Ed Calderon | Mexican Cartel Intel, Cross-Boarder Trafficking, & Their Alliance With China

00:04 The planet's puppet masters almost surely have a plan There clearly may be something there beyond the realm of man Until we've thoroughly tested every last closed chested view Find the more you think, you know unless you really do Where would we be without THC? We know they're lying to us just don't know what degree

00:41 Here we go again, Hireside Chatters doing what we do from the Sunshine State. I'm Greg Carlwood And while we watch the world unravel, it's clear that our attention is intentionally steered towards some things and away from others. We're entrained to be outraged over Ukraine, abortion and ex-presidents' boxes of documents and a multitude of other issues that have all had Americans emotions being played like a pipe organ by the mainstream media... While other problems like the trafficking of drugs and people over the very porous US Mexico border really isn't getting the attention it should.

01:34 It's estimated that 70 to 100,000 Americans a year are dying from fentanyl overdoses oftentimes from drugs unknowingly laced with it. And according to some estimates human trafficking over the border increased from roughly 50,000 a year to an eye-watering 400,000 as of 2021 Both of these two issues, having a common source in the Mexican cartels are pretty easy to see as major crisis. Yet one has to wonder how bad it needs to get before it even starts to be addressed appropriately. Meanwhile the cartels only gets bigger stronger and gain control over wider range of industries many which you'd never expect and more complex than not gets harder is to untangle

02:16 And here to at least educate us on the depth and details of this complex underreported issue is the great Ed Calderon. For over a decade, Ed worked in the fields of counter-narcotics organized crime investigation and public safety in the northern border region of Mexico During this period he also coordinated and worked executive protection detail for high level government officials and visiting dignitaries often in some of the most dangerous parts of the country His study into the indigenous Mexican criminal culture has led him to be recognized as one of the world's preeminent researchers and trainers in the field of personal security that has come out of Mexico. Currently, Ed travels North America doing security consulting and conducting seminars and private training courses in anti-abduction, escapology, unarmed combat region specific executive protection work, and unconventional edged weapons work

03:10 You can read his blog, get merch and enroll in one of his courses at EdsManifesto.com and it's an honor to have him here! The cartel critic, escapology expert and educator on an often ignored crisis...Ed welcome to the higher side! Thank you so much for the invitation Yes, man. It's an honor to have you here I've listened to you on about a dozen podcasts and I learn more every time of course every interview starts with the little background But you have said that out of being young and desperate not having a lot of options You joined up with an experimental police unit the Mexican government put together Talked to us a bit about this and what that unit did that made it experimental?

03:54 Well, a lot of people question why I have such clear spoken English. They're like, Hey this guy probably grew up in San Diego or something... I was born in Tijuana Mexico and Tijuana is basically an in-betweens place you know? It's Americanized but it's also very Mexican there is a large population of Americans here in Tijuana, but there's also a big contrast with like criminality and some of the stuff that happened in Tijuana specifically around smuggling and drugs. Early 2000s, there was an attempt to Americanize police forces. And there was a very influential character basically making his way up in the ranks of policing and the military basically in Mexico by the name Lieutenant Colonel Lidola

04:48 He basically came up with this plan to take back some of the contested areas with cartels piece by piece. And the ground zero work for this experimental effort was Tijuana, Mexico my hometown. I was about to get employment in a call center before I got a call back from this recruitment office that I went to. Before that, I worked at a video store and I was just a kid skateboarding and had... That had a punk band in Tijuana. I was brought interviewed and told all about this experimental police force, basically they were gonna certify it with an American Police Certification called CALEA. And they actually went in certified us as American police officers came down to certifying us which was interesting and unheard of I think we were the first ones that go through that certification process then I think last once... This was in an attempt at an effort to basically create a

05:48 an institution that they can trust. Lieutenant Colonel Lez Ahola went straight into creating this program through the police academy, basically and started basically institutionalizing some of his plans at a broader long-term type setting by pulling in members of the military to basically train us. A lot of instructors were former GAFES, Mexican Special Forces from the army. Some of them later turned into Zetas, by But it was basically a paramilitary police force that was Americanized in its certification. The main part of our work in Baja, who was counter narcotics and kind of organized crime work? We came out late 2004 and basically at the tail end of the Fox administration in Mexico. The next administration, the Felipe Calderon administration basically kicked off what we now call the Mexican drug war

06:51 He basically militarized the fight and plugging some legal loopholes in holes was some of the functionality that we had. So, basically we were operational. We got arresting powers. We're trained by the military very much militarize but we can arrest and process and do things that the military couldn't at least at the start of this process of putting the military in a fight. So, that was kind of the way I got into it the involvement of Americans through training was very present back then. We had two cycles of training out in Coronado, for example with people from NSW and NCIS which was again unheard of back then and we basically got to learn about war fighting from...war fighting and protecting people in war zones from people that were just coming back from Afghanistan and were applying some of those same

07:43 tactics and skill sets to a place that is just across the border from San Diego, which was pretty mind blowing. Some of them I guess... That was 12 years of that basically is what I went through. Wow, I can't even imagine doing something like that in my early 20s looking back you know you're just so young and ignorant in those years and yet you're doing something extremely dangerous! I imagine you somewhat feel lucky to have gotten through twelve years of that alive? I came out with a generation of 36-37 people There's only three of us left alive. So it is very, it's a three or four of us left alive. I'm not sure about one of them because he's not active anymore. So yeah, I do feel lucky. It cost me a lot mentally physically gave my twenties and part of my thirties to it. But yeah, I'm grateful to be alive and kicking it still. Yes. And we're lucky to have you

08:51 And we always hear about how cartels have co-opted the Mexican police, military and government. It seems like this program was an attempt to do something different that as you say that authorities could trust but were you ever asked to flip approach to flip or did you see some of your coworkers end up flipping? Constantly We're put through FBI background checks from the start for recruitment. So every attempt was made to have clean people in, the problem is corruption is something that sometimes happens after everybody has a price, everybody has a number as people would go out and work in this field and start families and kids needs became greater I guess for some of them it was constant

09:46 You would get approached by fellow members, lawyers in federal prosecutors offices would approach you with offers of looking the other way or switching something that you included in a written statement. That type of thing and obviously death threats. The whole black belt blow mo thing, silver led option was basically it One thing that helped us out a lot though, is that we were very much shielded from a lot of these things because all of us would put through constant recertification processes. Yes some people flipped and some people were very much on the take for a period but we would eventually catch up to them because every year basically it...we would have re-certification or reexamination psychological

10:35 polygraph exams, we would get put through a myriad of tests and our background would look into surprise house visits. They would come into our houses and count the number of TVs there. And if you had a new one they were asking us about it so... They definitely tried and it was successful for awhile. And people don't trust or believe that we have the Tijuana being on the top most dangerous city list and then not being on there for a period when we were working. It was constant, the offers were constant. The only reason that a lot of people took the offer and I don't judge them at all was because of need. The Mexican government is not too good at taking care of its own

11:23 There was no retirement plan as a police officer in the program that I was a part of. I don't think there's still, there is... It's the group that it was in and everything has been funded and defunct now but they're still remnants of it out there somewhere and they're still don't have any sort of semblance of a retirement package for their agents so imagine that you were in this place where you're risking everything and you start a family somewhere And the salary you have is unchanging while the risk you take is very much larger now. Some people took their money and I don't blame them, realistically. I wish I could tell you that I have some sort of judgment column amongst these people. I never took a dime and I just interviewed my former boss, Lisa Ola on my podcast who was basically the definition of incorruptible in Mexico so...

12:20 He wouldn't give me the time of day if I had in any way, shape or form taken a dime. He knows me well but I can't for the life of me judge some of these people because of the amount of just abandonment and neglect this government has for its agents and for its people you know? Yeah, that totally makes sense to me. It's like if you can't beat them join them and You have to do what's best for your family at least what you think maybe it short-sighted is best for your family But you do what you gotta do and yeah the it is shortsighted because nobody survived that you know And it's like everybody knows this once you take a coin from the devil he has II I mean you can't get out of that pocket mm-hmm but

13:09 I think what a lot of people in the United States might not get about corruption in Mexico is the legit lack of options that young people have. Many of my friends who I grew up skateboarding with went into their life and most of them are gone now, I went in an opposite direction ethics-wise and just perception wise As far as society goes, when somebody finds out that I was a cop in Mexico during that time and their mind they can't differentiate that from cartel member at some time because that's the villainy aspect of policing. Mexican cops are not the heroes in any story. Imagine if you're a cop in a place like that?

13:57 Yeah it's gotta be tough you can have this attitude of like look if they already think i'm the bad guy i might as well be the bad guy at least get paid for it so yes its a difficult situation all around and, of course is always telling me before we got going up until few months ago i was living in san diego had for the last thirteen years. And i knew handful of guys who cross the border for work and then i would go on street food tours and tj n When I would hear Republican politicians in like Indiana talking about how horrible the border crisis was, I sort of considered that to just be racist political hype at the time. Although now I'm kind of having my eyes opened on this issue but how would you compare the cartels power and trafficking issues five or ten years ago versus the state things now? Well number one, cartels

14:53 In the minds of Americans, they have this image of a single unified cartel force somewhere in Mexico like a Sinaloa cartel. That's not the case. There's two big ones that the US needs to pay attention to specifically but there's this misunderstanding as far as what cartels are If you ask somebody, they imagine this mob era gangster group somewhere in a cantina talking about business and then dude with pointy boots living in the hills somewhere hidden and kind of calling the shots. That's one part of it. The other part of it is politics. All of these ballrooms have now politicized something similar happened in gang era Chicago where a lot of these gangsters basically went into politics and legitimize their businesses

15:43 Eventually basically turning into legit business. Yeah, yeah this phenomenon happened already out there It's happening in Mexico now There's no way you can separate some of these cartel organizations with legitimate businesses and politics anymore Mm-hmm And the big ones are the Sinaloa and new generation right? Yeah The Sinaloa Cartel that historically dominant cartel in Mexico is the Sinaloa Cartel which is basically It's hard to call it the Sinaloa cartel now because it's mostly, it's a federation of smaller cartels that basically reside in Sinaloa. But there's a big faction of it that has historically held control over massive amounts of the border crossing spots specifically tunnels and some of those muddling routes up into the United States then to places like California and Texas and Arizona. The Sinaloa Cartel has historically held control over some of these crossing points

16:43 The Sinaloa cartel was not born in Sinaloa, by the way. Another thing that I have to myth bust for people in the United States, the Sinaloa cartel was borne by a guy that learned his craft in Los Angeles. So the Sinaloa cartel is very much an American cartel. A lot of people don't kind of talk about it but it's true. And do you mean El Chapo? Because I heard El Chapo- No. El Chapo was not anybody at the top of anything. El Chapo was somebody that worked, he was high level but not at the top. There's a man named Del Mayo Zambada who has historically been on the top of that cartel federation that some people call the Sino-Moro Cartel never been arrested. He's a ghost interviewed a few times for some publications and a lot of stuff he said was very smart, very articulate, very specific to politics, cartel politics interesting

17:41 The guy learned his tradecraft from people that used to work for the CIA, who would fly weapons into places like Cuba and were part of the Bay of Pig incident. So it's an interesting phenomenon around how this cartel kind of came up in how it is now. What you're seeing now on that cartel is internal strife. Some of El Chapo Guzman sons left behind have been trying to take control over certain aspects of helping run TLO proper And they've been very much targeted by the federal government and rival cartels, which is very telling as far as a rupture within their federation of cartels basically. What you see now is that cartel which historically held control over the mounts of Mexico and specifically the border

18:27 Getting into a confrontation with the new generation cartel, ultra militaristic cartels started by a former cop by the name of Nemesio Seguro Cervantes. Originally formed by the Sinaloa Cartel to hunt the Zeta Cartel this militarized cartel has been very good at recruiting and growing and expanding in a very much militaristic way. They're brutal their tactics are brutal They'll go into a town and wipe out every single military individual if it's a rival town. They are expanding in a way and form that hasn't been seen in other cartels in the past, almost like they have some sort of support from the outside. And they historically have had control over the Pacific side ports of Mexico and are now working to have the same control over the Gulf side ports of Mexico

19:25 which means that they have a pipeline of Sentinel and precursors from China direct. Yeah that's one of the main things i wanted to ask you about because it is fentanyl and how deadly that is really made me start to look at things differently cuz when was marijuana and even cocaine I kinda saw the war on drugs as a thing that created this black market. And yes its a cutthroat business but, when people are dying from pharmaceutical grade synthetic opioids laced within other things without their knowledge it feels like a different situation, especially hearing it's mainly manufactured in covert labs in Mexico from chemicals that come from China. It's like how did this relationship get formed? So I think somewhere at some point your enemies and when I say your enemies, I mean China realize that they can weaponize this problem you have with drug consumption at the end of the opiate epidemic of the prescription opioid epidemic we saw perfect storm

20:31 We saw people wanting opiates basically because the prescription door was gone. We saw the legalization of marijuana in some major drug markets in the United States, specifically California. We saw people saying that that was gonna put a stop to cartel expansion and their businesses were gonna be impacted. None of that really happened actually business is better now after legalization and I'll tell you why in a bit A lot of the pot fields that were growing illegal weed that was gonna be shipped off to United States were shifted to poppy production. And somebody somewhere gave the idea to their cartels just start lacing that low grade heroin coming off those leached nutrient poor hillsides, to lace it with Fenton. Now this happened

21:26 almost overnight where this new chemical was flooding into Mexico, this fentanyl. It was almost unheard of as far as fentanyl being fabricated in Mexico and then all of a sudden you started finding these laboratories across the country first in small numbers and then now enlarge they start seeing Chinese chemist reported scene with some of these cartel groups basically showing them how You hear rumors of a direct pipeline, even during COVID. The only cartel that expanded and grew during COVID was the New Generation Cartel and it's because their pipeline to China didn't close. So when people talk about China and fentanyl coming out of it sometimes they have this image

22:18 I don't know, Chinese mob syndicate maybe making it somewhere and shipping it out of the country or the triads or some nonsense like that. This is China. This is big brother territory. Nothing happens there without the state knowing about it." That paired with the Chinese banking aspect of money laundering that cartels have now climbed up on. Basically, if I have money that I need to move and I don't want the US to look at it, I'll just put in my Chinese banking app and trust me, the US can't look at shit when it comes to that." Wow! So, it's a perfect storm. And people that wanna say that this is not something that's being done on purpose or with a purpose...

23:05 are delusional. This is very much a coordinated attack on the United States in a lot of ways, specifically a long-term attack that's something that's probably designed to degrade US society and it's why people look at it that way they could see some of the realities of things are happening and not only in Mexico but in the United States right now. Yeah I was going to ask you if you thought attack was too strong of a word? It seems you don't but I've heard other people say China has a long memory and maybe this is revenge for the opium wars and what the West did during that time. Like, this is their chance at revenge." Well I mean... This could be that? And if it is then why isn't the United States on a war footing? Yeah, good question! And I think If you see politics in Mexico right now

24:04 There's no political rival right now to the current political party in power right now, Morena. Morena is a leftist pro-Maduro, pro-Chavez, pro populace obviously and is very much to the left of political spectrum. The president of Mexico has come out several times and international referendums being pro China and for Russia he's been very pro Russia when it comes to Ukrainian conflict as well And the leading political candidate right now for presidency, I think there's a few of them. But one of them is named Manuel Ebrard. Manuel Ebrard has just unveiled his new plan called Plan Angel, I think it's called? The angel plan which is basically the People's Republic of China's credit score system and surveillance. That's his plan to cut cartel problems in Mexico.

25:05 AI ran information gathering cameras across the country, scanning people looking at people's faces. And even when he unveils his plan, he shows the pictures of the people that he went to across the world to talk about some of these issues and you'll see a prominent picture of the president of China, Xi Jinping in this imagery and this is what's coming then this is the prevailing winds of the politics of your neighboring country Yeah yeah i mean it seems to be everywhere this whole increase surveillance digital currency social credit monitoring everything shutting off your income if you say bad things online. This is the direction that everybody wants to go doesn't seem to be any real opposition on the world stage notice world economic forum china model as you say,

25:57 of thing. It's coming everywhere, I just interviewed someone about the BRICS nations who you know obviously China is one of them but they're typically thought as opposition to the West so when the West is doing this you think like maybe the opposition isn't but no they are! They're working to build their own digital infrastructure, their own technocracy in the same way so it really seems hard to get away from in the next decade or two Well, I'll give you the best advice. I heard from a cartel member. You want to hear this advice? Of course if you want to hide from people in the future pretend like you live in the past. Hmm. Yeah stop using all this stuff well whatever plans these groups have out there as far as surveillance and stuff like that those people already working on counters everything. I think AI is going to change the game and a big way in a lot of places

26:50 And I think that's our, you know people talk about the atomic age and the space age. I think we're at the start of the AI age and it's being utilized for a lot of things including some nefarious shit. And as soon as this technology becomes really accessible to a lot of people, I think we're going to start seeing everything from new molecules of fentanyl Somebody fucking manufacturing VX gas somewhere because they put it through an AI algorithm and it told them the best way of doing this. You know, this is what's coming probably. They're already utilizing AI in criminalistic ways in different parts of the world

27:30 Voice emulators being utilized with AI technology voice emulators being utilized to basically clone Your loved one's voice and they'll call you to access an ATM. Yes, or to ball on some bank information This is happening already in Mexico yeah I've heard of a few cases of that and that's really intense and And scary application of that it's gonna be a tough few decades to live and raise children but you just. Gotta stay one step ahead or just find a way to be smarter than all this stuff i want ask about this cuz there's a journalist vanda fell bad brown who wrote a little bit about,

28:11 The cartels and the cozy relationship with china saying that. Cartel sir infiltrating even pretty mundane things like the fishing and logging industries, hand trafficking species to china like just anything they want basically in exchange for these chemicals that make fentanyl like this relationship is getting very cozy i've even heard you talk about some of the biggest on mind lithium areas are in mexico that's another thing china is gonna want this should be a big concern to america but of course there's all the speculation to that

28:52 Biden is kind of, I don't want to say a puppet president but definitely cozy with China despite what people might think. It seems like there are some ties that bind there but what more would you say about this cozy relationship with China and some of these other industries people wouldn't expect like fishing and logging and avocados even? First off i've spoken to Congress and to members of Congress and the Senate on some of these issues You know, I'm from Mexico so politics in general are always like a sore subject for me and politicians specifically. But I do see awareness of the problem in politics. They are talking about it. There has been a lot of talk about naming some of these cartel groups and organizations as terrorist organizations. We'll talk about that in a bit

29:46 But as far as, again the phenomenon that happened somewhere in the late 80s and early 90s of these cartels basically infusing themselves in politics and businesses is at a level that hasn't been seen ever. People that think they don't support cartels or I'm not supporting the cartel because I don't buy drugs. Cool. You go to Chipotle and you ask for extra guacamole? Yeah. They're probably putting money into some cartel forces somewhere in Michoacan You go and see a Netflix movie that you like, and it's produced by a certain person. Well that person probably has some sort of cartel ties in sponsorship and they allowed them to film that movie in a certain place because they paid their dues.\ Yeah. They're saying that about that new Sound Of Freedom movie.\ I don't know. I have no idea but it's feasible and possible. Imagine if these cartels are actually declared terrorist organizations then it would mean the Chipotle is sponsoring terrorism.\

30:43 So I think, yes. China is basically utilizing cartel forces in Mexico as security to do illegal or iron ore mining in certain parts of Mexico that again some shit that I've never see a lot of people talk about but it's happened the almost extinct Baquita Marina species from my home state of Baja has been...I think it's almost extinct has been hunted to extinction by fishermen that get loads of money from Chinese buyers. And when Trump basically said, hey we're bringing back our factories from Mexico into the United States he shot himself and the American public in the foot by basically creating an enemy on the southern border. And also all those factories that left were immediately kind of basically taken over by some Chinese state interest. So economically Mexico never felt the whole

31:43 economic punishment that Trump was kind of like talking about during his time in power. In fact, the peso is one of the stable currencies on the planet right now. The dollar has fallen and I think that's directly related to the fact that Mexico has a potential to become the next China. It has a vast amount of lithium, mineable lithium. I think...I don't know math around it but I've heard the number 70% of all mineable lithium on the planet is basically underneath Sonora. I'm not sure about those numbers, but that's something I've heard a few times. Mexico also has a giant population that is no longer immigrate

32:23 When we see a lot of those people on the border, those masses of people on the border. They're from Central America. They're not from Mexico. Right? Well, people are staying now. People are having kids. People were enjoying the economic boom. If you go to Tijuana, you'll see more Americans and Mexicans out and about in restaurants at night that is because we have a bunch of California economic migrants or American migrants living in Mexico. Mexico is on the verge of being something and global stage if it's allowed to, or if it's not used as its historically been used by foreign power. But I think Guam has a hand in it and the United States definitely has a hand in it and they're both aware of what the potentiality of Mexico going either China are going either to China are going out to United States

33:15 as far as what that means strategically for everybody globally. Yeah, it's interesting to think about and I wanted to come back to what you said about business being better than it was for the cartels before marijuana was legalized why is that? Marijuana was legalized and a lot of the people that went into this straight on, were people that had already been growing it illegally and paying some of these cartels to sell it in some certain territories. So from the inception the cartels went into business, legal business with marijuana. They've been utilizing some of the loopholes holes and financial federal financial nonsense around it to launder their money. And Colorado... I mean, I know for a fact Colorado is big hub for that

34:08 The effect that it had, legalizing marijuana had zero negative effect on some of these cartels. It basically made them grow exponentially because now they had legitimate business and illegitimate businesses because they're also growing illegal marijuana in federal lands and then turning it into distillates that they sell legally in certain parts of the US. Yeah, I've heard not only that some of San Diego's dispensaries were cartel connected and I heard it from people who...I don't know how they would have known. But I've also heard that if you go deep into the Redwood territory way up in Oregon and Washington there are acreages that are controlled by the cartels where they're growing marijuana out there with armed security. And this is the United States

35:01 There's a friend of mine who wrote a book called Hidden War, John Norris. He actually ran one of these tactical units that went after somebody he grows in some federal land is basically a park warden I think and it was also a former seal. So they had to basically create an attack unit to go after some of these people that are basically growing marijuana and having armed security in these fucking fields out there in the United States. It brings me back to this issue of the wall, the build the wall, keep the problems over there. They're not sending us their best aspect though, the rhetoric around border issues. The Sinaloa cartel was born in Los Angeles. Illegal marijuana is being grown and protected by armed cartels in the United States

35:48 Most of these cartel heads have their kids born in the United States and they have citizenship. So this is no longer like a Mexican issue, it hasn't been in years and decades probably. This is a regional issue." Yeah, and that was another one of the things I wanted to get into that. I think would surprise people is the infiltration of the American infrastructure now It's not hard to believe that they'd be growing some weed out in the woods, but i'm talking about Politics I mean i've heard that In places like Arizona there are cartel connected politicians That are winning office and keeping these

36:29 supply lines open and making sure that the right people never get in any kind of trouble for their crime. I've also heard Arizona is the kidnapping capital of the US, and that's an element here but do you see the cartels not only have they compromised the Mexican government but are they compromising pockets of the American government? I think so. Again, you said it yourself, Arizona is the abduction capital of the United States So, we could assume that there's something going on at high level government there that is allowing some of this thing to happen. I've been to Arizona a few times. I've actually had a training gig out there with the BORTAC people for the Border Patrol and their experiences on that border and their lack of trust or communication with other law enforcement agencies out there was very chilling to hear

37:31 It's a key point, Arizona. So you can assume that there's politics involved in it. People have to be aware and clear about this one fact though before we go into American corruption when it comes to cartels influencing stuff. The United States has been employing presidents of Mexico through the CIA since at least the 50s... At least the 60s I mean. The United States has had a hand in politics in Mexico that we know of, at least to the 80s. I have a suspicion that it's going to be more than the 80s probably the 90s if we get more unclassified documents coming out of the United States. The United States has been coercing certain politics and certain things to happen in Mexico. The CIA has been working in conjunction with cartels since the 60s

38:28 in certain ways, in the past might be currently doing the same now. We don't know." So what I wanna communicate with this is that both sides are dirty and they have their hands dirty and they have sins behind them. Yes a lot of efforts are being made in politics now to kind of stop this monster of an issue but it's a monster that the United States has a very... And its political structure has a very big responsibility in creating through its destabilizing foreign policies in places like Mexico. While we talked about the Chinese seeking revenge for the opium wars, you see this phenomenon now where politics in the United States is being turned into identity politics in a lot of ways? I'm an immigrant to the United States and I've been told several times to call myself Latinx by people, and I keep telling them go fuck themselves

39:25 But the amount of confusion and just this general division that is being bouted by people in the United States, it's very telling. This campaign of division and misinformation at the attack on anything that is related to actual news is pretty phenomenal for me to see because I saw that in Mexico when I was active and now, I'm seeing it in the United States. So it's very familiar to me. I also was exposed to a high level politics in Mexico actually worked security for a governor in Mexico so I got to see some of the ways things function at that level and I see some similar things in the United States now. The United States is changing. The United State just lived through COVID and whole multiple year long

40:17 campaign to cancel the police. As somebody that's in the tactical training community, I go out and do speaking engagements and training segments for members of law enforcement across the country." I went to an academy somewhere in Texas where there was only a single room filled with cadets, and none of them look like they belong there is all I'm gonna say. So if people assume that the United States can't get as bad as Mexico I mean, I lived through the Atlanta riots and the Portland riots. I was there for both of them as a new American, I wanted to experience what that was like and I could see the country turning into a very familiar place is all I can say.

41:06 Yeah well it seems like you're not afraid to dive headfirst into dangerous situations and hot spots for possibly explosive situations but the CIA stuff does not surprise me. I know way less about the CIA's involvement in Mexico than i do other CIA operations, but i did interview Whitney Webb a journalist who did a real deep dive on Operation underground where the cia infiltrated the italian mob and then basically just took over the operation they just. Locked up some of the top guys kept the supplies coming in kept it all going with the black budget and they basically just Took them out, but didn't take the crime network out They just took control of it And so if something like that happened with the cartels and the CIA got integrated in with them It really wouldn't surprise me way back when and I'm coming off post 9-11 reality

42:09 I saw a member of the Mexican army take a Geiger counter into a drug tunnel early 2000. It was weird, you know? I know what they are because I've watched a bunch of movies in my life so I knew what it was and it was a question in my mind for years like these guys really think somebody's gonna put a nuke in a drug tunnel and put it into United States, right? Was my question And back then, I think it was very much a reality or a possibility for the United States and the people in charge. But then I thought if the United States wants to keep its border secure would it trust just the Mexican government? Or would it have a deal with somebody that actually runs that border? And I think...I don't know the answer to that but if it was me in charge, I'd probably strike a deal with whoever was in charge of that border and that's not gonna be the Mexican

43:11 Yeah, and I'm seeing all kinds of headlines now going back again to Arizona. There's a lot of residents in Yuma, Arizona saying that the US has totally lost control of the border there and it's an out-in-the-open cartel run operation. It is true! You'll see them armed crossing the border so people that are not living on that border live in a different reality than the people who actually live there People that vote for less funding for technology training and people on that border are people that don't live there. It's a very difficult place to live, and again I have both the experiences of actually living and working on both sides of that border so it's very easy to vilify the Border Patrol. Border Patrol is a bad organization... They're all evil people because they're hunting these immigrants or whatever the rhetoric is you wanna hear

44:08 But actually training some of these people and being there when seeing what they can do on a daily basis, it's horrible job. Thankless. Some of these people will pay out-of-pocket to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste for some of the kids that were being held in some of the detention centers. Mexico just had 40 immigrants burned alive in a holding cell. So Mexicans and Mexico as a whole has absolutely nothing to say about how the United States treats its immigrants. It's a horrible situation all around, and there is nobody clean when it comes to some of these situations going on right now on the border. The reality of it is if people want to imagine Cartel as an opponent or an enemy they're winning. I mean they're winning, they're growing you can't send a drone after these people

45:04 This is not a problem when you attack like that, because if that's the way you're gonna approach this... If you're gonna approach this drug war like you did Afghanistan or Iraq. You're gonna have to surround the major cartel hubs in the United States like Los Angeles and Chicago Yeah, it seems like a really difficult thing to untangle. And you know in a previous interview I heard you say that right now the biggest source of profit isn't even drugs its people they have well-established routes in the US and they're charging six thousand to ten thousand ahead what can you tell us about the human trafficking elements there? Well I mean so first off I know human trafficking is

45:54 big, and it's a topic that Americans for some reason are obsessed with as far as the threat that has... It's horrific thread of course. That scary but we're all participant in human traffic people to go and watch that Jim Carrey's movie and feel like this is an evil that they have to fight shouldn't buy produce in the United States or go to a hotel or restaurant at night that has any sort of cooks in the back that are from Mexican descent. If these human traffickers, and when I say human traffickers it's a distinction that shouldn't be made. I don't like that word at all. There's no way these guys can operate without cartel or basically the people at the top being participant and over taxing them in some way shape or form. And it's all part of the same organization so there's no human traffickers. There's cartel organizations that participate in the trafficking of humans

46:56 It's not a separate entity. I don't know why people wanna make that its own thing, the same smugglers they'll put people across the border will put a backpack on you with a bunch of fentanyl and laced cocaine so it's the same thing. You can't cross that border without being taxed by these organizations. They will separate the women if they are cute enough and they'll mark them differently and they'll probably get different treatment Because some of these women will be trafficked in the United States to bars that have certain services. That's what the seat does is what we call them in Mexico, which is basically brothels, clandestine brothels that are mobile set up a brothel and I'll tell...I'll have four rooms and I'll start having clients online basically coming in and now I have girls that are servicing them."

47:47 that are legit fresh from Mexico or fresh from wherever in Central America, they just arrived and they are trying to pay their traffickers for being in the country. So they're basically slaves. The same thing happens with people in the service industry. People are sent to work on a field and they're basically ransomed with their families that are already settled in the United States since I say you don't pay either ransom is gonna work for us till we don't want them to work for us anymore Or we're gonna hold them somewhere in a dungeon, somewhere in Arizona which has happened many times over. Nathaniel God and do you think that the American food companies are complicit in a lot of this stuff when it comes to the field work? Adam We just saw Florida pass some pretty strict illegal immigration laws and migrant worker laws, and they are suffering for that right now

48:46 In most places that have enacted some of these laws have basically gone back on them because there's no way they're gonna be working those fields with American hands, because nobody wants to do that job. There is an interesting phenomenon where people are talking a lot about slavery and the history of slavery tearing down statues all the while during the COVID epidemic there was no shortages of produce in the aisle, which means that illegal immigration was basically essential working where basically central workers in United States are in that period. Good point good point you know the Jim Caviezel movie I saw it the other night so it's fresh in my mind but there's a couple things they say in there that are pretty dark one is that you can sell drugs one time but you can sell a human being four five ten times a day

49:37 for 10 years of their life, the younger they are which is just a dark reality. But they also said that there's more people in slavery today than at any other point in history which is a crazy statistic if that's true and they're saying that Carlos Slim Mexican billionaire is one of the main financiers of the movie Jim Caviezel said it in one interview and people are circulating the clip because I don't think they wanted that out But that's a curious thing. I don't know what's going on with all that, but scary stuff. So I worked for...I had the security of a governor for awhile in Mexico, Governor Osuna. He was friends with Slim. Met him several times. I know at least that people in Mexico some people were trying or have been trying to do something about some of these things. So it makes sense that he would do that, at least from what I know

50:36 And he also has an amazing security team, so good luck to anybody who tries anything. Yeah but I mean, I hear about the cartel controlled whorehouses in TJ and I've heard some stories from people that have gone down to TJ for such things... Recently one of them has been closed down because they revealed a massive network of human trafficking which is really In one of the largest brothels in the world that is right next to the United States, this is a center of human trafficking. Amazing. Most of the brothels and Tijuana are concentrated in the Zona North area. It's a place called The Tolerance Zone because basically drug use and prostitution is legal or at least it's allowed to happen

51:32 When we were active, we didn't have any sort of deals and or agreements with anybody. So we would hit that place often. I was participating in a few raids on some of those places way back when with members of the Mexican immigration office. Yeah, you go in there and you see passports from all over the world specifically Latin American countries that are kind of struggling but the passports are being kept in a safety deposit thing So basically you get there, your passport's taken. You can't go anywhere. You have to work it off." Some of these women are old indefinitely and it's shocking and horrible what's happening in Mexico but who was the number one clientele at all these places? Americans. Yeah. Again this whole aspect of America securing its borders to keep things out of it that are bad for

52:30 is something that needs to be fixed with American perception, I think. I'm right there with you because some of these issues have a direct... And I include myself now as taxpaying citizen of this country all of us are complicit all of us we're responsible We need to start looking at our head and see how dirty they are Yeah that's the sad reality but What would you what would you advise people to do? Obviously, let's say a lot of the people listening don't have a ton of power We might be able to boycott certain things or make sure we don't purchase certain things Where would you say we can be most useful just in changing little things about our everyday life I mean You're asking five year into the American dream Immigrant to United States. I don't know on my end

53:29 I am very active in trying to spread the word and awareness. I also do a lot of advocacy and a lot of charity work, trying to my best to be active and engaged in my community as much as I can. I think one of the biggest things that I learned from my mom who was also went into politics at a late age right at the end of her life, she became one of the city council members in Tijuana which is fascinating to me because I kind of see... She would always have this thing about politics. And then people complain a lot about it but nobody wants to get involved with somebody else who's gonna do it and that assumption leads some people that get lost in the White House being in charge of the country you know? So if anything, I think politicize vote

54:24 Get in active in the community. If there's an issue out there that is affecting you or if you wanna learn more about, actually go out there and see it. If the border issue was a big issue for you and how you vote, go to the border. If immigration is a big issue on how you vote, legit talk to immigrants The amount of cross eyes I get when I tell people about my beliefs or my politics is pretty interesting because the assumption that since a Mexican and immigrant, I'm willing to be one political inclination other than another. I want to smoke a joint have a gun and be at my gay best friend's wedding and not not be bothered by anybody. Cheers! You know? This is where I would want to be

55:10 But there's a lot of people that are out there, they're more focused on division. And I think people should question why that is? I have a lot of faith in this country. It's an amazing place again. I came here with three-year old in my arms and money in my pocket. And I figured it out at least enough figure it out where I'm actually working and making a difference in the community that I'm a part of and the country Well, yeah in a huge way. You've been on some of the biggest podcasts in podcasts existence and you teach these courses about survival and I think you've done amazing things with that skill set that you developed in your early 20s. It's pretty impressive! But it's like...I'm not using it for myself. People that know me know how I live. Basically jumping from Airbnb to hotel traveling across the country

56:09 I think, I'm only missing Iowa, Alaska and Hawaii. I've been to every other state in the country and whenever I go somewhere, I legit go and talk to people there you know? In Tennessee, I went to a church where people were dancing with snakes. In Los Angeles, I went to Santa Marta Church that run there by some of my fellow Mexican immigrants. In Arizona, I went and trained the war patrol In Tijuana, I went to the migrant house and got to talk to them and see their issues. And try to help out with the food and clothing needs for some of them. So when I say that I recommend people engage themselves in the world... If there's an issue out there and you feel strongly about it putting a flag over your Instagram profile doesn't do shit. There was a time that America wasn't involved in the world. That time has somehow passed

57:15 And I think it needs to kind of figure out its way back into that. When I say involve the world, I mean Americans not the government American. I think there's something that you said about the fact there's a bunch of them living outside of the United States right now and they're not functioning as they used to. I mean, expats in the past would set up these communities outside of the country who have their own freedoms now that are escaping economic realities and then they're trying to turn the places that escaped to into gentrified variants or where they coming from? That's why there's a lot anti-Americanism in places like Mexico City right now, where we have American homeless people asking for money on the street. Culturally something has changed. We just went to a midnight of the soul as a world I guess and I feel like we're not all the way through it yet. There's something that he said about the main effort that most governments in the world had to keep us home and the fact that a lot of people stayed home

58:19 Yes, well said. And man just the last thing I want to slide in here is from your bio it says that Your study of the indigenous Mexican criminal culture includes their occult practices and the occult has always been a fascination of mine. It's part of the DNA of this show when it pops up, and I didn't even think it would pop up talking to you but because its in the bio I figured I would just ask what you know about cartel occult practices before we call it in? Well it's complex. Basically I grew up in the culture so

58:57 I didn't learn this from the universities. I'm not an anthropologist, I'm not a former cop in the United States that went to a few cartel houses took some pictures of some shrines and now does occultist criminal cults classes across the country. You know? I grew up as a Guadalupano, a devotee of the Virgin of Guadalupe and my family is historically Guadalupanos But there was always a quirkiness about our faith because there was always a skeleton hidden somewhere around the altars and stuff like that, we would pray to. So eventually I figured out that my family was also closeted Santa Muerte practitioners so the cult of Santa Muerte is something that has been practiced underground or behind doors for centuries in Mexico very much like a Freemasonry type thing

59:48 It's something that it's kind of unspoken, but it's known. It's a way that a lot of the faithful hid their spirituality after the conquest basically. So I grew up around Santa Marta and that's been a faith that I've had my whole life. Basically, it's a veneration of death and life. That's all what is duality, spirituality basically hidden underneath layers of Catholicism. I was baptized, I went to church, I didn't like meeting, not did all that stuff but it's like I grew up in that faith at home When I went out to work, I started seeing it in different ways expressed by members of the cartels. You know? Going into a house and seeing this giant reaper statue in the middle of Rome and a bunch of witchcraft stuff on the ground which I didn't recognize because the faith that I grew up in didn't have any of that but it was now kind of changing and being transformed or weaponized. What I noticed is that a lot of these cartel groups were utilizing some of these faith elements as psychological warfare or as war paint in a way

1:00:52 Imagine having a group of people show up to your house and all of them are wearing lepers on a chain on their neck. So cultism in Mexico go hand-in-hand at all levels, every single president in Mexico that has been in power has been ordained and or blessed by the Brujo Mayor for example. Brujo Mayor is the top witch in the historical center of all witchcraft in Mexico, a city called Catemaco There's a book called, which is A Power. And Mexican politics is rife with this occultism and so it has been for some reason there was the big infusion of it in politics on the criminal side. There are three main big ones right now and most people would think Santa Muerte... The first introduction to Santa Muerte that most Americans had was very negative one I think is probably Breaking Bad that most people have in their minds as far as the first time they saw

1:01:50 Which is interesting because the way they depicted the cult of Santa Muerte as far as the Salamanca twins show up to this altar and they crawl on their bellies to it. That's something we used to do for La Vida en el Guadalupe celebrations, and then later on for Santa Muerte it's actually very... that's a very real thing you crawl to the altar in a way of humbling yourself basically And they put a picture there of the person that needs to kill. Basically, they're asking death for permission to kill somebody as Sicario which is actually also true. It's like something cultural will happen. A lot of these occult practices and faith practice are basically shields and programming element that cartel groups use. We are not Islamic extremists in Mexico so we have to create some sort of faith-based referral around some of the activities that some people have to do that are completely outside

1:02:46 what humans are capable of or should be capable of. You start seeing elements of Afro-Caribbean religion like Paloma Yonde, Santeria back in the late 80s started showing up in cartel groups. There was a famous case on the border of this cartel occultist who basically kidnapped an American kid and used his brain as a charge for this pot that he had created for a cartel enforcer that wanted to have some sort of power that came from it, basically necromancy shit. Afro-Caribbean and Oregon obviously but not Mexican. But these elements have been utilized and been fostered in somebody's communities in Mexico for decades now kind of growing into its own culture and thing. So you usually see Santa Muerte as a very negative evil criminal things probably comes from some of the social media and the media aspect of presentation movies and stuff like that

1:03:47 But most of the evil stuff I've actually seen as far as human sacrifice, organ harvesting and eating cannibalism. The more darker elements of the occult have actually come from people influenced from the Afro-Caribbean aspect of Santeria Paloma Yamba in Mexico. That's where it seems some of them are more startling aspects on some of these faith practices that's specific to criminal occultism in Mexico People wanna make connections with Santa Marta and the Aztec empire in old school blood rituals, stuff like that. But if you really know about it, Santa Marta does not allow for sacrifices or bloodletting. So it's not the case. A lot of the influence that we're seeing now are Afro-Caribbean in nature that bring some of those elements to Mexico and are now being

1:04:36 be quickly owned or fostered by some of the element and some of these criminal organizations in places like Mexico City, Tijuana, Monterey where some occult hubs exist. So communities are people that practice some of these spiritual practices. Interesting, yes. The psychological warfare uses of it interest me and the real power in it is always curious like how much is superstition and how much is a real science almost that has just kind of lost especially in American culture but is there a real relationship there with spirits that can make things happen? It gets quite weird.

1:05:20 This is what I heard from one of the highest practitioners of black magic in Mexico. Black magic at its core is just a form of weaponized psychology, curses don't work if the curse doesn't know about it. This is what I heard from some of them. I don't know. I don't think there's supernatural. I think there's very natural that we don't understand. Yeah. I don't know. I think the power that really has over people is the power of true belief. As far as an enemy goes The United States has faced true believers before. And if you can talk to somebody who's been a war fighter in the Vietnam War, then the Second World War or any sort of conflict, the difference between somebody there fighting for our flag and their country and difference between fighting somebody that is a true believer is night and day.

1:06:13 It's a terrible, that's a terrible one. I'm sure it's scary one. It's something almost like that line from the occult practitioner is almost like reverse placebo effect. Like just tell someone they've been cursed, they believe their curse things start happening to them that they blame on the curse and then its manifesting its manifesto. Yeah, it is so if you put people that they are under the protection of this black There's currently one cult that is growing exponentially in Mexico. And I don't see a lot of people talking about it, hasn't shown up in any sort of movie or media out there yet but it's a cult around El Angelito Negro the Black Angel. It's basically Luciferian cult. It is coming out of central Mexico and it's showing up in different parts of the country now have seen some elements of it and United States kind of show up but it's basically Luciferian cult

1:07:12 And they're all about blood rituals. Damn! They were all about sacrament and the effigy that he prayed to was basically a black devil dressed in fine garb. Imagine somebody that you had to face who that was as an enemy, I think that's where some of that power comes from, I guess. Yeah very well could be Man well jesus has been super interesting and educational i know we're going over so i appreciate just your time and it's been honor talking to you i salute your bravery in your willingness to speak about these things before really cut loose talk to people about the courses you offer they seem, really.

1:07:56 Interesting and probably useful to someone who might be in a bad situation, but also the merchandise you have the patreon if people liked this. Maybe they've never heard of you before they want to contribute these are the important things that could get engaged with to follow up on this or first off I mean if anybody wants to find out more about us www.edsmanifesto.com Or track us down on Instagram, we're pretty shadow banned sometimes. But Manifesto Radio or Ed's Manifesto will take you to our Instagram account which is legendary! It has a cult following and has been going strong for almost a decade now in different formats it started off on Tumblr and now we're there. It's basically a ride along with me as I go through my process of learning how to be an American

1:08:48 learning what it takes to heal from post-traumatic stress, learning how I have to integrate into a normal life where I don't carry around an Iranian launcher in the city. It's a ride along and also showcases some of the training elements that I talk about and work with people. I do a lot of training for the government then I consult a lot with the government as far as matters related to smuggling Matter related to working in environments where you're not allowed to have what you would want as a foreign agent of some sort So my expertise is very much in the realm of non-permissive environment. So go to a place where you're not welcome What do you need to carry? How can you create contact there how can you figure out how to create your own tools on smuggle things out of bribe people all these nefarious dark arts that I basically lived with for 12 years of my life and

1:09:43 I now format it into two training classes for people. One of them is called Counter Custody, which is basically a two day course where we kind of go over the anatomy of an abduction and how to be at home invasion, how could be horrible relationship gone wrong or could be you in your family somewhere in Cancun getting picked up? and how to go about that process, what to carry with you. How to manage it? How to create things that'll get you out of restraints? How to hide them? How do use them effectively?" Another class I have is called weaponology. You know basically how to weaponize the environment around you. And not talking about improvise weapons but I'm talking about weapons of opportunity. How can you arm yourself anywhere

1:10:32 Most of this is basically reverse engineer criminal methodology. This doesn't come from the military, that doesn't come from some sort of specialized ninja training I had with the government. This is all me being a human being sitting down with some of these bad horrible people and learning and being humbled by some of them. This is video tape conversations with some of these people. These are skills tradecraft and techniques that I learned from people that actually use them or knew than myself And it's open to the public. All you have to do is RRB over 18 and we run background checks, and we sell them out across the country. I just did one in Cleveland probably 20 people showed up for that one. We put everybody in at least three forms of restraint for exercise, and they all escaped with the tools that they'd manufactured from garbage that be found around here. JS

1:11:28 If anybody is really, really about freedom they know that there's no such thing as freedom without responsibility. And that responsibility comes first for us to take care of ourselves and be self-sufficient and figure out the best ways of doing things. And that then transfers to our ability to protect our families and our communities. I think that is where we are struggling or we are detached We want others to solve our issues. We want people that show up for us, we want 911 to show up immediately in our environment and solve things for us." There is a definitely freedom in self-sufficiency and that's the culture I'm trying to share with people in these classes. So if anybody's interested definitely hit me up. We have a Patreon if people are curious about this training and what we provide there's a lot of our online content there you can find that through our website and enjoy the ride basically

1:12:26 The Instagram account is pretty entertaining for people. So if anybody's curious, just follow me there and eventually you'll end up in a class that usually convert people that way. Nice, nice. Yes. And you got some great merch too. People should check that out. Yeah. Check out sneak deeper industries, check out the merge. You sell a bunch of weird ass knives and all over clothing has tricks to it. And if you've been through the classes, you know what these are already haven't You'll find out. Interesting, I'm intrigued now more than more than i was awesome well wow! I learned a lot, I'm sure people would agree that they did too your story is amazing your experiences are wild...I just can't believe it but thank you for all the information and for taking the time and keep fighting the good fight and take care out there responsibility is a process we have to find it Thank you so much with the platform then for the conversation

1:13:22 Yes people, how about it? Ed Calderon. Certainly bound to be an unexpected one and I was definitely out of my depth in terms of how much i knew about any of these subjects coming into it but they can't all just be shows about the Rockefellers and the World Economic Forum right The funny thing is that I pursued this topic because of a clip I heard from Dr Phil of all people I know he's pretty much thought of as a joke and there is a view on what he does as exploitation, of oftentimes troubled kids that just won't behave. Family traumas and all of that but if they get real help then it seems like a net gain difficult to say but the point is that I saw a clip where he talked about China weaponizing the cartels partnering with them to put fentanyl in their supply and wreak havoc on America

1:14:20 And he talked about a few specific busts where they found enough fentanyl to kill every American or something wild like that. And I get it, if you don't party like that then they can't make you take it! But he also showed there are neighborhood drug dealers selling through Snapchat and using new lingo to make it not so explicit sort of like the old back page ads for escorts Where you would see the picture of the girl and she says she'll spend some time with you for 1000 roses Roses meaning dollars, but it's a legal loophole there to get the ad placed where it needs to be placed. But Dr. Phil told a story of a high school or college girl who used the Snapchat service just to get a couple of Adderall to get through finals week and she ended up dying but they found the source they knew what she bought and they found the remaining purchase in her drawer She only took half a pill And it killed her because it was fentanyl

1:15:18 And there is this stigma that you shouldn't be messing around with drugs. You get what's coming to you, there is no empathy for a person in that situation but if someone buys lettuce at the farmer's market and dies from E. coli or something like that we don't think the same way We see that as a problem But in both cases it was a tainted purchase Yes I know its not exactly the same thing but I dont see as much difference there as other people might But the other aspect of the cartels I wanted to cover was the footholds they seem to be getting into different pockets in America. It's pretty well known that the Mexican government is compromised, but so are several American cities, so they say. Who knows how high that really goes? But it's a lot like running drugs through Arkansas because you know Bill Clinton is the governor and he's in your pocket

1:16:12 That's happening in some of these border states. They make sure the local government will not come after the operations, their supply lines won't be touched, the issue won't really be raised very often and business as usual continues." So I wanted to make sure we had some of this material on the THC record and I could find nobody better than Ed to educate us on it He has got the lived experience he has got the knowledge And I have a ton of respect for his commitment to being one of the good guys while still being pretty humble about it all. For my money, he's much more authentic to me than a lot of the big-name internet tough guy motivators But we do have this spin on things now where you can't even mention the border as a problem or you're clearly a right wing racist and We have to get past that I would say I myself am guilty of drifting into that mindset in previous years

1:17:10 Largely because this is one of those politicized Republican talking points, the border and abortion. You know they don't genuinely care it's just an emotional motivator to get their team riled up but when it comes to the border it IS that AND it's actually a real problem And its becoming more compromised all the time The cartels are getting stronger and craftier Once you compromise the elections in a place like El Paso or Phoenix It seems hard to unravel once it's pretty well established. So this really was a great one to me, we covered several layers of things that you don't hear much on THC or maybe anywhere You know I love to cover things that are underreported and also very important so felt like i did my job today If you have other guest suggestions to revisit some of this down the road let me know

1:18:06 Of course, all my interviews are two hours. But just the first hour is free and in the first hour we covered a lot of ground made sure to hit those two elements that drove me to contact Ed but in the second hour We got into a ton more problems with China and weaponized social media exploring Western influence through Hollywood that notion of responsibility not freedom We talked about what the 2024 Mexican presidential elections are looking like, what it would mean to declare cartels terrorist organizations. The future of the Mexican-American relationship—cartel philanthropy and the public relations operations in Mexico very much like our big philanthropists like the Gates and the Rockefellers and the Clintons

1:18:57 We also got into the complex issue of gun ownership in Mexico, some intense and dangerous personal experiences of Ed's. What was revealed in Mexico's version of WikiLeaks and millions of documents that came out? Ed's thoughts on the profile of Central American immigrants that are at the U.S. border and the weaponizing of said immigrants Lots of food for thought, very information rich. And I put my foot in my mouth a couple times talking about immigrants and Honduran refugees but that happens when I don't know what I'm talking about but still trying to get more out of something

1:19:38 Anyway, sign up for THC Plus at thehighersidechats.com or just click the link at the top of your show notes Get the full two-hour versions of the five shows I put out each month for just eight bucks and we'll both be happier all without any time wasting ads or sponsors right? But this topic was probably overdue. I just needed to get the right guy to talk about it and Ed was that guy Another topic, I can't seem to find the right guest for is organ harvesting in China I found some of the top books on the subject but can't make contact with their authors And there's a lot of creepy stuff worth talking about on that front too

1:20:18 But there's always a new show to do so I'm sure it'll happen eventually. In higher side news, I did get a voicemail from the fourth winner of the Money Bomb but not the fifth. I did forget to mention the fifth winner on The Last Show with Lon Strickler but we did wrap up that little experiment and let's see what that fourth winner had to say in their voicemail Hey Greg, this is Kristen your latest Moneybomb winner. I can't tell you how excited and happy and grateful i am for this um...I've been listening to you since way back before you quit your job and I was so proud of you for that uh the first time I heard you was when you interviewed Jeff on Anarchast and I used to listen him all the time And you remember it's still vividly in the story you told about your girl

1:21:06 Again, just drank mimosas and she flipped over her handlebars in PB. And it just sounded like a bunch of friends I'd be with. I used to live in OB by the way awhile ago. Anyways, um... Yeah, Ayrton Aircast is the first time I heard from you And then we lost our van and it's really hard when you're out in the streets to actually have a phone or even if you do, keep it charged. But anytime I got a phone, I would immediately download as many cheat sheets as I could and binge them. So my favorite show is the one on alcohol prohibition and how alcohol really wasn't prohibited because it was bad for us but because of money and greed

1:21:46 Um, let me see. Oh, it's been some of the money so far on a better phone with service and anyway this is really exciting for me and I get that same feeling that you get when you interview the people you listen to for a long long time thank you again and i'm still glad you brought the money bomb back thank you thanks kristen it seems like this 500 went to someone who could really use it i'm happy about that and clearly someone who's been listening for a long But yeah, you know this money bomb thing just didn't really go as I envisioned it. There wasn't really any sort of promotional benefit Maybe i left it too open-ended maybe people just don't want to be bothered with that sort of ask? I understand that no big deal we tried it! I gave away $500 to five different listeners and that is at least trying to do something that I don't see a lot of podcasts doing

1:22:41 I don't know if i'm done trying forever. I think there are ways to set up systems where money can circulate through a closed loop, where everybody wins it's really just the principle of buying local but trying to digitize it as if higher side town was a place or something because you can buy meat from a local rancher who might buy produce from a local farmer who might sit down at a local restaurant and that server might spend her tip at another local venue who then buys meat from the original local rancher and everybody profits from the same physical dollars. But as soon as you buy a product from Amazon or Kellogg's, Nestle or Procter & Gamble that dollar is basically gone it's extracted from your community

1:23:29 So I just thought maybe i could circulate the money I get from Plus Members back to the audience and get a decentralized promotional thing going on rather than feeding some marketing agency or giving 10% to a manager etc. You heard the pitch, I don't need to go over it again but its fun to try stuff and I hope you appreciate at least the spirit of it Finally lets look at the events that you guys have put on the meetup calendar at highersidemeetups.com Today is August 4th, so August 5th we have the High Springs Brewing Company doing their monthly event in High Springs Florida. We also have one going on in Moundsville West Virginia on August 6th Huntsville Alabama August 10th Flame International Restaurant in LA August 11th Hastings East Sussex United Kingdom a place called Brewing Brothers at The Courtyard

1:24:27 And two on August 15th, Nashville and Salem Oregon. I see a couple more in August but we'll leave it there if you're interested at all just log in and see if there's one near you If there isn't make one But is encouraging to see more than we had last month These things are fun, they're free and you'll have plenty of things to talk to people about. THC covers a ton of topics and you can make some new like-minded friends right there in your hometown! It's a beautiful thing! HiresideMeetups.com But that's the show. Check out EdsManifesto.com, he does have a Patreon, he does have a merch store with a cool Sneak Reaper logo and he teaches those classes if you think you could step up your game in taking responsibility for your own skill set and protection I know i'll be keeping an eye out for any Florida events because that's a big hole in my game but until then...I'm out! Thanks for listening, I've done my part

1:25:25 Your move, cartel operators fentanyl infusers and border-busting traffickers. Your fucking move. Well they tie that yellow ribbon round the oak tree All the prayer in their long thought They were rooting for the home team As they're sent to the game and torn apart We twist this tourniquet upon the pipeline That it carries all of pain

1:26:03 As we blindly clap and cheer from the sidelines It's clear, I know it was intrigue from the restart And that's where they found the cemetery A smoking gun in my hand down for THC The American scream They took that faded ribbon off the oak tree Poured out a hole in their hearts

1:26:55 I long thought i was doing a while lying in the pool of my blood and that's where they found me, in the cemetery A smoking gun in my land of the free sing with me and that's where they found me, in the cemetery A smoking gun in my hand now im down from the land of THC

1:27:44 I can scream, I can scream And that's where they found my cemetery A smoking gun from the land of me and you