0:00

From UFOs to psychic powers

0:02

and government conspiracies. History

0:04

is riddled with unexplained events. You

0:07

can turn back now or learn

0:09

the stuff they don't want you to know. A

0:12

production of I Heart Radio. Hello,

0:24

welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my

0:27

name is no. They called me Ben. We're joined

0:29

as always with our super producer Paul.

0:31

Mission Control deconds. Most importantly,

0:34

you are you, You are here, and

0:36

that makes this stuff they

0:38

don't want you to know. This episode

0:41

has been a long time in the making,

0:43

folks. It's it's been a long road to get

0:45

here. Uh. I think all of us

0:47

h Matt Nole, Mission Control myself

0:50

have been a big fan of

0:53

Jake Hanrahan's work in conflict

0:55

journalism, where he often

0:57

risked life and limb to shed light

0:59

on worries and conflicts that are

1:01

rarely reported at

1:03

all in the Western world, much less

1:06

reported objectively. That's been the

1:08

case for a long time. Additionally, Jake

1:10

is a filmmaker. You've seen him on Vice,

1:12

You've seen him on HBO, pro

1:14

PUBLICA, Belling Cat, BBC

1:16

News. The list goes on.

1:18

One personal favorite is Popular Front,

1:21

grassroots investigative organization Jake

1:24

founded back in eighteen. And

1:27

if you were trying, if you read the headline of

1:29

this episode and you're trying to figure out what the hell

1:31

is going on with Q and On, well, Jake

1:33

is your man. We have no

1:35

hyperbole, A thousand questions for you, Jake.

1:38

I don't think we're going to get to them all. But first

1:40

things first, thank you so much for coming

1:42

on the show today. No mate, Like I said

1:44

earlier, like this has been my favorite podcast since it

1:46

was about twenty two. Yeah, I'm

1:49

really happy to be well,

1:51

the feeling is mutual. Q

1:54

andn Pot is mind blowing.

1:56

Lee excellent and such a

1:58

tangled web ravel and

2:00

you do a fine job. And that's only three episodes

2:02

in and I just can't wait for what's to come.

2:05

Yeah, I don't know what is to

2:07

come yet.

2:10

But let's start with a question about

2:13

location. So, your career

2:15

as a war reporter has taken you

2:17

across the world to a lot of places

2:20

that wouldn't be considered you know, top

2:22

ten tourist destinations to say the least,

2:24

and you've been uh,

2:27

you've worked in Syria and Palestine,

2:29

from Prue to Rock to Ukraine, as well

2:31

as Turkey, which we must explore in depth.

2:34

In today's show, The first question

2:36

I think a lot of people are gonna have listening today

2:39

is what inspired you to take this

2:41

career path and what was your first actual

2:43

conflict reporting experience. Like, um,

2:47

that's a good question. I mean I'm

2:49

not good at that many things, and I didn't

2:52

do well at school. Like school was definitely not

2:54

a thing I was good at. And I

2:56

just like, you know, left when I was like sixteen,

2:58

didn't do college or anything. But the only thing I was

3:00

always like keenon was reading,

3:03

right, So I was always reading. I remember my granddad

3:05

was just saying to me, like, look, if you just read,

3:07

you can teach yourself so much, which is true,

3:09

right. So I've just always been a good, like big reader.

3:13

And then I just thought, right, you know, I

3:15

can write. So I started off as kind of like, you know,

3:17

experimenting with print journalism and

3:19

you know, I'll do these articles and that, and I just

3:21

thought, yeah, why not, Like I can try this. But

3:24

at the time I was a bit like, oh,

3:26

you know, someone like me can't do this,

3:28

you know, kind of I didn't really have a good perception

3:31

of what journalism was other than like the guy on

3:33

the news with the tie, right. But then

3:35

as I read more and like read these

3:37

books specifically by a journalist that

3:39

will you know, embedded with militant groups

3:41

and whatever, I was like, yeah, like

3:43

I want to do that. I've always been drawn to kind

3:46

of like the dark things,

3:48

if you know what I mean, whether that's like crime

3:50

or or conflict or whatever. So

3:53

for me, I just I remember like reading

3:55

articles and reading books by like the journalists

3:58

and just like blew my hair back, you know. I

4:00

mean I was like this is amazing, Like this is real

4:02

and these guys actually went there. So

4:05

like long story short, I was just you know, pushing

4:07

away. And I guess when I started advice,

4:10

I was kind of already reporting on conflict

4:12

stuff, and eventually I ended

4:15

up in Man what like I was like twenty

4:17

four. I think the first front line I went

4:19

to was Iraq when like

4:21

Isis were still in most so

4:23

that was cool and honestly, like it wasn't.

4:25

It was like pretty chill, like you know, there wasn't

4:28

much going on at the time. It wasn't what you think,

4:30

like I just like hanging out with the like

4:33

like soldiers and that. But then like

4:35

I think the big like first big one was

4:37

like Southeast Turkey. You know, like we mentioned a little

4:39

bit like that was like an urban combat,

4:42

you know, situation where the front

4:44

line is the street, you know, where

4:46

where the corner shop and where people live. So

4:49

I guess like I just I just got a real

4:52

hunger for it, and I felt like I

4:54

understood it on some level, you know, like I

4:56

feel like I'm that's good at you

4:59

know, talking to of people, you know. I mean I

5:01

don't know what round is, I don't know what gun

5:03

this is, I don't know munitions that is. That

5:05

that to me is not that interesting for me.

5:07

It's like how did these people end up just

5:09

being normal people and then something

5:11

happens in their lives and they kind of have to take up arms?

5:14

You know. That to me has always been really interesting. So

5:16

yeah, man, I just think for me,

5:18

the fun parts of the war, I don't want to say fun

5:21

is if like, oh, yeah, it's a game, you know what I mean. But the

5:23

bits that I enjoy with my job is

5:25

kind of just meeting people you would never normally meet

5:27

and seeing them kind of in these situations

5:30

and trying to tell their story, you

5:32

know, like why are they there? How did this happen?

5:34

And when they trust you, and so yeah, like

5:36

you know this, this and this. I think that's cool, man, it's

5:39

good fun. I think it's interesting too, like

5:41

how quickly our brains kind of normalize

5:43

things that are completely insane. Uh,

5:46

And when you're in a situation like that where it's

5:48

literally on your street, in your neighborhood,

5:50

and yeah, it's terrifying, but people live.

5:53

And like, that's to me an interesting

5:55

part of what it must be like for you

5:58

to just be around people as they're

6:00

living, as they're living through these things, but also not

6:02

like living in abject terror

6:04

twenty four seven. I could imagine maybe I'm

6:06

overthinking it, but no, you're right, it's

6:08

like that is for me as well. Like one of the most fascinating

6:11

things, like I remember kind of a scene

6:13

in southeast Turkey with the Kurdish

6:16

like youth militants and they're all teenagers

6:18

and we kind of stopped after there was like a

6:20

bit of a firefight, like Turkish

6:22

military of firing into the village from up

6:25

on some mountains, and then after it

6:27

kind of died down, we just sat there like

6:29

on a you know, on the ground, and these kids were like

6:31

eating, like pouring out coke, like

6:34

you know, like drinks, like do you want this? And then these

6:36

one kid was just playing on his phone with an

6:38

a case slung over his shoulder. I remember

6:40

just thinking like wow, like this is just

6:43

surreal, you know what I mean. So that to me has

6:45

always been fascinating to kind of you

6:47

know, people get a really dumb idea. They think people

6:49

live constantly in war, and it's like, no, man, they're

6:51

just like you and me. They just want to live. And unfortunately,

6:54

you know, it's on their doorstep a lot at the time. Even

6:57

to all these places where there's been real

6:59

danger to the

7:01

people living there every day of you

7:03

know, of their lives. They like you say, they get into

7:06

this what is hopefully a temporary

7:08

situation where something must

7:10

be dealt with, and there is conflict

7:13

that is violent. Um, so there's

7:15

a real danger to those human beings that are there.

7:17

To put yourself in that

7:19

situation, whether for a job or

7:22

by your own volition, to to

7:24

put yourself there and to go and talk to somebody

7:27

that maybe in opposition

7:29

to a government or in

7:31

opposition to some other armed

7:33

force, that feels like

7:35

a a very scary thing and

7:38

a very dangerous thing to do. But

7:40

also, as you know, if you've listened to the show,

7:43

you you know that we think that's a very important thing

7:45

to do. And I

7:47

wonder, well, well, I I know the answer

7:49

to this question. I don't mean to pose it as though I don't,

7:51

but what is the what is the most harrowing

7:54

situation you have found yourself in

7:56

because of your job and what you do?

8:00

Really like my grandma going mad at me when she found

8:02

out I was in Syria, like you know what I

8:04

mean. But then

8:09

well I just got back and was like, no, I wasn't in Iraq.

8:12

I was in Syria, but now

8:15

they're like, yeah, going to jail in Turkey Man

8:17

definitely was like the biggest issue. Like that

8:19

was just like oh dear, like oder,

8:21

oh dear. I was just thinking, like I

8:24

knew I was my luck would run out,

8:26

you know, like I knew it was going to run out, and

8:28

then it really did, and I was like, oh Christ.

8:30

But at the same time, it taught me

8:32

some really valuable lessons about freedom

8:35

and also taught me how

8:37

the people like the I guess the ultimate

8:40

um like threat

8:43

to these people that I was filming with, right,

8:45

you know, Like I remember after I got out. I speak to

8:47

some you know, Kurdish people,

8:49

um, and they were like, now you know how

8:52

we feel, you know, And I was

8:54

like, yeah, yeah, actually, And

8:56

so in a way it was good experience just

8:58

in terms of like life experience, and it kind

9:01

of shaped my worldview a little bit more.

9:03

But certainly at the time I didn't think that at

9:05

all. I was like, what have you done?

9:07

You know? So it wasn't good. No, So

9:11

this is um for folks who are

9:14

unaware. We're talking

9:16

about a situation that occurred

9:18

in twenty fifteen when JQ,

9:20

you and your colleagues Philip Pendleburry

9:23

and Mohammed russeul Uh

9:25

and a rocky Kurdish journalists were

9:28

detained by the government. But oddly enough,

9:30

if I understand this correctly, you were detained

9:33

when you returned, right because you

9:35

were gone to Turkey previously. That's

9:38

right. Yeah, yeah, that is right. We've been there

9:40

twice before filming. But you've

9:42

gotta you've gotta understand, like before when

9:44

we were filming, the government wasn't as

9:46

restrictive as it is now, right, I mean,

9:49

I mean that's not biased. That's a pure fact.

9:51

It's like the Second Jail of journalists worldwide.

9:54

You can go to prison for saying something bad about

9:56

the government on Twitter. You know, it's crazy. So

9:59

when we were firs stay, it actually wasn't

10:01

like that. You know, there was a ceasefire between the Kurdish

10:03

militants and the government, and it

10:05

was it was dicey, but it wasn't as

10:08

bad, right, And then when we were there

10:10

the third time, that's when

10:12

the ceasefire was very over. You know, it was

10:14

open warfare in the streets and in the southeast,

10:17

and we were kind

10:19

of the first to get swept up like that. You know,

10:21

like a lot of journalists after that started getting

10:23

arrested, deported, hundreds

10:26

of like local Kurdish reporters just completely

10:29

gone, you know, all in prison, MPs,

10:31

everything. But we were kind of at the start

10:33

of that, you know, so whilst it might

10:35

be like, well, yeah, of course you were going to get rested, just like actually

10:37

if you look at the you know, the context

10:40

of what was going on at the time, no, like

10:42

they could have easily just deported us at the airport

10:44

because we'd already made a film with these Kurdish militants

10:46

one time before, so they could have just been like not get

10:48

out here. It wasn't that at the time, right, It was

10:51

kind of the start of the I

10:53

mean, like you know, the brutal authoritarianism

10:56

wasn't quite there as it started.

10:58

We were kind of lucky because there are people that have

11:00

done like two years, you know, just we

11:03

just they just kind of let us out after like two

11:05

weeks um, after being

11:07

in several different prisons. There was a lot of like international

11:09

pressure, and you know, I think

11:12

they were like, you know, like just get

11:14

them out of here, this sort of thing. I

11:16

could certainly tell in the jail, like one

11:18

time the guard was like, you know, they

11:20

were like not that nice, and

11:23

then after it was on TV, they were

11:25

like much nicer. All of a sudden, they were

11:27

like well right, And I was like,

11:30

so that did kind of help. Actually,

11:32

you know, it really did. At the time. You're

11:34

working for Vice News, correct, that's

11:36

right. Yeah, So how much

11:38

help did you get from that organization

11:41

or how much perceived help did you get from the organization

11:43

when you're in that situation? To be honest,

11:46

a Vice at the time where like excellent,

11:48

they helped us so much, you know, And there's a lot of

11:50

issues within journalism, specifically

11:52

around conflict like al Jazer

11:54

were in hot water. The way they allegedly

11:57

treated some of their reports when they went to prison

11:59

not so or in them enough. But there's

12:02

there's a few cases actually with different news organizations.

12:04

But honestly, like I can't fold Vice News enough,

12:06

like you know, I don't really get on with them now. But

12:09

what they did for us then it was a

12:11

different Vice News then. But what they did for us then,

12:13

like they did everything and more,

12:15

you know what I mean. Like and to this day

12:17

there's still like looking after certain things because

12:20

the case is still ongoing, believe it or not, like five

12:22

years later. Yeah,

12:24

it's this brings

12:26

us to I think a macro

12:28

trend. So according to the Committee

12:30

to Protect Journalists, Uh, they issued

12:33

a report back in early December

12:36

twenty nineteen where they said,

12:38

the way they phrased it was over twenty

12:40

nineteen, at least two hundred and fifty journalists

12:43

across the planet have been imprisoned

12:45

somewhere for their reporting. And

12:47

they also said this is the fourth straight

12:49

year that number has been

12:51

that high. So it goes of

12:54

course without saying for a lot of our US

12:56

listeners a restaurant the rise in the

12:58

US as well Jake, do

13:01

you see this trend increasing

13:03

in the future, and if so, why

13:06

I do? And I don't

13:08

know why specifically, but my own

13:11

theory is that we're kind of

13:14

this whole post truth world idea,

13:16

Like it is kind of real, you know, I am really

13:18

seeing it where things that used

13:20

to matter don't really matter

13:22

anymore, right, Like, to be honest, I've

13:25

looked at report. I did a lot of research on this when I got

13:27

out of prison, because I wanted to think, like, how can I

13:29

help other journalists to end up in prison in the future,

13:32

right And if you look at like the nineties

13:34

and whatever, if the journalists went to prison, it

13:36

was a big deal, like in whichever country

13:39

they're from, right like, and people were like, wow, they

13:41

were outraged. Honestly, Now like people

13:44

just kind of like, you know, oh, that's bad tweet,

13:47

you know, done, and it's it's things

13:49

don't have the same cultural impact anymore.

13:51

And I think I think social media

13:53

is a lot to do with it. I think technology has a lot to do

13:55

with it. And I think the whole like post

13:57

truth thing is a problem. You know, the rise

14:00

of kind of right wing populism where

14:02

things can just be shrugged off like who

14:04

cares about that? And then everyone goes like, yeah, who cares?

14:06

You know, things that you know, like if

14:09

Watergate happened now, I think I

14:11

don't know if people would be that bothered, you know,

14:13

like I really am not sure. And I

14:15

just think the whole what's the word, like the Overton

14:17

window has changed so it's been like smashed

14:19

and kicked out, you know, And I

14:22

just think things have changed so much that

14:24

honestly, like people just people

14:27

don't really care that much. So then authoritarian

14:30

governments realized they can get away with more,

14:33

right, and they do well.

14:35

I mean, the term post truth

14:37

in and of itself is surreal and

14:40

sounds like something from orwell like

14:42

I mean, it really sounds like a joke,

14:44

like it's satire, but that's what it

14:46

is. Or it's like postmodern but we know

14:49

what modernism is. Truth is an objective

14:51

thing, right, like it's true or it's

14:53

not true. But we're living in this time

14:56

that's called post truth, or at least that's a term

14:58

that's being thrown around. I think it's totally on point

15:01

Q and on utterly a product

15:04

of this concept.

15:06

Yeah, I think they're post

15:09

post truth, you know what I mean? Let's

15:11

let's get them. I mean, let's let's talk a little

15:13

bit about the podcast, you know. I mean, yeah is

15:16

the name, and you like we said

15:18

at the top of the show, there's this insane

15:20

web that is q and And honestly,

15:22

we do this show, you know, weekly,

15:24

and when we first ran across it, I was like, I don't

15:26

know what the hell this is. I don't

15:29

understand what this is and

15:31

I need you I think it's

15:34

it's a headache for me as well. But like I

15:36

mean, I I wanted a little break from constantly

15:39

doing conflict you know, like with my my project,

15:41

Popular Front, it's all conflict reporting.

15:44

And I was like, man, I need I need just like a

15:46

little break from this. But for me, I can't really have

15:48

a break. I've gotta be working. I like being busy. So

15:50

I was like, I know, like I'll do another project. And

15:53

you know, like I said, I've been listening to this podcast for

15:55

years. I love conspiracy theories, you know, Like when

15:57

I was a teenager, I used to believe in the most craziest

16:00

stuff, you know, and then I up what is

16:02

wrong with me? But but now

16:04

as an adult, I just I just still love researching

16:06

them. Looking into them, finding out why

16:08

they happen, and there's always that one

16:10

percent of me that's like maybe you

16:13

know what I mean, It keeps me interested in them.

16:15

So when I I you know, I you know how

16:17

people watch like you guys say, like

16:19

trash TV, right, like like reality

16:21

TV. They people watch that. To one wind me,

16:24

I watched conspiracy documentaries like outrageous

16:26

ones, you know what I mean. So I came across

16:28

cum and On just naturally, you know, like watching

16:30

big Foot, watching whatever, and

16:33

then and then there was Q and On and

16:35

I was like, this is like the

16:38

mother of the conspiracy theories, right,

16:40

It's like the whole umbrella of every conspiracy

16:42

theory I've been reading since I was a teenager,

16:45

and everything's under it. And when

16:47

I saw it was taken off, I

16:50

just was like surely not like

16:52

come on? Like so that's I

16:54

got to the point where I see the election coming up

16:56

and I was like, man, I want to do something like about this.

16:59

And there's some great podcast already out there, you

17:01

know, Q and On Anonymous and you know

17:04

there's other ones out there, and so I was like, well,

17:06

what can the angle be? So I guess my angle was like

17:08

let me bring all these great researchers together

17:11

in my research and we can kind of

17:13

get you know, by the end of it. We want to be able to

17:15

say, look, this is who we think Q is, not

17:17

just because of this hunch, not just because this guy

17:20

says so we want to be like A

17:22

to a B to be you know what I mean,

17:24

this matches up, that matches up, um,

17:27

and at the same time kind of

17:29

tell the true on story and unwrap it all

17:31

for everybody. You know, this is not a podcast

17:34

for people that already know about cute. I

17:36

wanted to be accessible for everyone, right Um.

17:39

And it's hard. It's very hard to write

17:42

and like this incredible web of

17:45

like information that is just so unbelievably

17:48

far fetched, but to then kind

17:50

of be like, well, this is maybe why they believe it,

17:52

and this is where it comes from. And

17:54

and ultimately, you know, I'm not actually trying to

17:56

laugh at these Q and on even though I am kind of laughing,

17:59

Like, ultimately it's quite sad, you know, like there

18:01

have been families torn apart from these and

18:03

it's sad that so many people can believe

18:05

in things so outrageous. Um.

18:08

While saying, you know, fake news

18:10

at the news, you know, and I think that's

18:12

a failure of not just

18:14

the establishment. I think that's a failure of

18:16

a lot of things. Media education.

18:19

Um, it's like, yeah, it's like the

18:21

ultimate endpoint of all the conspiracy

18:24

theories in the last twenty years. I think that's

18:26

a long way of explaining it. But this

18:29

is perfect because one thing that strikes me about

18:31

Q Clearance is that you've taken

18:34

on a herculean task of

18:36

unraveling you know, the almost

18:40

like the folkloric etymology

18:42

of how this came to be, the

18:45

future, of where it, where it might

18:47

go, how it evolves. There's there's

18:49

an excellent interview where you talk

18:52

a bit about Q and on as a

18:54

meta conspiracy, and there

18:56

there's so many conspiracies that reach

18:58

that meta point. It's just usually

19:00

they take several decades or centuries to

19:02

get there exactly, and this one

19:05

just went like three years. Yes,

19:09

well, well you guys, you guys, I remember,

19:11

and you probably do to it. I know you have

19:13

been looking at above top

19:15

Secret and of other forums

19:18

like that and reading you know, an anonymous

19:20

post was somebody saying they've got all

19:23

this secret information. Well,

19:28

but like so, I mean, we would

19:30

look at that stuff and do our level best

19:33

to attempt to prove something

19:35

or to find some kind of evidence somewhere

19:37

of stuff that's being said there. And it

19:39

was for me personally a very

19:41

exciting hour to two

19:43

hours, maybe a couple of days of like

19:46

going down rabbit holes. And I'm

19:48

wondering how much this phenomenon,

19:51

this idea that there is a secret

19:53

person named Q, is playing into those same

19:56

things, those same chemicals that were being

19:58

released in my brain when that was my

20:01

pursuit. No, no, no, definitely, I

20:04

think you're right. That's the crux of it. Actually,

20:06

that's how it kind of spread, I think, because it's

20:08

fun, right, it's exciting because Q

20:10

says to them, you do your own investigations.

20:13

You are the news now, so you get all these

20:15

like wine moms and whatever. Like no offense to wine

20:17

moms, but what I mean is they don't have anything else to do a

20:19

lot of the time, right the kids or wherever, and

20:22

so they're just like all day on the computer. They've got

20:24

time to research it, and

20:26

they just feel they have like there's

20:28

an accomplishment, right, and then you can share

20:30

it with other people and go, hey, look what I found. And then

20:32

they go, oh wow. Then the community starts

20:35

to form, and then you can reaffirm each other's

20:37

value based on the research you've done. That

20:39

person is useful to my group, that person is

20:41

useful. And then they're all in this big

20:43

thing where they think they're being led

20:45

by intel from the White House.

20:48

They feel like the foot soldiers of a

20:50

revolution from their desk. And

20:52

that's what's very addictive,

20:55

I think for them, you know, and it kind of doesn't matter

20:57

when it when it pans out, it's like, oh, that

21:00

didn't happen, even though you said it was

21:02

going to happen. Literally at this time and day.

21:04

In fact, as we record this right now, this

21:07

is three years to the day of the first

21:09

ever Q drop on four chan when

21:11

she said he was going to arrest Hillary Clinton

21:14

or whatever. Didn't happen. But

21:16

but it almost doesn't matter when the predictions

21:18

don't come through because they're having so much fun. They're so

21:20

wrapped up in it um that it's like,

21:22

we'll just find a reason why that didn't matter. I mean,

21:24

you know, ironically, it's it's who is Q and on

21:26

the friends who made along the way, right, But

21:29

unfortunately it's not

21:31

it's not that chill at all. It's

21:33

zero percent chill, you know, so unfortunately

21:36

it could become dangerous. They just want

21:38

to follow up the with

21:41

that statement about herculean task. So

21:43

one thing that is cult

21:47

like frankly about this is a

21:49

bit of the choose your own adventure

21:51

vibe. If you remember those old paperbacks,

21:55

have you have you run in when you're

21:57

when you're exploring this story. I don't want to spoil

22:00

things for the show, but have have you

22:02

seen much of what I would describe

22:04

as individual customization? Like

22:06

have you seen someone be the

22:08

voice of reason in one of these Q

22:11

forums and say, look, this part of it's

22:13

true, this part of it is not.

22:16

Does that happen or more or

22:19

less locked up? No? No, no, it does

22:21

happen. Man. Actually, it's like that's a good question

22:23

because I was reading something just the other day

22:25

where like a guy that was an ardent Q I

22:27

started looking at his posting like progress

22:31

and he was just getting

22:33

like, hang on, what when is

22:35

it going to happen? When is you know they call it the

22:37

plan. No one really knows what the plan is, but don't worry

22:39

about that. So they're kind of like, when

22:41

is it going to happen, and this guy was just

22:43

like this is nuts. Like he

22:46

literally like got himself out of it. He was

22:48

like, none of these predictions have happened,

22:50

you know, Like, and he kind of left, and the other

22:52

people are like more so, there's

22:54

a guy that I watched, right and he seems

22:57

like such a nice guy, and

22:59

but he's deep in Q and on very believing

23:01

in conspiracy, and he's

23:03

like more moderate, Like he's he's

23:06

not an anti semi, he's not a racist,

23:08

you know, and he's not really deep

23:10

deep in the more wacky side of

23:13

Q. So he was what he might be able to call like

23:15

a more moderate CE. And then you have

23:17

like the far far extreme version

23:19

of Q where it's all satanic and babies

23:21

are being eaten and all of that. So there are

23:24

levels to it. But I say that

23:26

even he's like, oh, this guy seems lovely, and

23:28

then he's like, well, when we get away,

23:30

will hang all the Democrats for treason, And

23:33

you're like, oh, he's not that

23:35

nice, you know. So even the like

23:37

well kind of to do ones are like

23:39

have this very dark concept of

23:42

violence at the end of this, you know, And I think that's

23:44

something that interested

23:47

me, where kind of from

23:49

what I'm doing with conflict. Actually, you know, like I spent

23:51

like what seven years reporting from conflict,

23:54

and I you know, I engage in Twitter a lot, and I'm

23:56

I'm a very like, very online guy. Like I always

23:58

have been a you know something awful

24:01

like big time into like four channe when it's

24:03

cool when like you know, Anonymous were on there as a

24:05

kid and whatever. So I've always been very online.

24:07

And then I see these guys that treat war like

24:09

a football match. I'm on this side. I'm

24:12

on this side, Jake, who's the you know, who's

24:14

the win, who's the good guy? And then there'll be

24:16

some horrific video where decide that they

24:18

like you know one and then

24:20

they're like yeah, great, and it's like, well, what you're cheering

24:22

on is like mass death and horrific violence,

24:25

right, the reality of that when you

24:27

see it, you know, I've seen some I'm

24:29

gonna be like, I've seen stuff, man, but you know what

24:31

I mean, Like, I've seen a few Gnarli situations

24:34

and it's not you don't go yeah,

24:36

you just go like, isn't this sad? Like isn't this

24:39

horrific that this is happening? And I

24:41

think the Q and ons have a similar

24:43

vibe where they're saying like, yeah, well hang

24:45

everybody for treason and all

24:47

of this stuff, and it's like, do you know what that will look like?

24:50

Like you are you gonna do that? Like you're

24:52

the foot soldiers of Q. What are you're going to hang people

24:54

on mass? You know, like just because

24:57

they voted for a different way. So that's

24:59

when you start get into the into the darkest side

25:01

of it. So I guess my point is like, yeah,

25:04

there are different levels to it, like you said, and

25:06

some people like, oh, don't be silly, that's that's

25:08

too extreme, But ultimately

25:10

they all have the belief in the plan,

25:13

and the plan is pretty nasty. And

25:15

we'll be back with more from Jake

25:17

Hanrahan after a word from our sponsor,

25:26

and we're back. This reminds

25:29

me of something we've noticed

25:31

in your conflict reporting

25:33

career in Ukraine. You

25:35

were embedded with both the Ukraine Army

25:38

and then also with a separatist

25:40

group. And so those folks who so

25:43

I can I can see where you would say,

25:45

well, these are both this is tragedy

25:48

happening, you know, regardless of affiliation,

25:50

and that's something that's something a lot of people miss,

25:53

uh, and an interest of

25:56

yeah, I know, we're asking some harrowing questions,

25:58

so we thought we

26:01

thought you might enjoy a little bit of a softball

26:03

that they might have fun with, because part

26:05

of this show is we have to objectively look

26:07

at everything, right, So, Jake,

26:11

where would you say some of

26:14

the claims from Q and On to begin

26:16

to you know, fall apart just

26:18

a little? Well, I

26:20

mean the very first post

26:23

was Clinton is going to be arrested in

26:26

like two days and if she didn't, so

26:28

you know, that was a big one. But but the point

26:31

I always make to a lot of people, and I'm going to get

26:33

a bit dark here, but I have to because it's necessary.

26:35

The point I say to a lot of people is

26:38

like, so Q and On is big on save the

26:40

kids, right, and we're queuing on is actually

26:42

right in some ways? Is there are elite Peter

26:44

far Rings? We've seen it with Epstein and the horrific

26:47

way that you know, the poor young girls

26:49

are treated, the victims, and it's disgusting. And

26:51

you know Trump was involved, Clinton was involved,

26:54

a lot of very important powerful people were

26:56

involved. Is bipartisan? Right? So

26:58

yeah, that that's very horrific. But

27:00

then they jump the shark

27:03

in one second, right, and it's like it

27:05

goes from this is serious to like Hillary

27:08

Clinton is eating babies. It's like, oh my god,

27:10

come on. But so they're they're very

27:12

invested in like save the kids. We hate peophiles.

27:14

There's an elite peedo file ring, So

27:16

why then do there's

27:19

Q use h chan,

27:21

which for years openly shared

27:23

pedophilia, like openly there

27:25

were there were pedophiles on that board, like

27:28

not even coded, really like trying to work

27:30

out how to share pedophilia together. That

27:32

was this like the most disgusting thing about

27:35

h Chan. Why on earth would you

27:37

go there to dump this information? Right,

27:39

Like they can't give you an answer for that.

27:41

It's oh, well they were forced into these I

27:44

CUsing intelligence asset make your own website,

27:46

right, Like, surely he has a way of doing it. He's

27:48

got Q clearance. I'm sure he knows a few yet, guys,

27:50

for Christ's sake, So that

27:53

is like for me, just the basic things like that

27:55

are like come on, like why

27:57

would they do that? Because if you say feil prediction, they

28:00

say it was a red herry. You know, anything

28:03

that doesn't happen was a part of the plan, so

28:06

you can't combat that. But like, you know, I've actually

28:08

had some discussions with a few Q

28:11

curious people down at my books in Gym,

28:13

and I've explained, like I used that example, why

28:15

would he use a place where pedophilia is accepted

28:18

to rail against elite pedophile rings. It doesn't

28:20

make any sense. And people kind of go like, oh, yeah,

28:23

you know, so I think that's a

28:25

way to kind of break it down. But again,

28:27

there are, like like I said, there are like facets

28:30

of truth, and they've really whoever it is,

28:32

has done a good job of jumping on that

28:34

because everyone I knows anyway,

28:36

like even like friends that are not involved in journalism,

28:39

whatever, they know about Epstein. They've

28:41

got kids, they've got sisters, you know, they're disgusted

28:43

by it, and rightly so. And when they read

28:45

about it and they're like, wow, Bill

28:47

Clinton was on his plane how many times,

28:50

or like you know, Trump said what about

28:52

Epstein? It's gross? Right,

28:54

So then if Q comes

28:57

along and says, oh, but here's the secret side

28:59

of it. Firstly, it's a bit spicier, right, like

29:01

the lies are always a bit spicier.

29:04

And secondly, there's a whole community that are going to

29:06

fill you in and inform you before you know. You

29:08

know, a friend said to me the other day, he

29:10

said, um, you know, I've lost a

29:13

few friends to Q and on and it's like, yeah,

29:15

like that happens, like you you would just lose

29:17

people to it, man, And it's it's like a

29:19

drug. It's like they're on a drug but

29:22

they're not. It's it's I don't know, man,

29:24

It's it's very worrying that

29:26

I never thought, you know, like I said, years

29:28

of reading Above top Secret and

29:30

like listen to you guys and all

29:32

of that, Like years of that, I never thought this would happen.

29:35

I'll be honest, Like it was always a fringe thing

29:37

that was fun. Now it's like I

29:39

still laugh at it, but now and then I catch myself

29:41

and like I shouldn't really laugh at that, Like this is actually

29:43

serious. You know. You've touched on a lot

29:45

of really important things there, Jake, And it

29:47

feels to me inevitable. It

29:49

feels like this was going to happen because

29:52

as we have better

29:55

access to the internet, just as humanity,

29:58

as these real truths, like are talking

30:00

about what the Epsteins and the pedophiles

30:02

that have been uncovered in very high

30:04

places in government and media, and

30:07

you realize that it's happening more and more, and

30:09

you feel completely helpless to

30:12

do anything about it. You know, like

30:14

every person walking around knows that there

30:16

are children being abused right now, and

30:18

you feel like there's nothing you can do about it.

30:21

But when Q comes along as

30:23

even a possibility, as even a glimmer

30:25

of possibility out

30:27

in the world, that something could be done

30:29

and perhaps I can do something about

30:32

it by researching this, I

30:34

think it is something

30:37

very desirable that a lot of

30:39

us may feel inside. That's a great

30:41

point. Yeah, yeah, it's like you're

30:44

right, it's like they can be useful to stop

30:46

this, Like yeah, and it's hat

30:49

to keep bringing it up. But so much of the Q and on

30:52

mythos, if you like, does revolve around

30:54

elite pedophile rings and it's like, yeah, it's that

30:56

is the worst thing I could have a think of, Like

30:58

and it's real. Then you're right, like people

31:01

wanted what can I do? What can I do? You

31:03

know, in in lieu of setting up some kind of militia

31:06

and running around doing whatever they would, you

31:08

know, big man talk that they often do they

31:11

can now do Q right, Like, oh,

31:13

like you know, we can we can be with they say,

31:15

like with the digit alarmy, like we're

31:17

we're They don't say serving, but they

31:19

kind of, you know, they imply that we're serving,

31:21

like the Q agenda, we're the news. Now,

31:24

Um, what do they say? There's there's like all these

31:26

sayings they have and yeah, basically

31:29

all of them boiled down to like what you've just said.

31:31

It's like we're doing something right. And it's

31:34

and ironically a lot of what they're doing is

31:36

is serious pain for families

31:39

and and serious like upheavals

31:41

of people's lives, you know, especially when they

31:44

completely arbitrarily accused

31:46

someone of something horrific, you

31:48

know, and it's like they haven't done anything and just because

31:50

of some insane tiny coincidence,

31:53

then they decide that person is in on it

31:55

right, And it's like, man, you

31:57

know, it's not

31:59

a would be the thing to say, but I

32:02

think a lot of them their heart is in the right place,

32:04

you know what I mean, and the brain isn't.

32:06

It's just the brain isn't. And that's why it's sad.

32:09

You know. It's like again, like

32:11

there's a lot of you know, and a lot

32:13

of I guess Q researchers

32:15

have been doing this longer than I have, especially in America.

32:18

I know, they kind of don't really like

32:20

that. I'm kind of like, no, like, let's talk to them, let's

32:22

see what they've got to say. And I respect that that's how they

32:24

do it. But for me, there's a part of me just

32:26

feel like, you know, a little bit of empathy

32:29

towards it. It's uh, yeah,

32:31

it's sad, right, Like it's sad like if I

32:33

know, like people who are like their mom and

32:35

dad don't speak to them anymore because they're like, now you're a

32:37

part of the kabal and it's like

32:39

what it's began on food

32:42

Chune. And

32:44

then also, you know what's interesting,

32:47

I think the point we should emphasize is

32:49

that earlier we said,

32:52

you know, one of the first things you said about que

32:54

falling apart is that the first prediction

32:57

was demonstrably incorrect. But

33:00

q Q does something that is

33:04

very common to organizations of this

33:06

type, which is past the burden

33:08

of validity onto the

33:10

consumer or the audience member

33:12

or the foot soldiers of Q. So it's

33:15

kind of like when people think, uh

33:18

uh, an apocalyptic cult

33:20

got there into the world prediction, right,

33:22

we just misinterpreted it. Like

33:25

how do you see that community handle

33:28

those corrections? Do they say, well,

33:30

we just misinterpreted what Q said.

33:32

I know, the red herring theory is popular,

33:34

Like did Q knew someone

33:37

was infiltrating this

33:39

freely accessible message board and

33:42

threw these red herrings out? Like how how do

33:44

people deal with that when these predictions

33:46

don't in fact come true? Um,

33:48

well, brace yourself. And I have

33:51

seen is Hillary was

33:53

arrested when they said and now

33:55

the Hillary we see

33:57

now is like a body double or a cloth

34:00

own or something like that. So there there's

34:02

one for you. Like that's just too you know,

34:04

immediately jumped the shark at hundred miles an

34:06

hour. That's one kind of way to do

34:08

it, and then others are

34:12

it's part of the plan. Ha ha, fools,

34:15

you fell for it. What you took that? You took that

34:17

seriously, he didn't mean it. It It was a metaphor,

34:20

you know what I mean, like the ways to snake around

34:22

it um almost as

34:24

if like you're the idiot and

34:26

it's like hang on you you're just following this guy

34:28

that made a false prediction. Like a huge

34:31

prediction. But it's almost like now you're the

34:33

idiot. You don't see the message, right,

34:35

And that is kind of powerful, like guests, because

34:37

surely there's a lot of people having doubt, but

34:40

then when someone comes along a sin, don't have doubt. We

34:42

were right. It was them who were wrong. It's

34:45

gonna happen. It just that was he Q

34:47

had to say it that way to get us all flared

34:49

up. Now we're on board and

34:51

without that right, like he had to make

34:54

the spark to set the fire, and it's it's crazy,

34:56

man. But again

34:58

it is this post truth thing and like it just doesn't

35:00

matter, you know. And

35:02

then they also do the thing of I

35:05

mean there are some weird coincidences as they

35:07

will be like there's so hundreds and hundreds of que

35:09

posts, so every now like one in a thousand

35:12

of whatever worth what hell many it is. They

35:14

will be like, you know, a Q will say something and then

35:16

Trump might say something kind

35:18

of similar, and then it's like, well,

35:20

that's an affirmation for them, right, So

35:23

then it's like, well, the false,

35:26

the false prediction doesn't matter anymore because

35:28

the affirmation is stronger. So dwell on

35:30

that. Like they don't bring up the false thing.

35:33

Right. They don't go, oh, well forget about that. It's just

35:35

it's gone and here's the affirmation. Well that's good.

35:37

I mean when Trump in the last month

35:40

is twice as the president of the

35:42

most powerful country on earth not

35:44

condemned the conspiracy theory that started

35:46

on fortune and and thrived on a message

35:49

board that allowed pedophilia.

35:52

You know, for them, it's a very

35:55

very big thing, as it should be for anybody

35:57

like that, no matter what political

35:59

So did you're on, I think any straightforward

36:02

thinking person should go, wow, that's very

36:04

worrying. He didn't say, of

36:06

course this is nonsense, right, So for

36:08

Q and ons that was like Christmas.

36:11

But like, so, there's a section

36:13

that actually it's the whole episode, the second episode of your

36:15

podcast, where you you explore the

36:18

notion that Q and on is like a left wing

36:20

prank um. And I don't want

36:22

to spoil anything about it because there's a whole thing

36:24

you go into, which was I've never heard of like

36:26

this potential almost like theatrical

36:29

kind of like performance art

36:31

group that does this kind of stuff really interesting.

36:33

Don't want to even go into there, gotta listen to the episode

36:36

to find out. But when you really start

36:38

digging into it and just the random

36:40

absurdity of all of this stuff, and

36:42

then you know, bringing in Satanism, which

36:45

anyone that actually has done any research into Satanism

36:47

knows that Satanic panics are always

36:49

hoaxes and there's always some kind

36:52

of misunderstanding at the heart of it, and

36:54

true Satanism is really almost more

36:56

of a punk rock kind of like middle

36:58

finger to the establish man. You're not actually

37:01

like drinking goats blood and

37:03

like drawing pentagrams and like abandoned

37:05

churches or or anything like that. But like so

37:08

when you start digging into it really does feel like it could

37:10

be that thing. And yet it's been mainstream

37:13

so acutely. And

37:16

if it was meant to be this like left

37:18

wing prank to make right wingers look

37:20

stupid and

37:23

it reads that way, how is it caught

37:25

on in such a insane

37:27

way? Like I just I can't wrap my

37:29

head around. Is it the post truth thing? Is

37:32

it like boredom? Is I

37:34

don't know? I got I asked myself

37:36

this all the time, Like honestly, like

37:39

the other day I was reading about like are we

37:41

in a simulation? I don't Obviously, I don't believe

37:43

that at all, But it's just a fascinating concept. I was

37:45

reading and I was thinking, like Q

37:48

and on could be like all

37:51

these years I spent on like conspiracy

37:54

forums and stuff like as someone made a

37:56

program to just mug me off, like

37:58

you know what I mean. It was

38:00

a simulation and am I like like recreating

38:02

my own monster, like because it's that crazy, right,

38:05

You're just like surely not surely not

38:07

um. But to answer you a question, I think,

38:09

yeah, you know what it is. It's like it's

38:11

boredom. It's like, well, I

38:13

think culturally we're in a very strange place.

38:16

I feel like we're in between, you know, like

38:18

the early two thousand's is gone, the

38:20

twenty tens is here. We're really

38:22

at the peak. Well I guess we're always at

38:24

the peak of progress, but you know we've

38:26

really hit our stride within like senseless

38:30

constant scrolling, you know, like I'm

38:32

thirty man, and I'm so

38:35

so glad I didn't grow up with that.

38:37

You know, we had a phone and we

38:39

check it for like are you here? Yes? Yes? No?

38:41

That was it, you know, like there wasn't this constant

38:44

like for me, technology

38:46

was perfect when it was PS one's and Nokia

38:48

thirty three tens. You know, it went too far from

38:51

me after that, But I think it's

38:53

that the lack of connectivity in

38:55

human you know, face to face, and

38:57

then COVID man that was a real problem,

39:00

really put a lot of people into their bedrooms.

39:02

That for me is when there's

39:05

a real weird thing that I don't think anyone has tackled

39:07

yet, not with any kind of sensitivity

39:09

anyway. Where I see it

39:11

where where I'm from, like working class

39:14

communities getting hyper

39:17

conspiracy, conspiratorial, and

39:19

it's I've seen it there more than anywhere else,

39:22

right, And that comes from we already

39:24

distrust our government because I mean trust

39:26

me. Where I live, local government

39:28

doesn't care about us. They do not care like

39:31

you know, we have like volunteers have to set up

39:33

food banks because there's just not enough, right

39:35

And so already you grow up knowing the police

39:38

often will hate me and stop and search me for

39:40

nothing. The government clearly don't hate

39:42

me. And then you're in a place where there's bad education

39:45

as well, because you grew up poor, you didn't go into

39:47

a nice school that you already

39:49

set up to distrust all authority,

39:51

which you know it's I think it's fine. I kind

39:54

of doing myself, but unfortunately

39:57

these people you know, and these people are smart. Man. Just

39:59

because you're from a bad background or like poor Bagger

40:01

doesn't mean you're not smart. But instead of

40:03

getting the knowledge and processing

40:05

it correctly, it just kind of sits

40:07

there and stood. So it's like, well, I've read,

40:10

I'm well read. Now it's

40:12

true, and it's like, na, man, there's there's a I

40:14

don't know what it is. I'm not smart enough to

40:16

know, but there's a disconnect way of being well read

40:18

and reading a lot of research. You

40:21

can't just say Okay, that's real, you

40:24

know, because that would be like saying I know about space because

40:26

I watched all the star Wars. You know what I'm saying.

40:28

It's like, yeah, the processing of the information

40:31

for some reason is going in

40:33

a weird direction, and I'm seeing a lot of it,

40:35

man, and I'm seeing like friends from the way

40:38

around the way and just being like you know, and they last

40:40

me, you know a j you must have seen this.

40:42

I'm like, yeah, man, I did, but it's nonsense. And

40:44

they're like, come on, man, you're part of

40:46

you, part of their mean, I see you work for the media, what

40:49

about And it's like, oh my god,

40:51

Like, so my friends, you know, I

40:53

mean, most of my friends are smart enough to not go for it,

40:55

but some of my friends will be like I noticed.

40:58

I'm like, okay, you're believing facebo posts

41:00

an eight Chan post above your friend who

41:02

if you know, in your whole life in a matter

41:04

of a year, that's happened, you know, And it's man,

41:07

I mean, it's happening in all communities, but specifically

41:10

I'm seeing it with this thing. It

41:12

reminds me. Um. You know, one one

41:14

point I wish people talked about more is

41:17

that that the

41:19

first conspiracy theory many

41:21

people learn about in the West, they learn about

41:23

when they're very young. It's Santa Claus,

41:25

a group of powerful people adults

41:28

colued, uh successfully,

41:30

Right, and then when you learn about it, you have to be

41:32

in on it. I assure you this, the conversation

41:36

that you just told us about happens to

41:38

us, as you might imagine, pretty frequently.

41:42

And um, I think I

41:44

think what we're talking about here is, you

41:47

know, you can't read a correspondence

41:49

course on swimming and

41:51

then just go across the English channel,

41:53

right. Uh, that's part of

41:55

the reason that we have to value primary

41:59

sources, we have to value cross checking, and

42:01

we have to value the credibility

42:03

of something. But the

42:06

disconnect perhaps comes from

42:09

seeking agency, right, because

42:11

what's what's do

42:13

do you think people find psychologically

42:16

find conspiracy theories comforting because

42:19

the alternative would be rampant

42:22

incompetence and chaos. I

42:24

know, well it's on

42:26

some level, But I I can answer this from a

42:28

personal point of view, you know, Like I said, I love watching

42:31

conspiracy stuff, and I

42:34

think it comes from because the alternative

42:36

is very boring. Actually, like

42:39

how unbelievably boring is it to be? Like oh

42:41

yeah, like all the politicians are

42:43

just horrific scumbags who come

42:45

in to get their money and power

42:48

and leave. It's like, oh that's

42:50

I mean, that's obviously what's happening in my opinion

42:52

anyway. But it's like that's a

42:54

bit more boring than you know, eleven

42:58

was an inside job. It's a little bit more boring

43:00

than all of that. So yeah,

43:03

yeah, maybe it's just and and and again. Like even

43:05

me, man, I watched what is it

43:07

the New Pearl Harbor, like some six

43:09

hour documentary. It's like the new Loose

43:12

Change, right, about nine and eleven, I was

43:14

like, oh, this is going to be a treat. Let me get into

43:16

this tonight, and like properly, I was like laughing

43:18

out loud at some of it, but then some of it I

43:20

was like, And then when it finished,

43:22

I was like, come on, man, what's wrong with you?

43:25

But there's that one percent of like even

43:27

in me, Like I feel like I'm quite a logical guy,

43:29

Like even me, the one percent of Like that's

43:31

interesting for me. Cryptids right, Bigfoot,

43:34

and I don't I think they might, you

43:36

know, and people working on Twitter,

43:38

like someone said to me like, I can't believe you're this

43:41

like serious wa journalist and you're

43:43

talking about Mothman, Like what is wrong with you? And the first

43:45

thing I'm like, bore off, leave me alone. And secondly

43:47

I'm like, well, you know, I don't know, but

43:49

that's that's fine. That's cryptids. But like I think,

43:52

what my point I'm trying to get to is the curiosity.

43:54

People have curiosity like you just mentioned

43:57

like Santa Claus, right, kids love

43:59

that, man, you know, any kids in my family,

44:01

I'll tell them, yeah, it's real because you see them like, wow,

44:04

it's on the sleigh and it's that's fun,

44:06

man, that's so exhilarating for a kid.

44:09

And yeah, that's a good example you use. I never thought

44:11

of it that way, because it's the same way for a conspiracy

44:13

theory, like don't worry, I've got the inside

44:15

knowledge. That's so fun, and yet

44:18

it somehow manages to not just like

44:20

wreck your whole worldview and you find out

44:22

or maybe it does for some kids,

44:24

like it's such a betrayal ultimately,

44:27

like oh, you actively to me on

44:29

purpose, you know, from my benefit,

44:31

to give me joy or whatever. But still it's

44:33

like, if you're lying your ben, you've made this point. If you're

44:36

lying about this, what else are you lying about? Is

44:38

everybody lying about everything? You know? That's

44:40

exactly want to bring up no, because it

44:43

feels to me like just since two

44:45

thousand five, which is when Loose Change, I

44:47

think that's when the first loose change came out, and

44:50

in between that one and the last one we

44:53

started the show. Uh, And it honestly

44:55

was because the loose change is one

44:57

of those things that really spurs your mind

45:00

going to think differently, like

45:02

the matrix coming out in a

45:05

lot of these the media and

45:07

things that make you want to think differently. And

45:09

then as you know, individuals

45:12

like you start looking into

45:14

and researching something, whether it's a crypted

45:16

whether it's you know, a human experimentation

45:19

that occurred in St. Louis. In a certain

45:21

time, you start you start to

45:23

feel like the rug is being pulled out from

45:26

you completely on what you used to believe,

45:28

the truths you know from Santa Claus

45:31

all the way to how your local

45:33

government works, to how the government in your

45:35

country works, to how the planet

45:37

itself functions. I mean, you're

45:39

literally I think

45:42

what the Internet, combined with our curiosities,

45:45

combined with more and more people digging

45:47

in further, has created a situation

45:50

where we not only

45:52

like you said, this post truth world. It's

45:54

it's not just an individual

45:57

posting on Facebook something that isn't

46:00

real and then that spreading It is our minds.

46:02

It is our our inability now

46:04

to know what is true

46:07

because we feel like we've been we've

46:10

been played so many times throughout our

46:12

lives, right, but in some ways

46:14

we have like I'm not talking about conspiracy

46:17

theories here, Like you know, I

46:19

work in the media and I've got you

46:21

know, a lot of good friends working what people

46:23

call mainstream media you know, I don't think there's

46:25

anything wrong with mainstream

46:27

media in terms of individual

46:30

stories, but as a whole, it

46:32

is a mess. And trust me, let me tell you from

46:34

someone on the inside. I mean, you guys

46:36

are as well, but you know what I mean. Like in the news, the news

46:39

section of it, like, it's a mess,

46:41

man, Like, it's a very serious mess. There

46:44

are things that have happened where,

46:46

you know, I'm talking to commissioning, editors

46:48

and producers and they're

46:50

saying like, oh no, it has to be like this, And I'm

46:52

thinking, Jesus Christ, how unbelievably

46:55

dishonest of you to want to sway it like that.

46:57

That's not because they're part of a cabal. It's

47:00

not the Jews, it's not the

47:03

Freemasons or whatever whatever like nonsense

47:05

people want to say. It's just the way the culture

47:07

is now. We're becoming a culture war, and

47:10

people, without realizing it, sometimes

47:13

end up securing a story because it's

47:15

like we have to have this angle. It's

47:17

manufactured kind of um.

47:20

It's like a man of manufactured thought process

47:23

where it's like, well, if they're doing

47:25

it like this, then we have to do it like that. It's

47:27

not really you know, sometimes

47:29

it is what it is. You don't have to bring

47:31

this angle on it. That's why I you know, I

47:34

remember when I was first advice News. It

47:36

was great. There was no agenda. It's like, what's happening

47:39

this and that's it. There was no well, how

47:41

can we link this to Trump? How can we It's just

47:43

this is happening, you know, And I thought that was excellent.

47:46

But I will say over the last couple of years, I've just seen

47:48

media in general go very strange, like,

47:51

and it's not just the right wing talking point.

47:53

It really isn't to say that like the

47:55

news is becoming specifically in

47:57

America, no offense, but like I have some times

48:00

sometimes I watch Fox just just to laugh

48:03

and then I'll put on like, you know, the equivalent

48:05

that whatever it is, and and they just be like, it's

48:08

kind of the same thing, just from the different

48:10

sides. A lot of the time, you know, I do think the right

48:12

wingers are the worst. They're the they're the biggest

48:14

cry babies. Ironically, you know, they're telling everybody

48:17

a snowflight, but the second you deviate from what they

48:19

want, they cannot handle it. But I do think they're

48:21

both actually doing it so

48:23

even when you get to that and you recognize, okay,

48:25

there's floors in the media, Like then

48:28

it's like you just said, the kind of everyone now

48:30

is not just conspiracy theorists. You know. Like

48:32

even my granddad was like, God's sake,

48:34

can I just watch you know, a very smart guy.

48:37

I remember while because I can I just watch something without

48:39

being told, you know, they're

48:41

implying how you should feel about it.

48:43

It's like, yeah, like come on, I've

48:45

got a new documentary coming out soon about

48:49

three D print guns. Yeah, yeah,

48:51

three D printing guns in Western Europe, and a few

48:53

people messing me like, oh, I'm very uncomfortable with this joke,

48:56

Like you you haven't really like presented

48:58

it in a way that makes, you know, kind of explains

49:00

how bad this is. And you know, I'm not saying

49:03

I'm pro or anti. It

49:05

doesn't matter, you know, it's like, why

49:07

do you care? This is the information,

49:09

here's what they're doing. You shouldn't be concerned.

49:12

I'm not, you know, I'm making you feel good. I'm rubbing

49:14

your belly and telling you what's right and wrong. That's not

49:16

the role of journalism, you know. Even

49:18

someone replied on the Twitter was like, oh, there's a lot of Nazis

49:21

are replying to you here, and I was like, yeah,

49:23

I hate them, but it's

49:25

not my problem, you know, like this is the information,

49:28

it's not for them. It's not for them.

49:30

That's kind of how it should be processed. And I'm

49:32

not one of these people that believes in complete objectivity,

49:35

because there is right and wrong, you know. But

49:38

at the same time, you shouldn't

49:40

seek out your news to have your

49:42

your kind of to be rocked to sleep

49:44

at night. The world is cruel and the world

49:46

is nasty and it's never going to change, and

49:48

I think you should take solace in being

49:50

aware of what's going on rather than someone telling

49:53

you why you're scared of that, you know, And

49:55

I sound like a conspiracy theories now,

49:59

please realist, because

50:02

the truth of the matter is one

50:05

great error that that

50:07

the US news, right,

50:09

I would say, like the terrestrial radio the broadcast

50:12

makes is uh this conviction,

50:16

that a rooneyous conviction

50:18

that all stories

50:20

can be explained within

50:22

three to five minutes, which is sadly just

50:25

not the truth. You know, almost none

50:27

can, to be honest, you know what I mean, None that are that

50:29

important, And that's a good

50:31

point you brought it there, because that's the kind of

50:34

the format, right the Internet. That ironically

50:36

enough, like the Internet when I remember loving blogs.

50:39

I used to read blogs. I had my own little

50:41

blog when I first started, right, and they're all

50:43

gone now like the Internet used to be. I see

50:45

it like it used to be wide open, and now it's ring

50:47

fenced to social media, like barely any blogs

50:49

and that really do well now. And

50:52

it's like the Internet should have been the

50:54

place where it took

50:56

all that away, right, it took all that three minute explainer

50:58

thing away. But now that we

51:00

have Twitter and now we have the social media's,

51:04

it's almost like back to the three minute explainer,

51:06

right, Like a tweet, people want to know within two

51:08

or three tweets what's happening, and

51:12

if not, they're just like whatever,

51:14

I'll just make up my own mind, or I'll leave it or whatever.

51:16

So unfortunately, I feel like that format

51:18

is now being manufactured within the social media.

51:21

I don't believe it's an attention span thing like

51:23

that is. Netflix has proved that people will

51:25

watch something for eight hours at a time if

51:28

they're interested. I just think the

51:30

interaction and the social aspect

51:32

of it and the rapid fire of it

51:34

is. Unfortunately, I guess

51:37

what I'm saying, Like you said that, the kind of three

51:39

minute explain has been recreated but into social

51:41

media, and it's no good, man, it's no good.

51:43

All right, We're gonna take a quick step away to hear

51:46

a word from our sponsors, and then we'll be back

51:48

with more from Jake. And

51:56

we're back for more with Jake Hanrahan. One

51:59

of the kind of repeating themes that you always

52:01

hear about in like cult type situations

52:03

is people becoming estranged from

52:05

their families. Um. And with this Q

52:08

and on thing, seeing that a ton

52:10

you're reading about it, but I just I've experienced

52:12

it personally. Really, dear friend

52:14

of mine has essentially had to disconnect from our

52:16

entire family. There's already

52:19

political differences, but then they

52:21

start going deep, deep, deep into this Q

52:23

stuff and it's just like, who are

52:25

you? We We have nothing in common

52:28

anymore. How how do we talk to each other? How

52:30

can I, you know, give

52:33

you credit for being an empathetic person if

52:36

you are just you know, spouting off all this stuff.

52:38

Um.

52:40

But yet cults typically have like a central

52:42

leader, and with Q, all we have is

52:45

this series of kind of disjointed ideas.

52:48

That's just you know, crapped out

52:50

on the internet. So is Q and on occult

52:53

and and if it is, is it maybe like a new kind

52:55

of cult that we haven't seen before, like one that's

52:57

a product of the Internet age or I

53:00

don't know, like it seems so culty but it

53:02

doesn't follow all the rules, but it follow some of them.

53:04

Is it making new rules for what I think?

53:07

Um? I think you're right there. Yeah, it has

53:09

like it's it's it's hitting there, you're hit thenail

53:11

on the head with like it's new. Right, it's something else

53:13

And maybe in ten years there will be a new word for what

53:15

it is. But right now we're kind of seeing

53:17

the genesis of it. Right, So you

53:20

know, for a while I didn't believe. I was like,

53:22

it's not a cult, man, get real. And then Sarah

53:24

hire Tower researcher, he's helping me a lot with

53:27

Q clearance. She's like, you know, the researcher with

53:29

me on this. Um, she's always

53:31

been pushing from kind of day one, like this is a cult.

53:33

This is a cult. And she specializes in researching

53:36

cults. And the more I spoiled to it, the more I looked

53:38

at it, and I was like, yeah, actually, it kind of is just

53:40

because it doesn't have a compound, just because

53:42

you know, there's no Jim Jones out

53:45

there in people's faces. It doesn't

53:47

really matter. Like you said, it's the new thing, right, people

53:49

live online now, you know, people get there

53:51

everything, they get their dopamine fixed online.

53:54

They show the whole world a fake image of themselves

53:56

online to let everybody know that life is good,

53:58

even if it isn't. Pull shop online,

54:01

you know, you don't even when was the last time you went into a

54:03

shop to try a coat on me on like size large

54:05

by, you know what I mean. It's so

54:07

crazy and and it does.

54:09

It makes sense then that the compound is now online,

54:12

right, the compound whatever or the leader

54:14

is online, qu is online, and perhaps

54:16

the compound is the websites that's

54:18

he's on, or maybe the compound is the community

54:21

they put themselves in because they kind of have

54:23

and it's spilled out into the real world. We've seen it,

54:25

you know. There's loads of these q and on rallies

54:28

And there was even a Florida SWAT

54:31

officer who had a q and on

54:33

patch when he met Mike Pence.

54:37

It's out there, you know, it's real world. There

54:39

was a guy that built an armored vehicle for himself

54:41

from block to bridge because of Q and On. He had

54:43

nine rounds and all these weapons. So

54:47

yeah, it kind of is a cult, I

54:49

think. You know, it's just like you said, it's different.

54:52

It's decentralized in a way

54:54

because of the you know, they don't have a place

54:56

where they live or whatever, but they live

54:58

online like we all live online. Now, it's

55:00

not specific to them.

55:03

It's almost like, how

55:05

to explain it? That was a secondary thing. We're

55:07

all living online already, and

55:09

then here's the cult thing. It wasn't like you

55:11

have to live online to be in the cold. We're already

55:13

there, man, you know. And now it's just kind

55:16

of coalesced in Q and On for them.

55:18

But I don't think that that's particularly

55:23

specific to them. You know, it just is what

55:25

I mean, you get weird. I remember I was researching the thing

55:27

I wanted to make a documentary about there's

55:30

these weird kind of fan girls of school

55:32

shooters, and I wanted to do a documentary

55:35

where we go and meet the morning, like why do you love

55:37

the shoot shooters? Mate?

55:39

They had a thing where this girl had a pillow

55:41

with the Columbine Killers faces on them. Right,

55:43

it's just next level, right, horrific

55:46

but fascinating at the same time. And

55:48

when you look at it, that is kind

55:50

of a cult like thing in a way because

55:53

it started on the Inn and they formed their own community.

55:55

So my point is, I think we have

55:57

to re look at what is a cult and what isn't. It's

55:59

it's not it's not your granddad's cult, you know

56:01

what I mean, It's not. It's not that anymore. You

56:03

know, it isn't you know, I don't

56:06

think that. I think

56:08

that's the minority. Now. You know this weird

56:10

nexium co um. I know you guys have done

56:12

stuff on that and like that is much

56:14

smaller now these days than online

56:17

kind of cult ish things,

56:19

um. And I think it's the way forward

56:22

in a bad way. And I don't mean in a good way like

56:24

let's do more. I mean, like this is

56:26

how it's going to progress. I think online from

56:28

now. What's interesting there is any

56:30

community can acquire cult

56:33

like characteristics, right, it doesn't

56:35

have to be really the compound

56:38

is defined by the commonality of experience,

56:40

and we know that when groups aggregate

56:43

and they coalesce around a specific

56:46

set of commonalities. They tend to

56:49

self well. I don't want to sound like

56:52

like some counterintelligence mumbo jumbo,

56:55

but they do tend to radicalize to a degree.

56:57

Right, if you have someone casually join a cape

57:00

up for him, you know, I mean to pick our cape

57:02

up here, but they casually join a cape up for him

57:04

because they like a song from a band

57:07

and they stick with it. Then six months later, study

57:09

show they'll double down. They

57:11

will come after you on Twitter like angry

57:14

hornets as well. They

57:16

are so well organized, like god forbid

57:18

they ever become militant, like they will wipe everybody

57:20

out. But you're right, like

57:23

the compound is not the building the you

57:25

know, like Jonestown or whatever. Like let's say Waco,

57:27

the compound wasn't the house. They didn't just go, oh, let's

57:30

go and live there because we like this house. They

57:32

they the compound was just just like a part

57:34

of the building. Right. But why they're there in the first

57:37

place is you know, that's

57:39

the cult, right, And it's like, yeah, just

57:41

because that's not in a physical

57:43

building, it can still exist as a

57:46

concept, right, all right, So I know, I

57:48

think as we're recording this. We're three episodes

57:50

into the podcast. You clearance?

57:52

Is that correct? Maybe? Four three

57:55

three three? You're right? Okay, Um,

57:57

so we we we've certainly got more

58:00

to learn, at least from our end as listeners.

58:03

Um. I wanted to point one thing

58:05

out to you. Your show

58:07

is on the I Heart Radio network, as is ours.

58:09

You know that Hillary Clinton has a show

58:11

on the I Heart Radio network, right or her

58:14

body double? I mean,

58:16

I'm saying, Jake, I think maybe

58:19

you actually have a chance to get Hillary

58:21

on your show at some point. Well, I probably

58:24

not because in some of the promotional work

58:28

that my graphic designer made for me,

58:30

like we put Lary Clinton with like lizard eyes on

58:32

it, So I

58:35

don't think so

58:38

a great sense of humor. Well, in

58:42

the first episode as well, I'm like, I'm not a Hillary

58:45

support. I'm not a Trump support. Like I kind of in the

58:47

first episode wanted to let everybody know this and this

58:49

and this, But I would love to get Hillary

58:51

on and be like, you know, are you really

58:53

you? But I don't know if I can trust myself

58:56

to not go ridiculous and just be like

58:59

I would probably cancel myself from

59:01

my heart forever. But

59:03

I don't know if I trust myself, but I would love

59:05

to do that. It would actually be like do

59:08

you know what would be interesting? Like jokes aside

59:10

to kind of she must be aware of it, right, I would

59:12

love to be like, hey, like, how

59:14

do you look one of the so what

59:17

is it called fizzle drip or something? Frizzle drip.

59:20

That's a part of the Q and On mythos where man,

59:23

this is dark, but they literally believe

59:25

there's a video of Hillary Clinton cutting

59:27

a kid's face off and wearing it

59:30

Like, I would love to be like, how do

59:32

you feel about the fact

59:35

hundreds of thousands of people across

59:37

the world believe this is real? And

59:39

one interesting part of this is the

59:42

screenshot that they will say is from

59:44

this video, right, It's literally

59:46

a screenshot of like some Brazilian women. I

59:48

think they're in like a laundrette, like a laundro

59:50

amount or something. But then some Q and On

59:52

people kind of black bits

59:55

out of it, redacted bits of what we had to cover

59:57

this because that was a dead baby. They put like

59:59

a red hue on it and it looks kind

1:00:01

of sinister. But then when you see the real

1:00:03

patriots, just like two women sat there like

1:00:05

just watching TV. You know, um

1:00:08

yeah, I mean that must be horrible. I mean I don't

1:00:10

know. You know, she's obviously like very like bulletproof

1:00:13

in terms of thick skin you have to be as a politician.

1:00:16

But it must be horrible to think like Jesus

1:00:18

Christ, like people think I do this, you know,

1:00:21

um, and then I'd be like, did you

1:00:23

do it? Hillary would yeah,

1:00:29

yeah, right, but but now and it must

1:00:31

be strange, like anyone that's in that

1:00:34

kind of universe, I mean, I would

1:00:36

hate it. I'm sure they're going to come up with something for

1:00:38

me at the end of this. I mean I've

1:00:40

actually asked some of them. I've like, I want you on.

1:00:42

I don't believe in deep platform me. I'm

1:00:44

not really about that. And I've said to

1:00:46

some of the more rational ones, like, come

1:00:48

onto the podcast and make your case for

1:00:50

why it's real and whatever. We'll have an actual

1:00:53

discussion. I'm not gonna laugh at you. I'm not

1:00:55

going to tell you an idiot. Will just say like, you say

1:00:57

what you think, and then I can say why I think

1:00:59

that's outrageous. No's it. We'll have it. We'll have a

1:01:01

civil conversation. None of them, Not one of them

1:01:03

has agreed or even replied. And I

1:01:05

know they've seen it because I know these are the people that I've already

1:01:07

conversed with before. None of them want to

1:01:09

do that. Maybe they think that it's a trap.

1:01:12

I don't know, you know, I can't really I can't

1:01:14

really say, but I think it's important

1:01:16

to do that. And you know, it's

1:01:18

a good point you say about Hillary, like it affects people

1:01:20

in different ways, you know, like I mean,

1:01:23

her kids must know about it. They must be online

1:01:25

all the time, you know, like everybody's kids

1:01:27

are, must be weird, must be

1:01:29

weird. I'll ask her, who

1:01:31

see Hillary? If you hear this, don't

1:01:34

worry about the lizard eyes, Like, let's go. So

1:01:37

the artwork is negotiable.

1:01:40

So one question that we know

1:01:42

everybody is asking that

1:01:45

you may not be able to answer,

1:01:47

Jake, yet it's it's something

1:01:49

we have to bring up out of all the

1:01:51

theories, the big, the big

1:01:53

badger in the room here is are

1:01:56

there any compelling leads on

1:01:58

the identity or identities of

1:02:01

the so called Q? And by

1:02:03

like compelling, we're

1:02:05

talking about the gamut of things, right, Like, Matt,

1:02:07

you have a you have a suspect,

1:02:10

right. It sounds super silly

1:02:12

in my head right now, but I have seen

1:02:15

a lot of people online questioning whether

1:02:18

or not Q actually is Donald

1:02:20

Trump the president. Um

1:02:23

is that ridiculous? And why he's online

1:02:25

a lot? I mean he's

1:02:27

on Twitter a lot. Maybe he's on four Channel a lot

1:02:29

as well. Um. So actually

1:02:31

what's even more fun is so Q and One's

1:02:33

believe Q plus is Trump.

1:02:36

So there's there's Q and there's Q plus,

1:02:38

which is like the extended team, right, and

1:02:41

they believe Q plus is Trump because

1:02:43

Trump, you know, he does this thing where he points people

1:02:46

out in the crowd when he's wandering around and that,

1:02:48

and he must have done like just pointed at

1:02:50

someone basically, and they're like, look, he's doing

1:02:52

a cute plus. I mean,

1:02:54

to be honest, actually he does do like

1:02:56

a weird thing. But he's just going like that guy

1:02:59

there that you know what I mean, as anybody does. Um.

1:03:01

But no, I would

1:03:04

love if you know, like I know it

1:03:06

sounds bad, but I would love if you and on

1:03:08

was real and if we will all wrong,

1:03:11

it would just be the funniest end to right.

1:03:14

It would just incredible. Really,

1:03:17

that dude is capable of this much subtext

1:03:20

like he's a pretty surfacing

1:03:22

guy, you know what you think about his politics,

1:03:24

Like he's kind of what you see is what you get. That's

1:03:27

always the impression that it would just

1:03:29

be great though, like

1:03:34

like me like laughing

1:03:36

my head off as the stormtroopers kick off my door

1:03:38

and send me to prison for like believing. Yeah,

1:03:42

you know what I mean. But speaking

1:03:44

of Jake, I don't want to alarm you, but your your

1:03:47

door that is directly behind the door, just open

1:03:49

up seriously, Okay.

1:03:51

Yeah, I wasn't

1:03:53

gonna say anything like yeah,

1:03:56

Hillary is at you, but like, no, man,

1:03:58

it's um I mean, no, there's nothing,

1:04:00

but obviously there's nothing, but like it's

1:04:02

one of these ones where like I sometimes

1:04:04

I do actually try and put my head into

1:04:06

the mind of the Q and on person And

1:04:08

I look back to when I was like thirteen, and

1:04:11

I was like nine eleven is an inside job, and

1:04:13

like I loved all that. It was like I was

1:04:15

like the conspiracy guy before anyone

1:04:17

was. I was trying to tell my friends and they were like what

1:04:20

what shut up Jake, Like go away, like you're

1:04:22

crazy. I mean I probably had like a year of

1:04:24

that before I kind of started reading real books

1:04:26

and was like, oh what But um,

1:04:29

you know, I try and put myself into like my younger self

1:04:31

and think like, oh, well and I can I can see

1:04:33

the coincidences,

1:04:36

which is so unbelievably small. But

1:04:38

when they're wrapped up in it, they need anything

1:04:40

to make this real. So if you just give them

1:04:42

a crumb, it's like they'll take that.

1:04:45

That's a whole cake for them, you know. So there

1:04:48

are very few and far between, you know,

1:04:50

Like I think one was like a typo Trump

1:04:52

did and they were like, ha, drop one

1:04:54

two whatever. You also

1:04:57

used the semi coode on there. We

1:04:59

know it's him, you know, and so there is that.

1:05:02

Um that's

1:05:05

right, right, Oh god, that

1:05:07

was so insufferable. Um,

1:05:09

but no, there's no question

1:05:13

I don't think it's Trump. No, Okay,

1:05:16

well, well we'll look forward

1:05:18

to what we'll only be able to describe a classic

1:05:21

if it does end up being the current

1:05:23

president. Uh.

1:05:25

At this point, we do want to say, as

1:05:27

we pointed out that this

1:05:30

show is ongoing, Q clearance

1:05:32

is ongoing, there are things

1:05:34

that Jake, you cannot reveal to

1:05:37

us yet right as as

1:05:39

we're in media arrest here. But for

1:05:42

everyone who is waiting

1:05:44

to hear the conclusion

1:05:47

of of this podcast. We

1:05:49

don't want to let the opportunity pass without

1:05:51

asking just a couple more questions about

1:05:53

popular front So

1:05:55

this is this is independent, this is

1:05:58

something now, it's now, it's across

1:06:00

multiple platforms. Is started eighteen

1:06:02

as originally as a podcast,

1:06:05

and you've interviewed some

1:06:08

fascinating people also recently,

1:06:10

like you talked about Ivan the

1:06:12

Troll regarding three D printed firearms.

1:06:15

Uh, you talked about something we explore

1:06:18

pretty often, the world of

1:06:20

drone warfare. I think that's one of the most

1:06:22

recent episodes. With

1:06:25

all this in mind, what God

1:06:29

is so depressing? But what what trends

1:06:31

do you see for conflict

1:06:34

in the future. What do you wish more audiences,

1:06:36

maybe in the bubble of the West, understood

1:06:39

about what's happening out there. M M,

1:06:42

yeah, it is. It is. Well, it's not depressing.

1:06:44

It is depressing, but I think

1:06:47

it's less the pressing to be aware

1:06:49

of it, right, It's better to be like, let's be aware

1:06:51

of it rather than bury our heads. So I

1:06:54

think the trends unfortunately

1:06:56

going forward, I see fascism making

1:06:58

like quite a largely and

1:07:00

I don't mean anything. I don't like

1:07:02

his fascism. I mean like real actual

1:07:04

like fascism within government's fascism

1:07:06

within like militant groups, you know, getting

1:07:09

powerful like that fascist militant groups,

1:07:11

and that is a real worry man. Like in Europe

1:07:13

as well, we're seeing a lot of that. I think

1:07:16

this whole, like I don't

1:07:18

know, populism is probably not the right word, but I'll

1:07:20

use that the whole, like right wing populism

1:07:23

is kind of I think that's here

1:07:25

to stay for at least the next five years.

1:07:27

Perhaps I'm talking about r I'm in Europe um,

1:07:30

so that's us. But then in terms of like the

1:07:32

wars and the conflicts going on, it's just

1:07:34

like it's

1:07:36

it's at the brink now where I think a

1:07:39

lot is going to start happening. And I

1:07:41

don't want to tie it to Trump or anything like that,

1:07:44

but I do think there's been a shift and

1:07:47

a lot of authoritarian governments can kind

1:07:49

of be like we can get away with more now. Now.

1:07:52

I'm not arguing that like, oh yeah, let's have more American

1:07:54

interventions. Certainly not. I mean that's why

1:07:56

Iraq is the way it is right and many

1:07:58

other places. But but there is a thing of

1:08:01

like people, there's

1:08:03

always going to be someone bully the rest of the world, right,

1:08:06

and I just think the bullies are changing

1:08:08

now. I think, you know China, which you

1:08:10

know, it's an absolute fact

1:08:12

that they're like like a techno

1:08:15

dictatorship, you know, like look at the wager it's

1:08:17

been put into concentration camps. It's terrific

1:08:19

just for being a Muslim, you know. So

1:08:22

that the kind of indifference from the world

1:08:24

to that, it's it was a real eye opener

1:08:26

for me. I was like, Wow, what about what happened

1:08:28

to never again? You know what I mean? Um,

1:08:31

there's like evidence, there's proof, and

1:08:33

it's just like everyone's just

1:08:36

like it just happens. But then it's

1:08:38

like, what do you want to do? What we're gonna do invade China?

1:08:40

Like no, Like I don't know what the answer is,

1:08:42

man um,

1:08:45

But I just see it looking bad, you know. I

1:08:47

think this thing with Armenia and as by John Is

1:08:49

is really a problem,

1:08:51

and I think it's one of these wars where

1:08:55

in my opinion, it shows that organizations

1:08:58

like the U N and NATO and the EU,

1:09:01

they're not moral organizations. They

1:09:03

might act like they are, but they don't

1:09:05

have a moral soul. They're just an

1:09:07

organization, you know. And I think when you see these

1:09:09

conflicts, it shows that now

1:09:12

when it's not as saucy as spicy as

1:09:15

Syria, when you look at a place like Armenia

1:09:17

and Azer by Joan is just horrific war going

1:09:19

on there, and there's there's already been war crimes, beheadings,

1:09:22

UM attorney hospitals targeted today

1:09:24

in Armenia, and it's it's

1:09:26

like the world is kind of like aloof Twitter, and

1:09:28

the U N is kind of like we're deeply concerned.

1:09:31

Again, you know, there's things they

1:09:33

can do, you know, like one of their NATO, you know,

1:09:35

Turkey is is supplying UM

1:09:37

in some cases Johann's militants to

1:09:39

as a bay Joan to fight for

1:09:41

you know, for as a by John. And it's like

1:09:43

when NATO just goes like, you

1:09:46

know, like what what can

1:09:48

you do? Then, you know, like one of the most powerful

1:09:50

organizations, where is there to go? So

1:09:52

I mean, I know it sounds a bit nihilistic in it, but

1:09:54

I think what is actually happening is a perhaps

1:09:57

like a recalibration of where the

1:09:59

power is are and where people's perceptions

1:10:01

of what those powers do, you know, like

1:10:04

the genocide can happen now, and

1:10:06

the idea that the West is going to step in is

1:10:09

kind of laughable. I think, you know, it's

1:10:12

not gonna happen. And I'm not saying

1:10:16

this is gonna sound callous. I don't. I'm not saying the West

1:10:18

should step in because I'm not like pro

1:10:20

intervention. But some things are just right

1:10:22

and wrong, you know, like if you have the power

1:10:24

to stop people being put into concentration

1:10:26

camp, something should be done, you know what I

1:10:29

mean. Like, if NATO forces

1:10:31

are committing war crimes on camera, the

1:10:33

least NATO can do is say we've

1:10:35

seen that and it's bad. I mean there are instances,

1:10:38

trust me, man, When I was in Southeast Turkey where

1:10:40

there were war crimes happening, NATO's

1:10:42

second largest army was committing them in some

1:10:44

cases filming them and recording them themselves

1:10:47

and putting them out there and go and look what we did, and

1:10:50

just no one said anything, you know, And it's kind

1:10:52

of like, where do you go from there? I don't

1:10:54

know, honestly, man. I guess my answer is I don't have

1:10:56

the full answer. And it sounds grim and

1:10:58

it sounds miserable. But one thing I will say that's

1:11:00

good is always remember

1:11:02

the people living there, man, and mostly not

1:11:05

bad people, Like they're the resilience

1:11:07

you will see specifically in the Middle East, like I've

1:11:09

seen on the war conditions. I'm like, how are you living

1:11:11

like this? How are you having a laugh? How are

1:11:13

you functioning so well? So

1:11:15

I think the one thing we can take from it is like people

1:11:18

will just keep living, you know what I mean, even when they're

1:11:20

getting killed, they will keep living.

1:11:22

And that's the only kind of solace I take

1:11:24

from it. It's like, the people

1:11:26

won't be crushed no matter what I think,

1:11:28

you know what I mean. And by the people, I

1:11:30

don't mean any political whatever.

1:11:33

I just mean, you know, just people, you

1:11:35

average people that are caught up in this. They

1:11:37

won't be crushed fully ever, So

1:11:40

that's the only good thing. I

1:11:43

don't know what else they're telling you, man, Like it's

1:11:45

pretty grim and unfortunately,

1:11:47

like you know, there's a lot of work

1:11:49

for me to look through and things

1:11:51

to do with Popular Front, because you

1:11:53

know, we we do cover all of these bases.

1:11:56

If there's a clash, if there's a conflict

1:11:58

happening, we will look into it and

1:12:00

and honestly, in the last year I've just been like christ

1:12:03

I don't even know what to talk about now, Like it's

1:12:05

just I've got like a list on my wall and it's just adding

1:12:07

up every day. So yeah, it's

1:12:09

it's it's grim, it's grim. Well,

1:12:12

what I would say is any any time you

1:12:14

want to just come on this show and talk

1:12:16

about any one specific place or a

1:12:18

specific thing, we would be more than happy

1:12:20

to have you and you know, do

1:12:23

some research with you on something. I love that

1:12:25

man, Like definitely appreciate that. Like I would definitely

1:12:27

take you up on that. There's there's there's so

1:12:29

many do you know what's interesting you guys can

1:12:31

maybe look at like conspiracies in the Middle

1:12:33

East. I have so many friends in the Middle East

1:12:35

because of my work. Everyone loves

1:12:37

a conspiracy, even down to like there's

1:12:40

a conspiracy with the cafe, you know

1:12:42

what I mean. He's like he says that he's trying

1:12:44

to he's getting the Israelis are sending him

1:12:46

that Homers or whatever. You know what I mean. There's always

1:12:48

a conspiracy. It's good fun. Actually,

1:12:51

we did a piece on We did a piece on

1:12:53

the genre of animals as

1:12:55

spies, which is a wildly

1:12:58

popular genre of its own in

1:13:00

the Middle East. That like the

1:13:03

there's also like the sharks and stuff with

1:13:05

lasers and stuff as well, exactly,

1:13:08

And then you know, what can you what can you say

1:13:10

to that, because intelligence agencies in

1:13:12

the past did have that bright idea

1:13:14

where someone's like, I don't know, man, what can

1:13:16

we put in a cat? Yeah,

1:13:19

things like that though I always you know, like there's a

1:13:21

great book John Ronson did The Men Who Stare

1:13:23

at Goats, And I try and explain

1:13:25

to people that's not like a whole

1:13:28

huge conspiracy. It's one guy

1:13:30

with a dumb idea who didn't

1:13:32

have enough oversight, and someone went, you had

1:13:34

let let Jack do that whatever, get

1:13:36

him out of my hair, and before you know it, he's

1:13:38

got like a spying looking through walls,

1:13:40

killing goats thing going on. And like often

1:13:43

the like the biggest conspiracies

1:13:45

that, oh they're real. Often it's

1:13:47

like it wasn't that insidious. It was just some ideot

1:13:50

who like bypassed his middle manager

1:13:53

somehow, you know, and he had like a budget,

1:13:55

and they're the most fun ones. Yeah, So

1:13:58

I don't know, it's it's there's a lot of them. Out

1:14:00

there, Like, not all conspiracies are is

1:14:02

like Dark is Q and on, but they're

1:14:05

the ones I enjoyed it, Like that's why I love Cryptids.

1:14:07

You know, Mothman is never gonna hurt me.

1:14:09

Man, Well, I

1:14:12

don't know. That statue of him

1:14:14

and that West Virginia it

1:14:17

looks like a he Man action figure. He's got

1:14:19

like these crazy sculpted abs and

1:14:22

like buns of steel. Literally it's

1:14:25

nuts, I'll say it. The

1:14:28

Mothman statue is thick with two

1:14:30

c's. I mean it's like, yeah,

1:14:33

those cheeks are clapping. Yeah. Good. So

1:14:37

before we continue objectifying moth

1:14:40

Man, yes, shout out. Shout

1:14:42

out to Cryptics and Jake, thank you

1:14:44

so much for being so generous

1:14:46

with your time today. As we said,

1:14:49

like Popular Front, if you're ever interested

1:14:51

in the geopolitical topics

1:14:54

we've covered on this show in the past,

1:14:56

then do please check out Popular Front.

1:14:58

It's a long running show. I can't

1:15:01

say enough good about it personally,

1:15:03

and it's worth your time checking

1:15:06

out, especially as you are waiting

1:15:09

for the conclusion of Q Clearance

1:15:12

and listening along to that in the meantime,

1:15:14

Jake, where can people learn more about

1:15:16

your work in general? Yeah?

1:15:19

Man, um, thanks very much. By the way, I'm glad

1:15:21

you guys. It's I'm like a fan boy

1:15:23

for this podcast, so it's so cool to you. Guys are

1:15:25

like, oh, I listened to Popular Front, so

1:15:27

it's great for me. But um, yeah, I

1:15:29

mean if people check out you go on the website,

1:15:31

it's popular Front dot CEO. Like

1:15:34

I joke that it's counter offensive, but I just

1:15:36

no one would sell me the dot com. But

1:15:38

yeah, like you know, you can check

1:15:40

me on Twitter. I'm always on there, like moaning about

1:15:43

stuff that's like at Jake Underschool

1:15:45

hand rahnd h A n h

1:15:48

A n and yeah, man, just give me a shout

1:15:50

there. I like to talk to cool people. I would

1:15:52

just recommend YouTube

1:15:54

dot com slash popular Front. That's

1:15:57

yes, that's where I would go. If

1:15:59

you if you're listening to this and you were

1:16:01

a fan of Vice News

1:16:03

early on when that stuff was happening, go

1:16:05

check out this YouTube site and you

1:16:07

will see similar videos but

1:16:10

done outside of that organization by Jake

1:16:12

and uh people who are working with Jake. It's

1:16:14

it's fantastic stuff. I always forget to plug

1:16:16

the YouTube. I don't know why, Like, yeah, we do podcast,

1:16:19

we do you know documentaries, We do

1:16:21

articles. We had a magazine out. Yeah yeah, so

1:16:24

definitely YouTube dot com, slash put the front.

1:16:26

We've got loads of documentaries, all filming

1:16:29

on the ground, you know, shoulder to shoulder

1:16:31

with whoever's fighting or clashing or whatever. So definitely

1:16:33

check that out and don't forget the podcast.

1:16:36

Well, tell us a little bit more just about where

1:16:38

to find that Jake Q Clearance, Yes,

1:16:40

sir, sorry, yeah, yeah, I shouldn't mentioned that

1:16:42

one. Um. Yeah, if

1:16:45

you just search Q clearance on any

1:16:47

podcast app, you'll find it. It It will be the top

1:16:49

one. It's got like this cool um

1:16:51

green pyramid with an eye like art

1:16:53

for it. Yeah. Man, just check that out. Q Clearance.

1:16:56

It's it's all on the all of the apps.

1:16:58

Is there. What a wild ride?

1:17:01

We hope that we as we said, we hope

1:17:03

that you have enjoyed today's

1:17:06

conversation and we want to hear what you

1:17:08

have to say about the many

1:17:10

topics we discussed with Jake in today's

1:17:13

interview. You can find us online.

1:17:15

We are on Facebook, where on Instagram

1:17:18

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1:17:20

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1:17:23

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1:17:25

Here's where it gets crazy where you can meet

1:17:27

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1:17:30

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1:17:32

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1:17:34

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1:17:36

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1:17:38

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1:17:41

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1:17:57

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1:17:59

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1:18:04

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1:18:08

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