WEBVTT - Part One: G. Gordon Liddy: The Fascist Behind Watergate 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:06.360 M oh, well, I was doing it as you were 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:08.400 doing it. I could have done it. I really would 0:00:08.440 --> 0:00:11.040 have done it for you. If I will do that. Well, 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:14.640 this is Behind the Bastards, a podcast where I will 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.279 not do an impression of Sophie because I want to 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:25.280 keep our work relationship. No, please, please, please do it. 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.560 That's how you sound. We are Wow. This is a 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.959 podcast about the worst people in all of history. Speaking 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.000 of the worst people in all of history. Andrew T, 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:41.600 I am that king. Uh no, not not the worst 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.760 person in all of history. But you're fighting some of 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:46.720 the worst people in all of history on the lines 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:52.400 of the strike against those Hollywood motherfuckers. It really is. 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:57.800 I should but yes, those you are all Yeah, yeah, 0:00:57.800 --> 0:00:59.440 the bad Hollywood motherfuckers. 0:01:02.600 --> 0:01:04.800 Yeah, I'm on I'm on a strike. 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.679 I'm a member of the Writer's Guild of America. And 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:10.560 also I realized the other day I did a project 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:12.960 for Writers Guild of Canada, which I don't really know 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.720 how that all worked, but I did have sign some paperwork. 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:17.759 So exciting, exciting. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.240 It might be might have a union up up north 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.720 of the border. Also, but yeah, it is like the 0:01:24.160 --> 0:01:30.640 clowns that run the studios. It's shocking, Like how if 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:34.559 they were doing their jobs remotely correctly, None, no one 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:40.240 reasonable would know their names now, like, not one of them. 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.800 No, And there's only one wild outside of the current 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.280 crop of studio heads. There is only one studio executive 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:51.080 I can name, and it's my namesake, Robert Evans, not 0:01:51.280 --> 0:01:54.080 because of anything he did as a studio head, but 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:58.400 because of his contributions to cocaine sciences, which I do respect. 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.920 Yeah, yeah, there's I mean, there's like reasons one might 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.480 know about them, but honestly, like I a person who's 0:02:06.520 --> 0:02:11.760 worked in you know, television for years now prior to 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.360 the strike, Like I guess I knew who Bob Iiker was. 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:19.000 Yeah, Disney, but the Disney I don't. 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.320 Think any of us had any Like I don't know 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.360 you'd hear these names, but it'd be one in one 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:27.800 of your the other, like they should be anonymous rich shadows. 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.240 They could have one knows, cash checks for millions of 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.519 dollars a year and had nobody know who they are 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.200 or be angry at them. But they wanted tens of 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.840 millions of dollars a year, and so they've decided to 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:41.400 cause problems for themselves. 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.880 Like I think by the way, you're even that joke 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.200 is off by an order of magnitude. Yeah, you're like 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:51.760 to baseline hundreds and try to get millions or billions. 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:59.640 Yeah, yeah, that's probably more accurate. Speaking of corrupt motherfuckers. Yeah, Andrew, who, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:06.400 what do you know about G Gordon Liddy A less 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:10.880 than I should? Yeah, everyone does, now we've I don't 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.200 think this violates any of the WGA stuff. There were 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.160 two big Watergate shows that launched recently. Like all TV 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.920 shows about historical moments, both of them are wrong in 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:28.360 specific interesting ways and accurate in other more minor ways. 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.400 Neither of them really get into Both of them feature g. 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:36.600 Gordon LIDDI neither of them really accurately describe him as 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.760 a person, Like one of them kind of picks the 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:44.920 he was this absolute unhinged, like maniac fucking cartoon character, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:47.800 and one of them like portrays him as like this 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:52.960 violent psychopath, and the reality is he was, like there 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.240 were pieces of that in him, and he is. He 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.040 is a crazy He's one of the craziest bastards to 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:01.520 ever be involved in American politics. But neither of them, 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:03.960 neither of them quite get it. I think what's most 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:08.160 fascinating about this weirdo. He is such a fucking weirdo. 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:12.040 And so you know, there's plenty of Watergate podcasts like 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.760 you can. You can spend a whole week learning about Watergate, 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.839 listening to like five different fucking shows on the matter. 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.840 I really just wanted to focus on on g Gordon Liddy, 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.080 both because I grew up. He was definitely on the 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.040 radio a lot when I was a kid, so I 0:04:28.080 --> 0:04:31.320 have a lot of experience with mister Liddy, but also 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.760 he is he's the proto type of all of these 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:41.040 fucking right wing media freaks that we are deluged with today, 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.840 think like and they're all They're all aping g Gordon Liddy, 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:47.640 Stephen Crowder, you know, whenever he wears his fucking shoulder 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.240 holster to go, you know, be a little fucking abusive 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.200 prick on his on his dumb ass fucking political YouTube 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:58.840 show or whatever. I guess he's on Rumble now, Alex Jones, 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:02.160 when he like lie about all these hardcore violence he's 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:03.839 done and how tough he is, how he could kill 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.680 a man without blinking, you know, Enrique Tario talking about 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.440 how like you know, oh, I don't regret anything ha 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:12.640 ha ha. Oh, please don't throw me in prison for 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.839 twenty two years, mister Jeff. Like, they are all aping 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:20.120 aspects of g. Gordon Liddy, but none of them. None 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.159 of them have what Liddy had in the center. None 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.080 of them are number one, none of them are actually 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.640 as committed. They're all grifters. And Lyddy had some grifter 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:31.960 in him. But Lyddy was a believer. He was a 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.440 believer in terrible things like but he was he was 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.120 not like, he was not like all of those the 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.599 guys I just named are completely hollow in their center. 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.560 Lily was not. Now the center of him was something 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.960 like dark and evil and like unsettling and greasy, but 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.400 there was there was mass there, you know. 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.640 Like yeah, yeah, I mean you're still yeah, certain kinds 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.599 of dark chocolate, but the darkest of chocolate, I get you, right, 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.520 That's the innovation is or I guess right, that's what 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:04.200 makes you the og is like actually believing the shit 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:06.400 as yea being like a clear shill. 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:09.760 Yeah he's he was not just a shill. I mean 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.039 that was a part of him. And in fact he's 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:13.760 like one of I think he might be the first 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:16.680 of these guys to like really get into shilling gold. 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:22.360 So that's interesting. He's fascinating again. There's there's there's both. 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.640 There's some weight to him, there's a degree he's he's 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.320 an original too. All of these guys are very much 0:06:28.360 --> 0:06:32.919 consciously aping g Gordon Liddy, and Liddy was an original figure. 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.440 You know. The other thing that's interesting about Liddy is 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.880 that he wrote an autobiography and it is like number 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:41.719 one most of the time. When you get these guys 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:43.719 who are at the center of like a massive politic, 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.760 you think, think about the Trump administration, right, how within 0:06:46.839 --> 0:06:49.600 like a month or two of him. Honestly, like while 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:52.320 he was still in office, there were fucking books coming 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:54.200 out left and right. As soon as one of these 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.880 guys would get fired, right, you know, somebody would get 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:58.840 like two million dollars and hooked up with a ghost 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.680 writer about it being Badaboo. You've got you know, fucking 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:05.479 the Mooch's memoir about his weekend the Trump White Ats 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:09.840 or whatever. Yeah, the room where it happens, starring some 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:14.320 guy whose name I've already fucking forgotten. Yeah, from Twitter, 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.920 from from from all these fucking weirdos. But it was like, 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.640 you know, these are cash grabs. Right, most of these 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:24.640 are cash grabs. You know. Again, you're you're sort of 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.520 stretching out someone who probably doesn't have that much that's 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:29.040 interesting to say. So you can get a couple of 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.200 anecdotes that will go viral in like a Business Insider article, 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.480 and you're just kind of hoping that, like, yeah, the 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.480 the the fame of the administration will make the book 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:43.240 worth whatever they're paying for it. Lyddy's there's a lot 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.840 of that for Watergate. Right, all of these guys write books, 0:07:45.840 --> 0:07:47.840 you know. John Deane's got his fucking book, you know, 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:51.560 And Lyddy writes a book after he gets out of prison. 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.600 Lyddy writes his own book. And it is like I 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.400 read part of what I do is I like read anytime, 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:01.360 you know, I'm one of these bastards and they've written 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.480 a book about their life. I'll get in there. I 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.320 have never read a crazier autobiography than she Gordon Liddi's. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.920 And it is it is pure Lyddy. Right, we're not 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:14.160 talking about this is not like, you know, adulterated by 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.200 some fucking publishing house trying to massage his image. He's 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.480 trying to massage his image sure at points, but like 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.200 it is, it is a it's like that. You know, 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.080 we did for about a year, you know, off and 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.120 on my friend's Katie Cody and I would talk about 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:31.840 Ben Shapiro's novel because like when once some somebody writes 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.400 a novel, you can't not learn things about them, right 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:38.960 from that process. You get so much more with Lyddie's 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.400 Saudo biography. So episode one is largely going to be 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:46.560 us reading through his depiction of his early life and childhood, 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:49.600 and I will be fact checking it wherever I can. 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.400 There's a lot I can't fact check, right because Liddy's 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.760 talking about like what he was thinking and feelings like 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:56.600 an eight year old, right, I can't. I don't have 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.520 outside I'm not gonna like refer to John Dene's hire, 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:06.040 you know, but we will bring it out. You know, 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.000 I read Dean's memoir for this too. I read a 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.400 book called King Richard. You know, We've got a bunch 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:14.120 of other sort of a number of other sources on 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.360 like the Watergate stuff and on his career before Watergate 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.080 was in the FBI. But for this early part, we're 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.959 just gonna be Lyddy. You know that that's gonna be 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.640 a significant amount of what we talk about. So without 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:28.679 further ado, I guess I should roll roll in with this. 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:33.280 Are you ready to learn about Let's get Lyddy? Sorry 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:37.440 about our best Republican Yeah, that's that's the thing is 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:39.760 g Gordon Lyddy would be such a great name for 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:45.120 like like a SoundCloud wrapper. That's the real tragedy. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.600 he was born too early. Tragedy. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.680 Yeah, Daniel, can you can you add just like a 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:52.880 let's get Lyddy and then can you add just like 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:54.920 some really awesome sound effect here? 0:09:54.920 --> 0:10:03.720 Please? Sure, let's get Lyddy. I don't understand this, but 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.160 I'm gonna soldier Dane will understand the reference because he's 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.560 Lyddy would have wanted me to soldier forward. He never 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:15.720 thought about what was happening either. George Gordon battle Liddy 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:20.120 was born on November thirtieth, nineteen thirty in Brooklyn, New York. 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.320 His father, Sylvester, was a lawyer and stockbroker. He would 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.080 eventually be one of the men responsible for bringing Volvo 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.120 to the United States. So we have G. Gordon, but 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:33.439 he his dad to thank for American Volvos. If you're 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:39.160 a Volvo driver. His mother Maria. That's not nothing. His mother, 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.560 Maria was a homemaker. Now I just read his name 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:45.920 Gordon Battle lyddy, given the fact that he is a 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.440 violent madman as an or at least he puts on 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.480 the image of a violent madman as an adult, I'm 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:54.520 gonna guess everyone's wondering, like, what the fuck is the 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.400 story behind that name? But like, the fact is, as 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:01.320 far as I can tell, his parents weren't like nuts, right, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.079 And the story here is actually like pretty tame. It's 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.880 kind of interesting, but it's not like wild. He's named 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.000 his namesake is a was a New York lawyer and 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:17.800 Democratic politician named George Gordon Battle, which is a pretty 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:21.240 cool guy, a pretty cool name, and he seemed to 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.480 have been a pretty cool guy. He was defense attorney 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.520 for Earl Browner, who was the head of the US 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:30.240 Communist Party. He helped raise money for a number of 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.720 really good causes. He was the chairman of the National 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.640 Committee on Prison Labor Reform, and he's one of the 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.160 men who fought hard to stop Central Park from being 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.320 developed right from like it being replaced with like buildings 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:44.960 and shit. Right. He was childless, but he spent his 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.160 entire working life fighting to add more public playgrounds to 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.280 New York City. If you grew up in New York 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:54.440 City and spent time on a playground, Gordon Battle George 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.280 Battle has a lot to do with that, and in 0:11:57.320 --> 0:11:59.679 the late nineteen twenties, seeing what was going on in Europe, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.920 came a tireless opponent of anti Semitism for the last 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.800 act of his life. So yeah, like a pretty cool guy, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.960 smart psychond tell this might key you into the fact 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.120 that g Gordon Liddy's parents were not politically the kind 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:18.400 of people you might expect to likese raise a fascist, 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:23.640 political criminal right Like, they were not, Like, it's not 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.000 one of these cases where you've got like, you know, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:29.600 super hard right family who's like really mentally abusive to 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.320 their kid, and you're just like, I see why this 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.480 dude grew up to be a piece of no. Like, again, 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:37.800 they're not perfect people, Like we'll cover some of that, 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.040 but they seem to have not been the folks you 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:42.880 might expect, right, and the story of how they wound 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.400 up raising this maniac anyway is fascinating. So he grows 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.880 up affluent, his family is kind of upper middle class 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.800 when he's a little kid, and like Rich by the 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:54.960 time he's in his teens, I think would be fair 0:12:55.000 --> 0:12:59.840 to say Liddy's despite the affluence, Liddy's early childhood was 0:12:59.920 --> 0:13:05.400 not pleasant. This was not due specifically primarily to his parents' actions, 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.520 but rather to a quirk of his psychology. He was 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:13.320 terrified of everything. Now, in his defense, his world was frightening. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.280 The world of nineteen thirty is a scary place to 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:21.160 be a child, and this was kind of exacerbated by 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.280 the fact that the family home lay directly underneath the 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:28.079 path of the Hindenburg Zeppelin. So as a little kid, 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:32.480 his earliest memory is this monster in the sky, just 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:37.080 like barreling over his house making this terrifying noise. In 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:41.920 his autobiography, he recalls being just absolutely piss horrified by 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.760 the quote bloated shapes, swelling and roaring with incredible power 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:47.920 as it came on and on, trapping me in the 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.240 bottom of the box and blotting out the sky. The 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.319 box in this instance is his backyard and hoboken with 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:56.440 a family moved soon after his birth. But like, yeah, 0:13:56.440 --> 0:14:00.440 that's his earliest memory is like the Hindenburg, terrifying. There's 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.000 like a dragon in the sky ampuk it he was 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:06.960 now he may be lying about he was not yet 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.920 two when this happened, and like, so I always kind 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:12.280 of a little grain assault when people talk about remembering 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:13.840 shit that happens with their two but it does. People 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:16.520 do remember shit from that time, so not impossible. And 0:14:16.880 --> 0:14:20.800 I guess I don't know why he would lie about this. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:25.000 it's always like the world's most awful people are the 0:14:25.000 --> 0:14:28.680 world's most scared people in a way that it's like, so, 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:31.960 you know, it would be cute if you didn't give 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.560 these people half the you know, any of the power 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:36.880 they have. This is this is why we need to 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.040 be so careful about like not giving people power, because yeah, 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.120 you can't. You never know what's going on you want. 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.720 You see, like a kid at the playground, that kid 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.720 could be brewing up some Hitler particles, right, Like, you 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:54.080 never know what's going on in their heads. So I'm 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:56.800 going to read a quote from his autobiography here. I 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.160 had been walking for six months, but due to the 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.239 concern of my mother, I hadn't yet spoken an intelligible 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:04.640 word I beget or to the concern of my mother, 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.480 I hadn't yet spoken an intelligible word. I began to 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:12.080 speak immediately to articulate my first memory, absolute overwhelming fear. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:15.880 So he starts speaking to try to express to his 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.840 mom how scared he is of the Zeppelin now. His 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.160 second memory comes in the spring of nineteen thirty four, 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.440 when he and his mother and sister had moved to 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.600 d C temporarily. Their grandfather was dying of terminal cancer, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.160 and Sylvester wanted to care for his father. I think 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:34.640 he didn't want the family to have to be there. 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:38.240 Maybe their grandpa didn't want his grandkids to see him 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:42.240 like that. But while he was there, he experienced like, 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.520 while you know, he's living with his mom in d C, 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.400 there's like a fire drill at the building they're living, 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.880 like a surprise fire drill, and he's too young to 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:55.640 really understand it. So he recalls experiencing absolute overwhelming fear. Quote. 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:58.360 The early memories that follow are still fragmented, but the 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.400 theme is common. Lying on the floor, or as my 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.720 paternal grandmother lashed me with a leather harness, shouting bad, 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.360 bad fear, my mother insisting I not use my left 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.720 hand as she forced me into right handedness, and my 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:13.560 inability to understand why more Fear rounding the corner and 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.240 coming upon a truck mounted vacuum, a giant air hose 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.720 sneaking across the sidewalk from a huge bag suction engine 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:22.680 rolling as it cleaned the flus of coal furnaces, running 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:24.720 from the sound, and the threat no certainty that I 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:28.200 would be sucked inside the monster bag. Fear soon My 0:16:28.280 --> 0:16:31.640 every waking moment was ruled by that overriding emotion, fear. 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:36.720 So you've got this mix of like, yeah, understandable stuff, like, yeah, 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.840 his grandma was, you know, very aggressive with her punishment 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:42.920 of him. I don't think uncommonly so for the area, 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:45.520 but like that's a scary thing to deal with. His 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.440 mom didn't want him to be left handed, and like 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.120 that scared him. And then like just shit, he and 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:54.760 these like nightmare vacuums driving around cleaning out flues and shit, 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:56.840 you know, he's just scared of everything as a kid. 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:57.480 Oh wow. 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.800 That also, though, I will say, having said the last thing, 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:05.000 I guess if he's taking all these pains to I 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:07.680 guess I'm just so conditioned to assume he's like a 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.280 lying lunatic that if he's trying to convince us how 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:10.960 scared he was. 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.600 Now I'm thinking he simply wasn't. I mean maybe right, 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.480 Like that's the thing, one way or the other. He 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.920 does say a lot about him, but like, right, I 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.960 don't know, I don't know why he would lie about 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.280 this in particular. I guess, you know, because it builds 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:30.320 to something later. But like, yeah, I don't find this unbelievable. 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.439 Like when I was elementary school, I had a teacher 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.680 who like would harass me about using my left hand right, 0:17:36.760 --> 0:17:40.280 like that was not an uncommon thing back, especially for Catholics. Right, 0:17:40.920 --> 0:17:44.040 if it's written to it, this is like post jail, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.240 though I guess it's like it's nineteen eighty. 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.800 He writes, this is like this is how I'm trying 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:55.400 to justify my the way I am. That that would 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:57.679 be my only thought as to, yeah, whether or not 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.359 it's a lie. But the emphasis this yeah, because the 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.240 other counterpoint is everything he described is very COVID. Yeah, 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:07.359 a lot of people are afraid of those things. I 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:09.960 don't see how you're more afraid of those things. 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:12.480 A lot of kids grow I think what's interesting is 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:15.040 sort of his reaction to the fear. But he he 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:18.000 has as we'll talk about he develops a I don't 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.800 think the fear that he has is abnormal, because a 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.280 lot of kids get scared of weird shit. I think 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:28.360 his his obsession with like his fear as a failure, 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.320 a moral failing for him is the thing that is 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.040 interesting to look what I Yeah, that is kind of 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.760 where we're going here. So he's also a sickly kid. 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:44.359 He has probably I think it would be asthma, and 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.760 so his his treatment for this is that he would 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.520 spend hours every day in a tint in his bedroom 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.159 breathing medicated steam with a mustard plast, a mustard plast 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.480 on his chest. The gold there was to relieve mucus congestion, 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.440 to stop his persistent cough. And it's here I should 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.440 note some of the something, which is that g Gordon 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.520 Lyddy and I actually have a lot in common because 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.359 I had the I had the modern version of that. 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:08.720 When I was a kid, I had asthma and I 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.560 would have to spend hours almost every night hooked up 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:13.960 to this weird machine the size of a projector that 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.600 like pumped all butterol missed into my lungs. Like that 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:19.199 was like a thing that I had to do as 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:22.400 a little kid. I was like reading that was weird 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:24.000 because I was like, oh, yeah, I've been through that, 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.200 you know, and it's not I think Liddy's certainly that's 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.000 Liddy's experience. Seems like it was more physically unpleasant, but 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.360 even like mine was not painful, but it is this 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:39.240 weird thing that kind of separates you from like other kids, 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.280 from your your your brothers and sisters, from your your 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.439 family members, you're and stuff like the fact that you 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.200 have to spend all this time like attached to this machine, 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:50.840 like I'm sure it also to do something, you know, 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.200 a sick yeah, yeah, yeah, in order to keep breathing right. Yeah. Yeah. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:56.440 My asthma was ever that bad. 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:58.040 But I did have a trip where I came back 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.439 and yeah, I had the I I think they had 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.120 a manual version of this at the at the urgent Care, 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:06.800 which was just like, I don't know, a fucking fire 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:15.400 extinguishers volume, Yeah. 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:15.720 What we need. I don't understand why these don't exist. 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:19.320 Andrew is our butterol cigarettes. I would smoke those still, 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.720 you know, I want I just want to I just 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.520 want to chain smoke for health. You know, it's. 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.440 Probably not impossible to get a little vape cartridge of LB. 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:33.199 Just just vaping out bututerol. Like you know, I just 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:37.240 blow it. I'm still health about you fuckers. 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.639 Blowing steroid clouds, steroid cotton. 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:42.639 This is a fifty to fifty mix of al butterol 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:46.639 and tobacco. Oh my god, that would make my flavor. 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:53.920 That would burst my heart. Yeah, it seems healthy. So yeah, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.760 he's got this experience, and I think, probably to a degree, 0:20:57.520 --> 0:20:59.760 separates him from it. And you have to when you're 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:02.399 doing this. Lyddy is always a guy who lives inside 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.960 his head to a significant extent. He's and that's part 0:21:04.960 --> 0:21:08.639 of why he's so unhinged, as he's always he's thinking 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:12.240 about like very strange things all the time. His mind 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.800 is like NonStop going in these kind of manic circles. 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.119 That is part of why he becomes like the plotter 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:21.399 that he becomes. And I think, you know, given that 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.160 I went through something similar, I kind of might tie 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:25.960 some of it back to that, Like it's hard not 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.280 to just sort of get stuck in your own head 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.919 a lot when you have that as an early life experience. 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.440 His grandpa dies in thirty five and the family moves 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:40.919 back to Hoboken together, you know, and he's he you know, 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:45.000 is a is a weird little kid, he recalls being 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:47.600 because he's kind of raised in the city and the suburbs, 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.480 absolutely terrified of the natural world. As a little kid, 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.800 nature was so alien to him that like one of 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.280 his earliest fears is the fact that moths would arrive 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:01.520 at nighttime. Quote. I had been frightened for the first 0:22:01.520 --> 0:22:03.800 time a moth fluttered against my bedroom window on a 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:06.480 warm summer night, the light through a giant shadow on 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:09.800 the opposite wall, terrifying me, frantic screams, then my mother 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.720 explaining it was just a harmless moth or perhaps a miller. 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.040 From that moment on, the night was filled with giant 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:17.520 moth millers out to get me. I knew it. So 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:21.280 my fear grew each to experience breeding more so he's 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.080 by at least if you believe his sort of yah 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:28.199 recitation of events, he is just stacking up these like 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.720 very normal experiences that are deeply traumatizing to him. 0:22:32.760 --> 0:22:36.960 And like, yeah, I guess it's like, I mean, right now, 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:39.560 I see what you're saying about, Like why would he 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:40.199 make this up? 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:45.960 Yeah, in this detail and this like yeah, I think 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.440 some of this must be true. Is does he play 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:49.880 it up? Sure? I mean, that's the kind of guy 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.560 that he is, you know. And I also think I'm 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:54.720 certain the way you know, this happens to all of 0:22:54.760 --> 0:22:58.240 us to some extent over time. You know, your memories, 0:22:58.640 --> 0:23:01.120 you think on them, you change them, you tell stories. 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.040 You know, maybe you jazz something up for a story 0:23:05.040 --> 0:23:07.520 you tell somebody, and like that makes it into your memory. Right, 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:10.240 So I think there's probably just something obviously as happens 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:14.680 to most people, because I do think he probably believes 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:17.560 a lot of this, whether or not it's all literally true. 0:23:18.359 --> 0:23:22.359 Another one of his most searing in a literal sense 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:25.840 early moments is later that same summer, you know, where 0:23:25.840 --> 0:23:28.439 he becomes terrified of moths. His parents take him camping 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:30.440 in the woods, maybe to try to get him over 0:23:30.480 --> 0:23:33.320 that fear. And in the morning, he's like poking around 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:36.600 their campfire spot and he picks up a coal that 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:39.320 he doesn't realize is burning, and it like hurts him. 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:41.720 It burns his hand. Now, I think most kids have 0:23:41.760 --> 0:23:43.600 a version of that. I burnt myself in a car 0:23:43.680 --> 0:23:45.520 lighter by accident when I was a kid. We used 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:47.360 to have those and if you're a gen z kid. 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:49.720 We used to have cigarette lighters built into every car. 0:23:50.960 --> 0:23:53.960 If you want to know how much your grandparents smoked. 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:57.440 That was just the world for a while. Yeah, yeah, 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:04.520 and electronic like lighter yeah, flame. No, he popped out 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:06.800 of the car and I'll light your cigarette. 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:11.040 I tried to pick up a spent sparkler moments after 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:11.800 it had got out. 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:16.000 Yeah, it's not wise again, almost a I'm gonna guess 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:18.440 very close to one hundred percent of people listening, whether 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:20.000 or not they remember it. At a moment like this, 0:24:20.119 --> 0:24:22.919 it's basically every kid you know touches something hot at 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:27.680 some point and hurts themselves. Lyddy describes this as investing 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:31.119 in him a pathological fear of both fire and pain, 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:35.480 and his suffering increased when his doctor prescribed him regular 0:24:35.600 --> 0:24:39.600 hypodermic injections for his respiratory I think these are allergy shots, 0:24:40.160 --> 0:24:44.199 which I also got as a kid. So again, this 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:47.560 becomes like this constant regular because he's doing this every month. 0:24:47.640 --> 0:24:51.119 This is just like this endless fucking train of horror 0:24:51.160 --> 0:24:53.800 for him, where like he's just constantly dreading the next 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:55.600 time he's gonna go get this shot and deal with 0:24:55.640 --> 0:24:59.399 this pain. Right at the same time, he develops you 0:24:59.400 --> 0:25:02.199 know what's to be his worst childhood terror, which is 0:25:02.240 --> 0:25:06.679 a fear of God. Again very common. His family is 0:25:06.920 --> 0:25:12.040 this poor kid is just miserable. His family is super Catholic, 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:14.760 and he goes to a Catholic school that Lyddy refers 0:25:14.800 --> 0:25:19.280 to exclusively as SS. I believe the s's stand for 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:21.600 it's it's the Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Church. I 0:25:21.600 --> 0:25:23.840 think the two s's are Saint Peter and Saint Paul. 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:29.119 But he's also he talks about the Naziss constantly in 0:25:29.160 --> 0:25:31.280 this in moments where it has nothing to do with 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:35.320 what he's like referencing, Like, he loves bringing up the SS. 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:38.960 So I don't think anyone else called the school this, 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:41.880 I think you is just he found it another way 0:25:41.920 --> 0:25:44.639 he could write SS out and so he had to 0:25:44.680 --> 0:25:45.000 do it. 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:47.879 I mean that's another thing the modern loves to do 0:25:48.040 --> 0:25:53.159 is just remind you that zis just a little bit. 0:25:53.560 --> 0:25:58.120 Oh, Andrew Hitler didn't love the Nazis as much as 0:25:58.160 --> 0:26:04.119 g Gordon Lyddy did. This guy, Ah, it's so funny. 0:26:05.200 --> 0:26:09.240 Here's how he describes his religious upbringing. Quote, God we 0:26:09.240 --> 0:26:12.760 were informed was omnipotent, unlimited power, demanded and deserved the 0:26:12.840 --> 0:26:15.480 utmost reverence and deference, and left no room for a 0:26:15.560 --> 0:26:19.040 sloppily performed sign of the cross. An imprecise sign of 0:26:19.080 --> 0:26:21.720 the cross was an insult to God, punishable by a 0:26:21.760 --> 0:26:25.400 sudden crack on the head from monitoring nuns. Such punishment 0:26:25.480 --> 0:26:29.000 was to be received gratefully, otherwise retribution might come from 0:26:29.000 --> 0:26:32.520 God himself. The retribution of Almighty God for a sloppily 0:26:32.560 --> 0:26:35.360 made sign of the cross was terrible. Only last year 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:38.240 we were solemnly assured a lazy, a reverent, careless boy 0:26:38.280 --> 0:26:40.639 had made a sloppy sign of the cross while saying 0:26:40.640 --> 0:26:43.639 his nightly prayers. The good nuns alas were not present 0:26:43.680 --> 0:26:45.800 to crack him on the head, and as God was 0:26:45.880 --> 0:26:48.240 not one to let such a sin go unpunished. The 0:26:48.280 --> 0:26:51.320 next morning, the little boy found his right arm withered, twisted, 0:26:51.359 --> 0:26:59.200 and paralyzed for life. Ah yeah, I love the Catholic shit. 0:27:01.720 --> 0:27:06.760 Such ah so funny, My God just ruining children, just 0:27:06.760 --> 0:27:10.199 just going off like a bomb in millions of childhoods 0:27:10.240 --> 0:27:10.960 around the world. 0:27:11.119 --> 0:27:14.600 Yeah for making the gang sign, Lazil. 0:27:15.600 --> 0:27:18.200 Yeah, fucking up to get the Catholic gang sign. 0:27:18.880 --> 0:27:21.359 Like what the fuck are you talking about God? You 0:27:21.400 --> 0:27:25.520 do this all the what God has so much time? 0:27:26.080 --> 0:27:29.080 Yeah, yeah, imagine like it's so hard for me to 0:27:29.119 --> 0:27:31.359 get into the head of someone who is like, yes, 0:27:31.960 --> 0:27:35.400 God is constantly watching small children to see if they 0:27:35.440 --> 0:27:38.840 make like a minor mistake in the positioning of their hands, 0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:41.200 and he will cripple them for life for doing so. 0:27:41.880 --> 0:27:45.840 Like yeah, because like none of them ever frame it 0:27:45.880 --> 0:27:48.479 as like, yeah, you know, I'm a Catholic because God's 0:27:48.520 --> 0:27:52.160 fucking nuts, like this is the only way to avoid 0:27:52.240 --> 0:27:55.760 his anger, like fuck, fuck the guy, but I just 0:27:55.800 --> 0:27:58.399 don't want to death, Like yeah, I'd like I'm a 0:27:58.440 --> 0:28:00.119 little bit more, you know, if people prefer to do 0:28:00.160 --> 0:28:02.960 him a little bit more like a mob boss, like yeah, 0:28:03.160 --> 0:28:05.440 if you don't pay your protection, he's gonna fuck you up. 0:28:05.680 --> 0:28:07.439 What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? 0:28:07.520 --> 0:28:11.160 What are you gonna do? It's got I guess there 0:28:11.160 --> 0:28:13.199 are some people who talk about him that way, but 0:28:13.280 --> 0:28:16.360 usually it's all dressed up and anyway whatever. Well, salvation 0:28:16.880 --> 0:28:18.920 are the ones that are like, if there is a God, 0:28:19.000 --> 0:28:22.320 what's preventing you from raping and murdering? And and that 0:28:22.480 --> 0:28:23.760 those are the people you have to look at the 0:28:23.760 --> 0:28:26.480 hardest because you're like, uh, I mean I could think 0:28:26.520 --> 0:28:30.879 of things man a lot. I don't really want to 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:35.040 do those things. I guess it's. Yeah, So whether or 0:28:35.080 --> 0:28:37.880 not he exaggerated his experience here, and I don't think 0:28:37.920 --> 0:28:40.760 he did. I know some people, including my dad, who 0:28:41.160 --> 0:28:44.120 grew up Catholic in this, well, my dad was, you know, 0:28:44.240 --> 0:28:47.040 not this old, but like I've known people who were 0:28:47.120 --> 0:28:49.600 kind of from you know, around that period of time 0:28:49.640 --> 0:28:52.600 and raised in Catholic schools, and like you get stories 0:28:52.720 --> 0:28:55.200 like this from the nuns. A lot of old Catholics 0:28:55.200 --> 0:28:59.320 have horror stories from the nuns. And yeah, the fact 0:28:59.320 --> 0:29:02.360 that Liddy's like like living in fucking constant fear of 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:04.240 God is not like when I was a kid, I 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:06.120 had a period of time I went through like that. 0:29:06.160 --> 0:29:08.680 We're like I would just be terrified because I'd like 0:29:08.880 --> 0:29:10.959 killed a bug or something while playing and like, oh 0:29:11.000 --> 0:29:14.200 my god, if I like damned myself to hell for eternity. 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:19.120 You shouldn't tell kids about stuff like that, you know. Well, 0:29:18.880 --> 0:29:20.000 it's the same as. 0:29:19.880 --> 0:29:26.000 Like dare too because the and you're like, oh. 0:29:24.920 --> 0:29:27.960 None of this matters, I'm gonna murder all the bugs 0:29:28.000 --> 0:29:31.080 fucking you know, I'm the reason there aren't any fucking 0:29:31.320 --> 0:29:34.600 fireflies anymore. I wiped them all out, you know, just 0:29:34.600 --> 0:29:38.840 just just to spite the Lord got them anyway. Speaking 0:29:38.880 --> 0:29:43.000 of genocide, you know who else likes wiping out? You know, 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:46.480 the natural world in order. 0:29:46.360 --> 0:29:49.960 To extinctions doesn't have to be ansde every gedocide. 0:29:50.160 --> 0:29:55.560 Yeah, yeah, not every genocide, but some you know, some genocides. Yes, 0:29:55.600 --> 0:30:10.360 his ads, we're back so so far, most of Liddy's 0:30:10.400 --> 0:30:14.560 experiences in the world have been terrifying and negative. But 0:30:14.640 --> 0:30:17.280 he did have one shining really, he had two shining 0:30:17.280 --> 0:30:18.920 things that one of them is reading. He becomes a 0:30:18.920 --> 0:30:21.560 reader from an early age. He finds himself particularly in 0:30:21.600 --> 0:30:24.440 love with like a lot of this kind of colonial fiction, 0:30:24.600 --> 0:30:27.280 Ruyard Kipling and the like, you know, the stuff you 0:30:27.320 --> 0:30:30.920 would expect. And then the other thing that he has 0:30:31.160 --> 0:30:34.080 he viewed as kind of a wholly positive thing from 0:30:34.080 --> 0:30:38.960 his childhood was patriotism. The nuns, he said, introduced him 0:30:39.000 --> 0:30:42.720 to authority, first God and then the flag. After morning prayers, 0:30:42.760 --> 0:30:45.360 they would pledge allegiance to the flag. And you know, 0:30:45.520 --> 0:30:48.040 the nuns were as strict about this as anything else. 0:30:48.680 --> 0:30:51.400 Here's how he writes about learning how to do the 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:55.640 pledge of allegiance. We stood at rigid attention, facing the flag, 0:30:55.760 --> 0:30:58.080 in lines straight enough to rival those of the mast 0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:04.120 SS and Lenny rievenstalls triumph of the will began at 0:31:04.160 --> 0:31:06.280 the words to the flag. We shot out our right 0:31:06.400 --> 0:31:10.040 arms and unison palms down straight as so many spears 0:31:10.080 --> 0:31:12.680 aimed directly at the flag. It was the salute of 0:31:12.720 --> 0:31:18.400 Caesar's legions, recently popular in Germany, Italy and Spain. Is 0:31:18.400 --> 0:31:21.640 that not true? Oh yeah, no, there you can find 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:24.640 pictures of American schools. It was not like universal, but 0:31:24.680 --> 0:31:29.040 it was not wildly uncommon for kids in some schools 0:31:29.080 --> 0:31:31.840 and some you know, fucking especially some private schools to 0:31:31.920 --> 0:31:35.600 do the fascist salute, you know, which was previously the 0:31:35.720 --> 0:31:38.880 Roman salute, right, or at least a variant of it. Yeah, 0:31:38.880 --> 0:31:42.120 so it's not like other kids have this experience, right, 0:31:42.160 --> 0:31:45.280 there's no reason you think he's lying about this. It 0:31:45.360 --> 0:31:49.080 is insane that he just like he has he's described 0:31:49.080 --> 0:31:51.840 because he's describing it as like the SS. But he 0:31:51.880 --> 0:31:54.240 doesn't mean that in like a negative sense like he has. 0:31:54.520 --> 0:31:56.800 There's at no point does he like think about this 0:31:57.040 --> 0:31:59.000 kind of fucked up to do that? Is it bad? 0:31:59.200 --> 0:32:01.040 If we look at like where the Nazis win. Does 0:32:01.080 --> 0:32:03.440 it may be bad to do this with kids? Absolutely 0:32:03.520 --> 0:32:06.160 not for a second. Does g Gordon Lyddy consider that 0:32:06.440 --> 0:32:11.960 he was organized? We were as organized as thes, my friends, 0:32:11.960 --> 0:32:18.120 my buddies, the ssh what a maniac. So, oh my god, 0:32:19.320 --> 0:32:23.080 this is where we should introduce his second mother, the 0:32:23.120 --> 0:32:27.280 family housekeeper, a German immigrant named Toresa. Now, if you've 0:32:27.280 --> 0:32:31.200 had like rich or very upper middle class friends, you know, 0:32:31.320 --> 0:32:33.520 when you were a kid, you may have like known 0:32:33.600 --> 0:32:36.719 someone who had like a nanny, a full time nanny, 0:32:36.760 --> 0:32:39.560 sometimes even a live in nanny who like helped raise 0:32:39.640 --> 0:32:42.040 them as a kid. I had a friend who grew 0:32:42.160 --> 0:32:44.760 up in a similar circumstance and expressed to me at 0:32:44.760 --> 0:32:47.000 one point that it was like really confusing to him 0:32:47.000 --> 0:32:50.000 as a little kid because he kind of didn't know 0:32:50.880 --> 0:32:53.640 entirely whether this was his mom or his mom was 0:32:53.680 --> 0:32:56.440 his mom, because like the nanny did a lot more. 0:32:56.480 --> 0:32:59.160 And I'm like, oh, that was like, yeah, that is 0:32:59.200 --> 0:33:01.120 kind of a weird thing to put a kid through, right, 0:33:02.160 --> 0:33:04.520 And there's this moment that kids like that tend to 0:33:04.560 --> 0:33:08.360 have where they like realize this person who is kind 0:33:08.400 --> 0:33:12.160 of a mom to them is an employee of their parents, right, 0:33:12.280 --> 0:33:14.160 is there because they're being paid. It's taking care of 0:33:14.200 --> 0:33:16.760 them because they're being paid, And like that can mess 0:33:16.800 --> 0:33:19.680 you up a bit. In Gordon's case, this is going 0:33:19.680 --> 0:33:22.680 to mess him up a lot because Teresa is also 0:33:22.760 --> 0:33:26.400 a literal Nazi. She is a German immigrant to the 0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:33.160 United States. She's absolutely obsessed with the Nazis. With Hitler, 0:33:33.680 --> 0:33:37.200 she tells him all of these wonderful stories of her homeland, Germany, 0:33:37.240 --> 0:33:39.760 all of these different myths and legends, and she talks 0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:43.040 to him constantly about this terrible war that Germany went 0:33:43.120 --> 0:33:46.080 through before he was born, and how afterwards the country 0:33:46.120 --> 0:33:50.160 fell into chaos. But now a hero has arisen and 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:55.040 is in the process of saving the German nation. Quote. 0:33:56.000 --> 0:33:59.200 Great roads were being built, and unlike in the United States, 0:33:59.240 --> 0:34:01.320 everyone in German and he now had a job. My 0:34:01.440 --> 0:34:04.120 mother had won an Emerson shortwave radio in a raffle 0:34:04.160 --> 0:34:07.200 at Sspeter and Paul Parrish and Teresa and I would 0:34:07.200 --> 0:34:10.400 listen to programs broadcast from her native land, the volume 0:34:10.520 --> 0:34:14.320 swelling and receding in cycles. Now Lyddy had listened to 0:34:14.440 --> 0:34:17.640 FDR on the radio like most Americans in the Great Depression, 0:34:17.920 --> 0:34:21.440 and he had found some comfort in that saying, we 0:34:21.520 --> 0:34:24.160 have nothing to fear but fear itself as a scared 0:34:24.200 --> 0:34:26.960 little kid, but nothing in his life up to that 0:34:27.040 --> 0:34:30.480 point had inspired or influenced him the way his first 0:34:30.560 --> 0:34:35.040 Hitler speech did. This is the defining moment of his childhood. 0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:38.799 Now in his autobiography, Lyddy claims to have had a 0:34:38.840 --> 0:34:41.680 memory like a tape recorder. Given how bad he actually 0:34:41.760 --> 0:34:44.920 is as a spy, I think he's lying about this, 0:34:45.320 --> 0:34:48.800 but he claims. He claims that he can replay audio 0:34:48.920 --> 0:34:52.600 perfectly in his head and like sometimes an involuntary switch 0:34:52.640 --> 0:34:55.160 will throw and he'll hear music that will like launch 0:34:55.280 --> 0:34:59.239 him into a certain emotional state. I don't know the 0:34:59.280 --> 0:35:01.560 degree to which I think that he's telling the truth 0:35:01.600 --> 0:35:04.440 about this, But also, I'm gonna read you this paragraph. 0:35:04.520 --> 0:35:06.960 I don't know fully why you would lie about this. 0:35:07.200 --> 0:35:10.720 Oh my god. The music that poured through the Emerson 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:14.000 from Germany was marshal and inspiring. I lost myself and 0:35:14.040 --> 0:35:16.880 its strains. It made me feel a strength inside I 0:35:16.880 --> 0:35:19.520 had never known before from playmates who were German, I 0:35:19.600 --> 0:35:22.560 learned some of the language. One day, Teresa was excited 0:35:22.760 --> 0:35:25.319 he was going to be on the radio just wait 0:35:25.440 --> 0:35:28.040 till I hear him speak eagerly. I joined her at 0:35:28.040 --> 0:35:31.080 the Emerson. First, the music, the now familiar strains of 0:35:31.080 --> 0:35:34.799 a song that started defan Hoch raise the banner. It 0:35:34.840 --> 0:35:40.400 was a rousing, powerful anthem, the horsted Vessel song. Now, Cambrew, 0:35:40.560 --> 0:35:43.040 we got to take a second here, do you know 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:46.319 what the horse vessel lied is? No, it's the horse 0:35:46.400 --> 0:35:49.880 vessel song. Horst. So back during the rise of the 0:35:49.960 --> 0:35:54.320 Nazi Parties, before Hitler's in power, Joseph Goebbels, the future 0:35:54.360 --> 0:35:58.239 Propaganda Minister, ran the party's Berlin operations, and a big 0:35:58.280 --> 0:36:00.720 part of his plan was to Winstan get a series 0:36:00.760 --> 0:36:04.640 of running fights and raids with communists and social Democrats 0:36:04.880 --> 0:36:08.520 in order to spark media condemnation of chaos and disrupt 0:36:08.600 --> 0:36:11.319 the organizing of the party's enemies. Right, he's both trying 0:36:11.320 --> 0:36:13.640 to get like the media flipping out about like, ah, 0:36:13.880 --> 0:36:15.680 there's so much chaos. We really need a law and 0:36:15.800 --> 0:36:19.000 order guy in office, and also trying to like physically 0:36:19.120 --> 0:36:23.440 murder and hurt, you know, two for one. So you 0:36:23.840 --> 0:36:29.759 do the violence and then you step into self the violence. Now, 0:36:30.160 --> 0:36:33.240 one of Joe's top thugs is a guy named Horst 0:36:33.360 --> 0:36:37.000 vessel and Horst is a construction worker. He is a 0:36:37.120 --> 0:36:40.880 low level gangster and a pimp. He is running a 0:36:40.880 --> 0:36:43.480 prostitution racket out of his apartment, and his landlady, he 0:36:43.560 --> 0:36:46.240 was a widow of a Communist party member, is scared 0:36:46.239 --> 0:36:49.200 that she will lose the apartment if the police catched 0:36:49.239 --> 0:36:52.120 Horset running an illegal business out of it. Now, there 0:36:52.200 --> 0:36:55.480 is a debate about precisely what happened, but the generally 0:36:55.520 --> 0:36:58.160 accepted story is that Horst refused to pay his rent 0:36:58.200 --> 0:37:01.000 and threatened to beat his landlady. She goes to a 0:37:01.040 --> 0:37:03.319 local Communist bar to get some of her husband's old 0:37:03.320 --> 0:37:07.000 friends to help her evict him. Horst was also an 0:37:07.040 --> 0:37:10.319 assault leader for Joseph Goebbels, so go you know. He 0:37:10.400 --> 0:37:13.239 was known for running vicious raids on these very poor 0:37:13.239 --> 0:37:16.040 Berlin neighborhoods where he would beat people nearly to death. 0:37:16.440 --> 0:37:20.279 The Communists that his landlady goes to had been victimized 0:37:20.320 --> 0:37:22.319 by Horse before and they knew about him. So when 0:37:22.400 --> 0:37:24.239 she comes to them and is like, this guy is 0:37:24.280 --> 0:37:26.880 causing me problems, They're like, let's just fucking off this 0:37:27.000 --> 0:37:29.319 son of a bitch. So they shoot the bastard in 0:37:29.360 --> 0:37:32.880 the head Joseph Goebbels never want to let a murder 0:37:32.880 --> 0:37:35.759 go to waste turns Horst into a martyred saint, and 0:37:35.800 --> 0:37:39.040 his death is used as evidence of communist evil. The 0:37:39.080 --> 0:37:43.040 song that g Gordon Liddy like is listens to and 0:37:43.160 --> 0:37:45.719 is like inspired by as a child, was written in 0:37:45.760 --> 0:37:48.560 the honor of this, like Murderer and Pimp, and became 0:37:48.640 --> 0:37:51.319 the official anthem of the Nazi Party. So that's what 0:37:51.400 --> 0:37:58.200 he's listening to. Right, Oh, yeah, God, he's like eight, right, 0:37:58.320 --> 0:37:59.239 he's eight or nine. 0:37:59.360 --> 0:38:01.879 You know what's so interesting about this is it really 0:38:01.920 --> 0:38:06.160 puts like paid to the and like this is obvious 0:38:06.200 --> 0:38:09.080 to anyone who's not a fucking idiot, but like, you know, 0:38:09.239 --> 0:38:12.480 people growing up. It's like, you know, I grew up 0:38:12.480 --> 0:38:16.600 in like Reagan times and it's like, oh, the sanitization 0:38:16.640 --> 0:38:20.080 of Reagan and like, oh, Republicans aren't Like Republicans today 0:38:20.120 --> 0:38:22.360 are really bad, but they weren't always like this. We 0:38:22.440 --> 0:38:25.759 used to be able to get along. And like not 0:38:25.920 --> 0:38:29.640 if you're alive today, not one person alive today has 0:38:29.719 --> 0:38:34.080 been a party to a right wing that was quote reasonable. 0:38:34.440 --> 0:38:37.959 No, no, this is like goes back a very far time. 0:38:38.120 --> 0:38:40.200 Like this is not well, I mean, honestly, if you 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:42.920 lived in fucking Portland through twenty twenty, we had a 0:38:42.960 --> 0:38:45.920 fucking right wing gangster get killed. Here. That like not 0:38:46.040 --> 0:38:49.480 an uncommon story to what happened with Horst. But g 0:38:49.600 --> 0:38:52.719 Gordon Liddy as a small child, loves this song about 0:38:52.760 --> 0:38:56.360 a dead Nazi pimp. But he loves Hitler's voice even more. 0:38:56.680 --> 0:38:59.680 He was again, is this kid whose entire life is 0:38:59.719 --> 0:39:03.920 feel who was absolutely overwhelmed by terror all day? According 0:39:03.920 --> 0:39:07.560 to him, Uh, he is drawn by the pure confidence 0:39:07.640 --> 0:39:11.760 in Hitler's voice. Here was the very antithesis of fear, sheer, 0:39:11.920 --> 0:39:15.080 animal confidence and power of will. He sent an electric 0:39:15.200 --> 0:39:18.000 current through my body, and as the massive audience thundered 0:39:18.040 --> 0:39:21.319 its absolute support and determination, the hair on the back 0:39:21.360 --> 0:39:23.719 of my neck rose, and I realized that I had 0:39:23.840 --> 0:39:28.160 stopped breathing. And this is like the moment that teaches him. 0:39:28.400 --> 0:39:31.479 He has this like powerful realization of like you can 0:39:31.560 --> 0:39:34.600 conquer fear, and like sets him on this course to like, 0:39:35.040 --> 0:39:37.640 you know, conquer it, like to become the master of 0:39:37.680 --> 0:39:40.320 his fear in his pain, just like Hitler. 0:39:41.000 --> 0:39:44.720 That's so wild. It's so wild that you would admit 0:39:44.760 --> 0:39:45.800 this shit like this. 0:39:45.880 --> 0:39:48.200 And it is it's weird, like again that you would 0:39:48.200 --> 0:39:52.200 put this in a book after fucking yeah, to launch 0:39:52.280 --> 0:39:54.200 your career as a talk show hosts. 0:39:54.640 --> 0:39:58.160 This is basically same the same people that like respond 0:39:58.200 --> 0:39:59.480 to like Jordan Peterson. 0:40:00.040 --> 0:40:03.799 Yes, oh my god, he would have loved Jordan Peterson. 0:40:04.200 --> 0:40:04.719 Yeah. 0:40:04.760 --> 0:40:06.960 But it's it's like in the way that like, I 0:40:07.000 --> 0:40:10.319 feel like most Jordan Peterson fans you see now like 0:40:10.520 --> 0:40:12.759 don't admit that this is what they're driven by. That's 0:40:12.800 --> 0:40:15.520 so weird to hear it so baldly said like this, 0:40:16.000 --> 0:40:18.720 That's the thing. All of these modern guys, a lot 0:40:18.760 --> 0:40:22.160 of these like modern right wing media people are basically Nazis, 0:40:22.160 --> 0:40:26.000 have friends who are literal Nazis, like the Signpost shit, 0:40:26.239 --> 0:40:28.880 you know, they'll do the Fuintest stuff. But even Flintes, 0:40:29.200 --> 0:40:34.400 even Nick Fuintes, doesn't write shit like this. Yeah. Yeah, 0:40:34.440 --> 0:40:37.319 it's it is like remarkable that you would just put 0:40:37.360 --> 0:40:41.040 this down. It's fascinating. Liddy never is going to shed 0:40:41.200 --> 0:40:44.680 this deep fascination with Hitler in the Nazis. It's almost 0:40:44.719 --> 0:40:47.840 like a fucking what's the word here, It's almost like 0:40:47.880 --> 0:40:50.919 a fucking syndrome for him, right, Like it's a reflex 0:40:51.080 --> 0:40:53.319 like bringing up the Nazis, like, he can't help it, 0:40:53.400 --> 0:40:56.399 you know. And again he would always claim he never 0:40:56.440 --> 0:40:58.880 claims to be a Nazi, right, he would say, obviously 0:40:59.000 --> 0:41:01.520 Hitler was a monster. I learned later they had gone far, 0:41:01.640 --> 0:41:03.919 you know, much too far, and like you know, had 0:41:03.920 --> 0:41:07.160 to be stopped. And on most fascists who said this, 0:41:07.200 --> 0:41:08.640 I would be like, oh, this is just a shallow 0:41:08.680 --> 0:41:12.759 attempt to allay suspicion. Lyddy's case is weirder because, for 0:41:12.800 --> 0:41:14.840 one thing, he's admitting all of this when he doesn't 0:41:14.880 --> 0:41:18.359 need to. He is absolutely no doubt, in my mind, 0:41:18.440 --> 0:41:21.839 a bone deep fascist rights has died in the wole 0:41:21.960 --> 0:41:25.640 it committed, a fucking fascists has ever existed, you know, 0:41:25.880 --> 0:41:28.759 this alt he is an ultimate follower. He's like a 0:41:28.840 --> 0:41:32.759 born henchman in constant search for a fearer. But I 0:41:33.080 --> 0:41:35.920 actually think he's not lying when he says he doesn't 0:41:35.960 --> 0:41:39.200 consider himself fully a Nazi. And I the reason why 0:41:39.400 --> 0:41:43.480 is very simple. It's his dad, right. He worshiped his father, 0:41:43.640 --> 0:41:46.520 so Sylvester Liddy was his son's hero. And in his 0:41:46.560 --> 0:41:49.360 autobiography over and over again he repeats this belief that, 0:41:49.480 --> 0:41:52.560 like his dad, is almost incapable of error, and his 0:41:52.719 --> 0:41:55.760 dad hates Nazis, and it's one of those things. Liddy's 0:41:55.800 --> 0:41:59.080 definitely a fascist. His dad hatred of Nazi. If you've 0:41:59.239 --> 0:42:01.520 you've seen that meme of like the cheeto stuck in 0:42:01.600 --> 0:42:04.720 the place of like the the lock. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:42:04.760 --> 0:42:07.480 Like that's the one thing keeping him from like just 0:42:07.560 --> 0:42:12.759 becoming a full on neo Nazi. I guess, I. 0:42:12.719 --> 0:42:16.200 Guess that is the thing that is translated to the 0:42:16.239 --> 0:42:21.760 modern right wing too, is like like they espouse everything 0:42:21.800 --> 0:42:22.920 the Nazis. 0:42:22.440 --> 0:42:26.239 Believe they are friendly neo. 0:42:26.040 --> 0:42:30.680 Nazis, but will also say shit like well like socialism 0:42:30.760 --> 0:42:33.319 is the real you know, they love a national socialist 0:42:33.360 --> 0:42:36.319 part or like the Democrats are the real Nazis, and 0:42:36.360 --> 0:42:41.640 you're like, I mean, they really just have it both ways. 0:42:41.719 --> 0:42:44.560 They like recognize Nazi is a bad thing to be 0:42:45.239 --> 0:42:48.279 but they don't recognize or they recognize that the word 0:42:48.360 --> 0:42:49.920 nazis a bad thing to be called. 0:42:50.480 --> 0:42:53.920 It's I think with Lyddy, I think what interests me 0:42:53.960 --> 0:42:57.560 about him is that the conflict is a little different because, 0:42:57.600 --> 0:42:59.960 like number one, most of the guys that you're talking 0:43:00.000 --> 0:43:03.359 talking about would never admit to like having this much 0:43:03.400 --> 0:43:06.759 admiration of Hitler in the Nazis right, because it would 0:43:06.800 --> 0:43:09.879 be giving away too much, right right. I don't know 0:43:10.120 --> 0:43:13.200 how to characterize the exact nature of his belief, but 0:43:13.239 --> 0:43:14.960 I do kind of think it's one of those like 0:43:15.440 --> 0:43:19.240 he was his entire life ready to fully embrace Hitler 0:43:19.239 --> 0:43:21.880 in the Nazis. It was just his respect for his 0:43:22.000 --> 0:43:27.440 dad holding back like this tiny this like creaking broken down, 0:43:27.640 --> 0:43:33.120 damn holding back the flood of Nazi water. And in fact, 0:43:33.239 --> 0:43:36.760 so when his you know, Gordon hears his first Hitler 0:43:36.800 --> 0:43:38.719 speech and he like goes to his dad to be like, 0:43:38.760 --> 0:43:41.280 I've just heard the most incredible guy. And when Sylvester 0:43:41.440 --> 0:43:44.640 is like, wait are you talking about Hitler? No, no, no, no, 0:43:45.000 --> 0:43:47.520 fuck that dude. He is a monster. He's going to 0:43:47.600 --> 0:43:50.080 lead the world and do a horrible, horrible war. You 0:43:50.120 --> 0:43:53.239 are not allowed to listen to him anymore. And I 0:43:53.360 --> 0:43:56.120 kind of wonder if his dad hadn't been this guy, 0:43:56.600 --> 0:43:59.799 does Liddy just become like a full on Nazi like 0:43:59.840 --> 0:44:03.400 his he marching with like fucking George Lincoln Rockwell, like 0:44:03.520 --> 0:44:07.919 completely you know, swastika mask off, you know, fucking doing 0:44:08.120 --> 0:44:13.240 shots with David Duke. Yeah right, yeah, probably, yes, maybe 0:44:14.080 --> 0:44:17.000 there's a good shit. Similarly, that that's. 0:44:16.880 --> 0:44:19.600 Like the type of thing that was like again quote 0:44:19.680 --> 0:44:22.440 unquote acceptable at the time, or it was like a 0:44:23.120 --> 0:44:25.480 you know in the time, it was a type of 0:44:25.560 --> 0:44:27.160 political expression that was like. 0:44:29.440 --> 0:44:31.840 Yeah, you know, I don't know, this is like the weirdest, 0:44:31.920 --> 0:44:35.600 like characterizing this exactly is the weirdest part to me here. 0:44:36.160 --> 0:44:40.400 So you know, so again, very young Liddy spends the 0:44:40.560 --> 0:44:42.600 end of the nineteen thirties, when he is like eight 0:44:42.680 --> 0:44:45.840 or nine, treating Hitler like a forbidden dessert, right, or 0:44:45.880 --> 0:44:49.360 like a hidden playboy magazine. Right. He can't be caught 0:44:49.480 --> 0:44:52.920 listening to him, right, And he will claim later this 0:44:52.960 --> 0:44:56.319 isn't because I'm I loved Hitler's you know politics, It's 0:44:56.320 --> 0:44:58.279 because I just found him magnetic. It's like we you 0:44:58.360 --> 0:45:00.799 absolutely were in look at this politics. You are a 0:45:00.840 --> 0:45:03.080 bone deep fact. No one has ever been more of 0:45:03.080 --> 0:45:07.680 a fascist than ug Gordon Lyddy. It's really like like, yeah, 0:45:07.719 --> 0:45:10.719 I like the I like the fucking what the confidence 0:45:10.719 --> 0:45:15.080 and the auditory style. Yeah, I don't know, man, Broye, 0:45:15.520 --> 0:45:20.719 there's other confident ass motherfuckers out there. So Teresa is 0:45:20.800 --> 0:45:23.719 like a big influence on him in this because you know, 0:45:24.320 --> 0:45:26.799 while he can't be caught in the open listening to 0:45:26.840 --> 0:45:30.240 his Hitler speeches. It becomes this like thing that they share, 0:45:30.440 --> 0:45:32.440 right that like when his dad's out and like no 0:45:32.440 --> 0:45:35.279 one else is around, they'll listen to some Hitler speeches, right, 0:45:35.320 --> 0:45:37.480 They'll turn on the radio and like sneak it together. 0:45:37.800 --> 0:45:40.880 And again, she is the primary female influence in his 0:45:40.920 --> 0:45:43.760 early childhood. And like, I don't know, I think actually 0:45:43.800 --> 0:45:45.719 honestly reading this, I thought back to how when I 0:45:45.760 --> 0:45:48.000 was a little kid and my mom was out of town, 0:45:48.560 --> 0:45:50.440 my dad and I would watch like South Park, right, 0:45:50.440 --> 0:45:52.520 which I wasn't allowed to watch, but like my dad 0:45:52.560 --> 0:45:54.960 would kind of you know, And that's a powerful thing 0:45:55.000 --> 0:45:56.799 as a kid, you know, whatever it is for you, 0:45:56.880 --> 0:45:58.880 Like if you've got like an adult in your life, 0:45:58.920 --> 0:46:00.480 who will be like, hey, you know, normally, you know, 0:46:00.520 --> 0:46:02.560 I had to watch you know, horror movies. But let's 0:46:02.560 --> 0:46:04.480 put on Friday the thirteenth or whatever. Just been the 0:46:04.480 --> 0:46:06.360 rest of your life you love fucking you know, horror 0:46:06.400 --> 0:46:09.839 movies or whatever. Like for him, that's Hitler, then that's 0:46:09.880 --> 0:46:13.279 the experience he has. That's like woman who raises him. 0:46:13.320 --> 0:46:17.120 You know, let's get on, let's get what they're talking about. 0:46:18.280 --> 0:46:25.680 Adoll Hitler. Now, obviously fascists are bad at estimating risk, 0:46:25.760 --> 0:46:28.360 and Teresa was not careful enough with her attempts to 0:46:28.360 --> 0:46:34.400 propagandaize this kid. Eventually h Sylvester catches them. Quote it 0:46:34.480 --> 0:46:36.239 was bad enough that he would come home on warm 0:46:36.320 --> 0:46:39.839 days to the voice of Joseph Goebbel's booming sonorously from 0:46:39.840 --> 0:46:42.400 the Emerson worst when he found our address was on 0:46:42.440 --> 0:46:46.800 the German embassy mailing list for Nazi propaganda. The Hindenburg, however, 0:46:46.920 --> 0:46:49.480 was the last straw. The problem was that Teresa did 0:46:49.480 --> 0:46:53.880 not accept the official crash explanation, but static electricity ignited 0:46:54.000 --> 0:46:56.880 hydrogen being vinted as part of the landing procedure. She 0:46:57.000 --> 0:47:00.279 was certain the Hindenburg had been sabotaged by the United States. 0:47:00.600 --> 0:47:06.560 This is it, Hindenburgh truth there, that's okay, this is 0:47:06.640 --> 0:47:10.839 so true. That's so wild about this is like this 0:47:10.920 --> 0:47:15.800 is his autobiography. Yes, yes, he's writing all of this out. 0:47:16.200 --> 0:47:19.560 You could, if you wanted to, for instance, attempt to 0:47:19.600 --> 0:47:23.439 rehabilitate your image in the nineteen eighties, simply just say, 0:47:24.120 --> 0:47:26.840 you know, I was a sickly child, and I loved 0:47:27.000 --> 0:47:29.400 fucking the rate, I love the radio. But then in 0:47:29.880 --> 0:47:32.560 you know, that could all of everything that you've said 0:47:32.560 --> 0:47:35.200 so far could be two and a half sentences and 0:47:35.400 --> 0:47:37.480 starts wherever the shit that's relevant. 0:47:37.600 --> 0:47:40.600 Yes, well that's kind of why I believe a lot 0:47:40.640 --> 0:47:43.600 of this, right because like there's definitely he lies for 0:47:43.880 --> 0:47:46.680 a number of especially when we get to Watergate. There's 0:47:46.719 --> 0:47:48.560 like a lot of shit that he just like is 0:47:48.600 --> 0:47:51.320 bullshit that he brings up about like John Dene and stuff, 0:47:51.640 --> 0:47:53.279 like a lot of stuff that is not true in 0:47:53.320 --> 0:47:56.440 this that is like legacy making, myth making. But like, 0:47:57.360 --> 0:48:02.200 I don't know what why of lying the first How 0:48:02.239 --> 0:48:03.160 does this help you? 0:48:03.280 --> 0:48:08.279 G Gordon Lyndy, Like the fascists are already on your side. Yeah, 0:48:08.360 --> 0:48:13.439 Like so like this may just be yeah, we thought 0:48:13.440 --> 0:48:15.719 this would be your This is to try to like 0:48:16.000 --> 0:48:18.640 broad in the audience a little bit, get a little 0:48:18.800 --> 0:48:25.000 like you know, some ragged Democrats whatever, No fuck is this. 0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:28.200 This is something unique, something totally unique, and you know 0:48:28.239 --> 0:48:34.360 what else is unique? And sponsors of our podcast, none 0:48:34.360 --> 0:48:38.480 of whom were raised by a Nazi. Well probably probably 0:48:38.760 --> 0:48:41.040 most of whom were not raised by Yeah. 0:48:40.920 --> 0:48:42.880 There's some real a list sponsors you could get, though, 0:48:42.880 --> 0:48:44.000 were definitely raised by. 0:48:44.719 --> 0:48:47.560 The Reagan coin. People might have been raised by a Nazi? 0:48:47.880 --> 0:48:54.799 Is that ed Eddie Volkswagon, you know, buyer sponsored this fucker. Sure, 0:48:55.280 --> 0:49:09.520 hopefully Volvo pops in or something. You know, we're back. 0:49:09.800 --> 0:49:14.120 So Sylvester not a perfect dad, right, But his reaction 0:49:14.320 --> 0:49:16.560 to all of this, everything that happens, does kind of 0:49:16.560 --> 0:49:19.279 make me think that he was trying to do the 0:49:19.320 --> 0:49:22.200 best he knew, how because when he when he like 0:49:22.320 --> 0:49:25.320 comes in eventually, he like comes in on like Teresa 0:49:25.400 --> 0:49:28.600 Rantick about how the Hindenburg was an inside job or whatever, 0:49:28.719 --> 0:49:32.320 and he fires, he fires her, and he he eventually 0:49:32.360 --> 0:49:34.719 he brings in a new maid, and he I think, 0:49:34.840 --> 0:49:38.400 because he's so concerned that his son is becoming a Nazi. 0:49:38.840 --> 0:49:41.680 The new maid he picks is a Jewish refugee named 0:49:41.719 --> 0:49:44.640 Sophie who had just escaped Nazi Germany. And I think 0:49:44.680 --> 0:49:46.920 his goal here is both like, give this refugee a 0:49:47.000 --> 0:49:49.640 decent job, and also like, well maybe if my son 0:49:49.680 --> 0:49:52.520 meets this woman who has been victimized by Hitler's reshime, 0:49:52.760 --> 0:49:57.040 it will deradicalize him. I don't know. Again, we can 0:49:57.239 --> 0:50:00.239 argue was that the right call, but I think he's 0:50:00.320 --> 0:50:04.560 trying Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so tough. That's that's a 0:50:04.600 --> 0:50:06.600 wild situation to be a day. 0:50:07.160 --> 0:50:09.879 I see what you're trying to do here, but that 0:50:09.920 --> 0:50:13.360 could go so yeah, amazingly wrong. 0:50:13.880 --> 0:50:17.239 And Lyddy does not like her. He claims later he 0:50:17.280 --> 0:50:20.160 came to like respect and you know, have empathy for her, 0:50:20.200 --> 0:50:22.080 but he does not write about her very much, so 0:50:22.120 --> 0:50:25.560 I don't know if that's true. In Hitler, Liddy continued 0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:28.160 to see a totem of strength and icon to emulate 0:50:28.239 --> 0:50:30.719 in purging his body and mind to fear and weakness 0:50:31.000 --> 0:50:34.440 that he felt characterized his childhood. Now. While Liddy was 0:50:34.480 --> 0:50:36.520 falling in love with Hitler, he had a few other 0:50:36.640 --> 0:50:41.040 childhood heroes growing up. Quote frequently ill I was nursed 0:50:41.080 --> 0:50:43.560 patiently by my mother, who used the occasions to teach 0:50:43.600 --> 0:50:46.760 me the family history and various tales of personal courage 0:50:46.760 --> 0:50:50.240 and accomplishment against odds. To keep from boring me by repetition, 0:50:50.320 --> 0:50:52.799 she would make up stories of high valor, usually about 0:50:52.800 --> 0:50:55.839 American Indians and their warriors ability to resist the most 0:50:55.840 --> 0:50:59.480 horrible tortures without the slightest indication of discomfort. Among her 0:50:59.520 --> 0:51:02.439 true story was that of Glenn Cunningham, a farm boy. 0:51:02.480 --> 0:51:05.280 His legs were burned so badly he would never walk again, 0:51:05.520 --> 0:51:08.040 and who became our national champion. In the mile of 0:51:08.080 --> 0:51:10.920 family members, my mother's favorite was her older brother Raymond. 0:51:11.160 --> 0:51:13.680 He too was slightly built, but that hadn't stopped him 0:51:13.680 --> 0:51:15.799 from being the leader of all the boys in the neighborhood, 0:51:15.880 --> 0:51:18.120 from fighting off much larger boys who tried to force 0:51:18.200 --> 0:51:20.960 him from the Prime Street corner for selling magazines in Washington, 0:51:21.040 --> 0:51:23.600 d c. From becoming an eagle scout, from putting himself 0:51:23.640 --> 0:51:26.799 through Georgetown University and it's law school. I learned how 0:51:26.920 --> 0:51:29.320 Uncle Ray had been there when John Dillinger was slain 0:51:29.360 --> 0:51:31.680 in Chicago, how he was wounded at the gun battle 0:51:31.680 --> 0:51:34.000 in which mab Barker and her gang were shot or captured, 0:51:34.120 --> 0:51:36.239 and that he hadn't even noticed his wound until aft 0:51:36.239 --> 0:51:38.680 of the battle and had not bothered to report it. 0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:42.000 His Uncle Ray becomes an FBI agent, right, And to 0:51:42.040 --> 0:51:44.600 be clear, there's not actually any evidence that Ray was 0:51:44.680 --> 0:51:48.640 nearby when John Dillinger was killed, but this is probably 0:51:48.760 --> 0:51:51.200 family law rather than Gordon lying. I think he does 0:51:51.239 --> 0:51:53.719 grow up and taught this right. And I think Uncle 0:51:53.800 --> 0:51:57.000 Ray is a giant piece shit and the fabulous too, 0:51:57.480 --> 0:52:01.480 also a terrible influence. But this is so these two 0:52:01.600 --> 0:52:04.319 things are critical to understand. Letty, he grows up like 0:52:05.160 --> 0:52:09.040 afraid constantly, and like you know, just this like kid, 0:52:09.239 --> 0:52:12.040 he's like short, he's small, he feels like he's weak, 0:52:12.080 --> 0:52:14.719 and he's always scared. And his mom is constantly trying 0:52:14.719 --> 0:52:16.640 to build him up by telling him stories about his 0:52:16.719 --> 0:52:19.680 like great grandfather and his grandfather and like how good 0:52:19.680 --> 0:52:22.480 his dad wasn't boxing and his uncle Raymond is killing 0:52:22.520 --> 0:52:25.400 all these people. And this like drives him crazy a 0:52:25.440 --> 0:52:27.640 little bit, right, Like the fact that the fact that 0:52:27.719 --> 0:52:30.960 he feels like he has to become worthy of these 0:52:31.040 --> 0:52:33.640 men who are in his genetic line, and he feels 0:52:33.719 --> 0:52:36.920 like he's so weak and scared all the time. Like this, 0:52:36.920 --> 0:52:41.920 this like fucks him up as a kid, right yeah, Yeah, 0:52:41.960 --> 0:52:44.840 So he grows more and more ashamed of his perfectly 0:52:44.920 --> 0:52:48.440 natural reactions to the world. Now, part of what incites 0:52:48.480 --> 0:52:50.160 this is that he had, by this point read a 0:52:50.160 --> 0:52:54.280 book by America First Leader Charles Lindberg, in which Lindbergh 0:52:54.320 --> 0:52:56.719 discussed that he had picked his wife based on her 0:52:56.800 --> 0:53:00.680 racial characteristics because he wanted them to breed genetic powerful 0:53:00.760 --> 0:53:03.520 children together. So he has this sort of idea in 0:53:03.520 --> 0:53:06.839 his head that like I come from a line of powerful, 0:53:07.080 --> 0:53:11.560 like genetically powerful men, and it's my responsibility to become 0:53:11.640 --> 0:53:14.960 worthy of the genes of my ancestors. Right and right 0:53:14.960 --> 0:53:18.000 now I'm too weak. I'll never be worthy of breeding 0:53:18.040 --> 0:53:21.840 with an Aryan princess if I don't conquer my fear 0:53:25.360 --> 0:53:26.160 of the heroes. 0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:28.480 And you know what, to be fair, except for the 0:53:28.680 --> 0:53:29.279 Aryan part. 0:53:29.400 --> 0:53:33.560 Listen, why that's why you do half the shit you do, 0:53:33.680 --> 0:53:37.359 you know, to just impress the person you want to fuck. Yeah, yeah, 0:53:37.360 --> 0:53:42.600 well that's fair. In his case, it's like a theoretical person, right, yeah, 0:53:42.840 --> 0:53:45.440 And he has to become worthy of the semen that 0:53:45.480 --> 0:53:50.000 he's inherited from his dad and his uncle. So of 0:53:50.040 --> 0:53:52.440 all the heroes in his childhood, his dad and his 0:53:52.520 --> 0:53:55.640 uncle Ray are the living ones he actually knew. Ray 0:53:55.880 --> 0:53:58.320 again is a short guy, but he's dating a model 0:53:58.360 --> 0:54:00.840 and this model is much taller than him, which g 0:54:01.000 --> 0:54:04.360 Gordon Liddy finds very attractive. He's always got kind of 0:54:04.360 --> 0:54:07.840 a king for that. And he carried Ray would always, 0:54:07.880 --> 0:54:09.320 you know, when he'd come over to see the family, 0:54:09.360 --> 0:54:11.480 he would like always be wearing a gun and he 0:54:11.520 --> 0:54:13.920 would brag about who he was carrying a thirty eight 0:54:13.960 --> 0:54:16.879 super automatic there was powerful handgun in the world. Lyddy 0:54:16.920 --> 0:54:19.040 repeats it a bunch. This is the most powerful handgun 0:54:19.040 --> 0:54:20.719 in the world. My uncle has got the best gun 0:54:20.719 --> 0:54:24.840 in the whole planet. That is a debatable claim handgun wise, 0:54:25.440 --> 0:54:27.359 but I think he probably heard it from Ray and 0:54:27.400 --> 0:54:30.560 repeated it all his life. Gordon grew obsessed with his 0:54:30.680 --> 0:54:33.560 uncle's sight arm, and since this was the nineteen thirties, 0:54:33.960 --> 0:54:38.200 gun safety was not a priority. Quote. One day, when 0:54:38.200 --> 0:54:40.439 I was five, I slipped into Ray's room and found 0:54:40.440 --> 0:54:43.239 it lodged in the lid of his suitcase. This was 0:54:43.280 --> 0:54:46.120 a rarity. Not only was it something I feared, so 0:54:46.239 --> 0:54:49.399 did everyone else. My curiosity got the better of my fear, 0:54:49.520 --> 0:54:53.319 an uncommon occurrence. Quietly, I withdrew the pistol and examined it, 0:54:53.480 --> 0:54:56.080 then managed to get the hammer back at the safety off. 0:54:56.360 --> 0:54:58.960 Proud of this accomplishment, I walked into the room where 0:54:58.960 --> 0:55:01.360 the adult sat Chadow to show them what I had found. 0:55:01.760 --> 0:55:05.040 Uncle Ray spotted me immediately he knew the pistol was loaded. 0:55:05.320 --> 0:55:08.160 Ray's rising He placed himself directly in front of the muzzle, 0:55:08.239 --> 0:55:11.120 smiled warmly, then reached down and placed his finger between 0:55:11.160 --> 0:55:13.760 the hammer and the firing bin. He grasped the piece 0:55:13.760 --> 0:55:16.840 and gently disarmed me. This gun, he informed me quietly, 0:55:17.200 --> 0:55:20.040 was his. He would get one for me soon. Thereafter 0:55:20.080 --> 0:55:23.200 he did a pistol replica of the colt. So a 0:55:23.320 --> 0:55:25.759 couple of livings there, Uncle Ray, I think maybe the 0:55:25.800 --> 0:55:27.879 wrong thing to do is to give the kid who 0:55:27.880 --> 0:55:30.080 has just stolen your gun and pointed it at some 0:55:30.120 --> 0:55:33.239 adults an exact replica of that pistol. There might be 0:55:33.360 --> 0:55:37.080 other lessons to teach first, is what I'm saying, right like, 0:55:37.160 --> 0:55:38.560 don't point guns at the people. 0:55:39.920 --> 0:55:42.000 I mean, look, I guess I don't know the layout 0:55:42.080 --> 0:55:45.279 of this living room either. By I don't feel like 0:55:45.400 --> 0:55:47.520 Ray had to step right in front of the pistol 0:55:47.560 --> 0:55:48.280 to do this stuff. 0:55:48.360 --> 0:55:51.720 Feel like he had other options. Yeah, come from the side. 0:55:52.480 --> 0:55:56.280 Maybe don't leave a loaded and chambered thirty eight Super 0:55:56.320 --> 0:56:00.080 in your fucking suitcase in your room with kids around. Ray. 0:56:00.239 --> 0:56:03.799 You never know, Yeah, everyone was so drunk back then, 0:56:03.960 --> 0:56:08.359 right Like, Yeah, you never know when you're gonna really 0:56:08.400 --> 0:56:11.120 want to win the argument. No, exactly, you might, you could. 0:56:11.160 --> 0:56:14.319 You might need that thirty eight Super at any moment. Yeah, So, 0:56:14.920 --> 0:56:17.040 from what I can it's also very funny to be 0:56:17.040 --> 0:56:19.840 because like today. Back then, you know, thirty eight Super 0:56:19.880 --> 0:56:21.239 was one of the more power certainly one of the 0:56:21.280 --> 0:56:24.960 most powerful handgun rounds that was available to people today. 0:56:25.040 --> 0:56:28.000 The thing that's most famous for is like Cartel guys 0:56:28.160 --> 0:56:31.440 love getting nineteen elevens plated in gold and thirty eight Super. 0:56:31.480 --> 0:56:34.439 That's like the Cartel pistol, right, like if you want 0:56:34.440 --> 0:56:38.799 to be yeah, Like it's like yeah, So that is 0:56:38.920 --> 0:56:43.840 kind of amusing to me. All of this nonsense, this 0:56:44.040 --> 0:56:47.399 like worship of men in his family, his like Hitler shit, 0:56:47.520 --> 0:56:51.399 his constant fear, he he it leads him to have 0:56:51.480 --> 0:56:54.960 this kind of like obsession with making a reality of 0:56:55.000 --> 0:56:58.279 my genetic potential. That's the way he describes it, you know, right, 0:56:58.360 --> 0:57:00.759 He's got to like he's got to fix himself so 0:57:00.760 --> 0:57:05.360 that he can earn his genes. So this starts with 0:57:05.400 --> 0:57:08.560 his first fear, the Hindenburg and its last runs before 0:57:08.600 --> 0:57:11.000 the disaster, Lyddy had made his parents take him to 0:57:11.040 --> 0:57:13.040 watch it so he could stand out underneath it and 0:57:13.080 --> 0:57:16.200 force himself not to run away. His success in this 0:57:16.360 --> 0:57:19.440 thrilled him, and it made him commit to conquering other fears. 0:57:19.760 --> 0:57:22.000 Since he was scared of heights, he started hanging out 0:57:22.000 --> 0:57:23.800 with a boy he knew who ran around on the 0:57:23.880 --> 0:57:26.840 rooftops of nearby buildings do what you might call kind 0:57:26.840 --> 0:57:31.360 of early parkourship. That boy also took Lyddy to the docks, 0:57:31.480 --> 0:57:34.000 which is this like forbidden place with all these scary 0:57:34.080 --> 0:57:37.240 foreigners in it. And on one occasion they're snooping around 0:57:37.240 --> 0:57:38.880 a boat and they get yelled at and they both 0:57:39.000 --> 0:57:42.840 run away, and Lyddy spends days beating himself up, like 0:57:42.920 --> 0:57:46.680 he's almost like mortifying his skin because he's so ashamed 0:57:46.680 --> 0:57:49.120 that he didn't like confront the guy or something instead 0:57:49.120 --> 0:57:51.479 of running away from this sailor when he's breaking onto 0:57:51.520 --> 0:57:54.560 a boat. Now, in order to deal with this, he 0:57:54.680 --> 0:57:56.720 keeps going back to the boat, and his goal is 0:57:56.920 --> 0:57:59.960 he just wants to hide on it near the saale 0:58:00.360 --> 0:58:03.080 to prove that he's not scared of them. He conquers 0:58:03.120 --> 0:58:04.760 this fear, but he earns a new one, which is 0:58:04.800 --> 0:58:08.160 that there's these giant wharf rats around and one of 0:58:08.160 --> 0:58:10.480 them like chases him off the boat, and he kind 0:58:10.520 --> 0:58:13.280 of loses his mind in a panic. And for a 0:58:13.360 --> 0:58:15.320 year or more, this tears at him, the fact that 0:58:15.360 --> 0:58:18.960 he's like reacted with fear to these rats. But then 0:58:19.000 --> 0:58:21.520 About a year later, when he's nine, the family cat 0:58:21.600 --> 0:58:24.320 brings a dead rat into the house, and I don't 0:58:24.320 --> 0:58:26.200 really know what to do here other than read you 0:58:26.320 --> 0:58:30.520 what followed. The carcass was still warm and remarkably undamaged. 0:58:30.640 --> 0:58:33.480 To demonstrate to myself my lack of fear, instead of 0:58:33.560 --> 0:58:35.760 using a stick, I picked it up with my hands, 0:58:35.960 --> 0:58:37.960 then looked for a place to bury it. As I 0:58:38.000 --> 0:58:39.880 walked towards the trees in the back, I saw some 0:58:39.920 --> 0:58:41.920 old bricks and got the idea for a test to 0:58:41.960 --> 0:58:45.280 destroy forever any dread I still might harbor for rats. 0:58:45.520 --> 0:58:47.480 I put the rat down and with the loose bricks 0:58:47.520 --> 0:58:50.280 built a small enclosure in the gravel next to the garage. 0:58:50.400 --> 0:58:52.840 I filled it with broken twigs, bark in small branches, 0:58:52.840 --> 0:58:55.440 and went into the kitchen for matches. For the next hour, 0:58:55.520 --> 0:58:58.120 I roasted the dead rat. Then I removed the burned 0:58:58.200 --> 0:59:00.440 carcass with a stick and let it cool. With a 0:59:00.440 --> 0:59:02.920 scout knife, I skinned it, then cut off and ate 0:59:02.960 --> 0:59:07.240 the roasted haunches of the rat meat, this tasteless and stringy. Finally, 0:59:07.280 --> 0:59:09.680 I dismantled the little fireplace and burned the rest of 0:59:09.720 --> 0:59:12.000 the carcass. As I stamped down the earth over the 0:59:12.080 --> 0:59:14.920 remnants of my meal. I spotted the cat Tommy. I 0:59:15.000 --> 0:59:17.160 smiled as the thought occurred to me. From now on, 0:59:17.440 --> 0:59:20.320 rats could fear me as they feared cats. After all, 0:59:20.440 --> 0:59:24.760 I hate them too. Oh my god. If your child 0:59:24.920 --> 0:59:28.479 has that experience, that's so far beyond serial killer shit. 0:59:28.520 --> 0:59:30.560 Like serial killer shit is like torturing and animals. It's 0:59:30.640 --> 0:59:33.480 not doing that. Sania's already dead, but in some ways 0:59:33.480 --> 0:59:37.520 it's more alien and weird, like I must conquer the 0:59:37.600 --> 0:59:42.080 rats will fear me if I've eaten them. Yeah, that's 0:59:42.320 --> 0:59:42.960 what works. 0:59:43.800 --> 0:59:48.880 That's just so like also like totally cool to never 0:59:49.040 --> 0:59:50.480 tell anyone that story. 0:59:50.920 --> 0:59:54.400 Yeah, that's a story you keep to yourself. Andrew's so 0:59:54.760 --> 0:59:57.080 wild to say this out loud. This is this is 0:59:57.120 --> 0:59:59.720 the thirties. Your parents are putting you in an institution 1:00:00.040 --> 1:00:04.880 if you tell them that story. Yeah, I just right. 1:00:04.920 --> 1:00:08.200 But that's what happens in the thirty that's just early 1:00:08.320 --> 1:00:10.800 enough in the twentieth century or close enough to the 1:00:10.800 --> 1:00:13.840 depression that like you might find one or two people 1:00:13.880 --> 1:00:18.720 that it's like been their brother. Yeah, but not for 1:00:18.840 --> 1:00:21.640 that reason, right, yes, yes, right, So if you hear 1:00:21.680 --> 1:00:24.680 the whole thing, he will always be, you know, for 1:00:24.720 --> 1:00:27.320 the rest of his childhood, obsessive with this need to 1:00:27.440 --> 1:00:31.360 conquer various fears and prove himself a man. Now, the 1:00:31.400 --> 1:00:34.440 thing that he wants to ultimately do, the number one way, really, 1:00:34.480 --> 1:00:36.520 the only thing in his mind that's going to cure 1:00:36.600 --> 1:00:40.080 him forever of this sort of like inadequacy syndrome he has, 1:00:40.600 --> 1:00:43.080 is to go to war. Right That's the ultimate way 1:00:43.120 --> 1:00:45.040 to prove that you're a man and worthy of your 1:00:45.080 --> 1:00:49.040 genes is killing some people. And luckily for him, World 1:00:49.040 --> 1:00:51.840 War two, you know, kicks off right around the time 1:00:51.880 --> 1:00:55.400 he's starting to become, you know, an adolescent. Unfortunately for him, 1:00:55.560 --> 1:00:58.600 he's like eleven or twelve when the US gets into it, 1:00:58.840 --> 1:01:01.080 and there's at least like six years he's got a 1:01:01.080 --> 1:01:03.320 weight before he's going to be able to enlist. His 1:01:03.400 --> 1:01:06.120 only meaningful feeling about the war then, is not like 1:01:07.560 --> 1:01:09.880 horror at all the people dying, you know, fear that 1:01:09.920 --> 1:01:13.520 maybe his country will lose any of that. He's he's terrified. 1:01:13.640 --> 1:01:15.880 His greatest fear is that he won't have time to 1:01:15.920 --> 1:01:18.440 fight in it. He won't get to go to war, right, Like, 1:01:18.840 --> 1:01:21.480 That's that's really what fucks him up. So while he 1:01:21.600 --> 1:01:25.000 suffers through this torturous weight. He decides the rational thing 1:01:25.040 --> 1:01:27.400 to do is to prepare himself to be a soldier, 1:01:27.760 --> 1:01:33.360 and Gordon that meant one thing killing Now later in 1:01:33.440 --> 1:01:36.160 life he is going to be famous for just absolutely 1:01:36.200 --> 1:01:39.400 this guy. There's never been a dude who fetishized guns 1:01:39.440 --> 1:01:42.320 more than G. Gordon Liddy or violence more than G. 1:01:42.440 --> 1:01:46.240 Gordon LIDDI. But Lyddy is not. He's not naturally a 1:01:46.320 --> 1:01:49.840 violent person. He's not someone to whom actually carrying out 1:01:49.920 --> 1:01:53.720 violence is like a thing he's immediately comfortable with, right, 1:01:54.040 --> 1:01:56.280 and so he's going to have He's going to dedicate, 1:01:56.720 --> 1:02:01.240 like his adolescent years, to becoming comfortable with carrying out 1:02:01.320 --> 1:02:03.960 violence for no good reason, right, not like violence he 1:02:04.040 --> 1:02:06.640 needs to carry out because he's ashamed of the fact 1:02:06.680 --> 1:02:10.600 that he's like not comfortable killing things. Now. The easiest 1:02:10.600 --> 1:02:13.480 way in his mind to become comfortable with violence is 1:02:13.520 --> 1:02:18.320 to get a gun and start shooting animals. But again, Sylvester, 1:02:18.480 --> 1:02:22.360 his dad understands who his boy is and is like, no, 1:02:22.480 --> 1:02:24.360 we're not getting you a gun. We are we are 1:02:24.920 --> 1:02:29.000 absolutely not buying you a gun. You have to think 1:02:29.040 --> 1:02:31.440 he knew his boy and was like, the last thing 1:02:31.520 --> 1:02:35.120 this the last thing my Hitler loving child needs is 1:02:35.200 --> 1:02:36.600 a firearm. 1:02:37.000 --> 1:02:39.960 I mean, there has to be some real concern when 1:02:40.000 --> 1:02:47.480 this kid really wants to go fight a World War two. 1:02:45.280 --> 1:02:51.400 Which, yeah, the closest Sylvester will get is buying his 1:02:51.520 --> 1:02:54.160 kid a Daisy bb gun. And this is also going 1:02:54.200 --> 1:02:57.880 to prove an error because Liddy's a little too smart 1:02:57.920 --> 1:02:59.960 for his own good. So he looks up at the 1:03:00.160 --> 1:03:03.720 library the recipe for black powder and he starts making 1:03:03.760 --> 1:03:07.960 his own gunpowder. He buys charcoal and sulfur and saltpeter 1:03:08.040 --> 1:03:10.920 from the pharmacy, claiming his mother needs it for canning. 1:03:11.000 --> 1:03:14.200 You can use sulfur and saltpeter, you can use for canning. 1:03:14.240 --> 1:03:16.960 I think the charcoal was probably for the fire. And 1:03:17.120 --> 1:03:19.760 then from a neighborhood kid, he says he buys a 1:03:19.800 --> 1:03:23.080 six inch long section of gun barrel and twenty two 1:03:23.120 --> 1:03:25.600 caliber that included a chamber, right, because you need the 1:03:25.680 --> 1:03:27.800 chamber in order to make a gun the work. So 1:03:27.840 --> 1:03:31.000 he saws off the barrel of his Daisy and he 1:03:31.080 --> 1:03:35.720 attaches the twenty two barrel by friction fit, and then 1:03:35.760 --> 1:03:38.880 he like basically he builds this into a functioning twenty 1:03:38.920 --> 1:03:44.040 two caliber rifle using like it's very janky, Like it's 1:03:44.040 --> 1:03:47.600 got like a plunger fire type situation here, Like it 1:03:47.920 --> 1:03:51.960 sounds like a very dangerous and inaccurate firearm. But it 1:03:52.040 --> 1:03:55.480 does function. It has no sight, like you cannot really 1:03:55.560 --> 1:03:58.240 aim at very well. But he claims he shoots and 1:03:58.280 --> 1:04:02.360 hits a squirrel with it. Right now, this is pretty 1:04:02.360 --> 1:04:06.360 fucked up because you shouldn't shoot an animal with a 1:04:06.400 --> 1:04:10.000 weapon that you can't be precise with right because you may, 1:04:10.080 --> 1:04:13.280 for example, hid it in the guts and it will 1:04:13.360 --> 1:04:15.720 die in agonizing death as opposed to dying quick, which 1:04:15.760 --> 1:04:18.160 is what happens. He shoots the squirrel in the belly, 1:04:18.440 --> 1:04:20.440 and he has to like kill it, right, He has 1:04:20.480 --> 1:04:25.120 to like execute it at close range, and he, you know, 1:04:25.160 --> 1:04:27.480 he doesn't eat the squirrel. He doesn't what you can do. 1:04:27.560 --> 1:04:29.360 He has like no use for the body. He's just 1:04:29.440 --> 1:04:31.840 killing it to kill it. So he he executes it 1:04:31.880 --> 1:04:34.040 and then he cuts off its tail to tie around 1:04:34.080 --> 1:04:39.680 his handlebars. Now this is definitely like serial killer adjacent shit. 1:04:40.200 --> 1:04:44.720 Lyddy claims that he doesn't feel excited or happy after 1:04:44.800 --> 1:04:48.200 doing it. In fact, he's horrified by it, like like 1:04:48.280 --> 1:04:50.880 it haunts him and like his mom catches him doing 1:04:50.920 --> 1:04:53.280 it too, so like that's probably part of you know, 1:04:53.360 --> 1:04:56.240 why he feels bad and this this is what really 1:04:56.280 --> 1:04:58.480 fucks him up, because the thing that fucks him up 1:04:58.560 --> 1:05:01.040 is not that he he hurts this squirrel or that 1:05:01.120 --> 1:05:05.000 he kills it, but that he feels bad about hurting 1:05:05.040 --> 1:05:08.080 the squirrel, and that fucks him up because he feels like, now, 1:05:08.080 --> 1:05:10.120 I'll never be able to be a soldier if, like, 1:05:10.360 --> 1:05:13.520 I can't kill a squirrel without feeling anything, how can 1:05:13.560 --> 1:05:19.440 I kill men? Right? That has its own internal logic. 1:05:19.880 --> 1:05:22.760 There's a lot going on there, and none of it's 1:05:22.800 --> 1:05:25.920 any good. How could I expect to be a soldier 1:05:25.960 --> 1:05:28.400 in the war. I had to do something to free 1:05:28.400 --> 1:05:33.200 myself from this disabling emotionalism. The widowest fascist here, he 1:05:33.360 --> 1:05:37.960 is such a fucking like the deepest fascist. There's more 1:05:38.280 --> 1:05:42.880 like fucking young Hitler has more like redeeming quality, says 1:05:42.880 --> 1:05:47.760 a kid, than fucking g Gordon Lyddy. Oh god, it's 1:05:47.800 --> 1:05:51.640 fucked up, so man. The thing he eventually lands on 1:05:52.040 --> 1:05:56.320 was volunteering to help with his neighbor's small chicken farm. 1:05:56.600 --> 1:05:59.080 He offers to basically, yeah, he's got this neighbor with 1:05:59.120 --> 1:06:00.960 a chicken farm, and he's like, look, I need to 1:06:01.040 --> 1:06:03.640 learn how to kill all, like gut and kill all 1:06:03.680 --> 1:06:06.800 of the chickens that you need killed. And you know, 1:06:07.080 --> 1:06:10.520 if you've never done this, killing butchering chickens and specifically 1:06:10.600 --> 1:06:13.800 like gutting and preparing them to be eaten is a 1:06:13.920 --> 1:06:17.080 very it's a particularly unpleasant process. Like chickens in my 1:06:17.280 --> 1:06:20.080 in and a lot of people's opinions are like a 1:06:20.200 --> 1:06:22.760 less pleasant animal to like butcher than a lot of 1:06:22.800 --> 1:06:27.840 other animals. So the guy who owns this farm is like, yeah, sure, Gordon, 1:06:27.880 --> 1:06:30.520 you could fucking kill all of my chickens. And so 1:06:30.640 --> 1:06:34.680 that's like again bad adulting. Also this if this kid 1:06:34.720 --> 1:06:36.800 comes to you being like I need to kill something, 1:06:37.160 --> 1:06:38.880 Can I kill you? I have to learn how to 1:06:38.960 --> 1:06:42.360 kill efficiently and without emotion or thought. Right, that's how 1:06:42.400 --> 1:06:47.440 he phrases it. So apparently he claims he learns how 1:06:47.440 --> 1:06:52.160 to kill without feeling that by murdering all of these chickens, 1:06:52.200 --> 1:06:54.560 you know, I was satisfied. When it came my turn 1:06:54.640 --> 1:06:57.040 to go to war, I would be ready. And like 1:06:57.560 --> 1:07:00.480 I should note here, giguldn't Liddy never killed anybody, right, 1:07:00.760 --> 1:07:04.120 not for lack of trying, but like I honestly don't 1:07:04.120 --> 1:07:06.320 know if he ever, like was the kind of guy 1:07:06.320 --> 1:07:08.280 who would have been good at this. So much of 1:07:08.320 --> 1:07:11.320 this is like he's got this is like an image 1:07:11.320 --> 1:07:13.160 he wants to present. He wants people to think of 1:07:13.200 --> 1:07:16.439 him as a badass, as a killer, as a dangerous man, right, 1:07:16.720 --> 1:07:18.960 you know, as this guy who could do without thinking, Like, 1:07:19.560 --> 1:07:23.680 I don't think killing chickens actually prepared him for murdering people. 1:07:23.880 --> 1:07:25.520 Part of which is that, like I don't, he never 1:07:25.600 --> 1:07:28.920 kills anybody, right, He's never in combat, He never experiences 1:07:28.960 --> 1:07:30.240 anything like this, you know. 1:07:31.520 --> 1:07:33.400 I mean part of the part of the wa to 1:07:33.440 --> 1:07:37.640 be dispassionate killer issue is thinking that working in this 1:07:37.800 --> 1:07:40.880 slaughterhouse might help you become a dispassionate killer. 1:07:41.240 --> 1:07:48.320 Nope, absolutely not, is it. Like, Yeah, there's there's a 1:07:48.320 --> 1:07:51.720 lot here, including the fact that like Adolf Hitler, a 1:07:51.800 --> 1:07:53.720 fucking man with a lot of blood on his hands, 1:07:54.040 --> 1:07:57.400 never could have worked at a chicken slaughtering like he was. 1:07:57.440 --> 1:07:59.720 He was too Like again, the dude was a vegetarian. 1:07:59.760 --> 1:08:02.400 He was like horrified by the suffering of animals, didn't 1:08:02.440 --> 1:08:08.520 care about people suffering, you know. But yeah, just a 1:08:08.600 --> 1:08:11.600 dangerous maniac. G Gordon Liddie, one of the one of 1:08:11.640 --> 1:08:18.080 the least one of the least mentally uh uh healthy individuals, 1:08:18.320 --> 1:08:21.439 one of the most dangerous brains ever to be born. 1:08:22.160 --> 1:08:29.080 Yeah, to be given power, Yeah, of any kind, Jesus Christ. 1:08:29.240 --> 1:08:34.040 This is a man who needed like dedicated care right 1:08:34.120 --> 1:08:37.040 of some sort. He needed a lot of people focused 1:08:37.080 --> 1:08:41.120 on stopping him from being a danger to him, mitigating 1:08:41.280 --> 1:08:46.280 mitigating his risk to others. Yeah if and yeah that 1:08:46.280 --> 1:08:50.080 that that never happened. So Jesus, we are building to 1:08:50.120 --> 1:08:54.000 how he masterminds the Watergate break in badly. Again. This 1:08:54.120 --> 1:08:57.240 is a man who is bad at everything but being 1:08:57.280 --> 1:09:00.519 a media guy. Right, He's pretty effect of it, being 1:09:00.560 --> 1:09:03.200 like a right wing media figure. He's a terrible failure 1:09:03.240 --> 1:09:05.920 at every other aspect of his life pretty much. Some 1:09:05.960 --> 1:09:08.040 people say he was a pretty good lawyer, you know, 1:09:08.280 --> 1:09:11.120 so maybe I'll give him that. We'll talk about that too, 1:09:11.400 --> 1:09:14.799 So we'll find out. Right now, Andrew, let's talk about 1:09:15.200 --> 1:09:18.760 how are you doing. I'm you know, I'm alive. We're 1:09:18.840 --> 1:09:23.400 just uh, you know, still just striking and hanging out 1:09:23.439 --> 1:09:27.920 and podcast. It's great. Love it. I don't love it, 1:09:28.000 --> 1:09:32.160 but it's just you know, what are you gonna do? Excellent. Well, 1:09:32.760 --> 1:09:35.680 support the strike, you know, help out. Oh yes, I 1:09:35.760 --> 1:09:36.240 pulled up. 1:09:36.160 --> 1:09:38.479 A link if you are listening to this and you 1:09:38.520 --> 1:09:42.400 are some the entertainment community fund to search for that, 1:09:43.360 --> 1:09:45.800 I don't know whatever, ask chat GPT to find it 1:09:45.840 --> 1:09:50.840 for you don't do that. And yeah, and I do 1:09:50.880 --> 1:09:53.920 a podcast called you know as this racist we are. 1:09:53.920 --> 1:09:57.519 We're doing some picket line diaries just to do uh 1:09:58.040 --> 1:10:02.000 you know what the actual uh sandals on the ground 1:10:02.760 --> 1:10:06.400 of being on strike is like. So, yeah, that's it. 1:10:06.479 --> 1:10:09.960 Uh yeah, check out those picket diaries. And until next time, folks, 1:10:10.000 --> 1:10:16.360 remember David Zaslov's home addresses. Oh you probably we'll probably 1:10:16.439 --> 1:10:20.280 bleep that. Not the first time we've had to bleep 1:10:20.360 --> 1:10:31.400 that uns Yeah, good stuff. Behind the Bastards is a 1:10:31.479 --> 1:10:34.679 production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, 1:10:35.000 --> 1:10:38.640 visit our website cool zonemedia dot com, or check us 1:10:38.640 --> 1:10:41.560 out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you 1:10:41.680 --> 1:10:42.520 get your podcasts.