All language subtitles for While.The.Rest.Of.Us.Die.S01E03.1080p.WEB.h264-BAE.ENG

-The first pictures now
coming in from Puerto Rico

after taking a direct hit,

Hurricane Maria
slamming into the island.

♪♪

-When major disasters strike,

it's always been the President
of the United States' job

to arrive on the scene
with promises of help.

-Emergency management
now confirms

100% of Puerto Rico
now without power.

Flooding in every direction.

-One official saying
the island is destroyed.

-He's also there
to offer emotional support

to locals confronting death
and destruction.

♪♪

-I've been to Puerto Rico
many times.

I've always loved it, and
your weather is second to none,

but every once in a while,
you get hit,

and you really got hit.

[ Helicopter blades whirring ]

[ Cheers and applause ]

-You know, he goes down there,
says a few words.

-There's a lot of love
in this room.

There's a lot
of love in this room.

-Tosses a few paper towels,
shrugs a little bit, and leaves,

and then blames the Puerto Rican
government for all the problems.

-Survival cannot be
our new way of life.

Mr. Trump, do your job.

-Can I get a selfie with you?

-Calling it negligent,

it seems to be, like, the
understatement of the century.

-Great people.

-We've seen it time and again,
just how vulnerable we are

and how wide the chasm is

between the powerful
and the rest of us.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-For over 70 years, our leaders
have told us one thing

under the bright lights.

-The protection of the lives
and property of Americans

is the responsibility
of all public officials.

-I care. We're trying.

-And it is my first duty
as president

to protect the American people.

-We have it
so well under control.

-But America's shadow government
has spent trillions of dollars

on secret plans
that serve one premise...

When the shit really
hits the fan, we're on our own.

-I have nothing. Nothing.

-For decades, the government has
invested trillions of dollars

in a secret plan
to save itself...

[ Buzzer ]

...while the rest of us die.

♪♪

♪♪

-Ladies and gentlemen, I wish
I had better news for you,

but we are facing a storm
that most of us have feared.

-12 years before Puerto Rico
was leveled by Hurricane Maria,

a massive storm barrels
toward the Gulf Coast.

-The warnings get more
and more dire,

and people in New Orleans
are ready to essentially

do what they normally do...
Stay and ride it out.

You know, your government
is here to protect you.

Why should you worry?

♪♪

-The Americans living
in its path failed to understand

that their lives
were in the hands

of a government that had
prioritized its own survival

over their wellbeing.

-There were multiple warnings

that this levee system
wasn't ready

for anything approaching a storm
of this magnitude.

♪♪

-The U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers

started building a levee system
to protect New Orleans in 1965.

They were supposed
to have finished by 1980,

but it was nowhere near complete

when the Category 3
Hurricane Katrina

descended on the Crescent City

and the waters began to rise.

-Katrina was predictable.
It was preventable.

We could have mitigated
the damage.

We could have rebuilt quicker.

Homeland Security is a term
that emerged after 9/11.

And after 9/11,

we saw how insecure
our homeland was.

-The U.S. government
had other priorities...

The so-called Global
War on Terror,

first invading Afghanistan,
then Iraq

just two years
before Katrina makes landfall.

-We had spent billions
of dollars and countless lives

in overseas operations
at the expense of levees.

We have been busy
fighting outside,

and we failed to guard
our own back door.

-We are dealing with one
of the worst natural disasters

in our nation's history.

♪♪

-As the waters
of Lake Pontchartrain

flood into New Orleans,

hundreds of residents
are killed,

tens of thousands of displaced.

-You had an entire American city
essentially wiped off the map

while an American government
stood by and watched.

-President Bush,
returning to D.C. from vacation,

diverts his flight to watch
the unfolding crisis

from 2,500 feet above.

-It is a cataclysmic failure
on every level.

♪♪

-Nowhere is the devastation
greater than

in the largely African-American
Lower Ninth Ward.

♪♪

-The images from
Hurricane Katrina

of people clinging to life
on rooftops

has been burned into my memory,
my conscience.

♪♪

-Without adequate food, water,
shelter, or medical aid,

residents are left
on their own to survive.

-It's a disgrace.

We've been sleeping in the
street for five days and nights.

Somebody have to come
to our rescue.

-I got to Katrina as a reporter
three days after the storm.

I had been in Iraq
three weeks before.

It was disturbing
how familiar the scene was,

of this destroyed
infrastructure,

civilian population in need,

and there being no government
to meet that human need.

-[ Shouting indistinctly ]

♪♪

-And like in Iraq,

when the U.S. military first
arrived in New Orleans,

the health and safety
of the local inhabitants

didn't appear to be the mission.

♪♪

-A black helicopter literally
came into New Orleans

amidst the worst of the tragedy,
and it turns out

that they had been ordered
into this federal building

because there were
blank passports there.

We undertook this expensive
and elaborate rescue effort

to get blank passports
out of a building in New Orleans

rather than to save people.

And that, to me,
kind of symbolized also the fact

that sometimes
the federal government

can have its own priorities,

and they're not
human priorities.

-There's an old saying... "When
your only tool is a hammer,

every problem
looks like a nail,"

which might explain why law
enforcement came down so hard

on survivors in the Big Easy.

♪♪

-The crisis in New Orleans
was presented

as if this was a crisis
of security

in terms of law and order
and violence,

and that
the appropriate response

was militarized policing.

-With many of the jail
facilities flooded,

a makeshift holding facility

is built
in the city's bus terminal.

People call it Camp Greyhound.

Over 100 residents

are rounded up
and cycled through the jail.

Basic rights are ignored.

Many are never charged
with a crime.

Most are African-American.

-You see, you know, the
overreaction to people of color

getting water for their survival

as opposed to white people
getting water.

The white people
are doing it to live,

and the black people
are looters.

-We see America's prejudices
start to manifest

in mass senseless,
unnecessary tragedies.

♪♪

-So, at one point,
people are trying

to walk out of New Orleans,

and they're crossing
the Danziger Bridge,

and police on the other side
are trying to turn them back.

-Alright, where they at?
We're on the left side.

Where are they?

-In the bloodiest incident
of police violence,

New Orleans police officers in a
commandeered Budget rental truck

unleash a storm of gunfire

into an entirely Black crowd.

-I see them running! Stop!

They're on the other side
of the bridge past the hotel.

-Two people are killed,

including a 40-year-old
mentally disabled man

shot five times in the back.

-It was almost as if it was
to send a message, you know,

that people should not
get out of line,

people should be afraid.

♪♪

♪♪

-With the breach of three levees
protecting New Orleans,

the landscape of the city...
- While survivors

wait in vain
for help from the government,

celebrities band together
for hurricane relief.

During the live fundraiser,

Kanye West
indicts the sitting president.

-George Bush doesn't care
about Black people.

-When I saw Kanye West say

that George Bush
doesn't care about Black people,

I felt like he was telling me
what I already knew.

Well, you cannot call it
a natural disaster

unless you believe
that it is, in fact, natural

for a government to neglect
its citizens of color

in such a way.

-Under mounting pressure
to do something,

Bush sends in reinforcements
to help the National Guard,

mobilizing U.S. Army troops
to New Orleans.

Today, I ordered
the Department of Defense

to deploy additional active duty
forces to the region.

-Many of the troops had recently
returned from combat tours.

♪♪

-They had been
steeled and forged

on the battlefields
of Baghdad and Fallujah.

Their training,
their experiences

in some ways hardwired them

to behave more like occupiers

and less like helpers.

They were the wrong tool
for the job.

-Soldiers wandering around,
as they were in Iraq,

unable to really deal
with the fundamental problems

that the society faced.

They couldn't even rescue people
who were trapped in their homes

because, you know,
it wasn't Zodiacs

and, you know, chain saws

and this sort of
civil defense equipment.

It was Heckler & Koch
machine guns

and armored personnel carriers,

all of which were
largely useless.

All that produces a mentality
of... of warfare and repression.

♪♪

-On the anniversary of 9/11,

Bush himself finally arrives
in New Orleans,

landing on an aircraft carrier
docked just offshore.

-Four years after
the frightening experience

of September the 11th,

Americans have every right to
expect a more effective response

at a time of emergency.
When the federal government

fails to meet
such an obligation.

I as president am responsible
for the problem

and for the solution.

♪♪

-The mightiest government
on earth can do better

than abandon people in this way
within our own country.

-and will once again show
the world

that the worst adversities

bring out the best in America.

-Katrina made it obvious

that despite
all the weaponry in the world

and all of the intelligence
in the world,

that in the case of a storm
in New Orleans,

we were unable
to take care of our own.

-But the tragedy of Katrina

came out of a much deeper
and darker Cold War history,

where a narrow view
of national security

justified oppressing
innocent civilians.

Stability at any cost.

♪♪

-We've got both sides
of the road engulfed now.

-Wildfires rage
in Northern California.

-It's not looking good
for getting people out.

-The Federal Emergency
Management Agency,

or FEMA, deploys.

-FEMA often is a very good and
useful piece of the government,

but FEMA has gotten
a bad reputation,

partly because it has been run
by incompetents.

-During Hurricane Katrina,

FEMA's bad reputation
was earned.

The man Bush appointed to run
FEMA was a Republican insider

and an expert
in Arabian resources

with no experience
in disaster planning...

-FEMA and the government

should have came in here
the very next morning

when all this shit happened.

- making FEMA an easy target.

-The man running FEMA,
he's an asshole.

-There were a few disasters
I was on

where it was recommended
that, you know, after hours,

you don't walk around
with your FEMA jacket on.

♪♪

-First of all,
FEMA is the agency

that's responsible
for emergency response,

but it's also the agency
that's responsible

for continuity of government.

-Continuity of Government, or
COG, is a set of elaborate plans

to ensure that no matter
what happens,

the U.S. government elite and
its institutions will survive.

[ Siren wailing ]

♪♪

-Enemy jet bombers
carrying nuclear weapons

can sweep over
a variety of routes

and drop bombs on any important
target in the United States.

[ Explosion ]

♪♪

-The plan was born
in the early days

of the Cold War,
when Americans lived

under the constant threat
of nuclear annihilation.

♪♪

Citizens were reassured
that plans were in place

to keep them alive...

-These facts may save your life.

- while privately, officials
admitted few could be saved.

♪♪

-It was emotional management

to make
the American people feel okay.

-What you continually see

is that the government
is more interested

in continuing its own power
and its own authority

than it is at seeing after
the basic needs of its people.

-FEMA's forerunner agency
was responsible

for securing and protecting
top government officials.

With an emergency declared

and the Constitution
effectively suspended,

the post office
would be in charge

of registering
the nation's dead.

The National Park Service
would run the refugee camps.

The Department of Agriculture
would distribute rationed food

while below ground,
government officials

continue to run the show.

-The local government has moved

to a point
some 6 miles out of town.

Buried in a hill is
a blast-proof, radiation-proof

operations center

where government can
continue to function.

♪♪

-Billions were spent
on these secret plans

to protect the government elite
and the institutions of state

in the event of a Soviet attack.

-Thousands of demonstrators
opposed to the Vietnam War

assembled in the nation's
capital for a mass protest.

-But as American society
began to unravel in the 1960s,

the government began to see
the movements for civil rights

and against the Vietnam War

as just as big a threat
to national security

as an incoming Soviet missile.

And now the government's
law enforcement

and national security resources

are tasked with confronting
this new enemy within.

-We see that the government
is treating its own people

as if they are a threat
to the government

and that they need to be treated
as enemies of the state.

-These students whose activities
you have just witnessed

are toying with treason.

The Communists have admittedly
chosen the minds of our youth

as a number-one area
for their insidious attack.

-Everything from the FBI
to the CIA to the National Guard

have been mobilized as defenses
against national threats.

♪♪

-The federal government was
involved in contingency plans

to round up dissidents.

-My own grandfather
had to testify

before the House Un-American
Activities Committee

to deny he was a member
of the Communist Party.

-♪ We shall overcome ♪

-Civil rights leaders

now considered heroes
of American democracy

were seen as part
of a Communist plot

and as a threat
to national security.

-J. Edgar Hoover particularly
picks out Martin Luther King

for special...
Not just surveillance,

but infiltrate and disrupt

the efforts of
the civil rights movement.

-The FBI begins a massive covert
counterintelligence operation

known as COINTELPRO.

-It comes out of the Cold War
surveillance state

born out of controlling
the internal population.

-Agents send
Martin Luther King Jr. a letter

urging him to commit suicide.

They infiltrate
the Black Panthers

and turn them against each other
by spreading false rumors.

Others are shot by police.

♪♪

-It frequently sounds crazy
if you say these things,

but all of this stuff

is a matter
of public record, right?

There is thousands
of pages of documents.

You don't get more
substantiated than that.

♪♪

-But the covert efforts

to contain and control
the movement failed.

[ Siren wailing ]

And when Martin Luther King Jr.
Is assassinated in April 1968,

riots break out
in over 100 cities.

♪♪

-In America, Black people
are treated very much

as a colonized people,
because we're used.

We're brutalized.
The police in our community

occupy our area, our community

as a foreign troop
occupies territory.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

-For a government focused
on its own survival at any cost,

the enemy was now
inside the house,

and the vast apparatus
of a system

supposedly there to protect
all its citizens

was turned against some of them.

And those under attack
began to fight back.

-We gon' walk on this racist
power structure,

and we gon' say to
the whole damn government,

"Stick 'em up! This is a holdup.
We come for what's ours."

[ Siren wailing ]

-In the face of a perceived
homegrown rebellion,

the Pentagon draws up
Operation Garden Plot,

a detailed blueprint for how
the U.S. military would deploy

simultaneously
to 25 American cities

to put down racial unrest.

Drills are held, but for now,

Operation Garden Plot
isn't mobilized.

And by the 1970s,
the civil rights movement

is neutralized
through infiltration,

arrest, and assassination.

[ Crowd shouting indistinctly ]

But a new perceived threat
to national security emerges.

♪♪

[ Gunshot ]
Nicaragua, 1979.

A U.S.-backed dictator
is toppled in Central America

by leftist rebels.

By the time Ronald Reagan
takes office in 1981,

the region is in flames,
and many in the American elite

are convinced
a new existential threat

is right at our front door.

-El Salvador is nearer to Texas
than Texas is to Massachusetts.

Nicaragua is just
as close to Miami,

San Antonio, San Diego,
and Tucson

as those cities are
to Washington.

Only last week, an official
of the Soviet Union

reiterated Brezhnev's threat

to station nuclear missiles
in this hemisphere,

five minutes
from the United States.

-Hollywood helped spread
Reagan's fear of a red planet.

The popular 1984 movie
"Red Dawn"

imagines the American heartland

invaded by ruthless
Cuban troops.

♪♪

[ Gunfire, indistinct shouting ]

But in reality, it's America's
anti-communist allies

that begin committing atrocities
against their own people,

-Death squads are believed
to be responsible

for more than half of
the political murders committed.

-And when news
makes its way back home,

many Americans begin
to question U.S. support

for hard-line regimes
in Central America.

-U.S. support for the repressive
governments in Guatemala,

El Salvador, and Honduras,
and support

for the counter-revolutionary
Contra forces

that were fighting
the Sandinista government

in Nicaragua
provoked serious opposition

from American citizens.

-As a new protest movement
gathers steam,

deep in the basement
of the White House,

a little-known
national security adviser

begins drawing up an exercise

to game out how to locate
and forcibly detain dissidents

if the U.S. government decides
to invade Central America.

-Oliver North had written
a proposal called Rex 84

that proposed rounding up
political dissidents

who opposed the Reagan
administration

funding right-wing death squads
in Latin America

and interning
those people in camps.

-Who were those dissidents?
Those dissidents were very often

members of the Catholic Church,
Quakers, peace groups.

-The agency
that will create the camps

and hold the dissidents?

FEMA, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency.

-The fantasy/justification
for infiltrating, disrupting,

and spying on
these totally legal,

peaceful lobbying
and protest organizations

was this fantasy
that they were vehicles

of foreign communist
infiltration, and they were not.

They were American citizens
exercising their rights

to try and oppose the misuse
of their tax money

in the support
of really fascistic regimes

in Central America.

-Rex 84 never happened,

but the government
has interned people

who have done nothing
wrong in the past,

and they have considered
doing it again.

-I will die on my feet
before I'll live on my knees.

It's as simple as that.

[ Sirens wailing ]

-You smell like alcohol!
Get away!

-Hey, hey, hey, get that camera
out of my face, okay?

-April 29, 1992.

Los Angeles residents
take to the streets

to protest the beating
of Rodney King

and the acquittal
of the LAPD officers who did it.

[ Sirens wailing ]

The city erupts in flames.

-[Bleep]
[ Men speaking indistinctly ]

-That's [bleep] up.
That's [bleep] up.

Whoever did that is [bleep] up.

[ Sirens wailing ]

-As local police struggle
to contain the violence,

the Pentagon activates
Operation Garden Plot,

the Vietnam-era
military operation

to squash domestic unrest.

-And let me assure you,

I will use whatever force
is necessary to restore order.

♪♪

-If you have a government that
wants to create the narrative

that there are
scary brown and black people

who want to take your kids
and take your job

and have this
terrible revolution

that's going to hurt you,
what better way to create that

than to put some tanks
out there,

shoot some tear gas
at these folks,

shoot them with rubber bullets,
kill a few?

And then the madder
and more upset they get,

the more evidence you have that,
"Look! Look what's happening."

-Okay, you two, come on.

- I'm a innocent victim.
- Let's go.

Yeah, we all are.

♪♪

-But as the government
once again

focuses on maintaining control
in Black communities,

they overlook a growing movement

of white,
self-proclaimed "patriots"

who are organizing
and taking up arms.

-All of these groups
from the beginning

were deeply engaged
with this idea

that it was their duty
as a well-armed militia

to fight against tyranny,
as they saw it,

encroaching on the lives
of U.S. citizens.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-As President Bush celebrates
the end of the Cold War...

-This is a time
when the future seems

a door you can
walk right through

into a room called tomorrow.

- "patriots" fear
America's tomorrow will be

as part of the so-called
New World Order,

in which the U.S. government

bends to the will
of the United Nations.

-Like any true freedom fighter,

I will die on my feet
before I'll live on my knees.

It's as simple as that.

-These groups have convinced
themselves the government

will turn its command
and control infrastructure

and its supposed fleet
of black helicopters

against its own citizens

who oppose surrendering
America's independence.

♪♪

As the patriot movement grows,

it begins to associate
the agency

designed to ensure
continuity of government

with this dark plot
to control their lives.

-FEMA was incorporated
as a federal agency

under President Carter
and pretty much immediately

became the subject
of conspiracy theories.

Patriot movements
were claiming in newsletters

that FEMA was creating
concentration camps,

and that patriots were going to
be rounded up and put in camps.

-It's all there.
All the government documents,

all the government mentions

a civilian inmate
labor camp program

run by the army...
Where they're at,

how they're going to
break the families up

and where the children go

and the forced inoculations
and everything.

I mean, it just boggles the mind
that all of this is happening.

-It had some weird elements.

Militia movements
became convinced

that FEMA was going to put
people in concentration camps

with the help of the Bloods
and the Crips.

By the 1990s,
they actually believe

that the federal government
was directly waging war on them.

-The government's actions
to rein in

some of these lawbreaking,
heavily armed groups

serve only
to fuel their paranoia.

Just months after Bill Clinton
takes office,

federal agents raid a radical
Christian cult in Waco, Texas,

and a vicious firefight
breaks out.

76 members are killed
in the ensuing inferno,

including 25 children.

-We did everything we could
to avoid the loss of life.

They made the decision
to immolate themselves,

and I regret it terribly, and I
feel awful about the children.

♪♪

For many on the fringes of
the right-wing conspiracy world,

Waco is a catalyzing moment.

One of them is a 24-year-old
Gulf War veteran.

He would later write that
the true horror of the event

had been held back by the media,

which didn't air images
of the carnage

so people, "didn't cares
when these families died

a slow, torturous death
at the hands of the FBI."

And two years
to the day after Waco,

this angry young veteran
would rock the foundations

of America's
national security state.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

[ Woman screams ]

♪♪

-A massive bomb goes off
at a federal building

in Oklahoma City, killing 168,

including 19 children
at a daycare center.

[ Sirens wailing ]

-There are those who hate
our government so much

that they're willing to conduct
acts of terrorism

directed at innocent civilians.

-Oh, no! No!

No!

-It was one of the most
devastating

domestic terror attacks
in U.S. history

up until that point.

- Let me have him.
- I can't.

- I know, hon.
- It's horrible.

[ Siren wailing ]

♪♪

♪♪

-The Cold War era, we had
this paranoid kind of mentality.

The threat is out there.
It's external.

And so there's America, right,

and it's spending like
trillions of dollars

on its national security
apparatus...

the CIA, the FBI, whatever,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The threat turned out
to be homegrown.

-And white.

The person behind the bombing
was Timothy McVeigh.

As an army gunner, McVeigh saw
action in the first Gulf War.

-Iraq's army is defeated.

Our military objectives are met.

We must now begin to look
beyond victory and war.

We must meet the challenge
of securing the peace.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-While others celebrate,
McVeigh leaves the army

and becomes radicalized
by a series of events

that would galvanize right-wing
extremists for years to come.

-Somebody like McVeigh thinks

that they're actually a soldier
in an invisible war.

[ Siren wailing ]

-The FBI raid on
the heavily armed Christian cult

in Waco, Texas,
that left 25 children dead

left McVeigh outraged...
Not at the cult leaders,

but at the U.S. government.

And when President Clinton
pushes hard

to ban assault-style rifles,

McVeigh and many
on the right-wing fringes

see an elite plot
to rip away their freedoms.

-I have heard people
with a straight face saying,

"Well, there are some adults

that like to go target practice
with these things."

Well, they need to read
a good book.

[ Laughter ]

-Two years to the day
after Waco,

in an act of retaliation,

McVeigh bombed the Federal
Building in Oklahoma City

he believes houses
the local FBI headquarters.

[ Siren wailing ]

After the attack, President
Clinton becomes terrified

that he might be the next target

of a growing radical right-wing
militia movement.

-He greatly increased
the amount of money

we were spending
on counterterrorism,

and he also created
a new position.

And that new position was called
the National Coordinator

for Security
and Counterterrorism.

And I was that person.

No longer was it
just about nuclear war.

What if there were
a terrorist attack

like the Oklahoma City bombing,
but it was in Washington,

and it took out the White House?

-Oklahoma City
was a wake-up call, frankly.

We should have learned
that terrorism

can be a domestic-based
act of violence.

-It's a rearguard action.

They're caught
with their pants down.

They've been allowing
this right-wing movement

to get out of hand.

[ Sirens wailing ]

-In a preview
of conspiracy theories

that will spiral around mass
shootings two decades later,

many in the militia movement
refuse to believe

Oklahoma City was the work
of one of their own,

but rather was a pretense
by the government

to mobilize against them.

-The Oklahoma City bombing
was immediately subject

to conspiracy theories.

Patriot movements viewed it
as a false flag attack

that had been perpetrated to
make patriot movements look bad,

discredit them, justify
a crackdown against them.

-False flag operations
involve one group

pretending to be another
to shift blame.

-There were
congressional hearings

after the Oklahoma City bombings

where members
of a Michigan militia

were questioned
by members of Congress.

And the militia members
speculated

that the bombing had been
undertaken by the CIA

or that McVeigh had had ties
with the Japanese government.

It's also where Alex Jones
got his start,

by claiming that Oklahoma City
had been a false flag

perpetrated by the government.

-We've been investigating
this tragedy for over six years.

The amount of evidence
is staggering.

Out of hundreds of people
we interviewed,

we couldn't find a single person

who said they'd heard
only one explosion.

♪♪

-It's all part of a growing
movement on the right

questioning elite control
of society.

-People need to realize this,

that the militias
aren't a terrorist organization,

like Morris Dees
has labeled us as being,

and we're just average,
ordinary, everyday folks

just battling for our freedom
and keeping our Constitution.

-The militias are the bottom
line and... and the last resort

to the difference
between freedom and slavery.

-Those FBI guys over there
and all over,

they all know, April 19th,
to beware.

Don't make a move on anyone,

because then I'm afraid that all
hell's going to break loose.

-A lot of these people are
reacting to something very real,

but they're doing it
in totally crackpot

and hateful ways
that exacerbate the problem.

- White revolution, my friends.
- White revolution.

-There's a general sense
of growing insecurity

in part due to
rising inequality,

and so instead of fixing
their sights on the real enemy,

which is the elites
who are ripping them off,

they attack other victims
of the same process, right?

People of color, immigrants.

-Congratulations, Mr. President.

[ Cheers and applause ]

-Under President Barack Obama,

there's a surge in right-wing
militia activity.

Groups grow from 149 in 2008

to 1,360 in 2012.

And under Trump,
militias go mainstream,

holding large public rallies,

many purchasing arsenals
of high-powered weaponry.

This member of the Virginia
branch of a militia

known as the Ghost Squad
was in Charlottesville

and says the militia movement
has spread throughout society.

♪♪

-There's police officers that
are militiamen.

There are first responders
that are militiamen.

There's people in the churches

that are militiamen.

We stand for our God,
our country, and our families.

♪♪

We the people,

and we will stand
for what's right,

and we will win this fight.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

-And while the U.S. government
has often underestimated

or downplayed
the threat of militias,

Trump appears
to actively encourage them.

And one militia
makes international news

when they try to act
on his perceived call to arms.

-We begin with
stunning allegations

about a plot to overthrow the
state government in Michigan,

to kidnap the governor,
attack the police,

and attempt to ignite
a civil war in the U.S.

-In September 2020,

13 men, including members
of a Michigan militia

known as the Wolverine Watchmen,
are arrested

for plotting to kidnap
the governor of Michigan,

Gretchen Whitmer.

Two are former Marines,

but they all appear
to share the belief

that big government is the enemy

and the Michigan governor's
COVID-19 policies

were part of a larger plan
to strip away their rights.

[ Man imitates wolf howling ]

-The irony is that militia
movements are deeply afraid

they were going to be
rounded up in FEMA camps,

but they don't seem to have
a ton of historical awareness

about who these tools
of oppression

have actually been used against.

[ Cheers and applause,
indistinct chanting ]

-There's a face and an image
and a perspective

that we associate with what is
dangerous in this country,

and that's what
gets people killed.

-And this is [bleep] America,
right?

- Breonna Taylor!
- Say her name!

- Breonna Taylor! Breonna Taylor!
- Breonna Taylor! Breonna Taylor!

-Spring 2020.

Possibly the largest
mass protest movement

America has seen sweeps the
nation with a simple message...

Black Lives Matter.

-I can't breathe!

- I can't breathe!
- I can't breathe!

- I can't breathe!
- I can't breathe!

- I can't breathe!
- I can't breathe!

-Behind the scenes,
federal agents, including some

from FEMA's parent department,
Homeland Security,

are monitoring activists,

even snatching them
off the streets.

It's nothing new.

- No justice!
- No peace!

-We've seen this happen
for decades now.

Every time there's a moment
of either civil unrest

or a moment of protest movement,

we see the government start
to use that apparatus again

and treat its own people as if
they are enemies of the state.

♪♪

-In 2018, the FBI implemented
a program titled Ironfist

targeting African-American
activists.

[ Cheers and applause ]

Black extremists
are listed at the top

of the Bureau's
counterterrorism priorities,

above even groups like
Al-Qa'ida.

And yet, over the last 25 years,

only a handful of so-called
Black extremists

have been tied
to acts of violence.

-Now you step back! We step
back, now you step back!

We step back, now you step back!

-We step back,
now you step back!

-This overdeveloped
surveillance state

is borne out of the Cold War.

It is a very, very long history

that goes way back
in American history

through the '60s, '50s,
beyond World War II,

into the Red Scare of the '20s.

Labor unions,
socialists, feminists,

African-Americans
and other communities of color

that struggle
for full civil rights,

these people
have always been attacked.

-And now, once again,
the vast machinery

of a system there to protect its
citizens is turned on its own.

[ Indistinct shouting ]

[ Siren wailing ]

-The Department
of Homeland Security,

through aviation security,
maritime security, FEMA,

port security, border security,
cyber security,

protects Americans
at the 1-yard line.

But you go from Charlottesville
in August 2017

to what happened in Portland...

[ Crowd shouting, screaming ]

-Don't shoot.

And on the streets
of Washington, D.C.,

the Trump administration

has used the Department
of Homeland Security

as a hammer to pursue
its aggressive agenda.

[ Gunshots ]

-I honor law enforcement.

We wouldn't be here right now

if it wasn't
for law enforcement.

We have to stop this horrible
left-wing ideology

that seems to be
permeating our country.

- Breonna Taylor!
- Breonna Taylor!

- Breonna Taylor!
- Breonna Taylor!

-We've seen a consistent
use of DHS

as a secret police
for an executive branch.

We're seeing Americans
picked off the street,

treated as if they
are enemies of the state,

treated as if they are
terrorists, and disappeared.

[ Whistle blowing in distance ]

-Y'all got the same shit
going on with y'all.

- Help me help us.
- Come on, man.

-We colored, bro.
Help me help us.

-There's a face and an image
and a perspective

that we associate with what is
dangerous in this country.

And, you know...
And it's imbued within.

My... essentially my melanin,

and that is what
gets people killed.

- Both hands.
- I didn't do nothing.

-Put your [bleep] hands up
right now.

- [ Sobbing ]
- Stand up.

-Please, please!

♪♪

♪♪

[ Camera shutter clicking ]

♪♪

-Oh!

Whoa.

-Get back!

[ Siren wailing,
indistinct shouting ]

- No! No! [Bleep]
- Hey, hey!

-No, you cannot.
You cannot pull me out of...

- I'm not [bleep] with you.
- Yo!

[ Women screaming ]

♪♪

-It just... just
is too many people.

And if you think that
that trend can continue

and that price is worth
your feelings of security,

then I would like to understand

what your ideas of America are.

I would like to understand
what your idea of freedom is,

because it is certainly
different than mine,

because in your idea of freedom,

there is no room for me.

♪♪

-What started out
as the War on Terror

has become the forever war

with any number of enemies
in any number of places.

-Many of the operations that
are happening are so secretive

that even the American people
are not aware who the enemy is.

-America is constantly at war
everywhere around the globe.

We're still bleeding our blood
of our country every single day.

-And meanwhile, back home,
we're dying constantly

in just really overtly
incompetent ways.