00:00:00
Speaker 1: Call zone media. This is going down like Donkey Kong. Dan, the good news is humanity is back in the fight. Knowledge fight country. I'm out here in the country. Jesus Christ said that. Everybody go Donkey Kong Country. I'm Dan Friesen, and this is Knowledge Fight Country. For the past nine years, I've produced and co-hosted a podcast about Alex Jones and InfoWars called Knowledge Fight. For many of you listening, you probably know who I am already. But for the rest of y'all, let me take a moment to properly welcome you and get you up to speed. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, I noticed that the right-wing media was getting a little weird. I'd grown up in central Missouri, driving a car with no CD player before the days of iPods, so I listened to a ton of standard blowhard talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and what I was seeing in 2016 felt insane. The right-wing media machine always will galvanize around the Republican candidate, and it never surprised me for these guys to back whoever their team's horse happened to be. The same pundits who supported George W. Bush could easily stump for Mitt Romney, and it wouldn't feel weird. So for a lot of these idiots to be cheerleading for Donald Trump's candidacy, it wasn't that confusing. But when I saw what Alex Jones was up to, I was baffled. I smoked a lot of weed in high school and college, so I watched plenty of Alex's content in my younger years. I was aware of him as a guy who had a penchant for yelling. He liked guns, and he thought 9-11 was an inside job. I knew him as a conspiracy theorist, a small government guy, and one of the few very loud right-wing voices I remembered opposing the Iraq War. I remembered him from his small role in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life, and I had a vague sense of him being a dude who I didn't agree with, but who had a list of principles that he stuck to. I imagined him to be a sincere person, but I hadn't kept up with him over the years. Now here he was, and I'm seeing him pop back up as a completely insane Trump supporter. I was confused, so to learn more I watched a few episodes of his show, and I only got more confused. He was screaming about Trump being the best, how the world was going to end if Hillary won, and he was much more religious than I remembered him being. He was fake crying on air a lot, too, which was really upsetting. Over the course of the 2016 election campaign, instead of watching the debates on normal TV, I watched them on InfoWars, mostly for the spectacle of it. It seemed like dumb entertainment, but I was also curious to make sense of how this was the same guy from the Bohemian Grove video I watched back when I was really stoned in someone's garage. That culminated in me watching the election night coverage on InfoWars, which turned out to be a Spider-Verse-style canon event in the way that it altered the trajectory of my life. A lot of people had their political bearings shifted after the 2016 election, directly as a result of Trump winning. They couldn't believe that a clear con artist and self-centered liar could possibly get elected as president in our system. The fact that it happened caused a shock that pushed people strongly in one direction or the other. I was shocked, and I admit that 10 years ago, I was quite naive about the stability of our system. I thought there were backstops in place where the adults would show up eventually and they'd clean up this mess and everything would be more or less normal. But it wasn't Trump's election itself that gave me the big shock. That came from watching the Infowars coverage of election night. The image that'll probably never leave my mind was of Alex Jones, Owen Schroer, Roger Stone, and some of the other creeps at the company playing live feeds of people at Hillary rallies and laughing about how many of them were crying. In the moment, I understood that the Infowars studio was almost exclusively full of straight, white, Christian nationalist men And on this night of their great victory, their preferred way of celebrating was to mock these diverse crowds who were brought to tears by the fear of what Trump represented. These people were afraid of losing access to reproductive health care, of the risk of fundamental LGBTQ rights being rolled back, of the racism and general bigotry that Trump's election would enable, and InfoWars chose to spend some of their time laughing at these people's distress. I still didn't really understand what InfoWars and Alex Jones were about, but seeing the inherent cruelty in that moment gave me a drive to try to figure that out. And from that drive, Knowledge Fight was born. Over the course of my time covering InfoWars content, I noticed a consistent trend. On his own show, Alex Jones would say the stupidest shit and ramble about movies, often while very clearly drunk, and periodically he would say things that people found offensive, sometimes even defamatory. On the rare occasion that someone else invited him onto their show for an interview, sometimes these offensive things he'd said would come up, and he would always say that he'd been taken out of context. Even when he was in court or a deposition, and he'd be played a clip of him literally saying something, he would refuse to answer any questions about what he'd said, claiming that these were short clips cut out of a longer show, so the context was missing. It was impossible to say what he could have meant by the thing that he clearly said. This is a really great dodge, because almost all of the people who would be confronting Alex could not claim that they had watched the whole shows that these clips came from. Alex's show is long, boring, and it feels stupid to watch, so almost no one really watches more than just some of the clips. I realized that this presented me with a unique opportunity. I had nothing but time, and I was working a horrible dead-end job, so I could listen to his whole show and seek out the context for the things that he said. What were these clips taken from? If he really was being taken out of context, then society was doing him a great wrong, and I would like to get his back. As insane as it sounds now, I did enter this project with a completely open mind, willing to be convinced of even seemingly insane things. I did over a thousand episodes of our podcast, and what I discovered was really interesting. In the most meaningful sense, these clips did not take Alex Jones out of context in a substantive way. Almost all of the time, when people posted clips about him, the surrounding context of the episodes they came from don't really change the point that he's making. But, in a very important way, all of the clips that people post and make memes out of are very out of context. They make Alex Jones look kinda dumb and kinda fun, like a goofy idiot that you might want to go get a drink with. Even when he's making points you disagree with, the short clips of him are entertaining, and his larger show is generally not. I realized that even media outlets that were ostensibly critical of him painted a very generous picture of him that they wouldn't have if they had the full context. It seemed very clear that no one was misrepresenting Alex in the way that he claimed, but that by not dealing with his show for what it was, everyone was doing him a massive favor. This became my basic mission statement. I wanted to take Alex Jones and content creators like him in context and take them at their word. I would listen to their shows and not get shocked or offended by the horrible things that they may say, but instead accept that they chose to say those things. and try to understand why they did. The process taught me a lot, and it led to me appearing on CNN, being cited in multiple bestsellers and academic papers, and serving as a consulting advisor to the plaintiff's attorneys in the Texas litigation against Alex Jones over his claims around Sandy Hook. As it relates to Alex Jones, I went from complete confusion to understanding, and in time, it became clear that he was a depressing bore to do a show about, So just as Donkey Kong evolved to Donkey Kong Country, now Knowledge Fight evolves to Knowledge Fight Country. On this show, me and a guest companion, a Diddy, a Dixie, or maybe even a Cranky, will set off on a quest to take someone who looks pretty shitty and put them into their proper context, using their own show as primary source material. At times it'll probably be funny, at times it'll be awful, but it will be in context. Stupid and in context.
Speaker 1: Call zone media. This is going down like Donkey Kong. Dan, the good news is humanity is back in the fight. Knowledge fight country. I'm out here in the country. Jesus Christ said that. Everybody go Donkey Kong Country. I'm Dan Friesen, and this is Knowledge Fight Country. For the past nine years, I've produced and co-hosted a podcast about Alex Jones and InfoWars called Knowledge Fight. For many of you listening, you probably know who I am already. But for the rest of y'all, let me take a moment to properly welcome you and get you up to speed. In the lead-up to the 2016 election, I noticed that the right-wing media was getting a little weird. I'd grown up in central Missouri, driving a car with no CD player before the days of iPods, so I listened to a ton of standard blowhard talkers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and what I was seeing in 2016 felt insane. The right-wing media machine always will galvanize around the Republican candidate, and it never surprised me for these guys to back whoever their team's horse happened to be. The same pundits who supported George W. Bush could easily stump for Mitt Romney, and it wouldn't feel weird. So for a lot of these idiots to be cheerleading for Donald Trump's candidacy, it wasn't that confusing. But when I saw what Alex Jones was up to, I was baffled. I smoked a lot of weed in high school and college, so I watched plenty of Alex's content in my younger years. I was aware of him as a guy who had a penchant for yelling. He liked guns, and he thought 9-11 was an inside job. I knew him as a conspiracy theorist, a small government guy, and one of the few very loud right-wing voices I remembered opposing the Iraq War. I remembered him from his small role in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life, and I had a vague sense of him being a dude who I didn't agree with, but who had a list of principles that he stuck to. I imagined him to be a sincere person, but I hadn't kept up with him over the years. Now here he was, and I'm seeing him pop back up as a completely insane Trump supporter. I was confused, so to learn more I watched a few episodes of his show, and I only got more confused. He was screaming about Trump being the best, how the world was going to end if Hillary won, and he was much more religious than I remembered him being. He was fake crying on air a lot, too, which was really upsetting. Over the course of the 2016 election campaign, instead of watching the debates on normal TV, I watched them on InfoWars, mostly for the spectacle of it. It seemed like dumb entertainment, but I was also curious to make sense of how this was the same guy from the Bohemian Grove video I watched back when I was really stoned in someone's garage. That culminated in me watching the election night coverage on InfoWars, which turned out to be a Spider-Verse-style canon event in the way that it altered the trajectory of my life. A lot of people had their political bearings shifted after the 2016 election, directly as a result of Trump winning. They couldn't believe that a clear con artist and self-centered liar could possibly get elected as president in our system. The fact that it happened caused a shock that pushed people strongly in one direction or the other. I was shocked, and I admit that 10 years ago, I was quite naive about the stability of our system. I thought there were backstops in place where the adults would show up eventually and they'd clean up this mess and everything would be more or less normal. But it wasn't Trump's election itself that gave me the big shock. That came from watching the Infowars coverage of election night. The image that'll probably never leave my mind was of Alex Jones, Owen Schroer, Roger Stone, and some of the other creeps at the company playing live feeds of people at Hillary rallies and laughing about how many of them were crying. In the moment, I understood that the Infowars studio was almost exclusively full of straight, white, Christian nationalist men And on this night of their great victory, their preferred way of celebrating was to mock these diverse crowds who were brought to tears by the fear of what Trump represented. These people were afraid of losing access to reproductive health care, of the risk of fundamental LGBTQ rights being rolled back, of the racism and general bigotry that Trump's election would enable, and InfoWars chose to spend some of their time laughing at these people's distress. I still didn't really understand what InfoWars and Alex Jones were about, but seeing the inherent cruelty in that moment gave me a drive to try to figure that out. And from that drive, Knowledge Fight was born. Over the course of my time covering InfoWars content, I noticed a consistent trend. On his own show, Alex Jones would say the stupidest shit and ramble about movies, often while very clearly drunk, and periodically he would say things that people found offensive, sometimes even defamatory. On the rare occasion that someone else invited him onto their show for an interview, sometimes these offensive things he'd said would come up, and he would always say that he'd been taken out of context. Even when he was in court or a deposition, and he'd be played a clip of him literally saying something, he would refuse to answer any questions about what he'd said, claiming that these were short clips cut out of a longer show, so the context was missing. It was impossible to say what he could have meant by the thing that he clearly said. This is a really great dodge, because almost all of the people who would be confronting Alex could not claim that they had watched the whole shows that these clips came from. Alex's show is long, boring, and it feels stupid to watch, so almost no one really watches more than just some of the clips. I realized that this presented me with a unique opportunity. I had nothing but time, and I was working a horrible dead-end job, so I could listen to his whole show and seek out the context for the things that he said. What were these clips taken from? If he really was being taken out of context, then society was doing him a great wrong, and I would like to get his back. As insane as it sounds now, I did enter this project with a completely open mind, willing to be convinced of even seemingly insane things. I did over a thousand episodes of our podcast, and what I discovered was really interesting. In the most meaningful sense, these clips did not take Alex Jones out of context in a substantive way. Almost all of the time, when people posted clips about him, the surrounding context of the episodes they came from don't really change the point that he's making. But, in a very important way, all of the clips that people post and make memes out of are very out of context. They make Alex Jones look kinda dumb and kinda fun, like a goofy idiot that you might want to go get a drink with. Even when he's making points you disagree with, the short clips of him are entertaining, and his larger show is generally not. I realized that even media outlets that were ostensibly critical of him painted a very generous picture of him that they wouldn't have if they had the full context. It seemed very clear that no one was misrepresenting Alex in the way that he claimed, but that by not dealing with his show for what it was, everyone was doing him a massive favor. This became my basic mission statement. I wanted to take Alex Jones and content creators like him in context and take them at their word. I would listen to their shows and not get shocked or offended by the horrible things that they may say, but instead accept that they chose to say those things. and try to understand why they did. The process taught me a lot, and it led to me appearing on CNN, being cited in multiple bestsellers and academic papers, and serving as a consulting advisor to the plaintiff's attorneys in the Texas litigation against Alex Jones over his claims around Sandy Hook. As it relates to Alex Jones, I went from complete confusion to understanding, and in time, it became clear that he was a depressing bore to do a show about, So just as Donkey Kong evolved to Donkey Kong Country, now Knowledge Fight evolves to Knowledge Fight Country. On this show, me and a guest companion, a Diddy, a Dixie, or maybe even a Cranky, will set off on a quest to take someone who looks pretty shitty and put them into their proper context, using their own show as primary source material. At times it'll probably be funny, at times it'll be awful, but it will be in context. Stupid and in context.
