WEBVTT - Part Two: John Henry Was Real & Also Became Superman 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.600 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, which 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:06.160 is a podcast that has some people on it. One 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:08.840 of them is me. I'm Margaret Kiljoy. One of them 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:10.080 is prop h prop. 0:00:11.039 --> 0:00:13.520 Hey kill Joy continue to. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:18.400 Body The worst part is this is several days later 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:22.200 and we've stayed on zoom and prop has just been 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:22.880 body rolling. 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.120 My back is killing me. Yeah, but I want to 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.480 be known for committing to the bit. Yeah, you just 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:31.480 you commit. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.120 That's true, Sophie. Should I commit to the bit of 0:00:36.200 --> 0:00:38.239 pretending like your last name is podcast, It's not as 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:40.159 good of a bit. Maybe it's not worth committing to. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:46.800 Sophie is our producer? What about produce Well? You could 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:51.720 be produced well prod Well. How do well sounds like 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.040 a name, Sophie Prodwell? That sounds sexual. I take it back, 0:00:56.160 --> 0:00:59.840 it does. Was sorry, she's cleaning her. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:05.559 You're out right now right? Ian? 0:01:05.920 --> 0:01:08.240 Your our fate is in your hands. It's up to 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.000 you whether you leave that or cut that out. It's 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.720 just Sophie, all right, Sophie. Uh yeah, Sophie's a producer. 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.840 Ian is our audio engineer on woman song Hi end 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:22.640 I almost. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:30.600 Forgot and the body Roller. I'm not currently d the 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:35.279 body Roll Prop the body roller, don't stop the body roll. 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.400 You can get body roll tattooed on your knuckles if 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:38.920 you want. 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:40.520 Dog that's whatever. 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.400 Yeah, favorite things to do is to tell you what 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:45.120 you could get tattooed on your knuckles. 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:47.480 Yeah, especially if it's four letters, you know. 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:54.600 Yeah, yeah, exactly, perfect, Yeah, perfect, Yeah, hilarious. On Woman 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:56.640 has the person who wrote a theme song on Woman 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.200 has an album coming out. New album coming out called 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.520 Desire Paths out September twenty second. Prop has a new 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.440 album that came out in June. I can't remember the 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:06.200 name off the top of my head. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:10.720 Terrorform the possibility that's right, is that the third in 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.000 the trilogy? That was the fourth, the fourth four. 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:20.160 The trilogy in the quadrus something Yeah, yeah, the fourth 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:25.440 and final man the opis the final, the opus minimis 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:27.720 magnus the magnum p I. 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.639 Yeah, that's cool. People don't really do that much anymore. 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.280 Like we're in a very like single culture let alone 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.920 album culture let alone, a like arc. 0:02:37.040 --> 0:02:39.679 Like this was a book and then the book had 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.880 four EPs and a cold Brew. Yeah, you know, this 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.680 was a four year process. I like that. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:47.720 The cold Brew is the same name. It's good. 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:49.799 Yeah, man, same world. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.960 Yeah, you gonna start a new killed terraform. 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:54.960 I mean I might as well. 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.240 Yeah that's what you need more more projects. 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:03.520 I absolutely need more. Yeah, so I do need more money. 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.959 So does y'all subscribe to Cooler Zone Media? 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:15.280 That's sure? And where we last left off, this is Wednesday. 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:17.240 If you've started, if you've been listening to the show, 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.040 if this is your very first episode of the show, congratulations, 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:23.239 you should go back one. For everyone else, Wednesday means 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.080 it's the second part of a topic, and the topic 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:26.919 we're talking about today is the fact that John Henry 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:28.680 was a real last person, and he was a cool 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.480 last person, and his legacy is cool as shit, although 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:33.480 some of it's really messy, but not because of him, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.600 but because of shitty people. So where we last left 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.880 our hero he is convicted and he's been sent off 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.600 to the Alleghany Mountains to dig through them. Will actually 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:46.640 not dig through them, actually just a haul mud and 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:51.240 shit away. But and they're running into this thing. They're 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.320 able to automate everything except the drilling, or they're able 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.160 to speed up everything except the drilling. And you know, 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.560 they have dynamite. They have railroad cars now they just 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.280 need a better drill, enter the steam drill. The problem 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.600 with steam engines for drilling and just kind of in 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.720 general actually is that you need they're really big and 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.960 convoluted and complicated. You need a boiler and you need 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.440 an engine. They need to be near each other, and 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.480 they need to be near where you need the power. 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:18.520 You can't just strap an engine to a big old drill, 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:23.279 as much people kind of tried, but not easy. You 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.200 have to transfer that power. Eventually, folks figure out how 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:29.080 to use pipes to transfer the pressure using compressed air 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.480 to power a drill. Basically, someone else made a diamond 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.000 coded drill where the drill itself was like part of 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.040 the engine. I don't know. Nineteenth century technology is wacky. 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:39.080 Yeah. 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:44.839 Both it sounds so difficult, yeah, and both broke down constantly. 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:47.880 And you've got these old timey sales people running around 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.080 being like, Hi, I'm an old timey salesperson. Would you 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.520 like to purchase the latest technological marvel that'll increase your 0:04:52.520 --> 0:04:56.360 profits lately and murder just the absolute most workers possible. 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.080 It's the greatest, the latest and greatest. 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.880 That's right. And then the robber barons are like, yes, 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:03.760 that sounds like two birds with one stone and sign 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:05.599 me up. I would like to both drill into this 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:06.880 mountain and kill these people. 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.880 If this dude dies, there's more people, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:13.160 it's fine, we get more, right, yeah. 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.120 Yeah. The amount of American history that is like literally 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.200 tied into like quote unquote we hate immigrants, just kidding. 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.120 We need immigrants so that they can die doing the 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:23.960 following labor that no one who was born here wants 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:25.000 to do, like. 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:30.960 The most bizarre, the just the most toxic, and just 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:34.840 if we could just give the country a therapist, like 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:39.040 just the most y'all just need therapy. It's so bizarre. 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:43.280 And also like I mean speak yeah, I mean it's 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:45.560 it's an obvious tangent that none of us need to 0:05:45.560 --> 0:05:47.520 go on because we already know. But I'm just like, 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:59.600 and then the nerve, just the psychological malady of thinking 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:04.960 that it's the immigrant's fault. Yeah, that you know what 0:06:05.000 --> 0:06:07.919 I'm saying, Rather like you mad at the immigrant because 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.760 you can't get a job because the people are willing 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.320 are down to pay pennies. Yeah, you're not mad at 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:16.360 the person that says that's gonna that wouldn't gonna pay 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.400 you a livable wage in the first place. That's not 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:21.080 the problem. The problem is the person that's willing to 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.440 work for non livable I just don't understand, y'all. Math 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:26.280 ain't math in. 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.640 No, and it's you were seeing that cartoon there's like 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:32.719 the capitalists. He's sitting in front of a huge plate 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.360 of cookies, and then there's like a white worker who 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:37.479 has one cookie, and then there's a you know, a 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.880 brown worker on the other side has no cookies, and 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.560 the boss is like, careful, that man's trying to steal 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:44.120 your cookie. 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:51.080 Yeah, like that. Yeah, that's just exactly that. It's exactly that. 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:56.920 Yeah. So before steam drills, when you tunnel through a mountain, 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:58.800 you do it with humans and you do a dynamite well, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.520 originally black powder, but you have two man teams. Sometimes 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:05.560 it's three men teams. It's a hammerman and then one 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.240 shaker who holds the chisel in place, shifting the chisel 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.760 between every blow to make sure it has a good 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:12.840 bite into the rock. 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:13.640 Right. 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.440 That is called rolling. That is where rock and roll 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:19.320 comes from. Almost certainly. I mean there's a lot of 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.880 different people claiming different etymologies, but the argument I read 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:24.440 in this history book is very convincing. 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.680 That is called body rolling. That's right, this whole time. 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:33.320 Absolutely, you're the roller, Sophie is the hammerman, and I 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:37.240 am the third person. Actually, the third person on the 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.320 team actually just sings. You actually don't want me to sing? 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.240 You keep the rhythm. Yeah, no, that is what you do. 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.520 That is what they sang to time everything involved, and 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.720 sometimes there's a third man on the team literally just 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:49.080 to sing. 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:53.160 That's interesting about rock and roll, man, Yeah, you said 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:54.120 it was pretty convincing. 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:58.000 Yeah, because I'm going to talk about how all of 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.440 this ties into two blues, right, which obviously comes before 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.240 rock and roll. You know, it doesn't go straight from 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.680 these hammer songs to rock and roll, But I know 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.280 more about the blues at as a more known and 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.800 totally rock and roll. If you look up the etymology, 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:17.040 most of the etymologies that people say are actually more 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.120 recent or they'll be like, oh, it comes back to 0:08:20.280 --> 0:08:23.440 sailors and they're like ships that are rolling or whatever. 0:08:23.560 --> 0:08:27.000 But honestly, this is more convincing because this is because 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:32.400 this is black culture. Yeah, like that, It's just much 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:36.880 more convincing to me. So they chisel or drill holes 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:39.800 then they pack them with gunpowder dynamite, and then they 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.480 set it off. A lot of the digging actually in 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:45.520 these tunnels was actually vertical because you drop shafts in 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:47.600 from the top of the mountain, so you can dig 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:50.640 from more than one or I guess two spots at once. Right, 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.760 you want as many different places to dig from as 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.400 possible so that you can get it done fast. So 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.240 they'll do like three, They'll drop three shafts and then 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:05.040 dig all directions the conditions. Well, okay, so but when 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:07.320 John Henry is first shipped out, he starts as a mucker. 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:10.680 His job is loading broken rock and muck into railway cars. 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:12.679 We know this because all of the people who were 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:14.280 sent out that is their job, right, That is what 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:16.880 the prison laborers were doing. The convicts weren't used for 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.640 the actual specialized hammering yet, and the conditions were This 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.559 is going to shock you, they weren't very good. 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:27.000 Huh. 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.160 I know, you think that these people doing a dangerous job, 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.640 we would hold them as a probably, I mean, they're 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.320 doing a more dangerous job than the CEO, so they're 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.280 probably getting paid more, right, But it actually wasn't the case. 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:41.720 Yeah, Yeah, it's pretty valuable to have you have a company. Yeah, 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.600 you would think that most important part of the company 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:45.960 is the people doing the work. 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.960 Yeah, you'd think that their overseer was a guy named 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:53.199 Claiborne Mason who had previously built railroads overseeing shadow slaves, 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:56.880 and now he's using oversee prison slaves. During the war, 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.080 he'd been a slave master who worked to build bridges 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.800 for the Confederate military. But he had a hobby. His 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.560 hobby was hanging Confederate deserters and anyone suspected of helping them. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.160 He sucks. Okay, fuck this guy. 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:15.160 Imagine like that's the overseer from your old plantation. Yeah. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.800 Like you you're like, this is a ship job, but 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:19.360 at least I'm not a slave. And then you get 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:20.480 there and you're just like, what. 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:23.440 The Yeah, it's still the same guy. 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:26.760 Man ain't dead. How his man ain't dead. We went 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.280 through the old last ward. His man ain't dead ship. 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.520 Because he did fight in the front lines. He did 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.240 the safest work impossible in the war. 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:35.960 Why didn't you die slow? 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.640 Yeah. The tunnelers, who at this point are black and 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.720 Irish and free, both sides are you know, free folks. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.559 They drink together and they swap songs at illegal Irish 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:52.720 run whiskey shops in the evenings. The convict labor wasn't 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:56.240 allowed to drink at except at the grog shop, which 0:10:56.320 --> 0:11:00.199 was owned by Claiborne Mason, the racist asshole. And is 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:01.560 a way to get all basically a way to get 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.000 all your money back, right, You drink away all your 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.280 wages and then it goes straight back to your boss. Now, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:07.000 I mean everyone else is drinking away their wages too, 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.000 but at least it goes to another worker. You know. 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.599 They built a bunch of railway tunnels. Historians used to 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:15.080 think John Henry's tunnel was this one called big Ben Tunnel, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.000 and actually the nearby town there's a statue of him, 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.240 which is cool, But it wasn't this tunnel, but I 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:22.040 don't care. It's close enough. The rock there at big 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.480 Ben Tunnel is fairly soft, and there's no evidence that 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:27.679 steam drills were ever used. There's actually specific evidence that 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.560 they weren't used. The holes weren't big enough and shit. 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.800 So Lewis Tunnel is the one that John Henry haunts. 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:37.840 It is the second longest tunnel on the route. It 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.800 is forty three hundred feet long, which is most of 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:45.080 a mile. It goes through the hardest stone of any 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.320 of the tunnels on that route, So it's where the 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:53.120 owners decided to try out these new steam drills. Hand 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.040 labor was at the time digging about one point five 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.920 feet of tunnel a day, and old i Amy salespeople 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.400 were promising seven feet a day from the newest and 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.280 greatest steam drill. So they got themselves some steam drills, 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:09.679 and they were very prone to breaking down, and they 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.200 weren't usable in all conditions, like if the tunnel was flooded, 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.520 you can still make people go dig, but you can't 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:16.000 make a machine go dig, you know. 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:17.320 Sheesh. 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:22.400 Yeah, parts were hard to source. They actually had to 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.800 build entire boom towns devoted to their upkeep sometimes right 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:31.040 like yeah, you need like boiler factories basically, and the 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.760 bosses had a hard time keeping workers. The bosses I 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.480 think they subcontracted a lot. They passed a rule that 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.520 their contractors couldn't pay the employees more than a dollar 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.280 a day. So both the Irish workers and the free 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:46.560 black workers, who were friends because they spent all their 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.800 evenings drinking together, they were like, fuck, no, we demand 0:12:49.800 --> 0:12:52.960 two dollars a day. Which is all of like fifty dollars, 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.160 that's what they were asking for. They're working ten to 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.720 twelve hours of a day at like murder work, and 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:02.480 they're like, yeah, we want fifty dollars. 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:10.200 To take that man. First of all, like just again, 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:13.400 living in any other century had to be awful because 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:19.280 I'm just thinking smell, I'm thinking temperature, and it's not 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.640 like you had, like, you know, any sort of radar 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.160 technology to when you just you're just gonna drop some 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:28.440 dynamite into a rock that you standing on like this 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.560 just this is just all of that sounds stupid to me, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:36.760 you know, and like and then secondly, I just I 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:44.319 am continually fascinated by. Me and my wife were just 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.000 talking about this, like there's a like at the school 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:51.040 that one of my children go to. Uh, there's a 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.760 as an Irish lady there, and me and my wife 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:56.640 are like, when you when you see an Irish, we 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.840 see an Irish person, they kind of get it pass already, 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:01.720 you know what I mean. It's like how you gotta 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:03.600 pass like you get it, you know, I mean, like 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.680 you just kind of already feel like well you I mean, 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:08.640 y'all kind of our cousins you know, and like so 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.880 you just kind of like I just I've been just 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.760 so fascinated by and I know that that like connection 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:17.800 has been weaponized and has been used against us. But 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.200 at the same time, like, but the lived experience, I 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:22.960 just be like, like we talked about in the in 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.840 the this last week so or that's this week's politics. 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:30.680 It's like yo, like Nat O'Connor, like y'all, she's squad, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:32.280 you know what I'm saying, Like you just look at him, 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.480 like y'all kind of y'all man, y'all should have never 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.240 been white people like y'all should have just y'all should 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:40.560 have stayed one of us, you know. 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.160 And like it's funny because like overall, I would say 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.800 that Irish people living in Ireland did performed way better 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.240 about this than like Irish people in the US, especially 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:54.840 local generations. But yeah, but yeah no, I I yeah. 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.920 Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ones on the ones back home 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:01.240 for y'all like really get it and like they're like, 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.720 oh nah man man, yeah fuck all that we would chill. 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.160 And I'm like, yeah, there. 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.120 Was an article, there's an episode we did recently about 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:13.880 some ties between Irish resistance and Palestinian resistance, and like 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:15.840 Palestinian folks would talk about like, oh, I go to 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.440 Ireland and it's like I see Palestinian flags on the street, 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:21.840 and like it is like a place where people actually 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.880 respect me. And obviously Ireland is also struggling with all 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:27.640 these like nativist fucks who are trying to get rid 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:29.440 of a comorans wore right wing and yeah, you know 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.200 there's like fucking Nazis everywhere these days. But of course, 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:38.120 but yeah, no, I I keep thinking about how how 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:40.320 much right the history of the creational whiteness is the 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:42.360 history of like trying to separate the working class from 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.120 itself absolutely be like, hey, that guy's trying to do 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.080 at your cookie and yeah, but the thing that I 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.600 keep running across more and more is all obviously there's 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.640 so many times where this worked, right. There's so many 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:57.080 times where poor white people immediately turned around. We're like 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.880 I'm better than someone fuck fuck yeah you know, yeah, 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.920 but there's all of these times when they didn't right, Like, yeah, 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.640 these folks they just walked off. Yeah, they they quit together, 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.280 like you know, they didn't even have There's often this 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.160 moment where like the white workers leave and so they 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.000 or go on strikes, so they bring in black strike 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.040 breakers in order to use race to try and divide 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.840 the work with us. And then often actually those then 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.479 the same black people come are like, oh, actually we're joining. 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.840 The strike, right, yeah, yeah. 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.720 And not always right, but but this time, I think, 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:29.840 I think this is like kind of a it's almost 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:31.600 this like throwaway line in the book I'm reading, but 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.320 it's like one of the one of my favorite parts 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.120 of this whole story that I wish I knew more about. 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.440 They like, so they demand that something be done about 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.560 the bad air in the tunnel. Yeah, And I'm not 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:44.480 certain that they wanted two dollars a day, and I 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:46.360 don't think it was a strike. I think that they're like, 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.400 all right, well, we're we're just gonna quit and go 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:50.560 work somewhere else, like. 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:53.920 Like you, we don't, we don't have to do this, 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.600 like yeah, yeah. 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:03.120 And the air and the Lewest Tunnel was bad because specifically, 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:06.119 certain types of rock, if you blast into them with 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:08.880 a steam drill, even more than hand drilling and even 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:14.399 more than blowing it up, it creates silica dust. And 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.520 this killed hundreds or thousands of railroad workers in West 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:21.960 Virginia over the course of like sixty seventy years. It 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.359 doesn't kill you quickly. It's kind of closer to like 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:27.800 something like black lung or something like that, and or 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:30.320 asbestos or you know, basically anything you breathe in that 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:32.560 you really shouldn't breathe in. It slowly destroys your lungs 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:34.360 and then you're more prone to infection than you die. 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:35.399 Yeah, And. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:39.960 So a lot of people died of miner's consumption, which 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.280 was tuberculosis. But also like, oh, specifically related to all 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.480 this shit, When drilling was done by hand, it doesn't 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:54.280 put out as much dust. And also people weren't near 0:17:54.359 --> 0:17:57.560 the explodey bits because you tend not to stand next 0:17:57.560 --> 0:18:01.040 to an explosion as a general rule. Right, But the 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.879 steam drills they just spit out dust, and so the 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.199 tunnels had bad air, and the workers were right. They 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:07.960 didn't know why they were right yet. They hadn't figured 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:13.200 this out yet, right. Hunting actually tried to higher indentured 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.679 Chinese labor once all of his workers left, but it 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:18.840 wasn't available that far east. He just couldn't get it, 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.119 and he like was like trying to figure it out. 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.400 He was like trying to like talk with like the 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:25.879 assholes in mainland China who are selling people, and like 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.640 he was like, and he just couldn't get Chinese labor, 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:31.359 and he's like, fuck, what am I going to do? 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.119 Where can I find people that I can pay fucking 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.000 nothing and send to their deaths? Yeah, the reformer Quaker 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.240 guy had left the penitentiary and the new guy was 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.959 even more hyped about convict labor. No more showing up 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:48.119 to make sure the conditions are okay. So folks were 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.000 forced to come out from the penitentiary and they started 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.520 doing the actual drilling. And at this point probably is 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:58.320 when John Henry became a driller, right, a steel driving man. 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.560 And wouldn't it be great if they could just test 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.480 the steam drills, like compared to a human, like which 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.399 one's faster? Really? You know, is it really? 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:12.880 Yeah? Is the juice really worth the squeeze? Because you know, 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.480 as you're as you explaining this story, that's the whole 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:17.199 thing I'm thinking about. I'm like, man, when don't you 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.399 just cut your losses? This just obviously we have, you know, 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.679 the hindsight of you know, two hundred years. But like 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.440 I feel like if I was in this situation, like man, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.640 I don't know if this juice worth squeeze, yeah over 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:36.400 their yeah, you know. And and I'm like even as yeah, 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:40.399 like you said, like you're trying to find I would 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:43.200 be worried about the quality of work, especially if it's 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:45.439 like you got these like you got just prison labor. 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:47.280 I'm like, yes, people don't want to be here. They 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.560 not paying attention. I'm just burning money, you know what 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.040 I mean. I'm like, I'm just burning money here, Like so, 0:19:54.240 --> 0:19:55.200 I don't know that would. 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:57.199 Be but you're burning the state's money, not your money, 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:59.560 to shade and they just keep providing it. 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.720 I was the piece I was missing. Oh well, if 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:03.440 it's not my money, then I guess it's fine. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:06.399 Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like the South is bankrupting itself in 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.920 order to finance this kind of work and actually yeah, 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.880 and actually they they don't shore it up right right, 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.040 and eventually it like collapses and kills But this is 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:17.320 like decades later, collapses kills most people, so now it's 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.879 all bricked up. I might be conflating the other tunnel, 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.160 Big ben Tunnel with Lewis Tunnel. I read about them both, 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:23.080 but the same. 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:25.919 Point is it's obvious that at some point this is 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:26.440 going to happen. 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.040 Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So John Henry was never like 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:34.399 I'm faster than any machine. An evil empire was like, hey, 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.359 we want to run a cost benefit analysis, and you 0:20:36.400 --> 0:20:38.399 are not a free person, so you're going to do 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:38.840