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Join me for an unexpected but fascinating chat that arose from the previous panel episodes on Germany, Identity & Palestine. I knew that one of my panelists (Claus) had been raised far-right and since shed those beliefs, but I had no idea just *how* far-right … Strap yourselves in for a very wild, rollercoaster of a conversation. Major CONTENT WARNING: There’s talk of bigotry, nazi cults, smuggling, murder, suicide, white supremacy, and more horrific stuff. So please proceed with caution. We discuss the skeptic scene and how rapidly it’s devolved, Michael Shermer in particular comes up. I also try to gauge and assess just how fashy Claus’s upbringing was, was it overtly and explicitly fash, was it IDWesque in trying to mask the bigotry… or was it a bit of both? Claus peels back the layers and helps us understand what got him out of that bigoted worldview, what kind of damage it did to the people around him, and how he sees echoes of it in present day culty, conspiracist circles.

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Links Eric Ludendorff: “The Nazis distanced themselves from Ludendorff because of his eccentric conspiracy theories In 1926, Ludendorff divorced Margarethe Schmidt and married his second wife Mathilde von Kemnitz (1877–1966). They published books and essays claiming that the world's problems were the result of Christianity, especially the Jesuits and Catholics, but also conspiracies by Jews and the Freemasons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Ludendorff

Claus briefly mentioned Derek Black’s story: Derek Black is an American former white supremacist. He is the son of Don Black, founder of the Stormfront online community, and godson of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. He publicly renounced white nationalism and chronicled his personal journey away from his family's beliefs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Black https://www.npr.org/2018/09/24/651052970/how-a-rising-star-of-white-nationalism-broke-free-from-the-movement https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/01/derek-black-new-college-desantis-plan.html

Claus Also mentioned Zundel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Zündel

Ernst Christof Friedrich Zündel (German: [ˈtsʏndl̩]; 24 April 1939 – 5 August 2017) was a German neo-Nazi publisher and pamphleteer of Holocaust denial literature. He was jailed several times: in Canada for publishing literature "likely to incite hatred against an identifiable group", and on charges of being a threat to national security; in the United States, for overstaying his visa; and in Germany for charges of "inciting racial hatred". He lived in Canada from 1958 to 2000.

David Silverman: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/david-silverman-atheist-fired-sexual-misconduct

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