Speaker 1: Ah beat Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military
Speaker 1: News and straight talk with the guys and the community
Speaker 1: soft Rep Radio on time on Target. This is episode
Speaker 1: four hundred. I am Dennis Jones. His name is Jack
Speaker 1: Murphy and we're joined by your daughter in studios Are
Speaker 1: there one as well? So hello all, it's the end
Speaker 1: of school, that's why Alice is here. So summer is here,
Speaker 1: which as a parent I'm sure is um exciting because
Speaker 1: obviously you get to see your daughter more. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, as a parent, how do you like, Well,
Speaker 1: what's on what's on tap? This summer? We got summer camp? Okay,
Speaker 1: she's done. She's in like one of these uh summer
Speaker 1: camps where she's gonna do some coding and stuff. But
Speaker 1: that's only for like a week, and actually she's going
Speaker 1: to be in Italy most of the summer. Got it
Speaker 1: made in the shade. Yeah, I think her mom's taken
Speaker 1: her somewhere else too, so Mr Mystery Spot Yeah, good
Speaker 1: for her, um, but obviously always happy to have her
Speaker 1: in studio. Um, we have Joe Goldberg on today. We
Speaker 1: didn't that was the first we revealed his name. We
Speaker 1: didn't do it. We've been doing the long tease, the
Speaker 1: slow play. Joe Goldberg worked in the CIA for eight years. Um,
Speaker 1: gonna be all the guests have incredible stories to tell Joe.
Speaker 1: I was telling you off air. He's through email and
Speaker 1: I hope it translates via phone, which I think very uh,
Speaker 1: very comedic. He's got a he's got a witty sense
Speaker 1: of humor to him. He's I've enjoyed emailing him and
Speaker 1: I'm sure speaking with him he's going to be a delight.
Speaker 1: He was recommended to us by a good friend of
Speaker 1: mine who's also been a guest on this show twice.
Speaker 1: I think j T. Patton is his pen game. Um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, he came to me through a good friend.
Speaker 1: So we're looking forward to having Joe on. You will
Speaker 1: hear that shortly? Um, we didn't. We usually discussed topics beforehand,
Speaker 1: if there's anything we want to hit on, and today
Speaker 1: we didn't really have anything. So I went through the
Speaker 1: Softwap radio email and I was just clicking around looking
Speaker 1: for some stuff. Um, if there was any particular emails
Speaker 1: that jumped out at me, and there was one that
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about obviously was directed to
Speaker 1: you because I know nothing about the military um um.
Speaker 1: It was from a listener, Scott. I don't do last names.
Speaker 1: We'll give him, We'll give me past there he said,
Speaker 1: this he's sent Scott. He sent a lengthy email, so
Speaker 1: I cut it in half. So I don't think that
Speaker 1: I ignored it. I just wanted to get the the
Speaker 1: pertinent stuff out, he said soft rep. I was wondering
Speaker 1: if Jack ever considered doing a deep dive into why
Speaker 1: many of the issues in the special Forces community tend
Speaker 1: to come from two or three specific units and doesn't
Speaker 1: really reflect across the entire special forces community in general.
Speaker 1: That's the beginning that keeps going. The units with the
Speaker 1: majority of the issues are traditionally the Seals, Delta Force
Speaker 1: and more recently, to some degree, Marsok. We don't see
Speaker 1: the C G. Ranger Regiment or a stock members committing
Speaker 1: these alleged less than honorable choices compared to the first three,
Speaker 1: or at least not on this larger scale. Commonly, I
Speaker 1: hear that the reason for these poor quote decisions where
Speaker 1: that we've been at war for eighteen years NonStop. But
Speaker 1: the latter three units have seen just as much, if
Speaker 1: not more, combat than the three units who seem to
Speaker 1: be in hot water. It doesn't really add up to me.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that everybody from the latter three units
Speaker 1: are perfect or angels with no negative conduct, but it's
Speaker 1: very limited to if any at all. As an army
Speaker 1: veteran myself who served outside of big Army and who
Speaker 1: also served as a military contractor, I have a decent
Speaker 1: amount of experience with guys from many of these units,
Speaker 1: and in my experience, the behavior and culture of these
Speaker 1: units overly vary. Why do you think that is so? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I think let me just look at it
Speaker 1: just to see. I just want to see exactly what
Speaker 1: he was talking about. Uh Okay, the units of the
Speaker 1: majority of issues being Seals, Special Forces Group and to
Speaker 1: some degree marsk. So I think that there's a couple
Speaker 1: of different things happening. Um, there's reality and there's perception,
Speaker 1: and they feed into one another. Um. The Seals have
Speaker 1: been like a loud and proud just in like everybody's
Speaker 1: face for a while now, especially since the ben Laden raid,
Speaker 1: and part of that is their own fault, and part
Speaker 1: of it is just the public perception and you see,
Speaker 1: it feeds into another if they feed into one another.
Speaker 1: Because the Seals did some things very specifically to try
Speaker 1: to raise their profile. Um. They did things like that
Speaker 1: movie Act of Valor. Um. They have really like tried
Speaker 1: to feed the media machine in a lot of ways, um,
Speaker 1: to help with recruitment. Um. Those things even end up
Speaker 1: affecting things like congressional funding and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if the if the if Congress doesn't know what
Speaker 1: you do and doesn't support what you do, I mean,
Speaker 1: eventually they're gonna look at like, wow, this unit is
Speaker 1: super expensive to maintain. Why do we have it? This
Speaker 1: is something the Marine Corps has, Like they fought for
Speaker 1: their existence long and hard, and they have to like
Speaker 1: basically wine and dine in romance these congressmen. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think things are quite so bad now, but
Speaker 1: it used to be like that that they would have
Speaker 1: to really fight for their existence. UM. So they would
Speaker 1: you know, have to you know, like I said, romance. Um,
Speaker 1: some of the policymakers and the legislators out there. I
Speaker 1: think the Seals engaged in some of that also. Um.
Speaker 1: And then on the other the flip side of it
Speaker 1: is you have all of these guys who get out
Speaker 1: of naval special warfare and they are able to cash
Speaker 1: in on this reputation that has been built. So it
Speaker 1: kind of snowballs from there. Um, And it starts with
Speaker 1: um very reasonable in my opinion, kind of like and
Speaker 1: I say this with my own bias because I wrote
Speaker 1: a memoir myself, But it starts with like, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: let's let's take like Remy Adele, who we had on
Speaker 1: the show right a memoir, this is my experience in
Speaker 1: my life in and out of the Navy. And it
Speaker 1: starts um in a very tasteful way that there's really
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that in my opinion. But then it
Speaker 1: turns into like a Navy Seals guide to gardening and
Speaker 1: it's like, wow, this is like gotten kind this has
Speaker 1: gotten kind of nuts. Um and and it just kind
Speaker 1: of snowballs from there, and it's like it's just Navy seal,
Speaker 1: this Navy seal that by the Navy Seal flashlight, get
Speaker 1: the Navy Seal T shirt. Um. It even became aim
Speaker 1: like you can look at these other like almost like
Speaker 1: cultural figures like Kristen Beck, who was a Navy seal
Speaker 1: who who became I guess she always was, but I'm
Speaker 1: struggling to use the right terminology. But she's transgender, and
Speaker 1: she came out as transgender after her military service. So
Speaker 1: then you have the transgender Navy Seal and there's even
Speaker 1: a book about her called Warrior Princess. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just like, uh, and I'm not saying she's wrong for
Speaker 1: being transgender for talking about that, But the Navy Seal
Speaker 1: um machine, and if you will, media machine just builds
Speaker 1: and builds and builds, and I think again, it's a cycle,
Speaker 1: and it feeds back onto itself, and you have people
Speaker 1: buying into their own legend. Yeah, I could certainly believe that,
Speaker 1: And so you arrive at the point we're at now
Speaker 1: and it's just like a perpetual joke where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: a Navy Seal hair gel and deals, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's a it becomes a joke, and I think
Speaker 1: it ultimately it starts to reflect back on the actual
Speaker 1: active duty Navy seals. And the sad thing about that
Speaker 1: is that there are a lot of active duty Navy
Speaker 1: Seals and I've met them over the years who are
Speaker 1: totally good guys, like head down doing their job, disciplined individuals.
Speaker 1: They are not interested in like having Instagram accounts talking
Speaker 1: about how badass they are. Just good dudes doing their
Speaker 1: job and serving their country. And I often think about
Speaker 1: that because for those guys, this has got to be
Speaker 1: like just such an embarrassment, you know. And when you
Speaker 1: go and you tell people you're a Navy seal, I
Speaker 1: wonder if people have a bad impression in there, what's
Speaker 1: the what's the first reaction to hearing that? And then
Speaker 1: all this other stuff with the discipline issues. You know,
Speaker 1: they're murders, war crimes, alleged good cover, drug use, all
Speaker 1: this other stuff starts again. It's just like snowballs on
Speaker 1: top of each other. And I feel like it's almost
Speaker 1: like the Seals are like the new too big to fail,
Speaker 1: you know, like this thing is just such an institution
Speaker 1: um that like no manner, any manner of ridiculousness is accepted. Um.
Speaker 1: But he also mentioned the Special Forces groups and MARSK.
Speaker 1: We haven't heard a whole lot from MARSK. I mean
Speaker 1: they've gotten, um the two mar sock Raiders and Molly.
Speaker 1: Um one of them got or two of them are
Speaker 1: in trouble. Um. But I don't I don't feel like
Speaker 1: we've heard a whole lot from marsk Uh Special Forces groups. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: especially for some reason, Seventh Group seems to be getting
Speaker 1: into trouble a lot um, But mostly it's been on
Speaker 1: the Seals, And I think a lot of it is
Speaker 1: just the media fanfare and pubblic city uh, the whole
Speaker 1: aftermath of the bi Lauden raid. I mean that blew
Speaker 1: back on them pretty hard, I think. Um. So, I
Speaker 1: think it's a combination of things, um, And a lot
Speaker 1: of it has to do with YES seals getting out
Speaker 1: after service and trying to build careers for themselves as
Speaker 1: former Navy seals um. And even I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of times I'm like, man, can I like turn
Speaker 1: in my veteran card and just like stop being a
Speaker 1: veteran because it's like this is like this is kind
Speaker 1: of ridiculous, you know, between the between the vet bros
Speaker 1: and the woke vets. It's like, man, this is exhausting.
Speaker 1: Like I just want to like report news and and
Speaker 1: write you know, history and interview other guys, Like I
Speaker 1: don't really care about all this weird stuff that goes on,
Speaker 1: but I'm also a part of it, right, And I
Speaker 1: have to I have to acknowledge that that when it
Speaker 1: comes to the commercialization of special special operations for US
Speaker 1: is I've kind of been right there at the middle
Speaker 1: of it. Right there in the middle of it, um,
Speaker 1: because you know, we founded this way up site in
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve. We were really the first on the scene.
Speaker 1: This was before every former guy had an Instagram account
Speaker 1: posting their deployment pictures. Right when when we first started,
Speaker 1: I was one. Uh. I mean when I first first started,
Speaker 1: I was the only ranger of my generation talking about stuff, um,
Speaker 1: and one of two or three SF guys. Now everyone's
Speaker 1: in that, everyone's doing it, so um, so I'm right
Speaker 1: there at the heart of it. And I don't I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily mean to imply that, like I'm better than
Speaker 1: the guy who has the Navy Seal pull up bar
Speaker 1: or something like that. I mean, you know, teach their own,
Speaker 1: but I think we can all acknowledge that it has
Speaker 1: also reached a point of ridiculousness. Um. But on the
Speaker 1: flip side of that, these other units, uh Delta Range
Speaker 1: of Regiment a sock, I mean, they all have their problems. Um,
Speaker 1: We've all had problems. None of these units are perfect.
Speaker 1: I think maybe the difference in the units that I
Speaker 1: just mentioned is that there's a bit more accountability and
Speaker 1: that people who step out of line get fired. I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things that kind of keeps
Speaker 1: things from spinning out of control. Um. And again it's
Speaker 1: also the publicity machine is like Delta Force as a
Speaker 1: unit has not sought publicity at all, like the Range
Speaker 1: of Regiment has had something. They do some publicity, some
Speaker 1: public engagement, which I think I don't think there's anything
Speaker 1: wrong with that either, um, because again, you want people
Speaker 1: to know that you exist, and you want to get
Speaker 1: young people to come and you know, apply. Um. But
Speaker 1: it just hasn't been to that level. You know, you
Speaker 1: haven't seen the Rangers Guide to Gardening quite yet. No.
Speaker 1: And like as I mean obviously um, as a civilian
Speaker 1: even growing up, like I feel like my friends and
Speaker 1: like everybody knew it in like Navy Seals and you
Speaker 1: might not have heard of like mar Sock or or
Speaker 1: these other units, and you're just they've done a good
Speaker 1: job of self promoting. The Seals have. And I think
Speaker 1: I think, as you said, a lot of that buys
Speaker 1: in where it's like, you know, the seals, the elite
Speaker 1: of the elite, like being a seal isn't easy obviously,
Speaker 1: so you get these guys and especially from you know,
Speaker 1: our generation where you grew up, and you know that
Speaker 1: Navy seals are like these it's incredibly tough, so that
Speaker 1: you know we're badasses, and then you're almost buying in beforehand.
Speaker 1: So maybe, I mean, maybe it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: that too. And then he also mentions that you know,
Speaker 1: as part of the issue, that poor decisions are being
Speaker 1: made because you know, we've been at war for eighteen
Speaker 1: years and these units are kind of fraid the culture
Speaker 1: is broken down. I think there are cultural issues, and
Speaker 1: if you're a former seal out there, feel free to
Speaker 1: write in and weigh in on what I'm about to say. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to give it an observation and other
Speaker 1: can weigh in on and waite weigh in on it
Speaker 1: as they like. I think that in the army it
Speaker 1: comes out of something of an infantry tradition to be
Speaker 1: a ranger, to be green beret, to be a delta operator, um,
Speaker 1: and it's much it's all you function within a platoon,
Speaker 1: within a squad, within a team, and it is seen
Speaker 1: as a team effort, and no one is really interested in,
Speaker 1: you know, the individual guy. It's like, okay, you're a
Speaker 1: good dude, great, but you know, you're one guy on
Speaker 1: the team. I think with the Seals, it's a much
Speaker 1: more like individualistic thing and they see themselves more as individuals.
Speaker 1: Um and it comes. I think part of that culture
Speaker 1: is driven by the Army being an infantry driven culture.
Speaker 1: The Seals are coming out of the Navy where they
Speaker 1: are really the only ground combat element in the entire
Speaker 1: branch of serve. This so they have a very special
Speaker 1: status in the Navy. If you're a Ranger, you're airborne infantry. Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: but we have a whole division, the eighty second Airborne
Speaker 1: Division also airborne infantry. Like, so it's not quite as
Speaker 1: seen as like you're not quite as special as maybe
Speaker 1: you'd like to think you are. UM. So I think yeah,
Speaker 1: and the Seals, it's a little bit more individualistic, and
Speaker 1: I think that plays into it. UM. I also think
Speaker 1: that because of that, in the Seals, it is encouraged
Speaker 1: that it's encouraged to have more of an entrepreneurial spirit
Speaker 1: and like, if you go out there and sell the
Speaker 1: Navy seal, pull up bar. I think those guys like
Speaker 1: high five each other and like it's it's really cool,
Speaker 1: and again that's okay, and of itself. I think they're
Speaker 1: they're much more supportive of that, like, yeah, go crush
Speaker 1: it in business, Go be an entrepreneur, go do this
Speaker 1: and that when you're a ranger or you're a Green Ray.
Speaker 1: And I've talked about this in the past. If you
Speaker 1: talk about like getting out of the military and going
Speaker 1: to be a businessman, going to be an entrepreneur, start
Speaker 1: a company, your own chain of command looks it back
Speaker 1: at you and says, you're a fucking piece of ship.
Speaker 1: You will never succeed on the outside. You will never
Speaker 1: be anything after you leave this unit. So the culture
Speaker 1: is very different. I know I've said this in the past.
Speaker 1: When I was in Special Forces and I told the guys,
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I'm not re enlisting. And one
Speaker 1: of the dudes told me, he's like, you know what
Speaker 1: n c O stands for, right, And I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you? Because n c O is noncommissioned officer,
Speaker 1: a sergeant like I was, And it's like it stands
Speaker 1: for no chance on the outside. Thanks for the support buddies.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think there are cultural issues um that
Speaker 1: at play there. And you know, if you're a former seal,
Speaker 1: I mean, feel free to write in and tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me if you think I'm wrong, tell me what
Speaker 1: you think about what I just said. And uh, and
Speaker 1: you know, please please don't just like I'm not going
Speaker 1: to read a rant on air, but if say your piece,
Speaker 1: you know, articulate your points and I'll be happy to
Speaker 1: read that on air. Um, and we can discuss it.
Speaker 1: Because maybe I am completely off base there. I was
Speaker 1: never a Navy seal, so I can't tell you firsthand
Speaker 1: what their culture is. I can just tell you based
Speaker 1: on some observations I've made over the years. So I
Speaker 1: think all those things play into it. And I think
Speaker 1: the seals, the active duty seal teams, are in the
Speaker 1: process of trying to clamp down on it and like
Speaker 1: reverse course because now they kind of I think they
Speaker 1: kind of realize like we've sort of created a monster here,
Speaker 1: like like what do we do about it? And I
Speaker 1: don't think they're happy with seals being the butt of
Speaker 1: every joke within the military profession. Um, So I think
Speaker 1: they're trying to turn that around because again, it is
Speaker 1: unfortunate because there are a lot of active duty seals
Speaker 1: who are just totally straight up good dudes. And that's
Speaker 1: that's the thing is, like they're there's however many number
Speaker 1: seals currently but a few at apples and it's like,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, now, now this is your reputation
Speaker 1: across the board, and it's like, that's not the case. Like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure the majority of the Seals are great guys,
Speaker 1: And it gets the impression of like, is being a
Speaker 1: Seal about being a professional and serving your country? You know,
Speaker 1: you're a frogman, you're a Navy commando, Like that's something
Speaker 1: to be proud of or is it just um, is
Speaker 1: it just a brand name that you used to sell
Speaker 1: protein powder and energy drinks? Right? Well put. But I
Speaker 1: think the military, I think that the army units are
Speaker 1: are also susceptible to that. Like, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: somewhere out there there's like a range or cross fit gym,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure, Yeah, I'm sure it's all out there.
Speaker 1: It just is not to the level that it is
Speaker 1: with the naval special warfare guys, so you don't see
Speaker 1: it quite as often. But I don't I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to pretend like Special Forces or Rangers or you know,
Speaker 1: the units I served in, or like above all of
Speaker 1: this and like like we would never we would never
Speaker 1: do any of this stuff because we're just we're so professional,
Speaker 1: like come on, no, no, And and who am I
Speaker 1: to say because I am also that guy who I
Speaker 1: started a website that is about you know, former Special
Speaker 1: Operations guys writing about the Special Operations world. So it's
Speaker 1: not it's if I'm above all that either. So uh great,
Speaker 1: I mean, first off, thanks for the email, Scott Um. Secondly,
Speaker 1: great insight. I knew and we've kind of been talking about,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously with Ellie Eddie Gallagher stuff. We talked
Speaker 1: about that fairly frequently, and I just feel like somebody
Speaker 1: put it in email form, like, you know, why are
Speaker 1: these guys not necessarily getting a bad rapid? I mean,
Speaker 1: some of it is are things that they're accused of doing,
Speaker 1: but why does it seem to be well, how calm,
Speaker 1: like every time you turn around, like somebody somebody in
Speaker 1: the military misbehaving in some way and it's Navy Seal.
Speaker 1: It's it's that it's a perception. Is it reality? Though?
Speaker 1: Um and I can tell you because I have worked
Speaker 1: as a as an investigative journalist. It partly is a
Speaker 1: perception like, yes, there are seals doing things they probably
Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing, but there are guys on the Army
Speaker 1: side that are also misbehaving and doing stuff, um that
Speaker 1: we've covered here, um killings, murders, drug trafficking, spousal abuse,
Speaker 1: like the whole gamut. Like let's take the um, the
Speaker 1: Jason star Tory trial, the court martial where um he
Speaker 1: was this was a Special Forces officer and um, he
Speaker 1: was abusive towards women, um, and he was recently sentenced
Speaker 1: to ten years in prison. But that trial did not
Speaker 1: receive point zero one percent of the coverage that let's
Speaker 1: say that Eddie Gallagher has received. Now, I was the
Speaker 1: only person who wrote about star Tory for over like
Speaker 1: a year, and then the Army Times finally wrote one
Speaker 1: article about it as he was about to be sentenced. Um.
Speaker 1: So that so you've got two articles out there, well
Speaker 1: three with the follow up I wrote, so me and um,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I can't remember the woman's name at
Speaker 1: the Army Times who wrote an article about it finally. Um,
Speaker 1: but okay, two articles about Star Tori that was it.
Speaker 1: So there's something on any Gallier every day every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there are soldiers in the Army and Army Special
Speaker 1: Operations who have done bad things and are have gone
Speaker 1: to court martial, have been drummed out of service, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But it hasn't received it received the same coverage. So
Speaker 1: there is a perception issue at play as well. Okay, well, uh,
Speaker 1: perception isn't I like the way you were to the
Speaker 1: perception isn't necessarily reality. But um, it's it's unfortunate that
Speaker 1: seals are getting a bad It's unfortunate because maybe they're
Speaker 1: doing it, maybe they're not. Who knows this this? I
Speaker 1: mean some of them haven't come in and sometimes there
Speaker 1: is a culture there that gets out of control. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what we said on the last
Speaker 1: podcast that what's come out of the Eddie Gallagher trial
Speaker 1: is like that seal platoon is pretty out of control.
Speaker 1: And I didn't want to go back to that, but
Speaker 1: it's like, are the are the higher ups, like you know,
Speaker 1: the inmates running the asylum and it's just like it
Speaker 1: just comes it trickles down from that and it's like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know if all I know is crazy behavior. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, not every seal platoon is acting
Speaker 1: like that, and people people need to keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: And like what I what I would hate to think
Speaker 1: is that when people meet a Navy seal they automatically
Speaker 1: have that conclusion like book Deals and hair Jael, like, no, no,
Speaker 1: they're like a lot of these guys are professionals, and
Speaker 1: like we shouldn't jumped the conclusions that, like you know,
Speaker 1: they're all just out for themselves or they're bad people.
Speaker 1: Come on, come on, man. And I do think it's
Speaker 1: a shame in some ways that they that the unit
Speaker 1: has kind of gotten that reputation over the years. So
Speaker 1: as Jack said, if if you are current seal, former seal, whatever,
Speaker 1: and you want to weigh in on this on this discussion,
Speaker 1: free yeah, man, Or like if if if you send
Speaker 1: us an email and I can verify you are who
Speaker 1: you say you are, I mean you can even call
Speaker 1: in and you know you can talk about it, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean on a future podcast. It's not like you're
Speaker 1: you know, by no means that you're trashing them. You're
Speaker 1: just giving an observation. No, No, I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: mean to trash the the entire you know, special Naval
Speaker 1: special warfare community by any means um But I mean
Speaker 1: there's former seals out there who can offer better insight
Speaker 1: to that than I can, absolutely, so feel free to
Speaker 1: reach out please. Um we're gonna bring on Joe Goldberg,
Speaker 1: former c i A, so no seals talk there. But
Speaker 1: before we do that, I want to let you guys
Speaker 1: know that the show is to you by air Drop.
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Speaker 1: gear that you're going to love that you can find
Speaker 1: on air drop. And with that we welcome on Joe
Speaker 1: Goldberg joining us. Now we have Joe Goldberg first and
Speaker 1: foremost everything every bio I've read on him. I want
Speaker 1: to make sure I mentioned this because he went both
Speaker 1: undergrad and he got his masters the University of Iowa.
Speaker 1: He's a big Hawkeyes guy, So I want to get
Speaker 1: that right out in the open, right off the bat.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's the most important thing we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about today, So go hawk eyes. Uh No. But
Speaker 1: in seriousness, he worked eight years in the c I
Speaker 1: A covert actions and he did information collection and analysis
Speaker 1: and for over thirty years who worked in the intelligence field,
Speaker 1: which is quite a lengthy career. Joe, that was a mouthful.
Speaker 1: Did I miss anything? Off the bat? You've missed things,
Speaker 1: you added things, But that's just fine and pretty much
Speaker 1: doing monk by time. Now it's been teaching goes in
Speaker 1: the consulting time. Congratulations, how's how's teaching going? I like it.
Speaker 1: It's I might agree, from Iowa Communications and Politics. I
Speaker 1: teach communications and a couple of colleges I teach a
Speaker 1: course in Iowa a couple of times a year and
Speaker 1: keep too busy. I like it. I knew that's where
Speaker 1: I would end up in education. That's cool. So Joe,
Speaker 1: you came as a recommendation from a good friend, j T.
Speaker 1: Patton as his pen name. I'm really glad we could
Speaker 1: get you on the show today. And Uh, as I
Speaker 1: told Jason the last show, I always try to figure
Speaker 1: out how to break the ice, and I just kind
Speaker 1: of start off with, you know, how did a guy
Speaker 1: like you wind up in the intelligence business? Well, that's
Speaker 1: actually a good story. It's a good question. Uh. I'm
Speaker 1: an old schooler. I'm back in the eighties. So I
Speaker 1: was at Iowa getting my master's degree. I actually want
Speaker 1: to go to law school. And I just pretty much
Speaker 1: bombed my l s ats like I expected and was
Speaker 1: kind of waiting around for some more applications to come around.
Speaker 1: And they came on campus the interview of the CIA.
Speaker 1: I had a master's degree in communications and a degree
Speaker 1: in political science. I thought that was the best way
Speaker 1: to put my two interests together. That was the middle
Speaker 1: of the Iran Contra Nicaraguay want to call it time.
Speaker 1: There's protests on campus. I was the first guy to
Speaker 1: sign up. They were following the HR guy, the interviewer around.
Speaker 1: I went in and I had a pretty good interview.
Speaker 1: I was saying, this is a I wanted to go.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to be in public service somewhere down
Speaker 1: the road. And it took about a year various applications,
Speaker 1: and I got in. I went into this fledgling video
Speaker 1: and TV thing that was happening back in the eighties.
Speaker 1: I was like the only guy around had actually had
Speaker 1: a TV degree. So they came on campus. It was
Speaker 1: just pretty simple. That took a while. Um, but I
Speaker 1: had an expertise. I think they were looking for at
Speaker 1: the time. That's interesting, So they brought you in as
Speaker 1: a operations officer. No. I went into the director of intelligence.
Speaker 1: I was a I was basically the video librarian that
Speaker 1: when the video came in from around the world or
Speaker 1: from the stuff that was recorded locally or domestically, I
Speaker 1: watched it for stuff that might be of intelligence interests.
Speaker 1: And when something happened overseas, uh, they didn't see it.
Speaker 1: Then when something happens, they don't see. The libraries, they
Speaker 1: don't see necessarily the newspapers. They see the television stations.
Speaker 1: So when there is a chilly Laurel happened, so that
Speaker 1: was all on TV. Even when we had a massacre happened,
Speaker 1: that was all on TV. Marcos went down TV, do
Speaker 1: Valier in the Philippi, in in Haiti, all happened on television,
Speaker 1: and that was what we did. We're basically sort of
Speaker 1: a second watch office, following what was happening when in
Speaker 1: the world on this on this new twenty four cable
Speaker 1: television and new services, and I would watch it, see
Speaker 1: what's happening. Call up people who are used to reading
Speaker 1: reports are coming across, you know, cables coming across the wire.
Speaker 1: I call up and say, hey, you want to see
Speaker 1: what's happen in your country? Right now? Here it is.
Speaker 1: And then you know, apartheid South Africa all happened on
Speaker 1: television and they there was there was not a mentality
Speaker 1: towards looking at video and images as intelligence. This is
Speaker 1: the eighties. So I was for the zealous thing. You
Speaker 1: know what, here it is. Here is what this person
Speaker 1: looks like right now. Here is what the forces look like.
Speaker 1: Here is a here is the ship Achille laure What
Speaker 1: do you know? Ground branch guys, over my shoulders. I'm
Speaker 1: popping mitsubushies, black and white photos off my TV so
Speaker 1: they can see what the ship looked like. It wasn't
Speaker 1: off paper, was off the video. So I was I
Speaker 1: was kind of a guy went into d I and
Speaker 1: was doing all that, sort of watching TV and categorizing it.
Speaker 1: And as low as we doing that, the operations guys
Speaker 1: sort of would come over and say, hey, we need something,
Speaker 1: and we need something, and they would I would sort
Speaker 1: of have this mind for remembering things and they'd say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So basically, one year exactly to my date
Speaker 1: of entry into the d I, at the first moment
Speaker 1: I was able, they transferred me to the operations group
Speaker 1: in the propaganda so I used my TV stuff there.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. So like you were doing open source
Speaker 1: intelligence gathering before the Internet. I mean, that's what it
Speaker 1: comes down to. Oh absolutely, absolutely, there was when when
Speaker 1: uh Tenement Square happens. Although I was in a sort
Speaker 1: of slight different world. I was still doing propaganda someone
Speaker 1: at the time, but all these things were happening, and
Speaker 1: it was all happening visually. There was no Internet, forget that,
Speaker 1: and then there was no source. The zero wasn't even
Speaker 1: talked about CNN. It was a few years on the
Speaker 1: air CNN effect back when it was when it was CNN.
Speaker 1: It it had an impact of what we were able
Speaker 1: to see. It was it was gaving twenty four hour
Speaker 1: news and it was being played around the world. That
Speaker 1: we were able to take advantage of that. And there
Speaker 1: was it was all open source, There was no There
Speaker 1: was very little that I got that was internal. I
Speaker 1: did get some molieve that alone, but mostly it was
Speaker 1: you know, at the Ministers of Sight Syria, when there's
Speaker 1: hostages in Lebanon, comes onto television, wants to talk about things.
Speaker 1: I can call it the Syria brands and say here
Speaker 1: he is. And I could call it the Leadership Brands
Speaker 1: and say here he is, and called the bio guys
Speaker 1: and say here's what it looks like. Immediately, and that
Speaker 1: was that was all brand new. That was that was
Speaker 1: cutting edge. It was just ev just this is of
Speaker 1: a broader question, but I'm very interested in this, this
Speaker 1: idea that I think the advent of communications technologies is
Speaker 1: something that almost as a human species, like we haven't
Speaker 1: fully grappled with even now, like we're we don't really
Speaker 1: know how to deal with it. And I feel like
Speaker 1: you were right there at the cusp of when twenty
Speaker 1: four hour news came around and things were really starting
Speaker 1: to change, And I was just wondering if you have
Speaker 1: any observations on how that um altered intelligence gathering, which
Speaker 1: you touched on a little bit, but even even like
Speaker 1: in a broader sense, like how it changed the world. Well,
Speaker 1: the excellent question, in fact, the sort of a question
Speaker 1: I thought to my communications classes, like I say, a
Speaker 1: couple of things. Everything started somewhere, and everything's connected. So
Speaker 1: when I came along in the eighties, the patriots in
Speaker 1: the in the intelligence community, in the military previously had
Speaker 1: done so much to allow me to be there at
Speaker 1: the time when television and graph and doing videos for
Speaker 1: insurgence groups or whatever, doing propaganda operations that was my time,
Speaker 1: and my time helped lead hopefully to a new appreciation
Speaker 1: for speed and for paying attention to what's real and
Speaker 1: what's fake, and a idea of if we have it,
Speaker 1: they have it, Okay, So if we have if we're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to use television, radio, graphics,
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, as propaganda tools, which is what
Speaker 1: I did, then so are they and are we ahead,
Speaker 1: are we behind? And now it became the Internet comes
Speaker 1: along and we were at the forefront, We the United
Speaker 1: States with the forefront of sort of how to use
Speaker 1: the Internet, and everybody catches up and so the tools
Speaker 1: and we have a helicopter, they got to help with helicopter.
Speaker 1: We have the Internet. They got there to that. How
Speaker 1: do you use that more effectively to get your message across?
Speaker 1: And then it becomes content and content always wins. But
Speaker 1: when it came down the actual channel, it was it
Speaker 1: was exploding at the time, but on our time, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a videotape, and videotape lead to digital. You know,
Speaker 1: digital lead to basically the Internet, and all the capabilities
Speaker 1: are out there now, but it's all connected, but it
Speaker 1: still comes down to content. Message always comes down to content. Interesting,
Speaker 1: and then you got moved over to doing essentially disinformation, right. Well,
Speaker 1: I always called me disinformation is a tough for it.
Speaker 1: I can't define that disinformation. In fact, I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I sort of I used to say, we just kind
Speaker 1: of tell the truth in our own way, you know,
Speaker 1: we let sometimes we just tell the truth about the
Speaker 1: Soviets are doing in Afghanistan. It's all you need, or
Speaker 1: what's happening in Nicaragua or Uganda, or or pick up
Speaker 1: place for the castro. I mean it's bad enough. You
Speaker 1: don't really need to do a lot of disinformation. You
Speaker 1: just need to tell the truth in your own way
Speaker 1: and get it to the people which are going to
Speaker 1: have an impact. That's probably the biggest we I think
Speaker 1: we were able to target. It's comfer to do, but
Speaker 1: we're able to target who we wanted to see our
Speaker 1: stuff a little bit better, only because the internet and
Speaker 1: social media is so pervasive. It's it's you know, you
Speaker 1: can create websites and social media targeting the certain groups,
Speaker 1: but you still are just out there. When there was
Speaker 1: three or four television channels and whatever number of radio stations,
Speaker 1: you got them, you got a captured audience. So I
Speaker 1: think we can target We could have targeted them. We
Speaker 1: targeted the message better, whatever it might be. Content wise.
Speaker 1: This information, yes, truth, yes, um, current events yes UM.
Speaker 1: I always sort of lean on the side of the
Speaker 1: gray area between truth and not quite the dark blackness.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you asked me up against the wall
Speaker 1: that I ever due to this information flat out lying
Speaker 1: about something, I have to think about it for a bit.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I did. I just can't remember said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a lie. We made stuff that was that was
Speaker 1: um that it's intent was not what people thought it was,
Speaker 1: but the content itself wasn't a lie. I don't think
Speaker 1: how good questions And then how is what you guys
Speaker 1: do different than what's say the Broadcasting Board of Governors
Speaker 1: or Voice of America does. Well, I always get that.
Speaker 1: I get that's always a good question too. I mean
Speaker 1: we have we have the perspectives that we're dealing with
Speaker 1: from the point of view the intelligence community saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this is that, this is what we're trying to get across.
Speaker 1: Go do this and you know, let me know how
Speaker 1: it goes. And that's what we follow. Follow the rules
Speaker 1: of what the intelligence community says we can and cannot do.
Speaker 1: And we're not there. Just I was never just trying
Speaker 1: to nation build American way, uh, you know, all legitimate
Speaker 1: good things, you know, giving news around the world. We
Speaker 1: were targeting certain specific topics, whether it be drug traffickers
Speaker 1: or if it was terrorists. I was at the Gaddafi
Speaker 1: a lot after Narco traffickers a lot um a little
Speaker 1: bit on you know, all the Silver Union number one
Speaker 1: when there was when there was a civil union. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's where I was targeting our stuff. And if
Speaker 1: and if Ronald Reagan gets up there, President Reagan says
Speaker 1: Mr Gorbachoff turned down that wall, turned on this wall,
Speaker 1: my whole life changes, all right for six months to
Speaker 1: a year because we're not working on the directive to
Speaker 1: work on the Brulin wall. So that that that was
Speaker 1: saying that I would say different in you know, the
Speaker 1: content and the message was specifically for the intelligence communitys
Speaker 1: opposed it just the American way. Could you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that, like when you say, I'm just
Speaker 1: interested as far as the extent to what you can
Speaker 1: talk about it. How does that actually work that you
Speaker 1: you're you're producing content that is targeted? I mean, what
Speaker 1: what is that process? How does that work? And what's
Speaker 1: the target audience? Well, I don't think I don't know
Speaker 1: if the zak the process has changed too much between
Speaker 1: then and now. Um, obviously it's really the intelligent cycle.
Speaker 1: Someone gives us something that we need to do, or
Speaker 1: we come up with an idea saying, you know, this
Speaker 1: is a big deal. We need to be paying attention
Speaker 1: to this, or to act upon this if it was
Speaker 1: Noriega and Panama. That didn't come to me. It was like, go,
Speaker 1: we're going after Noriega and Panama, and we need radio
Speaker 1: to do that, and we need radio content that is
Speaker 1: uh saying certain things at certain times that isn't gonna
Speaker 1: be shut down by the government or it's very difficult
Speaker 1: to be shut down by the government. So he sitting
Speaker 1: around like, how we how can we do that? And
Speaker 1: you know, you think about it and you create the
Speaker 1: content which is pretty much obvious what we're trying to
Speaker 1: say about drug trafficking Noriega versus what we what we
Speaker 1: really want, and then you figure out what the I'm
Speaker 1: trying to I'm not I'm skirting some of the edges here.
Speaker 1: Um yea, yeah, you're right up the content that you
Speaker 1: know and then you and you create and then what
Speaker 1: I think it was great about this and I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly sure they have and now we were just
Speaker 1: trying to be creative. What what new things can we
Speaker 1: use to make people pay attention because there's even then
Speaker 1: there was still a lot of stuff. And now I
Speaker 1: teach social media, with social media and and all the
Speaker 1: different channels, how do you grab people's attention. I mean,
Speaker 1: the terrorists had the same attention grabbing tools and the
Speaker 1: captured audience as we do when we're trying to talk
Speaker 1: to them. And back then we had a captured audience,
Speaker 1: but the channels were television, radio, some print last of speeches,
Speaker 1: So you know how you know? Is it music videos? Maybe?
Speaker 1: Is it documentary filmmaking? Yeah, is it television programming, serial programming,
Speaker 1: could be It's all these things that were you knew
Speaker 1: there was eyes on that particular content. Now it's a
Speaker 1: little bit, I think a little bit more difficult to
Speaker 1: know when you put something out there on on on
Speaker 1: social media, Twitter, name your name, your behind the scenes platform,
Speaker 1: who's actually reading it? With the number? I know they can,
Speaker 1: I know they can do the big data mining. But
Speaker 1: impact is always the question did that thing have an
Speaker 1: impact on that action? And I could never say it did.
Speaker 1: I would never be very difficult to say it did.
Speaker 1: But we did have an impact on bringing down the
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall. And I want to say yes, but I
Speaker 1: don't know the statistics to prove that. Keep talking about
Speaker 1: like how you did that? I mean, was it like
Speaker 1: radio transmissions into East Germany or uh, well, I was
Speaker 1: the video guy and let the radio guys do their thing. Um,
Speaker 1: we did everything possibly could. Uh. We made documentary films.
Speaker 1: How do you get the document short documentary film where
Speaker 1: it's seven minutes or thirty minutes, seven minutes about is
Speaker 1: about people's attention span? Back then? It's much shorter now.
Speaker 1: But you know, saying you have a seven or thirty
Speaker 1: minute documentary film that lays it out, that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: You know what's made in the way that you think
Speaker 1: that your potential end users will be paying attention. So
Speaker 1: you need to create a process where that gets distributed
Speaker 1: to you know, intelligence, Uh assets, we have access to
Speaker 1: the media who can place these things or in position
Speaker 1: to go out and uh gather it legal or open
Speaker 1: and the open means so where does there's no suspicion
Speaker 1: on them that this is pand into them in some
Speaker 1: dark gallery. They just got it through the normal course
Speaker 1: of their own business and they're able to show that
Speaker 1: whether it's we did use try to do music videos.
Speaker 1: We did try to do Um the things that the
Speaker 1: youth would would rally, would would would make them pay
Speaker 1: attention and music video to nineteen eighties mid eighties thinking
Speaker 1: when we did music videos, MTV have been on the
Speaker 1: air for just a few years. Everybody was doing these things.
Speaker 1: What's going to make the youth movement on the East
Speaker 1: want to we want to get up tight. Let's do something.
Speaker 1: Let's get some popular music person to write some popular
Speaker 1: song at least in their area and see if we
Speaker 1: can make something that might have an impact to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: making the number one song if we can. And and
Speaker 1: you know, we had to. We had the ability to
Speaker 1: think of those types of things and try to do
Speaker 1: those types of things. So thanks thanks to my bosses
Speaker 1: for a lot for doing that. Sometimes they shut us down.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they you know, I tried some things or brought
Speaker 1: some ideas and actually would help make the Night States
Speaker 1: government make money off of it. But you know they
Speaker 1: were they were a little bit too fringe e for them,
Speaker 1: a little bit too far um. They didn't quite grasp
Speaker 1: some ideas. Are there any like music videos out there
Speaker 1: from back in the eighties that we can like look
Speaker 1: up on YouTube and that the that the CIA had
Speaker 1: a hand in I got no. I will never confirm
Speaker 1: her Demni where we made it. We made a music
Speaker 1: video and if I could, I wouldn't remember it. It
Speaker 1: was It was not in my language. Just put that
Speaker 1: way and um uh the answer I would say no,
Speaker 1: I would say no. You know, um, I can't remember
Speaker 1: the name of the names of some of those things were,
Speaker 1: but there was there was, there was activity behind some
Speaker 1: of those behind music. Even nowadays, when I worked in
Speaker 1: political campaigns and other things, you hit the culture where
Speaker 1: the culture sits. You know, social media mass communications are
Speaker 1: hitting the youth, the cultural movement that that brings up,
Speaker 1: brings up the countries, and we're doing exact same things.
Speaker 1: We just had a little bit more limited tools set. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it was at that time it was music and
Speaker 1: short videos and it was humor, um whatever. I like humor.
Speaker 1: Humor is very impactful if it's done right. Now every
Speaker 1: has the same sense of humor. So it's hard, it's
Speaker 1: very um. You got to be cautious using humor. But
Speaker 1: if you have an idea of your end users it's
Speaker 1: done right, you can have a nice impact sarcasm of course,
Speaker 1: serenite life type of things. But the answer to your
Speaker 1: question in the shortness is no, like the father than debate,
Speaker 1: I've did everything wrong, but I teach people debate tactics
Speaker 1: for presidential politics that the answer the question is no,
Speaker 1: and then all that other stuff, and I wonder the
Speaker 1: time you start. One of the other things I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you, is that back back in the day
Speaker 1: when you were doing this, you could produce, you know,
Speaker 1: being a documentary or a music video or um. Of
Speaker 1: course there's other people who do pamphlet drops, um, there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of different propaganda. But you, guys, I think
Speaker 1: in your in your in your area, it was easier
Speaker 1: to target the audience. And I was wondering if today,
Speaker 1: with the Internet, if there are legal implications because when
Speaker 1: you put something on the Internet, it could potentially be
Speaker 1: viewed by an American audience, And is that something you
Speaker 1: have to deal with? Oh that that drew me on
Speaker 1: my mind. Blowback a right, So it was all brand new.
Speaker 1: So if we were making a video or some sort
Speaker 1: of film that was gonna be shown publicly somewhere, it
Speaker 1: was right the Oversight Committee report because there's a chance
Speaker 1: for to be blown back in the United States of America.
Speaker 1: And and the answer to that question was yes, elected
Speaker 1: official or staffer for elected official, there's a chance, but
Speaker 1: that's not the intent of what we're trying to do here.
Speaker 1: And it's gonna have no impact in the US. It
Speaker 1: is the chance, by the way, the chances of it
Speaker 1: happening are slim and none, and it's like we're not
Speaker 1: monitoring where it's where what's happening. But it was a
Speaker 1: very fourth vanguard of we're gonna put something on the
Speaker 1: digital television waves and that's gonna there's and there is
Speaker 1: a chance it's coming back. And now it's coming back.
Speaker 1: And I actually it's a good question. And I don't
Speaker 1: ask them, these these guys, but and I'm sure people
Speaker 1: who are listening who happen to have an answer going
Speaker 1: how people don't know? The answer is how do you
Speaker 1: keep whether what we're trying to do from not blowing
Speaker 1: back in the States. And I gotta believe that there
Speaker 1: has just been a understanding that intent and um, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe telling an advance, getting the getting the types of
Speaker 1: approval of advance they're required. Two, overcome policy because policy
Speaker 1: is always more restrictive than law. We're always doing those
Speaker 1: policies about that. I've got to believe that the in
Speaker 1: that and social media guys are out there now in
Speaker 1: the basements of all these buildings are are have the
Speaker 1: the correct roadmap and rules Because it's coming, it's you know,
Speaker 1: the moment it's sent, it's here, right, So let's there's
Speaker 1: got to have been a massive discussions about that, and
Speaker 1: I gotta believe it comes on the messaging content and intent.
Speaker 1: When we made a video, if there was a defector,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of defectors back then in
Speaker 1: the Soviet days, and if we had to make something
Speaker 1: for Reagan was a video guy, so we made videos
Speaker 1: for him to see these people, and we made sure
Speaker 1: that the agency symbol was on the very front of it.
Speaker 1: So there's no way when this got leaked to the
Speaker 1: Washington Post or whoever that it was, that it was
Speaker 1: seeing this propaganda. It was here's we made this, and
Speaker 1: that was there was this fear it was and apprehension
Speaker 1: about that, at least my my world. And I gotta
Speaker 1: believe that the same fear net prinsion is there for
Speaker 1: the digital warriors, but they have the correct marchings to before,
Speaker 1: because it is out there. It is. I mean, now
Speaker 1: it's we're in a totally different era. And I wonder
Speaker 1: what you make of UM everything that happened in UM
Speaker 1: with you know, Russian influence operations directed against the United States.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like you're one, you're one of
Speaker 1: our originals when it comes to this sort of quote
Speaker 1: unquote warfare. I was just wondering what you think of
Speaker 1: all that. Well, that's that's um, that's um an excellent question.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have my own personal views, and when
Speaker 1: it comes down to work, having work in politics for
Speaker 1: these years, I've almost just staying away because it's just
Speaker 1: a very hot topic. I'll give my opinion because you asked.
Speaker 1: This is Joe's opinion based upon experience. First of all,
Speaker 1: we're doing they're doing it to us, We're trying to
Speaker 1: do it to them. It's always the same from my
Speaker 1: first comment. And we've been they've been meddling in our politics,
Speaker 1: we've been meddling in other governments. About meddling. It's been
Speaker 1: our mission, intelligence mission, to do things about certain trees governments.
Speaker 1: That's that's what we're supposed to do at all. I'm
Speaker 1: all for it. But the Soviets did was great, was
Speaker 1: brilliant Russians. But the Russians did was very simple, was
Speaker 1: very targeted, and they just used human nature too. Spread
Speaker 1: the word and they uh, you know whatever, whether they
Speaker 1: were in the Macedonian kids who were just doing it
Speaker 1: for money or they were being manipulated by other entities.
Speaker 1: And we know that's what the certain Russian intelligence people
Speaker 1: were doing. They did it, and they did it because
Speaker 1: they understood American culture and the split of our country.
Speaker 1: What I what I sort of I've been wondering why
Speaker 1: they hasn't been brought up. Is what happened was if
Speaker 1: it's being something is being covered in Twitter or on Facebook,
Speaker 1: which was the most of the places, it's getting picked
Speaker 1: up by the broad media. All right, if it's if
Speaker 1: it's if I'm not uh following that website or that
Speaker 1: Twitter started, I'm not seeing it. I'm only getting it
Speaker 1: because some larger media entity has picked it up. And
Speaker 1: whether the twenty four hour news guys, who are you know,
Speaker 1: the first of the news gonna be breaking. It's a
Speaker 1: mentality that they're in now. We've got to have it first. First. First,
Speaker 1: we're gonna say the name of this person, even though
Speaker 1: it's not the right name. We're gonna we're gonna have
Speaker 1: breaking news twenty four hours a day, which I haven't
Speaker 1: quite figured that out yet. Um, I can't be breaking
Speaker 1: news for twenty four hours a day. But so they
Speaker 1: are all culpable, all right, all of them, and some
Speaker 1: worse than others picking up the stuff that the Soviets
Speaker 1: knew that the mainstream media would pick up and and
Speaker 1: their way and they and they broadcast it to the
Speaker 1: people who are not registered for those Twitter sites or
Speaker 1: those Facebook sites, and made those stories that were being
Speaker 1: brought up by the Russians to these sites, made them
Speaker 1: national news, in my opinion. And I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: conversation has been had about that, And that's very simplistic
Speaker 1: discussion of what happened, because it's pretty complex. But they
Speaker 1: did what we would do. What is the way human
Speaker 1: beings reacted news that that's coming to them? How do
Speaker 1: use information do they What type of stuff did they
Speaker 1: act on? What do they not act upon? What do
Speaker 1: they tell their friends about? What do they share without
Speaker 1: even reading it? What entities do they trust the most?
Speaker 1: They trust their friends the most, they trust perhaps a
Speaker 1: certain news groups. And then again inside their bubble and
Speaker 1: that's all they see. And the Russians understood that, and
Speaker 1: they played that bubbles bubbles and put out hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of sites and messages into those bubbles. They got
Speaker 1: picked up by the broader media, and those messages occasionally
Speaker 1: got spread and then it became a national news story.
Speaker 1: And let's just say for the record that what they're
Speaker 1: what they try to do is abhorrent towards department democracy
Speaker 1: and we should do everything we possibly can to pay
Speaker 1: them back everything. And it's that is it's they're doing.
Speaker 1: Then they're doing their jobs in in a in a
Speaker 1: Russian kind of way. But they had the advantage of
Speaker 1: the American culture, society, freedom and press, all those types
Speaker 1: of things, and the explosion and sort of uncontrolled world
Speaker 1: of social media to just wrangle around and ride, and
Speaker 1: they did it good enough. Do you think that Americans
Speaker 1: are particularly naive when it comes to being susceptible to
Speaker 1: these sorts of influence campaigns? Absolutely, and statistics proven. It's
Speaker 1: part of my class. I mean, I am a believer
Speaker 1: in the filter bubble, which is, you know, we all
Speaker 1: we we pretty much got ourselves inside the news that
Speaker 1: we want to accept, our friends that we uh uh
Speaker 1: follow or friends with in information sharing wise, they're they're
Speaker 1: inside the bubble and it's very hard to get that
Speaker 1: stuff that might be more balanced or outside your bubble,
Speaker 1: because that's not the way the algorithms work right. And
Speaker 1: so the if you fill the algorithms that the major
Speaker 1: um computing companies, whether the news filtering companies with their
Speaker 1: the stuff that you want, you're going to get the
Speaker 1: stuff that you want. And human Nature and and pe
Speaker 1: research and pick a research company. They say that people
Speaker 1: share the stuff. They don't They don't read what they share.
Speaker 1: It just the title and something they agree with. They
Speaker 1: never look they very rare look at the source. Actually
Speaker 1: quizzed my classes and there these are you know, college kids,
Speaker 1: or they say where do you get your news? What
Speaker 1: news journalists do trust? Who do you go to when
Speaker 1: you hear something? Do check out the sources? And the
Speaker 1: answers are almost university zero. I mean in in our day,
Speaker 1: it was you know, you always watched Walter Cronkite or
Speaker 1: you watch Humpy briefly and then and then early the
Speaker 1: early good news days in this in the nineties, I know,
Speaker 1: and maybe it was a wolf for whoever it might be,
Speaker 1: and I but nobody. There's no journalists today that people
Speaker 1: can go to and say, ah, that's the person who
Speaker 1: I trust for news. And what they say is alter
Speaker 1: because it's filtered the way that is believable. And now
Speaker 1: those people don't exist. It just comes and it comes
Speaker 1: from something dot com. It's in't forward to me by
Speaker 1: some friend of a friend, and I like the title,
Speaker 1: so I'm just gonna share it to my friends, maybe
Speaker 1: not even read and probably not even read it statistically.
Speaker 1: And that is the way we work. That's the way
Speaker 1: the internetworks and the human nature works, except for the
Speaker 1: rare cases of people who do pay attention, but the
Speaker 1: majority of people just let life happen. And the Russians
Speaker 1: played into that. They did what they can do in
Speaker 1: twenties sixteen. You have to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1: But that's and that's what's led to the sort of
Speaker 1: split culture we have because you're going to get what
Speaker 1: you like and you're gonna get what you don't like
Speaker 1: in the same thing to other guys, and you're never
Speaker 1: gonna talk to each other because the informations you're getting
Speaker 1: doesn't allow you to think across the lines, acro outside
Speaker 1: your bubble. Because I mean, that's that's exactly what intelligence
Speaker 1: services do, right. They look for shism in society, some
Speaker 1: sort of social cleavage and jam themselves in there or
Speaker 1: and it's basic divide and conquer right, absolutely, absolutely, if
Speaker 1: you're if you're giving your unless you're trying to show
Speaker 1: up your base, or you're trying to show up some
Speaker 1: of who's in power, you're trying to show up the
Speaker 1: populace in the country that is that may have been oppressed,
Speaker 1: or you know, you're giving them the message that will
Speaker 1: make them in in a broader sense, enlightened and think
Speaker 1: the way that you bring ideas in their brains that
Speaker 1: you want them to think about and process them in
Speaker 1: a way that you hopefully you're processed to our way
Speaker 1: and you can find the whether it's the tribal leaders
Speaker 1: or you're gonna try to the ownership of the media
Speaker 1: where it's a little bit more control of other countries
Speaker 1: there there, you know, you know what owners are and
Speaker 1: you can go to them and you might go to
Speaker 1: say do this for us, and they know they also
Speaker 1: in all the newspapers and they and they have certain
Speaker 1: regional or tribes or ethnics behind them. You can go
Speaker 1: to them and you can put that message in there
Speaker 1: and you can just pump it out and you can
Speaker 1: pump it as much as as you possibly can to
Speaker 1: flidify that your issue and to keep pushing as you say, schism,
Speaker 1: keep pushing it further to suffocate them and to give
Speaker 1: us more space to operate. And uh, both in the
Speaker 1: digital world now that is that is twenty four hour job.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean I was carrying videotape around
Speaker 1: it right there, was mailing things out because that's the
Speaker 1: way that was the internet of the time, all right.
Speaker 1: If you need if you want to get your stuff
Speaker 1: to somebody, they wanted your they wanted to videotape in
Speaker 1: some country because it's expensive stuff, they can they could
Speaker 1: run it, and then they have a free videotape. They
Speaker 1: have the tape. You know, that's a totally different mentality
Speaker 1: than it is now because we're just staturated positively and negatively.
Speaker 1: The filtering, messaging content and filtering is what makes propaganda
Speaker 1: operations and information flow and or not flow effective and
Speaker 1: not effective. It all comes down to message. I think
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's amazing what you just said before that
Speaker 1: you know, people assimilate information and then very quickly forget
Speaker 1: the source of that information if they ever even knew
Speaker 1: in the first place, and then it just becomes sort
Speaker 1: of an established fact in their mind. Exactly. Well, absolutely,
Speaker 1: when I worked and I worked in Mortar Rola for
Speaker 1: for years and years in the corporate area, and the
Speaker 1: first thing one of my bosses says is, if you
Speaker 1: put a number or a word up on the board here,
Speaker 1: it's sticking. And I knew that for my old days,
Speaker 1: but I was learning the corporate world. You say this,
Speaker 1: they're not going to stick. You can stick and give qualifiers.
Speaker 1: All you want. This is I'm just you're asking for
Speaker 1: a number and this is the same name of campaign.
Speaker 1: How much is this campaign going to cost me? I
Speaker 1: don't know, Well I need a number. Well, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put a number up here, but it may not
Speaker 1: be the right one, so don't stick with it. But
Speaker 1: it sticks. It sticks every time because they've seen it.
Speaker 1: So as someone sees a headline that says something, it sticks.
Speaker 1: And it's very hard to to unstick things because once again,
Speaker 1: inside their own universe of information, they're getting more sticky
Speaker 1: things that support them. They're very rarely going to be
Speaker 1: seeking out things that are going to unglue. And if
Speaker 1: you can find an individ individuals or the demographic which
Speaker 1: is more open to various thoughts, alternative issues or ideas
Speaker 1: or um well against that alternative issues, ideas or channels
Speaker 1: to get things. Then you have a way to to
Speaker 1: manipulate to communicate your message through. You know, it's the
Speaker 1: America was primed to be used. American people are primed
Speaker 1: to be used. Don't pends even changed that much? Um,
Speaker 1: But you know, if we're trying to get to a
Speaker 1: population overseas, you have to know the culture. You got
Speaker 1: to know it from the from the president to the leadership,
Speaker 1: to the village leaders to whoever. Might be the same
Speaker 1: things for political campaigns, but you're not getting your message across.
Speaker 1: It's just why say something if it's not gonna have
Speaker 1: an impact on the people you're trying to get to.
Speaker 1: And you need to understand fully how they get their information,
Speaker 1: what drives that culture, what drives them to act fully?
Speaker 1: So how do that? It's harder back in the eighties,
Speaker 1: how do you think we begin to counter this in
Speaker 1: the United States when we have a very naive population?
Speaker 1: I mean, how do we wage counter information warfare? Well,
Speaker 1: I asked that question. This is America, right, We're freedom
Speaker 1: of the press and freedom of speech and never right
Speaker 1: to say good things and bad things? Right? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I asked my student, my students this because they
Speaker 1: are the media users. They they are total digital natives.
Speaker 1: They've never read a newspaper. Very really then the newspaper
Speaker 1: or magazine or a book back almost it's almost. I
Speaker 1: always do a survey and it's almost zero of them
Speaker 1: have read a newspaper, book or magazine, very very small numbers.
Speaker 1: It's all YouTube and um is Facebook on YouTube, Graham
Speaker 1: stamp chat. So how do you how do you that's
Speaker 1: the new culture? How do I if I was going
Speaker 1: to go after those files on the outside coming in,
Speaker 1: you're going after the youth. If I was my guy,
Speaker 1: it's my time. I was saying, how do we use?
Speaker 1: How do we community not use? How do we communicate,
Speaker 1: break enlighten the users of social media so that they
Speaker 1: are able to think, appreciate, accept even looking at a
Speaker 1: different viewpoint. And that's kind of how I run my class,
Speaker 1: my social media class, to let them think these new things.
Speaker 1: And it comes down and I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: Your question once again is I don't have an answer
Speaker 1: because it's so huge America. So the verse, the new
Speaker 1: apps are are hundreds of day. How do you control that?
Speaker 1: How do you how do you get into that? And
Speaker 1: the answers. You can't and if you don't, we don't
Speaker 1: have We don't have a national consciousness like we used
Speaker 1: to in the old days. Mostly you watched Walter Cronkite.
Speaker 1: You watch Huntley Brinkley too, but you you know, Walter
Speaker 1: Cronkite would say something and we would go, that's news.
Speaker 1: It's it's not editorialized. This guy is giving us the news.
Speaker 1: And you watch Johnny Carson at night to see how
Speaker 1: he felt about it. All right, Johnny would do he
Speaker 1: was Johnny wasn't political, but he would he would laugh
Speaker 1: about things, and he would make you feel he would
Speaker 1: bring up the society and the news of the day
Speaker 1: and he would make you think about it. Where Walter
Speaker 1: informed you about it, and that doesn't exist in today
Speaker 1: at all. That Daily Show and John Stewart sort of
Speaker 1: was doing that, and the guys and now are doing that.
Speaker 1: But there's so many of them now now what's this
Speaker 1: used to be just daily and then and then they not.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of them and every network is trying
Speaker 1: to have their So how do you how do you
Speaker 1: grasp that? And the one constant actually in the United
Speaker 1: States culture, what's Let me ask you, what's the one
Speaker 1: constant United States cultures been around for thirty, uh fifty,
Speaker 1: forty years of in American sort of consciousness. And I
Speaker 1: think about my timing here. Forty years of consistency in
Speaker 1: American consciousness. Uh yeah, it's Saturday Night Live and making
Speaker 1: how many Surday Night Live has been around. It's been
Speaker 1: there every week except for reruns. And it's changed its politicals,
Speaker 1: you know, discussion, it's it's pro, it's against. It is
Speaker 1: what it is. But people watch it and has had
Speaker 1: a following for decades that is um of a certain kind.
Speaker 1: But it's consistent, and on Monday or Sunday, everybody's running
Speaker 1: Sarday Night Live routines. We didn't we were kids. You go,
Speaker 1: you watch Surday Night Live and you go to school
Speaker 1: on Monday and you do all the routines. Right. One
Speaker 1: of the originals you know it was, is what it's
Speaker 1: been around forever. So I think that is one that
Speaker 1: has been at least there. You could say to eight
Speaker 1: Show and those types of things that they've changed, they've
Speaker 1: changed leaders, they've changed sort of, they've changed everything, but
Speaker 1: there is no You asked the question, what news person
Speaker 1: does our current culture had that we might be able
Speaker 1: to influence, to make the break that thing that you're
Speaker 1: asking about. There is no answer when the shooting happens
Speaker 1: in the United States. I asked my class that monually,
Speaker 1: where did you hear it? Where did you hear about this? First? Twitter? Facebook?
Speaker 1: I got this text former friend. And then I asked
Speaker 1: the next question, where did you go once you've heard
Speaker 1: about it? Where'd you go to find out more about it?
Speaker 1: And I say there. I say there's a specific person
Speaker 1: or location that you went, and they answer his university.
Speaker 1: There is nobody universal. They just kind of go out right,
Speaker 1: nobody trusts these news now nobody nobody trusts these social
Speaker 1: media giants either. So it's just like total tribal chaos.
Speaker 1: And people get there get their information now from memes,
Speaker 1: which is increased. I agree. I teach memes because memes
Speaker 1: have to have a political impact. Jifts have a comic gets,
Speaker 1: but jifts have a have a political impact. Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: us more about that, well, I mean, I mean today's
Speaker 1: Democratic uh debate mean day and and and jift day,
Speaker 1: which I was kind of just actually kind of looking
Speaker 1: some of those before it came on the going after Delaney,
Speaker 1: he seems to be the one that seems to be
Speaker 1: the comic relief. Um I would would you like him
Speaker 1: or not? But he happened to be the one people
Speaker 1: are talking about the most because he had the most
Speaker 1: spatial expressions, I guess, and Twitter went off on them.
Speaker 1: But you know, if someone puts out a mean that's
Speaker 1: inaccurate or is biased, that may not be inaccurate. It
Speaker 1: maybe actually be positively truthful, but it's brought up in
Speaker 1: a biased way. It's not showing the story that numbers
Speaker 1: correct comma. But here's the fine front and people look
Speaker 1: at that, and then they forded on and it's every topic,
Speaker 1: every domestic topic I can think of. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't there's actually mean truth dot com or some subtlence
Speaker 1: things like that. I look at that sort of says
Speaker 1: is the data in this meme real? But someone says,
Speaker 1: this amount of people, we spent this amount of money
Speaker 1: in wars overseas, and this many people have died, We've
Speaker 1: killed as many people. This is what the minimum ways
Speaker 1: should be. Another countries, other countries have healthcare. Whatever it
Speaker 1: might be your issue. I don't care whether what's your
Speaker 1: what's your point of view is. But when that stuff
Speaker 1: comes out and people see it and it's been biased.
Speaker 1: It gets sticks, just like my other comments of a
Speaker 1: while ago. It's sticks and people and it gets forwarded
Speaker 1: and those who the people who create it know it
Speaker 1: and they pump it out. It's it's it's it's the
Speaker 1: Macedonian kids in who put out all those uh click
Speaker 1: bay types of titles because they knew people to be
Speaker 1: a click on them, and and they then a political
Speaker 1: point of view. They just knew that these memes and
Speaker 1: these titles, these these headlines were meat and people are
Speaker 1: going to grab them. And the meme guys are the executives,
Speaker 1: same way, and it's easily share able. You don't need
Speaker 1: to do anything that will makes them so it's it's
Speaker 1: it's fascinating to talk to people who share them too,
Speaker 1: because I've I've brought up to people who share a
Speaker 1: meme like one that's just completely false false, where it's
Speaker 1: showing a picture of somebody you're saying it's this person,
Speaker 1: but it's really not that person at all, and point
Speaker 1: that out to them and give them some additional information
Speaker 1: and say like, look, this is factually inaccurate, and finally
Speaker 1: when they're confronted, confronted with the facts. They will the
Speaker 1: last resort. They'll come back to you and they'll say,
Speaker 1: maybe it's not factually accurate, but the spirit of it
Speaker 1: is true, exactly exactly. Almost your comment is almost is
Speaker 1: exactly correct because it is it has we were with
Speaker 1: way back and do their bubble, and their bubble is
Speaker 1: filmed with the filled with things that they feel is
Speaker 1: the right uh sense of what they want to feel,
Speaker 1: and so it becomes it becomes something to them. It
Speaker 1: fortified on both on all sides, all sides. Um, this
Speaker 1: isn't like to let democratic Republicans, I don't believe, you know,
Speaker 1: left right, middle, everybody has this has their schisms and
Speaker 1: their fringes. This isn't a them versus us. It is
Speaker 1: an It is an American information culture. This is a
Speaker 1: way that we think that is becoming much more difficult
Speaker 1: to have openness at that that which is a vague
Speaker 1: word unto itself, but a decent exchange of ideas. And
Speaker 1: when I when I talk to people, I'd say, you know,
Speaker 1: and they gave me this information, They said I saw
Speaker 1: this on there, and I asked them where'd you see that?
Speaker 1: Where'd you get that? And they say, I don't know,
Speaker 1: And I think WoT and saying the night sid, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna talk to you about because what the point.
Speaker 1: But I asked you, I'm of those guys who kind
Speaker 1: of tries to read behind the scenes, not the news.
Speaker 1: I kind of trying to read the actual document perhaps
Speaker 1: for things, so I can be a little more uh
Speaker 1: informed about it. And that's that's not that just shuts
Speaker 1: shuts down conversations, because as you say, they keep falling
Speaker 1: back and falling back and falling back to the points
Speaker 1: as well. Basically, I believe it anyway. It may not
Speaker 1: be true, but I believe it. At first of all,
Speaker 1: it exists. It exists on the air, Therefore it is.
Speaker 1: But now we all use the same meme. Um, don't
Speaker 1: believe everything on on what you see on the internet,
Speaker 1: said Abraham Lincoln. Right, that's and that you know the
Speaker 1: famous water you know, I Einstein. But that is very telling.
Speaker 1: That is a very sarcastically truthful thing, because people believe
Speaker 1: everything they see in the Internet mostly because it fits
Speaker 1: into their mindset, and it's their mindset is being fed
Speaker 1: by computers and by their associates around them, friends, family, colleagues,
Speaker 1: whatever might be there, and they're not having a chance
Speaker 1: to see other things. And so when it comes down
Speaker 1: to how as a propping and the guy try to
Speaker 1: get food, I'm wonder what they're doing nowadays, because it's
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're their geniuses and they they they've kept
Speaker 1: up and they know exactly what they're doing. It's just
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that the best. I'll say this, I
Speaker 1: guarantee our guys are the best in the world. I mean,
Speaker 1: no one has got better internet people in the unities
Speaker 1: of America. So I'm guarantee that they are. They know
Speaker 1: what they're doing. But boy, their jobs may have been
Speaker 1: made hard but a digital world and it's not coming back.
Speaker 1: You think our intelligence professionals are doing a good job
Speaker 1: at waging the information campaign, well, that's different things to
Speaker 1: talk about their qualities. I don't have the metrics. If
Speaker 1: I go back to saying I don't know, it's tough
Speaker 1: about things out data, I don't have the metrics to
Speaker 1: say whether we're doing a good job or a bad job.
Speaker 1: I want to believe we're doing a good job. I
Speaker 1: know that there's been there there is a wide of
Speaker 1: spectrum of issues that they need to talk about when
Speaker 1: it much starting with the terrorism world all the way up.
Speaker 1: But my day was narcos and communists. Now it's terrorists
Speaker 1: and terrorists. And so you know, saying effective is what what? What? What?
Speaker 1: What was I did on Berlin Law effective? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know we did it, and we did it well
Speaker 1: or whatever. Pick a topic, pick narco traffick or whatever
Speaker 1: it might be. So I believe first of all that
Speaker 1: there are people are the most qualified, best in the world,
Speaker 1: and they have all hopefully they have the tools and
Speaker 1: the flexibility to do what they want to do. Where
Speaker 1: it comes to effective as an impact, I had to
Speaker 1: leave it to them because I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: trying to do. I don't know we were talking to
Speaker 1: I don't know what means or means they're using, what
Speaker 1: their target is. So I would be totally totally out
Speaker 1: of my world to say they're doing a great bad
Speaker 1: job or or maybe sort of and it sort of
Speaker 1: kind of like that. I just know, I just know
Speaker 1: they're good. They are. There are people who do what
Speaker 1: they do. This is sort of the point of when
Speaker 1: I write my own stuff is their patriots. These are
Speaker 1: the people nobody knows about who get up every day
Speaker 1: and they worked their asses off, and I could get
Speaker 1: stock options and promotions. And they're the worst fears to
Speaker 1: be showed up in the front page of New York
Speaker 1: Times or Washington Post. And and they are doing a
Speaker 1: hell of a difficult job and not asking for much
Speaker 1: and there, and they are the best trained, best thought
Speaker 1: and they always were my day. They were the days
Speaker 1: before everybody has their morons and their jerks and their
Speaker 1: idiots and there, and they're bad guy, bad people. I
Speaker 1: get that. But overall, the drone bees who keep the
Speaker 1: operations working, who buzz into work every day and buzz
Speaker 1: out are the best in the world. In the United States,
Speaker 1: I would I would take back in my days. I'll
Speaker 1: take the Soviets on in popping in operations any day
Speaker 1: of the week. They they had a different um outlets,
Speaker 1: they had a different style. Uh, they had sort of
Speaker 1: a different audience. Because I see people sharing links to
Speaker 1: on on Facebook, to RT to this day anti American
Speaker 1: propaganda and these are these are most of my friends
Speaker 1: on social media or veterans who love this country. But
Speaker 1: they're still sharing our T links. Well, there's do I
Speaker 1: read our T look at our T I occasionally do
Speaker 1: because I want to know yeah, yeah, I understand in
Speaker 1: your case. Yeah, but and and once again, not everything
Speaker 1: everybody's saying is ridiculous or untrue. They're doing the same.
Speaker 1: They're doing this is within the real most things that
Speaker 1: people are going to accept and or it's what I
Speaker 1: like to do is, here's all the stuff that's real
Speaker 1: and true. This is the news. This happened, it was sunny,
Speaker 1: it was rainy, there's a bull fight. And then in
Speaker 1: the middle of that, you put in your your thing,
Speaker 1: which looks like everything else. It is sort of like
Speaker 1: it's it's it's news branding, it's you know, you put
Speaker 1: your thing in and it gets played along with everything else,
Speaker 1: so it gets the validity of everything else around it
Speaker 1: and true traditional good old fashioned yellow journalism propaganda. You know,
Speaker 1: everything's right. And then there's this thing that you can't
Speaker 1: see it because it looks like everything else that that
Speaker 1: has been around forever. It's going on right now in
Speaker 1: the digital world. Are your friends? Are my friends enlightened
Speaker 1: enough to go and see what our t really is.
Speaker 1: No one's telling them that they have to. I asked
Speaker 1: my students, who who is ding ding ding dot com?
Speaker 1: I don't know, So I make them do an assignment
Speaker 1: to go in and find out who these guys are
Speaker 1: and tell me if they're real or not to open
Speaker 1: I'm trying to open their eyes to the fact that
Speaker 1: maybe that stuff that they're just you know, gobbling up,
Speaker 1: just may not be the right stuff. And by the way,
Speaker 1: and then tell your friend. And in no other way.
Speaker 1: I have no other way to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do it besides just to make these guys think a
Speaker 1: little bit more critically about what they're sucking into their
Speaker 1: brains and don't accept everything. And if you've never had
Speaker 1: even someone even challenge you on it, you're never gonna
Speaker 1: do it. Now, what's our Our teams are by the
Speaker 1: Russians a big deal. Russias's the country's a big country.
Speaker 1: Their enemies a big deal. They have anything immediately right,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna read it. That's the that's the way
Speaker 1: it's going to be. And it's very and so it's
Speaker 1: impossible to stop. But what can we do. We need
Speaker 1: to get our message out there, and get it out
Speaker 1: there better to the people that we want to get
Speaker 1: the message out too broad propaganda. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of taste for it. Just yeah, it's not something
Speaker 1: that broad Pappy, you shouldn't even exist, and right says,
Speaker 1: what good is Propaganda's targeted, it's getting our message. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know there's big open propagan That's not what I did.
Speaker 1: I did. We're supporting intelligence community, supporting the president, this, this, this.
Speaker 1: I didn't like to do rain for fat. I left
Speaker 1: when left for various reasons. But so the last stup
Speaker 1: I was doing was, let's let's talk about the rainforest
Speaker 1: and pharmaceuticals from flowers, which is a really huge topic,
Speaker 1: no problem at the topic, all in, but I want
Speaker 1: to spend my time collecting and creating stuff on that.
Speaker 1: And didn't that know, that's not why I left, But
Speaker 1: that's last up I was kind of doing. Come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the point the environments will be. I'm
Speaker 1: not pulling the rain for I'm all, don't tear down
Speaker 1: the rainforest. And you know we if we need to
Speaker 1: have access to these plants and give us help our
Speaker 1: pharmacuticle industry make the drugs that we needed, I'm all
Speaker 1: in on it. Are you trying to talk to about that?
Speaker 1: The Brazilian farmers chopping down the rainforest, they're not paying
Speaker 1: attention to it. You're talking to the Brazilian government kidding
Speaker 1: they're making They're making millions and millions off of these industries.
Speaker 1: How I'm how much impact the megan to have saying
Speaker 1: saying this in a targeted poping in operation, it would
Speaker 1: be doable. It would take a long time and a
Speaker 1: lot of money. But they were they weren't going to
Speaker 1: do that, and they weren't doing that, which is like,
Speaker 1: oh do this come on? How could do it? Do it? Right?
Speaker 1: I was wondering on that note, if you could tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about your novel and maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit about what it's based on. Novel one or
Speaker 1: novel two are both? Um let's start off. Let's start
Speaker 1: off with one and go into two. Well one is
Speaker 1: is uh let me quote unquote fiction anyways, almost say
Speaker 1: when living in debt is pretty coincidental and astigment of
Speaker 1: the authors imagination. Do you get that? Um? It is?
Speaker 1: I wrote a historical fiction. I actually wrote it between
Speaker 1: two thousand and one and talk about digital versus analog
Speaker 1: The week the day two days at nine eleven September eleven,
Speaker 1: two and one had a stack of middle envelopes with
Speaker 1: printed papers and coverage letters and things to send out
Speaker 1: the agents in New York. And then my book, which
Speaker 1: is about Kaddafi and Libya and our response that the
Speaker 1: Libel disco bombing, our bombing of Libya, of Tripoli, and
Speaker 1: then underneath that is this propaty in operation to manipulate
Speaker 1: the officials in Libya to do things and act upon
Speaker 1: our way. It's about as close as I can get you.
Speaker 1: They gotta prove it's it's it's it's um close to
Speaker 1: real in some senses. But ah, you know, I had
Speaker 1: this letter is ready to go. Nine eleven happens. I
Speaker 1: ripped open all these packages and right my we write
Speaker 1: my coverl as saying terrorism if now now, if not now?
Speaker 1: When this is? This is two thousand and one. And
Speaker 1: I got a couple of comments back saying, oh, nobody
Speaker 1: wants to read about terrorists. Everybody's afraid. Of course, that
Speaker 1: was wrong, because all the great authors, the brad Thor's
Speaker 1: of the Vince Flynn's, and all the Martin Margraini and
Speaker 1: all these guys wrote about that in that time frame,
Speaker 1: and all the other authors yourself and whoever, are writing
Speaker 1: about real heroes, super military action thrillers, and that market
Speaker 1: of golf. I didn't publish my life GUIDs on the
Speaker 1: way happens. I have a lot of things that half
Speaker 1: of my life I said, I didn't get this book out.
Speaker 1: Finally I rewrite it pretty make it. I just make
Speaker 1: it better, and I self published it and it becomes
Speaker 1: an Amazon bestseller. Oliver North Gaming Review, good review. Um,
Speaker 1: Dewey Clarridge, who's actually I have a character based upon
Speaker 1: him in this book and actually my nick third book. Um,
Speaker 1: he created the counterterrorism Center in uh C. I A.
Speaker 1: He's one of my mentors and friends. Um, you know
Speaker 1: he's in it, and he gave me a good review.
Speaker 1: Mark Graining game Review. I mean, and it's sold, it's
Speaker 1: just still continues to sell, uh print and electronically. Actually,
Speaker 1: I called it secret Wars, which is, you know, a
Speaker 1: euphemism for propaganda, secret wars and espionage story because I
Speaker 1: wanted to be about the world of espionage and my
Speaker 1: tribute this to my family and to the patriots. I
Speaker 1: use that for because the patriots are the people who
Speaker 1: this book was dedicated to. I used very few names
Speaker 1: of characters because it's about these people, you know, the
Speaker 1: the intel officer, the specialist, because they are unnamed people
Speaker 1: working in the trenches to keep us safe every day.
Speaker 1: And it's not it's not you know, it's an okay
Speaker 1: book for being self published, but it was. It was
Speaker 1: built for the pages. I can tell you the Pagriots
Speaker 1: story to have a second where I got that phrase.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was in the training class, in one
Speaker 1: of my numerous training classes in the day, and they
Speaker 1: bring in a knock, a nonofficial cover guy. He was retiring,
Speaker 1: and this is actually a scene in the book, once
Speaker 1: again fictionalized book. And to make it short, he was
Speaker 1: talking about the life of a knock and he was retiring,
Speaker 1: and he had been a very successful knock. He made
Speaker 1: a lot of money in his coverage jobs in his world,
Speaker 1: and he basically was going to give it back because
Speaker 1: he said I and he was getting all the song
Speaker 1: it's yours. You were into it this, I know it.
Speaker 1: I was. I earned it for a reason, for a purpose,
Speaker 1: which is to help the country. And so he was
Speaker 1: getting glad praise for that insight. And he was the
Speaker 1: one who said, you do it because you're patriots. And
Speaker 1: he looked at it because you are the patriots. You're
Speaker 1: the people who are out there who are doing this job.
Speaker 1: And no one's gonna know about it, and you're doing
Speaker 1: it for for everybody else. I never forgot that. I
Speaker 1: made a scene in the book. I dedicated the book
Speaker 1: to people. It's about people, people people, So We're Secret
Speaker 1: was an espionage story, and then I kind of wrote
Speaker 1: a a sequel to it. I got a lot of
Speaker 1: people saying, write a contemporary but nobody cares about historical fiction.
Speaker 1: They want to read now. Now. Now. So I worked
Speaker 1: in corporate intelligence and motor ole over sixteen years, and
Speaker 1: I had my little stories. I still have my agency background.
Speaker 1: So my current book, which is called Spy Devils Um,
Speaker 1: is a merge of corporate intelligence and global espionage, Chinese
Speaker 1: assassins and Ukrainian oligarchs and see in CIA incorporate malfeasance,
Speaker 1: and almost nothing in it is not in the newspaper somewhere,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of pizza together based upon true
Speaker 1: experiences or not, and then that right now, I'm currently
Speaker 1: seeking out an agent, if not self publish it at
Speaker 1: some point, but um, panning agents out there let me know,
Speaker 1: because um, you know it's it's not bad. And the
Speaker 1: third one is gonna be a shared universe between secret
Speaker 1: Wars and spy devils. So, but the first book is
Speaker 1: all propaganda all the time. Actually, spy devils, they use
Speaker 1: their main tool I thinks, thinks sort of a mission impossible,
Speaker 1: guys who are missied impossible. Their main tools are social media.
Speaker 1: They expose bad actors actions on social media and bring
Speaker 1: them down, whether it's internally or externally to their own
Speaker 1: new organization. How do you mess up a drug cartel?
Speaker 1: You make them start eating themselves from inside by spreading rumors,
Speaker 1: news and stuff. And that's what the spy Devils do.
Speaker 1: That's their main tool. That's kind of what the book
Speaker 1: is about. It a little bit. That stuff is super interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, selling a novel is really a tough,
Speaker 1: tough deal. I know because I've tried as well. Um,
Speaker 1: it's just really hard, and especially everyone's all about counter terrorism,
Speaker 1: and it's really hard to sell the espionage plotline, which
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways is more important, um than
Speaker 1: necessarily just shooting one person in a head. Like you said,
Speaker 1: isn't it better if you can turn the organization against
Speaker 1: itself and the American taxpayer doesn't have to send our
Speaker 1: soldiers to this country to deal with it? Uh? You
Speaker 1: know it's cool that we had Seal Team six go
Speaker 1: and shoot Being Laden. I mean, he had it coming,
Speaker 1: but wouldn't have been even better if Being Laden just
Speaker 1: died in a cave somewhere completely irrelevant, no one even
Speaker 1: even cared about him. The perfect world, he would have
Speaker 1: been dead right away. Yeah, it didn't happen. So we
Speaker 1: spent ten years doing we do best, and I'm down
Speaker 1: and killing him. Um well, I agree, I agree. I
Speaker 1: I enjoy all the books of the of the I
Speaker 1: would say military action thriller, you know, great, very entertaining
Speaker 1: and engaging books. If I started writing again, I went
Speaker 1: back and listened to and read all John mccarre al,
Speaker 1: Frederick Forsyth, Daniel Silva. Um even now that and that
Speaker 1: Jason Matthews a new stuff. Books that are spy books,
Speaker 1: espionage books, but don't depend upon action to drive military
Speaker 1: or combat action to drive the story and don't necessarily
Speaker 1: have the I would say superhero person who uh is
Speaker 1: sort of the main focused They all have superhero lead people.
Speaker 1: Gabriel Alan is Daniel Silva, but he's not He is
Speaker 1: what he was and now he is. You know, he's
Speaker 1: an espionage guy. He runs intelligence organizations, so it's not
Speaker 1: as if there's a shoot him up every every day
Speaker 1: on the street. So I love those books j T
Speaker 1: And writes the JP Patton, you know, any rights sort
Speaker 1: of a little bit more of a psychological political military thrill,
Speaker 1: which is even different it self. So but I always
Speaker 1: I want to believe it's still a space for I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say literary and espionage fiction, but stuff that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily depend upon a singular superhero type of former
Speaker 1: military guy who are all great um doing the only
Speaker 1: the things, only impossible, things that only they can save.
Speaker 1: My books, I try to have people intersecting in places
Speaker 1: that they never saw coming. And you know, if you're
Speaker 1: a corporate walk and suddenly one day you've got to
Speaker 1: deal with corporate espionage and bad alegarchs and bad leadership
Speaker 1: and you know, illegal things, what do you do? And
Speaker 1: I's and you're dealing with global sudly one day you're
Speaker 1: worrying about feeding your kids fishing sticks. The next day
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of the world of global espionage.
Speaker 1: And I try to bang those two things kind ofgether
Speaker 1: sort of kind of did it in in Secret Wars
Speaker 1: and definitely doing in spy devils will do the same
Speaker 1: thing in the book he was haven't quite named yet.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's my gig. And it's it's hard because
Speaker 1: no one like you say, no one, You've got to be,
Speaker 1: you know, really really good. I wouldn't say I'm really
Speaker 1: so I'm say any about me. But there's the market
Speaker 1: for those types of military slash espionage spy book spykeeper
Speaker 1: books is much smaller than the really good filler market.
Speaker 1: You know that it is. In science fiction, it's been done,
Speaker 1: um that they there's like like a ghost in the shell.
Speaker 1: It deals with this unit called Section nine, and they
Speaker 1: do they are superheroes doing counter terrorism and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But it also is the first that I've seen that
Speaker 1: really the plotlines combine the disinformation, cyber warfare, counter terrorism, um,
Speaker 1: all a political warfare, all those things kind of combined
Speaker 1: into one. But that's a Japanese comic book that was
Speaker 1: later turned into a film, and I've I've never really
Speaker 1: seen and um in the United States, I've never really
Speaker 1: seen it done well. So maybe you're maybe you're going
Speaker 1: to be the one who accomplishes that. Now I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't because because there's one thing, and I say this,
Speaker 1: but it's all about money. If it's not a commercial
Speaker 1: book which is not going to sell a lot, and
Speaker 1: the agents aren't gonna spend their time, spend their time,
Speaker 1: and why why spend their time and take a risk
Speaker 1: on something which is maybe less proven than young adult
Speaker 1: fantasy books or now with the Game of Thrones or
Speaker 1: I mean, if you go through the agencies what they're publishing,
Speaker 1: you see what's hot and this is not. You know,
Speaker 1: am I am I trying to start to maybe fill
Speaker 1: a hole? Maybe maybe I am. Maybe some of us
Speaker 1: will will start getting into more literary stuff. I don't,
Speaker 1: but it comes down with whether it can sell or not.
Speaker 1: And this and it all goes back to our very
Speaker 1: first conversation about culture, what people read and accept People
Speaker 1: quite rightly and should enjoy a variety of books and
Speaker 1: the writer of books they're liking. In the sort of
Speaker 1: Miller thrillers, agency spykeeper, you know, twenty four Hours, Jack Ryan,
Speaker 1: stuff is much more action oriented because action is visual
Speaker 1: and exciting. But John LEYE. Curry didn't have any of that,
Speaker 1: and he wrote two or three or four the best
Speaker 1: spy books ever they have. All the movies are were
Speaker 1: mini series. Well, how people how many people die in
Speaker 1: Tinker tailor Soldier Spy. Those books were a product of
Speaker 1: their time in the Cold War, and today I think
Speaker 1: the audience they understand Navy seals, fast rope onto a compound,
Speaker 1: blow down the front door, kill the terrorist inside. Like
Speaker 1: everyone can wrap their mind around that. But you get
Speaker 1: a Joe Goldberg here talking about like, Okay, here's what
Speaker 1: we're gonna do. We're gonna make this uh you know,
Speaker 1: propaganda video tape with some actors in Hollywood, and then
Speaker 1: we're gonna feed it into this foreign country and it's
Speaker 1: going to influence the deputy uh ministry. Yeah. Like people
Speaker 1: have a hard time wrap in their mind around that. Yep.
Speaker 1: And I absolutely agree and I and it's uh no,
Speaker 1: no sour grapes are winding on my part. I write
Speaker 1: the story that I write, should write what they want
Speaker 1: to write. And there's a whole new world of self
Speaker 1: publishing out there if it comes down to that. The
Speaker 1: literary market needs to figure that out. They're trying, and
Speaker 1: you see what they're trying. I wanted to try the
Speaker 1: Aiden's world. And but you're right, the the the population
Speaker 1: and culture can wrap the heads around Action TV Studios, Netflix,
Speaker 1: with the new Golden Age of television, you know, they
Speaker 1: they have there's a chance there for more of a variety,
Speaker 1: but it's going to have to have check off some buttons.
Speaker 1: And although I will say, and this is when I
Speaker 1: tried to push Secret Wars in, I said, listen, guys,
Speaker 1: Argo is winning Academy Awards, alright, the Americans is one
Speaker 1: of the top television programs on TV. And guess what,
Speaker 1: none of that stuff is happening by the way. They're
Speaker 1: set in the eighties, all right, So there is a
Speaker 1: market for historical fiction and things or things that don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to have something blow up before the commercial break.
Speaker 1: And so that was that's why I was trying to
Speaker 1: pinning my hopes on that there was examples of this
Speaker 1: out there. Maybe they were only examples because they were
Speaker 1: the past. They were historical, and absolutely trends change. That's
Speaker 1: the past nowadays currently it's not that. And the whine
Speaker 1: about it, I think I think you got it. I
Speaker 1: think you're right. There is some market for it. It's
Speaker 1: it's just a matter of getting you know, producers and
Speaker 1: publishers to be on board to take the risk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's on me. And and maybe there's the one person
Speaker 1: out there who want who wants to do it. But
Speaker 1: once again, there's a lot of people such like the
Speaker 1: stuff who who've come back from dangerous interesting uh, every
Speaker 1: attitude you can think of that explains having put your
Speaker 1: life on the line for your country, who are writing
Speaker 1: great materials that are very attained. The people who google,
Speaker 1: who can leave their living room and go sit in
Speaker 1: a vehicle in some dents somewhere shooting some sort of weapon.
Speaker 1: And that's the escapism that that this type of stuff provides,
Speaker 1: whether it's in a book, the book, or you know, visually.
Speaker 1: So I get that at that, and and and the
Speaker 1: people who are doing that are doing a a superb
Speaker 1: job of it. They're covering a wide spectrum of people's
Speaker 1: interests across American culture on what they're interested in reading about,
Speaker 1: on these topics that they never get a chance to
Speaker 1: experience up through television newspapers. Well, what I'm saying speaking
Speaker 1: of which Joe, I mean, we'll have to have you
Speaker 1: back on again sometime if you're interested, because you do
Speaker 1: have a particular expertise on a subject that is really
Speaker 1: hot in the headlines the last couple of years, which
Speaker 1: is influence propaganda information. UM, I feel like you. I
Speaker 1: feel like you have a lot more that you can
Speaker 1: enlighten us about on these topics. Well, I have a
Speaker 1: model and a model I've used since my first day
Speaker 1: and see in the agency, which is anything to do
Speaker 1: to help? Let mean and I always mean that. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If there's something I can do, you want me to
Speaker 1: come back. Anybody he's listening, what's giving me a caller
Speaker 1: sam full of it? Or what's to discuss something I'm
Speaker 1: all in I can help. That's my job as a human.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Joe. I really appreciate that and appreciate you
Speaker 1: taking the time to talk to us today. Um, is
Speaker 1: there anything before we go? Is there anything else that
Speaker 1: we really should have brought up that we didn't? We
Speaker 1: talked about a lot. I'm I'm not trying to trying
Speaker 1: to trying to take notes here saying what am I
Speaker 1: being repetitive about? But you ask some good questions, and
Speaker 1: I mean, there's always the current events issues which no
Speaker 1: one has all the background on. There's an election coming
Speaker 1: on which is gonna be interesting to think. How about
Speaker 1: how the media and news flows and seeing how we're
Speaker 1: paying attention to any outside influences, So all those topics
Speaker 1: are are fair game at some point down the room. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's a good thing to bring up as we
Speaker 1: go into the election, as we get a little deeper
Speaker 1: into it. Have you back on to talk about it
Speaker 1: from an information aspect, whatever I can do. The hell awesome.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Joe, Thank you all right, man, have a
Speaker 1: good rest of your week and a good weekend. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. All right, take care. That was Joe
Speaker 1: Goldberg a very interesting conversation that um propaganda. He got
Speaker 1: a little upset about the word propaganda. Um he no,
Speaker 1: he got he didn't want to use the word disinformation.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, it wasn't necessarily a lie, right right, right,
Speaker 1: So it's that was fascinating at the end. It was
Speaker 1: the for me to sit back and like you put
Speaker 1: it perfectly, it's like, because you spoke, you weren't speaking
Speaker 1: to me. But I'm one of those idiots that I
Speaker 1: can resonate more with, you know, repelling down. Everyone can.
Speaker 1: In the military itself thinks like that, Like we like
Speaker 1: counter terrorism as opposed to say unconventional warfare fit or
Speaker 1: some of the other missions we have, because when you
Speaker 1: do those direct action missions, like you go into the room,
Speaker 1: you shoot a target, and you can see a little
Speaker 1: like you see the results. Yeah, right, right, it's easy
Speaker 1: for us to understand, and it's easy to measure to
Speaker 1: quantify the results. But to to Joe's point, he was saying,
Speaker 1: how like Netflix in the Golden Age, I think you know, um,
Speaker 1: what was the name of the one book, the Secret
Speaker 1: Wars an espionage an espionage story. I think if Netflix
Speaker 1: gives it the or any form of you know, Amazon,
Speaker 1: however you stream your shows, gives it the opportunity to
Speaker 1: you can plant a seed in like season one, let's say,
Speaker 1: and you can watch throughout the course of the show,
Speaker 1: like even if it's only you know, four or five seasons.
Speaker 1: But like you know that like Joe, you know, Joe
Speaker 1: goes and pitches and he's like, here's the end result
Speaker 1: whatever it is, like, but the story to get from
Speaker 1: point A to point B instead of just I feel
Speaker 1: like these you know, these action stories are straight line.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously the shortest distance boom we go. You know,
Speaker 1: something happened to us, We're going to retaliate eight. That's
Speaker 1: the end result where you get an espionage story and
Speaker 1: counterintelligence and stuff like that where it's you don't like
Speaker 1: there's so many interwoven stories where you can get lost
Speaker 1: per se, but like there's so much going on, and
Speaker 1: like he mentioned, the Americans and the Americans was an
Speaker 1: incredible TV show because there was that tension of like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're living I mean, are you familiar, Like
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, um, but like they're living with
Speaker 1: you know, they're Russians living in America like suburbia, and
Speaker 1: they're working for the American government, and there's just like
Speaker 1: the whole time, there's this tension of like when are
Speaker 1: they gonna get caught? Like you know, you know what
Speaker 1: the end results gonna be, and it's like when's the
Speaker 1: shoe gonna drop in? It's just you can you can
Speaker 1: play with that so much. And I think that like, obviously, I'm,
Speaker 1: like I said at the beginning, I'm one of these
Speaker 1: idiots that are just like, you know, kick the door down,
Speaker 1: shoot the bad guy, we overcome. But I love and
Speaker 1: obviously Joe is passionate about it where I mean he
Speaker 1: worked in the field forever, but like just the what
Speaker 1: you can do with that story wise, whether it be
Speaker 1: books or movies or whatever. They're they're really it's an
Speaker 1: untapped market. And you said, like all it takes is
Speaker 1: one person to to buy in and to take a
Speaker 1: risk on it, and I don't. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a risk, like obviously taking a risk, but like the
Speaker 1: word risk is in quotes because like, I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a risk. I think there there is a demographic
Speaker 1: for it. But you know, he was he was a
Speaker 1: good It's it's it's young adults. Now it's game of
Speaker 1: thrown stuff. And it's like, I think these things are cyclical,
Speaker 1: like you can find whatever one person knocks down the door,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, espionage is the new
Speaker 1: It's it's a tough market, and part of the problem
Speaker 1: is like the publishers want they want to go with
Speaker 1: the safest bet principle, but at the same time it's
Speaker 1: really weird. It's like I've had other people who write
Speaker 1: novels and have been published tell me, like it's weird
Speaker 1: that they hired me to write this book, and but
Speaker 1: then they do like no publicity for it, like they
Speaker 1: it's like and what the publishers are doing is they're
Speaker 1: like literally just like throwing stuff up against the wall
Speaker 1: to see what'll sticky, and so there's like not really
Speaker 1: any like thought process or strategy involved, and it sometimes yeah,
Speaker 1: like hopefully we hit a home run with this thing,
Speaker 1: but if not, like you know, we well, like if
Speaker 1: it happens, it happens. You know, it's like like maybe
Speaker 1: this becomes like the next Tom Clancy, but whatever if
Speaker 1: it doesn't. What it's like that it's just kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Both as a writer and as as a publisher, I
Speaker 1: would think it's just kind of strange to see the
Speaker 1: way they do that because like as a publisher, like
Speaker 1: you get stuff come across your desk like like this
Speaker 1: is interesting, but this isn't. Like how do you like,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna pay for it, don't you like want
Speaker 1: it to be something that you're excited about that you
Speaker 1: think readers will be excited about that you're gonna like
Speaker 1: put some weight behind. Um. So yeah, I have friends
Speaker 1: who are novelists that are pretty frustrated with that. But
Speaker 1: I mean that was on the back end of the
Speaker 1: conversation with Joe. Joe was I told you I just
Speaker 1: from email, I could tell that I was going to
Speaker 1: enjoy He was very well spoken. Um, obviously he's a
Speaker 1: professor um, but it's just it's it's something that a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know obviously because the CIA is
Speaker 1: you know, covert, but it's it's nice to get a
Speaker 1: peek behind the curtain, especially how he was on the
Speaker 1: forefront of like i mean, you you talked about early
Speaker 1: on he was a meme lord before they before they
Speaker 1: existed on VHS tap a VHS lord. Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed that. But yeah, and the fact that he's
Speaker 1: teaching social media now, it was it's nice to see
Speaker 1: that he's you know, cared enough about it throughout the
Speaker 1: years where you know, a lot of I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of people can get burned out, like you know,
Speaker 1: you've done this since the eighties and at a certain
Speaker 1: point you're like, you know, enough is enough. But no,
Speaker 1: he's enjoyed enough to turn it into into another profession
Speaker 1: where you know, he's teaching social media classes at IOWA
Speaker 1: and it's like okay, and and he's who better like this,
Speaker 1: This guy lived it. He was doing it like he
Speaker 1: should be the guy that's on television talking about this stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm sure he could if he wanted to.
Speaker 1: And like he said anything anything to help. So anyone
Speaker 1: in television wants to have Joe on to talk about
Speaker 1: that stuff, reach out to him. He'll be he'll be
Speaker 1: happy to I'm speaking on behalf of him. At this point,
Speaker 1: I feel like I can so. Um. There was um
Speaker 1: one thing we didn't bring up in the intro. Uh.
Speaker 1: We get packages all the time, books coming up. Stephen
Speaker 1: sent us his book Steven Elliott. He was on what
Speaker 1: uh two episodes ago with the Pat Tillman story War Story.
Speaker 1: So we want to thank Stephen for sending us copies
Speaker 1: of the book. Obviously we're gonna read them. Um, but
Speaker 1: you also got a package that you wanted to talk about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is cool. I got this uh package from todd
Speaker 1: A Pulski, who's been on the show a couple of times,
Speaker 1: and he sent me this cool necklace with the Zen
Speaker 1: Commando emblem that he had made up. It looks like
Speaker 1: a meditating Spartan. Um. Uh he's I mean this really
Speaker 1: nice letter. I'm gonna have to get back to him,
Speaker 1: but he said, uh, he's he attributed a lot of
Speaker 1: the attention that his Zen Commando program down in Costa
Speaker 1: Rica has gotten to this podcast. And uh, he said,
Speaker 1: so the necklace he gave me with this little emblement it,
Speaker 1: he said. The circle represents the circle of life, nature's
Speaker 1: way of taking and giving back to the earth. It
Speaker 1: symbolizes the universe being sacred and divine. The warriors sitting
Speaker 1: in a lotus position represents peace, harmony, and understanding. The
Speaker 1: helmet the warrior where signifies security, strength and protection. It's
Speaker 1: made from a coconut shell, crafted by the local Costa
Speaker 1: Ricans that lived near Camp zen Commando. Um, so that's
Speaker 1: really cool. I gotta go down there someday. I haven't
Speaker 1: been to Costa Rica since two thousand four. I've got
Speaker 1: two thousand four, so it's been a long time. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's kind of different down there now, I would imagine.
Speaker 1: But he runs He runs that place for like veterans
Speaker 1: to go down there and like decompress and you do
Speaker 1: pt and meditate and eat right and all that good stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Todd's a really good guy. Um, next time he's up
Speaker 1: here and we'll have to have him on again. I
Speaker 1: feel like, once you're in Costa Rica and you sit
Speaker 1: up camp there, I don't think he has family like
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. I think. So he's up this way once
Speaker 1: in a while. All right, then we'll have we'll have obviously,
Speaker 1: todd if you're listening, come back on some time whenever
Speaker 1: you're in Connecticut swinging by here. Um what else? Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course. So yesterday was Alice's last day
Speaker 1: of school, so I took her to the toy store.
Speaker 1: See if you wanted to get a new toy since
Speaker 1: you did a good job. And uh, I thought we
Speaker 1: were going to get a nice wholesome toy. You want
Speaker 1: to you want? Do you want to tell them what
Speaker 1: you actually got? Um? I don't know. It's a call
Speaker 1: the bid dirty calls it a poopsie b it's not
Speaker 1: called Yeah, no it is that, I swear to God.
Speaker 1: It's on the side of the toy the can. No,
Speaker 1: it says. Um, I didn't know what it says. I
Speaker 1: don't remember. No, it does it pop? No, it's POOPSI anyways,
Speaker 1: and I don't remember. It has the dragon A guy
Speaker 1: drag it and it's green with a horn on it.
Speaker 1: It looks like a unicorn dragon if I it has
Speaker 1: big eyelashes. Yeah, what does it do? Um? You? Um?
Speaker 1: We get of water and the little bottle and then
Speaker 1: you squeeze it in the mouth and then you gotta
Speaker 1: shake it for a minute, and then it's spits, vomits,
Speaker 1: were poop, and then and then you put some sparkles
Speaker 1: and stuff in it, and then you have to like
Speaker 1: mix it with the spoon and then um, and then
Speaker 1: it turns into slim and then you put it in
Speaker 1: a little bag. Yeah. So this toylet literally vomits pink
Speaker 1: goo up over itself, and then it comes with these
Speaker 1: little packets of glitter that you open up and you
Speaker 1: mix into the vomit and like mix it up into
Speaker 1: like a vomit slime with glitter in it, and then
Speaker 1: you store it inside a plastic bag and you can play.
Speaker 1: You can play with it. That's literally what this toy is.
Speaker 1: It's so sticky, Yeah, wonderful, and Daddy's so happy. I
Speaker 1: can't I can't wait to I'm cleaning it out of
Speaker 1: our couch. Mr and Mrs Poopsie, whoever invented this, are
Speaker 1: laughing all the way to the bank. Oh yes, people
Speaker 1: are they are. Let's just make a toy that you know,
Speaker 1: vomits and poops. Kids will clean it, will throw glitter
Speaker 1: on it, and will be millionaires. Take I take Alice
Speaker 1: to this toy store. It's like, hey, you want to
Speaker 1: get some Calico Critters, Carte Blanche pick, you want to
Speaker 1: get some you want to get the Lego Ghostbusters car? Like,
Speaker 1: what what do you want now? I want a poopsie
Speaker 1: because I saw in a cookie and I wanted it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking of propaganda, we were talking, we're talking about YouTube influence.
Speaker 1: There's cookie swirlse is like some sort of terrorist. Don't
Speaker 1: let the terrorists win, by bye Murphy's law. Yeah, don't
Speaker 1: you love America? Don't support cookie? See what's subscribe to
Speaker 1: cookie soil See you're fired, get off on my radio show,
Speaker 1: Away with you. If she poops he's on the mic,
Speaker 1: you're You're in a world of trouble. Was it on
Speaker 1: a once a day thing? I don't know. It's one
Speaker 1: and done. Thank god for that that one off the
Speaker 1: reals quick. Oh yeah, So next episode one of our
Speaker 1: writer's job, A fave coming, last name LaFave just said
Speaker 1: he could be a fan la fave pardon the pud
Speaker 1: like McK lovin. It's like a really sexy hamburger. Joe,
Speaker 1: you're my la fave. Uh, looking forward to having Joe
Speaker 1: on and then uh, and then my I believe my
Speaker 1: old buddy is gonna be coming on the show. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure he's gonna make it in. I'll reconfirm with him. But, um,
Speaker 1: he's another guy who's deeply involved, A veteran I know,
Speaker 1: I've known for a long time. He's deeply involved and um,
Speaker 1: use of psychedelics to treat PTSD and all that bad stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: So he hit me up the other day and said
Speaker 1: he'd love to come on the show and talk about it.
Speaker 1: After hearing Jeff talk about Jeff Nichols. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: so he's like this guy I know is involved in
Speaker 1: like trying to get involved in like the policy side
Speaker 1: and influence legislation and stuff. Yeah, it's crazy because, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I tell my friends like you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: who'd you have on like, and I was talking about
Speaker 1: Jeff and how they were like he was like went
Speaker 1: down to Mexico and use psychedelics to to help with
Speaker 1: this PTSD And everybody was like wait what. I was like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just you know, it was like doctors gave him,
Speaker 1: you know, d MT and sell cybin mushrooms and they
Speaker 1: were like okay, Uh, I definitely need to learn more
Speaker 1: about that. Yeah, it's because that's that's fascinating. The fact that,
Speaker 1: I mean we talked about it a bunch, but like, uh,
Speaker 1: taking well, what did your buddy call him? Uh? Plant
Speaker 1: plant medicine, plant medicine, like first off name uh. Secondly,
Speaker 1: the fact that if there are alternatives like that that
Speaker 1: are helping, that's incredible. Mushrooms from the earth that well,
Speaker 1: he was telling me, he's like this thing like using psychedelics,
Speaker 1: Like it's difficult to monetize, but you have to be
Speaker 1: careful talking to policy makers about it because like they
Speaker 1: want to make money off it. Of course they want
Speaker 1: tax revenue. Um. And he was saying this like if
Speaker 1: this takes off, like it's not only is it going
Speaker 1: to wipe out the pharmaceutical industry, but it's also gonna
Speaker 1: like like the Betty Ford clinics and all that, although
Speaker 1: like rehab, like all that's gone too now. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a little conspiracy theorists, but like they is
Speaker 1: it really gonna wipe him out? Like I feel like
Speaker 1: big government, you know, has has a hand, Like they've
Speaker 1: got to be aware that this is a capability, so
Speaker 1: maybe they like they can try you know what I mean, Um,
Speaker 1: what am I thinking of? Like you know how there's
Speaker 1: rumors that they're like that there's a cure for AIDS
Speaker 1: and they just won't really because well, I mean, in
Speaker 1: the past, it's true that DuPont Chemicals was behind getting uh,
Speaker 1: marijuana made illegal. They funded that movie Reefer Madness because
Speaker 1: they they're they're synthetic products could not compete with hemp.
Speaker 1: There you go, So that was the whole thing, Like
Speaker 1: they propagandized the public, scared the hell out of everyone
Speaker 1: about a reef he'll die from smoking reefer um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it'll be interesting to hear because the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know what else too um um. Absinthe was also
Speaker 1: made illegal for the same reason because the bourbon industry
Speaker 1: couldn't compete with absinthe. At the time, any alcohol, it
Speaker 1: was very absence was very popular like around the turn
Speaker 1: of the century, I think, And so yeah, it was
Speaker 1: it was like the bourbon companies and whiskey company, we
Speaker 1: gotta get ahead of this ad absinthe made illegal. Yeah yeah, well,
Speaker 1: uh looking forward to heaven, Joseph and and then hopefully
Speaker 1: your buddy content because I this stuff fascinates me, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not a I'm not a drug user by any mean,
Speaker 1: but like too to hear how that this helps from it,
Speaker 1: I mean to go back to like the reefer revolution,
Speaker 1: how you know, marijuana had such this the stigma of like,
Speaker 1: you know, lazy pothead like eat cheetos and all this,
Speaker 1: and now it's like it's helping, Like athletes are pushing
Speaker 1: for it for you know, to relieve like joint pains
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And it's like, oh maybe maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean, drugs are still bad, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: but like, well maybe we're getting a little bit more
Speaker 1: enlightened about you know, how we're going to use them. Um,
Speaker 1: because I mean pharmaceutical drugs are not great for you either, right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, so in some cases, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: smoking marijuana better for you than using opioids. It seems
Speaker 1: like it probably, I mean, it's not gonna kill you.
Speaker 1: Like who what was it? I read somewhere that like
Speaker 1: from to O D and marijuana you have to like
Speaker 1: smoke your weight in marijuana basically. Well that's so it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna Happen's a lot of marijuana. Um. That
Speaker 1: wraps it up. I feel like, right, that's it. Man.
Speaker 1: We'll be back on Tuesday. Tuesday with Joseph. House is hungry,
Speaker 1: so we gotta gotta you gotta feed you gotta feed
Speaker 1: her otherwise she pops all over the We don't we
Speaker 1: don't want to deal with that um Before we go.
Speaker 1: I want to let you guys know, be sure to
Speaker 1: check out Create Club. It's a club four men by
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Speaker 1: As always, keep up with us on social Media at
Speaker 1: SOFTWAREP Radio as well. That concludes episode four. We want
Speaker 1: to thank Joe for coming on. Great conversation. Looking forward
Speaker 1: to having another Joe on Tuesday, so back to back Joe's.
Speaker 1: That wraps it up. Thank you guys for listening. Be
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe, rate, review, uh enjoy, Hope you guys,
Speaker 1: uh I hope you guys enjoy the episode You've been
Speaker 1: listening to Self rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday
Speaker 1: and Friday. Follow this show on Instagram and Twitter at
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