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Joe Rogan podcast, check it

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0:10

The guys today, I think

0:12

they're the highest level fighters

0:14

all the time. We run? Hey, Darryl.

0:16

What's going on, man? How's it going?

0:18

We were just talking UFC. Yeah. I

0:21

think this is the, we were talking

0:23

about how exciting the Angalaya and Pereira

0:25

fight was, even though people didn't, they

0:27

didn't like it because it wasn't like

0:29

some crazy result in a giant knockout

0:31

like you get in most Pereira fights,

0:34

but it was so technical. And Angalaya

0:36

just did a fantastic job of shutting down

0:38

the scariest guy in the division. Yeah. I

0:40

just, and the psychological aspect of it, I've

0:42

just, he made him back up and second

0:44

guess himself. Yeah. And you know, that's. You

0:46

can't just do that by being aggressive. You

0:48

can't, you know, you really got to get

0:51

in there and you got to hurt him

0:53

a little bit and you just have to

0:55

put that on him. And it was, it

0:57

was amazing to watch. I thought it was

0:59

a great fight. Well, it was so interesting

1:01

because the consequences of exchanging with prayer are

1:03

so high, but also Uncle Ive. Uncle Ive

1:05

knocked a lot of people out. We always

1:08

look at Pereira's knockouts, but... Uncle Elias knocked

1:10

out some of the best guys in the

1:12

division and he only lost one time and

1:14

that was Paul Craig has the nastiest fucking

1:17

triangle it's so sneaky and so quick and

1:19

you don't expect it he's so high level

1:21

off his back and he caught him I

1:23

think with like one second to go in

1:26

the third round a fight that he was

1:28

losing. Yeah he broke Jamal's arm or he

1:30

dislocated his elbow too. He's one of those

1:32

guys like uh, you know like Ryan Hall.

1:35

It's like you know they're on the

1:37

feet dancing around it's like You know, what

1:39

are we really watching here kind of?

1:41

But man, as soon as they hit

1:43

the ground. Yeah, there's a giant disparity

1:45

between his stand-up, which is good. His

1:47

good stand-up, you know, and the bow nickel

1:49

fight was entirely stand-up. It was a

1:51

good fight. You know, he looked good

1:53

on the feet, but you would never

1:55

say, you know, this is like an

1:57

Israel Adesania type character. He doesn't have

1:59

that level. proficiency with striking but God when

2:02

he gets on his back you're in such

2:04

danger like nobody else in the division it's

2:06

weird because most guys you're on their back

2:08

you're not really worried about it with Paul

2:11

Craig it's like everything has to be tight

2:13

especially guys that size you don't see it

2:15

as often no you don't especially in an

2:17

arrow when you know the off-your-back jujitsu is

2:20

kind of I don't want to say like, you

2:22

know, they figured out the game on that

2:24

yet, but you know, it's not quite to

2:26

that level. You still have your Craigslist and

2:29

all the various people like that who really

2:31

are dangerous off their back, but it's not

2:33

as common anymore, you know. Well, it's really

2:35

hard to do. And also, most people don't

2:37

want to be on their back, so they

2:40

don't even practice off their back. And the

2:42

common thought amongst coaches is when you're on

2:44

your back, there's two minutes to go. constant

2:46

getting back up to your feet, minimizing whatever

2:48

scoring your opponent has done while taking you

2:51

down and whatever shots they've landed, mitigate those

2:53

as much as possible, and get to the

2:55

feet as quickly as possible. That's what everybody's

2:57

trying to do now. Especially in a three-round

3:00

fight. I mean, it's like, yeah, you let

3:02

yourself get laid on for three minutes in

3:04

the first round. Nothing really happens, but you

3:06

lost that round. You better win the second

3:08

one. Well, look at like the Armin Sarukian.

3:11

fight. If you think about that fight with

3:13

Charles Olivera, Charles Olivera caught him multiple times

3:15

in like deep submissions, which I think should

3:17

count for a lot, which I thought if

3:19

I looked at who won that fight,

3:22

I would say Olivera won that

3:24

fight. Olivera had him in deep

3:26

trouble. It was a very, it

3:28

was kind of a controversial opinion,

3:30

but I think a tightly locked

3:32

triangle or a dark choke or

3:34

anything along those lines should be

3:36

considered winning. You're doing something very difficult

3:38

to do. Your opponent doesn't want it

3:41

to happen. You've dominated a position to

3:43

the point where you're, you secured a

3:45

submission. And then this guy sneaks out

3:47

with sweat and technique and fucking grit.

3:50

Yeah. But he was in fucking trouble.

3:52

Oh, deep, deep trouble. Yes. Oh, definitely.

3:54

I'm a little biased on this one

3:56

because I'm an adopted member of the

3:59

Armenian community. Yeah, but it was

4:01

a great fight. I'm a giant

4:03

fan of Armenians. You know what

4:05

I love about it? There's so

4:07

many great fighters in the U.S.C.

4:09

all the way back to Karl

4:11

Parisian, been Armenian, but just I

4:13

like the style of the people.

4:16

Yeah, exactly. The thing I love

4:18

about them is Armenians love being

4:20

Armenian. Yes, they do. It's great

4:22

to be around. I love it.

4:24

Very friendly people, too. So this

4:26

podcast, like, there's podcast. I never

4:28

say who's coming on the who's

4:30

coming on the podcast. I just

4:33

like put it out there. Everybody

4:35

knew that Trump was coming on

4:37

and this has been a couple

4:39

times when people knew that I

4:41

was interviewing people for the most

4:43

part. I just like to do

4:45

it, have the conversation, and then

4:47

put it out. But you put

4:49

it on Twitter that you were

4:52

coming on and then... the campaign

4:54

began. I put it on my

4:56

sub stack behind the payroll but

4:58

apparently some of my enemies you

5:00

know pay me five bucks a

5:02

month to follow my sub stack.

5:04

I saw what happened with you

5:06

on the Tucker Carlson thing and

5:09

I spoke about it almost immediately

5:11

on the podcast whenever I felt

5:13

like it came up I don't

5:15

remember how many days afterwards but

5:17

I've been listening to your podcast

5:19

for a long time and it's

5:21

it's so charitable and comprehensive and

5:23

comprehensive and so thorough and so

5:25

you put so much weight on

5:28

the real lives and suffering of

5:30

human beings on all sides of

5:32

any conflict. The regular people that

5:34

didn't want to be dragged into

5:36

any war that find themselves on

5:38

the front line. The stories that

5:40

you tell and the way you

5:42

tell them is so comprehensive and

5:44

so again charitable. Like the humanity

5:47

of these people is so well

5:49

expressed that your fans know you.

5:51

I'm a fan. I know you.

5:53

I know how you view things.

5:55

I know how you portray things.

5:57

I know how honest you are

5:59

about all aspects of conflict. And

6:01

again, it's charity. is possible the

6:04

way you lay this out. So

6:06

when I saw these attacks on

6:08

you and people were calling you

6:10

an anti-Semite and a Nazi apologist,

6:12

I was like, good Lord, this

6:14

is not going to work on

6:16

people who know him. I've been

6:18

through that ringer before. I know

6:20

what that is. But with you,

6:23

I was like, all anyone needs

6:25

to do. And I encourage you.

6:27

If you're like, I can't believe

6:29

you have this guy on. Listen

6:31

to fear and loathing in the

6:33

new Jerusalem. Listen to it. You

6:35

don't even have to listen to

6:37

the whole thing. Listen to the

6:40

first hour of it. And there's

6:42

no fucking way the person who

6:44

made that is anti-Semitic in any

6:46

way shape or form. And that's

6:48

just one of the things that

6:50

you've done that show that. It's

6:52

like the problem is when someone

6:54

says something and they're trying to

6:56

be hyperbolic or they're trying to

6:59

get a reaction or you're shit

7:01

talking or you post a meme

7:03

online or something like that. bizarre

7:05

culture we live in that wants

7:07

to reduce people to the worst

7:09

possible interpretations of what they said

7:11

or who they are and to

7:13

ignore everything else but for one

7:16

small tweet or one statement made

7:18

in you know trying to be

7:20

trying to get a reaction trying

7:22

to be outrageous like it's a

7:24

stupid thing to be outrageous like

7:26

it's a stupid thing And as

7:28

someone who values your show and

7:30

listens to your show all the

7:32

time, it's not just stupid. It's

7:35

bizarre how many people fall for

7:37

this kind of stupidity. And I

7:39

know how this whole thing works.

7:41

I guarantee you probably gained a

7:43

bunch of fans, and you probably

7:45

gained a bunch of people who

7:47

listened, because most of the time

7:49

when someone gets discredited in the

7:52

media or someone gets shamed. A

7:54

lot of people will immediately hop.

7:56

on board, but a lot of

7:58

other people will go, well, what

8:00

is this guy saying? Like, what

8:02

is this about? Like, what's their

8:04

content like? And if they listen

8:06

to your show, they will realize,

8:08

like, it's one of the very

8:11

best long-form history podcast that's available

8:13

online. It's fantastic. It's really good.

8:15

So it's so unfortunate that... there

8:17

is these attack vectors that they

8:19

could use to try to change

8:21

perception of who you are. But

8:23

the fortunate aspect is there's so

8:25

much of your work out there

8:28

that anyone could just comb through

8:30

and you know you're not hearing

8:32

that side of it from any

8:34

of these people, any of these

8:36

detractors. No one's saying, you know,

8:38

listen, I listen to some of

8:40

his stuff and you know... Maybe

8:42

he shouldn't have said what he

8:44

said about Winston Churchill, but I

8:47

think he was just being hyperbolic.

8:49

And if you just listen to

8:51

actually what he says about the

8:53

whole conflict, you kind of get

8:55

an understanding of who this guy

8:57

is. And so there was a

8:59

lot of resistance to having you

9:01

on, but I was like, fuck

9:04

that resistance. I know what you

9:06

actually do. And so that's why

9:08

we're here. Well, thank you. I

9:10

appreciate that. And yeah, you know,

9:12

I mean, the Tucker interview interview

9:14

was, I could have been clearer.

9:16

And what I was saying, I'm

9:18

not going to like, absolve myself.

9:20

Let's explain what you said, because

9:23

you were talking about what you

9:25

say to Jaco, right? Yeah, that's

9:27

how it originally came up, because

9:29

Jaco's wife's English, right? So Churchill's

9:31

like a sacred figure in their

9:33

pantheon. And so I said that,

9:35

you know, maybe I'm being a

9:37

little provocative here. I like to

9:40

provoke Jaco with my Churchill takes

9:42

or whatever. the

9:44

German invasion of Poland into the

9:46

Second World War, basically, you know,

9:48

that, you know, it's... As I

9:50

get older, I posted something on

9:52

X today, that somebody had posted a

9:54

video. a drone is going toward

9:56

a Ukrainian or a Russian truck or

9:59

something and it hits it and

10:01

it doesn't blow up. And it's like

10:03

boom, boom, it tries to, it

10:05

doesn't blow up, it doesn't blow up.

10:07

And as I was watching that

10:09

thing, I felt like when it

10:11

didn't blow up and the video ended,

10:14

I felt like this really strong

10:16

sense of relief that it didn't blow

10:18

up. And what I reposted it

10:20

and I said, I think, you know,

10:22

as I get older, like. I

10:24

just don't have the stomach for this

10:27

kind of stuff anymore. And I

10:29

see something like that, and like, I

10:31

don't care who's in the truck.

10:33

I don't care if it's Russians, I

10:35

don't care if it's North Koreans,

10:37

or Ukraine. It's human beings. I'm just

10:40

like, I'm just glad that they're

10:42

okay. That's what I actually felt

10:44

at the time, you know? And as

10:46

I get older, like, I'm just,

10:48

I'm happy when they're over, and they

10:50

need, like... I mean, the damage

10:52

that they do to people, and not

10:55

only to the people who were

10:57

in it fighting, but that it does

10:59

to the societies and cultures that

11:01

are involved in these things, it does

11:04

real damage to our spirit, you

11:06

know. You should go back to 2004

11:08

when the Abu Ghraib expose came

11:10

out. You know, Americans were horrified by

11:12

that, and rightly so, you know,

11:14

they saw those pictures, but the

11:16

thing that was interesting is that they

11:19

were horrified... Yeah, partly because, like,

11:21

look how awful this is that they're

11:23

doing to these people or something.

11:25

But, you know, for all they knew,

11:27

they knew these people were in

11:29

prison. They might have thought they were

11:32

terrorists or something. What people were

11:34

really, like, feeling at the time was,

11:36

what are we doing to our

11:38

people? Like, what is, you know, what

11:40

are we putting them through that

11:42

our people are being reduced to this?

11:45

You know, and, you know, kind

11:47

of the sad thing now is

11:49

like, like, like, I don't know, the

11:51

war on terror has sort of

11:53

desensitized us to a lot and hardened

11:55

our hearts in ways that are

11:57

not good for us. And so when

12:00

I do my podcast, you know,

12:02

whether I'm talking about Israelis and Palestinians.

12:04

I did a long one on

12:06

Jonestown, seven episodes, like 35 hours long.

12:08

And whoever it is, like my

12:10

rule is that I don't record anything

12:13

until I feel like I can

12:15

put myself in the shoes of

12:17

the people that I'm going to talk

12:19

about and really kind of understand

12:21

how how their actions

12:23

made sense to them with the

12:25

information they had in the context

12:27

of their time. You know what

12:30

I mean? And so when you

12:32

do something like that with the

12:34

Milai Massacre, for example, I did

12:36

that with that story, the Jonestown

12:38

one, I mean, Jonestown, you're talking

12:40

about like this raving lunatic, who

12:42

took a bunch of people out

12:44

into the jungle and they all

12:46

committed suicide. So, you know, putting

12:48

your, it's very tempting and very

12:50

easy to just. You know, but

12:52

the thing is, like if you

12:54

really think about the consequences of

12:56

taking the wrong lessons from things

12:58

like that, you know, the response

13:00

that we, that the federal government

13:02

had to the Waco standoff in

13:04

the early 90s was very much

13:06

informed by the way people thought

13:08

about Jonestown, which is that, you

13:10

know, we let this go on

13:12

too long, the problem wasn't that,

13:14

you know, that maybe we had

13:16

this. this paranoid group of radicals

13:18

out here that, you know, maybe

13:20

we shouldn't have done so much

13:22

to feed into that paranoia. We

13:24

need to ease these people out

13:26

of it and try to de-escalate.

13:28

Instead, we should have, we could

13:31

have prevented it. If only we'd

13:33

have gone in hard right at

13:35

the beginning and taken this guy

13:37

out, and so then you get

13:39

wakeo, you know. And so there

13:41

are real world consequences to taking

13:43

the wrong lessons from these things.

13:45

And really just kind of forgetting

13:47

that... It doesn't, I mean, look,

13:49

you may have like your Jeffrey

13:51

Domers or something out there that

13:53

are an exception to this rule,

13:55

but they are the exception that

13:57

proves the rule. It doesn't matter

13:59

who you're talking about. You could

14:01

be talking about Uday Hussein, you

14:03

know, Saddam's son, just a sadistic

14:05

monster of a human being. But

14:07

you know, that kid was a

14:09

three-year-old at one point, or that

14:11

guy was a three-year-old kid at

14:13

one point, who did not, like,

14:15

it's not like he was waiting

14:17

in line in the spirit world

14:19

before he was born, and they're

14:21

like, who wants to be Saddam

14:23

Hussein's son? And he's like, I

14:25

do, I do. That's the world

14:27

he was thrust into, you know.

14:29

And you see a guy like

14:31

that. you know, if the stories

14:34

are true, at least, like Saddam

14:36

Hussein used to take him and

14:38

his brother when he was six

14:40

years old to go watch torture

14:42

sessions and executions because he needed

14:44

to harden them for, you know,

14:46

ruling the country one day. And

14:48

it's like, I don't, I don't

14:50

want to pretend like I have

14:52

the remotest idea of, you know,

14:54

you know, how a kid is

14:56

supposed to respond to watching torture

14:58

sessions when he's six years old

15:00

and coming up in that world.

15:02

Like, what do I know about

15:04

that? You know about that? You

15:06

know about that. You know what

15:08

I mean. I try to stay

15:10

humble as I'm reading about these

15:12

people, not assume that I'm better

15:14

than them or different than them,

15:16

and really just try to understand

15:18

them on human terms, you know.

15:20

And again, it doesn't, when I

15:22

did that in the, in the

15:24

Tucker interview with regard to the

15:26

Germans and the Second World War,

15:28

and the series that I'm working

15:30

on right now, which is the

15:32

Second World War, from the perspective

15:34

of the Germans, you know, it's,

15:37

people who, It's not just people

15:39

who are purposely misinterpreting things or

15:41

anything, you know, a lot of

15:43

people who are in good faith,

15:45

they see something like that and

15:47

they think you're trying to justify

15:49

or rationalize what happened, you know,

15:51

because there is this, there is

15:53

this thing where, I mean, the

15:55

Jonestown story, this really did kind

15:57

of happen to me where, you

15:59

know, when you get past a

16:01

certain threshold of understanding people, it's,

16:03

you're budding right up against... empathizing

16:05

with them. I mean, it's like,

16:07

that's the very, you know, that's

16:09

like the next step. You gotta

16:11

take one more step and you're

16:13

empathizing with those people. And so

16:15

people see that, you know, and

16:17

you're empathizing with evil people, you

16:19

know, whoever it is. But I

16:21

really believe that it's, it's. really

16:23

good for us like individually you

16:25

know and and as a society

16:27

too to I think it has

16:29

a positive effect on us to

16:31

like when we force ourselves to

16:33

understand you know people we don't

16:35

like as human beings and just

16:38

understand that their motivations are really

16:40

no different than ours. Well this

16:42

is one of the reasons why

16:44

your podcast is so important because

16:46

you talk about things in this

16:48

way and this is one of

16:50

the reasons why I knew you

16:52

were misconstrued or you would be

16:54

misconstrued if something like that came

16:56

up. Doing that is fine with

16:58

Jonestown. you know with Jonestown everybody's

17:00

like well how could these people

17:02

have convinced these people to drink

17:04

the Kool-Aid who why would the

17:06

people do it who what kind

17:08

of a monster turns into this

17:10

genocidal maniac and brings people to

17:12

the jungle and does this but

17:14

when you do it with any

17:16

other subject you can kind of

17:18

get away with that until it

17:20

gets to Nazis until it gets

17:22

to World War II and then

17:24

there people have these red flags

17:26

that pop up that just completely

17:28

block out any objectivity they they

17:30

remove all nuance you you lose

17:32

all objectivity you you just anything

17:34

you're saying you're saying imagine being

17:36

a young man drafted into Hitler's

17:38

army at 17 years old and

17:41

not knowing what you're doing and

17:43

then becoming this monster that's a

17:45

Nazi biologist right this is we've

17:47

had this reductionist perspective on anything

17:49

that has to do with that

17:51

horrific moment in history, that if

17:53

you even attempt to do this

17:55

very comprehensive process that you do

17:57

with all other subjects, where you

17:59

look at the human angle, you

18:01

look at these people, the conflict,

18:03

how did this get started? It's

18:05

not, there's good people on one

18:07

side, there's evil people on the

18:09

other side. No, there's genuinely just

18:11

human beings. And there's horrible circumstances.

18:13

circumstances, and then there's evil people

18:15

who lead these people in horrible

18:17

circumstances to do evil terrible things.

18:19

And people are tribal, and they

18:21

can buy into all kinds of

18:23

crazy ideas and go forth and

18:25

do horrific atrocities and believe that

18:27

God is on their side. This

18:29

is a part of being a

18:31

human being that has existed fucking

18:33

forever. but in our culture and

18:35

our media environment where everybody is

18:37

rightly so so terrified of anti-Semitism

18:39

because there's real anti-Semitism out there

18:42

and real anti-Semitism is horrible just

18:44

like real racism is horrible the

18:46

problem with calling everything racist and

18:48

everything anti-Semitic when it's clearly not

18:50

is that you diminish what that

18:52

word means you're you're essentially crying

18:54

wolf you're doing it in ways

18:56

where rational logical people who know

18:58

your work have a very good

19:00

argument against it. Like this doesn't

19:02

make any sense in the context

19:04

of which it was said, if

19:06

you look at the body of

19:08

his work, if you look at

19:10

how he talks about things, this

19:12

is how he approaches stuff. This

19:14

whole being provocative is part of

19:16

what you do. It's part of

19:18

what makes the audio come to

19:20

life in these podcasts when you're

19:22

talking about these moments in history.

19:24

This subject is just so sore

19:26

with people and particularly right now

19:28

after October 7th where, you know,

19:30

I just, I remember all of

19:32

a sudden going on X and

19:34

seeing anti-Semitism just like white right

19:36

out in the open, blaming Jews

19:38

for everything going. Whoa, like is

19:40

this been hiding like what and

19:42

then you start thinking the way

19:45

your paranoid Jewish friends think that

19:47

everybody's anti-Semitic and you go well

19:49

now I kind of understand why

19:51

they think that way So I

19:53

kind of understand the overreaction, but

19:55

it is still an overreaction and

19:57

I think what you do is

19:59

very valuable to me that want

20:01

to hear this nuanced comprehensive perspective

20:03

on these conflicts and from a

20:05

person who obviously cares deeply about

20:07

them and cares deeply about the

20:09

human cost of these. One of

20:11

the things that you do so

20:13

well and I was just talking

20:15

to Dave Smith about this yesterday.

20:17

the gravity of war, the toll

20:19

it takes on the people that

20:21

are engaged in it and the

20:23

people that are just outside of

20:25

it and what is left of

20:27

their civilization. It's fucking horrific and

20:29

it should be avoided at all

20:31

costs. But we don't, you don't

20:33

avoid it by exaggerating, you don't

20:35

avoid it by distorting someone's perspective

20:37

and turning everybody into a monster.

20:39

so that everyone's scared to talk

20:41

at all. Because this is the

20:43

main objective. Most overreactions like that

20:46

that are public and hyper aggressive

20:48

and constant and continuous, it's not

20:50

just you. It's to stop anybody

20:52

from ever doing anything like that

20:54

in the future to let them

20:56

know this consequences. There's going to

20:58

be your status online, your... whatever

21:00

you're, you know, however you're viewed

21:02

by people will be now marred

21:04

forever with this ugly stain of

21:06

being not just an anti-Semite, but

21:08

a Nazi apologist, that's what I

21:10

read, Nazi apologist, like you can't

21:12

say that unless you listen to

21:14

his stuff, you can't. Unless they

21:16

listen to your work, they can't

21:18

say that, because they don't know

21:20

what the fuck they're talking about.

21:22

It's like someone trying to opine

21:24

upon a culture that they've never

21:26

read about or never visit. You

21:28

don't know what you're saying. Yeah,

21:30

I've been told by people who

21:32

should know that there are a

21:34

few European countries I shouldn't try

21:36

to visit, because they probably won't

21:38

let me off the plane. Yeah,

21:40

I would go. Because of that.

21:42

They don't want to. I don't

21:44

want to try North Idaho. Yeah,

21:46

it's a wild place. You got

21:49

wolves and bears. It's just, this

21:51

is just part of what people

21:53

do. I was going to say

21:55

too, you know, that overreaction is

21:57

really counterproductive too. You know, because

21:59

to go back to what I

22:01

said a second ago, like understanding.

22:03

brings you right up to the

22:05

brink of empathy, you know, that,

22:07

you know, more understanding to these

22:09

issues. And I've found this a

22:11

hundred times, you know, because, like,

22:13

look, anti-Semitism is a weird thing.

22:15

And we can talk about some

22:17

of the history of that if

22:19

you want. But, you know, it's

22:21

this thing that people get obsessed

22:23

with, you know, what I mean?

22:25

Like, it's not like part of

22:27

their ideology. I've watched this happen

22:29

to, like, good, clear thinking, regular

22:31

thinking, regular thinking, regular people, regular

22:33

people, regular people, They can't repost

22:35

under their real name on Twitter

22:37

because they're funny or interesting and

22:39

then pretty soon you can't bring

22:41

that dude to a party anymore

22:43

because he just can't go 10

22:45

minutes without in neutral company like

22:47

bringing up the Jews and it's

22:50

like that happens you see that

22:52

happen I mean the you know

22:54

what you see on social media

22:56

a lot I mean it's like

22:58

a there's been like a big

23:00

explosion of that kind of rhetoric

23:02

you know yeah and I think

23:04

a lot of it is online

23:06

trolling and it's, you know, the

23:08

fact that people are so sensitive

23:10

about it that like it's just

23:12

the easiest way to get a

23:14

huge reaction, you know, from people.

23:16

I think a lot of it

23:18

has to do with that, but

23:20

I think a lot of it

23:22

also has to do with the

23:24

fact that so many of these

23:26

of these questions have really been

23:28

made. It's not like they're off

23:30

limits, like they're illegal, and you're

23:32

going to go to jail if

23:34

you talk about them. I'm still

23:36

sitting here. I mean, I'm on

23:38

your podcast, and so it's a

23:40

big platform to talk about these

23:42

things. It's not like that, but

23:44

the attempt is to make it

23:46

so that you can't be in

23:48

any kind of respectable society. Yeah,

23:50

the attempt is to make you

23:53

radioactive. something I think Theo was

23:55

talking about this in one of

23:57

his recent interviews you say you

23:59

know you somebody sees what's happening

24:01

in Gaza right now and they

24:03

just see kids getting pulled out

24:05

of rubble and it's shocking and

24:07

horrifying and they see that and

24:09

they find out that the US

24:11

is sending money and weapons and

24:13

why is that happening and they

24:15

start looking into it and they

24:17

go to the websites that are

24:19

going to tell them the truth

24:21

about it and pretty soon one

24:23

link leads to another and when

24:25

they go ask one of their

24:27

you know, history professors at school

24:29

or something, like, hey, you know,

24:31

Uncle Adolf 1488 in the comment

24:33

section, like, told me X, Y,

24:35

Z, like, you know, that you

24:37

go and ask about it, he

24:39

gets like shouted down and attacked

24:41

for like asking the question, and

24:43

then, you know, what? That doesn't

24:45

have the effect of him saying,

24:47

wow, like I guess that really

24:49

is terrible and I should never

24:51

ask that again. They think, hmm,

24:53

that's weird. Like why are people

24:56

responding this way? I was asking

24:58

that question in good faith, you

25:00

know? And so it really has

25:02

like the opposite effect of the

25:04

one that is at least ostensibly

25:06

intended, you know? I think there's

25:08

a bunch of things going on

25:10

simultaneously. I think some of this

25:12

is coordinated. And I think, because

25:14

I think that with everything now

25:16

online, I think there's public momentum

25:18

opinions that aren't necessarily organically shaped.

25:20

And there's groups that will mass

25:22

tweet about something. And now we

25:24

know that there's AI programs that

25:26

will devise various different tweets. and

25:28

people running them through hundreds of

25:30

computers, if not thousands of computers,

25:32

all with multiple accounts, and they're

25:34

posting things constantly. And they're doing

25:36

this. There was a call to

25:38

make it illegal for any employee

25:40

of the government to post on

25:42

social media. And I was like,

25:44

that sounds outrageous. That sounds like

25:46

something that would stifle political discourse.

25:48

I want congressional people to be

25:50

able to be. excuse me, to

25:52

be whistleblowers and to talk about

25:54

what's really going on and this

25:57

is why this bill can't get

25:59

passed, this is why they added

26:01

this to this, this is bullshit.

26:03

But then someone explained to me

26:05

that what they're trying to stop

26:07

is astroturfing. is that if you're

26:09

working for the government or for

26:11

now, this is with USA, the

26:13

concept of the non-government organization comes

26:15

into play, so people realize that

26:17

NGOs are actually funded by taxes,

26:19

so it's a non-government organization doing

26:21

the bidding of the government, and

26:23

some of that may or may

26:25

not include social media campaigns about

26:27

specific issues. I think this happens

26:29

with everything. I think this happens

26:31

probably on the free Palestine sign.

26:33

I think they probably do it.

26:35

I think it happens on the

26:37

protect Israel side. They do it.

26:39

I think everybody does it. And

26:41

it's confusing because you'd like to

26:43

know how do normal human beings

26:45

actually think, the actual world thinks,

26:47

versus... massive amounts of people that

26:49

are being financially incentivized to post

26:51

these things they're being paid they're

26:53

a part of an organization that

26:55

gets paid they get funded they

26:57

have a directive they go out

27:00

and they they pursue this campaign

27:02

and they do it relentlessly and

27:04

they do it through organic ways

27:06

like people who are uh... aligned

27:08

with their cause whether it's free

27:10

palistan or israel first or whatever

27:12

it is the you you get

27:14

people to post about it they'll

27:16

do it will just that they'll

27:18

do it willingly because they want

27:20

to show everybody there on the

27:22

right side and they also want

27:24

to proclaim on on twitter that

27:26

they are you know there this

27:28

is their political perspective and i'm

27:30

aligned with you people i'm one

27:32

of the good guys and so

27:34

there's that that happens to and

27:36

this is this chaos of social

27:38

media and people looking for likes

27:40

and audience capture and all that

27:42

stuff that goes on. But at

27:44

the end of the day, we

27:46

rely upon people that we trust.

27:48

We rely upon people that that

27:50

are supposedly objective and rational and

27:52

reasonable and considerate and charitable. People

27:54

who look at things and go,

27:56

okay, what is, what's really going

27:58

on here? Like, what is, like,

28:01

before I cast judgment, maybe I

28:03

should pay attention to some of

28:05

the things this guy's done. Maybe

28:07

I should pay attention to his

28:09

work. Maybe I should look into

28:11

this instead of just We should

28:13

all want to know what happened

28:15

from a bunch of different perspectives

28:17

so we could prevent any of

28:19

this shit from happening in the

28:21

future. Yes, I mean the interesting

28:23

thing about the World War II

28:25

question is something I found through

28:27

talking to people who you know

28:29

disagreed with my with my Tucker

28:31

interview is like if you put

28:33

the question to him and maybe

28:35

if you put it directly like

28:37

this that would give you a

28:39

different answer but You kind of

28:41

get the, you know, you get

28:43

to understand that this is how

28:45

they feel about it, which is

28:47

if there was two options, one

28:49

of them is that the Second

28:51

World War doesn't happen, at least

28:53

in Europe. 40 million people don't

28:55

get killed. But, you know, the

28:57

national socialists stay in power and,

28:59

you know, maybe Hitler dies 10

29:01

years later, like the Soviet Union

29:04

Stalin dies, and things move on.

29:06

People really kind of feel like

29:08

and maybe this is because they're

29:10

not involved in it like 40

29:12

million dead people is that was

29:14

a that was a cost worth

29:16

paying and I think that is

29:18

completely insane man like It's it's

29:20

like if there was a sliver

29:22

of a of an opportunity to

29:24

deescalate that situation and bring it

29:26

back down like you know if

29:28

I'm the emperor of America or

29:30

Britain or whatever I'm I'm taking

29:32

that chance and if it turns

29:34

out that Hitler's full of shit

29:36

and you know he stabs us

29:38

in the back first chance he

29:40

gets all right then we'll have

29:42

our war but is this pre

29:44

or post concentration camps is this

29:46

pre or post the beginnings of

29:48

the Holocaust yeah this is where

29:50

right it gets into that like

29:52

should we decide to stop something

29:54

in its tracks at whatever cost

29:56

of life because ultimately that is

29:58

the right thing to do because

30:00

we're witnessing the genocide of people

30:02

and then we're also witnessing a

30:05

group that will remain in power

30:07

that is not just committed genocide

30:09

but is committed to genocide right

30:11

so what we were talking about

30:13

and all of the points I

30:15

was bringing up on Tucker were

30:17

all from before that in fact

30:19

they were from a full year

30:21

before the German invasion of the

30:23

Soviet Union. That was June 1941,

30:25

and that's where most of the

30:27

Jews lived. So if Hitler never

30:29

invaded the Soviet Union, he never

30:31

even would have had access to

30:33

those people. Now, Hitler didn't like

30:35

the Soviet Union, you know, all

30:37

the way back in Mein Kampf

30:39

and everywhere else. I mean, it

30:41

was central to his ideology that

30:43

communism, socialism, were the enemy and

30:45

everything. He may have invaded the

30:47

Soviet Union someday and gone in.

30:49

gone after all the Jews when

30:51

he did. When did Hitler start

30:53

going after the Jews? You mean

30:55

in terms of the rhetoric? Oh,

30:57

so yeah, like if you take

30:59

him at his word in Mein

31:01

Kampf, which is, you know, it's

31:03

a piece of political propaganda, you

31:05

know, that he wrote as a

31:08

sort of a politician in Germany

31:10

in 1924, and so you have

31:12

to take it with sort of

31:14

a grain of salt, but it's

31:16

also one of the few sources

31:18

we have like... And given his

31:20

audience at the time, he probably

31:22

didn't have a lot of reason

31:24

to make this part up, is

31:26

that he had been from like

31:28

small town Germany, right? And he

31:30

was from a middle class family.

31:32

His father was a civil servant,

31:34

respectable people. And nationalism back then

31:36

was very much like a middle

31:38

class ideology in the. the middle

31:40

class people, nationalists, would complain about

31:42

the workers and you know the

31:44

proletariat, how they don't want to

31:46

be socialists and none of them

31:48

have any national feeling and everything.

31:50

And Hitler really didn't grow up

31:52

with any really even knowledge of

31:54

the Jews. He says his father,

31:56

he never heard him say the

31:58

word and you know if they

32:00

had any in the small town.

32:02

that he lived in, like they

32:04

were apparently well assimilated because he

32:06

didn't know about them. And so

32:09

then he moves to Vienna when

32:11

he's a young adult and there's

32:13

a lot of Jews in Vienna.

32:15

And he starts to, you know,

32:17

he's at the bottom of society

32:19

now. And he's literally living in

32:21

shelters. He's hungry all the time.

32:23

He's like down with the under

32:25

class after having grown up in

32:27

the middle class. And so he's

32:29

starting to get a look at

32:31

what the German. people, the German

32:33

masses, you know, that he's like

32:35

sort of as a child in

32:37

the young man has like worked

32:39

up this deep sense of like

32:41

nationalistic fervor. He's actually getting an

32:43

up close look at the underclass

32:45

in Vienna and what he sees

32:47

is not particularly impressive, you know,

32:49

which is often the case when

32:51

you know, you can have sympathy

32:53

for and want to lift up,

32:55

you know, the underclass in any

32:57

society, but the... The reason you

32:59

want to do that is because

33:01

they're often living degraded lives and

33:03

degraded circumstances. And so he gets

33:05

an up close look at this

33:07

and he doesn't like what he

33:09

sees. And he says in my

33:12

comp that it really caused him

33:14

like a moral crisis, you know,

33:16

an ideological crisis. He's like, are

33:18

these the German people? Like, really,

33:20

this is what we're talking about?

33:22

And then he says, and this

33:24

is the way he relates it.

33:26

He says it was actually the

33:28

key that unlocked everything else for

33:30

him. Is that. you know, he

33:32

would say he realized, we could

33:34

say he came to believe, that

33:36

yes, these German masses, they are

33:38

in a sorry state right now,

33:40

but the reason for that is

33:42

that they're being manipulated by the

33:44

Jews, by the Jewish press, by

33:46

the Jews who owned the theaters

33:48

and put out the films and

33:50

whatever else, all of that they're

33:52

being manipulated and corrupted by these

33:54

people. And so for him, it

33:56

became, like, I think, you know,

33:58

he has... He had a lot

34:00

of the same explanations and reasons

34:02

you would hear from any anti-Semite

34:04

then or now, you know, banking

34:06

and whatever. All those things were

34:08

like in there. But I think

34:10

the thing that gave it emotional...

34:12

for him is that his anti-Semitism

34:15

was what allowed him to love

34:17

the German people you know like

34:19

it was like the only way

34:21

for him that he could get

34:23

around the revulsion he was feeling

34:25

and actually being up close with

34:27

the German under class is he

34:29

you know he excused their faults

34:31

by blaming by blaming Jews and

34:33

so it his his sense of

34:35

love for his people and I

34:37

mean look Hitler's one of those

34:39

guys. I noticed this when I

34:41

was reading all the Jim Jones

34:43

books and stuff, which I think

34:45

I read all probably all of.

34:47

They're not very good. You know,

34:49

some of them are interesting, like

34:51

they're good reads, but you can't

34:53

help, but notice, especially after you've

34:55

read several of the books, that

34:57

the authors just cannot help, but...

34:59

be like cynical and turn it

35:01

into a polemic on every page.

35:03

Like even the thing Jim Jones

35:05

or Hitler did as a child

35:07

they have like negative editorializing to

35:09

it and everything and it's like

35:11

you know it really kind of

35:13

it's a lot of them are

35:16

still good books you know you

35:18

read like the the most recent

35:20

sort of great Hitler biography by

35:22

Ian Kershaw is a great book

35:24

he's a good historian and excellent

35:26

writer and you know you have

35:28

to learn to kind of see

35:30

through that polemic a little bit

35:32

and then you have you know

35:34

a good history on your hands.

35:36

It's almost like it's an obligation

35:38

if you're going to cover a

35:40

horrific figure you have to look

35:42

at things that way. Yeah exactly

35:44

yeah and you know it's a

35:46

and so I think that like

35:48

people who knew Hitler before World

35:50

War one and we have like

35:52

memoirs and interviews with people who

35:54

did know him pretty pretty well

35:56

they say pretty much unanimously like

35:58

we never heard him mentioned the

36:00

Jews back then. And this is

36:02

the period in Vienna when Hitler

36:04

says his anti-Semitism was developing and

36:06

he was figuring these things out.

36:08

And what I think was probably

36:10

going on, like my read of

36:12

it at least up to this

36:14

point, is that his anti-Semitism, just

36:16

like a lot of people in

36:19

Europe at the time, was it

36:21

was theoretical and abstract. You know

36:23

what I mean? Like, the Jews

36:25

had never, you got to remember,

36:27

like the Russian Revolution, all of

36:29

the things that people like Hitler

36:31

would associate with the Jews, like

36:33

none of that stuff had happened

36:35

yet. Like he might not like

36:37

them, you know, he might think

36:39

that, whatever, all the stereotypes that

36:41

go along with him, but it

36:43

was just sort of an abstract

36:45

thing that it wasn't dangerous, right?

36:47

But then the First World War

36:49

happens, and, you know, it's really

36:51

impossible for... us today to understand

36:53

the level of just trauma and

36:55

devastation that that war had on,

36:57

I mean, the European countries that

36:59

were in all the countries that

37:01

were involved. I mean, it was,

37:03

you're talking about a war where,

37:05

you know, for several Olympics, Olympic

37:07

games afterwards, there were whole sports

37:09

that like France and Germany just

37:11

didn't participate in anymore because they

37:13

didn't the people for it. I

37:15

mean, it was, you're talking about

37:17

massive chunks of the young male

37:20

population being killed out there, right?

37:22

And you take a guy like

37:24

Hitler who volunteered early, like right

37:26

away, and he survived the whole

37:28

four years of the war, and

37:30

you think about him as just

37:32

an example of this generation of

37:34

people who you, who spent like

37:36

their most formative young adult years

37:38

in the trenches, I mean, constant

37:40

terror. of doing things that, I

37:42

mean, forget about just like the

37:44

physical discomfort of living there. I

37:46

mean, you're in the mud, you're

37:48

covered with lice and fleas all

37:50

the time, so as everybody else,

37:52

you're especially later in the war,

37:54

you're like living off of starvation

37:56

rations if you're a German or

37:58

an Austrian, and you're watching, I

38:00

mean, you know, Dan his, Dan

38:02

Carlin's... series on World War I

38:04

is like probably my favorite piece

38:06

of audio. It's so good and

38:08

like um you know one of

38:10

the things he's so good at

38:12

way better than me at is

38:14

kind of capturing the scale of

38:16

events you know and so when

38:18

he talks about like the battle

38:20

of the psalm when the British

38:23

lost 60,000 guys on the first

38:25

day you're like I don't even

38:27

know what that like what that

38:29

even means like it's it's just

38:31

so overwhelming you know and so

38:33

you have this generation that spent

38:35

their formative years in all of

38:37

these countries under those just circumstances

38:39

that we really don't have any

38:41

context for us to relate to,

38:43

you know? I mean, think about

38:45

like, you see these stories of

38:47

like people sleeping in trenches and

38:49

over there in the corner is

38:51

their dead friend who's been sitting

38:53

there decomposing and being eaten by

38:55

rats for three or four days

38:57

because you can't go up top

38:59

to bury them because you'll get

39:01

shot and you can't bury them

39:03

in the trench in the dirt

39:05

under the trench anymore because there's

39:07

already bodies just completely walled a

39:09

wall down there. You've already... taken

39:11

up all the space, right? Just

39:13

that kind of... I mean, if

39:15

you think about somebody today, if

39:17

you walk outside your door on

39:19

the way to work, your average

39:21

person today, and there's a dead

39:24

body on your, you know, steps,

39:26

your average person today is going

39:28

to be in therapy for years

39:30

over that, you know? I mean,

39:32

that is a traumatic experience, very

39:34

difficult, and so you have these

39:36

young men who go through this,

39:38

just unbelievable experience, and from Germany

39:40

eastward after... If you go back

39:42

and think about what the map

39:44

of Europe looked like in the

39:46

year 1900, it didn't look anything

39:48

like it looks now. It was

39:50

basically like just a few big

39:52

chunks. You know, you had France,

39:54

you had Germany, the German Empire,

39:56

the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and then you

39:58

had the Russian Empire, and then

40:00

you had the Russian Empire. And

40:02

there were a few like Spain,

40:04

the Balkans and stuff, little things

40:06

going on, but really it was

40:08

just a few giant empires, controlled

40:10

everything from the Pacific Ocean in

40:12

East Russia, right. and everything east

40:14

of Germany in 1917 and 1918,

40:16

those governments. literally evaporated. They went

40:18

away. And so, you know, you

40:20

get to the immediate post-war period

40:22

after these guys have just gone

40:24

through this unbelievably harrowing experience. You

40:27

know, their lives have been defined

40:29

by violence for years, you know,

40:31

at this point. And all of

40:33

a sudden, there's just state collapse

40:35

everywhere from Germany to Siberia. And

40:37

you literally have, you know, private

40:39

militias. groups of veterans, communist militias,

40:41

like they're running cities, they're running

40:43

the streets, like having running gun

40:45

battles in the streets of, you

40:47

know, of Berlin and Munich. And

40:49

this is, this goes on for

40:51

a few years, you know, just

40:53

total social and economic chaos. And

40:55

so, so you're talking about like

40:57

the four year war, but then

40:59

a few more years after that.

41:01

So you're 18 when you get

41:03

in and... 1914, now it's 1923

41:05

when things kind of start to

41:07

stabilize and you know you've been

41:09

you've been at this for like

41:11

the first nine years of your

41:13

young adulthood right this is the

41:15

world that you live in and

41:17

it's it's a when you try

41:19

to think of you know I

41:21

talked about like Uday Hussein being

41:23

brought to watch torture sessions or

41:25

something I mean this is not

41:28

this is not exactly that but

41:30

it's It's an experience that we

41:32

really have no way to relate

41:34

to. And if you grow up

41:36

in that world, especially when, you

41:38

know, if you look at like

41:40

what happened in Russia, 1917, the

41:42

Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, and

41:44

they won, you know, they actually

41:46

took over the Russian state and

41:48

created the Soviet Union, you know,

41:50

it lasted past the long past

41:52

the lives of anybody who had

41:54

fought in World War I, for

41:56

the most part. And so people

41:58

saw that and they took the

42:00

lesson both from World War I

42:02

itself but also from the aftermath

42:04

and the revolutions that happened. The

42:06

lesson they took is that violence

42:08

can accomplish our goals, you know.

42:10

And whatever we do to accomplish

42:12

those goals, as long as we

42:14

survive, people accept it eventually. You

42:16

know, Roosevelt normalized relations with the

42:18

Soviet Union in 1933, when Stalin

42:20

was literally still clearing bodies from

42:22

the millions of people, he starved

42:24

in the Ukrainian holiday more. And

42:26

in Kazakhstan, another million people. And

42:28

like at that time is when,

42:31

and we knew we knew what

42:33

was going on, obviously. And yet.

42:35

you know, Roosevelt normalized relations with

42:37

Stalin and people got over it.

42:39

Just like with Turkey, Turkey does

42:41

the Armenian genocide and it's condemned

42:43

at the time, you know, they

42:45

were on the other side of

42:47

the war and everything, but a

42:49

couple years later, like, look, Turkey's

42:51

an important strategically placed country like

42:53

in the world and we kind

42:55

of need them on our side

42:57

and so, you know, sorry Armenians,

42:59

but, you know, get over it.

43:01

That's and so people took that

43:03

lesson is that violence will accomplish

43:05

our goals. And as long as

43:07

we accomplish them and survive, people

43:09

will get over it. You know?

43:11

But again, I think this is

43:13

what's really important about your work

43:15

is that you do take into

43:17

consideration all these aspects, which again,

43:19

with Jim Jones, that's fine. Yeah.

43:21

But you, even what you're saying

43:23

is, it's obviously very relevant to

43:25

what we're... trying to understand how

43:27

World War II happened, how did

43:29

the Nazis rise to power, like

43:31

what are we talking about? That's

43:34

what we're talking about. We're talking

43:36

about this horrific environment that's not

43:38

considered. That's not going to make

43:40

you a Nazi apologist. Yeah, and

43:42

it's important to know too that,

43:44

you know, it's not like Hitler

43:46

was going and giving big speeches

43:48

at City Square in Berlin, going

43:50

on and on and on about

43:52

how... we're going to kill the

43:54

Jews." And the German people said,

43:56

right on, like, let's go do

43:58

it. That was, like, the speeches

44:00

that are out there where he

44:02

is talking about the Jewish question,

44:04

like, almost all of those are,

44:06

like, inter- Nazi party like rally

44:08

speeches you know they're not him

44:10

he had to be careful about

44:12

that like in 1938 which is

44:14

pretty far down the line when

44:16

Kristallnacht happened it was kind of

44:18

a nationwide pogrom against the Jews

44:20

in Germany that was launched by

44:22

primarily by Goebbels, the propaganda minister.

44:24

But there was outrage in the

44:26

German cities. People in Berlin, a

44:28

lot of the places were outraged

44:30

by what was going on. Hitler

44:32

had to actually get on the

44:35

phone with Goebels and say, cut

44:37

this shit out. This is not

44:39

good. Not because he loves the

44:41

Jews all of a sudden, obviously,

44:43

but because this is bad propaganda.

44:45

People are not going for this.

44:47

And that was the year before

44:49

the war started. And so these

44:51

are just nuances that. You know,

44:53

that become pretty obvious when you

44:55

just remind yourself that you're just

44:57

talking about people. They're just people.

44:59

I mean, the Germans were a

45:01

sophisticated, advanced political and cultural place.

45:03

They didn't suddenly turn into demons

45:05

for 12 years and then go

45:07

back to being the nice normal

45:09

Germans that we know now. Like

45:11

these things happened the same way

45:13

every other historical event. you know,

45:15

ends up happening, which very often

45:17

is not, you know, what you

45:19

find is it's not, it's not,

45:21

so much is not really like

45:23

the result of a plot or

45:25

a plan or anything. People are

45:27

often just reacting. And when you,

45:29

you see this with the Bolshevik

45:31

Revolution in Russia, you see it

45:33

with the Israel Palestine situation, right?

45:35

In those two situations, like the

45:38

means that... The

45:40

Bolsheviks and the Zionists used to establish

45:42

themselves and create their state and like

45:44

sort of get their foothold The means

45:46

that they used Were so violent and

45:49

so over the top that it came

45:51

to define in a lot of ways

45:53

the subsequent history of those countries You

45:55

know if you look at like Stalin's

45:57

purges in the 30s and a lot

46:00

of stuff that was going on during

46:02

his reign. It was really that like

46:04

they had pissed so many people off

46:06

and done so many terrible things to

46:09

take power and that was really like

46:11

that was Lenin's philosophy is again just

46:13

you know take it up to 11

46:15

and go and as long as we

46:18

win people get over it. But all

46:20

of a sudden when you've killed all

46:22

these people and done all these terrible

46:24

things you look around the country and

46:27

you see a lot of dangerous people

46:29

who probably don't like you even if

46:31

they're not saying it right now. kind

46:33

of the definition of how your state

46:36

works. You know, I mean, Israel, one

46:38

of the things I really tried to

46:40

get into in the early part of

46:42

that series especially is that the Zionist

46:44

project, and the more I think about

46:47

it, this is kind of a theme

46:49

in so many of my podcast. You

46:51

know, it started out as an idealistic

46:53

venture. You know, it started out as

46:56

something, you know, you have these people

46:58

who are in really like kind of

47:00

a unique situation. Maybe the Roma, the

47:02

Gypsies are like the only other group

47:05

of people you can really point to

47:07

of like a widespread transnational group of

47:09

people who do have a sort of

47:11

cohesive identity, but they don't have a

47:14

homeland. They're just living in other people's

47:16

countries. And, you know, I think the

47:18

lesson from World War II and much

47:20

of the 20th century probably. It's kind

47:23

of the opposite of the one that

47:25

people have taken from World War II,

47:27

which is nationalism is bad and it's

47:29

dangerous and bad things happen when people

47:32

start to think that way. I think

47:34

the real lesson from World War II

47:36

is, or from, you know, what happened

47:38

to the Jews specifically, is everybody needs

47:40

a country. You need to have a

47:43

country that is looking after you and

47:45

looking after your interests, because living in

47:47

other people's countries, it can go well

47:49

for a long time, but, you know,

47:52

it's not just the Jews. Minorities in

47:54

general. Minorities in general. Like, you know,

47:56

bad things happen over time. You know,

47:58

minorities are just easily scapegoated. You know,

48:01

they're easily made the sort of the

48:03

outlet for the frustration and resentment of

48:05

people that are... you know, upset over

48:07

unrelated things. And it's an uncomfortable position

48:10

to be in. There's also general suspicion

48:12

when cultures move into areas and don't

48:14

assimilate and then try to bring with

48:16

them the rules of their land, which

48:19

we, you know, we're particularly scared of

48:21

in America. We hear the concept of

48:23

Sharia law, you know, like people will

48:25

start to freak out. Well, there's people

48:28

that move here that want that, you

48:30

know, and they don't want to be

48:32

a part of this homogeneous. they want

48:34

to change it. So that scares people

48:36

too. And America is very, you know,

48:39

it's one of the, you know, America

48:41

is a very unique country in a

48:43

lot of different ways, but one of

48:45

the ways that were so different from

48:48

the European countries. I mean, you can,

48:50

I guess you could point to a

48:52

lot of things, you know, the lack

48:54

of a feudal history that we were

48:57

emerging out of, we kind of just

48:59

started out as a liberal republic. the

49:01

frontier experience which is just you know

49:03

no Europeans can really relate what was

49:06

going on out there I don't you

49:08

see that new Netflix series American primeval

49:10

it's amazing dude and I Peter Bergen

49:12

here that's right that's right and all

49:15

I kept thinking is I'm watching this

49:17

is like man this is not like

49:19

the US Army that's out there like

49:21

on the frontier confronting these situations these

49:24

are like the regular people who went

49:26

out there and lived and this is

49:28

an experience so you have those things

49:30

but it's very accurate too yeah it

49:32

was fascinating I love they had Jim

49:35

Bridger in there that was I've always

49:37

been a fan of his so yeah

49:39

that was amazing too and and how

49:41

about the Mormon guy do people like

49:44

young yeah people don't realize today unless

49:46

they really know the history the Mormons

49:48

were off the hook they were gangsters

49:50

they were fucking dangerous foes. You couldn't

49:53

fuck with the Mormons back then. Well,

49:55

they were, they were, they had been

49:57

fucked with. They were ultra cohesive and

49:59

they were serious about what they were

50:02

doing. These people were not playing games.

50:04

This was not like a thing to

50:06

do for fun. They were dead serious

50:08

about it. And they had already been

50:11

ran out of several states. Yeah. So

50:13

I was going to say, like, the

50:15

thing that's so different about America from

50:17

a lot of the European countries, and

50:19

when we talk about nationalism, like, this

50:22

is something that really, you know, that

50:24

you have to keep in mind all

50:26

the time, is that America, like, we've

50:28

been renegotiating our identity, like, generation by

50:31

generation, ever since America started, like, from

50:33

the very beginning, before those guys were

50:35

dead. A bunch of the major cities

50:37

and eventually all the major cities like

50:40

very quickly by the middle of the

50:42

1800s They're not majority Anglo anymore. It's

50:44

not English people. It's a lot of

50:46

Irish a lot of Germans still a

50:49

lot of Anglos, but you know you

50:51

have to and the fact that different

50:53

religion, you know, you've got Irish Catholics

50:55

coming into this Protestant, very Protestant at

50:58

the time country. A lot of the

51:00

Germans that were coming in were German

51:02

Jews who, you know, were coming along.

51:04

You think of people like like Astor,

51:07

you know, the famous Astor family, that

51:09

was a German Jewish family that was

51:11

in New York. And so that happens.

51:13

And you're talking about, again, an influx

51:15

large enough to... to really swamp the

51:18

Anglo population in many of the big

51:20

cities. Well, not another, you know, a

51:22

generation later, barely 40 years after the,

51:24

you know, the Irish migration really hits

51:27

its peak, huge influx from southern Italy,

51:29

from Eastern Europe, a lot of Ashkenazi

51:31

Jews coming in, and pretty soon, it's

51:33

not just, you know, Anglo's well-assimilated... Germans

51:36

who were well assimilated to the Anglo

51:38

culture and then the Irish, which is

51:40

what it was before, now you have

51:42

just as many Jews, just as many

51:45

Italian Catholics who are Catholics like the

51:47

Irish, but they're still not quite, you

51:49

know, there's still different communities. And we've

51:51

just had to do that all the

51:54

time. Even in 1924, when we kind

51:56

of shut down immigration from 1924 to

51:58

1965, there was some, but very limited

52:00

and very selective. But as soon as

52:03

that happened, as soon as the immigration

52:05

pipeline was kind of from Europe was

52:07

cut off, that's when the great migration

52:09

of African-Americans out of the South starts.

52:11

And in about 40 years, you get

52:14

six, seven million African-Americans coming mostly from

52:16

the country south into places like Detroit

52:18

and all the places that you kind

52:20

of associate with large African-American communities now.

52:23

It's kind of crazy to think about,

52:25

but if you go back to like

52:27

the First World War, You know, Detroit's

52:29

African-American population was like 2%. You know,

52:32

and that was Philadelphia, Baltimore, like 8

52:34

or 9, but like, that was how

52:36

it was. Pretty much all African-American still

52:38

lived down in the South. And so

52:41

over the course about 40 years, they

52:43

all move out to all the big

52:45

cities and you have to still, like,

52:47

they're from America obviously, but like, you've

52:50

got to renegotiate, like, you're... your identity

52:52

with these people and figure out like

52:54

a new political compromise in these cities

52:56

and the various places and when the

52:58

great migration of African-American starts to Peter

53:01

out 1965 we reopen the floodgates of

53:03

immigration with the Heart Cellar Act and

53:05

that's the world we're kind of in

53:07

now and so that's and look you

53:10

know especially back in the day in

53:12

the first like two two big waves

53:14

of migration into the US to Ellis

53:16

Island you know migrations Like those were

53:19

like America would not be here today

53:21

if we didn't do that like there

53:23

were not enough out of work English

53:25

people you know over in England to

53:28

come over here and take over this

53:30

whole continent it was just never going

53:32

to happen the only way it was

53:34

ever going to happen is if we

53:37

were radically open and tolerant to people

53:39

you know because you go back to

53:41

there's a there's a naturalization law I

53:43

think was the first naturalization law on

53:46

the books in the United States 1798

53:48

And you see a lot of like

53:50

racialist types point to this as if

53:52

it kind of backs up their, you

53:54

know, their idea of what, you know,

53:57

of what America is here. is in

53:59

what it should be because it says

54:01

all person all all white persons of

54:03

good care all free white persons of

54:06

good moral character if you come to

54:08

the United States can become a citizen

54:10

and people see that and they focus

54:12

on the white part and they say

54:15

see you know they wanted America to

54:17

be a white country or whatever that is

54:19

totally the wrong way to understand that

54:21

law I mean if you were to

54:23

go to like France or Germany or

54:25

England or whatever for them to pass a

54:28

law that said anybody in the

54:30

continent, any European, you know, you

54:32

guys can come over here and we

54:34

will make you a citizen with the

54:36

full legal rights and privileges of our

54:39

richest citizen. You know, you will be

54:41

an equal citizen. You can just come

54:43

here. Radically open. I mean, really

54:45

like a revolutionary open kind of

54:47

law, especially back then. You know,

54:49

you got to remember, like, the

54:51

Europeans still had another 150 years of

54:53

just... wantonly slaughtering each other, you know,

54:56

left, still ahead of them. You know,

54:58

you had like, today, I mean, if

55:00

you have like a person on, you know,

55:02

who lives to the left to you

55:04

and they're the Thatcher family and

55:06

they're vaguely, you know, English, and

55:09

then you have the McCoy family

55:11

on the other side and they're

55:13

vaguely iris, they're just... kind of

55:15

white people to you now, like

55:17

it all kind of seems like

55:19

what's the difference. Dude, go tell

55:21

an English and Irish person that

55:23

they were the same thing back

55:25

in 1798. Like these, they didn't,

55:27

they did not identify with each

55:29

other at all. There's a lot

55:31

of bad blood, a lot of

55:33

hostility, and so to say all of

55:35

you people with all your differences, you

55:37

come over here and get with the

55:39

program and you can be one of

55:41

us, just radically open. clustered around the

55:44

13 colonies and maybe moved in a

55:46

bit, but you know, we wouldn't have

55:48

been able to hold this whole continent

55:50

against the French and the Spanish and

55:52

everybody else who was around unless we

55:54

were that open. And so that was

55:56

like a prerequisite for America becoming what

55:59

it is today. In Europe, it's

56:01

very different, man. Like, there's

56:03

such thing as a Polish person,

56:05

and Poland is the country where

56:07

Polish people live, you know what

56:10

I mean? And like, over here

56:12

in America, like, we have a

56:14

much more fluid identity, we're constantly

56:16

having to renegotiate it, and

56:18

we think it's difficult today, you

56:21

know, to integrate the immigrants

56:23

that we've gotten to try

56:25

to renegotiate that, it's always

56:27

been difficult. And to try

56:30

to transfer our way of

56:32

thinking about social identity, our

56:34

way of thinking about, you

56:37

know, what a nation is to

56:39

the European countries, it just,

56:41

it does not apply. Like,

56:44

it really doesn't work. It's

56:46

also, there's a thing

56:48

when an all white country

56:50

wants to stay all white

56:52

where people get very nervous

56:55

of. If you have, you know, let's

56:57

say China. China is Chinese,

56:59

no one would have a

57:01

problem with Chinese people. There's

57:03

people that live there from

57:06

all walks of life all

57:08

over the world, but it's

57:10

mostly Chinese people. If China

57:12

had decided that they wanted

57:14

to remain Chinese and stay

57:16

Chinese, and that being Chinese is

57:18

very important to what China is,

57:20

no one would have a problem

57:22

with that. When a country like

57:24

Poland does it, you're like, oh,

57:26

those white people, they want to

57:28

keep everybody out. They want it

57:30

to be all white. Yeah. And

57:32

because we're, you know, that's

57:34

post-World War II. That's post-Aryan

57:36

race talk. That's post-Nazi stuff. That's

57:39

what people are legitimately freaked out

57:41

about. That's the most recent stain

57:43

in our history, where we look

57:45

back and say, wow. That was

57:47

close. Evil almost won that one.

57:49

I think it also has to

57:51

do with, you know. Poland, Hungary, a

57:53

lot of these eastern bloc

57:55

countries, even though communism was

57:57

extremely hostile to national identity.

58:00

You know, and really, I mean, took

58:02

a lot of brutal measures to try

58:04

to stamp it out because they wanted

58:06

everybody to be a kind of new

58:08

Soviet citizen, you know. Those countries that

58:10

are over there now are much more comfortable

58:13

sort of saying, Hungary is a

58:15

country where Hungarians live and this is a

58:17

Christian country and we want to keep it

58:20

that way. Whereas all the countries that were

58:22

on the other side of the Iron Curtain,

58:24

under the influence of the United States, kind

58:26

of had our... traditional way of looking at

58:29

these things kind of imposed on them. You

58:31

know what I mean? Or they absorbed it

58:33

through osmosis. I don't know if it's like

58:36

a program or something, but they, you know,

58:38

we were the dominant sort of cultural and

58:40

military force and everything else, political force. And

58:42

so they kind of, you know, absorbed the

58:45

American openness and tolerance of all comers

58:47

that we kind of had to have,

58:49

as I said, in places where it

58:51

really makes no sense at all. I

58:53

mean, you have, you could at least

58:55

say, like, with the British Empire or

58:57

something, you know, they colonized all these

58:59

places, and so now, like, those people

59:01

in the former colonies, like, they're

59:03

moving to Britain, you know, you could,

59:05

like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't

59:07

really think of it this way,

59:09

you could look at it that

59:12

way, you could look at it

59:14

that way, They didn't colonize anybody.

59:16

You know, Ireland was a colony.

59:18

They suffered terribly under the British

59:20

for a long time. And yet

59:22

it's very interesting that, you know,

59:24

they were willing to be brutalized,

59:26

be occupied, be starved, you know,

59:28

all of these things for centuries

59:31

to defend their little slice

59:33

of the world where their people

59:35

could work out their destiny

59:37

among themselves, you know,

59:39

endured so much for that. you know

59:41

you get up to about the 1960s 1970s

59:43

and you know you can look it up

59:46

this is like a this isn't like

59:48

a conspiracy theory it's the first things

59:50

that come up on Google if you

59:52

look it up that you know Ireland

59:54

is on track to be minority Irish

59:56

by like 2070 or something like that

59:58

it's like I don't like that. You know,

1:00:00

people think of diversity as like every

1:00:03

place on the planet should look like

1:00:05

Jackson Heights in New York and like

1:00:07

then were diverse, but that's to me

1:00:09

that's not diversity at all. Diversity is

1:00:11

I go to Ireland and it's Irish.

1:00:14

I go to China and it's Chinese.

1:00:16

I go, you know what I mean?

1:00:18

Like, and turning it all into sort

1:00:20

of a homogenized like mixed, you know, soup.

1:00:22

I think when you when you put it

1:00:25

in those terms, nobody really wants that.

1:00:27

And, you know, you know, But people

1:00:29

get very uncomfortable, you know.

1:00:31

And in America, with immigration

1:00:34

specifically, it's really hard to like,

1:00:36

you know, the fact that it's not

1:00:38

like we're a Christian country in the

1:00:40

sense of it being worked into our

1:00:43

political culture so much or anything anymore,

1:00:45

but still like the values that

1:00:47

most people, even atheists and everybody

1:00:49

else, that inform their moral

1:00:51

outlook are derived from that

1:00:53

legacy of Christianity, you know.

1:00:55

And it could be very hard for

1:00:57

somebody who who is working from that moral

1:01:00

base to come up with a reason

1:01:02

that, I mean, look, imagine you're in

1:01:04

a room and you're sitting at a

1:01:06

table and across from the table is

1:01:09

a man, his wife, and they're two

1:01:11

kids and they're from some poor part

1:01:13

of the world and they want to come,

1:01:15

you know, they want to be a part of

1:01:18

your country. You're not going to

1:01:20

be able to come up with

1:01:22

a reason that justifies keeping them

1:01:24

out. I mean, the only one that you

1:01:26

could come up with when you open the

1:01:28

door to that room, there's 65 million people

1:01:31

standing in line outside. And you can't, you

1:01:33

know, you can't do that. But like, on

1:01:35

an individual level, like, people really have a

1:01:38

lot of trouble. And I think this is

1:01:40

a credit to Americans in a lot of

1:01:42

ways, even if it causes us a lot

1:01:44

of confusion, that, you know, it is hard

1:01:47

for us to turn people away like that,

1:01:49

you know? And, um... Yeah, it's

1:01:51

a I think to go back to like what

1:01:53

you originally talking about I think the World War

1:01:55

two story is a huge part of that You

1:01:57

know, it's a huge part of why people I

1:02:00

think that some of the lessons we

1:02:02

drew from that war were kind of

1:02:04

not the, maybe not the right ones

1:02:06

to take, and that they have led

1:02:08

us to the point where these, you

1:02:10

know, a culture like Ireland, who was

1:02:12

not involved in the Second World War,

1:02:15

never colonized anybody, feels like they don't

1:02:17

have the moral right to say this

1:02:19

is a country for the Irish people.

1:02:22

get to live together and work out

1:02:24

our destiny. Well, here's the question. Is

1:02:26

it coordinated immigration? Are they going there

1:02:29

because there's job opportunities? Are they going

1:02:31

there for a better way of life?

1:02:33

Are they being told to go there?

1:02:36

Like, what's causing the mass immigration to

1:02:38

Ireland? It depends on the country. I

1:02:40

mean, it's like, uh... But like to

1:02:43

Ireland in specific. There's a lot of

1:02:45

like, um, Polish folks in Ireland, people

1:02:47

from Eastern Europe who go there for

1:02:49

work, you know. That's the primary source

1:02:52

of migrants, but there's a lot

1:02:54

of, you know, there are a lot

1:02:56

of third world migrants or global south

1:02:58

migrants there now, but a lot of

1:03:00

Eastern Europeans come in there for work.

1:03:03

Yeah, it kind of varies from country

1:03:05

to country. It's interesting because I do

1:03:07

agree that it's cool that you go

1:03:10

to places and they're uniquely, like, I

1:03:12

love Scotland, you go to Scottish, you

1:03:14

know, you go to places, you

1:03:16

get to take part in their way of life,

1:03:18

like to see the world. and through their

1:03:21

culture and the way they view

1:03:23

things, it's interesting. But I also

1:03:25

love the melting pot of America.

1:03:27

I love it. And I come

1:03:29

from immigrants. My grandparents came here

1:03:31

during the early parts of the

1:03:34

1900s. And so I'm thankful that

1:03:36

they were courageous enough or their

1:03:38

parents were courageous enough to get

1:03:40

on a fucking boat before YouTube.

1:03:42

No idea what was going on

1:03:44

over here. It was just promises

1:03:47

and hopes and try to carve out

1:03:49

a life. and that's where I

1:03:51

came from. So it would be

1:03:53

insanely hypocritical of me to deny

1:03:55

someone who came from another country

1:03:57

an opportunity to partake in this

1:03:59

place. But I also think

1:04:01

that it's coordinated.

1:04:04

And I think that they're

1:04:06

doing it in America for

1:04:08

a lot of bizarre

1:04:11

reasons that you could

1:04:13

attribute to trying to

1:04:16

stack states and trying

1:04:18

to overwhelm Democratic voter

1:04:21

registration in swing states.

1:04:23

and allow people to vote and give them

1:04:25

a pathway to citizenship and allow them

1:04:27

to vote and get them on the

1:04:29

dole, get them on whether it's Social

1:04:31

Security we've talked about this before where

1:04:33

people were encouraged to say that they

1:04:35

had bad backs or headaches so that

1:04:37

they could be permanently disabled on Social

1:04:39

Security and just then you have a

1:04:41

customer, you have a client and then

1:04:43

that client is gonna, you're gonna. call

1:04:45

upon them to vote for you. And

1:04:48

if you only need 10,000 votes here

1:04:50

or 20,000 votes there, and they're objectively

1:04:52

shipping in 10 times that much to

1:04:54

some of these swing states. you gotta

1:04:56

wonder like this is not just this

1:04:58

is kind of taking advantage of the

1:05:01

charitable aspect of americans how we view

1:05:03

people wanting to come here for opportunity

1:05:05

which most of them are just doing

1:05:07

that most of them are people that

1:05:09

unfortunately were born in a place with

1:05:11

no possibilities and a lot of crime

1:05:13

and a lot of danger and they

1:05:16

have a family and they want to do better

1:05:18

and they came here and I love it they do

1:05:20

that I love that they make it this is a place

1:05:22

for that But that can

1:05:24

be taken advantage of that can be

1:05:26

taken advantage of in order to control

1:05:29

the political parties in order to tighten

1:05:31

down on the laws Tighten down the

1:05:33

surveillance state get everybody to use an

1:05:35

app put everybody on central bank digital

1:05:38

currency because it's more stable Have a

1:05:40

social credit score system to make sure

1:05:42

that everything goes well and then the

1:05:44

next thing you know everyone's self-centered everyone

1:05:46

is Twitter before Elon bought it's just

1:05:49

It's a dangerous place for freedom and

1:05:51

that's ultimately what America has to say

1:05:53

that we stand for above all. This

1:05:55

is the place. If there's a place

1:05:57

on earth, will you can be free?

1:06:00

This has got to be that place. This

1:06:02

is what we came here for, or

1:06:04

it's where the founding fathers, what they

1:06:06

were trying to do. With all the

1:06:08

flaws and all the terrible

1:06:10

things that took place here,

1:06:12

yes, absolutely. Land acknowledgments, hallelujah.

1:06:15

But at the end of the day,

1:06:17

this place is supposed to represent

1:06:19

freedom. But freedom can

1:06:21

be manipulated, and you can

1:06:23

use your empathy. and they can

1:06:25

use it against you. And unfortunately,

1:06:27

you have to be aware that

1:06:30

there's nefarious forces that are involved

1:06:32

in all areas of society where

1:06:34

enormous amounts of money can

1:06:37

be transferred. And that's how you

1:06:39

have to look at it. This is

1:06:41

ultimately about money. and whether it's about

1:06:43

money bringing in people for cheap labor

1:06:45

which I think is fucked because I

1:06:47

think if you're in America if you're

1:06:49

here if you're here we're gonna call

1:06:51

you in American you should get paid

1:06:53

what a fucking American gets paid you

1:06:55

should get health coverage you should get

1:06:57

everything shouldn't be able to like get

1:06:59

people just because they walked over here

1:07:01

and you get them to work for

1:07:03

slave wages that's ridiculous that's insane that's

1:07:05

anti-american you know but I mean I'll

1:07:07

hold you up there it might be

1:07:09

like anti-american ideals, but that's the history

1:07:11

of America right there. That's the whole

1:07:14

history of America. It's true. It's true.

1:07:16

And that's the dirty little secret of

1:07:18

construction sites. You know, you go back

1:07:21

to like, you know, the 1850s, 1860s,

1:07:23

1860s, and, you know, Irish dock workers,

1:07:25

their life expectancy was 14 years from

1:07:27

the time they stepped off the boat.

1:07:30

And these weren't 60 year olds coming

1:07:32

over and working on the docks. You're

1:07:34

talking about young guys who came over

1:07:36

to do that 14 years, you know,

1:07:39

horrible, With I mean completely expendable

1:07:41

human resource. We all remember

1:07:43

the photos of people working

1:07:46

on the Empire State building

1:07:48

walking on the beams Yeah,

1:07:50

just no safety nothing leather shoes.

1:07:53

Yeah, fuck off. I'm like there's

1:07:55

a lot of you know, they

1:07:57

have those on those political tests

1:07:59

online kind of tells you like what

1:08:01

you are if you answer some questions.

1:08:04

I always end up right in the

1:08:06

center, but I always have to tell

1:08:08

people that I'm the last, the farthest

1:08:10

thing from a centrist. It's just I

1:08:12

have a whole bunch of views that

1:08:14

are very far right and a whole

1:08:16

bunch that are very far left according

1:08:19

to this thing at least. And one

1:08:21

of my far left views before this

1:08:23

World War II series got kind of

1:08:25

pushed to the front of the cube

1:08:27

because of the Tucker controversy. teachers unions

1:08:29

and corrupt big labor organizations and

1:08:31

so forth, but I'm a I

1:08:34

mean to me the the American

1:08:36

labor movement the first part of

1:08:38

it It's it's America's best story

1:08:40

in my opinion. I mean because You

1:08:42

know you go back to the 1880s,

1:08:45

or I did one on the Battle

1:08:47

of Blair Mountain in West Virginia, when

1:08:49

10,000, 11,000 coal miners who were just

1:08:52

being brutally exploited by the mining companies

1:08:54

and their mercenaries. I mean, they took

1:08:56

up arms and they were ready to,

1:08:58

like, they were marching on the county

1:09:01

next door to go free some of

1:09:03

their... compatriots and to hang the sheriff.

1:09:05

I mean, they only stopped because the

1:09:08

U.S. Army finally showed up. This is

1:09:10

right after World War I. The U.S.

1:09:12

Army showed up and a lot of

1:09:15

the guys who the minors were World War

1:09:17

I veterans and they, you know, they weren't

1:09:19

going to fight the Army. Like they were

1:09:21

sort of, not even because they were afraid

1:09:23

or discouraged by their prospects.

1:09:25

They just weren't going up. You know,

1:09:28

their problem was with like the

1:09:30

sheriff and the mine, you know,

1:09:32

the mine operators and stuff, not

1:09:34

with the army. They don't want

1:09:36

to fight them. And so that

1:09:38

diffused it. But, you know, you

1:09:40

go back to those early decades

1:09:42

of the labor struggles. And I

1:09:44

mean, people really have to like,

1:09:46

it was not some aberration when

1:09:48

striking workers, you know. got a

1:09:51

bunch of people killed, you know,

1:09:53

like where a bunch of Pinkerton's

1:09:55

or other mercenaries or even government

1:09:57

forces. I mean, you go to like, you know,

1:09:59

a mine. a coal mine in Colorado back

1:10:01

in, I think it was 1912, and

1:10:03

the National Guard of the state, which

1:10:05

was completely, there was not a lot

1:10:07

of people in Colorado at the time,

1:10:09

so the National Guard and the state

1:10:11

government was completely run by. the mining

1:10:13

operators because they were the most important

1:10:16

thing in the state and the National

1:10:18

Guard took up positions with machine guns

1:10:20

up on a hill overlooking the striking

1:10:22

miners encampment and the miners are mostly

1:10:24

all gone because you know there were

1:10:26

authorities looking for them and stuff was

1:10:28

a lot of their wives and children

1:10:30

and so forth and they just opened up on

1:10:32

these people and killed like 22 women and

1:10:34

children and like that kind of thing was

1:10:37

like that's an extreme kind of example,

1:10:39

I guess, of the brutality, but smaller versions

1:10:41

of that, that's how it was. Like, people

1:10:43

didn't believe back then, or a lot of

1:10:45

people, the capitalist didn't believe back then, that

1:10:48

you had a right to strike. Today, we're like...

1:10:50

Yeah, if you don't want to go to

1:10:52

work, you don't have to go to

1:10:54

work, and if you all do it

1:10:56

together, that's a strike. Like, you know,

1:10:58

of course people can do. That's not

1:11:00

how they thought about it back then.

1:11:02

You know, they thought you were, they

1:11:04

thought of a strike as like a

1:11:07

form of sabotage. And so the authorities

1:11:09

would be brought in, mercenaries would be

1:11:11

brought in to like deal with these

1:11:13

people. And you're like a form of

1:11:15

sabotage. And so the authorities would be

1:11:17

brought in, I really try to get

1:11:19

this. this, that, or the other.

1:11:21

Back then, you're talking about

1:11:23

guys who, and women too, actually,

1:11:25

in certain cases, but guys who

1:11:27

spent 12 to 14 hours a

1:11:30

day, turn in a ranch, or

1:11:32

swing in a hammer, and then

1:11:34

after that, then they go to their

1:11:36

meetings. You know, and they get home

1:11:38

to their family and they sleep for

1:11:40

four or five hours that, you know,

1:11:42

in a basement, two-room apartment that's got

1:11:44

mold growing on the walls and they

1:11:46

have a bowl of cabbage soup with

1:11:48

their four kids that live in this

1:11:50

horrible place. And then they go back

1:11:52

and do it again the next day.

1:11:54

These were like working people who were, I

1:11:57

firmly believe, if it was not for

1:11:59

their sacrifice. we would all still

1:12:01

be working under those kind

1:12:03

of conditions. Like the, you know,

1:12:05

the, the, the capitalist class, and

1:12:08

I, you know, I'm not trying

1:12:10

to sound like some kind of

1:12:12

a, you know, Marxist or something.

1:12:14

I'm just, you know, that's what

1:12:17

they were. Like they were not

1:12:19

going to compromise with the people

1:12:21

unless they were forced to. And

1:12:23

those people, you know, they went

1:12:25

out on the picket lines.

1:12:28

You know, you know, probably the thing

1:12:30

labor unions are most famous for

1:12:32

these days is like the corruption, the

1:12:34

mob involvement and so forth, labor racketeering.

1:12:37

And that kind of got started

1:12:39

in the early part of the 1900s,

1:12:41

but the interesting thing about it is

1:12:43

the way it started was, you know,

1:12:45

the owners of the businesses, they were

1:12:47

hiring like real thugs. I mean the

1:12:49

Pinkerton's, the different groups that they would

1:12:51

hire, they would get people just out

1:12:53

of prison, you know, violent people, war

1:12:55

veterans, and they would send them against

1:12:57

the striking workers, have them spy on

1:12:59

the workers, have them kidnap like guys

1:13:01

who are trying to kind of get

1:13:03

people into the union and so forth

1:13:05

and get rid of them, you know,

1:13:07

this kind of thing was happening. And

1:13:09

so the union started to say, well,

1:13:11

we need some muscle too. And so

1:13:13

who's the muscle? Well, if you got

1:13:15

a bunch of like Irish and Italian

1:13:17

guys working on this dock, the toughest

1:13:19

guys they know are the gangsters. And

1:13:21

so they'd be like, you know, we'll

1:13:23

pay you, we need you to defend

1:13:25

us from, you know, make sure that

1:13:27

we don't get our teeth kicked in

1:13:29

by the Pinkerton's. And so they would do

1:13:32

that and, you know, they ran into the

1:13:34

trouble that, you know, it always

1:13:36

presents itself in situations like that

1:13:38

is the, you know, you hire,

1:13:40

start to look around and be

1:13:42

like, why don't we have to

1:13:44

take orders from these people again?

1:13:46

Can't we run the show? And

1:13:48

that kind of started to happen.

1:13:50

You started to get these unions

1:13:52

that were racketeering or organizations. And

1:13:54

so like, you know, these are things

1:13:57

about, you know, history is extremely

1:13:59

messy. You know, we have to

1:14:01

always remember like people are often making

1:14:03

the crucial decisions that like turn history

1:14:05

this way or that, you know, zig

1:14:08

instead of zag are often made under

1:14:10

crisis conditions by people who sometimes they're

1:14:12

great men and women, but a lot

1:14:14

of times, you know, they're the person

1:14:17

who happens to be there at the

1:14:19

time and they're doing their best and

1:14:21

they're taking advice from the people that

1:14:23

are around them and they're. you know,

1:14:25

they're making the decision that's going to

1:14:28

determine if we head off in this

1:14:30

direction or that direction, you know, you

1:14:32

know, there was one time, right? Like,

1:14:34

this is probably, I can tell the

1:14:36

story because it's probably, it's back in

1:14:39

the mid-2000s when I was still in

1:14:41

the military. I was over at my

1:14:43

friend's house. He was at the hospital

1:14:45

picking up our other friend who had

1:14:47

a bicycle accident and hurt his head

1:14:50

and he was picking him up and

1:14:52

coming back with him. And so I

1:14:54

was going to meet him there so

1:14:56

we could hang out and welcome him

1:14:59

back from the hospital and so forth.

1:15:01

So I get there and I call

1:15:03

him up because he's not home and

1:15:05

I say, you know, Richard, I'm here,

1:15:07

like, what's up? He's like, ah, the

1:15:10

doctors are being slow, whatever, so I'm

1:15:12

going to be a little while. Well,

1:15:14

I got a big 20-ounce venti, you

1:15:16

know, Starbucks black coffee, and so I

1:15:18

pound that thing in my cars. I'm

1:15:21

reading a book, and pretty soon I

1:15:23

start to feel that pressure in my

1:15:25

gut. Like, I gotta take a shit.

1:15:27

Like, I have to take a shit.

1:15:29

It's like that caffeine shit, right? And

1:15:32

I call up my friend, like, where

1:15:34

are you? Like, I need you to

1:15:36

get home now. He's like, the doctor's

1:15:38

having you brought him to me, I

1:15:40

don't know what's going on, and I

1:15:43

know what's going on, and I know

1:15:45

what's going on, he's going on, he's

1:15:47

going on. He's like, he's like, he's

1:15:49

like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

1:15:52

he's like, he's like, he's like, he's

1:15:54

like, he's like, he's like, he's like,

1:15:56

he's like, he's like, go see if,

1:15:58

go see if, go see if, go

1:16:00

see if, go see And so now

1:16:03

I'm getting up and moving, and so

1:16:05

that's making things worse, you know. And

1:16:07

I check all the doors, I check

1:16:09

all the windows, nothing's open. And I'm

1:16:11

in the backyard and I'm like this

1:16:14

close to just digging a hole in

1:16:16

this flower garden and taking a shit

1:16:18

in this flower garden. But then all

1:16:20

of a sudden I look up and

1:16:22

there's a balcony from the master bedroom

1:16:25

with no stairs down to the backyard,

1:16:27

but it's a balcony, you know, there's

1:16:29

no access to it. I bet they

1:16:31

didn't lock that door. And so I

1:16:33

kicked my shoes off so that I

1:16:36

can, you know, they were loose on

1:16:38

my feet so that I can more

1:16:40

easily like climb up the pole and

1:16:42

pull myself up there. And so I'm

1:16:45

just in my socks. And at this

1:16:47

point, just like the effort of the

1:16:49

effort of. You know the strain of

1:16:51

like pulling myself up to this thing

1:16:53

like it's like it's like it's coming

1:16:56

right now And that's just that's what's

1:16:58

happening And so I run into the

1:17:00

I run up the doors open. Thank

1:17:02

God and I run in and run

1:17:04

into the master bathroom And for some

1:17:07

reason but again like this is a

1:17:09

crisis moment. You know I'm not like

1:17:11

taking everything into account as I'm making

1:17:13

decisions here I get in there and

1:17:15

as I run in there I see

1:17:18

that there's no toilet paper now the

1:17:20

obvious answer there is cross that bridge

1:17:22

when you get to it. You got

1:17:24

to go. At the time I was

1:17:26

like, oh no! And so I ran

1:17:29

out of the bathroom, I'm up on

1:17:31

the second floor, I run over to

1:17:33

the stairs, and they have one of

1:17:35

those stairs that, you know, kind of

1:17:38

goes down halfway, and there's a little

1:17:40

platform, and then right angle goes down

1:17:42

the other way. And I have to

1:17:44

go so bad that I just jumped

1:17:46

down the first flight of stairs, and

1:17:49

then I jumped down the second flight

1:17:51

of stairs. It's horrible. And I, my

1:17:53

head is like ringing and I'm ashamed

1:17:55

to say that like I laid there

1:17:57

in my shit for like at least

1:18:00

10 seconds because I was sitting there

1:18:02

thinking of like all of the opportunities

1:18:04

that I had to like, you know,

1:18:06

change course and avoid this that are

1:18:08

so obvious in retrospect and you just

1:18:11

sit there and think about like when

1:18:13

you're in that situation, like you don't

1:18:15

even stop there. You think back on

1:18:17

like your entire life and you're like.

1:18:19

How did I how did I get

1:18:22

here? It's like that record scratch like

1:18:24

you're probably wondering how I got into

1:18:26

this situation like that's where I was

1:18:28

This doesn't have anything to do with

1:18:31

like the overall point I was making

1:18:33

but the You know the really shameful

1:18:35

part of it is I Cleaned it

1:18:37

all up and you could still kind

1:18:39

of like in the grout I couldn't

1:18:42

get a lot so it was still

1:18:44

kind of smelled shitty. And when my

1:18:46

friend got home, I didn't tell him

1:18:48

this for years afterwards. When he got

1:18:50

home, I blamed it on his dog.

1:18:53

And he yelled at the dog that

1:18:55

got by behalf. Yeah, I told him

1:18:57

years later. So yeah, like, you know,

1:18:59

how old are we at the time?

1:19:01

Too old. To be doing shit like

1:19:04

that. But that's like, you know, that's

1:19:06

a funny way of putting it, but

1:19:08

like that's history a lot of the

1:19:10

times, you know? You're making decisions on

1:19:12

the fly that you're not necessarily having

1:19:15

time to reflect upon. And, you know,

1:19:17

you get into a situation where you're

1:19:19

like, how did we end up here?

1:19:21

You know? I'm glad you brought up

1:19:24

the labor movement, because I feel exactly

1:19:26

the same way. And knowing the history

1:19:28

of the way people striking were treated

1:19:30

and what could have happened, had they

1:19:32

not? been successful. You know, people want,

1:19:35

you know, you think about unions, you

1:19:37

think about corruption and waste and fraud.

1:19:39

That's unfortunately, that happens a lot and

1:19:41

greed. People making too much money, I

1:19:43

mean, they blamed a lot of the

1:19:46

unions on the collapse of the American

1:19:48

automobile industry in Detroit. You know, they

1:19:50

were, they wanted too much money, they

1:19:52

were too greedy, and they sent everything

1:19:54

overseas. And then, you know, the whole

1:19:57

Flint Michigan thing, Michael Moore's documentary. Roger

1:19:59

and me, it's one of those things

1:20:01

where unfortunately we look at negative aspects

1:20:03

of it and we don't have a

1:20:05

full perspective of where we would be

1:20:08

without that. When the powerful, and this

1:20:10

is what everyone's afraid of on the

1:20:12

left and rightly so, when the powerful

1:20:14

Have so much and their resources are

1:20:17

so vast that they can control everyone

1:20:19

else and that they could stifle your

1:20:21

ability to earn an income They could

1:20:23

siphon off all your money. They don't

1:20:25

have to pay taxes. They fuck everybody

1:20:28

over and they just want more and

1:20:30

more and more and it's a blight

1:20:32

on society. And I think there's like,

1:20:34

I think we both agree there's like

1:20:36

some sort of a comfortable middle ground.

1:20:39

I don't believe socialism is a way

1:20:41

to run a country, but I do

1:20:43

think there's socialism aspects of our country

1:20:45

that we can't ignore powerful and important.

1:20:47

One of them that I bring up

1:20:50

all the time is the fire department.

1:20:52

Fire department is a totally socialist idea.

1:20:54

Like you don't have to pay the

1:20:56

money. Like if you live in a

1:20:58

house that's worth a million dollars, if

1:21:01

you live in a house that's worth

1:21:03

$200,000, they put out fires. If you

1:21:05

can afford it or if you can't

1:21:07

afford it, they put out fires. We

1:21:10

all agree, you got to put out

1:21:12

fires. We all kind of agree, you

1:21:14

should have a good education. But obviously,

1:21:16

states are different in the resources, and

1:21:18

you see... very nice neighborhoods that have

1:21:21

really good schools, and you see terrible

1:21:23

neighborhoods that have terrible schools. So we

1:21:25

don't really completely treat that the way

1:21:27

we should. That should be a socialist

1:21:29

thing that everybody should get along with,

1:21:32

that everybody should say, yeah, that's good

1:21:34

for everybody. Another thing is, and this

1:21:36

is very controversial, but socialized medicine. The

1:21:38

idea that you should go broke. because

1:21:40

you broke your leg is fucking crazy.

1:21:43

If we're a community of people that

1:21:45

are supposed to be supporting each other

1:21:47

and helping each other, the best thing

1:21:49

we could do is help one of

1:21:51

the members of the community become active

1:21:54

and productive and contribute to society. That

1:21:56

makes everybody better and greater and we

1:21:58

should be willing to contribute to that.

1:22:00

But I want my... orthopedic surgeon driving

1:22:03

a fucking Mercedes. I want that guy

1:22:05

to be a bad motherfucker who gets

1:22:07

compensated for it because that's the type

1:22:09

of guy who becomes an artist. That's

1:22:11

the type of guy who works on

1:22:14

the Lakers needs. That's the type of

1:22:16

guy you want like oh that's Mike

1:22:18

he does the cowboys whenever they have

1:22:20

shoulder injuries. That's the guy who doesn't

1:22:22

feel like he's being compensated enough. You

1:22:25

don't want a guy who feels like

1:22:27

he's expendable. You don't want you want

1:22:29

a guy who feels like he's a

1:22:31

fucking rock star That's what you want

1:22:33

if you want your mom getting brain

1:22:36

surgery, right? You want a rock star

1:22:38

surgeon doing that So I believe in

1:22:40

competition and I believe in merit and

1:22:42

I think it's very very important for

1:22:44

our society as a whole But I

1:22:47

also think there should be a much

1:22:49

larger safety net for individuals so they

1:22:51

don't go broke if they have a

1:22:53

fucking knee surgery. Or if you break

1:22:56

your back, you shouldn't have to fucking

1:22:58

go bankrupt. That's kind of crazy. And

1:23:00

I think labor unions are very important.

1:23:02

It's very important to not allow a

1:23:04

corporation that is entirely designed to make

1:23:07

as much money as possible dictate how

1:23:09

much money it's workers get. Because the

1:23:11

poorer you are, the more desperate you

1:23:13

are, the less likely you are to

1:23:15

do anything about it. Right? When you

1:23:18

get comfortable and you want to be

1:23:20

more comfortable and you say, this isn't

1:23:22

fair, we could sit out for six

1:23:24

months, that's when you become dangerous. Right?

1:23:26

When you have the ability to strike,

1:23:29

when the writers union in Los Angeles

1:23:31

strikes. Like that's a fucking real problem,

1:23:33

man. That's a real problem. That shuts

1:23:35

everything down. And they get recognized because

1:23:37

of that, and then they get hopefully

1:23:40

fairly compensated because of that. It's an

1:23:42

important part of our society. There's also,

1:23:44

I think, due to our unique history,

1:23:46

you know, of kind of having... demographic

1:23:49

turnover generation after generation more or less

1:23:51

since the beginning that you know if

1:23:53

you look at the development of things

1:23:55

like the public school system for example

1:23:57

or a lot of the social welfare

1:24:00

programs and other social programs a lot

1:24:02

of those things emerged because there was

1:24:04

this, you know, all of a sudden

1:24:06

a huge influx of Irish in the

1:24:08

1830s and 40s. And their, you know,

1:24:11

their parents are both working 14 hour

1:24:13

days and the kids are just running

1:24:15

the streets and everything else and there's

1:24:17

no public schools. They didn't have any

1:24:19

at first, you know. And so it's

1:24:22

like a response to this. They're like,

1:24:24

we gotta do something about this. We

1:24:26

gotta take these. like little hellians and

1:24:28

turn them into Americans somehow you know

1:24:30

and so you had philanthropists who was

1:24:33

all private at first and then like

1:24:35

they were transferred to the city governments

1:24:37

and stuff but they were responses to

1:24:39

like demographic crises right due they were

1:24:42

emerging due to like the migrant influxes

1:24:44

and I think that that being the

1:24:46

case it's kind of given Americans like

1:24:48

a because you know the native population

1:24:50

who was already there when that happened

1:24:53

they a lot of they didn't like

1:24:55

it they're like wait so these people

1:24:57

came over here and now I have

1:24:59

to pay to like set up a

1:25:01

school system for their kids like what

1:25:04

it created like that sort of resistance

1:25:06

to you know the question of of

1:25:08

what we owe each other as members

1:25:10

of a society you know like the

1:25:12

idea of like I feel like we've

1:25:15

kind of taken like America's the best

1:25:17

country in the world if you are

1:25:19

smart motivated you got a great idea

1:25:21

and you want to make something of

1:25:23

it go to America like America is

1:25:26

the place for you Throughout most of

1:25:28

our history, if you were just like

1:25:30

a person who, you know, you could

1:25:32

turn a wrench or swing a hammer

1:25:35

or something, Mary was not built for

1:25:37

you. It was built to create opportunities

1:25:39

and push competition for people that compete

1:25:41

for the top of the mountain, but

1:25:43

the people at the bottom, like throughout

1:25:46

a lot of our history, were just

1:25:48

kind of forgotten. You know, the real

1:25:50

question is, in a country that is

1:25:52

so geared toward... competition at the top,

1:25:54

whether that ever would have changed without

1:25:57

a real push, you know? And I

1:25:59

mean, one of the other things too

1:26:01

is like when people think about, you

1:26:03

go back to, like in Europe, where

1:26:05

they were really worried about communism, we

1:26:08

were never really justifiably too worried about

1:26:10

it in terms of having a revolution

1:26:12

here or anything, like that was never

1:26:14

really a danger, but if you go

1:26:16

over to, like especially after the Soviet

1:26:19

Union came around, from basically Germany eastward,

1:26:21

you know. communism like it was a

1:26:23

very real possibility like in the 1920s

1:26:25

that the German Communist Party which was

1:26:28

the largest political party in Germany and

1:26:30

was taking its marching orders directly from

1:26:32

Moscow that they were going to win

1:26:34

and they were going to take over

1:26:36

and you were now going to be

1:26:39

like what's going on over in Russia

1:26:41

and Ukraine like that was a that

1:26:43

was a real thing that could have

1:26:45

happened to them you know and the

1:26:47

when people hear that they think that

1:26:50

you know again they try to put

1:26:52

it in the context of like a

1:26:54

modern left-wing person or something like that

1:26:56

but it's like when people are working

1:26:58

under these conditions and the socialists, the

1:27:01

communists, are like literally the only political

1:27:03

movement that's even vying for their support.

1:27:05

Nobody else was even, really even courting

1:27:07

them or asking for it, you know?

1:27:09

And when you add to like this

1:27:12

whole idea of like the working class,

1:27:14

like this isn't something that has existed

1:27:16

forever, like this was something that was

1:27:18

emerging in different times in different places,

1:27:21

but like really in that like... Most

1:27:23

like the in some developed countries you

1:27:25

started to see it in like the

1:27:27

18th century But it's like a 19th

1:27:29

century phenomenon where all of a sudden

1:27:32

So you think you go back to

1:27:34

feudal times and you've got the aristocracy

1:27:36

you got the church and you got

1:27:38

the peasantry and then you have like

1:27:40

another group of people who kind of

1:27:43

serves a unique function but a kind

1:27:45

of a uniform function across Europe in

1:27:47

in the Jews. You know they would

1:27:49

very often be like they played a

1:27:51

very kind of critical role in the

1:27:54

feudal Europe you know because they were

1:27:56

the only ones who had a network

1:27:58

that kind of stretched across the whole

1:28:00

place and so a lot of times

1:28:02

like The rulers would have Jews working

1:28:05

for them who, you know, they were

1:28:07

basically like your diplomatic channels, kind of.

1:28:09

You need to like talk to people

1:28:11

over there, or if you needed to

1:28:14

raise money for something, they had large

1:28:16

capital networks that could help you raise

1:28:18

money for it, things like that. But

1:28:20

they weren't, you know, they weren't serfs

1:28:22

or peasants, they weren't the church, obviously,

1:28:25

they were kind of their separate thing.

1:28:27

And most of the most of the

1:28:29

time, they were allowed to sort of...

1:28:31

abide by their own laws, like run

1:28:33

their own little little societies like how

1:28:36

they wanted you know. But this was

1:28:38

at a time when it was just

1:28:40

taken for granted that different classes of

1:28:42

people had different privileges and different rights.

1:28:44

You know, it was just, no, everybody

1:28:47

took that for granted. It wasn't even

1:28:49

something that was imposed. A peasant or

1:28:51

serf would have believed that as much

1:28:53

as the king did. It was only

1:28:55

when you start to get up into

1:28:58

the industrial revolution that all of a

1:29:00

sudden you start to see these cities

1:29:02

just teeming with people who have no

1:29:04

land. you know, they don't have any

1:29:07

means of like immediate self-sufficiency. What they

1:29:09

have is their back and their shoulders

1:29:11

and their hands and, you know, they

1:29:13

trade that for the means to survive.

1:29:15

And, you know, this happened very rapidly

1:29:18

in a lot of countries so that,

1:29:20

you know, you have this whole new

1:29:22

kind of politically awakening demographic, you know,

1:29:24

because that's sort of like kind of

1:29:26

the key to it. Is it first?

1:29:29

you know, it took some time for

1:29:31

them to sort of have a political

1:29:33

awakening where they recognize that, wait, I'm

1:29:35

not just a worker, I'm a member

1:29:37

of the working class, and we have,

1:29:40

you know, whatever our difference is, the

1:29:42

working class has common interests that are

1:29:44

in opposition to the interests of these

1:29:46

other classes, and we're going to start

1:29:48

to, you know, organize and act politically.

1:29:51

to extend those interests and to achieve

1:29:53

them. That was something that was very

1:29:55

new. And so people were kind of

1:29:57

figuring out again on the fly like

1:30:00

how to deal with this, like what,

1:30:02

you know, the idea that just regular

1:30:04

poor people who, you know, that they

1:30:06

should have any say in like how

1:30:08

the state is run, how the economies

1:30:11

or it was just completely foreign idea,

1:30:13

like everywhere on the planet basically until,

1:30:15

you know, 200 years ago or so.

1:30:17

Which is pretty bizarre that we've had

1:30:19