So Chelsea, I have, again, one of those things that could be construed as a sad news update, but...
Okay, but it's not?
We'll see how it goes. It's from Vice, one of our favorite sources.
Again, I think it's just information to be conveyed.
Chelsea, we all know Nazis from their prominent role in the 1970s in Illinois, correct?
And how it drove a couple blues musicians to put on a concert, save the orphanage, and have a good old time in jail, right?
Hold on. What?
Illinois Nazis.
I hate Illinois Nazis.
I'm pretty sure that's where they come from.
Nazis?
Yeah.
We must have had our timelines, uh, mixed up.
Okay, well, anyhow, I've got an update, I guess they've been up to things in the last 50 years since then.
Not just fighting blues musicians anymore.
This article is posted on September 22nd, 2023 by Mack Lamoro.
Neo-Nazi Fight Clubs are growing rapidly new research shows.
A new report shared with Vice News outlines the massive growth of so-called active clubs.
That's the title of them, active clubs.
Neo-Nazi fitness and fight clubs have experienced in both the United States and internationally.
Active clubs, neo-nazi clubs that focus on fitness and martial arts training are growing at a rapid pace,
and not just in the United States.
From Denmark to France and Canada, semi-autonomous white supremacist groups have been popping up across the globe
and recruiting white young men to come and train.
According to a new report by the Counter Extremism Project that was shared with Vice News,
quote, since the creation of the first active club in late 2020, at least 100 active clubs
have been created in the US, Canada, and Europe.
What?
This is an unprecedented, oh, quote again.
I guess I never stopped that.
Fair quote.
I'll just keep going.
I'm just gonna keep going.
This is an unprecedented growth.
It's just weird.
Usually they have the said thing in the middle.
But no, just quote to quote.
This is an unprecedented growth.
I've never seen a network in right-wing extremism grow so fast.
Usually it takes years to build a transnational network.
It's concerning.
Alexander Ritzman, the report's author and senior advisor to the CEP, told Vice News.
Active clubs could best be described as localized neo-nazi groups built around the idea of working
out and training martial arts, typically boxing in Brazil and jujitsu together.
The groups are explicitly white nationalists, but like some other modern racist groups,
try at best to hide their true intentions.
The groups are run semi-autonomously on a local level and according to the paper,
can range in size from five to 25 members.
They were founded by Robert Rondo, an American neo-nazi known for his ties to street fighting
organizations and running from a federal charge for which he was arrested last spring in late 2020
after he was inspired by similar clubs in Europe and activists in Europe.
Since that time, the CEP report states that there are quote,
at least 46 in the United States across 34 US states.
And they have a little map that goes with this here.
Basically there's one in each state.
New Mexico's breathe, so you know, safe haven.
And some reason Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, all free of it too.
Well, New Mexico is because of your donies there of course.
What's your donies fighting them off?
Horrible person, but hates neo-nazi states.
Hates neo-nazi states.
The groups have now begun appearing in real life, particularly at anti-LGBTQ protests and have
hosted fight tournaments where participants from across the United States come in.
Large events are happening outside of America as well.
According to Active Club Canada's social media posts,
they recently held a national event where members from 10 clubs that are sprinkled across the
country came and trained together.
So kind of thinly veiled there, but Canada has 10 of these apparently.
Quite a lot.
Yeah.
10 more than we need.
I think that's one for province, is it not?
Maybe.
Who knows?
It's impossible to count.
The report breaks down several of the countries where the clubs were started internationally.
The most prominent are Canada and France, but it also includes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland,
Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the UK, and Sweden.
Vice news was told by a former member of the American Active Club that they offer assistance
to each other, especially while a club is getting up off its feet.
The reports also include evidence of this occurring internationally,
in the most extreme cases, an Estonian national helped found a Swedish Active Club before being
deported from the country in 2022.
After being sent back to his country of birth, the man then started an Active Club
organization in Estonia.
There are several reasons for the group's rapid growth.
Firstly, there is an ease of entry to starting clubs.
Anyone anywhere can essentially start one, and if it becomes big enough, it will be recognized.
Secondly, Active Clubs are part of the latest iteration of white nationalism, dubbed,
White Supremacy 3.0, where groups present a softer face to the public.
This aids them both in recruitment and keeping law enforcement from looking too closely.
Quote, when recruiting, Active Club members should not talk about Jews and history,
and instead the focus in public should be on brotherhood, community, fitness, and self-defense.
Breeze the CEP report.
They're not hiding anything though, we know what their beliefs are.
Well yeah, but if you're leading that way, and this is how it works,
we can probably talk about this more at the end.
But there's an incredibly large group of just outside of racism territory,
where you talk about things with a veiled understanding that it is these racial topics,
whether it be Jews, minority groups, sexual minority groups, visible minorities, anything like that.
But the wording is not emphasized on the specific words, where you can kind of pretend,
or at least people listening can pretend, or take a better interpretation or intention
from the words to get away with what they're doing.
Alex Jones falls into this category all the time.
Yeah, I mean that makes sense.
And they're clearly saying, look it's the same playbook here, don't say Jews,
say we're just a community.
Yeah, I don't think that's, it might be fooling people actually, I don't know.
Yeah, and these guys are still able to exist.
Vice News has spoken to several people who had worked with Active Clubs and helped recruit people in the movement.
They said they would slowly start introducing racist ideas and activities
as time went on and the members became more and more ingrained in the club.
In the end though, the goal was obviously to train for future violence.
The report outlines that this training isn't simply to build bonds among the white
nationalists and create loyalty by helping a young man become a fit.
It's also to prepare a group for future violence.
In some cases, members of Active Clubs have bragged about doing paramilitary style training,
a few have taken part in criminal activities.
In a lengthy quote that's included in the report,
Rondo outlines that he's hoping to build something quote, like the minute men militia
in the early stages of the Revolutionary War or in the future when there is a quote,
mass movement and a mass organization and quote, rate and command it.
So is that even legal if they're just coming out and seeing that?
See, they're not specific threatening anything.
That's the problem.
Yeah, this is right on the.
But they said it.
Yeah, and there's a large group like this,
like Proud Boys would kind of fall into this category.
They're not quite there and they're a terrorist organization in Canada.
Like they've been defined as that classified as that.
We have one paragraph left.
So let's just finish this off quote.
He's not expecting a boxing match.
It's more likely that they're actually preparing for targeted violence on a professional level
rather than just saying, well, we like boxing and sports and maybe if we're in a bar and
there's a fight, we can win against the other guys.
This could be the smartest, most dangerous way to organize right wing targeted violence
that I've seen for a long time said Richmond, the report's author.
And that's the end of the article.
So yeah, information that I feel like everybody should know there is a rise of Nazis kind of
showing up.
And like the picture right at the front here, Chelsea, I'm just going to share my screen quick
so you can see this.
It's not thinly veiled that they're Nazis.
Like it's pretty overt.
Yeah, I would probably say that it's kind of also reminds me a little bit of a cult.
Yeah, well, and their tactics definitely fall into that category as well.
Because they're saying, no, don't talk about our worst ideas until they're too committed
to us to back out.
Yeah, that's really concerning.
And that's also what I was going to ask you.
Do you think that there's a rise in that currently right now?
Yes, yes, there is.
Okay, with that being said, can I share with you something that there is no such thing as
a coincidence in my late night browsing on Reddit being posted around my community right
now have been spotted these signs around.
I'll read it to you.
Whites only parents and thoughts.
Are you looking for somewhere your children can play with others that look like them?
Are they tired of being minority in their schools or daycare?
Escape forced diversity and join other proud parents of European children as we create an
atmosphere in which our kids can feel they belong.
Invest in your child's sense of well-being and racial identity by giving them the gift
of time spent among their own people because they deserve it.
That's being posted around my community right now.
Chelsea, have you ever heard the 14 words?
No.
It's very commonly associated with Nazis.
You'll see the numbers 1488.
The eights stand for HH because it's the eighth letter in the alphabet, which is Hail Hitler.
14 refers to the sense and it's we must secure the existence of our people and a future for
white children, which is a Nazi motto, which sounds a lot like what that poster is saying.
Yeah, this has been spotted being put up everywhere.
So there's a lot of really pissed off people that this is going and they're really gluing
it on here on people are trying to rip it off and it's like glued on there and they can't.
That's I thought I would bring that up as well because it's funny.
I just read that and then there's this.
Yeah.
So I thought I would throw that in and also I just wanted to ask, I thought you said that
this might be construed as bad news.
The rise of Nazism.
Yeah.
Would it fall into another category?
News to be conveyed.
I don't have that category yet.
Interesting.
I don't think I'll add it.
Maybe I won't.
I guess I don't really have a sad news category.
I just have news you need to have forced down your ear holes.
Yeah, you only have the one category.
I really do.
And just with regards to that sign too, I always find it super interesting that there's
such an emphasis on white people because if you look at historically like white isn't a category
like even the Nazis weren't about white people.
They were about Aryans.
Yeah.
But then the question really becomes what does that mean?
And if you look at like even Canadian and American history, white is not a group until
like something that you could even describe as being until very recently.
Because like we have Ukrainian descent in our family.
Ukrainians wouldn't be considered white back in the 1960s and earlier.
Irish people were not considered white for a long time.
Italians were not considered white for a long time.
So it's really just this is a made up category to try to create a line.
But within that there's going to be people who also don't believe that all these people count as a pure race.
Interesting.
You put it that way.
I never thought of that.
Because every group's pretty much been discriminated against.
Yeah.
But yeah, that's probably enough focusing on racism for this year.
Okay.
It's fair enough.
So tune in in 48 hours where it probably won't be anything about racism.
That might have a little bit.
It's always an undertone in a lot of our episodes, but not as overt.
It's true.
It does come up a lot.
Anyhow, see you guys on Friday.
Bye.