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Speaker 1: Also media what recording a video? Uh? And also audio?

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Speaker 1: My Michael Swain, our guest for today's podcast, Welcome to

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Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards. Michael, how are you?

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Speaker 2: How are you doing? Great? Buddy? No sinking, no clapping,

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Speaker 2: the magic of just starting.

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Speaker 1: Just starting right into it, you know, walls, walls and

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Speaker 1: balls together.

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Speaker 2: Last, Yeah, look at their asses because we're there, buddy.

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Speaker 1: That's right. That's the only thing we are, is there? Michael?

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Speaker 1: You use OBS to record video. OBS is a program

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Speaker 1: that people who are using video for purposes like this use.

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Speaker 1: And what I've been thinking about it because you just

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Speaker 1: had a little issue with it and we're like, my

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Speaker 1: obs isn't isn't you know? Is flaring up or something.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like a disease, like an old person disease,

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Speaker 1: like I got, I got my obs is fucked to

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Speaker 1: hell and back, folks.

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Speaker 2: I was thinking to sit down. Yeah, hey, when I'm.

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Speaker 1: Oh right, Michael, we're talking about Nazis. Nazis the Holocaust

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Speaker 1: bunch of a bunch of stuff that's less fun than

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Speaker 1: the house a bunch.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The East India Company was awesome because it was

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Speaker 2: like some Dan Carlin ship. This was horrible.

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Speaker 1: Oh, it is it is going to be horrible anyway,

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Speaker 1: cold open done, We're back, Michael. I technically like a

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Speaker 1: little it's not I mean, it's about Nazis, but it's

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Speaker 1: not just about Nazis. This episode is a script I

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Speaker 1: originally wrote about a year and a half. Two years ago,

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Speaker 1: I got asked to go speak at Oxford Student Union,

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Speaker 1: which was great, lovely people. Grateful to the fellow who

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Speaker 1: invited me and set it up. Grateful to the the

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Speaker 1: Leftist club, the beleaguered Leftist club at Oxford who met

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Speaker 1: with me, very nice people.

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Speaker 2: Two questions, Sorry, did you wear shoes? I did? I?

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Speaker 2: Did you bring a machete?

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Speaker 1: No, you're not, Michael.

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Speaker 2: You cannot bring them achetty to the UK.

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Speaker 1: They do not take kindly to any They're making kitchen

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Speaker 1: knives now that have blunt tips, so you can't stab

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Speaker 1: someone with them.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I saw the safety kitchen knives.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, that would not have gone over well.

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Speaker 2: But no.

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Speaker 1: We tried to record it there and the between, like

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Speaker 1: the moving around a bunch and the actual size. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the recording got fucked up, and then we recorded it again,

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Speaker 1: and the recording got fucked up again. When we had

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Speaker 1: another guest in, but it wound out being good because,

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Speaker 1: as you might be aware, I mean good's the wrong word.

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Speaker 1: But as you're aware, there have been a massive series

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Speaker 1: of horrific war crimes that have been committed very recently.

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Speaker 1: So I got to update this episode in a relevant

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Speaker 1: way because what's happening in Gaza is deeply relevant to

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, because these episodes are about

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Speaker 1: how the media responded to the rise of the Nazis

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Speaker 1: and the Holocaust in the nineteen thirties and forties, and

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Speaker 1: it's overall kind of a story about how particularly the

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Speaker 1: liberal media and multiple countries failed universally across the world

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Speaker 1: in its attempt to deal with and stop the rise

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Speaker 1: of fascism. And that's a worthwhile story because a lot

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Speaker 1: of the same families here in the US, a lot

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Speaker 1: of the same families who directed American media in particular

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Speaker 1: and failing to report properly on the Nazis, are still

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Speaker 1: running the most influential media outlets, and they're still failing

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Speaker 1: in the same ways. And I think this is useful

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Speaker 1: history for people to have. So, Michael, are you ready

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Speaker 1: to learn about how the liberal media is essentially incapable

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Speaker 1: of confronting fascism in a direct and meaningful.

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Speaker 2: Way or something. You have to not already think that.

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Speaker 2: But also I'm just reeling from the implication that I

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Speaker 2: was a backup guest on this topic. That's all I

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Speaker 2: can really focus on. So let's let's do the Nazis

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Speaker 2: thne we tried.

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Speaker 1: We recorded this last a year ago, but I I

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Speaker 1: after October seventh and everything that's happened since then, I

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Speaker 1: had to like rewrite.

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Speaker 2: No statute of limitation on my.

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Speaker 1: Feelings, Michael, this is one of my best strips, Roberts.

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Speaker 1: I worked really hard on this, bro.

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Speaker 2: This sounds amazing, It sounds fascinating. Don't let me stop.

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Speaker 2: You were my top draft pick.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we were originally going to do a different

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Speaker 1: episode with you, but we had to wind up pushing

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Speaker 1: it a week so sure we had someone else on

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Speaker 1: the apartheid.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm golden.

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Speaker 1: Look, this is just that's just how it's going to happen, Okay.

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Speaker 1: On February seventeenth, twenty seventeen, The Washington Post, one of

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Speaker 1: the ussay's chief papers of record, changed their slogan to

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Speaker 1: democracy dies in darkness. If you can remember that this

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Speaker 1: was right at the start of the Trump era. Everybody

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Speaker 1: was like real, you know, the whole resist thing was

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Speaker 1: real gung ho, and I think they were playing into that, right,

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Speaker 1: let's get the let's get the libs really fired up

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Speaker 1: to enjoy and pay money for our content. By acting

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Speaker 1: like we're we're the last bulwark against the rise of

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Speaker 1: fascism in America.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like some Emperor Palpatine is somehow backshit.

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Speaker 1: It does. It's absolutely a George Lucas slide. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was updated in there. And also it's just not true.

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Speaker 1: Democracy doesn't die in darkness. Democracy dies because you have

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Speaker 1: like a million different multicolored lights all shooting into everyone's

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Speaker 1: eyes at the same time. It's like a fucking club floor, right,

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Speaker 1: Like that's how democracy dies. Everyone is too disorient to

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Speaker 1: realize what's happening. Anyway, this new slogan was updated and

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Speaker 1: their online mast had immediately and added to print copies

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Speaker 1: of the paper a week later, and the reaction was mixed.

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Speaker 1: A writer for Pro Publica called it awesome at south

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Speaker 1: By Southwest. A few weeks later, New York Times executive

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Speaker 1: editor Dean Baca compared it mockingly to an ad for

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Speaker 1: the next Batman movie. And we're not mostly going to

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Speaker 1: be nice to the Times in this episode, but I

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Speaker 1: think back actually got that very correct. That does sound

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Speaker 1: like a like a Nolan Batman line.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Fears that the US was lurching towards a new authoritarian

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Speaker 1: crisis brought with them a surge of new paid subscribers

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Speaker 1: to both The Post and The Times. Ag Solzberger, publisher

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Speaker 1: of the New York Times, used some of that money

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Speaker 1: to run a commercial at the twenty seventeen Academy Awards,

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Speaker 1: wanting the nation's most connected celebrities. The truth is more

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Speaker 1: important now than ever now. Both slogans depict a view

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Speaker 1: of legacy media that news media executive is want to

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Speaker 1: push of a battle of an embattled forth estate that's

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Speaker 1: the bulwark against fascism and corruption. Very little evidence supports

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Speaker 1: the claim that our media institutions have ever worked this way.

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Speaker 1: The twenty first century has seen an unprecedented global expansion

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Speaker 1: in news media, and yet Freedom House, a DC based

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Speaker 1: nonprofit that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, calculates that

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Speaker 1: over the last sixteen years, the number of people living

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Speaker 1: in societies that are considered free has declined by more

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Speaker 1: than twenty five percent, which is like a pretty startling number.

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Speaker 1: I would say of unfree people, although you know what

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Speaker 1: is freedom? I'm not free? You know. I think RFK

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Speaker 1: Junior would agree with miss I'm not free. Road killed

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Speaker 1: in every state, you know? So what use is liberty

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Speaker 1: if I can't eat, if I can't scrape a deer

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Speaker 1: carcass off the higher or Utah? What, Sophie?

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Speaker 2: Look a car in every garage, a turkey in every pot,

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Speaker 2: and a worm in every brain. And amserves that.

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Speaker 1: Look, are you going to say that if we all

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Speaker 1: had brain worms this country would vote worse? Because I

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Speaker 1: don't know that.

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Speaker 2: I think we're already rocking a sixty forty on that, brother.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I do think a significant portion in this

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Speaker 1: country has parasites.

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Speaker 2: Said they're prase toxoplasms.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So the decline in people living in free

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Speaker 1: countries is initially sharpest in what they referred to as

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Speaker 1: authoritarian states like Belarus in Syria, but in recent years

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Speaker 1: it has increasingly impacted nations with long stable democratic traditions.

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Speaker 1: These countries also happen to have the largest and most

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Speaker 1: active news media sectors. Editors from prestigious publications like The Times.

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Speaker 1: In the Post talk a lot about the importance of objectivity, right,

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Speaker 1: in other words, not being a journalist like me, you know,

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Speaker 1: who repeatedly is open about the fact that I think

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Speaker 1: the Republican Party needs to be burnt to the ground.

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Speaker 1: But Gallup continue used to register American trust in the

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Speaker 1: media at or near record lows. Twenty twenty two was

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Speaker 1: the first time that the percentage of Americans with no

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Speaker 1: trust at all in the media was higher than the

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Speaker 1: percentage with a great deal or fair amount of trust combined. So,

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Speaker 1: whatever you want to say about the value of objectivity,

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Speaker 1: I think the fact suggests that all of the focus

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Speaker 1: our legacy media has on being quote unquote objective has

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Speaker 1: led to a situation in which absolutely no one trusts them.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know, Well, it seems like you're also

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Speaker 1: doing a good job.

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Speaker 2: Definitely coming from a filmmaking background, it's like an old

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Speaker 2: saw that there is no objective way to make any

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Speaker 2: kind of film, documentary or not, because you are a

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Speaker 2: human filtering things through your perceptive process and making art

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Speaker 2: is a sequence of decisions, so you can't not do that.

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Speaker 2: So in a way, it's more effective and transparent to

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Speaker 2: be alied. Yeah, I'm coming from this place. Here's what

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Speaker 2: I've always Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with Werner Herzog on this. We're not

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Speaker 1: flies on the wall. We should we should aspire to

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Speaker 1: be the hornets that sting, you know, like that's the

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Speaker 1: actual purpose.

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Speaker 2: I just I broke with him ever since he refused

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Speaker 2: to show us that bare footage show us.

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Speaker 1: I want to watch that man die. Yeah, that's that's

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Speaker 1: a great reaction to Timothy Treadwell's life story, which we

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Speaker 1: should have been able to see.

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Speaker 2: Why not?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So these facts, you know that this obsession with

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Speaker 1: objectivity has at least coincided with a collapse in trust

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Speaker 1: in the news media are not divorced from the actions

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Speaker 1: of the editors and publishers of these great legacy companies.

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Speaker 1: Roughly a year after The Post changed their slogan you know,

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Speaker 1: democracy dies in darkness, they accepted an editorial from recip

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Speaker 1: Type Airdwin, the authoritarian leader of Turkey who currently imprisons

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Speaker 1: more journalists than any other world leader. This is relevant

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Speaker 1: because his op ed bore the title Saudi Arabia still

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Speaker 1: has many questions to answer about Jamal Koshovii's killing and

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Speaker 1: yes they do, but you shouldn't be the one saying it.

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Speaker 1: The guy, the guy who kills and imprisons more journalists

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Speaker 1: than anyone, shouldn't be complaining about the murder of a journalist. Yeah, yeah, Like,

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Speaker 1: what are we doing running this ad? Was there no

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Speaker 1: one else who could write that story?

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Speaker 2: Was there nobody else? Well, there were three spider men,

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Speaker 2: but they were busy pointing at each other.

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Speaker 1: The Times, obviously, during the same period, has continued to

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Speaker 1: run a blistering series of irresponsibly sourced articles on transgender healthcare,

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Speaker 1: which has helped to fuel a right wing eliminationist crusade

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Speaker 1: against trans people. We're Both Glad, a queer advocacy organization,

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Speaker 1: and several thousand New York Times contributors wrote letters complaining

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Speaker 1: about this management dismissed their concerns they weren't being objective enough.

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Speaker 1: Times publisher A. G. Sulzberger did make a personal statement

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Speaker 1: when one of his reporters was allegedly spit on over

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Speaker 1: this issue. The murder of Brionna Gay, a transgender sixteen

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Speaker 1: year old in the UK, did not merit any direct

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Speaker 1: comment from Sulzburger. You know, I think it's worth kind

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Speaker 1: of looking at it like that none of these claims

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Speaker 1: about like, well, we have to be objective, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's people. It's important for us to remain trustworthy. They're

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Speaker 1: never consistent about it. Right, There's certain things we can

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Speaker 1: we'll try to be objective about. But you know, when

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Speaker 1: there's an opinion that the people who own the paper have,

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Speaker 1: that's going to be the paper's opinion, and we're just

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Speaker 1: going to pretend like that's objectivity. And this is the

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Speaker 1: reality that you find when you analyze the responses of

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Speaker 1: the liberal press in Wymer Germany, in pre Mussolini Italy,

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Speaker 1: and in the United States in the twenties and thirties.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of sobering how direct the comparisons are, because

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Speaker 1: rather than being opponents to fascism, these publications were at

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Speaker 1: best ineffectual witnesses to disaster and at worst enablers of

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Speaker 1: that disaster. We're going to talk about a lot of

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Speaker 1: different newspapers and how they fucked up, but we're going

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Speaker 1: to start in Italy in the period from World War

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Speaker 1: one's end in nineteen eighteen to Mussolini's March on Rome

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Speaker 1: near the end of nineteen twenty two. This is generally

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Speaker 1: broken up by historians into two eras. You've got the

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Speaker 1: Red Years, which saw powerful working class movements arise and

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Speaker 1: try to do revolutionary activity, and then you've got the

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Speaker 1: Black Years, which saw a fascist counter movement boil up

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Speaker 1: in response and eventually seize power. Error At Goachman from

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Speaker 1: Princeton has done the most accessible analysis of how liberal

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Speaker 1: newspapers and pundits responded in both of these periods, and

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Speaker 1: Goachman primarily analyzes Les Stampa, which was the most influential

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Speaker 1: newspaper for like social democrat Italians right the kind of

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Speaker 1: progressive left, and also Italian Illustration, which was a weekly

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Speaker 1: paper that kind of was more geared towards the middle

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Speaker 1: class center right. In modern US terms, Lestampa is something

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Speaker 1: like the New Republic or maybe jacomin An Italian Illustration

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Speaker 1: is like The Times or the Post. The Red Years

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Speaker 1: were characterized by two large scale attempts at a general strike,

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Speaker 1: the first of which occurred in nineteen nineteen and was

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Speaker 1: centered around protesting the involvement of Allied governments in the

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Speaker 1: Russian Civil War. Neither paper supported the strike, claiming a

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Speaker 1: general solidarity with labor, but complaining that the strike would

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Speaker 1: destroy Italy's collective wealth. And we're not talking about like

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Speaker 1: an open ended like with the writer's strike right where

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Speaker 1: it is scary because it's like we don't know when

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Speaker 1: this is going to end. We don't know how long.

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Speaker 1: You know, people are going to have to be out

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Speaker 1: of work. You know it's necessary, but it's a frightening

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Speaker 1: thing to contemplate. This was a two day strike meant

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Speaker 1: to sort of a like we're trying to make a statement, right,

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Speaker 1: but none of the papers were willing to endorse even

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Speaker 1: something that limited. They Lestampa argued that it would have

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Speaker 1: damaging effects on the national economy and quote would be

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Speaker 1: a disaster for all bourgeoisie and proletarian alike. And again

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Speaker 1: we're talking two days here, like you can't you can't

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Speaker 1: go without this for two days.

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Speaker 2: Did they have an argument for how the proletariat would

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Speaker 2: suffer beyond will punish you.

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Speaker 1: No, not at all, just that like this two day

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Speaker 1: strike would be so devastating to the economy because proletariat Yeah, okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know Italy in the nineteen thirties, just the thing,

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Speaker 1: or in nineteen twenties, things are moving so quickly economically,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's the New York of the Mediterranean right.

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Speaker 2: I can't throw brakes on this grave train. Things are

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Speaker 2: moving too fast in there. You can't.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we got a lot of boss to to move.

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Speaker 1: Care for a long.

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Speaker 2: Tomato sauce, But that's a whole different thing.

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Speaker 1: So Meanwhile, Italian illustrations coverage focused more on fears about

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Speaker 1: communism in Russia and connections between like Italian socialists and

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Speaker 1: their Russian and Hungarian counterparts. Lestampa, with its more working

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Speaker 1: class readership, focused on the disruption of the strike, and

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Speaker 1: Italian illustration attacked the strike movement for its purported ties

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Speaker 1: to radicals who were, like oftentimes fighting in the East

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Speaker 1: actively because the Russian Civil War is still going on.

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Speaker 1: In September of nineteen twenty, the Federation of Metallurgical Workers

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Speaker 1: or FIOM, ceased negotiations with factory management after being refused

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Speaker 1: a new wage agreement. To avoid a strike and the

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Speaker 1: economic consequences of a strike, workers occupied factories and defended

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Speaker 1: them from their employers with armed red guards. This is

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Speaker 1: a very cool chapter of Italian politics, right, Like these

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Speaker 1: laborers take control of their places of business and put

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Speaker 1: up armed guards in order to like fight it out

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Speaker 1: with the cops and the fascists if they try to

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Speaker 1: take them back. Now. Writers for Italian Illustration were immediately

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Speaker 1: dismissive of this movement. They described the laborers who occupied

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Speaker 1: the factories they worked in as little boys playing shopkeeper, grocer,

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Speaker 1: salesman and sailor, which is like this is always what

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Speaker 1: they did. Was like, well these these left Yeah, well

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Speaker 1: they're they're taking over docs too. Okay, sure you get

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Speaker 1: to day, like you look at the campus protests, you

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Speaker 1: get a lot off. Like these little kids don't understand

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Speaker 1: the world. You know, they're playing and being adults, they

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Speaker 1: don't really get it. But in this case it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: these guys are literally the ones who work in the factories,

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Speaker 1: Like they're not little boys playing as like whatever. They

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Speaker 1: do this job for a living. That's why they've taken

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Speaker 1: the factories, the.

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Speaker 2: Means of production. I believe I've heard somewhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's just it's wild. It's wild how consistent

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Speaker 1: the attacks are, but also how utterly divorced from reality,

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Speaker 1: especially in this period they were. Now, the occupations were

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Speaker 1: portrayed as a fundamentally childish thing, evidence of the quote

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Speaker 1: infancy of a naive new society that mimicked the toils

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Speaker 1: of grown up society. And again, these are the grown

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Speaker 1: ups who were toiling. I don't know how this is mimicry.

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Speaker 1: These are the men working in those factories.

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Speaker 2: By definition, you are a writer, which I do for

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Speaker 2: a living, and it's sad in a factory.

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Speaker 1: I can tell you what are you talking about? Yeah? Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The occupations sparked a violent reaction from Italy's far right

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Speaker 1: street movement. Fascist gang attacks on workers and occupied factories

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Speaker 1: grew increasingly common, alongside police raids. This created a sense

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Speaker 1: of constant paranoia within the Red Guards, as Mussolini's Squadristi's

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Speaker 1: took to carrying out what they call putative expeditions against

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Speaker 1: labor organizations. Historian Angelo Hasket describes them as treating the

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Speaker 1: murder of workers as sport. Now, despite this hideous situation,

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Speaker 1: Lestampa and Italian illustration were united in treating the fascist

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Speaker 1: violence as secondary to the problem of organized labor. Red Guards,

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Speaker 1: they argued, had provoked gunfights with the fascists by their

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Speaker 1: very existence, right, you can't blame the fascists for wanting

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Speaker 1: to attack them. The fact that they existed were trying

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Speaker 1: to defend themselves, justifies them being attacked, right.

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Speaker 2: Well, they're just taking it a priori of like, surely

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Speaker 2: we all agree it's always right to enforce the status

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Speaker 2: quo and return to normalcy, yes, or like yeah, that

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Speaker 2: goes without saying. And you're like, well, we are actually

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Speaker 2: trying to alter some of we wanted.

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Speaker 1: We wanted to change things in a way that was possible.

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Speaker 1: Well you're evil for that, right Zaly And it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is really that direct. Liberal columnist Renato Simoni wrote

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Speaker 1: a column in which he argued that the real victims

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Speaker 1: in this situation in which communists and socialists were being

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Speaker 1: murdered like lit on fire, shot to death in their

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Speaker 1: own factories, wrote yes, yes, Renado, somebody is like, the

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Speaker 1: real victims here are middle class liberals who have to

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Speaker 1: deal with disruption.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're traffic, dude. They there were twenty five minutes

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Speaker 2: late to work because of these kids. These kids are

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Speaker 2: just doing this as a fan. You know, they just.

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Speaker 1: Love getting shot to death by fascists, you know. For

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Speaker 1: the one actual line from this column is oh, how

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Speaker 1: tragic is the life of the poor bourgeoisie in Italy.

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Speaker 1: You can't like, you couldn't you couldn't even make fun

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Speaker 1: of it, while.

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Speaker 2: The subtext is quite literally let the meat cake like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: let's historical echo of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I hope, I hope when the war got on,

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Speaker 1: his house got hit by a bomb. I'll say that much.

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: While this was going on, liberal papers treated Mussolini's rise

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Speaker 1: as concerning and the fascists is problematic, but also less

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Speaker 1: of a direct threat than the excesses of the far left.

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Speaker 1: A degree of fear may also have stopped larger publications

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Speaker 1: from taking a more active role in the struggle for

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Speaker 1: the reigns of Italy's government. During the first half of

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one, fascists destroyed seventeen left wing newspapers and

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Speaker 1: printing presses. Again, they are literally just killing journalists and

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Speaker 1: destroying peace by piece. The free press in Italy, and

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Speaker 1: the free press in Italy, the liberal free press in Italy,

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Speaker 1: the press that has the largest circulation, is largely being like, well,

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Speaker 1: you got to understand why they're doing it. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of economic you know, what's the disenfranchisement.

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Speaker 1: You know among this population, they're anger. We have to

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Speaker 1: understand their anger. Right, It's very familiar bullshit, but it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to see it happen while the fascists are actively

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Speaker 1: killing the media. In the summer of nineteen twenty one,

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Speaker 1: various left wing armed groups and leftist war veterans formed

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Speaker 1: a united militia to combat the fascists, the Rditi del Popolo.

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Speaker 1: Now we noted day that these people were organizing a

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Speaker 1: defense against Mussolini during basically the last moment in which

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Speaker 1: any defense would have been possible. And I want to

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Speaker 1: read a paragraph here from Goachman's piece. Lestampa's coverage of

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Speaker 1: the Rdidi del Popolo's demonstration in Rome aimed to delegitimize

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Speaker 1: the newly formed worker's self defense group, doing so in

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Speaker 1: a manner reminiscent of the paper's condemnation of the Red

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Speaker 1: Guards that were active during the factory occupations of September

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty. La Stampa emphasized the combativeness of some of

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Speaker 1: the workers who were present. For example, the Royal Guards

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Speaker 1: had no choice but to arrest the most quarrelsome and

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Speaker 1: hot headed of the demonstrators. Additionally, while describing instances of

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Speaker 1: violence involving a young man struck with a blow to

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Speaker 1: the head falling to the ground, or a manual laborer

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Speaker 1: struck with his hand on his bloody head. The newspaper

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Speaker 1: employed the passive voice and thus obscured the direct agency

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Speaker 1: of the policeman and the fascist SQUADRISTI in the events.

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Speaker 1: You can't write that fascists hurt somebody, just like you

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Speaker 1: can't write that cops hurt somebody. Someone simply got hurt,

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and we'll talk some more about this

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Speaker 1: trend that absolutely doesn't persist to the present day. But

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Speaker 1: you know what does persist the present day?

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Speaker 2: Michael, I could guess, but I don't want to steal

403
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,400
Speaker 2: your thunder and revenue.

404
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:38,600
Speaker 1: So you take it capitalism, sweet lady, Capitalism, Michael still

405
00:23:38,640 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: with us. You know, she's our nurse maid, She's our

406
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: lover in a lot of ways, you know, our only friend.

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00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:57,400
Speaker 1: Some would argue, not me, but some. Anyway, here's ads Ah,

408
00:23:57,440 --> 00:24:02,160
Speaker 1: we're back, Michael. Does your sole feel refreshed from hearing

409
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,920
Speaker 1: about Chumba Casino? The good news?

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00:24:05,760 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 2: It feels capitalized, and you take that as whatever emotional

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Speaker 2: charge you want to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I love gambling.

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00:24:16,600 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 2: I love capital Yeah, I love how you get things started.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Fascism is flooding into Italy in nineteen twenty one,

415
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Speaker 1: right and yet you know, the media, as laborers try

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Speaker 1: to organize to fight against it, can only kind of

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Speaker 1: use the passive voice to describe the violence of Mussolini's

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Speaker 1: Black Shirts as they slowly take power or pretty quickly

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Speaker 1: take power. And it's interesting to me, like how consistent

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Speaker 1: this denial of agency to some people and this apportioning

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Speaker 1: of blame to others is still to this day And

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Speaker 1: right as I finalized this article, which is like a

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Speaker 1: year ago now, The Atlantic published a pretty reckless article

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Speaker 1: about the dangerous new anarchist movement in the United States,

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Speaker 1: and I think is a good example of this. Among

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Speaker 1: other things, the article made lurid reference to the shooting

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Speaker 1: of an armed fascist gang member, a Proud Boy, in

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Speaker 1: Portland by an anarchist named Michael Reinol, and claimed that

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Speaker 1: the police had later been forced to shoot Rhinel in

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Speaker 1: self defense. Which is interesting to me because evidence, significant

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Speaker 1: documentation of that shooting proved that Rainel never fired at

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Speaker 1: officers when he was shot dozens of times, like he

433
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: was not brandishing a weapon. They came in and they

434
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:39,440
Speaker 1: assassinated him. And part of how we know they assassinated

435
00:25:39,480 --> 00:25:43,200
Speaker 1: him is that President Trump bragged about having his federal

436
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: ass assassinate this guy. He got up on stage and said,

437
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 1: I had them kill this man. But you don't have

438
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 1: to report on that if you're the Atlantic, right, because

439
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:57,320
Speaker 1: like that's not going to sound objective, you know, if

440
00:25:57,359 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: you talk about the fact that this guy was probably

441
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: murdered before he could have his day in court. I

442
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just it's good. It's good to see

443
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:09,440
Speaker 1: the same thing repeatedly happening.

444
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, propaganda's equally what you omit, right, what's wild

445
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 2: to me to see in the present is again capitalism.

446
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 2: The twenty four hour news cycle that we know is

447
00:26:20,640 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 2: now algorithm driven and hit driven, which I'm totally part of,

448
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 2: but yeah, pop culture sense. But with news, it's gotten

449
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:34,879
Speaker 2: to the point where they don't report anymore that Trump

450
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 2: says fucking insane stuff, no, because they're like everyone knows

451
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 2: that already. That doesn't pull clicks because it's established and

452
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:45,760
Speaker 2: it's like yeah, but it bears repeating.

453
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: It's like you be covering it, Well, what's the same thing?

454
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 1: I you know, I I rarely say, like the libs

455
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 1: have a point about you know, this this major thing,

456
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,479
Speaker 1: but they when they got angry that like there was

457
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: all this focus on Biden being too old to be

458
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: president and not any focus on how Trump is clearly

459
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: also slipping right, he is not the man he was

460
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,840
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. Like, that's a fair point. It's it's

461
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:17,639
Speaker 1: kind of fucked up that they just pretended he was

462
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: not also sundowning.

463
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 2: Right, And it's not even the agenda. I mean, in

464
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 2: some cases it is, but I believe in most cases

465
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 2: the reporters are not going, I'm a Trumper, so I'll

466
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 2: omit this information as a propagandic syop. They're going, the

467
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 2: Trump stuff's all. The Biden stuff's new. I'm trying to

468
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 2: write stuff that hits. That's it.

469
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:42,240
Speaker 1: I also think I think they don't like Biden. Biden's

470
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: administration is kind of famously strangling media access in a

471
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 1: way that makes it harder to get out stories, whereas

472
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: with Trump it's always really easy to get stories, right.

473
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:56,880
Speaker 1: So I do think there's a degree of like, we're

474
00:27:56,920 --> 00:28:00,240
Speaker 1: just kind of pissed that this guy is hard or

475
00:28:00,280 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 1: for us to monetize. I think that is the issue

476
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:03,159
Speaker 1: for us.

477
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 2: But the Turkish guy was murdering them and they love it.

478
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 1: They they love more than getting Oh my god, great

479
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,480
Speaker 1: stuff anyway. You know, Michael, one of the promises we

480
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:18,840
Speaker 1: make here at Cool Zone to all of our employees

481
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: is that if you are murdered by the Saudi government,

482
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: we're not going to then hire another dictator to make

483
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 1: a podcast about how that was wrong.

484
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 2: You know, I think I get the analogy there, and yeah,

485
00:28:33,520 --> 00:28:36,160
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Yeah, we do that in a blood oath.

486
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, not our blood. You know, we found

487
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: some of the Actually I was going to.

488
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 2: Say, is that the class of blood over the palm. No,

489
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 2: because that's not enough blood.

490
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: It's it's more of a carry situation. Michael, we talk

491
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: immens from blood. Then well, look a different scene, a

492
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: different scene. I think. I think, honestly, as an American,

493
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: it's my right to not tell our employees where the blood.

494
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 2: Came from, gotcha.

495
00:29:05,720 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think it's very important fact that. Yeah,

496
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:16,080
Speaker 1: I did email him the truth so you can keep

497
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: a secret, right, Yes, Edward, you seem like E really

498
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: the guy to do this. So the main thing that

499
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: the Italian liberal press is guilty of in this period

500
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 1: is treating radical left wing organizing as if it's outside

501
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: of acceptable lines fundamentally right, while treating the fascists and

502
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 1: their violence as understandable, as normal and maybe even inevitable.

503
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: Lestampa wrote had a call published a column in which

504
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: they blamed anarchists and communists for arming themselves, which had

505
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: forced the black Shirts to arm themselves. This, they promised,

506
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: the fascists would happily hand over their guns if the

507
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: Rdidi del Popolo had not given quote fascism a motive

508
00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 1: to cry provocation. These fascists are just aching to give

509
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: up their weapons. But you mean all leftists armed yourself,

510
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: and now they can't like? What an insane thing to write.

511
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenties Italy like by late nineteen twenty one,

512
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: much of the liberal media class saw protests in organizing

513
00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 1: by workers as the primary cause of fascist violence. This

514
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: resulted in what historian Angelo Taska called filo fascism on

515
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: behalf of many middle class liberals. We can see this

516
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: in the reaction of writers for Italian Illustration to the

517
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: August nineteen twenty two general strike, and their eyes the

518
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 1: economic disruption justified right wing violence, which provoked a broad

519
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:47,600
Speaker 1: and immediate consensus in public opinion for the fascists. The

520
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 1: paper glowingly celebrated black shirts replaced workers on train platforms

521
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: and public services. Renado Simoni wrote that the failed protests

522
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: of nineteen twenty two enabled fascism to demons straight. It's merits. Wow,

523
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 1: these fascists are killing reporters, but they sure caad work

524
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 1: a train platform.

525
00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 2: But also there's scabs, but also they'll cross the picket line.

526
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also it's such a it's such a direct

527
00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 1: it's imports so directly to like, well, of course people

528
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: are murdering protesters who block roads. They have to get

529
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: to work, right, Like, it doesn't nothing, none of this

530
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,160
Speaker 1: ever changes, you know, this attitude that like some things

531
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 1: are worth killing people over, and it's not you know,

532
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,880
Speaker 1: self defense. Uh, it's stuff like I might be late

533
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: to my job, right, that's worth But if if someone

534
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: on the left were to kill a fascist and self defense,

535
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 1: that's unjust. But somebody murdering a group of people for

536
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: standing in a road, well that's understandable. You got to

537
00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: get where they're coming from here, you know.

538
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 2: And we've seen time and again the human mind is

539
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: so malleable for yeah, better and worse, you can. Yeah,

540
00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:04,520
Speaker 2: it's there's just Big Brother hits so often where it's

541
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 2: like no, literally the opposite of that, what do you like? Insane?

542
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 2: What's going on? Yeah?

543
00:32:11,080 --> 00:32:16,040
Speaker 1: Good stuff. Historians like Adrian Lyttleton will argue that sympathy

544
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: to fascist names was a common reaction for liberal papers

545
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: reporting on the chaos of the early nineteen twenties. This

546
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that there weren't liberal papers that oppose the

547
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,440
Speaker 1: fascists as consistently as left wing papers, but it does

548
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 1: mean that many of the more influential writers in the

549
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: center left showed what you could call a bias towards normalcy,

550
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: one that could accommodate fascist violence but could not accommodate

551
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: organized labor, right. And it's you still get this today, right,

552
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: not just for organized labor. There's a lot of folks

553
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: in the liberal media who can accommodate Israeli violence, right,

554
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: but cannot accommodate any sort of fair discussion about protests

555
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: against that violence, for example. And there's a you know,

556
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:01,360
Speaker 1: when I think about that, I think about The New

557
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,640
Speaker 1: York Times recently published an op edd by Brett Stevens

558
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: in May of twenty twenty four titled A thank You

559
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: Note to the Campus protesters. In it, Brett argued, you know,

560
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,160
Speaker 1: kind of snarkily I get that many, if not most,

561
00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:19,440
Speaker 1: of you see yourselves as dedicated idealists who want to

562
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: end suffering for Palestinians, champion equality, and oppose all forms

563
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: of bigotry. There are ways you could do that without

564
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: making common cause with people who hate Jews, want to

565
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 1: kill us and often do. Supporting a two state solution

566
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: would be one such way. Insisting that Palestinians deserve better

567
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: leaders than Hamas is another. Building bridges with Israelis is

568
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:43,720
Speaker 1: a third. And it's like, yeah, man, I agree, Palestinians

569
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: deserve better leaders than Hamas, but that's not really the

570
00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: immediate issue. The immediate issue is all of the people

571
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: being killed.

572
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 2: Right, You very carefully said things where you're like, yeah,

573
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 2: that's also technically true.

574
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: How do you expect them to vote right now? Brett? Right, Like,

575
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: who's gonna hold that election at the moment the polling places.

576
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 2: We'll do this totally. It's totally the same mechanic as

577
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 2: a guy who's like, well, you know, the thirteen percent

578
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,760
Speaker 2: of the people in America invested in the stock markets,

579
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,799
Speaker 2: line went up this month, and yeah, bitch, I can't

580
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,840
Speaker 2: afford ham sandwich, so I don't care about.

581
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 1: That, And the whole thing about like, yeah, there's some

582
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 1: college students and other protesters who've like waved ha Moss flags.

583
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:31,240
Speaker 1: Do I like that? I don't like any flags, right, argument,

584
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: I'm not a flag guy. But again, that's not the issue.

585
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:36,960
Speaker 1: If the if the people, if you could point to

586
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:38,480
Speaker 1: a guy waving a flag and be like, and he

587
00:34:38,520 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: also killed seven thousand children, I would say, then yes,

588
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:43,399
Speaker 1: this is a serious issue. Right.

589
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 2: That's the thing is how do you not see it

590
00:34:45,239 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 2: in the same bucket? Is Ultimately the argument against the

591
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 2: protesters is always you're burning a flag, which to me

592
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 2: is kind of violent. Y, it could escalate to violence,

593
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 2: and you're like violence, I just saw a guy carrying

594
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 2: his decap potato baby, Yeah, what is the what are

595
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 2: you talking about? And it is?

596
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:07,560
Speaker 1: But that is you've hit upon it because like what

597
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: Brett and a lot of the leadership cadre at the

598
00:35:09,680 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: Times are doing, it's the same as what a lot

599
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 1: of these Italian journalists did. They equated rudeness and disruption

600
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: of like transit and stuff to the to slaughters to murder, right,

601
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: like those things are equal. Right, Brett is saying a

602
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:31,760
Speaker 1: college student being rude is actually more dangerous than city

603
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: with the children murder and a guy waving a Hamas

604
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 1: flag and the slaughter of thirty thousand small children equally problematic.

605
00:35:43,520 --> 00:35:45,799
Speaker 2: They both make me wildly uncomfortable.

606
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:49,799
Speaker 1: I would say that a dude being kind of a

607
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 1: dick at a protest is less of a problem than

608
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 1: burning thousands of children alive. We can get a little

609
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 1: more context into the thoughts and decisions of the kind

610
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,839
Speaker 1: of newsmen who made these sort of decisions. Right, we

611
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:05,280
Speaker 1: can normalize the fascists, but not the left. By pivoting

612
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: over to Weimar, Germany and the Olstein publishing house. Olstein

613
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: pub was founded in eighteen seventy seven, which is seven

614
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:18,360
Speaker 1: years after the birth of the German state, by Leopold Olstein,

615
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:20,680
Speaker 1: the son of a paper merchant. By the time the

616
00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: Weimar years rolled around, Olstein was the biggest name in

617
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: German print media. They put out newspapers, magazine and books,

618
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: a dizzying array of what we now call content. The

619
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: Olsteins were a politically progressive Jewish family, and as a result,

620
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,720
Speaker 1: much of what they published was reflexively liberal in its outlook.

621
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: They were obviously an early target for the Nazis, who

622
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: described them as when the Nazis talked about Jewish press.

623
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:48,439
Speaker 1: Like if you've ever seen a Hitler speech or read

624
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 1: anything where the Nazis are talking about the Jewish press

625
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: in Germany, they're talking about Olstein, right, That's not like

626
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: a broad general just a broad general term. They are

627
00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: specifically referring to Olstein because it is the biggest publishing

628
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: house in the country. The Nazi tracked the press as

629
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,760
Speaker 1: a Jewish instrument of power, published in nineteen twenty, focused

630
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 1: an entire chapter just on Olstein. German communists hated Olstein's

631
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: two for different reasons. Like most publishing empires, Olstein made

632
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: its money from ads. Consumer culture was a new concept

633
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:23,360
Speaker 1: in post war Germany, and Olstein cheered it on with

634
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: publications like Tempo, which devoted large illustrated sections to which

635
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: products people should buy to make the most of their weekends,

636
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: which were also a new concept. As a result, it's

637
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: not surprising that most Olstein papers reflected a political allegiance

638
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: broadly tied to the German Democratic Party or DDP, which

639
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: had helped to write the Weimar Constitution. The one major

640
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 1: break Olstein had with the DDP was over the value

641
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: of unionizing corporate spokesman emphasized the positive relations between management

642
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: and labor at Olstein, and one of Olstein's owners noted

643
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,640
Speaker 1: that we think that liked these good relations be ruined

644
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:03,479
Speaker 1: if you unionize, right, it'll separate us from each other.

645
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 1: Anytime you hear that from your boss, you know you're

646
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 1: about to get rat fucked. Great, great stuff.

647
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 2: I was at a company that will not be named,

648
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 2: but if you know my history, I've only been at

649
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 2: two companies, so you could figure it out. But they

650
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 2: were like, man, it's what a hard job. They hired

651
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 2: an executive who didn't work at that company, So it's

652
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:28,400
Speaker 2: a guy you've never who's this guy? We don't know,

653
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,600
Speaker 2: this guy whose job was to do a little spiel

654
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 2: and spin that like it would be in your best

655
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,400
Speaker 2: interest to not talk about unionizing, like we've been hearing

656
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:41,200
Speaker 2: a lot about it. Could you guys not use the

657
00:38:41,239 --> 00:38:44,760
Speaker 2: word union or talk about union or forming a union?

658
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:48,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, so weird. He just does that, like hey, kids,

659
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: sits down backwards on the shair job.

660
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 2: And we found out wheater he goes from company to

661
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 2: company doing that. There's enough demand for that?

662
00:38:56,040 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, of course, because they they don't understand that,

663
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:04,839
Speaker 1: Like why people want to unionize, like I do. Think

664
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 1: there's a degree to which they're baffled that people would

665
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 1: want more money than they have. It's it's it's I

666
00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:17,320
Speaker 1: don't know, crazy rich people. Brainworms, right, which are worse

667
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: than I think the RFK junior brainworms? Those are honest,

668
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: god fearing brainworms, right, not the kind that money gives you.

669
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 2: What? Speaking of god fearing brain worms, you know who.

670
00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 1: Doesn't have brain worms? The sponsors of our podcast.

671
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 2: The eponymous Lisa of Mattress fame.

672
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait, who's that?

673
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 2: Oh? That was the one all the pods pushed Lisa Mattresses?

674
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: Is Lisa one of the Mattresses? I just I remember?

675
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:54,080
Speaker 1: Does two different mattress company ads at this point? I'll

676
00:39:54,120 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 1: take another. We should in bed right? Yeah, ah, we're back.

677
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 1: I just bought a bed, Michael, you bought a bed.

678
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:11,640
Speaker 1: You know, we're all we're all bedding it out. You know,

679
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:13,879
Speaker 1: why don't you buy a bed? Listener, then come back

680
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:18,960
Speaker 1: to the podcast, laying down on your bed, delivered to

681
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:22,520
Speaker 1: you in a suspiciously small package that then kind of

682
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:25,560
Speaker 1: inflates when you open it and you ask yourself, are

683
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 1: there like weird chemicals in this that makes this possible.

684
00:40:28,400 --> 00:40:30,319
Speaker 1: This doesn't seem like it should be a thing that

685
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 1: a bed can do. But then you stop thinking about it,

686
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,839
Speaker 1: just like you stopped thinking about what all the plastics

687
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:37,800
Speaker 1: in your water bottle?

688
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,400
Speaker 2: Will you inevitably transition to, hey, remember those little dinosaur

689
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:45,360
Speaker 2: sponges and the pills that expanded and right, making those

690
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:49,439
Speaker 2: that a chemical thing the rabbit hole?

691
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's just not worth thinking about what it

692
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 1: is forgetting to.

693
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:58,160
Speaker 2: Use coupon code, old and Stalenstein whatever it.

694
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 1: So. Ostein publications fell into a version of the same

695
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 1: trap that befell La Stampa, claiming support for organized labor,

696
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: except for when it actually organized. Meanwhile, it was hesitant

697
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 1: initially to report on the Nazis, do in part to

698
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:17,920
Speaker 1: a fear of feeding in the Nazi myths of Jewish

699
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:20,760
Speaker 1: control of the media. Right because we are a Jewish

700
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: owned publishing house. We can't report on Nazi violence against

701
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: the Jews because people will think we're not being objective, right, Like,

702
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: that's how deep the brain worms go about this kind

703
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:36,240
Speaker 1: of thinking. And I will say, for the Ostein family,

704
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: it's a little more understandable than it's going to be

705
00:41:38,840 --> 00:41:40,799
Speaker 1: when the same thing happens in the US because they

706
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: are also worried. Well, this could actually direct some real

707
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 1: violence to me, right, although I think a more rational

708
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 1: person would have said, well, but the Nazis are going

709
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: to direct violence against you guys no matter what, so

710
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,799
Speaker 1: you might as well try to make people aware of it. Now,

711
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: conservative mass media did not suffer from the same problem.

712
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:06,800
Speaker 1: The august Scherrel company, purchased by Alfred Hugenberg in nineteen sixteen,

713
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: owned one of the largest papers in Berlin, as well

714
00:42:09,719 --> 00:42:13,560
Speaker 1: as one of Germany's first newswire services. Hugenberg was also

715
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: a far right political activist and politician. He is the

716
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 1: Andrew Breitbart of his day, and he felt no compunction

717
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 1: against using his papers to espouse an anti democratic agenda. Now,

718
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: he was not anti Semitic in a way that rose

719
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: above the background level of the era right unlikely, he

720
00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:32,759
Speaker 1: was not motivated by it like the Nazis were, but

721
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: he was willing to work with Adolf Hitler to further

722
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: his own ends, so the two started collaborating after the

723
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:43,160
Speaker 1: death of Chancellor Gustav Stressmann in nineteen twenty nine. This

724
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: was after an election in which the German National Party

725
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: had lost a bunch of seats. He was willing to

726
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: work with Hitler and use his papers to try and

727
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:55,160
Speaker 1: launder their reputation to more mainstream German conservatives. Meanwhile, Ostein,

728
00:42:55,360 --> 00:42:58,400
Speaker 1: the largest liberal publishing house in the country, refused to

729
00:42:58,440 --> 00:43:02,480
Speaker 1: embrace anything beyond tech support for us. You know, this

730
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 1: kind of vague concept of democracy. Right. The Nazis were

731
00:43:06,760 --> 00:43:10,920
Speaker 1: depicted in Olstein publications as something to be mocked and scorned,

732
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: but not as a serious threat to the future of

733
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 1: the system. Right, we'll make fun of him a little bit,

734
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:22,320
Speaker 1: but like he's a clown. There's no way, right, Franz Olstein,

735
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: who yes, yeah, same same thing, right, that's how they

736
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 1: fees you in Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's

737
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 1: remarkable how directly it grafts onto what we've seen. Franz Olstein,

738
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:38,360
Speaker 1: who was one of the few mainstream journalists to spend

739
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: real one on one time with Hitler in this period,

740
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 1: described him as a poor fanatic, a pitiful man. It

741
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: was impossible, in Olstein's eyes that such a man could

742
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 1: actually threaten German democracy. Right, this guy's too much of

743
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 1: a clown to be a real danger.

744
00:43:53,760 --> 00:43:56,240
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, doctor Seuss is dunking on him left

745
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 2: and right. He's no threat to us.

746
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:03,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. This caused serious debate. Heinz Olstein actually yelled

747
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: at the editorial department for mocking the NSDAP. He wanted

748
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:11,640
Speaker 1: them treated like a serious party. So did Karl Yodicki,

749
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:14,760
Speaker 1: an assistant to Olstein's GM, who wrote a white paper

750
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: arguing the Nazis were quote quote a movement for political

751
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:22,000
Speaker 1: freedom and economic justice. So not only are like, on

752
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: one hand, you've got the people who are like, well,

753
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:25,360
Speaker 1: these guys are just clowns, and then at the end

754
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:27,280
Speaker 1: you've got folks who are like, no, they're not clowns.

755
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,320
Speaker 1: There were real movement with real issues, and we should

756
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: we should fairly discuss the issues that the Nazis are

757
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: bringing up. As a liberal publisher, Olstein opposed the party's

758
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,439
Speaker 1: anti democratic politics, but Yodicki warned against them getting caught

759
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: up in quote the politics of petty details. And what

760
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:48,280
Speaker 1: did Yodicky mean by petty details reporting on us quote

761
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:53,040
Speaker 1: assaults of evil Nazis on peaceful protesters. Right, we can't

762
00:44:53,040 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: get caught up in the politics of who are the

763
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 1: Nazis murdering? Who are they beating in the streets. How

764
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 1: many folks are they assassedascinating? Right, That's that's got to

765
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:04,080
Speaker 1: get you know. You don't want to get bogged down

766
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:06,720
Speaker 1: on that stuff. We have to discuss the bigger issues,

767
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: like what do they think about the economy? Sick?

768
00:45:10,360 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 2: Always the economy, Always the economy.

769
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 1: That's what really matters, Not the fact that they are

770
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:18,879
Speaker 1: murdering journalists, Like that's not really a big deal to us,

771
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 1: you know. The assassination, the beatings of Jewish people in

772
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,799
Speaker 1: the street, not really a problem. You know. Let's talk

773
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: about what they have to say about inflation now. The very,

774
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: very best investigation I have found into this period of

775
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 1: German media is the book Modern Modernity by Yoachen Hung.

776
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:38,960
Speaker 1: It focuses on the Olstein Company and one of its

777
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: most popular papers, Tempo Hung Rights Quote. To be able

778
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: to compete with Nazi propaganda, the Olstein papers had to

779
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 1: change their tune, Yodicki claimed. Instead of touting lofty ideals

780
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,040
Speaker 1: of individual freedom and democracy, they had to follow a

781
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: resurgent patriotism which strongly emphasized the welfare of the whole

782
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,800
Speaker 1: community instead of the individual, and worked with ations instead

783
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: of reason and skepticism. As this was the only way

784
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: to gain influence with the masses. The temporary curtailing of

785
00:46:07,239 --> 00:46:10,800
Speaker 1: civic rights and democracy was inevitable in this time of crisis,

786
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 1: he argued, shouldered with their daily struggle, the people did

787
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 1: not care much for the luxury of freedom at the

788
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:20,840
Speaker 1: moment anyway. As he showed in a later memorandum, Yodocky

789
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:24,880
Speaker 1: was clearly fascinated by the Nazis. The core principle of

790
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 1: the movement, he argued, was a return to universally accepted,

791
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,239
Speaker 1: non debatable, unchangeable forms of life instead of general relativity.

792
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: So you've got this guy who is working for this

793
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,800
Speaker 1: paper owned by a Jewish family that is ostensibly liberal,

794
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,480
Speaker 1: who is one of the people making calls there, and

795
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,719
Speaker 1: he's kind of obsessed with the Nazis in a positive way,

796
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:55,160
Speaker 1: Like he has gotten enraptured by how different they seem

797
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 1: and how exciting they are to report on, right, And

798
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: he's focusing.

799
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 2: Not a hate group, revitalizing Yeah.

800
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he's interested so interested in reporting on what

801
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,840
Speaker 1: they claim to believe that he's like, we can't report

802
00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: on the violence they're doing. That's not fair, right, That's

803
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: that's missing the point of the Nazis right, They're not

804
00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: about the violence, They're about the economics. Yodicki argued that

805
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 1: the Nazi movement's simplicity was what gave it the ability

806
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: to grab hold of and guide the masses. Their primitive

807
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 1: slogans of hate and vengeance were more effective than the

808
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 1: wonky policy arguments of the German State Party. Who Ostein

809
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:38,719
Speaker 1: had earlier backed the company's pivot away from directly criticizing

810
00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: Nazi violence called caused Gersam Schlolm, a Berlin born Jewish

811
00:47:43,200 --> 00:47:46,240
Speaker 1: philosopher and writer, to call Ostein one of the most

812
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:50,840
Speaker 1: dishonest and misleading media companies in Germany. As Hitler neared

813
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: power in thirty one and thirty two, Olstein pivoted to

814
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,439
Speaker 1: position itself as loyal to the political machine of Paul

815
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:00,880
Speaker 1: von Hindenberg. Their hope was that he would maintain a

816
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:05,040
Speaker 1: semblance of democratic civil society in the face of Hitler's rise. Right,

817
00:48:05,360 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 1: that Hindenberg, this old man who's committed to the system,

818
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: he'll protect us from Hitler. Right. This was a bad

819
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 1: call in hindsight, and also an obviously bad call at

820
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:21,240
Speaker 1: the time. Now there were journalists and papers who published

821
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: serious exposes on Nazi crimes. In the nineteen twenty eight

822
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 1: election season, social democratic papers published stories claiming Hitler had

823
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: been bribed by Mussolini in exchange for ending the German

824
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: claim to South Tyrol when he took power. Hitler sued

825
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: over the matter, and the libel case ground forward until

826
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:43,000
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two, the subject of heavy reporting all the while. Likewise,

827
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 1: when Hans Litten subpoened Hitler over the stabbing of two

828
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: workers by SA men and questioned him on the stand

829
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: about incitements to violence in Nazi propaganda, reporters dutifully brought

830
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:57,600
Speaker 1: the trial to millions of German living rooms. It didn't matter.

831
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: Kurt Trukolski, one of Weimar's most influential journalists, noted morosely

832
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: the prestige of large democratic newspapers or artists, and of

833
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: liberal associations, in fact, bears no relation to their actual power.

834
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,480
Speaker 1: Kurt saw them as functionally toothless, and the face of

835
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:19,080
Speaker 1: what he called the power of reaction always there and

836
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 1: working more skillfully and above all less respectfully. And I again,

837
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:27,959
Speaker 1: that's exactly how it feels today, right, You know, things

838
00:49:28,000 --> 00:49:30,760
Speaker 1: have changed in the last couple of weeks to some extent,

839
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:35,280
Speaker 1: but I think we've all felt that feeling of like, Okay,

840
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 1: so everyone in any position of like cultural influence claims

841
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:44,240
Speaker 1: to be against the rise of fascism in this country,

842
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:47,600
Speaker 1: and that has done absolutely nothing to like make it

843
00:49:47,680 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: less popular. It doesn't hurt them at all. It seems

844
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 1: to be completely toothless. And these respectable people who are

845
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:59,520
Speaker 1: in traditional positions of cultural influence, they just have no

846
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:03,280
Speaker 1: ability to confront the fascists on their own turth because

847
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:06,840
Speaker 1: the fascists are willing to like they're not. They have

848
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,680
Speaker 1: no need to be respectful, right, they have no need

849
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 1: to follow the rules.

850
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 2: They also appeal to fear, which is such a primal

851
00:50:14,440 --> 00:50:18,400
Speaker 2: nmvator for us, just as animals. I highly recommend a

852
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 2: documentary called Century of the Self, which is about how

853
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:25,280
Speaker 2: Freud's brother, I believe y essentially cousin was. I mean, people,

854
00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 2: you just described someone who discovered this, so people independently

855
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:31,960
Speaker 2: discover it. But he's the godfather of modern advertising in

856
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 2: a sense for discovering that, like, oh, emotion, don't explain

857
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,880
Speaker 2: why the product is good, Just make them feel like

858
00:50:39,880 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 2: they're a piece of shit if they don't have this thing.

859
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 2: It's so easy to control people this way, and it's

860
00:50:44,840 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 2: like every time someone discovers that it's the beginning of

861
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,560
Speaker 2: the end. That's a big problem. Like that's not good.

862
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: It's an atom bomb that keeps getting forgotten and rediscovered,

863
00:50:55,800 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 1: and so yeah, exactly, it's great stuff. Now my opinion

864
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:04,920
Speaker 1: about this because I spent a lot of the last

865
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 1: three or four years in particular, as like Biden's chances

866
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: grew more dire and the far right kind of got

867
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:14,360
Speaker 1: more mask off about like you just had more of

868
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:17,680
Speaker 1: their influencers saying we're we're about to end democracy.

869
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:22,440
Speaker 2: Huzzah. Right, yeah, it's a rollback, Like sorry, you just

870
00:51:22,480 --> 00:51:27,480
Speaker 2: briefly touched on trans rights, and it's like they're statistically speaker,

871
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 2: so few trans people. It's so obviously a tip of

872
00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 2: a rollback. It's like we're testing whether we can say

873
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 2: gay people are bad. Obviously we're doing that, like this we.

874
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 1: Want to kill them too, but like, well, we got

875
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:42,360
Speaker 1: to start with the smaller group that has less power.

876
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 1: It is easier to marginalize, right because gay people actually

877
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:51,600
Speaker 1: like have a lot of cultural power. But at this point, right, yeah,

878
00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,400
Speaker 1: uh you know, and it's when it comes to like

879
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: how ought the media report on stuff like this, right,

880
00:51:58,120 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: because Tukoski, the point he's making is that, like well,

881
00:52:01,160 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 1: the legacy media is bound by rules that hamstring them

882
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: from fighting these people because they feel they have to

883
00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: treat them respectfully, and you can't get across the damage

884
00:52:12,920 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 1: to danger of them if you do it that way. Right,

885
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:19,839
Speaker 1: My contention is that fascism is a mortal threat to journalism,

886
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: right if you are a journalist, like any creature when

887
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 1: it's life is threatened, has the right to defend itself.

888
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:30,480
Speaker 1: And if you are a journalist dealing with fascism rising

889
00:52:30,520 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 1: in your country, I would argue it is not rational

890
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:37,400
Speaker 1: to be fair to them, right, Your job should be

891
00:52:37,480 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 1: trying to destroy them, you know, And I think back

892
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:42,880
Speaker 1: when I think about this and how you want, like

893
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:46,880
Speaker 1: what kind of weapons work? Right? If traditional straight reporting

894
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 1: and objectivity, like if literal facts do not beat these people,

895
00:52:51,080 --> 00:52:54,400
Speaker 1: and they never do, it doesn't matter that the fascists lie,

896
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 1: You are not going to fact check them away. It

897
00:52:57,120 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: has never happened and it will never happen. Now, ask

898
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,640
Speaker 1: forward to today when a Twitter account with seventeen hundred

899
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 1: followers made a post claiming that jd Vance, one of

900
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:11,319
Speaker 1: our country's most prominent fascists had written about fucking a

901
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,239
Speaker 1: couch in his book He'll Billy Elegy, because no.

902
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 2: One actually it's in the book.

903
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 1: No, look at, no one read that book, so nobody

904
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,120
Speaker 1: checked it, right, Like people pretended to read it, but

905
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:26,600
Speaker 1: it's it's dog shit right, So because of that, like

906
00:53:26,640 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 1: people just weren't interested in checking it. The li went

907
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:33,720
Speaker 1: incredibly viral, with an even number of people believing that JD.

908
00:53:33,880 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 1: Vance had literally fucked a couch, and also an even

909
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 1: number just understanding the joke, which is that Vance is

910
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:43,399
Speaker 1: the Again, it gets to a truth about Vance, which

911
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: is that he is the kind of weirdo who would

912
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: fuck a couch. When VP candidate Tim Walls referenced the

913
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:52,720
Speaker 1: couch fucking in his own way during his inaugural speech

914
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:55,640
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail, the same media organs a number

915
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:57,799
Speaker 1: of them who have all failed to hinder the growth

916
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:01,360
Speaker 1: of authoritarian politics in the US erupted outrage. Right, you know,

917
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:05,239
Speaker 1: democrats shouldn't go low. It's bad to lie, you know

918
00:54:05,320 --> 00:54:08,399
Speaker 1: in this way. Well this is also yeah.

919
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 2: I mean it's not an AI episode, so I won't.

920
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:14,880
Speaker 2: But this also speaks to like, because I don't trust

921
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 2: mainstream media, and I get all my news online. Online

922
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:21,080
Speaker 2: is also a wild West where you're like, maybe an

923
00:54:21,120 --> 00:54:24,360
Speaker 2: Ai wrote that, so you kind of absorb your news

924
00:54:24,400 --> 00:54:26,759
Speaker 2: that you think is factual a with a grain of

925
00:54:26,800 --> 00:54:29,440
Speaker 2: salt and b through like a cloud of data points.

926
00:54:29,840 --> 00:54:32,839
Speaker 2: So I still don't know. I understand the couch thing

927
00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 2: is false. Did he search for dolphin porn? Are you

928
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:38,560
Speaker 2: up on the definitive answer on that?

929
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:41,400
Speaker 1: I think he may have just been looking for He

930
00:54:41,480 --> 00:54:44,879
Speaker 1: may have an explanation I saw that seems at least

931
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,920
Speaker 1: equally plausible. Is that because because folks, if you're not

932
00:54:47,960 --> 00:54:50,759
Speaker 1: aware of this, he posted like a video of a

933
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 1: dolphin molesting a woman, which is actually a thing that

934
00:54:53,040 --> 00:54:56,840
Speaker 1: happens pretty frequently. Dolphins are do not uncommon. They're sexually

935
00:54:56,880 --> 00:55:01,239
Speaker 1: assault human beings. Dolphins are capable of rape, like they

936
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:04,560
Speaker 1: know what they're doing. Uh. Anyway, whatever, it's enough of

937
00:55:04,600 --> 00:55:08,839
Speaker 1: my anti dolphin dolphin aside, we have to take it out.

938
00:55:09,120 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 1: Yeah no, so uh he posts this video of a

939
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 1: woman getting like molested by a dolphin and is like, boy,

940
00:55:18,120 --> 00:55:20,719
Speaker 1: the internet's sure a fucked up place or something like that, right,

941
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:26,160
Speaker 1: and Democrats, Yeah, searched for women plus dolphins basically, and

942
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:28,279
Speaker 1: folks like, was he just searching for dolphin porn? I

943
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 1: think it's also plausible that like he was just scrolling

944
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:34,760
Speaker 1: through found this on his feed, you know, moved past

945
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:36,480
Speaker 1: it because sh it was happening, and then was trying

946
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:38,040
Speaker 1: to find it later and used to.

947
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:41,120
Speaker 2: Liked this of it all.

948
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's the same as the couch thing, right,

949
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:47,560
Speaker 1: and that like, well, it does kind of seem plausible

950
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:50,799
Speaker 1: that this guy would be looking for dolphin porn, right yea,

951
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:53,839
Speaker 1: And that's why this that's why, and it's hurt him.

952
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: This is damaged. And you've seen like some of the

953
00:55:57,560 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 1: fascists who are on his I'd try to like launch

954
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:05,080
Speaker 1: a campaign to argue that that Walls or to like

955
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:07,319
Speaker 1: try They've tried to do the same thing with Tim

956
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:11,320
Speaker 1: Walls by like spreading rumors that he drinks horsecom or something,

957
00:56:11,360 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 1: but like Tim Walls doesn't seem like he drinks horsecom right.

958
00:56:15,719 --> 00:56:19,160
Speaker 1: Jd Vance seems like a couch fucker who watches dolphin porn.

959
00:56:19,640 --> 00:56:21,760
Speaker 1: So it's somebody that's just not gonna work.

960
00:56:22,239 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 2: Like Trump. Trump knows this because he's fairly good at it.

961
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,680
Speaker 2: It doesn't always work, but there's something about vibe that

962
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:31,600
Speaker 2: makes an insulting nickname stick or not stick.

963
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, And for the record, if you were

964
00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:36,000
Speaker 1: to try the same thing with Trump, it wouldn't work

965
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: because Trump doesn't seem like a guy who like even

966
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:42,080
Speaker 1: searches for a porn right, Like, he's just not that

967
00:56:42,200 --> 00:56:44,200
Speaker 1: kind of You would need a different set of tactics

968
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: with him. But this works on Vance.

969
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:48,719
Speaker 2: No, but you like he sexually assaulted a woman and

970
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:50,760
Speaker 2: paid her off, You're like, right, I'm.

971
00:56:50,880 --> 00:56:55,960
Speaker 1: Definitely for sure that does seem like him. And when

972
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:57,920
Speaker 1: it comes to the folks who are concerned about the

973
00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 1: danger to our national political environment, if we if we

974
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:05,200
Speaker 1: accept things like what Walls did referencing this lie about Vance,

975
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, we can't get any lower at this point,

976
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:14,360
Speaker 1: Folks like, there's there's no bottom that we're going to

977
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:18,320
Speaker 1: sync to by actually using some of the weapons these

978
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 1: people do and fighting on the same playing field. It's

979
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:24,040
Speaker 1: like someone it's like if a guy comes up to

980
00:57:24,080 --> 00:57:26,640
Speaker 1: you in the street with a crowbar and start swinging

981
00:57:27,520 --> 00:57:30,360
Speaker 1: and you pick up another crowbar, and then someone else

982
00:57:30,440 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: is like, hey, man, you're being just as bad as

983
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 1: him by picking up that crowbars. No, you want to

984
00:57:35,320 --> 00:57:37,640
Speaker 1: you want a crowbar. If a guy is swinging a

985
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: crowbar at you, you want to at least have the

986
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:42,120
Speaker 1: same grade of weapon that that.

987
00:57:42,000 --> 00:57:45,680
Speaker 2: Motherfuckers got in a vacuum. The idea of beating someone

988
00:57:45,720 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 2: with a crowbar is it's really nice. Yeah, there's we're

989
00:57:49,400 --> 00:57:50,440
Speaker 2: not in a vacuum.

990
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:54,480
Speaker 1: Brother, he attacked you with the crowbar. First hit him

991
00:57:54,480 --> 00:57:55,040
Speaker 1: in the face.

992
00:57:56,240 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 2: But that doesn't I feel like whenever you say you

993
00:57:58,480 --> 00:58:01,000
Speaker 2: got to bring up proportionality, because then people use that

994
00:58:01,040 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 2: to go right, this guy set foot on my property,

995
00:58:04,200 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 2: so I murdered his family. Or these people took hostages,

996
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 2: so we're going to genocide them real quick. Yeah.

997
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:11,440
Speaker 1: I think the difference is if you're doing it to

998
00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:14,960
Speaker 1: literally the people doing it to you, and JD. Vance

999
00:58:15,080 --> 00:58:18,360
Speaker 1: is spreading lies about trans people. Jd. Vance has talked

1000
00:58:18,400 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 1: repeatedly that he doesn't think women should be able to

1001
00:58:21,560 --> 00:58:26,480
Speaker 1: hold elected office, right he is, like, when you're dealing

1002
00:58:26,480 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: with that guy, like we're not saying I think this

1003
00:58:29,920 --> 00:58:33,280
Speaker 1: random Trump supporter is a couch fucker, you know, like

1004
00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 1: this is extremely targeted and there's I don't really see

1005
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:40,000
Speaker 1: there being any splash damage here. That's that's to an

1006
00:58:40,080 --> 00:58:44,160
Speaker 1: unfair degree, and I don't know. I'm glad that there

1007
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:47,480
Speaker 1: are people in the media and people within kind of

1008
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:52,160
Speaker 1: the liberal political establishment who clearly finally understand this, because

1009
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 1: I had really identified with Tukolski's exhaustion and hopelessness right over,

1010
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:03,680
Speaker 1: Like why doesn't anyone know how to fight these people?

1011
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:07,400
Speaker 1: Right now? I will say some of you know, if

1012
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:09,280
Speaker 1: you're looking, if you want to like fairly sort of

1013
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 1: discuss why to Kolski was writing the way he was.

1014
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 1: It's also because he had this belief, like a lot

1015
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 1: of media elites did, that every German outside of Berlin

1016
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:21,600
Speaker 1: was a philistine, right, like all of these people, like

1017
00:59:21,680 --> 00:59:24,840
Speaker 1: the regular people are too dumb to understand what the

1018
00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 1: Nazis are doing, which.

1019
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:30,240
Speaker 2: I I knowzies are playing for d chest. Dude, I'm

1020
00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:30,880
Speaker 2: just saying.

1021
00:59:30,720 --> 00:59:33,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what I think Actually, what you saw

1022
00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: with Walls is a lot better, Like it's a lot

1023
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 1: smarter than not just like what has been being been

1024
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:43,080
Speaker 1: done before, but like what a guy like tou Kolski

1025
00:59:43,120 --> 00:59:45,640
Speaker 1: would have said, where you're you're not treating the audience

1026
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:49,440
Speaker 1: as dumb, You're not trying to manipulate them. You're telling

1027
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 1: a joke and you're trusting that they will understand the

1028
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:55,440
Speaker 1: joke right in a way, also.

1029
00:59:55,400 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 2: Going where the cultures going in the sense that way

1030
00:59:58,360 --> 01:00:01,120
Speaker 2: back when, right when they first tell the debates, we

1031
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:03,840
Speaker 2: started getting the rhetoric of like I kind of want

1032
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:05,680
Speaker 2: a president that i'd like to have a beer with

1033
01:00:05,800 --> 01:00:08,160
Speaker 2: or hang out with, and then people end up voting

1034
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:11,520
Speaker 2: that way, and then presidents start going fuck high art

1035
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:13,920
Speaker 2: or being a leader. I'm gonna be on between two

1036
01:00:14,080 --> 01:00:17,400
Speaker 2: ferns because that's where votes are. People think that's funny

1037
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 2: and endearing. So yeah, I think they're just going wherever

1038
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,160
Speaker 2: they can to get the attention they so desperately crave.

1039
01:00:24,760 --> 01:00:27,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, which you know we all do to some extent.

1040
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:29,919
Speaker 2: Michael, Oh, absolutely, I know them.

1041
01:00:30,040 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 1: I know that attention is my sunlight. You know I'm

1042
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:39,040
Speaker 1: a wilted career without it. Yeah, really, yes, yes, Sophie obviously.

1043
01:00:38,760 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 2: Well dude, and you're one of this show is one

1044
01:00:41,280 --> 01:00:45,160
Speaker 2: of the premier voices pointing stuff out that you're unable

1045
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 2: to change.

1046
01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:50,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. I can't do anything about this, but somebody, but

1047
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:54,959
Speaker 1: it sucks. Yeah. Now I want to say again, because

1048
01:00:54,960 --> 01:00:57,680
Speaker 1: we're coming down so hard on the German media. During

1049
01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:00,520
Speaker 1: this period, there were a lot of journalists who strove

1050
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:03,880
Speaker 1: to activate people and who were trying to meet the

1051
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,560
Speaker 1: Nazis on their level and fight them. One of them

1052
01:01:06,600 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: was one of my very favorite people in history, an

1053
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:13,720
Speaker 1: American columnist named Dorothy Thompson. Thompson is one of the best,

1054
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:15,680
Speaker 1: one of the great journalists of all time, one of

1055
01:01:15,680 --> 01:01:18,760
Speaker 1: the great anti fascist journalists of all time, and she

1056
01:01:18,880 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 1: wrote that Nazism was quote a repudiation of the history

1057
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 1: of Western man of reason, humanism, and a Christian ethic.

1058
01:01:26,440 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 1: Thompson joined members of the Foreign Press Corps like William Shier,

1059
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:32,400
Speaker 1: who had began to see warning the world about Hitler

1060
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:35,120
Speaker 1: as a moral imperative. And Shyer is you know, he's

1061
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:36,960
Speaker 1: one of these guys if you read through, because he's

1062
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:38,959
Speaker 1: the author of the Rise and Fall of the Third

1063
01:01:39,000 --> 01:01:42,960
Speaker 1: Reich Right. If you read him today, you will note

1064
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:47,760
Speaker 1: that he is wildly homophobic, massively homophobic, like a real

1065
01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:50,840
Speaker 1: bigot in that regard. But he is also a committed

1066
01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:53,640
Speaker 1: anti fascist, and he would later report on the annexation

1067
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:58,000
Speaker 1: of Austria submit at substantial personal risk. The men who

1068
01:01:58,080 --> 01:02:01,320
Speaker 1: ran Olstein took a different tactic to keep Hindenberg happy.

1069
01:02:01,320 --> 01:02:04,400
Speaker 1: They began to run articles supporting the military and rearmament.

1070
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: They stopped their support of liberal democratic parties, and they

1071
01:02:08,120 --> 01:02:11,640
Speaker 1: hired a man named Hans Schaeffer, the former State secretary,

1072
01:02:11,880 --> 01:02:15,320
Speaker 1: to reform their coverage of the Nazis. That a Schaeffer's credit.

1073
01:02:15,360 --> 01:02:18,120
Speaker 1: His stated goal managing the paper was to turn it

1074
01:02:18,160 --> 01:02:21,920
Speaker 1: into a weapon of resistance to the Nazis, which sounds good,

1075
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:24,400
Speaker 1: but here's how he thought he was going to do that.

1076
01:02:24,480 --> 01:02:27,160
Speaker 1: So his idea was that like, well, if we just

1077
01:02:27,320 --> 01:02:30,160
Speaker 1: let Hitler get into power, then he's going to have

1078
01:02:30,280 --> 01:02:33,800
Speaker 1: to govern and the gridlock of the Viymar system is

1079
01:02:33,880 --> 01:02:36,600
Speaker 1: just going to wear him down to a nub. So

1080
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:39,720
Speaker 1: Schaefer supported and made sure his column is supported the

1081
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: attempts of the von Poppen and von Schleicher governments to

1082
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:45,520
Speaker 1: create a coalition with the Nazis, because he was like,

1083
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 1: once they have to govern, that'll destroy them, and we

1084
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:52,360
Speaker 1: the Ostein papers will have a valuable role to play

1085
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:55,760
Speaker 1: as the loyal, critical opposition. You know, we'll make it

1086
01:02:55,840 --> 01:02:59,400
Speaker 1: clear how incompetent they are, and that will gradually lead to.

1087
01:02:59,320 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 2: Their toward smartness.

1088
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:06,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll just we're going to if people just see

1089
01:03:06,360 --> 01:03:08,640
Speaker 1: how bad they are at govern it. Surely we'll be

1090
01:03:08,680 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 1: able to vote them out, which is like, yeah, they're

1091
01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:13,080
Speaker 1: not going to let you vote again, brother.

1092
01:03:14,200 --> 01:03:18,600
Speaker 2: Surely, once the man, Surely, once they drive off the

1093
01:03:18,600 --> 01:03:21,520
Speaker 2: cliff and kill us all, it'll be like I told

1094
01:03:21,560 --> 01:03:22,840
Speaker 2: you so, don't do that.

1095
01:03:23,600 --> 01:03:26,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll think that's how this is going to end.

1096
01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:31,400
Speaker 1: So yeah, real miscalculation. Now, Schaeffer did see himself as

1097
01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 1: protecting democracy, even though he had to support an authoritarian

1098
01:03:34,560 --> 01:03:37,400
Speaker 1: government to do so. As a result, in nineteen thirty two,

1099
01:03:37,480 --> 01:03:41,320
Speaker 1: he directed Tempo Olstein's most popular publication to devote more

1100
01:03:41,360 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 1: and more page space to the street fighting between Nazis

1101
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:48,040
Speaker 1: and their opponents. Both sides were presented as functional equals,

1102
01:03:48,080 --> 01:03:51,160
Speaker 1: since they both ignored the laws of the state. A

1103
01:03:51,200 --> 01:03:54,440
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve nineteen thirty two, Tempo published a political

1104
01:03:54,520 --> 01:03:59,080
Speaker 1: cartoon that embodied the fundamentally naive way it depicted German society.

1105
01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 1: The tune showed a tired woman mother Germany, tucking her

1106
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:08,040
Speaker 1: problem children into bed and hoping that they'd get along

1107
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:11,840
Speaker 1: next year. And the problem children are there's like hanging

1108
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 1: on the posters of the bed. There's like a Nazi helmet,

1109
01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:18,760
Speaker 1: and there's like an iron front cap and a communist hat.

1110
01:04:18,840 --> 01:04:21,680
Speaker 1: So it's like all of these people are you know,

1111
01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:23,959
Speaker 1: there's quarreling in the streets, but they're just like little

1112
01:04:24,080 --> 01:04:27,800
Speaker 1: kids wrestling or whatever, you know, And soon the lollby

1113
01:04:27,920 --> 01:04:32,520
Speaker 1: countryman again and things will be okay. Yeah, yeah, you

1114
01:04:32,560 --> 01:04:35,840
Speaker 1: really got your fingers on the pulse there. In the

1115
01:04:35,920 --> 01:04:39,640
Speaker 1: decades since Hitler's rise to power, different historians have posited

1116
01:04:39,640 --> 01:04:42,200
Speaker 1: a variety of suspicions as to why the Viymar press

1117
01:04:42,200 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 1: failed so miserably as a guardian of democracy. Kurt Kozick,

1118
01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:48,959
Speaker 1: who published an exhaustive three volume study on the German

1119
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:52,040
Speaker 1: press in nineteen seventy two, blamed a lack of internal

1120
01:04:52,080 --> 01:04:55,720
Speaker 1: freedom at news publications. The financial needs of owners who

1121
01:04:55,720 --> 01:05:01,160
Speaker 1: profited by selling ads always came before quality reporting. Modris Eckstein's,

1122
01:05:01,200 --> 01:05:03,960
Speaker 1: who authored a study on the German democratic press titled

1123
01:05:03,960 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 1: Limits of Reason, broadly agreed with this conclusion, and nothing

1124
01:05:07,800 --> 01:05:10,680
Speaker 1: illustrates this fact more clearly than the way the Olstein

1125
01:05:10,760 --> 01:05:13,120
Speaker 1: publications responded to the rise of the Nazis in the

1126
01:05:13,160 --> 01:05:16,240
Speaker 1: early thirties. This was the last time liberal resistance to

1127
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:18,880
Speaker 1: Hitler might have won the day, and it was inarguably

1128
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:22,120
Speaker 1: the last opportunity to try. But the popularity of the

1129
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:24,960
Speaker 1: Nazis and the success with which they demonized their most

1130
01:05:24,960 --> 01:05:28,960
Speaker 1: firm and opposition communists and street fighting socialist meant fervent

1131
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:32,240
Speaker 1: opposition had a cost too high for any capitalist entity

1132
01:05:32,320 --> 01:05:35,880
Speaker 1: to bear. So Olstein's papers lurched away from reporting on

1133
01:05:36,000 --> 01:05:40,160
Speaker 1: politics and plunged further into encouraging consumption. Their answer was,

1134
01:05:40,360 --> 01:05:43,120
Speaker 1: we've got to fix the economy to stop the Nazis,

1135
01:05:43,120 --> 01:05:45,720
Speaker 1: So we've got to get people buying stuff again, right,

1136
01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:49,400
Speaker 1: going on vacation again, And I'm going to read a

1137
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:53,520
Speaker 1: quote from Moderate Modernity writing about the July nineteen thirty

1138
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 1: two issue of Tempo. The header of each issue of

1139
01:05:56,320 --> 01:06:00,600
Speaker 1: the promotional magazine usually carried short aphorisms or motivation sayings,

1140
01:06:00,640 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 1: and this issue declared that everybody has to buy as

1141
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:06,960
Speaker 1: much as they can afford, an appeal that turned consumption

1142
01:06:07,080 --> 01:06:10,200
Speaker 1: into almost a national duty. When the von Poppen government

1143
01:06:10,400 --> 01:06:13,560
Speaker 1: announced an investment program to inject life into the stagnating

1144
01:06:13,600 --> 01:06:17,240
Speaker 1: economy in nineteen thirty two, Paul Elsberg, editor in chief

1145
01:06:17,240 --> 01:06:21,160
Speaker 1: of Olstein's Central Business Desk, lauded the move and prophesied

1146
01:06:21,200 --> 01:06:24,240
Speaker 1: a considerable strengthening of purchasing power in the near future.

1147
01:06:24,760 --> 01:06:27,240
Speaker 1: So in the last year before Hitler took power, the

1148
01:06:27,320 --> 01:06:30,000
Speaker 1: major liberal press organ of the country is being like,

1149
01:06:30,520 --> 01:06:34,840
Speaker 1: what y'all have to do to stop this is buy right, like,

1150
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:37,800
Speaker 1: get in there and support the economy. That's goin to

1151
01:06:37,840 --> 01:06:38,680
Speaker 1: fix everything.

1152
01:06:40,520 --> 01:06:43,400
Speaker 2: Well, it allow incentivized people to vote right, right.

1153
01:06:43,320 --> 01:06:46,880
Speaker 1: Right, right, Well, they're saying you're voting by spending money.

1154
01:06:46,960 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 1: That's the voting that really matters. Right, Yeah, Now, this

1155
01:06:51,560 --> 01:06:54,160
Speaker 1: is the last year before Hitler takes power. And instead

1156
01:06:54,160 --> 01:06:56,800
Speaker 1: of reporting on what the Nazis are doing with Hindenberg

1157
01:06:56,880 --> 01:07:00,600
Speaker 1: and the conservative parties or even like suggest the building

1158
01:07:00,680 --> 01:07:03,160
Speaker 1: of a popular front between the left and the center

1159
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: and you know, social democratic parties, Tempo urged readers to

1160
01:07:08,440 --> 01:07:12,080
Speaker 1: build a front of all optimists fighting against the fear

1161
01:07:12,160 --> 01:07:16,200
Speaker 1: of consumption. Right, don't build a united you know, political

1162
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:20,400
Speaker 1: front against fascism. Build a front of optimists to want

1163
01:07:20,400 --> 01:07:21,280
Speaker 1: to spend money.

1164
01:07:21,720 --> 01:07:24,360
Speaker 2: Let's get Kristinsky out here. Let's do some good news

1165
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:25,360
Speaker 2: for Kidnea's sake.

1166
01:07:25,480 --> 01:07:29,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is very much the Yeah, let's

1167
01:07:29,360 --> 01:07:30,320
Speaker 1: let's get the good news.

1168
01:07:31,160 --> 01:07:33,120
Speaker 2: My brain is ruined by the internet, so I can

1169
01:07:33,200 --> 01:07:35,840
Speaker 2: only think in terms of memes. But it's this is fine.

1170
01:07:36,120 --> 01:07:38,560
Speaker 2: It's the dog sitting in the flaming building.

1171
01:07:38,680 --> 01:07:41,680
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, spend some money and you won't notice the flames.

1172
01:07:42,000 --> 01:07:42,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1173
01:07:42,960 --> 01:07:45,640
Speaker 1: Now it's interesting. Tempo didn't just try to do ads

1174
01:07:45,640 --> 01:07:49,000
Speaker 1: speak here. They tried to assemble a street movement around

1175
01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:53,040
Speaker 1: capitalist consumption publishing tear out flyers for readers to send

1176
01:07:53,040 --> 01:07:55,640
Speaker 1: their clients at work. They were urged to set an

1177
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:58,840
Speaker 1: example for their neighbors by spending more money themselves. This

1178
01:07:58,960 --> 01:08:01,440
Speaker 1: was the only thing that could say Germany from darkness.

1179
01:08:01,880 --> 01:08:05,080
Speaker 1: Spending creates jobs. Jobs create income which will be spent

1180
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:07,440
Speaker 1: on your products. So fight with us for a healthy

1181
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 1: consumer optimism and start in your own interest with yourself. Now,

1182
01:08:14,720 --> 01:08:17,799
Speaker 1: nothing that happened, the fact that the economy fell apart,

1183
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:20,080
Speaker 1: that like purchasing power did not increase. None of this

1184
01:08:20,120 --> 01:08:24,400
Speaker 1: stopped Tempo's management from pushing this vision of consumption. Instead,

1185
01:08:24,439 --> 01:08:28,360
Speaker 1: they added advice on weaponry to their technology. Everybody needs

1186
01:08:28,439 --> 01:08:33,720
Speaker 1: column advertising concealed truncheons for readers to fight off robbers with. Now,

1187
01:08:33,720 --> 01:08:35,439
Speaker 1: when I was a kid reading about the rise of

1188
01:08:35,439 --> 01:08:38,519
Speaker 1: the third Reichen School, every textbook that mentioned the subject

1189
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:41,880
Speaker 1: featured nearly identical photos of these huge piles or reel

1190
01:08:41,920 --> 01:08:45,360
Speaker 1: barrows of Deutsche marks to emphasize how bad the inflation

1191
01:08:45,600 --> 01:08:47,759
Speaker 1: was and y our Germany. I was led to believe

1192
01:08:47,760 --> 01:08:50,360
Speaker 1: that pick people picked Hitler because he promised them away

1193
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:53,320
Speaker 1: out And the reality, of course, is that most Germans

1194
01:08:53,360 --> 01:08:56,439
Speaker 1: never chose Hitler in an open election. His success was

1195
01:08:56,439 --> 01:08:59,960
Speaker 1: based as much on trickery and corruption as electoral victory.

1196
01:09:00,520 --> 01:09:02,640
Speaker 1: But the Great Depression did play a role, and I

1197
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:05,559
Speaker 1: think mainstream histories of this period tend to underemphasize how

1198
01:09:05,640 --> 01:09:08,479
Speaker 1: much of what happened was the result of failure by

1199
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:12,560
Speaker 1: liberal messaging rather than hit larry and brainwashing. The Nazis

1200
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:16,479
Speaker 1: and the Communists both saw their popularity increase in this period,

1201
01:09:16,720 --> 01:09:20,360
Speaker 1: while the German liberal parties bled voters, and this is

1202
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:25,360
Speaker 1: because both Nazis and Communists offered voters visions right different visions,

1203
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:28,000
Speaker 1: but visions nonetheless of a way forward that was not

1204
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:32,160
Speaker 1: simply let's keep doing the same thing that obviously doesn't work.

1205
01:09:32,880 --> 01:09:35,839
Speaker 1: Tempo as the most popular liberal magazine in the country,

1206
01:09:36,040 --> 01:09:39,439
Speaker 1: showcases this failure. It told readers there is but one

1207
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:43,320
Speaker 1: way to fight the crisis. Buying. Women were depicted not

1208
01:09:43,439 --> 01:09:46,479
Speaker 1: as the noble wellsprings of the German race, or as

1209
01:09:46,560 --> 01:09:49,880
Speaker 1: equal beings, but as economic engines, praised for the money

1210
01:09:49,920 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 1: they spent. Just one day after the parliamentary elections in

1211
01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:55,839
Speaker 1: late nineteen thirty two, Tempo ran an ad that captioned

1212
01:09:55,840 --> 01:09:58,120
Speaker 1: a photo of a woman in line at the store

1213
01:09:58,360 --> 01:10:02,760
Speaker 1: with the words women must continue voting right. The vote

1214
01:10:02,800 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: that matters from women is where you spend your money.

1215
01:10:06,320 --> 01:10:09,519
Speaker 1: So the brief boone and boom and travel that Tempo

1216
01:10:09,640 --> 01:10:11,960
Speaker 1: had helped push in the late twenties had collapsed by

1217
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:14,559
Speaker 1: this point, and the magazine just kind of responded by

1218
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:18,240
Speaker 1: lying about the situation, predicting that late summer nineteen thirty

1219
01:10:18,240 --> 01:10:20,960
Speaker 1: two is going to be the sunny holiday season that

1220
01:10:21,040 --> 01:10:24,520
Speaker 1: Germans need to like get their minds off the domestic situation.

1221
01:10:25,240 --> 01:10:27,599
Speaker 1: One of their regular columns was written by a character

1222
01:10:27,680 --> 01:10:31,639
Speaker 1: named Hans Einfach, which means basically John everyman in German.

1223
01:10:32,120 --> 01:10:34,599
Speaker 1: A few days after the July election, with the Nazis

1224
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:37,280
Speaker 1: working their way into the halls of power, Hans published

1225
01:10:37,280 --> 01:10:41,200
Speaker 1: a column on political violence. He described it as silly,

1226
01:10:41,560 --> 01:10:44,360
Speaker 1: a shame on both sides, and made a few lighthearted

1227
01:10:44,439 --> 01:10:47,479
Speaker 1: jokes at the expense of the Nazis. Then, as Yuchen

1228
01:10:47,560 --> 01:10:50,519
Speaker 1: Hung writes, he described the decision to spend money on

1229
01:10:50,560 --> 01:10:53,320
Speaker 1: a holiday despite not being able to afford it as

1230
01:10:53,320 --> 01:10:57,559
Speaker 1: the necessary defiance of the economic situation. Finally, at summer,

1231
01:10:57,720 --> 01:11:00,000
Speaker 1: many people are sitting at home at the moment, contemplated

1232
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:02,280
Speaker 1: if they can afford a few days of holiday. I

1233
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:04,519
Speaker 1: have come to the conclusion that I can't afford it,

1234
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:07,360
Speaker 1: and that's exactly why I will go on a holiday.

1235
01:11:07,680 --> 01:11:13,360
Speaker 1: We just have to afford it. It's such a such

1236
01:11:13,400 --> 01:11:16,400
Speaker 1: like a baffling death drive. That's like, we're going to

1237
01:11:16,400 --> 01:11:19,200
Speaker 1: try to get people to buy vacations. As the economy

1238
01:11:19,240 --> 01:11:23,280
Speaker 1: falls apart and they, like Hitler comes into power, the

1239
01:11:23,320 --> 01:11:25,360
Speaker 1: most important thing we can do is get people to

1240
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:26,599
Speaker 1: spend money they don't have.

1241
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:31,600
Speaker 2: It's also interesting that it's not for self care. That

1242
01:11:31,760 --> 01:11:35,320
Speaker 2: it's explicitly like we do things where we go, oh,

1243
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:38,120
Speaker 2: you're having a baby, that's wonderful. Give me ten thousand

1244
01:11:38,120 --> 01:11:40,800
Speaker 2: dollars for a bunch of bullshit please, Yeah, we cover

1245
01:11:40,960 --> 01:11:43,720
Speaker 2: it with something, you know. It's like the idea of

1246
01:11:43,840 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 2: pamper yourself. You deserve it. Like in this crazy life

1247
01:11:46,960 --> 01:11:50,280
Speaker 2: where we're all oppressed by capitalism, come spend more money

1248
01:11:50,320 --> 01:11:53,559
Speaker 2: because you deserve it. It's interesting to hear them be

1249
01:11:53,720 --> 01:11:58,200
Speaker 2: like spend money, to spend money, Like just give us money.

1250
01:11:58,760 --> 01:12:03,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all that these Oldstein papers are doing is

1251
01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:05,600
Speaker 1: telling people to spend money and putting their faith in

1252
01:12:05,680 --> 01:12:09,639
Speaker 1: Paul von Hindenberg, who like because he's you know, they've

1253
01:12:09,640 --> 01:12:14,160
Speaker 1: gone from we're like, we're progressive. You know, we're looking

1254
01:12:14,160 --> 01:12:17,440
Speaker 1: at the future too. Well, this old man will moderate

1255
01:12:17,520 --> 01:12:23,320
Speaker 1: the Nazis, right, be alive forever right in Tempo's every

1256
01:12:23,320 --> 01:12:26,080
Speaker 1: man columns, at the same time, tended to portray anyone

1257
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:29,439
Speaker 1: who was like on the left as unhinged. Right, the

1258
01:12:29,520 --> 01:12:33,320
Speaker 1: ideal voter was level headed, slow and steady, like Hindenburg

1259
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:36,759
Speaker 1: hung rights. Tempo's Voice of the common man often compared

1260
01:12:36,800 --> 01:12:40,560
Speaker 1: the hostile climate of Weimar's political sphere to everyday situations

1261
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:43,360
Speaker 1: such as a squabbling family or life in a tenement house,

1262
01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:47,120
Speaker 1: with the extremists being portrayed as weward sons or annoying neighbors,

1263
01:12:47,360 --> 01:12:50,160
Speaker 1: but ultimately part of the community who could be tamed

1264
01:12:50,160 --> 01:12:53,120
Speaker 1: and integrated. Clearly, the aim of such articles was to

1265
01:12:53,120 --> 01:12:57,439
Speaker 1: create a sense of normality and uncertain times among Tempo's audience.

1266
01:12:57,479 --> 01:12:59,559
Speaker 1: And to give them a model to follow. In other

1267
01:12:59,600 --> 01:13:02,240
Speaker 1: parts of the paper, however, the value of rationality had

1268
01:13:02,280 --> 01:13:05,519
Speaker 1: lost its allure. The lax morals of the rational girls

1269
01:13:05,520 --> 01:13:08,400
Speaker 1: of the nineteen twenties, Frau Christine argued in one of

1270
01:13:08,400 --> 01:13:11,480
Speaker 1: her columns had given men a twisted idea of sexuality

1271
01:13:11,520 --> 01:13:15,000
Speaker 1: and had ultimately lowered their respect for women. It's it's

1272
01:13:15,000 --> 01:13:17,400
Speaker 1: remarkable just how consistent that is too, Like we're dealing

1273
01:13:17,439 --> 01:13:20,280
Speaker 1: the same, Like JD. Vance is a big part of this, Like, well,

1274
01:13:20,320 --> 01:13:22,880
Speaker 1: women leaders have been a disaster, you know, women who

1275
01:13:22,880 --> 01:13:25,080
Speaker 1: won't have kids, who just want to like live for

1276
01:13:25,200 --> 01:13:28,599
Speaker 1: their own you know, pleasure and enjoyment are evil. They're

1277
01:13:28,640 --> 01:13:33,280
Speaker 1: degenerate psychopaths, right, Like it's it's all the same shit,

1278
01:13:33,600 --> 01:13:36,639
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, yeah, good stuff.

1279
01:13:36,640 --> 01:13:39,880
Speaker 2: I've heard that. I've encountered that argument of surprisingly off

1280
01:13:39,880 --> 01:13:44,120
Speaker 2: and the well, Like why would they have wombs if

1281
01:13:44,160 --> 01:13:47,519
Speaker 2: they weren't supposed to only function in that context? If

1282
01:13:47,520 --> 01:13:50,439
Speaker 2: that's all they are support for a right, they were happier,

1283
01:13:50,479 --> 01:13:52,880
Speaker 2: it's more natural for them to just care for kids.

1284
01:13:53,000 --> 01:13:55,400
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And it's like, when's the last time you

1285
01:13:55,479 --> 01:13:58,439
Speaker 2: went into the woods and killed a fucking small road

1286
01:13:58,560 --> 01:14:01,280
Speaker 2: with your bare hands. Shut up. We do society now,

1287
01:14:01,439 --> 01:14:04,280
Speaker 2: we do what we want, like we make pizza and

1288
01:14:04,360 --> 01:14:05,839
Speaker 2: we have careers. Fu.

1289
01:14:06,040 --> 01:14:11,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we filter our water instead of regularly ourselves today.

1290
01:14:12,720 --> 01:14:15,719
Speaker 2: Aren't supposed to do. If you're just like your body

1291
01:14:15,800 --> 01:14:17,120
Speaker 2: does this, shut up.

1292
01:14:17,439 --> 01:14:19,880
Speaker 1: I'm an advocate of doing more of that stuff. Every

1293
01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:23,599
Speaker 1: time I get on like the Conspiracy Internet, I further

1294
01:14:23,680 --> 01:14:26,479
Speaker 1: reinforced my belief that, like, we should put lithium back

1295
01:14:26,520 --> 01:14:30,160
Speaker 1: in the water, right, Like, sure, it could really help.

1296
01:14:30,360 --> 01:14:33,360
Speaker 2: That might be our way out of mercury. Mercury in

1297
01:14:33,439 --> 01:14:35,040
Speaker 2: my hat, brim Man, why not.

1298
01:14:35,479 --> 01:14:38,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's let's do it. So you know, Michael,

1299
01:14:38,560 --> 01:14:40,840
Speaker 1: we are all broadly familiar of what happened to German

1300
01:14:40,880 --> 01:14:44,479
Speaker 1: democracy after nineteen thirty three. Right, none of none of

1301
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:47,680
Speaker 1: the none of this like buying stuff didn't work, This

1302
01:14:47,760 --> 01:14:51,160
Speaker 1: idea that like just vote for moderates didn't work. The

1303
01:14:51,280 --> 01:14:55,400
Speaker 1: Nazis took over right Ostein, and all publishers with Jewish

1304
01:14:55,479 --> 01:14:59,280
Speaker 1: owners were nationalized and arianized by the Nazi state. It

1305
01:14:59,400 --> 01:15:02,360
Speaker 1: is interesting to that the Nazis kept the name Ostein.

1306
01:15:02,600 --> 01:15:04,720
Speaker 1: They were pragmatic enough to see it as a good

1307
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:08,479
Speaker 1: business decision, and uh, you know that is what we're

1308
01:15:08,520 --> 01:15:12,400
Speaker 1: covering today. We're going to on Thursday talk about the

1309
01:15:12,560 --> 01:15:16,559
Speaker 1: United States finally, but Michael, first, let's talk about you.

1310
01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:20,519
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Let's talk about the Small Beans network.

1311
01:15:21,120 --> 01:15:23,800
Speaker 2: Sure. Oh boy, Oh I get a double plug. I

1312
01:15:23,800 --> 01:15:26,240
Speaker 2: didn't know i'd get to spiel both episodes all right.

1313
01:15:26,520 --> 01:15:29,840
Speaker 1: In German they would call that a doppel plugin. I

1314
01:15:29,880 --> 01:15:31,520
Speaker 1: don't know if that's true.

1315
01:15:31,560 --> 01:15:39,599
Speaker 2: Who cares, He's just ends the episode. I'll try to

1316
01:15:39,600 --> 01:15:41,840
Speaker 2: be quick, but I really mean it this time. This

1317
01:15:41,960 --> 01:15:43,760
Speaker 2: is maybe the most important player in my life. So

1318
01:15:43,800 --> 01:15:46,320
Speaker 2: if you've liked me on Cracked, or even if you

1319
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:49,120
Speaker 2: happen to have encountered any of my fiction before, I

1320
01:15:49,360 --> 01:15:51,800
Speaker 2: finally finished a novel that I've been working on since

1321
01:15:51,840 --> 01:15:55,559
Speaker 2: I was fourteen. It's an epic fantasy sci fi memoir.

1322
01:15:56,640 --> 01:15:59,960
Speaker 2: I'll just describe it as like Carlan Ellison meets Vonnegut

1323
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:05,679
Speaker 2: meets Douglas Adams. Robert Brockway called it hilarious, heartbreaking shit

1324
01:16:05,840 --> 01:16:09,200
Speaker 2: like that. I think it's really really good. It has

1325
01:16:09,280 --> 01:16:11,160
Speaker 2: my whole heart and soul in it. And I just

1326
01:16:11,240 --> 01:16:14,559
Speaker 2: released the audiobook version so you can hear that on

1327
01:16:14,600 --> 01:16:17,960
Speaker 2: the Small Beans Free feed by just searching small Beans

1328
01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:20,639
Speaker 2: or the name of the novel, which is called The Climb,

1329
01:16:21,800 --> 01:16:24,960
Speaker 2: or if you're already sold, you can head to patreon

1330
01:16:25,000 --> 01:16:28,920
Speaker 2: dot com slash Smallbeans slash Shop where you can get

1331
01:16:28,960 --> 01:16:33,880
Speaker 2: the physical version or a PDF or the audiobook. Check

1332
01:16:33,920 --> 01:16:34,280
Speaker 2: it out.

1333
01:16:35,000 --> 01:16:39,439
Speaker 1: Michael, I gotta tell you, I deeply love the uh

1334
01:16:40,320 --> 01:16:44,040
Speaker 1: the image in my head of Vonnegut and Harlan Ellison

1335
01:16:44,120 --> 01:16:46,920
Speaker 1: and Douglas Adams meeting, because I imagine Vonnegut and Douglas

1336
01:16:46,960 --> 01:16:50,040
Speaker 1: Adams would have a great time and Harlan Ellison is

1337
01:16:50,160 --> 01:16:54,280
Speaker 1: just going to be the most.

1338
01:16:52,880 --> 01:16:55,400
Speaker 2: Miserable man still fucking hate each other.

1339
01:16:55,680 --> 01:16:56,559
Speaker 1: Oh my god.

1340
01:16:56,720 --> 01:17:01,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a real Calvin COOLIDG Hubert Humphreys. Yeah, they

1341
01:17:02,080 --> 01:17:05,240
Speaker 2: might be like, sir, I respect your fiction, Please get

1342
01:17:05,280 --> 01:17:05,800
Speaker 2: the fuck out.

1343
01:17:06,040 --> 01:17:09,559
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do not want to talk to you to Hell.

1344
01:17:11,800 --> 01:17:14,080
Speaker 1: Good stuff anyway. Well that's going to do it for

1345
01:17:14,160 --> 01:17:19,160
Speaker 1: us at whatever podcast this is until next time, go

1346
01:17:19,280 --> 01:17:20,640
Speaker 1: to Hell. I love you.

1347
01:17:22,040 --> 01:17:24,160
Speaker 2: Do you want to plug on the audio version that

1348
01:17:24,200 --> 01:17:25,439
Speaker 2: we have YouTube now, Robert?

1349
01:17:26,040 --> 01:17:28,080
Speaker 1: No, of course not, Sophie. Why would I do that?

1350
01:17:28,240 --> 01:17:30,800
Speaker 2: Do you want to do your job now? Did you

1351
01:17:31,120 --> 01:17:32,760
Speaker 2: stop recording? No?

1352
01:17:32,880 --> 01:17:36,280
Speaker 1: Of course not, Sophie. You know, Sophie, I made a

1353
01:17:36,320 --> 01:17:41,000
Speaker 1: decision on my own to pivot to video recently. This

1354
01:17:41,160 --> 01:17:49,120
Speaker 1: is me telling you, actually, yeah, I decided unilaterally to

1355
01:17:49,200 --> 01:17:53,040
Speaker 1: do that, and I let you make a decision. Yeah.

1356
01:17:54,720 --> 01:17:57,040
Speaker 1: It was a horrible mistake, Sophie. I don't know why

1357
01:17:57,120 --> 01:18:01,120
Speaker 1: you listen to me about these things. I'm always wrong anyway.

1358
01:18:01,240 --> 01:18:03,880
Speaker 1: Everyone enjoy our new videos or not.

1359
01:18:08,040 --> 01:18:10,759
Speaker 2: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1360
01:18:11,120 --> 01:18:14,400
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia

1361
01:18:14,600 --> 01:18:17,760
Speaker 2: dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1362
01:18:17,880 --> 01:18:20,680
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.