist stuff, either in the writing that they like or their own manifestos. They bring up enough points it's like, yeah, you kind of fall into this broad category. Does someone here want

to give their personal definition of ego fascism? This isn't this not necessarily exactly what we used for the pod, But I just I'm interested to here's a lot of people with various backgrounds. Everyone has their own specialized knowledge. What kind of when people say that, what, what do you kind of put into that category? People believe in like this organic law and like natural order, and they believe that like there is a natural hierarchy ingrained in everything.

And I think that generally, like if we return to like some kind of primitive society or like, you know, they'll assume that like everything has uh, it's own structure, and that there's going to be people who rise to the top, people who just you know, uh don't belong in that kind of society. It's going to be really damaging for like the elderly, for disabled people, And they just sort of see it as like survival of the

fist um. And I think that's like a much more eco fascist point of view rather than like a more green anarchist point of view where things would sort of even out, um, rather than become a hierarchical Yeah. Yeah, I think hierarchy is an important part of that. And how we you know, there is like a lot of green anarchist who are focusing on like making their own medication for for you know, people with diabetes and stuff.

That's kind of stuff that is like really interesting to look at and stuff that we should absolutely pursue because we'll become less reliance to apply chains. And we don't really see eco fascists doing that. We do not see them focusing on making medication for people. Oh no, maybe I can kind of set some people up to say

more stuff if I say this is is real quickly. But one of the things that I always or that that is a red flag for me is is just you know, bring in this very traditional discussions of gender roles and and relating that to the environment. Yeah, our rhetoric, I mean, I don't we don't need to say names of specific like writers are people, but there's definitely describe the general sure, yeah,

stop playing with the toy gun. Oh my god. Um, just just like establishing and it is kind of it can be kind of like an older left thing too, but establishing you know, ecological discussions within framework of traditional gender roles um and kind of like what is expected of people based on their sex. Yeah, this is this is this is the dark side of cottage core. Yes,

that's one way to put it. I mean you want to get in here, oh boy, yeah, I like parts of cottage courts not want intersects with a certain strain of politics, Like queer cottage core is extremely cute, sure until yeah, well until you're not queer, and listen, you know, sometimes they still are. Now here's the thing. When we're when we're dealing with like traditional gender role stuff, it's a really like slippery slope into more aggressive strains of thought.

So when we're when we're talking about the the idea of of the class, we will podcast it's mass birthday. You asked to apologize, Yeah, ripped to the editor. I wouldn't know what that's so good. So when they're talking about the claps and they want, you know, they think the rod of modernity will be gone, society will be ended. They can they can you know, rebuilt from the ground up, smaller communities and Uh, they can. They can build the society they want, which is largely a no nationalists. It's

not great. The the idea that there will be this this super traditional family structure. You're going to have your this combined strong warrior also homesteading man and your cool trad wife who never ages above thirty in this society. Like I'm being generous here, assuming that at least like some of these people have a little bit of like

pre planning. But they don't. They don't um, and they step on each other a lot, right because they have this this whole plan for this uh, this society free of industry, um, and they can't stop posting about it on the internet. It's really funny, right, Like they're not they're not good at it. Yeah, they're like way too addicted to posting to like actually commit to like the true no off the grid trad life. At least at least ten K was off the grid. We don't gotta

hand it to you. Go ahead, We don't gotta hand it to it. You got ahead to you undergo circumstances and got a hit. Todd is divided on how much we gotta hand it to, said K. The official stands of terrorism bad? Is the terrorism is bad? Why don't we just bring them on? It is kind of a concern when they do end up when they stop posting. I mean, it's a concert when they're posting, but it's kind of more concerning posted sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, it's the same as like looking at a kid that wants to

be a firefighter or something like they're just talking. They're not going to do it, but you see some of the I'm doing and when they're doing the thing, the lifestyle influencer version of fascism. Yeah, do you think that it's going to affect kind of like laws about living off grid and laws about like for for normal people. I just want to get the funk out. I actually

just read something about this. There's some guy who've been living off grid in pennsylvani for like thirty years and I don't remember the details of this, and we don't have internet out here. Burn house down. Yeah, he's in jail now. He's probably gonna be in jail for the

rest of his life. And I think part of whether it comes from left through the right as people kind of start to try to build resiliency within communities for disasters that are coming and start to seek ways of living that do not rely on supply chains and do not rely on the state. The state will strike back against that as a consolidation of power, because the more that people move away from it, whether on the left

or right, the less power the state has. I mean, and utilizing counter terrorism an excuse to do so, Yeah, because they're giving reasons and it's not it's not going to get enforced equally. I'm sure that's gonna gonna focus uncertain people doing this and be slightly more okay with other people doing it. Yeah, what's so? I would like to talk about Canada a little bit because specifically climate

change affecting Canada's can be varied. It's going to be slightly different, and most of it can go to the States, because I mean, I've been, I've been, I've been having my my waist deep in climate science books for most of UM, and Canada's gonna probably see economic boosts UM, and they're probably the state's probably just gonna get actually

stronger because of how the same thing with Russia. Both Canada and Russia are going to get more economically powerful under climate change because of how much more props are gonna get moved up. How give me your thoughts to Canada, because in canada's my backup plan. It's gonna gets too spicy in the States, I'm I'm taking my Canadian passport

and hiding in the woods. Um. How how it's it's interesting to hear you guys talk about American mellistic culture because we we definitely are rhetoric and propaganda that we see in Canada gets borrowed a lot the talking points from the States, like the concepts. But what we don't have are these strong organized militia groups. We had three per centers for a while, um and who still exists, but they were they were big about being off right like they were the ones who weren't posting for a

long time. UM. And it seems like as much as all these people are still around, they've largely deflated, doubt because Canada has made some some efforts to call them terrorists right right. Very recently we designated them as a terrorist organization, which doesn't carry a criminal charge. But if you if you do something involved with them, you send the money like there is there are consequences of that

legal enhancements, um. But are are kind of militia culture focuses on the illegitimacy of the state that Canada is founded. It's very kind of soft sit type rhetoric. But that Canada's established, minutes, it's rules, and especially with all the public health measures, it's this growing, uh, this growing kind of tired of thought in both the prairies and largely out west. I grew up a statute. Um, most of my families in Alberta. I know when when I look at when I because I keep a soft eye on

some Canadian hate groups just because I'm Canadian. Most of them popped up around Alberta. Um, where do you see this stuff kind of like happening, Like do you see any of this on the East coast? If so, is it's smaller or is this mostly on like a West coast Canada thing. Well, that like that conspiratory thought we've seen kind of across the country, like on the East coast.

You know, just recently we had people setting up their own version of checkpoints um as like a protest against the the public health measures, and like the whole eastern part of Canada is in its own bubble right now. Um. But yeah, you had this conspiracy based movement forming these actual checkpoints. And then the main part of it though, is probably going to be out west. That is where these ideas are the most popular or the most popular.

That makes sense where mainstream politicians are moving towards, you know, amplify these types of talking points. Do you see that like is that is? Is that a mostly Alberta thing? It's the mostly like prairies Alberta, the farmland. The interesting part is that when you talk about groups is like Canada, groups are an urban phenomenon. For the most part, most of our organization takes place around the city centers, and

that is very different from the States. With the States, that's it's usually the usually the opposite in some there's there's always exceptions of too minimum people live, but generally we see it as more of it's more of a rule thing which teams organized, whereas cities are more like

liberal and that's what the anti fascist groups are based. Um. But it's kind of these like these little ideological pockets that exist all over and certainly that sentiment is probably shared, but the need to mobilize seems to mostly focus on the urban centers. And then we never have our group. They don't providing any kind of age that's just or even checkpoints like that's beyond these like very recent protest movements, you know, and there has been no more forest fires

around BC, um, around you know what Western Alberta. Um. How do you see the government's response these types of things right now? And it can do is in a particular situation with um, the Liberals having a minority control. You know, the Canadian poet parliamentary system is probably confusing to love of Americans that they don't understand it already. UM. But yeah, how how what do you what do you

see on on that front? You know, you know, trust and true both look both true down Biden talk the talk around like pipelines and stuff, and then do the complete opposite. Um, how do you could have seen this kind of stuff working right now? For for like on the on the climate side of things, Well, yeah, our our reaction to the firefighters or started reaction to the wildfires. Um. I mean the government response has always looked out on

like it's always looked at poorly. UM. But none of these people are taking this as an opportunity to kind of change minds, kind of do pr um. There's much less reaction to it. Most like the West. Also there's this incredible feeling of alienation because of the way that government is set up. They have substantially less or they

have substantially less voting power. Yeah, the same way in the States, how you know, there's like there's acceling states or states in the Midwest, you feel like they don't really have any power politically. The same things for almost the entire East, entire West Coast of Canada, everything from like Manitoba to Alberta and parts of BC. Everyone is very frustrated at at at the at the federal e's

um and how they really don't have control for what's happening. Like, yeah, people in the East Coast are controlling and what what our what our pipelines are, what our minds are doing, and that does not fair to our workers, because yeah

it is. It does suck when you know, a mind closes and then everyone in a small town is out of business, like the part the part right in Canada, almost Stanley around them, you know, used to be you know, bustling small towns that are basically all all men ghost towns be because stuff to close, people have to move

to either like Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, don't laugh. Um, So you know all these specific things, you know, and we see pockets, we see pockets, we see pockets of this and like the good Western the States definitely also is like manifest destination because like they are a lot of it started with people kind of moving outward to try and gain more land and make their borders um larger and like live further out to like try and uh,

I don't know, I'll take me more territory. Um. And with the like Canadian big surgeon like indigenous rights and the big focus and shift to like sort of give them land back or something. I'm not exactly clear on

what the Canadian stances are on that. Oh, just like I mean we have a big movement from indigenous populations to they seem very like the economic like well, there's so many different bands and tribes in different types of nations, um, like we have unseated territory, and the dynamics with which the government is supposed to deal with and has agreed to deal with and actually does deal with them is

all vastly different. Um. But yeah, that that idea of this focus on these particular issues, like indigenous issues, even our attempts to you know, have a greener economy, you know for a place that for a long time and still is an extraction economy. Yes, Um, how does that like a fact the oil company with healthcare more like extremist far right groups who want to move out that way, um, for the purpose of organizing. And you also have the

indigenous focus within the liberal government. So like, how do those two groups do you think like interact? Uh? Like, the general conception is that the push for indigenous rights, especially on the farther right, is is for the dishent franchifisement of white Europeans like it is um. And then yeah, you do have this Western exodus where we have very popular figures who are moving further west because they're these

stronger ideas of sovereignty. Um. I forget what exactly was pulling, but when the Western exit or exit started, you know, there was a significant amount of popular or at least like not strong support, but like existing support there was there was there was a there was a large amount of support. Yeah. Absolutely, It'll be interesting to see what

happens though. Talking about collapse, like you know in these small towns, in like cloistered communities, um, you know, they already feel cut off from the government and not represented, and then do you have a breakdown of infrastructure you know, that will create why do we even happen in the first place if they're not helping us? Which is which which is true, which is like a well real thing to think about. But their solutions are wildly different than

the actual solutions to help people. Right. How this plays out in the past as well with UM, you know, places where uh, the infrastructure starts to break down and then people who have weapons kind of become the authority just based on the fact that they have more power. Yeah. So one of the things that I follow is a lot of kind of like the more let's characterize it as boomer esque conspiracy theories UM, especially with anti vax,

anti public health measures type thing UM. And one of the things that that that really is noticeable to me is how much more sovereign citizen stuff is creeping up into those areas UM and especially you know, they're they're two really big examples of you know, if there's an anti vax protest in your city, it's probably one of these two networks that both come from Europe UM that I'm not going to name right now, UM and those two networks also, you know, love to organize over the

messaging app Telegram, UM, and Telegram is tell me if I'm stepping in it. I mean, Telegram is where you know, so much of this ideology, this far right ideology is able to cross mix and co mingle um. You know, I we talked about Telegram in the pod. Okay, but people are familiar, Yeah, stepped in it, yet keep going

yeah adjacent to yeah. So so I mean, my, my, the biggest frame we're going to talk about this a lot is is Telegram as kind of this technological body of the cultic milieu because there is so like basically no enforcement close to no enforcement on Telegram and so you know, these these more malicious actors know that, and they know that they can find an audience who is interested in, you know, opposing the mainstream conspiratorial thought in these kind of like boomer tell boomers on Telegram and

conspiracy groups and there are you know, milicitious actors plan to go in and when these people over and you know a lot of these molious actors are younger people who don't have those resources, but they know that they can win over these people who do have resources who only and who have savings to kind of like fund that movement if yeah, oh, I was just gonna say, I do think that the cultic milliuse like a really important heuristic for these kind of collapse scenarios, because the

question of what happens when kind of infrastructure and any sort of political guidance falls away is governed a lot by that, and like this idea that there's there are these ideas flowing around in our society and once people have nothing else turned to, these malicious actors will bring this stuff in and uh yeah, to put it simply,

then we're pretty fucked. Yeah. Telegram also has recently started to have to crack down people and um because of that, you have this really interesting dichotomy of people who are saying, like this means like get ready, get prepared, go off grig guns, and you also on the other end people who are saying, you know, create all tech platforms and like create um more like self encryption and like, hello, I'm trying not to step in right now. Yeah, yeah, I'm but to be able to uh to speak more

peer like peer to peer resources. And that wraps up part one of the Terrorism round Table discussion Thanks so much for listening. You can find us at happen Here pod and cool Zone Media on all of the socials UM. You can find me at Hungry bow Tie UM, and you can follow a decent amount of the researchers on their podcast at Terrorism Bad, the podcast I Think I Think It's just at Terrorism Bad anyway. Thanks for listening

to Part one, Part two drops tomorrow. Stay tuned. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. Well more podcasts from Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.