(((My Fellow Americans))) #123: Eliza Bleu

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literally spike cohen and i’m
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as always folks my guest tonight is a
survivor advocate for those that are
affected by human trafficking she is
also a survivor of human trafficking
herself and she goes around the country
to educate folks including policy makers
on how to best identify and end
trafficking in our time she’s here to
talk about this growing problem and what
we can do to stop it as often as
possible ladies and gentlemen
my fellow americans please welcome to
the show ms elizablue eliza thank you so
much for coming on the show hi spike
thank you so much for having me
so
when i well you’re welcome and that
intro was hilarious
well thank you thank you did you hear me
laughing in the background i was just
dying
well and then you have to seamlessly go
from that to and speaking of trafficking
and so
we’re bringing it down we’re taking it
down to another level now so um we first
met in person at freedom fest in july
at which time
i said hey i’d like to have you on the
show and you said hey that sounds great
and so for the last five months we
it’s been like the biggest the greatest
draw i think this might break the record
i’ve had a couple guests that have taken
you know two three months to get on i
think five months
is the you might be the reigning
champion for the hardest guest to
actually and i’ve booked you three times
actually but i kept having problems i
wasn’t the problem i wasn’t the problem
let’s throw that down i want people to
think that i’m a difficult person to uh
book
but no that wasn’t a problem
no offense spike it’s the truth
none taken i was 100 the problem so
actually i get the record for most
difficult host and booker um but
seriously thank you so much for your
patience and for coming on and folks be
sure to ask uh me and eliza your
questions and we will tell you if you
are right or wrong now eliza this is
your first time on the show whenever i
have someone on the show for the first
time i asked them to kind of give their
their genesis story of what got them
here doing what they’re doing right now
um and uh so
you know tell us a little bit about
what got you into becoming a uh advocate
for the survivors of human trafficking
tell us the the eliza blue story
sure i’ll give the a bridge version i
went to a concert when i was 15 years
old i met a photographer there i was
thinking about it in preparation for
this interview today
whether or not his actual profession was
being a photographer
uh that’s that question i’ll probably
never have answered i know that he took
pictures but i’m not sure if he was a
legitimate photographer now in
retrospect
um but i met a gentleman that said that
you know he want to make me a star take
pictures of me
this individual spent two years grooming
me
i like to be very clear when i’m telling
portions of my story that i’m 40 years
old now so the internet and um you know
even cell phones weren’t as readily
available and i did not really have
access to them in the same way that we
do now
so now nowadays with social media things
work much quick much more quickly but um
this individual spent time groomed me
for two years by landline phone calls
and handwritten letters and i was
homeschooled uh so i had the ability to
graduate early
um even though i don’t look at
homeschool a bad thing in fact i highly
encourage it and i’m very grateful that
i was homeschooled um
i do think that it worked against me in
this particular case because that was my
vulnerability i had only really been
exposed to really good people so uh my
family didn’t really tell me how
evil the world really could be or how
evil people could be um i was very
trusting i still am
and uh and so
i believe this individual and he sold me
the dream um he grew me sold me the
dream and told me he was gonna make me a
star if i moved out to hollywood into
los angeles and i told my parents i said
you’re gonna let me go i’m gonna go with
or without your permission so it’s
better if we stay in contact um i was
pretty wild back then pretty punk rock i
still kind of am and uh and
i went out there and uh literally the
first day
um
the a beer was introduced
um and i by the way i prior to this i
was not a promiscuous teenager or really
um
active
okay you know a beer was introduced
alcohol was also not a part of my story
and i also don’t come from an abusive
family my family structure is really
amazing parents are still together
they’re awesome incredible people
they’re very much in love and i’m very
grateful for that but you know so i i
wasn’t used to alcohol um after i had
you know the beer then the drugs were
introduced and then after the drugs were
introduced um it became clear what was
going on
um at the time
uh that was actually around the time
that the first law in the united states
was being written about human
trafficking so we didn’t have the
language to put to it that we do now
um
and so i wasn’t able to identify that i
was being trafficked
it wasn’t that wasn’t something that
went through my head
i was just scared i was whacked out of
my mind
and i was sold
right away to an individual in hollywood
a different individual in hollywood for
500
and that was the first time it happened
um fortunately that time i was able to
get away
because i had an overdose
i was so difficult to deal with
that uh keep in mind also too i just
like to say i was a minor at the time
because i graduated early i moved out
there right before i turned 18. so uh
so i did have an overdose i ended up in
cedars-sinai hospital
um and afterwards you know people ask
sometimes why i didn’t ask the
medical professionals for help i i
didn’t have the language to put to it we
now we talk about it a lot more openly
that is one thing i’m very grateful for
about the epstein case is that i feel
like it finally we finally can have
these conversations and they can be
um
i just feel like we’re finally starting
to get some of the language i mean even
the fact that i’m on your show the fact
that people engage with my twitter these
are not things that would have been
possible back in that time period right
um so i’m grateful for that we made a
lot of progress
um but
i
you know
unfortunately because that initial
trauma was there
i never and because i never was
transparent about what happened
um
i
with anyone that was older than me or
that maybe could help me i was really
embarrassed i thought it was my fault
um
because it was never fully transparent i
never received the healing that i had
deserved um and i did get some help but
it wasn’t
because i wasn’t being honest about what
had happened um
i was just scared i was scared i’d go to
jail like you know what i mean i just
thought all these things would happen
and i was naive i was from a farm like
you know homeschool girl from the farm
just trying to be cool fit in you know
do a thing and it just blew up in my
face um but unfortunately because that
initial trauma was there this was a
pattern that kept kind of popping up in
my life i had after that i had ended up
in an abusive uh marriage
um
not a human trafficking marriage i’d
like to be very specific a domestic
violence marriage um for a short period
of time um multiple sexual assaults
because of different issues but then
unfortunately um
i chose to go back to
um the lifestyle later on in life
i went to go
be well i went to be a cocktail server
at a gentlemen’s club
they told me they wouldn’t hire me
unless i auditioned to dance never
thought i’d be beautiful enough to do
that because i always had this vision of
everybody being so gorgeous but i
auditioned to dance i made a ton of
money that day and so i willingly chose
to be an adult entertainer but
unfortunately what happened uh was what
in that environment was that i met my
other trafficker and i was trafficked
again
um
sex trafficked again through coercion so
uh it’s two different stories um i like
to be really honest about that another
big part of my story is um
that i did leave um this abuser the one
when when i was an adult
i did leave
i went to a safe house
for three months it was a two-year
program and my trauma bond in stockholm
syndrome a lot of folks call it a trauma
bond um
with him was so strong that i left that
safe house and went back
um and that was a repeated pattern for a
very long time
so um i do like to be very clear when
i’m talking about human trafficking it’s
force fraud or coercion for the sale of
labor or sex i noticed in your twitter
post i wasn’t going to correct you
earlier but i like to talk about all
types of human traffic all types of
human trafficking i realized that after
i put it up yeah it’s all good it’s all
good i i was like an honest mistake and
i wasn’t bummed about it but um you know
there’s an entire picture there and i
think um
you know obviously i probably talk about
sex trafficking most but i do also try
to include labor trafficking um as well
um
because they can easily they easily go
together they’re two crimes that really
fit well together so where you find one
you often find the other and i think
that’s really important um and also
labor traffic labor trafficking victims
deserve support as well right so um
so
but it’s a broad term so um but yeah i
talk about forest product coercion for
the sale of labor or sex um and then
there are other things that fall under
that umbrella as well but um
but yeah i kept returning to my former
abuser um and then
you know
a series of events happened and the
consequences on my life i
i knew i was gonna die
that way
i don’t know
i don’t really know what it was
it was something
inside of me you know i’m grateful
because i always have had fight
a lot of fight
a lot of libertarians have fight i
notice
but
maybe not harnessed in the right
direction but that’s the whole other
discussion but uh not you spike sorry
that wasn’t a dig at you not me
the
other libertarian yes not me
but um
you know there was something in me
always that just told me fight fight
fight
you know and
i had tried so many times so many
different things to
have a better life
to do something different to
well the other thing too
is my self-esteem was very low
um and i thought that was all i was
worth
uh but one thing that’s important was
even though when i went to the safe
house
i
didn’t stay
what happened there at that safe house
was that they started to plant those
seeds of hope
and that i was worth a little bit more
so even though it didn’t like work i
guess you know it didn’t work
but it did start to work because once
you have the truth
in your head and once you hear a
different story and once you hear hope
and maybe that there’s a different life
out there for you even when you return
to your former abuser
or i should just speak for myself even
when i returned to my former abuser
he didn’t have those same
ties on me and the um that trauma bond
was not as strong and i could kind of
see through the bs
so
i started to think maybe maybe there was
a chance maybe i could do something i
just didn’t want to die that way you
know that was always my biggest fear i
had been arrested multiple times
had a lot of consequences on my life you
know permanent scars on my face and
you know my life was in the gutter you
know but
i just felt like there was
maybe there was a chance
and uh
so i left and i haven’t been back since
which is really good
um
but
i think
i’m grateful now
because given the current state of the
world
um
it gives me a perspective on freedom and
liberty
because when you lose it
once you finally get it back
you don’t ever want to lose it again
right so for that i am very grateful
because given the current state of the
world i think i’m willing to put more
fight behind it
just because i haven’t always had it
right and not only that but you’re also
fighting for others to be able to
experience that freedom as well
something that i that i i noted in find
um
that surprised me in your story
and i first heard this one when you
talked about it at freedom fest um
we have so many stereotypes about
trafficking first of all there’s the you
know like the movie taken you know the
trafficking where they come and break
down your door and you know
kidnap you and you know blindfold you
and and you know do that thing and i’m
sure that that is a real thing that
happens as well but so much of the
trafficking looks so much more like what
what you went through but also the
stereotype of even who is trafficked
even in your type of situation you
assume that the person has been abused
so that that’s already been normalized
for them or that they have drug issues
or that their family has had drug issues
or abuse issues you know you assume that
they’re you know already potentially you
know very sexually active and so this
just seems normal you were the opposite
of all those things which in a way
gave you made you
in one way made you more vulnerable to
it because you had such a great social
support network and family you didn’t
really know what an abuser would look
like you didn’t couldn’t see those
things because you didn’t have any kind
of perspective on those things you
didn’t really know what it looked like
and then once you got kind of thrust
into it you now had the shame the guilt
and the shame of it that kind of made
you think well i guess this is what i
deserve is that
like the most i know there’s probably
not hard stats on this but is that the
common
is this the is this a
a or one of the most common
versions of trafficking where someone
gets into it and maybe doesn’t even
realize that that they’re actually being
a a also and as a side note here i hear
terms victim and survivor is there a
difference wherein like a victim is
someone that’s still actively going
through it and a survivor someone who
isn’t or do you just use the term
survivor across the board i just want to
make sure i’m i’m using terminology
correctly
yeah so victim would be a legal term
what you’d be called legally
uh and then also to if you’re actively
being abused you would be considered a
victim
um but
i we like survivor because it’s
empowering
um but
it’s big mainly because it’s empowering
i’m using survivor but i often times
interchange like i’ll flip back between
both or sometimes i’ll be writing a
tweet and i’ll be talking about both
those who are currently being abused and
have also survived so i’ll have to
differentiate it’s
but
victim would be the legal term so okay
so for someone who’s actively then i’ll
just say someone who’s you know actively
being tracked is this a common
is your story
one of the more common stories of how
someone ends up being trafficked that
they really didn’t see it coming and for
quite some time
maybe even thought that this was
something that they were choosing to do
is that is that what
the face of trafficking often is
so we do have all the data and
statistics on this we’ve been collecting
predominantly like in the united states
you’d check like the polaris project
website they’ve been running the human
trafficking outline they’ve been
collecting data statistics in the united
states alone for over 10 years um but
you know globally we have a lot of data
and statistics um the u.n of course puts
out quite a bit of information um
but
so i never like to say normal because
every survivor story is different
it’s it’s very probable that you will
know your abuser in advance this is very
probable um i i wish i knew the actual
statistic i believe it’s in the 90s per
90th percentile somebody could in the
chat can throw in the actual stat um
but a lot of times it’s familial um but
almost oftentimes you know your abuser
ahead of time a caregiver a boyfriend um
a significant other um a parent
this is very common but human
trafficking is force fraud or coercion
so we are talking about the coercive
aspect where you are coerced into being
trafficked um it’s very confusing and
difficult for folks to understand i
think a lot of times people can identify
more with a domestic violence
relationship i think with folks but i
think
gratefully we’re at a point in culture
and society where we understand kind of
domestic violence and what that’s like
um right
think about in those terms when you’re
thinking about trafficking when you look
at the movie taken for instance which i
actually think has probably been our
biggest setback as the anti-human
trafficking movement was that movie
taken yeah it’s very entertaining but
that’s not like
data and statistics just don’t speak to
that whatsoever but it can happen so
that would be your force
um that would be your force but it it
isn’t in a trafficker’s best interest to
um
to force you it would be in their best
interest and fi most financially
beneficial for them to love you for them
to feel like they owe you something um
their goal is to get as much money out
of you as humanly possible you are seen
as a product so um
if you’re non-compliant
uh and if you’re difficult
if you’re difficult and if you become a
liability um they won’t make as much
money as possible it’s best that you’re
compliant so that’s how a trafficker
will treat it like it’s a business
transaction
well and that would make sense right
like someone who’s either not compliant
or just complying so that they can stay
alive isn’t exactly what you know isn’t
exactly the hot thing on the on the sex
trafficking market or the labor
trafficking market for that matter you
know that someone who’s doing the bare
minimum to to to not you know be
punished for it as opposed to someone
who thinks this is good that i’m doing
this you know i this is i’m i’m actively
choosing this um you routinely uh share
a lot of different articles uh that talk
about um uh investigations into story
what’s that
all day
yeah literally all day i thought
to the point where it’s depressing
so that was actually what i was gonna
part of what i was gonna ask you you are
routinely posting articles and not just
of like because you’ll share like you
know five schmucks got caught uh uh
trafficking uh some some women or
trafficking some kids or something you
know just like
idiots that get caught victimizing
people but then you’ll also routinely
share you know police officers being
involved in human trafficking rings
politicians being involved in human
trafficking the people who think that
who are shocked by you know jeffrey
epstein julian maxwell prince andrew
that’s the tip of the iceberg
when you’re sharing this stuff
you know i i don’t i don’t have this
this perspective of of having been
through trafficking or anything like
that
is that a fight that you have to make
sure that you are
you know protecting yourself
honestly like
when we were booking this i kept asking
you questions to make sure that i was
protecting your well-being and so forth
is that uh is that a battle that you
still have or are you at a point now
where you’ve been doing it so long that
you’re able to kind of separate those
things you know is tell us about that
yeah it’s a really good question um you
know i stepped forward to be a public
survivor leader in april 2020 because of
the global pandemic and because of the
first lockdown
um and when i did it i didn’t
necessarily have a game plan but as we
moved ahead um
i’ve been able to figure out a little
bit better of my flow
what works best for advocacy
but a large thing that i wanted to do
well i had a couple visions
first i wanted to show that survivors
are awesome
um and that we’re not
depressed well it’s funny because i did
cry on this podcast already but
generally speaking my general vibe
talking about my story
talking about my story is like the worst
part of my life period i
simply hate it i don’t like to revisit
it um i simply hate it especially in
public it’s still embarrassing but
whatever i can get past it but
everything else i’m like really happy
person and like hype and excited so we
start with that
so we made sure to start with that
you know i told you ahead of time i was
like you know we have to touch on it
just so people know your perspective but
let’s move on with it but i figured
let’s get the sad part out of the way
and then we can move on from there yeah
oh good um you know and i also too feel
like i have a good relationship with
everyone that i’ve done interviews with
where if i really wasn’t up to it that
day i could probably just say hey we’re
not going to do that like i did ruby
music’s podcast we didn’t talk about my
story at all not because i asked that he
just asked other questions we didn’t
talk about it at all um in fact i talk
about my story so little that people
have to ask for it because it’s hard to
find um the full in its entirety um
that’s intentional i always wanted my
public survivor advocacy to be more
about advocacy less about me and my
story um i feel like when i tell my
story it is one story and it’s very
cherry picked i like to talk about the
crime as a whole but that’s just my
personal perspective but when i started
um
tweeting about human trafficking i never
expected that
well i never expected i would be
i just never expected anything i never
expected i’d be speaking at freedom fest
talking to a vice president candidate
like all these things i never saw coming
like
i just did not see it coming so i rode
the wave but one thing that i wanted to
do was show how awesome survivors are
not just meet other survivors that we
have a sense of humor we have a cool
life we are awesome and we are capable
of doing really incredible things
because the truth is i meet some really
amazing survivors and um
i i firmly believe that if you could
show
the world how awesome survivors are once
they get once they’re given the
opportunity to be free that it will um
it will ignite a fire where more people
want to help more individuals be free
because the truth is survivors have such
an awesome perspective
i want them to be free so that they can
go on to change the world but the other
thing i wanted to do is also show that
this is a very real and serious crime
and it’s actually happening um even
though i hate the corporate press um i
decided to instead of going like um
i hate the word conspiracy theory
because i have conspiracy theories about
how it started but anyway i haven’t seen
i think that might be a cia thing but i
wanted to steer away from more of a
conspiracy theory mind frame or more of
a misinformation mind frame about human
trafficking and stick to more corporate
press um and other issues um
sorry about that noise
um
but
i
you know i just wanted to
keep it very fact-based the other thing
i’ve tried to do really hard spike is
take my own personal political um bias
out even though i hate the corporate
press and even though i hate um
the united states government and then
being involved in anything to do with
trafficking
um
i
try to meet people where they’re at
and i realize not everybody’s there so i
have made it a mission to show people
like look this is just what’s in the
corporate press every day yeah there are
so many articles
i have to choose i’ve only post about
one third
of them and this is like regular main
corporate press
every day it’s all day every day i
and
so it is difficult for me but when i
look at the stories
now because i’m an advocate i try to
look i look at them more like a puzzle
piece it’s not more like a puzzle um i’m
thinking about
what maybe could have prevented the
crime how this happened i’m thinking
about it totally differently other
people look at it and they’re in horror
and they’re like and my only fear of
spike actually is not for me it’s more
that i’m traumatizing other survivors
who follow me but i also feel like like
it needs to be exposed people need to be
talking about this and the more i talk
about it the more it’s normalized
does that have any logic to it
no it does it does because what you’re
doing you’re normalizing
the survivors
and not just in that you know we’re
people who deserve uh respect and you
know we need people to help us fight
this but also like you know you keep
mentioning we’re awesome we have we live
good lives like survivors aren’t just
these broken people who had this
terrible experience of what a terrible
thing we should all feel sorry for them
it’s this bad thing happen we want to do
the best that we can to rectify what
happened and make sure that it’s
happening to as few as close to zero
people as as we possibly can
moving forward but
you’re not a broken person and you’re
gonna still live a great life and these
other folks that have gone through this
and are going through this can also live
great lives and you know exposing that
this is happening and then also showing
the people i i do a similar thing where
i don’t want to just constantly be
complaining about the government and so
i mixed complaining about the government
with showing times where reforming or
repealing of things that bad things
government did led to good outcomes i
also point a lot at people that are
doing good work people like you people
uh you know homeless advocates people
that are out helping those in need uh
people that are helping during disasters
i i want to by the way sorry to
interrupt you folks that are serving
homeless populations of folks that are
serving during disasters are
inadvertently
serving uh human trafficking survivors
as well because those that are at a
higher risk that are experiencing
homelessness that are experiencing
disaster that have lost everything that
are so you are if you are serving
homeless populations you are or um those
that are struggling with addictions you
are um serving folks that are a very
high risk and maybe stopping trafficking
before it starts sorry
no that’s incredible that’s good to know
and and
i i’m trying to present a holistic
picture at it that yes this is a problem
we’re identifying it and here’s what we
can do about it but in the meantime life
is not all misery and doom and gloom
there’s a much better picture and and
here’s how we can maximize the good and
minimize the bad and it seems like
that’s what you’re doing now i i looked
it up right before we we went live uh
the as of the last count human
trafficking worldwide is estimated to be
around a 150 billion a year global
industry um and they and they even
admitted that they really don’t know how
much higher than that it could be
because it’s in the shadows and they
don’t have a good a good picture of it
um and uh
which
puzzles me that there seemed to have
been and this is you know you were
talking conspiracy theory in the midst
of us hearing that human trafficking is
at an all-time high around the globe in
the midst of stories about uh jalene
maxwell and jeffrey epstein and prince
andrew and uh you know the the fact that
you know
almost every major uh political figure
is is tied in some way to some either
harvey weinstein or jeffrey epstein or
some other trafficker um
it’s puzzling that then it seems like
i’m seeing more and more in the press
about how this is kind of an overblown
thing and maybe we’re talking about it
too much um does
that feels very tinfoil hat but yet i
keep seeing it am i the only one are you
seeing this as well
of course uh you know i was
i was on a flight on my way to a wedding
and i think i might have been i don’t
want to claim some like balor that’s not
mine but i believe i was probably the
first one to see that atlantic article
that probably doesn’t work for them
just so happened i just saw i
had my ways of getting information and
uh
you know the atlantic article gosh what
was it called the great
fake
i don’t want to actually say what the
article was called because we’re on
youtube and i don’t know
i just um
yeah there are articles
yeah i just i just uh it’s
go ahead sorry i just pulled there are
many articles um
even some politicians and other
individuals that had a vet that have a
vested interest in making this seem like
it’s not a big deal anyone can follow my
twitter feed for a day and realize that
we are in a really big deal in the
united states i mean we could talk about
around the globe but let’s if we’re
sticking just the united states i mean
we are at a um
i think after the pandemic i you know
it’s it’s hard not to get black filled
i’m not black filled i’m pretty
white-pilled i see some lights at the
end of the tunnel but
uh it’s really bad i mean so there are
so there’s some validity to some things
that folks say
um
there is uh so there’s some validity to
some things that folks say yes a lot of
missing children are found so that’s the
good news right a lot of missing
children are found so when you look at
that huge number of uh of children that
go missing every year that’s not yes
they go missing but you have to think
that’s runaways that’s folks being taken
by non-custodial those children being
taken by non-custodial parents right you
know what i mean it’s it’s not like that
like you think that many children are
just disappearing off the face of the
earth that’s not what it is um it would
be awesome if we change that language
because it’s just not factual um
and i’m totally down with that if they
want to keep it to that but the other
issue
so something that is important though is
the same
so the national center for missing and
exploited children collects a lot of our
data statistics just about children um
child sexual abuse material um runaways
trafficking things of that nature
specifically for children um
so
they are the ones that would collect
that number that big number that folks
see but also the ones that collected the
number that one in six of those runaway
children are trafficked for sex so
that’s one of the reasons why i push out
all the missing children um i
now i just post any missing person and
it’s it’s wild how many individuals uh
go missing in the united states
especially children um
indigenous women it’s just it’s black
and brown folks it’s real
really hard to keep up with it i try to
post as many as i see even elderly folks
at this point because i’m like oh
whatever i’m just posting missing people
so i you know at this point i want you
know why why should i discriminate if
someone’s elderly and in danger i might
as well post
but um
but just to think about that number one
and six of runaways um and that’s on
there that’s on the national center for
missing and exploited children’s website
for 2020 i’m sure for 2021 it might
change
but uh because the data is you know it
always changes but
um so it is really important
uh that we stick to the facts and the
corporate press sometimes doesn’t want
to stick to the facts um they’re almost
more conspiratorial than this conspiracy
theorist to be honest um but one thing
that really did throw a wrench in our
spokes was uh
i’m trying to think if we were gonna go
poo
pooling if we were gonna play pool
what would you uh what would i might as
well just say it i always try to like it
queueing on because i was trying not to
say it on your channel
but you know go ahead no we we fight we
fight youtube constantly so don’t worry
about it okay i just i don’t even want
to give you talk about everything
q anon was a big wrench in our spokes
because
it just didn’t work it was had the
opposite effect and it’s a good target
for the um for the corporate press yep
uh pick on
so um you know i highly encourage
i’m not gonna say all of it wasn’t
factual
but it just what a hot mess so yeah if
they like to pick on that and they
proposedly associated with that with
trump and all that you know what i mean
it’s like a whole yes
well that that was what i noticed in
that article uh in the the the great uh
the great fake uh child sex trafficking
uh academic uh they it seemed
immediately
they tried tying
anyone who who was fighting against sex
trafficking with q anon and the trump
campaign and the you know intellectual
dark web and you know the the far right
and
certainly there are people that are in
those camps that are uh that are doing
this stuff and like you said some of
them are going you know you’re trying to
talk about real instances of trafficking
and they’re talking about martians
taking you know lizards taking children
to mars and stuff by the way i love
talking about crazy stuff too like i
love it anybody that really knows me and
follows me closely i’m like super down
to talk about whatever i like i’ll go
there i love it
i love it i love talking about it i love
talking about all this stuff i yes you
know but at the end of the day this is a
very real and serious crime
and if
you can’t win over
i don’t know
i just have my own method and i think it
works pretty well um
meet people where they’re at give them
facts um give them actual stories to
read about how these individuals were
exploited um show them what the
government’s doing show them what the
government’s not doing um show them all
facets of it show them the entire
picture and let
the person decide let people decide but
i think to hyper focus on the global
elites which we can do literally literal
to nothing about
um was never something that was
appealing to me i think what is much
more beneficial is working on a local
level
serving survivors getting involved in
your community by offering education
um awareness and prevention so that the
crime doesn’t happen in the first place
that’s something you can do to stop
human trafficking because i guarantee
you it is happening
i always sometimes i tell folks like go
ahead and google
like your town or the closest city and
see how many trafficking articles pop up
like
it blow it will blow your mind or just
you know child sexual abuse child sexual
abuse material um
you know labor trafficking even
sometimes it
if folks look around it is there and you
can be much more helpful instead of
spending all day online trying to figure
out some puzzle that the feds cooked up
or who knows what cia i don’t even know
what
who knows what that weird psyop was but
is but instead of sitting there trying
to figure out all this whatever you
could be serving survivors on a local
level and stopping
somebody from returning to their abuser
by offering them support care
um
you know maybe stopping the crime from
happening in the first place i think
that’s much more
overall benefit
right this is not the time to tell
people that birds aren’t real like
there’s another there’s another so i’m
not i’m not i’m not 100 my best friend
brought that up the other day shout out
to amanda i love her um she brought that
up because
but i haven’t heard this one which is
really weird because i’ve heard about it
they started they started replacing them
with drones uh
right after i say this isn’t the time to
tell them now i’m going to tell them uh
they they started replacing them with
drones in the 50s and 60s uh it’s
expected that the last ones were killed
around 2001 um and now they’re just
they’re all drones so when you see a
bird you tell it to get a warrant but
this isn’t the time to talk about that
the uh the to be honest spike i’m pretty
far down the like
i’m far down i’m far far down i just
don’t you know it when it comes to work
life like i say i think i don’t know if
i said it before we went on air or
whatever but you have to meet people
where they’re at
not everybody’s there you know what i
mean if i go full
you know
whatever if i go full-blown
that’s not meeting people where they’re
at and also too the other thing i like
to keep in the back of my mind is
so when i
when i step forward to receive support
as a survivor
i thought that the government owed me
something i was irritated that the
government wasn’t stepping in to help me
um
and
my journey my my personal political
journey or um
you know
i want to make sure all survivors that
follow me feel that they get
content from so i’ll post a cnn article
even though i hate cnn i think they’re
pedophile complete pedophiles um
but i’ll post it because that might be
where a different survivor is at
and and i want them to see like look
we’re all talking about this we are all
talking about this
does that make sense
no it makes perfect sense and the thing
i i share you know i blast the corporate
meet as much as the next person but i
will share articles you know mainstream
media articles if they have demonstrated
a point that that we’re trying to make
and that there’s no reason not to um
something that uh happened especially
maybe a few years ago when they started
debating uh those the the foster sesta
act um and uh and which ultimately ended
up making the problem worse um but
during that time and and and long before
it the what what made what problem worse
made both uh the problem of uh uh sex
trafficking on the internet because it
kind of pushed it deeper into the
shadows and then it also made like ready
where do you where did you get that
information
where did i get the information about
foster cesta making things worse no
where did you get the information that
it shoved at underground that you should
have shoved internet sex trafficking
underground and made it worse
the uh the information that i had read
like uh op-eds and articles and studies
that had talked about it uh i will admit
you probably know much more than me
from my op-ed
no no not just from op-eds from studies
and everything else but if you know
better than me you can tell me tell me
what happened what did f how did foz did
foster incest i mean my issue with
foster sesta and i
mean this is a deal everybody likes to
throw fastest on the under the bus and
you know what
they speak from a place of privilege
because they don’t understand how
difficult it is to get these fast assess
the cases through
um
and honestly i feel like not you spike
i’m not coming you don’t you’re not
trying to be malicious or anything but
i mean
so
i don’t think people understand
how difficult it is for these minor
survivors or survivors of sex
trafficking to receive justice period
especially not against these uh tech
platforms this is my specialty so i
focus predominantly on survivor
aftercare my other focus is a child
sexual abuse material in the digital
space so um this is a hyper focus for
mine and it is almost impossible to get
through a case against one of these tech
platforms but i think it’s speaking from
a place of privilege and i understand
why folks would be upset about foster
cessa i wasn’t particularly happy about
it when it passed either but i think
it’s very um disingenuous and disgusting
to um
dance on the trauma of these minor
survivors that are begging to we there
are many survivors that are trying to
get through cases right now they cannot
receive any justice these platforms
fight them every single step along the
way so when people say that phosphate
isn’t used is we’re trying to use it we
cannot receive justice these platforms
are
bigger than the day in government and
the government’s
huge
so have some respect not you spike i’m
not trying to spaz on you i’m just
saying like have some respect for these
minor survivors that are currently in
lawsuits that are trying to get this
fast assessment through i don’t think
people understand
i don’t so do do you think that foster
sesta wasn’t strong enough because i
know another concern on the anti-side
was that it was also targeting
legitimate sex work do you think that it
should have been done differently or
that it wasn’t strong enough where do
you think that it that it went wrong
well there’s a lot i mean it’s it’s a
horrible hot mess from top to bottom
i mean
all right so
you have platforms that can
monetize knowingly monetize and profit
off of child sexual abuse material and
human trafficking
let’s stick to the most egregious the
child sexual abuse material
it’s not a small amount in 2020 alone
over 65 million child sexual abuse
material images of videos were reported
to the national center for missing and
exploited children this year alone it’s
gone up 400 percent
um
so when we get the final numbers in
january to the national center for
missing and exploited children which is
just a united states organization
um
i’m estimating i mean so far i know
there’s been a hundred million reports
of child sexual abuse material from the
digital space this is facebook this is
twitter this is uh snapchat 100 million
reports of child sexual abuse material
to the national center for missing and
exploited children that’s not a small
number this is what we have already like
so this is what we have in 2021 it’ll
probably be higher than that i’m
guesstimating like
it’ll probably be like 125 million
reports by the time the year is through
um
but what what i know for sure it’s a
it’s it’s 100 million
at this point
um
this is not a small number so these are
children that are being violent
violently sexually assaulted we’re not
talking about
um you know
questionable whatever we’re talking
about violent sexual assault now that
being said actually let me back up a
little bit there is uh some room in
there for also like self-generated
content which is happens a lot
self-generated content for the youth um
they’re taking selfies they’re taking
pictures and posting it themselves right
right
but
but in but at the heart of it what we’re
talking about
is the violent child sexual abuse
material we’re not talking about the
dark web this is reported from like
twitter
this is reported from twitter in in 2020
alone twitter had 65 000 reports of
child sexual abuse material to the
national center for missing and
exploited children that’s 65 000 that’s
not a small number i mean so yeah foster
cessa sucks what the heck are we
supposed to do let these platforms
continuously monetize and and uh profit
off of child sexual abuse material and
human trafficking
no not on my watch we’re not going to
let them continuously profit off a human
rights violation against children and by
the way it it if it just affected united
states citizens we might see some
justice this affects the most vulnerable
populations in the world
right philippines so this is not a joke
so when we talk about foster sesta i
know everybody is in their fillings i
know i get it trust me i’m also deep on
the privacy side rights of you know um
you know any folks that follow me
closely know i’m very intense about
digital privacy rights um it’s almost
more of a passion for me than human
trafficking at this point it’s very
important to me um
but to dance on the trauma
uh by belittling it by saying we don’t
have any other option
so i want folks to think about that but
anyway um
what i think could be better um
completely decentralized platforms um
completely decentralized platforms will
help
because we won’t have to go through the
red tape of the government or the
platforms to remove this harmful and
abusive content that’s my
hope for where it’s going to go
like the government involved in in
things as little as possible
um of course
um but
i my only hope is decentralized
platforms i don’t think that there is an
answer besides that but i could be wrong
no i tend to agree i think that you know
you’re now dealing with both government
bureaucracy and big tech bureaucracy
again you’re having to go through both
of them at the same time whereas in a
decentralized platform if it’s you know
you’re basically contacting the person
who runs that node or server and you
know assuming that they’re like the vast
majority of people that don’t want that
kind of content on their server that’s
going to be an easy thing to isolate
either by them removing it uh and and
reporting who did it or by them refusing
to and you can go ah yep you’re the
pedophile and you can you can spot them
much more easily and much more quickly
that way so no i i agree with you
honestly spike my hope is deeply rooted
in the future i’m very excited i’m very
excited for um
the progress of where things can go with
decentralized i’m very very excited for
this this is i was kind of blackpill
before that before i figured that out
but then i was like oh there’s some hope
um so
i i’m i’m very hopeful i’m very very
hopeful and i wouldn’t be so passionate
about the you know the false assessor
thing i mean honestly if someone has a
better idea or option i’d love to hear
it um but people only want to complain
and speak from a place of privilege
instead of speaking to the survivors um
that have been affected by this that are
trying to seek justice
um
and that speaks volumes to me and i just
i’m sorry i’m so passionate about it i
just really i really care deeply about
these survivors i’m very close to some
of these survivors that are currently in
lawsuits that are using that law
and they can’t get justice spike yeah
they can’t you know these big tech
platforms try to have case dismissed
dismissed dismissed dismissed
because they don’t want the liability
yeah they don’t want the liability even
if it’s that it’s not even
even if we don’t but it is
if one case gets through it’ll set that
precedent what’s gonna happen spike is
if one if that one case
gets through i’m praying that it’s the
twitter uh
john doe one and john doe two case
um but if that one case gets through
it’ll set the precedent none of you know
for tech companies it’ll go from there
but
we’ll see i have hope
yep yep i one of the the big debates um
and and and this was also happening
during foster cesta and even before that
is
obvious
often especially in corporate media and
government officials the
there’s a conflation between
voluntary sex work and sex trafficking
they don’t they don’t you know make any
kind of
delineation between that i will say
um especially after hearing stories like
yours and others who survive sex
trafficking that on the outset may have
at that time looked like voluntary sex
work to uh not just to you know an
observer of it but even to some of the
people who had been uh coerced and
defrauded into thinking that this was at
least partially their decision
is it hard sometimes to see that line
between i mean obviously we know the
difference between voluntary sex traffic
sex work and sex trafficking is that uh
anything voluntary is free of as you
said fraud force or coercion uh free of
any kind of aggression but sometimes
that can be hard to spot right
especially if we’re talking like fraud
and coercion that can actually be hard
to spot is that difficult sometimes to
delineate between what’s being done uh
uh what’s being done voluntarily and
what’s being done in a coerced or
defrauded manner
yeah any buyer of mine would have
thought i was there willingly so there
would have been no question
he learned how to act in order to stay
alive so that was
you know you learn how to play the role
and get the job done so that you could
stay alive it’s you know a lot of times
survivors have quotas or victims have
quotas
so you can’t go home
unless you make a certain amount um
if you do go home without making that
amount you’re going to get your
took his feet
so
you know you know you know better than
to do that so
because it’s harder to make money with a
black eye
but um
you know
i think one thing that drives me crazy
is that folks
don’t know the difference between
willing adult sex work willing adult
entertainment
uh uh survival sex
and then human trafficking
um
people like to shove them all into one
category
they do the exact same thing with human
smuggling and human trafficking
it seems like whatever fits folks
specific agenda or political agenda
or agenda period
is what they use to shoehorn it in it’s
really disingenuous and actually
disgusting
i think if folks truly cared they would
speak about the most vulnerable and work
up from there
that’s what i think
you speak about the most vulnerable
possibly impacted and then you work up
from there you don’t go with like the
most privilege and then work down you
start with the most vulnerable and then
you work up from there i don’t know i’m
not like a policymaker or whatever you
know republicans are particularly just
gross i don’t know maybe maybe they’re
not i mean republicans and the left are
just particularly gross about this issue
because they just cannot not make it a
political agenda which as far as i’m
concerned is re-exploiting those who
have already been exploited again right
and that was actually my next question
where where is that line right between
someone who’s who’s you know
even in my uh uh talking about this and
promoting the episode and talk i i’m
thinking the whole time i’m thinking at
what point am i crossing a line of of
not just you know bringing attention to
this but you know
where is that line of of you know where
i’m sort of re-exploiting someone which
is why i said you know early on i was
like i want you to define what right
you’re supposed to we are i would never
think that of you um i don’t no no and
and it’s certainly nothing that i’m i’m
intentionally doing obviously but but
there is that kind of it’s a very like
quick line that you can cross
between you know making sure that i’m
highlighting this and platforming uh
your your advocacy
and saying hey guys who wants to hear
about you know a really salacious story
and and which is why i made a point of
not doing that do you often like when
you’re being interviewed does it
sometimes feel like you’re you’re like
they’re going into that you know let’s
let’s find out the salacious thing to
have all the eyeballs on this uh route
or not really
no i’ve never felt like that i very
gosh now i think about it thank you
actually for bringing that up i have
never felt
i felt re-traumatized but it wasn’t the
interviewer’s fault it was my own
personal self trying to it was also like
it was weird it’s weird being a public
survivor
um and a public survivor leader and then
a public survivor advocate which are
totally different and by the way for
anyone who’s interested you could be a
survivor advocate you don’t need to be a
survivor
call your local organization to find out
how you can serve
get trained get certified get your
background check and start serving
survivors but
um
no i’m so it’s been honestly spike it’s
been like the best
it’s been like such
an awesome journey because i just never
saw
i just never thought anything that i
would
i just never thought i had anything
worth
saying
that anyone would ever care about or
whatever
make a difference
um
so but i’ve been also very very
selective about whom i do my interviews
with right um whether it be a comedian
or
the hoteps or
the blaze or
like oan
believe it or not um or whomever i do my
interviews with that being said i’ve
also opened it up to
um everyone from all sides i offered to
go on young turks
i’ve offered to go a lot of places
because i firmly believe that my
presence and vibe
would probably shine through my only
deal with stepping forward as a public
survivor leader is i didn’t want to have
my voice silenced and i didn’t want it
to be edited or um
well i probably don’t feel exploited
because i probably haven’t done much
with the corporate press
that’s probably why i don’t feel
exploited to be honest
yeah
yeah because i mean
if i’m thinking about it deeply i mean i
did stuff with like nbc and um
but you know i haven’t like
i haven’t
gone on cnn where i have to break down
my life in like a 30 second sound bite
right right or or have someone probing
into the part that’s going to
elicit the tears and all of that stuff
and get the audience you know in this in
this very special interview we’re going
to make this person cry there was
actually there was an old saturday night
live uh uh skit from like the 90s and it
was uh oh gosh what was that guy’s name
kevin neilan and he was at kevin neal
and makes celebrities cry and so it was
like different segments where he would
have a celebrity and say and your dog
just died right well yeah i mean
she died
two years ago and how did that feel and
like whatever they could get to try to
get this person to cry um
and that’s what it feels like often um
so uh
one thing i wanted to talk about because
i do want to get into how we can help
people but one thing that one of the
most compelling things i’ve i’ve heard
you talk about and this was at freedom
fest was
uh about parallels that you see between
uh abusers and at another organization
and uh you know the the things that you
see can you tell us a little bit about
about that
yeah for sure
um and before we leave tonight i just
want to say spike i love your haircut
when you turn to the side i was like ooh
spike has a fresh
fresh face i just got my haircut wait
stop waiting right wait till you’re on
the full screen put yourself on full
screen and then okay
because my fri my fade is not fresh yes
show them
spy i just got this
it’s go and it goes all the way around
too i’m not really in the normal so good
it’s like when you turned in the opening
i was like oh he is a fresh crispy fade
and i’m out here
she just got it done yes thank you for
noticing my faith thank you i always
notice a fresh aid a fresh christmas
thank you um yeah i mean uh well it’s
full disclosure i’m
i’m a man i’m a mancap so
um and i’m also part of mises caucus but
i didn’t know that there was a waffle
house caucus i thought that was cute i
was laughing hysterically
and i am a creature
what’d you say
i created that two years ago when all
the caucus fight i’m actually i’m in the
mises caucus as well but when all the
caucus fighting yeah i joined it the day
after it was founded um but they um
when all that fighting between the
caucuses happened i i made a fake fight
between people over waffle house versus
huddle house then i created the waffle
house caucus as like a facebook tag
group as a joke we now have close to 8
000 members and um we are
are the fastest growing caucus in the in
the party largely because we don’t do
anything
okay
well
maybe sit maybe sitting back and being
chill for libertarians would probably be
a better look than fighting
with everybody on these i think so it’s
helped it’s more people have joined it
um so yeah back to your question so back
to your question i mean
i never was fully able to make the
parallels
um until
2020 happened
um
and then it started to
become more and more clear to me
that the government is an abuser
it’s an abusive relationship that i
don’t feel like i can leave
uh it’s the first and only relationship
i’ve never felt like i could leave if i
needed to
the government was stopping nothing to
continue to seek power
the government will gaslight you at all
costs
the government will isolate you from
your family and friends
which by the way is a perfect breeding
ground for stockholm syndrome
if you look up what it takes to create
stockholm syndrome
so if you think of the government as the
abuser
and the citizens as the victims
that’s why we see such mass stockholm
syndrome
is because
the government used the same tactics
that an abuser or cult leader would use
to
mass control
and get individuals
in an abusive relationship that had
stockholm syndrome i mean isolation fear
fear of death
um
and then only one thing can get you out
which would be the
their thing that they do in the arms
but
you know
the reason why the
the government feels like a trafficker
to me is because they take my money
and i don’t have a say in where it’s
spent it’s money that i worked really
hard to get
and
they take my money i don’t get to see
where it’s you know they tell me when i
can see my family and friends
it’s just an abuser
and um
if folks think it’s not going to happen
to them if folks think it they’re not
going to take it all the way
they’re going to take it all the way
they’re going to take it all the way to
north korea
and you’re gonna
you know
if i could have one message to
libertarians
tonight or really anyone
there’ll be a point
where you’re going to have to decide
whether or not you want to eat your own
children to stay alive
it’s how bad it gets
it’s how bad it gets in north korea
where every
hair on your head is needed to be
burnt for heat
literally no hair on your head goes to
waste everything is owned by the state
you are married to the state
you own nothing you have nothing and
you’ll be looking at your loved ones
deciding whether or not you want to eat
them to stay alive they will not stop
ever
you don’t want to let it get there
don’t fight on twitter
it’s not worth it you fight the state
you fight those elites that are those
seeking power
libertarians and anyone that seeks
liberty i don’t care if you’re a
republican anyone that seeks liberty
even if you’re on the left if you just
believe in liberty fight this because
they’re not going to stop
and i’m telling you you do not want to
see the other side
you’ll be sitting in the gulag wishing
you had done something and wishing you
had spoken up when it mattered
yeah no i i
the um
and then of course when they put you in
a situation of destitution then they
help you with a little bit of what
they’ve stolen from you
abuser yeah a hundred percent spike
that’s a pimp
yep it’s called what it is that’s a pimp
spike
but they’re not even a good they’re not
even a good they’re a [ __ ] they’re like
a gorillapod they’re not even a good one
and they will stop at nothing spike
they will stop at nothing the police
will stop at nothing and you know what’s
even worse spike is they’re going to
celebrate
those that think that their virtuous are
going to celebrate
the slavery
they’re going to celebrate it they’re
going to celebrate the slavery they’re
going to help build their own prisons
that’s the worst part
you know
so that’s what i hope people understand
this is not a game
yeah
well that’s part of the gaslighting
right is they get they they convince you
that it’s it’s for your own good and you
you you skip it happily skip your way
into it so i um i i think
that’s the way that’s the way nazi
germany was too
just read the gulag archipelago this is
uh just go read the gulag archipelago
anybody thinks it ain’t gonna go there
trust me
oh it’ll go it can go quickly if you
talk to a holocaust survivors or any
survivors of any mass atrocity one of
the things that they’ll talk about is
how quickly it went from what they
perceived as normal to holy crap we’re
being rounded up like it is not this you
know decade sometimes it can be a
decade-long process sometimes it’s
inside of two or three years i mean look
at that
trafficking is like spike that’s what
human trafficking is like and people
think you could never human trafficking
could ever happen to them people think
all this stuff can never happen to them
i’m telling you right now when the
government won’t stop we are all going
to be victims of human trafficking labor
trafficking sex trafficking it’s exactly
what it is like in north korea and
throughout history this is not a new
thing and it’s happening currently in
the world right now so you don’t need to
look far it is on the same globe as us
so i’m telling you have to figure out
where your line is and stick by it this
is we are not
i’m telling you
spike it is is really bad and like you
said it is that you don’t see it coming
it’s very um it’s sneaky they act like
it’s for your good it literally couldn’t
remind me more of human trafficking but
i think when i put it in that context
um people understand
it actually kind of helps me out a
little bit spike because then people
understand how i ended up in the
position that i was
right
and how other times throughout history
other people have ended up so
you and the other thing too is
be very mindful of like i just want to
tell libertarians like please be very
mindful this is not time to play games i
mean it is go time
yeah i mean if you’re a [ __ ] poster
sorry if i close on your
if you’re right that’s fine because on
the show you’re a doo-doo poster this
doesn’t have the same it doesn’t sound
as powerful as [ __ ] poster it doesn’t
have the same ring but yeah i mean if
you’re a [ __ ] poster that’s cool just
stay out of our just stay out of the way
trust me i’m building up my platform so
that when it’s go time i can get the
message to as many people as possible
period yep absolutely absolutely now on
that so this is actually like i got so
intense on this podcast no listen that’s
good this is good stuff we’ve talked
about uh all of these different issues i
i did want to end on this um
what can we do
now as individuals and working together
to fight this how can we identify it
what are the when you go around and
you’re telling people you know what we
can do to fight it what are some of the
things that i and others that are
watching this can be doing right now and
and start doing to to help fight
trafficking
sure that’s a really good question
um so trafficking is pretty broad so you
could start off by you know uh pushing
for accountability on how our products
are made how our fruit is picked things
of that nature um that’s always good you
know
vote with your dollar so to speak so if
you think that something is made with
slavery or if you know that slavery is
in the supply chain you could do it that
way um when people always ask me how do
you spot survivors how do you spot
survivors my answer to that is how would
a survivor spot you
um how would a survivor spot you because
you don’t run up to someone and say are
you a victim of human trafficking um or
if you see something that seems
suspicious if you call 9-1-1 right away
you could be putting that survivors that
victim’s life in danger if they are a
victim um this is life or death it’s not
it’s not a joke but how could a survivor
victim see spot you are you a safe
person did you smile when you walked
past in the airport you know um do you
have open energy a friendly vibe um and
if someone did talk to you hey
you know um if you’re a parent a
caregiver you know um somebody that
works in a faith-based organization a
school counselor um if a child disclosed
to you would you have the resources
available and know who to call um we do
have a 24-hour um
day 365-day week hotline here in the
united states very grateful for that um
you can call if you have questions if
you have tips what’s that number i’ll
put it in the uh in the in the great
literally every podcaster asked me and
literally i post it almost every single
day and i have never memorized it but
i’ll look it up
um
it’s actually the first thing that pops
up when you just googled the words human
trafficking so it’s pretty easy um one
eight eight
three three seven three
seven eight eight eight
so that’s one eight eight eight
three seven three
seven
eight eight eight if the survivor is in
immediate danger um they do also have a
a text feature on their hotline as well
it’s a human trafficking hotline dot org
they offer 200 plus languages which i
think is really cool
um you never know where a victim
survivor is going to be from oh yeah so
um in the united states i think it’s
really cool the the canada has a human
trafficking hotline as well
um
but
how could a survivor spot you are you a
safe person i think that that’s very
important you know when you sit down in
a diner or a bar or on an airplane do
you say hi to the person next to you hi
you know just something nice you know
are you a nice person
um
there are always things that folks say
you can look for
but i tend to
i don’t go by that i don’t go by what
they say because
you know they always say like oh people
that aren’t making eye contact or people
that are dirty you know
folks that are on the spectrum might not
make eye contact um
someone being dirty might just be a set
of circumstances it doesn’t necessarily
you know i mean some things like um you
know if you’re a healthcare professional
you know um frequent stis
maybe bruises bite marks cigarette burns
um but healthcare professionals should
know how to deal with that
right right and be able to tell
um if if an individual is not allowed to
be left alone even in situations that
would be private and can’t answer for
themselves that’s kind of sometimes but
you know um the world is made up of
different types of people so we hate to
judge a book by its cover so that’s why
i say let a survivor of human
trafficking spot you by having open
energy and if and when they do reach out
um the other thing too i’m not a big
proponent of like forcing folks to leave
unless they’re a minor um
right you offer support you plant seeds
you offer resources and uh if the
survivor’s ready to leave it’s the same
thing with the government by the way i
feel the same way with the government um
if you force someone to leave a
stockholm syndrome situation or a
trauma-bonded relationship it could
actually
strengthen the relationship with the
abuser so you have to be very mindful
and that’s why i was like trying to tell
people the other day on twitter and
nobody really vibed with it but i was
like yeah i mean if you try to force
people away from this corporate press
and this government tyranny um i don’t
think they’re going to be as receptive
if you just
if you actually just met them where they
were at and planted seeds
um that’s how i feel i feel like it
actually probably strengthens their
relationship with the um with the
government
and
um with the propaganda to be honest
so something you said
all right that’s kind of intense
no something you said
made me incredibly sad
and i want to make sure that i’m that
i’m
interpreting what you said because you
said one of the best things we could do
is just be open and making eye contact
and smiling with people not a creepy way
but just in a just general friendly vibe
are there people
what i took from that is that there are
people right now
who are are so
are in the midst of being trafficked and
literally if someone would even just
look at them if they were just out and
about at the airport at a restaurant
walking down the street and if someone
actually made a human connection with
them for five seconds that would be
enough for them to be able to at least
begin the process of escaping but we’re
so all compartmentalized that this
person who’s
basically trapped in a cage surrounded
by people it everyone is so isolated and
compartmentalized that there’s no one
they can even really effectively reach
out to and certainly not in the limited
time
and space that they have to do something
like that is that is that what you’re
saying
yes
yes essentially i mean we are
so self-obsessed
we’re so caught up in our own world
we’re looking down at our phone we’re
posting on social media
uh and human trafficking survivors and
victims are walking amongst us
um now granted every situation is
completely different but i think
um
simply just i mean i’m one of those
people where if i sit down next to you
at an airport you’re probably going to
split your guts i don’t know why i got
that vibe i and i try to stay to myself
sometimes
but uh you know i like talking to people
but
there is something
this is going to be hilarious because
i’ve talked most of this conversation
that i’m even going to say this have the
gall to even say this but
there is something about letting folks
give an opportunity to talk about
themselves
when i sit down to talk to people
perfect strangers which by the way i
mean
people are
people are more almost more comfortable
telling something to a complete stranger
that they’ll never talk talk to again um
but
when i sit down and talk to people most
people have suffered deep very deeply
many survivors of sexual assault
especially from within the home sex
abuse i mean i’m just talking about like
in a bar which sounds so depressing but
like a bar
you know um
even if i i i just have the most random
things and i don’t bring it up to people
it’s not like i’m hey my name’s eliza
i’m a survivor advocate for those
affected by human trafficking what do
you do that’s like such a buzz kill
people think i’m like a hair stylist or
a makeup artist i’m fine with that um
but when i tell
people it definitely opens up a
conversation and i find that many people
are survivors especially in my case i
meet many males
that are survivors of sexual assault
and molestation
that have never really told anyone or
you know they’ve never really told
anyone so i think just being an open
person like literally just like looking
up from your phone and saying hi
i can’t hear you spike no i listen
there’s there’s two things that i got
from that one is that there’s a really
powerful and simple thing all of us can
be doing but the big takeaway i’m just
picturing being in the shoes of someone
who you know is in a
survival situation where they’re doing
something they don’t want to do whether
we’re talking labor trafficking sex
trafficking whatever and like they’re
you know we always picture it’s like if
they can just escape the basement
they’re trapped and it’s not they’re at
the airport and it’s they’re surrounded
by hundreds or thousands of people but
no one’s
i mean they could be about they could be
in bottle service at the club they could
be they could be anywhere they could be
literally anywhere but the other thing
too spike you have to put yourself in
the mind frame of
someone has coerced you
into thinking
your mind isn’t
necessarily um
you’re seeing things
not a hundred percent clearly
you’re not
world clearly
um and it’s not their fault uh
that’s a that’s a trafficker does their
job correctly that is part of a
trafficker’s job is to not get you to
see it correctly so um
they might not even know that they’re
being exploited
uh
you know i’ll give an example so
i was
in a domestic violence relationship with
my ex-husband which i said earlier
um he was in the military and he was
deployed
and i was on a flight with one of my
girl woman friends
um from the base we were on an airplane
fight because over in europe you could
fly a cheap easy quick little orion air
flight
and i’ll never forget i looked at her
and i was joking about something about
like oh yeah he pushes me down the
stairs and before he left he tried to
smother me with the pillow and i was
joking about it
and all she did was she looked at me and
she was like so he had tried to kill me
before he left um by smothering me with
a pillow and he had pushed me down the
stairs multiple times um
but i was joking about it like it was
like some funny thing
and she looked at me and she was like
that’s not normal
that’s abuse
so when i
found out that i was a trafficking
survivor
it took an advocate explaining because i
always thought it was like the back of a
semi truck
i always thought it was like ropes
around my wrist chains chains duct tape
my mouth i thought it was like back of a
semi-truck i was conflating smuggling
with human trafficking
once someone had to explain it to me and
i still
had a difficult time processing it
but i knew
i was getting physically uh abused
and i knew i didn’t always want to be in
every situation and that was a point so
if you can get folks to just speak a
little
um you could identify
and you don’t tell someone you just say
huh
that matches exactly and i’m gonna let
you choose whether or not you identify
that way but i just want to let you know
what the law says and that that would
qualify and trafficking
and then it took me a while because i
never want to be seen seen as a victim i
was like tough girl never wanted to be
seen as a victim and uh didn’t want it
to seem like oh i was trying to be some
you know what i mean i just didn’t want
to see him a type of way
and
then i i was like wow and then when i
look back and i looked at all the
situations that happened i was like dang
i really was i just didn’t know it
so same thing with labor trafficking too
you know
just because someone
wanted to come into the country um
by the way not all labor trafficking
happens with folks that are undocumented
but
i’ll just speak speak to that specific
uh
like that specific um
i don’t know example
you know
someone’s past you know someone’s
identification
um
someone can be in debt bondage
they might feel like they paid to be in
this country like they begged to be in
this country they paid to smuggle into
this country they did the most to come
into this country they might feel like
they get are getting what they deserve
or maybe like this is the best they can
have
but they’re asking for this
um and that’s not right no matter
whether or not you’re documented or
undocumented in the country it’s not
right to explain some way one for labor
but slavery
yeah
so besides so really the best things we
can do besides obviously advocacy uh for
accountability and so forth right i
didn’t answer your question at all
the best thing you could do is get
educated about the crime and the crime
is really um very nuanced and very
complex the best thing you can do is get
educated about the crime the best thing
you can do is volunteer or donate
locally
research your local organization very
frequently i post a list of over 2 000
organizations globally this survivors of
human trafficking find an organization
that uh matches with your beliefs
and um
and i think that volunteering and
getting involved locally even if it’s
just
dropping off uh you know baked goods
once a month or something like that
whatever you can do
to get involved locally if it’s you know
just calling up a survivor safe house
hey it’s winter time what do you folks
need do you need socks do you need coats
you need amazon gifts go like what do
you need
um how can i best serve you and then
also too
i tell i tell folks use your time talent
and treasure to serve the survivor space
um
if you have money that’s awesome if you
have a talent like if you’re a carpenter
call up your local survivor safe house
ask if they need something fixed in this
in the safe house they you don’t even
need to see the survivors they can move
all the survivors that you know
everybody can go on a um you know
activities day and you could fix
something in the safe house um but
figure out where you best fit but
whoever you are i guarantee you you have
a skill that can be used for survivors
of human trafficking um and then to
prevent um you would be education and
awareness um in your local community um
that is always gonna be the best
that is always gonna be the best
prevent the crime from the first from
happening in the first place and number
one above and beyond everything else is
internet safety please
if you’re a parent caregiver grandparent
please internet safety for you for the
youth please
okay that’s yeah
no i i know it’s it’s weird i don’t have
kids so it’s i i certainly far be it for
me to say you’re not parenting your kids
right
but
i often will see
this disconnect and i’m not going to
call any individual out because honestly
it’s prolific uh but like
people with teenage kids who have
absolutely no idea who their friends are
have absolutely no idea who they’re what
what media platforms they’re on what
social media they’re on what they’re
doing what they’re saying and i mean
okay your kid’s 19 20 years old at some
point you’re gonna not know you’re
talking like 14 15 year olds oh they’re
on that thing all the time i don’t even
know who they’re talking about
spike i have grown adult women and
survivors in my life where every time
they hop into an uber a lift i know
every single time you know i mean
there’s
there’s like you know especially with
the survivors in my life because it just
helps but i mean i know where their trip
is going i know who they’re going to
hang out with it’s not
it’s not weird to be overly cautious at
any age i mean i don’t do certain things
even as a 40 year old woman
um
because it’s it’s not
it’s not common sense at this point does
that make sense so yeah i mean i get
what you’re saying but
no i don’t i don’t think parents fully
understand i mean
most
human trafficking most abusers are
meeting
their victims on facebook which is so
weird that facebook i guess facebook at
scale it does make sense but i mean
facebook
um
that’s where these traffickers are
meeting your children they’re going to
probably they’re going to promise them a
better life
the life that they’re going to promise
them seems really glossy and um
and your your children are going to buy
it and they’re going to start sending
them nudes and images and those images
and videos are going to haunt them for
the rest of their life
um you don’t want that to be what
happens um you don’t want your child to
go meet some random
pito that was a total catfish in three
states away
you don’t want
that to be your life
um
all because you just didn’t know what
your child was doing on the internet
something that’s very simple
um and i think that this is on all of us
you know same deal
you know i don’t have my own children
but i try to be an accessible
non-judgmental ear for the youth
uh if they want to come talk to me about
something and you know you meet them
where they’re at you meet the youth
where they’re at but if they feel judged
if they feel pressured they’re not going
to be transparent if you think you’re if
you think your children don’t know how
to make secret profiles or do all that
they’re very tech savvy they know how to
do it all
yeah this isn’t spy and trick them this
is let them know that you care for them
and want to be a part of that
an open and honest conversation and
people always ask me too when’s too
young uh we have cartoons available um
there’s cartoons available um for
children of all ages that talk about
internet safety in a fun way that’s not
just starts to get them
into the flow
yes hopefully it’s more effective than
my don’t talk to stranger videos they
showed us when we were kids that made
talking to strangers seem really cool
and
it was like i had the opposite this guy
wants to take you somewhere and show you
things your parents don’t and it’s like
that sounds great and then i didn’t know
what i think i want to know
he wasn’t very fast like this stranger
sounds amazing so it then turns out no
you really shouldn’t talk to him but so
okay so i i we’ve
learned a lot we’ve we’ve delved into a
lot of things and i i i thank you so
much for coming on i greatly appreciate
it hope to have you on in the future
before i let you go i want to give you a
chance to give your final thoughts
anything you felt like we didn’t get a
chance to talk about anything that you
want to promote any websites phone
numbers your social media how people can
reach out to you literally anything that
you want to talk about for as long you
want it as you want to talk about it
elizablue the floor is
yours
well thank you spike so much for having
me on you are freaking amazing sometimes
i listen to the
to the freedom fest speech
after that was only the second speech
that i had ever done live in front of an
audience because of when i stepped
forward and when you had walked in the
room i was so elated it meant so much to
me like
i was like oh my gosh
you know
you know
politician came to hear this pleb speak
about her walls
um but it meant a lot to me and it still
does and i really appreciate the support
and i think that you’re somebody um
that really truly cares a lot about
people and it shows and it means a lot
and you’re willing to listen to
different people and
i think that that really means a lot to
me spike it it goes a long way so i’m
excited to see what you have planned in
the future um
as far as folks go you know um
don’t let don’t let internet privacy
rights slip through the cracks
don’t ever let anyone use human
trafficking or child sexual abuse
materials a trojan horse
to get through um
government interests
or big tech interests be very mindful of
that although it is a very real crime
and although it devastates a lot of
lives um under no circumstances should
this crime uh be used as a
as an excuse to gain access and control
mass surveillance over all citizens this
is very important just because of the
crowd i’m talking to
um
you know be there for the survivors in
your life i have a high
i have a high of gut feeling that the
delay maxwell uh
verdict will be read tomorrow and
regardless of however it goes please be
there for the survivors in your life
because anytime there’s a big case going
on like this
it takes it takes its toll on survivors
even that weren’t directly impacted by
the crime
um so um always let survivors know that
they can any survivor that’s watching
they can reach out to the hotlines uh
our national sexual assault hotline our
domestic violence hotline and our human
trafficking hotline run 24 hours a day
seven days a week 365 days a year also
does our suicide lifeline
if you’re struggling at any point with
pastor recent trauma you can reach out
to any of the hotlines at any time
they will assess your needs and serve
you to the best of their ability a
trained advocate will answer the phone
and you can call anonymously
and it’s judgment free it’s also lgbtq
friendly uh lgbtq plus friendly and uh
200 plus languages so that’s really
important
um and
you know if this conversations at all
affected you tonight like please reach
out to one of the hotlines just to
process through with an advocate
um
and i guess my final message is um
that there’s a lot of hope and we will
win in the end
but you either have to be willing to
stand up for freedom and on the side of
liberty
because
you know where it could go
you know where it will go if we don’t
fight
you know everybody thinks it won’t
happen to them but i’m telling you
i’m telling you it can it will happen to
you
and you don’t want to be sitting on the
other side of what’s coming so um please
take your freedom very seriously um
please take your freedom very seriously
i don’t know how much more to stress
that
spike you know i value my freedom so
much i can’t even articulate it fully
yeah hopefully maybe one day i will be
able to but
i just hope folks value their freedom
because you don’t want to lose it trust
me
the days are long and you wake up every
morning when you lose your freedom all
the way spike
you wake up every morning you wish you
were dead and every moment that you’re
awake you wish you were dead and you
think only about dying but you don’t
know how or why
and that’s a horrible life
right now we have a good life i’m
sitting in a heated room with internet
service getting a chance to talk to
somebody that i think is really cool
this is a good life
so you don’t want to lose that
and um
i think that’s all spike
okay well i i appreciate your thoughts i
wish i had more of a white toe now the
white pillow is we will win in the end
we’re we’re going to win liberty is
going to win and no actually you know
what the white pill is we’re going to
win in the end the cathedral is
completely crumbling corporate press is
scrambling like a chicken with their
head cut off the corporate press has
lost their mind they’re they’re in
desperation mode so just remember that
and every time they do one of these big
blunders um just know it red pills and
white pills a lot of people yeah so it
does it wakes people up
liberty is definitely going to win uh
how uh can people follow what’s the best
way for people to follow you
yeah sure so um
my twitter handle is at elizablue
e-l-i-a-b-o-e-u
i saw the water you were drinking before
is it spelled blue like blue
yes
how do i not have any oh that’s my water
let blue
does my water spike that’s your water
so you can you can buy eliza’s water at
uh at le blue
no that is not my water i do not profit
from that if you want to tip me you go
to my twitter tips no but um so i’m on
twitter at elizabethu
um and then i am on locals
eliza.locals.com
and i have a lot of really fun things
coming up so um please stay tuned
yes and everyone go follow eliza if you
aren’t already this is it is good water
it’s not actually her water she makes
zero dog i make nothing talking i mean
zero dollars if you wanna if you want to
throw dollars i have my twitter tips
open um i’m completely independent
that’s on purpose spike and i were
talking about that before the podcast he
was like hey do you are you gonna shut
out any organization i was like no i
actually do everything i do completely
independent um that’s really intentional
and on purpose because then i can talk
about politics and um then i can’t get
cancelled well i don’t know they might
try to cancel me but i doubt it uh it’s
harder to cancel someone who’s
self-sufficient yes yes but yeah so well
no i work full-time in the space but i
don’t have i don’t speak on behalf of
any organization so because i i it’s a
spike that’s a whole other conversation
the the government has its little hands
in all these organizations i don’t even
want to be affiliated publicly with all
these
yes so at
elizablue is your twitter handle um
everyone please tune in and stay tuned
with her she’s got big stuff coming up
uh eliza thank you so much for coming on
stick around i’m going to talk with you
during the outro but folks thank you for
tuning in to this episode of my fellow
americans uh tomorrow uh night at 8 pm
on the writer’s block my co-host matt
wright will be interviewing amy lapore
who is the duly elected vice chair of
the libertarian party of delaware she
will be updating on all the really fun
stuff that’s happening with the
libertarian party of delaware it’s just
it’s actually gotten better in the last
month but yay uh and then enjoy your
weekend have a great weekend whether you
celebrate christmas whether you don’t
celebrate christmas whether you’re one
of these edgy pagan types you celebrate
yule or solstice i don’t care happy
holidays everybody have a happy holiday
season or lack thereof whatever you do
this weekend enjoy it uh and then be
sure uh to tune in next week for the
muddied waters of freedom year ender at
the end of the year that’s going to be
either we haven’t decided if it’s
wednesday or thursday but it’ll be
either wednesday or thursday you’re not
gonna believe what day it is uh and it’s
gonna be me and matt right we’re gonna
parse through the year’s events because
this year
is almost we are all i’m still coping
with 2020 and it’s about to be 2022. so
come cope with us uh next week and uh
again thanks again for tuning in uh oh
and uh join oh yeah well i don’t have an
episode next week we’re doing the year
ender so again thanks for tuning in so
much uh i will see you next week i’m
spike cohen and you
are the power god bless god
i can’t make a change
it might fit we might just unite them
come together become hybrid at the least
slightly like-minded indeed the life
i’ve lived brings light to kindness
all you need is a sign
put a cease to the crimes put an ease to
the minds like mine
sometimes darkness is all i find you
know what they say about an eye for a
night in a time when the blobs of blood
who am i to deny would grow when a loved
one dies i recognize that body outside
with the holes in the body that was
alive
who would want to raise a child in this
room and splashing by now you have to
say goodbye when you watch them on the
losing side don’t tell me how tell me
what
make the change
we
will make
you