An American contradiction
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Proud Boys say they are nothing more than a fraternal drinking club, but they regularly show up armed to far-right rallies across the US. On a marijuana farm in Oregon, Mike Wendling meets one of their local leaders – a man who, in between stints farming weed, survives on government disability benefits while also agitating for an end to all forms of welfare.
Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world:
Sahar Zand has an unsettling visit to the Museum of Jihad in Afghanistan.
Sian Griffiths skates across the world’s largest naturally-frozen ice rink and hears what impact rising temperatures are having on the outdoor skating season in Canada.
Martin Vennard joins an old boys' club in Bangladesh.
And Rob Crossan delves beneath the usual tourist traps in Tenerife and explores the volcanic subterranean tunnels which are home to the world’s ugliest invertebrate: a mutant with no wings or eyes.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello. |
| 0:06.3 | Today we go sightseeing in Afghanistan at the Museum of Jihad in Herat, and Skating in Canada as we hear claims that rising |
| 0:16.0 | global temperatures could soon cut short the outdoor skating season there. |
| 0:20.5 | In Bangladesh we get a glimpse of how the elite are educated and we borrow underground |
| 0:26.4 | in Tenerife to the tunnels which are home to perhaps the world's ugliest invertebrate |
| 0:31.6 | a mutant with no wings or eyes. |
| 0:36.4 | Since the election of Donald Trump, rival groups of far-right and far-left activists have |
| 0:41.4 | battled in the streets of the US. |
| 0:44.0 | According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which monitors extremism, |
| 0:48.5 | there are now over a thousand hate groups in the US |
| 0:52.0 | more than at any point over the past 20 years. |
| 0:55.1 | Among them are the proud boys. |
| 0:57.6 | This group claims it's nothing more than a fraternity for like-minded men, |
| 1:02.0 | but they act as security at far-right protests, and last week |
| 1:06.1 | two of its members pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for their roles in |
| 1:10.6 | a brawl in Manhattan last year. In Oregon, Mike Wendling met the leader of one of its local chapters. |
| 1:17.0 | Rob Cantrell is an American contradiction. In between gigs as a marijuana farmer he survives on a $900 a month |
| 1:26.8 | disability check from the government. He also wants to end all forms of welfare. |
| 1:34.0 | We can do that by having a more lucrative economy, he says, optimistically, and by taking care |
| 1:40.6 | of each other a little bit more. |
| 1:43.0 | Rob shows me around the weed farm where he worked last summer. |
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