 You've Matthew Bellinger here on Think Tech, Bigotry in America. We are joined by Max Sameroff and with us, which is an organization that does check out stories of bigotry. Welcome to the show, Max. Thanks, Jay, so much for having me on. Really appreciate it. Now, it's too bad that all the worst things bring us together. And this is one of those things. He's arrested. He's at the Federal Detention Center, last I could see, in Honolulu. And he was stationed at Kaneoay Marine Corps base here in Honolulu. And he's been written up a couple of times, but he's not really out there as national news, I would say. On the other hand, maybe he should be. This is a very sad story about a marine. Can you give us a profile of this guy? Where does he fit in American bigotry? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. So first, just for folks who don't know, Dan with us, we're an international education organization. We focus on fighting anti-Semitism and educating the public about Israel in the Middle East. And so, you know, this story, it's a story about anti-Semitism, bigotry against Jews, and also other forms of hatred and bigotry on the far right. So this is someone who got involved with neo-Nazi organization that was focused on spreading some really, really extremist and disturbing and dangerous ideas, much of it connected to, you know, fears of minority groups in the United States and a desire to turn the U.S. essentially into a white supremacist ethno-state. And so this is someone who was reportedly planning attacks against the Jewish community, planning attacks against other communities, planning sexual assaults as part of this white supremacist agenda, and really clearly someone who got taken in and radicalized by a lot of really, really bad and dangerous and hateful ideas that are out there in the world today. And unfortunately, spreading faster than ever due to social media and other factors that we have in our society. Sounds like a nutcase to me, but as you say, he's not alone. He's encouraged and motivated and sort of launched by so many other organizations that would love to see him execute his conspiracy. Can you talk about what his conspiracy, what his plan has been and what got him landed up in an indictment? Well, from what I read, he attempted to purchase firearms under false pretenses, which is what got him actually, you know, picked up by law enforcement. But what they found was a trove of, you know, really, really hateful extremist materials. Once, you know, they searched his belongings and various plans and threats to, as I mentioned before, commit murder against Jewish folks. I think he was focused on a specific synagogue or Jewish house of worship. And then also to commit sexual assault with the apparent purpose of impregnating white women so that there would be more white babies born. I mean, this is, it's almost, as I'm saying it, it's even hard to really believe that someone had a plan like this and was trying to execute it. But this was apparently what this person wanted to do. I don't believe that he was able to carry out any of those horrific crimes. And, you know, in this case, that that's fortunate he was picked up before he was able to actually go through with any of this. But we have seen, unfortunately, extremists along these lines, really terrorists along these lines carry out mass shootings targeting the Black community in Buffalo. Not too long ago, mass shooting, targeting the Jewish community in Pittsburgh, only a few years back, mass shooting, targeting the Latino community in El Paso. You know, this is now part of a string of white supremacist anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry driven violence and terrorism in this country. And certainly, you know, the far right is not the only source of hatred and extremism and violence whatsoever. In this case, that's what we're talking about. It's very disturbing. What's the, you mentioned that it's through social media. And I guess there are in common denominations among, you know, these massacres that you mentioned and this guy, Matthew Bellinger. But what are they? I mean, is there certain websites, certain organizations, a certain, a certain mindset, maybe a certain use experience. And I would ask you also what, you know, what does this tell us about the military and particularly the Marines that a guy could have grown in this twisted direction while he was in the United States military? Yeah, those are great questions. And really, I think we could probably spend hours talking about that, those questions alone. So first, you know, I have someone in my family who was in the Marines. I think that, you know, the vast, vast, vast majority of folks who make that sacrifice to serve in our military deserve all the respect and gratitude in the world. At the same time, when you have an institution, an organization that's that large, it's, especially in the world as it is today, I think it's inevitable that you're going to have a small percentage of folks who are going to get taken in by some really bad ideas that we have, you know, spreading again on social media in other ways in the world today. You know, obviously, there's an added level of concern with folks in the military, particularly, you know, in this case in the Marines, because it's not just someone who happens to believe in some hateful and extremist and violent ideologies, it's also someone who's presumably getting really high level military training and can, you know, put that violence into action in a, you know, much more horrific way than perhaps your average citizen could. So I think there's an added level of concern for that reason. But I don't necessarily, I don't know, I don't have any specific evidence to bring to the table that, you know, the radicalization or extremism level in the Marines is any higher than in some other part of society. I just think the military training combined with the extremism is what the main concern is. More generally speaking, there are, I think, many, many different factors that can lead people to adopt, you know, white supremacist ideas or other forms of, you know, extremism and hate. Something that tends to be a common denominator, though, again, it's hard to completely generalize, is when people lack a positive sense of community, when people lack a positive sense of meaning in their lives, when there's a void along those lines. And then these extremist groups, these, you know, extremist figures who can be very charismatic, paint the world in a very black and white way, you know, and sort of tell people that they know who's responsible for the pain that they feel, and they have the answer to the problems in their lives. That's when that vacuum can be filled by these really bad and dangerous ideas, like what happened in this case. Now, I'm speaking just about what, you know, folks who have come out of the white supremacist world and, you know, realize that, you know, they were wrong, have talked about, and, you know, the reasons they got taken in by those ideas. I don't know the details of this person's life, how he grew up, anything along those lines. I don't know his whole story. I don't think that's public information at this point. But that tends to be a huge part of it. That lack of community, that lack of meaning getting exploited by people with really dangerous agendas. You know, you mentioned, we don't know his background. It hasn't been revealed. It hasn't gone through either of the, what you call it, judicial process. Or, for that matter, the media process. We only know a couple, three news stories in secondary, I shouldn't say secondary, but not the New York Times and not the Washington Post kinds of print press. But, you know, and we couldn't look, we couldn't find a picture of this guy. And my question to you, is it better to, what's the word, ignore them? You notice in some of the massacres around the country, they don't spend a lot of time identifying the name of the individual or his background. They don't, they don't give you anything to humanize him. And I think that's probably intentional. It may be intentional in this case. Do we want to know more about him? Should the media tell us more about him? Do we want to know that his human story, or would we like to not know? That's an interesting question. I don't know that there's a completely clear cut answer to it. I think that at times on the contrary, I think I've seen in certain cases, the media focus more on the perpetrators of these horrific crimes than on, you know, humanizing the victims and, you know, making, you know, making their deaths mean something positive ultimately, you know, in, in, in whatever way that can occur despite, you know, their tragic deaths. There sometimes is a sort of obsessive desire to pick apart everything about the perpetrators. And at times, I think that that can be fairly distasteful and uncomfortable and counterproductive. Even at times it can feed the type of extremism and radical radicalization that happens, you know, online and in other ways, because, you know, you have these figures start getting so much attention. They can be sort of framed as martyrs for these extremist causes and, you know, and held up as an example of someone who, through committing some sort of terrorist attack or hateful act, they got so much more attention to the ideology that these extremist groups are trying to spread. So there's certainly a danger in, you know, putting, giving too much attention to folks who perpetrate these types of crimes. On the other hand, I do think it's important, at least for folks who are really focused on disrupting radicalization, disrupting hate, disrupting violence in our society to understand as much as possible the details of how someone gets from point A to, you know, being a violent extremist. Because it's, it's rarely just one thing. It's really just one factor that leads to that. It's usually multiple factors. And if we want to disrupt these processes before they come to horrible conclusions, we need to attack it from multiple angles. You mentioned, you know, this is kind of like domestic terrorism, or maybe international terrorism. It's, it's really that bad. But query, you know, what is, do you see it? Should we see it as terrorism? Or should we see it as, you know, a, a social and, and mental illness problem? Or maybe both? Yeah, I think it's, I think it's a real mistake to, to look at it as if it has to be either one or the other. I think, you know, again, I don't know all the background personal details about this individual. But mental health problems can certainly be part of the picture. And hateful violent extremist ideologies that lead to terrorist attacks can also be part of the picture. I mean, I'll give you a really specific and fairly recent example of that. There was a guy, a British Muslim guy who came over to the United States a few months back, I think it was January 2022. And he held Jews in a synagogue in Texas hostage. And this is someone who had pretty serious mental health issues. But it was also someone who basically supported, in one way or another, a person who was who wasn't is in an American prison and was convicted for terrorism. And during her trial was spouting blatantly hateful things about Jewish people. And so, and this person apparently targeted the synagogue and held the people their hostage, because he thought that some rabbi in New York was so powerful that she would be able to call the president of the United States or call whoever in the US government and free this convicted terrorist, right? So, so you have multiple factors here at the same time. Going into what I would argue was a terrorist attack, holding people in a synagogue hostage for a political aim, freeing a convicted terrorist, mental health issues, hateful extremist ideas, and someone sort of combining those two things and carrying out this crime. And those don't even have to be the only factors in a situation like this. There's probably even more on top of that. So, yeah, there's no silver bullet and it's rarely a black and white situation. Yeah, I mean, it's not limited to killing Jewish people or raping white women, as in this guy's case. We seem to have an increase in violence. Some of that is a good part of that is related to our Second Amendment problem. The attack on Salman Rushdie in West New York just a few days ago did not involve guns. It was knives, but it was equally horrendous. And it was, in my view, a terrorist attack. We seem to have, Max, an increase in this. You and I, we speak in kind of a syncopated rhythm every year or two about something that's particularly disturbing. And here we are. And I bet if we connected the dots from when you and I first met till now, we would find more violence, more hate, more disturbing things happening every time you look. Am I right? Because you're in the business of following this. You must have a sense of the demographic on it. Yeah, well, so if you look at hate crimes in general, and the caveat here is that hate crime reporting is not comprehensive. So we don't know all the hate crimes that have happened in the United States. We only know the ones that have been reported. But of those that have been reported, apparently, according to the FBI, it was either like 2020 or 2021 was a dramatic increase from the previous year. And then if you look at anti-Semitism specifically, the ADL, which is the main organization that tracks anti-Semitic incidents from year to year, they just came out with their report on anti-Semitic incidents in 2021. And it was a massive increase from the year before. So yes, even on a sort of large scale statistical level, we're seeing significant increases in hate crimes and hateful incidents in this kind of extremism and violence. So it's very disturbing. Why? Where does it start out? I mean, in this guy, Bullinger, was heavily involved in neo-Nazi thinking. And in fact, we haven't mentioned it yet, but part of his initiative, his plan, was called a rape krig of Blitzkrieg in Poland in 1939. And that part of his plan involved raping women so as to have more white women become pregnant. So the country had more white women, I guess, more white children. So it's racist in the ultimate. And I guess the question is, does the neo-Naziism come first or does something else come first that invites the neo-Naziism? You talked about the vulnerability of people whose lives are empty. What are the steps by which a guy like Matthew Bullinger reaches his level of madness? Is it ideological first or is it psychological? I know this is a question I've kind of asked you. Or is it psychological? What's the sequence of degradation? Well, I think a fundamental truth is that no one is born hating anyone else. No one is born believing these kinds of extremist and violent ideologies like neo-Naziism or anything else. These are bad ideas that are taught, that are spread. And whether they take hold or not, that's something that depends on a variety of factors, which again can range from mental health issues to, does this person have a positive sense of community and meaning in their lives? Do they have a support system of people around them who they can have conversations with and will tell them, hey, that's a really disturbing idea and here is why, and educate them about those issues. I could probably go down an endless list of different factors that can enable these ideologies to spread. But then it's also the fact that you have these groups that are really actively going out and looking for vulnerable people, people who can be exploited and brought into these communities of hate, these communities of extremism. You've got not only those groups with that motivation, but you've also got this tool, social media, or even if it's not mainstream social media, various underground websites, where they can radicalize people and find these people more effectively than ever. And if someone is living a lot of their life online, if someone is lacking a real-life positive community or support system around them, then on top of that, if someone has mental health issues, none of it is inevitable. People still have agency, people still are responsible for their own decisions and actions, but these are all factors that can lead people down these really, really dark paths. You know, the Rape Creek I mentioned was not necessarily Boolinger's idea. In fact, it wasn't according to the reporting. There are, was, is an organization in the United States that calls for this, that calls for Rape Creek. And therefore, he's not alone. He finds comfort. He finds support in other organizations. This may not be the only one, but Rape Creek encourages him to, you know, to do what I mentioned, to rape white women in order to achieve, you know, a white, a white supremacist country, as we discussed. So, so query, it seems to me that the organizations he finds and people like him find on social media and otherwise are actively seeking him. They're actively recruiting him. They're actively including him. We don't know who they are. I mean, a lot of that came out after the insurrection. And we found out that there was these militia organizations very well organized and, and funded and armed, for example. And she was pretty scary to find it. But now this is, this opens up the other possibility that there are even worse organization, even organizations that are even worse into hate and things like Rape Creek. And they're out there trying to recruit people. And he is the, you know, is the sad case of the guy who is, who is somehow recruited into it. And I wonder how much we know about that. I wonder how much it happens and how much we can do about it. Yeah. So first, you know, there have definitely been reports that these types of white supremacist organizations and neo-Nazi organizations will go out of their way to try to recruit folks who are in the military and folks who are in law enforcement. Because, you know, as I mentioned before, these are some of the most, you know, highly trained in terms of, you know, weaponry and military tactics and, you know, any number of these types of skills that these terrorist, essentially terrorist organizations would find useful to their cause. So, so, so there's that factor, I think. And that's really, I think, a matter for, in a huge way a matter for the government, for law enforcement, for the military itself to take really whatever steps they need to take to interrupt those recruitment efforts as early as possible. Obviously, you know, in this case, they were successful. They caught this guy before he was able to carry anything out. But, you know, if the community around a person, if the person's family, if the, you know, society, if the education system, if all these different systems that we have aren't able to convince a person that whatever toxic, hateful, dangerous ideas they're ingesting online or wherever it is are wrong and are, you know, are basically, you know, leading them down a path of just personal failure and destruction. If everyone else can't manage to stop these, you know, stop these processes in their tracks, then ultimately it falls to law enforcement and falls to, you know, in the case of, you know, the military, folks in the military to track folks who are being radicalized and stop them and get them out of these institutions. You know, I recall in one of those articles there was something about how he had an assault rifle and he had obtained it from somebody in law enforcement with the help of somebody in law enforcement. And that is very chilling also. My recollection is it was like somebody in the FBI helped him. Now that might have been, you know, an entrapment situation or the way they found him, the way they, you know, set him up, maybe for the investigation, but he thinks so. Okay. The other thing is when I know that just a few miles from where we sit, that a guy is in the Federal Detention Center and a guy like this in the Federal Detention Center, that, you know, it's not as if he's going to change his mind the way he is. I mean, I don't know how you fix what's wrong in him, but that is very frightening to anyone near him, anyone who thinks he might be on the street. I don't know what he looks like, not all the photographs of him out there, but theoretically he could be the next guy you walk by on the sidewalk. And he's a very dangerous item. And I am relying, talking about law enforcement, that the obligation, the expectation law enforcement will find him, you know, cut him out of that recruiting plan and put him away because he's so dangerous. But we rely on law enforcement to find him and cut him out of the plan and put him away because we cannot afford to have him among us. He's a devoted terrorist in my view. And in my view, I would put him away for a long time, keep him away from me, to keep away from my family, keep away from everybody I know because he's a dangerous, explosive individual. You know what he will do if given the chance. Is our law enforcement system, is our investigation system, as it exists today, adequate to deal with a guy like this who's really unhinged? Is it adequate to keep him away from me? Well, you know, in this case, they found him, they got him before he was able to do anything, you know, do anything much more horrific and destructive. So in this case, it looks like yes, but in a bigger picture, you know, I don't know that I have a clear answer. All I can say is I hope so. But also, you know, I think by the time it falls to law enforcement, that's really the last resort. I think we ultimately need to do a lot more work much, much earlier on. You know, more at the beginning of when these processes of extremism and radicalization start. And I think part of it is really a matter of being open to educating other people, to having uncomfortable conversations with people who are starting to be taken in by these bad ideas, not assuming that they're inherently and forever bad and can't change, but rather, at least at the beginning, giving them a benefit of the doubt that if you have an open and gracious conversation with someone, and don't assume the worst of them, that you can change their mind about whatever extremist, hateful, violent ideas they may be hearing from online or wherever it is. So it starts with a lot more efforts to do that with people on an individual and community basis. And when that fails, law enforcement is the last resort. And we can only hope that they're up to that task. You know, in the Indiana incident just a couple of weeks ago, the attacker was shot by a bystander who had his own gun. And it falls within the Ted Cruz's suggestion that we all ought to be armed. And there are those people, you know, maybe like Mayer Kahani back years ago, who would say respond in violence, respond and be ready to shoot him on the street. This happens in Israel. There are people in Israel. I mean, a couple of days ago, there was somebody in Israel who had a gun and stopped a terrorist that way. Queery, what are your thoughts about that? What are your thoughts about the Ted Cruz, the second amendment approach to this to protect yourself and others? Well, I think it's really, really important for folks to understand that the situation with with gun laws in Israel versus the United States is dramatically different. Yes, there are folks on the street in Israel who may be carrying and may be able to stop a terrorist attack in progress, but there are far more regulations around who can carry a weapon and when and what kind of training they have to have and what kind of licenses they have to have. You also have a country where, you know, people are, you know, largely required to go to the military and so they have training in how to use firearms safely. So, you know, I wouldn't draw such direct comparisons between the situation over there and our situation in the United States. I think it's hard for me to say whether what works in Israel would work over here were just very different places. Well, I wouldn't I only raise it for discussion. I want to be clear, Max, I don't believe in it. I don't believe in Ted Cruz and I don't believe in the twisted interpretation of the second amendment that we have from our esteemed Supreme Court. I think it only increases violence. So what can, aside from the things you've mentioned, what can I do protect myself? What can stand with us to help me do that? Because, you know, this isn't going to end anytime soon. This is where we are. And, you know, whatever factors have been included, I mean, some people think that Trump is responsible for a lot of this. Some people think that violent movies are responsible for a lot of it to fill that psychological vacuum in some people. What can we do? How should I see this? Because it's almost like, you know, you could meet a bool and jay any day, bool and jay, any day, and have a bad day. How do you avoid that, if at all? Well, you know, I mentioned we're an education organization. So, you know, education isn't the only answer to a problem like this, but for us, it's the one we focus on. We focus on educating people of all ages about anti-Semitism, about the Jewish people. There's many, of course, organizations that do education work regarding other forms of bigotry that were involved in this particular crime. So, for us, the priority and really, you know, one of the ways we attack the root of this issue is by educating people, by countering bad ideas with good ones, both, you know, whether it's in the education system, on social media, anywhere that people get their information, we need to counter bad ideas with good ones. That is something that anyone, anywhere can do. And it's not just in a sort of general abstract way, you know, sort of shouting things into the void. It's the people you know, it's the people around you, it's the people in your community. You never know who may be struggling, you know, who may be spending a lot of time taking in a lot of bad ideas online or somewhere else. All of us can, I think, do more to just reach out to each other, communicate with each other, have conversations with each other, about, you know, any number of the things going on in our society in a way that's much more gracious and tolerant and forward-thinking than, you know, the hate and extremism and violence that's only going to take our society backwards. Yes. What about the Simon Weissensall approach, you know? I mean, not to say that we should go out of our way hunting Nazis, but suppose we run into one. Suppose we try to have a genteel conversation with somebody and we find it, oh my god, this fellow was off the side and I can't reason with him, I can't soften his feelings in any way, I can't change his mind. He needs to be investigated. What are your thoughts about turning him in or reporting him in some way? Well, you know, A, I think if you think that, you know, someone is, if you hear someone specifically threatening violence, then absolutely I recommend calling law enforcement, making them aware. I also think that basically it's rare that one conversation with someone who has extremist ideas is going to turn them around. It tends to be from the folks who have come out of extremist movements from extremist groups, you know, they may have had a single thing that started their process of leaving, but it's rarely just one interaction. So yes, if someone is threatening violence or implying it in any way, law enforcement should be aware, but also it can be worthwhile to have some patience, have some persistence, and and have more than one interaction with someone and try to bring them out of the dark side, not to get overly star wars on everyone. Well, thank you, Max. Max Samaroff, stand with us. Very important organization and very important work he does, and we are greatly indebted to him for the work he does, the research he does, the education, public education, including coming on Think Tech to discuss these matters. Thank you so much, Max. Thanks Jay. Thanks everyone. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.