Why My Video Was Removed From YouTube (Burlington, VT)

-All right guys, wanted to
explain to you what happened
with a video of mine and why it was
taken down last week on YouTube.
The video title, “They Ruined My Hometown
– Don’t Let Them Ruin Yours
Burlington, Vermont.”
And so no, it was not YouTube
that took it down.
A lot of you reached out to me saying,
“Hey, YouTube is canceling you.
They’re removing your videos.”
wasn’t YouTube.
It was me.
There was a woman in the video
for the first 40 minutes
I received a call from her
after it went live
and her requesting that I remove her part
and that was rough because
there was a lot of information in there.
There were a lot of good points.
There’s a lot I showed
of what’s going on in the city.
But I had the decision
of respecting her wants
and removing her part of the video
So that’s what happened.
We put the video on private which
we can do so you can’t see it online.
We cut those parts out
and then we put it live again.
So it is live again now,
it’s just missing the whole front end
and like I said, a lot
of great information in that front end.
If you haven’t seen the second part
or the part that’s online now
you can watch this first
and then watch that
and you want to know what was before…
‘Cause there’s some rough cuts
in YouTube unfortunately
we can’t take it off YouTube and edit.
We have to just like cut it inside YouTube
and we had to just do hard chops.
So it’s a little jumpy.
And the reason why
I want to do this video is because
most places I go,
for those that watch my content
you know I’m not the expert.
I’m going into, say, with the Amish
or East LA with the Chicanos,
or on a Native res, or wherever,
and I get in with the locals,
and we learn together through them.
I ask the questions, I open them up
on camera, and that’s how we learn.
We go on a journey together.
Now this video’s a bit different
because I grew up in Vermont.
I was born in Burlington,
I grew up just south of it.
I have a lot of great memories
of the city.
There’s nothing like your roots.
And even though I don’t live there anymore
I know what it was like
and I can remember
all the good times in that city.
So it’s interesting when you come back
and you see such a fall.
It’s more jolting. It’s more like, “Wow.”
And when you’re in it every day,
like anything it’s…
You don’t notice
perhaps the rapid changes
but when you’re gone it’s like
not seeing a relative for a few years,
“Oh, wow, they changed so much.”
but if your with them every day
you don’t notice.
Like anything you’re looking for.
Like there’s a yellow Volkswagen.
You put that in your mind and you’re
gonna start seeing yellow Volkswagens.
So this video was about
showing the problems of Burlington.
You know, I could go
to other parts of the city,
and show ducks swimming around a pond,
and put nice music to it,
and there are kids playing,
and you be like, “This is utopia.”
That wasn’t the goal of this video.
The goal is to show
the heart and the center
of commerce, of urban life in Vermont
is going through a hard downturn.
I was told in the beginning of the video
it was the wrong time
to be showing this story
and the reason being
UVM, University of Vermont
just came back into session
and when all the parents are in town
the town gets cleaned up.
Sort of like when Xi
came to San Francisco.
everything got cleaned up
where Xi was gonna be
and it’s sort of an interesting strategy.
I don’t know how true that is.
I did see that in San Francisco.
I’m not sure if that’s the case
in Burlington but I was told.
All right, so my big observations
were going into the parking garage.
Now the parking garage near Church Street
for those that don’t know Burlington
Church Street’s a long street,
pedestrians street.
All the shops are on it.
Just a great, great vibe back in the day.
It was amazing.
Christmas shopping,
the lights, kids laughing.
It still has some of it
just not at the levels of before.
So the main parking garage
you go into
is full with people doing drugs.
You go in and on the right
I don’t know what they’re doing,
meth, Fentanyl,
whatever it is in the stairway.
I was told
lot of prostitution happens there.
Lot of drug use happens there.
Lot of stolen goods get exchanged there.
This is the parking garage
my mother drove into when I was a child
and we had the bike on the roof of the car
and it ripped the whole thing off.
So that’s not a great memory
with the parking garage
but you wouldn’t worry about your kid.
You know, I was driving at 16
going to Burlington
parking in the parking garage.
If I had 16-year-old kids
or any kids of any age
I would not want them going to
the main parking garage downtown.
[Peter] Watch out ladies,
there’s a bit of a drug scene over there.
Just stay to the left, I think your fine.
-People were fading when we came down.
Then I walked by… there are
a couple churches a block over from there.
People smoking meth,
Fentanyl, whatever else.
It’s an open air drug area now.
You know, not technically
but it’s not enforced.
So if the law’s not enforced then
it’s a de facto open air drug usage place
and I’m not putting the cops
under the bus on this one
because as you’ll see in the other video,
I went into the police station
and they don’t have the staff they need.
They don’t have the officers they need.
So they’re only dealing with
I think right now, the worst emergencies.
They’ve been beat down pretty hard.
So it’s just like, “We’ll just let
all that drug usage happen.”
And then in one of the churches
there’s actually rehab going on
and so those in rehab
have to walk by those using drugs
to go to their rehab and wow…
Quitting any of these substances
I don’t think is easy
and then it being right in your face
must make it much more challenging.
There’s a safe injection site
that’s proposed.
I don’t know
if it’s happening for sure now.
I have quite mixed feelings.
Mostly against those
because from what I’ve seen
in, say, Kensington or San
Francisco it attracts drug users.
Now I’m not totally opposed to it
in the sense if there are
the right services behind it.
Like you have the rehab,
and the job training on the way out,
and you have
the carrot and stick approach.
As in you might get things
if you stay off the drugs
but you can’t just
go through a drug facility
and then use on the streets
right afterwards.
If it’s set up like that and the users
are still on the church lawn
then it’s completely ineffective
and doesn’t help anything out.
So hopefully if that goes through
it’s done in a very logical and sound way.
It’s super difficult problems.
It’s not like I have
any easy answers and nobody does.
I mean drug issue, all over the country
is really, really accelerated.
I mean I see it everywhere all the way
from the border states in the South
all the way north
but what’s different is policies.
When you have towns that have policies
that allow the drug usage on the streets
the needles end up on the streets.
If there’s usage in the parks
then all that stuff’s in the parks
and it has a cascading affect of
now your kids can’t play in the park.
Now you don’t want to take
your family to certain places.
This is all a bit personal for me.
Not just because I’m from Vermont
but I lived in San Francisco
and I left San Francisco in 2021
because of quality life issues.
That is smashed windows, break-ins,
just vagrants all over the place,
people passed out
in the street on Fentanyl
and all of that being accepted.
It takes its toll over time
and like most citizens, most people
want these people have help.
but when there are no rules in place
then you get it everywhere
and then the honest workers, tax-payers,
productive people in society
have to deal with it every day.
and it turns into a mess.
So there are places that allow this stuff,
and places that don’t,
and where they don’t
you don’t have to deal with it every day.
Doesn’t mean the problem’s not there
but the people
that are not using and on drugs
don’t have to live in it.
Which is a big upgrade.
And if you go one level deeper…
You know, I never cared about mayors,
or prosecutors, or DAs.
Who did? Really.
I mean like a few people
really cared about that stuff.
Only when your place of living gets so bad
do you start pulling up the hood and like,
“Who’s creating these policies?”.
“Who’s allowing this? Who’s managing
this? Who’s running the show?”
and when I looked at San Francisco
the DA there, Chesa Boudin,
he was recalled.
Super liberal, San Francisco
recalled him because he was so radical.
It was more of that
criminals are the victim ideology.
So we’re just dealing with
quality of life issues.
Bad quality of life issues
all over the city.
San Francisco said
no more of this, this isn’t working.
He got booted.
What’s very interesting is Sarah George,
the prosecutor for Chittenden County,
so that being Burlington,
is part of this same group.
Fair and Just Prosecution.
All right, so they have
a different approach
to what prosecution should be,
and let’s just call it
it’s way more hands-off.
So the results in places
like San Francisco or Burlington,
where the same style of prosecution
is taking place
is things are getting exponentially worse.
Way worse with crime in the city.
Just overall problems.
And so here’s how it works.
Weaken the DA.
By doing so you demoralize the police.
Because the police go out and just deal
with the most heinous stuff in society.
Right?
And if they get a criminal,
goes through the system,
the DA doesn’t prosecute, that criminal’s
back on the street a day later,
the police get demoralized over time.
They’re like, “What are we doing here?”.
And so a lot of times
felonies turn into misdemeanors.
Misdemeanors aren’t prosecuted.
You also need some weak judges in the mix.
So this is how you break a system down.
If you have a super strong prosecutor
and judges that are following the law
then the police department
should be in a much better position.
We all want excellent policing, right?
Nobody likes bad cops
or really bad anything.
They are doing some of
the most difficult work in society.
That is for sure.
Most of us would not want that job.
You couldn’t pay me enough to do that job.
I can’t imagine doing that job.
So I have a lot of respect
for good cops and they’re needed.
And so there’s an ideology
with some people that,
you know, if the police just went away
then society would be safe
and a lot of these people
have luxury beliefs.
They don’t have much kinetic experience
with how the world works
Luxury beliefs usually come from people
that grew up in nice environments
like the countryside of Vermont.
Go to nice institutions
of higher education like Smith College
with under 3,000 students
but an endowment of over $2 billion.
Not million, billion.
And come to a city
like Burlington, Vermont.
Which up until recently… yeah,
always had problems but nothing like this.
Now kinetic reality is spending time
in the depths of Karachi, Pakistan
or the slums of India,
or even a hard-hitting hood in America
in one of our inner-cities.
This sobers things up very quickly
and it’s interesting
in a lot of inner-city America
the vast majority of citizens
want more policing.
The criminals don’t
but the vast majority of citizens do
because they want to go to work,
send their kids to school,
and live a safer life.
And if you don’t believe me,
go to these places, ask the questions,
talk to them, hear what they have to say.
That’s what I do in my work.
I didn’t know what East New York was like,
or Compton, or any of
the inner-city areas of the country.
I didn’t spend time
in these places growing up.
Only curiosity and actually caring what
they think and their opinions on things
have brought me there.
Unfortunately a lot of our leaders
don’t have experience in the world.
They haven’t lived in India,
or Ukraine, or a far different culture.
And so there’s nothing
to compare and contrast against.
So ideology is easy to gain a lot
of inertia when it’s not fully tested
by kinetic realities like being in
the wrong neighborhood in St. Louis
or Lyari in Karachi, Pakistan
is no easy stroll
and you have to have
emotional intelligence
and you have to be very sober.
I was told multiple times
during this shoot
that people are scared to speak up.
I find that so bizarre
because we’re in America.
Okay? Here’s an example.
I was flying from Moscow
to Damascus, Syria back in 2007.
Landed at the airport, got in a taxi,
and the cabbie found out I was American
and right away he went for it.
He was like,
“What do you think of George W. Bush?”.
If there are any W fans out there
I might offend you but that’s fine.
I think I said something like “Eff W.”
and I didn’t like him and
all these things, right?
So the cabbie lit up
like a Christmas tree.
So excited, like wow, that’s so cool.
And then I said
“What do you think of Bashar all-Assad?”
and his smile just went downwards,
and he got a bit tense,
and his eyes got heavy, and he’s like,
you know,
[whispers] “He’s a good president,
Bashar all-Assad.”
And he was lying.
And he was envious of me
that I could speak my mind.
That I could have an opinion like that
and talk out against my leader
because they can’t over there.
And you realize speech controls thought,
controls your emotions, and everything.
And nobody likes rude,
obnoxious people yelling whatever at them.
Like nobody enjoys that
but the fact that in 2024
people in Vermont are scared to speak up
because I was told
they’re afraid to be cancelled,
afraid to be called a racist
or a homophobe.
And I’m on the internet
so I’ve been through this years ago.
You know, the first time
you’re called a racist it’s a big deal
’cause that’s the worst thing
you can call someone.
Most people, right? And it hits you hard
and so many people…
It’s pretty unbelievable.
It’s like we’re in sixth grade now
with bullies on the playground
and their name-calling.
A way to shut people down is to
call them racist, fascist, neo-Nazi.
I’ve gotten that one. That’s a fun one.
Everything under the sun
but once it happens a few times
you realize these words are meaningless.
It’s like an exclamation point
at the end of every sentence.
People are so scared to speak up
that they’ll let terrible policy
tank their city.
So bizarre.
Now in the video, the link below,
there are many people in Burlington
that spoke up.
I want to thank you all for that,
those that did ’cause many more
didn’t want to talk.
And so the only way things turn around
is to have the conversations
and say, “You know what, enough’s enough.”
I don’t want to raise my kids in a place
where it’s okay for people
to be using drugs on the streets
and leaving their needles
and that should be an open conversation.
Now in 2024 Vermont
a lot of the people that say this,
you’re called a racist for saying that.
What’s it have to do with race?
It’s like I don’t want crime,
and vagrants, and problems in my city.
So it’s quite silly and it’s a bit sillier
that people go along with this stuff
but I think things are starting to turn.
And so people in Burlington
need to stand up together
and call out the BS
when it’s in front of them.
Which there is plenty.
Okay, here’s an interesting one for you.
The presence of BLM is more in Burlington,
as in flags, and stickers,
big banners on churches than
anywhere else I’ve seen in the country.
Before I’m called a racist
’cause that’s the easy go to,
a lot of good people supported BLM.
Black Lives Matter, of course.
Most people think that.
It’s not about that.
It’s about the organization
that really leveraged good will
and the goodness of people
in somewhat of a nefarious way
and here’s what I mean by that.
Look into the three cofounders.
Watch their interviews.
See what their ideology is.
Ask yourself,
“Where did the money come from?”.
A lot of individual donors to BLM
and I can respect that
if someone believes in the cause.
A lot of big donors. Check those ones out.
And then more importantly
where did the money go?
And it did not go to Black America.
It did not go to
any inner-city place I’ve seen
and that’s why BLM for some reason
is way more popular
in White Burlington, Vermont
than any Black neighborhood
in the country that I’ve been to
and most of the people
I’ve talked to in these neighborhoods,
’cause I like to actually talk to them
and listen to what they have to say
There’ll be some supporters
but the vast majority are like,
“What’d they do for us?
We saw none of that money.
They leveraged our pain
for their own grift.
They bought their mansions
and sailed off into the sunset.”
And so you’re in 2024 Burlington, Vermont
under the city hall
and there’s a BLM flag there.
And you ask yourself,
“How is that even legal?”.
At this point it’s a political movement.
How is that legal to be on city property?
And that fact that people
haven’t asked that question
but it’s still there four years later.
Quite surprising.
Underneath the flag on a bench
is a sex offender
and then your looking at
drug deals over here,
the bricks sort of chipping up,
and then all of these businesses
working in an
extremely difficult business climate
Reason being is a lot of people
don’t want to go downtown to shop anymore.
So they have to pay heavy leases,
insurances, employees.
It’s not easy.
And you’re looking at city hall
scratching your head saying,
“Okay, these people in city hall here
make their salaries through tax revenue.”
So the people conducting business
on the street are generating tax revenue.
That tax revenue can pay for the city
and even the pensions of these workers.
And the social contract
seems to be broken.
As in you pay your taxes as a business
you get safety and security
on your street,
and they failed.
And it’s really mind-boggling to see that
there seems to be a lack of connection
of understanding how that works.
How that relationship works.
All the business owners I talked to
are fed up with this stuff.
Another point made in the video
is destructive empathy.
Okay, things that look really good
on the surface
but have second,
third, fourth order consequences
that do a lot of harm.
Let me give you an example.
I was in Brattleboro,
a small city in the south of Vermont.
There’s a pedestrian bridge.
There’s a co-op, nice co-op, great co-op.
And so if you’re walking
across the bridge, it’s a narrow bridge,
and at the end of the bridge
every time I went by it
there were at least two people on drugs
asking for money.
And from what I’ve seen across the country
these situations usually
someone owns that corner.
As in the people begging for money
aren’t keeping the money.
Usually they’re giving it to their
higher-up,
whoever’s controlling that corner
and getting the free drugs,
and staying dependent.
That’s not a great situation.
What does the co-op do?
They set up a water cooler
because the people on drugs are thirsty
and that would be
a nice humanitarian thing to do, right?
Give ’em water.
They’re not doing so well out there.
Second order of effect,
the handicap mother
that lives on the other side of the bridge
who sent their kid over the bridge
for groceries traditionally
can’t do it anymore.
Because as a responsible parent
you wouldn’t do that.
You wouldn’t put your kid
through that situation.
So that family
now has to deal with a problem.
Third order effect.
You’re the young couple moving up from
Massachusetts, or New York, or wherever
because you want to get
into the countryside
and you look at the situation,
and you say to yourself,
“Hmm, why not go over the river,
Keene, New Hampshire?
From what I’ve sen they don’t allow this
and raise my family there.
No state income tax, no sales tax,
and no meth heads
in front of the co-op or grocery store.
And my kids can walk around
in the park without needles.”
And so that’s the third order effect
and then the fourth is
that young energy doesn’t come in,
that young family structure,
the schools take a hit,
the businesses downtown take a hit,
they move out and it’s a doom loop.
It takes on its own inertia.
It’s a downward spiral.
I’m not saying
this is happening to Brattleboro
but these are little things that
should be corrected in their first stages
so they don’t turn into
disaster situations down the road.
So there’s a lot of destructive empathy
I see in Burlington.
Just allowing all of this to happen
and not looking at the
consequences that happen
because of these
I think somewhat easy actions.
You can give someone water,
you can give them a little money,
you can feel good about yourself
but what does that lead
to down the road for them
and for the rest of society?
And then…[laughs]
Okay, so I’m at this store, Homeport,
and Mark, who owns Homeport
is in the other video.
He’s still up there.
Great store.
And out the back door
a couple stories up
you’re looking down at the back side
of the parking garage
I was talking about earlier
and they have a program called
Food Not Cops.
Food Not Cops.
Couldn’t be called Food and Cops.
Food and Good Policing.
No, Food Not Cops.
Interesting name choice.
And a lot of the people eating there
are the criminals and the thieves
taking things from the
businesses on Church Street.
So you have a non-profit set up
with hot meals for those that need them.
Of course many of them need them.
Not everyone who’s there is a criminal
but I was told the majority were.
[Mark]This guy here
with the little cross-body bag
and the backwards hat is a purse-snatcher.
[Peter] Okay, so the purse snatcher
snatches his purses
then comes in the back, gets
a hot meal, then goes back to work?
-Yep.
And so you’re looking at the situation
and someone can go
steal from one of these stores,
go get a nice lunch, take a break,
and get back to stealing in the afternoon.
I mean you can’t make this stuff up.
I said why not,
if people need meals,
why would you put this
at your main parking garage
next to your main shopping district
in the whole state?
Like what would be the point of that?
What is the point of that?
Meals Not Cops.
Let me know in the comments below.
It’s odd that you would do it there.
Doesn’t seem like it’s benefiting
the citizens of Burlington so much.
In a way Burlington feels like
a restaurant where those parents
have their five-year-old running around
making a ton of noise, screaming,
annoying everyone in the restaurant,
and they’re not doing a thing.
That’s what Burlington
feels like right now.
It’s like we need some adults in the room.
Politicians that are actually there
because they want to create policy
that works for the people of the city
versus the number one thing
being identity politics.
One thing a lot of people
reached out to me and told me was
that out of state
college students can vote
for Burlington city government positions.
So that is causing a bit of issue
’cause it’s such a big college town
and you know
if something is well-organized
and you can hit that young population
that’s a huge number.
And so a lot of the locals told me,
“Look, we’re not voting for this stuff
but there’s a massive student population.”
Students, not saying
your all voting for whomever.
I’m just saying that the weight
of that vote is somewhat changing
the voting dynamic in the city.
Policies equal tangible realities.
So Burlingtonians, a lot of you
are not for what’s going on right now.
Next time you vote…
What are the policies
of the people you’re voting for?
Like what do they care about?
And I’m not looking at empty words.
Everyone can say security and safety,
and they that works
’cause that’s what people want.
You might have to go in
on hour long podcasts.
I did a fair amount of that.
I always do that.
I find them fascinating. You can
really see where people are coming from.
What their ideology is.
How they view the world.
And it’s pretty easy
when you get long form uncut
to see what their stances are.
So policies equal realities.
That’s it for now, guys.
That’s the beginning, most of what
was said in the removed part of the video
and from here, got the video down below.
Click that link and you’ll see
the second part of this story.
Lastly, Burlington,
still beautiful.
Once was amazing, now is on its knees.
Has total capability to come around.
It needs the right leadership
and support of the community.
All right guys, thanks for watching.
Until the next one.