← Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
An Open Letter to Peter Baker of the New York Times
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- [00:00]
Sacha Stone
Hi, this is Free Thinking through the Fourth Turning. My name is Sacha Stone. An open letter to Peter Baker of the New York Times. When is enough enough? Dear Mr. Baker, I am but one in a sea of many Americans viewed as a threat to the established order. I was a part of that order. I helped build it. It would turn out I. I couldn't survive because I couldn't follow the rules of thought and speech that are mandated by everyone on the left, especially those at the New York Times. It's personal, you see. I used to believe that if all I did was read page one of the New York Times, I'd be well informed. Brainwashed is more like it. It's easy to spot the bias now where it wasn't before. For instance, this was the New York Times on January 12, and one of the strongest activists for the Democrats pretending they're pushing some sort of objective conclusion on X. For podcast listeners, a tweet from Seth Abramson, the New York Times. The shrillest of resistance libs have always understood Trump better than those who make a show of their dispassion. Only took 10 years and a story in the New York Times. The resistance libs were right. Well, that's just another day at the New York Times. I know you didn't write this piece. Michelle Goldberg did. But it is worth mentioning as an aside, that, no, the resistance libs were not right. They were never right. I was one of them. Until I wasn't. It's been an ugly road out of the doomsday cult of the left, but now I live free as an exile. We were never the resistance. We were always the empire. We colonized the Internet, after all. And together with Barack Obama, the rise of Silicon Valley, social media, and the iPhone as society migrated online, we were in control of all of it. But that's a story for a different time. Mr. Baker. This letter is much more urgent regarding the matters at hand. Your analysis and observation about Trump and protests is so wildly off base, a complete distortion of reality, that I felt compelled to write you a letter. You wrote for podcast listeners, a headline, trump supports the protesters, except those protesting him. The split screen television images of mass deportations in Minneapolis and Tehran have highlighted the president's disparate views of democracy and popular dissent. President Trump had a ringing message of solidarity on Tuesday for demonstrators in the streets. Keep protesting. Take over your institutions, he wrote on social media. He decried the senseless killing of protesters and added that those pulling the triggers will pay a big price. He meant the protesters in Tehran, not Minneapolis. By contrast, the people in the streets of Minnesota, he wrote just 63 minutes earlier, were anarchists and professional agitators trying to cover up a fraud scandal. He vowed that the day of reckoning and retribution is coming. The eruption of protests on opposite sides of the planet at this moment in history has brought Mr. Trump's views of democracy and popular dissent into stark relief. The situations in Iran and Minnesota, of course, are different and complicated, but the president's rule of thumb seems simple enough. Those who take to the streets supporting a cause he favors are laudable heroes. Those who take to the streets to oppose him are illegitimate radicals. End quote. I read this and my jaw dropped open. Mr. Baker, where have you been for the past five years as we watched a split screen of protests in the summer of 2020 and then on January 6th? Are you actually saying that you at the New York Times and anyone on the left saw these things as comparable democracy and popular dissent and stark relief? Boy, I couldn't have said it better myself. Tell me this is satire. Tell me you do not live in such an isolated bubble that you can't possibly see the blatant hypocrisy here. The treatment of these two events was very different and will be written about in opposite ways in history books forever. One will be seen as heroic and democracy in action, and the other as dangerous and insurrection in action. For podcast listeners, pictures of the summer Black Lives Matter in front of the White House and a picture of January 6th in front of the Capitol. People like me were pulling our hair out, not because we would justify the riot at the Capitol, but because all of you said nothing about what happened in the summer of 2020, a year that broke America and broke me. It wasn't only your paper that lied that Trump incited a mob to storm the Capitol and that it was a threat to democracy. That narrative was pushed by every legacy media outlet with no kind words for the protesters, who were also doing what protesters do, getting angry and having their voices heard by a government and a culture that had demonized them, dehumanized them, and abandoned them. Trump included podcast listeners a montage of headlines. Trump Incites Mob Insurrection Day Assault on Democracy Incited by Trump Mob Halts Count Trump Incited Mob storms the U.S. capitol. The Democrats put up a Green Zone like fence around the Capitol. Ordinary Americans had their doors kicked in as the FBI hauled them off to jail. Anyone who even attended the mostly peaceful protests on January 6th was called an insurrectionist and election denier. And anyone who dared to question the 2020 election or who voted for Trump was inspected under a microscope by you all, or insurgent terrorist. Vice President Kamala Harris likened it to 911 and the attack on Pearl Harbor. These were American citizens, many of whom had been on lockdown, their businesses destroyed after Covid, and had watched the absurd events of 2020 play out. Masks, no masks. Systemic racism was more urgent than Covid. Then the pivot back to Covid, changing election rules, preventing people from gathering and thus preventing campaigning. A surge of mail in voting that won the election all before Election Day. A revolution in the streets that almost no one in the mainstream was even talking about once they got really bad, lest they hurt the Democrats. Oh, I know the game. I know we're all supposed to see the Trump supporters as racists, angry that black and brown people were in government, a second confederacy, flying their Dixie flags on January 6, and that the protests over the summer were about racial inequality and therefore justified. But here's the thing about democracy. You don't get to decide. We either have all the same rights or we don't have a democracy. There was nothing in your coverage or the Liz Cheney show trial that was in any way fair to the Americans who protested that day and even to Donald Trump, who had a right to have their voices heard. No, they didn't have the right to riot. Ashley Babbitt lost her life over it and then her memory was dragged through the mud by all of you. Here is how the Times covered Ashley Babbitt for far right movements, Ashley Babbitt is now a rallying cry. Far right and white nationalist groups online are holding up Ms. Babbitt's death as proof that they have been wronged. And another story from the New York Times inside the deadly Capitol shooting. And another headline, woman killed in Capitol embraced Trump and QAnon. After 14 years in the military, Ashley Babbitt bought a pool supply company and delved into far right politics. And here is how they covered Renee Goode. Renee Goode's time at Old Dominion included an award winning poem. What I saw in her work was a writer that was trying to illuminate the lives of others, a faculty member recalled. And another one was Renee Goode obligated to comply with ICE agents orders. You see, one is treated like human garbage and the other is treated like a hero. So just say it. Just admit that this has become a two tiered society. You are among the ruling classes and the underclass has none of the same rights. You will decide they are racists and thus have no real stake in what happens in this country even when they win the popular vote. Now that the protests in Minneapolis are violent, as violent as, if not More so than January 6th, still you say nothing and pretend they are fighting the good fight. Here is a tiktoker.
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TikToker 1
I think we are literally watching one of the craziest times in American history. We're watching a state that's been exposed for billions in fraud, encourage citizens to go and tear down the city, burn it down, attack law enforcement and all type of stuff just to prove a point because they don't like who the President is. Wild times we're living in. I think the craziest part of it all is that it's all done in an effort to defend non citizens.
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Sacha Stone
What has changed in 10 years? Nothing except the Democrats failing to address the problem, allowing millions to flood over the border and shaming Americans for caring about it. Here is another tiktoker.
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TikToker 2
Isn't it funny how black lives matter until it comes to this black life right here. See, this woman's name is Dakara Thompson, and I bet you've never heard of her before. That's because she was killed last year by an illegal immigrant. Her killer, Hugo Hernandez Mendez, 35, of Bowie was charged with first and second degree murder for the death of Dakara Thompson. You see, Dakara was brutally raped and murdered by Hugo Hernandez, which ICE confirmed he was an illegal alien from Guatemala. But it's crazy because I didn't see any national protests about this. I didn't see any riots. I didn't see cities burning to the ground over this. This was a tragic, senseless act of murder by somebody who wasn't even supposed to be here. And while people are too ashamed to admit it, most, most people are happy that ICE is out there kicking out people who do not belong in this country. Don't worry, blm, I'll take the torch for you. I will make sure that we say her name, Dakara Thompson.
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Sacha Stone
It's a sickness on the left by now, a reality distortion that spilled out into real world violence. Just look at what happened at Evergreen College. These students believed they were protesting racism at one of the most liberal colleges in America. Why? Because Bret Weinstein did not think it was right that white people should be asked to leave the campus on a day of absence. Here is a video from Vice News about Bret Weinstein.
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Narrator/Reporter
Last month, Evergreen State College in Washington went crazy when a professor of evolutionary biology named Brett Weinstein objected to a day of absence when white students and faculty were asked to voluntarily leave campus. Weinstein branded it A form of racial segregation. A group of student protesters called him a racist. The confrontation incited further protests, debates over free speech and claims of systemic racism on campus. And things haven't calmed down. Tomorrow, Evergreen will hold its graduation at an off campus location 40 miles away.
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Sacha Stone
Say what you want. We got.
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Student Protester
Would you like to hear the answer or not?
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Sacha Stone
No. Are you gonna get it?
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Narrator/Reporter
This is the video, viewed by millions that put Evergreen State in Weinstein in the national spotlight.
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Student Protester 2
This is not a discussion.
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Sacha Stone
You have lost that one.
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Narrator/Reporter
This is not a discussion. You've lost that one.
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Student Protester
Yeah, you've lost that one.
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Narrator/Reporter
So what are they doing here if they don't want to talk to you?
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Student Protester
Well, this is part and parcel of their central mode. They're just simply shutting down somebody that they don't want to hear from. I am not interested in debate. I am interested only in dialectic, which does mean I listen to you and you listen to me.
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Narrator/Reporter
Weinstein has taught at Evergreen State for 14 years. He describes himself as deeply progressive but has been denounced as a racist tool of the alt right by some students and faculty. Weinstein objected to the day of absence in a formal protest email to colleagues arguing that, quote, one's right to speak or to be must never be based on skin color. Calls for his resignation, followed by virtue.
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Student Protester
Of the way they constructed this. You were making a statement by being on campus that you were not an ally. And I feel like I am an ally to people of color in their attempt to gain equity.
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Narrator/Reporter
Do you have any sense at this point of why they want you to resign?
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Student Protester
Well, they think that I'm a racist because if you stand up against one of these things because you think it's ill considered that you will be branded as a racist.
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Poet/Singer
We are here to support. We want to dismantle anti blackness camp is fine.
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Student Protester 2
Leedus wanted to be like, until you're accountable for these actions, you don't get to teach students at Evergreen. You don't get to spread this problematic rhetoric and instill it in students.
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Student Protester
Yes, you're disrupting my class.
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Student Protester 2
So at this point, we would like Brett to be fired, but that isn't happening. The administration is refusing to take action. They're choosing to protect this white CIS male professor over its students.
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Narrator/Reporter
Later that day, the students held a raucous meeting at which they presented a list of demands, including the disarming of campus police and mandatory sensitivity training for all faculty. It's the one point on which the protestors and Weinstein agreements Evergreen's embattled president, George Bridges. Has mishandled the crisis.
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H
I think their concerns are legitimate. They're articulating ideas that have to do with race, ethnicity, power, privilege, and we're taking a look at them.
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Sacha Stone
That's my problem, George. You keep doing these little hand movements.
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Student Protester 2
Or whatever come through.
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Narrator/Reporter
People were criticizing you for using hand gestures.
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H
Absolutely they were. And you know, that seems crazy to.
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Narrator/Reporter
People from the outside of Evergreen.
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H
It may, but it's noise.
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Narrator/Reporter
But the noise has been effective.
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Poet/Singer
No, fuck you, George. We don't want to hear a goddamn thing you have to say.
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TikToker 2
So you don't need to watch that.
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Poet/Singer
Door, watch all the doors, watch the windows. You need to keep eyes on them. And somebody has to go in that room real quick to make sure that there's no way.
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Narrator/Reporter
I mean, essentially sounded like you're being held hostage there. If you were going to go to the bathroom, you had to go with two escorts.
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H
Is that true? That's what the students felt was true. I was going to go to the bathroom.
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Narrator/Reporter
What do you mean the students felt.
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H
Well, that's what they said, if you want to go to the bathroom. I was going to go to the bathroom regardless, and they wanted to escort me. I felt more safe there.
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Sacha Stone
Why? What?
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Narrator/Reporter
Why did they want to escort you to the bathroom?
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H
I don't know.
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Narrator/Reporter
Did you ask them?
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H
No, of course not.
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Sacha Stone
Professor Bret Weinstein joins us.
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Narrator/Reporter
The situation on campus grew even more inflamed after Weinstein went on Fox News. The protesters say his appearance provoked threats from the alt right.
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Student Protester 2
Although Brett has not personally said, you know, go out and attack these students. Go out and threaten these students. That has been the result of. Of his actions. He has incited white supremacists, and he has validated white supremacists and Nazis in our community and in the nation. And I don't think that should be protected by free speech. We received a threat saying that people will come here and execute every single person they see on campus at that point. Yeah, fuck free speech.
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Sacha Stone
This kind of strange, new, justified violence by people who don't live in the same reality as the rest of us has become the new normal on the left, backed up by all of you. How dare you compare them to the protesters in Iran. Complicated, you say? Oh, it's way beyond that. Pampered, privileged, bored white women and bratty college kids attacking ICE are in no way risking their lives. Yes, if you attack a police officer, an ICE officer, you are risking your life. Every American knows that if they live in the real world, in Iran, you are risking your life just for standing there and protesting peacefully or speaking out of turn or anything they decide is a crime punishable by death, which include adultery, dissent against the government, and blasphemy. At the New York Times, you want the tragic death of Renee Goode to be the symbol for protesters dying at the hands of the regiment. But as usual, it is not the truth. That won't stop you from perpetuating the mass delusion and injecting it into the veins of your already unhinged readership. Here is page one of the New York Times Today every headline is about Renee Goode. That is still the most important news of the day, even as hundreds, maybe thousands of Iranians are slaughtered. For podcast listeners, the COVID of the New York Times Agent who shot Renee Goode was trained to track and apprehend fugitives. Another headline, emergency call Transcripts record a crisis unfolding in real time. Another headline was Renee Goode obligated to comply with an ICE agent's Orders? And another video analysis of ICE shooting sheds light on contested moments. Renee Goode was concerned about ice, a lawyer says, but wasn't following agents followed by non stop negative Trump coverage way down underneath those headlines Trump threatens to Invoke Insurrection Act. Grocery prices keep going up and more Trump is ordering coal plants not to close even if it costs billions. Stock investors strategy for 2026 don't fight the white. The protests in Minneapolis are not against ice. They are against democracy. The wrong people won the election, and that means the left throws a fit. They've been throwing fits for 10 years, starting in 2015 when they attacked a group of Trump supporters in California, calling them racists because all of you sold them that lie. The violence continued on through Trump's inaugural and protests, all through his first term. The summer of 2020 was the biggest by far in modern American history. Yet the legacy Media your paper, Mr. Baker, did not capture the truth of what happened. The baby tyrants who run your newsroom insisted the one op ed by Tom Cotton send in the troops wasn't self violence, and that caused the resignation of Bari Weiss and James Bennett a shameful moment that should live on in infamy if people tell the truth. The left's protesting now, says one. Do what we want or else. That is Mr. Baker, closer to fascism than Trump will ever be. Thank you for listening to my podcast sashastone.com and if you like my work, you can become a paid subscriber or leave a tip on the main page or you can write a review on itunes or wherever you get your podcast. Hope you have a great weekend. And remember to thine own self be true.
- [20:48]
Narrator/Reporter
Subscribe.
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Poet/Singer
Sam. Standing on the water, casting your breath. While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing. Distant ships sailing into the mist. You were born with a snake in both of your fists while the hurricane was blowing. And freedom just around the corner for you. But with the truth so far off, what good will it do? Joker man, dance through the nightingale. Oh, Joker man, so swiftly the sun sets in the sky you rise up and say goodbye to no one. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Both of their futures so full of dread that you don't show up. Shedding off one more layer of skin. Keeping one step ahead of the persecute her within. Joker man, dance to the nightingale.
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Narrator/Reporter
To.
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Sacha Stone
Man.
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Poet/Singer
We are a man of the mountains. You can walk on the clouds, manipulate over crowds. You a dream twister. You going to Sodom, Magnum? But why do you care? Ain't nobody there would want to marry your sister. A friend to the martyr, you're a friend to the woman of shame. You look into the fiery furnace. See the rich man without any name. Your command, dance to the nightingale.
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TikToker 2
Children.
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Poet/Singer
Won'T go.
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Sacha Stone
Oh yeah?
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Poet/Singer
Woe. Your command. Well, the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The lord of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers. In the smoke, through the twilight on a milk white steed. Michelangelo indeed could have carved out your features resting in the field far from the turbulent space. Have a sleep near the stars with a small dark link in your face. Jokerman, dance to the nightingale. Where the rightful man stalking the sick and lame, the preacher a man seeks the same. We'll get there first is unsaid Nightsticks, water cannons, tear gas, pad dogs, Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain, false hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin. Only a matter of time till the night come stepping in. Well, it's a shadowy world, sky is slippery gray. A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet. He'll put the priest in his pocket. Keep the blade to the heat. Take the motherless children off the street and place them at the feet of a harlot. Oh, Joker man, you know what he.
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Sacha Stone
Wants.
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Poet/Singer
Joker man, but you don't show any response. Joker man, dance to the nightingale tune but fly high by the light of the moon.
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Sacha Stone
Wish.