WEBVTT - The 9/11 Cult 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.000 Uh, nine eleven is in a couple of days. I'm 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:10.799 Robert Evans. This is it could happen here a podcast 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.480 about nine eleven. Um, well, as as Garrison said in 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.439 the intro, that we're not using it's about things falling apart, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.279 and boy did that happen on two things that fell apart? Yeah? 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:26.960 Um yeah. So this was originally going to be a 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.880 slightly cruder episode than it wound up being. But I'm 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.120 just gonna I'm just gonna delve into the script and uh, 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.240 Chris Garrison, you guys, just buckle in, because the reason 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.239 I have you both as guests on this is that 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.600 you are both too young to remember nine That's not true. 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.520 I remember, I remember why I remember? Were you like four? 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.800 I hope? So yeah, I was four, But I remember 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:54.360 my mom like so she she was trying to explain 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.800 the Pentagon, right, and so she has like a coaster 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:01.560 on the ground and she's making an airplane with her 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:06.320 hand is just going into anyway. So, as I said, 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.480 neither of you properly remember nine eleven. I I don't 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.119 remember that even I I was at the age where 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:15.479 every moment of it is burnt into my into my brain. 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.000 As is the reaction. So I wanted you both on 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:22.360 this because we're gonna talk about how nine eleven kind 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.920 of became a cult um and how to maybe how 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:28.759 to maybe deal with that, and then we'll be chatting 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.200 about Glenn Beck's nine twelve project, which is something I'm 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.320 sure neither of you are very familiar with. Now. In 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.560 its sixth season, the popular cartoons South Park ran an 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.000 episode in which Jared Fogel, who was at that point 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.200 just a subway spokesman and not a convicted child molester, 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:46.679 came to town and announced the start of a new 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.360 program to give everyone AIDS. Now, he was talking about 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.360 dietitians and personal trainers to help people lose weight, but 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.520 everybody heard AIDS the disease, which led to wacky hijinks. 0:01:56.560 --> 0:02:00.000 That's the episode. It ends when everyone realizes they'd misunderstand 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.640 good Fogel and they all laugh. Uh. This leads them 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.680 to realize that AIDS is finally funny, because things that 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:09.040 are tragic become funny exactly twenty two point three years 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.880 after they occur. That's the joke in the episode, and 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.760 went on to become a minor little internet joke that, 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.240 like you know, once you hit that twenty two year point, 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.000 you can laugh about something tragic. We are now at 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:22.919 like twenty one years and change since September eleven, two 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:25.120 thousand one, and I think if we're all honest, most 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:26.799 of us can admit that we've laughed at a lot 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.959 of nine eleven jokes. We're recording this the day the 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:31.960 Queen died, and people are like photoshopping her face to 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.960 be the Twin Towers, and it's so it's quite a 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.880 time on the old Internet. Now. I think the first 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:39.920 I think the hardest at least that I ever laughed 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:41.679 at nine eleven joke. I'm sure it's not the first 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.520 time was this picture of Trump Tower that was posted 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:47.200 to Twitter like right after he got inaugurated, with the 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.359 text George Bush, do you thing um? Still an excellent 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.880 nine eleven joke? Now. The first person with any kind 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.800 of platform to making an eleven joke was the recently 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.919 deceased comedian Gilbert Gottfried. In September twenty nine, two thous one, 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.000 he took part in a roast of Hugh Hefner at 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.440 the New York Friars Club, and I'm gonna play you 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:09.639 the audio of that right now, I have to catch 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.440 up flight to California. I can't get a direct flight. 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:14.880 They said they had to stop at the Empire State 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:24.440 Building party. Tame, extremely tame joke. Honestly not a great joke. UM, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.560 but it went on too. It was It's probably like 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.080 maybe the most famous and like kind of stand up 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:34.960 history like bombs um. Gottfried and said himself said that 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.160 he lost the audience more than anyone else ever has. UM. 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.360 I think it caused some career problems for him. Um. 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.320 He later said, like a few weeks after, this was 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.640 days after. So this is at the Friar's Club roast 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.360 of Hugh Hefner on September twenty nine. Is this work 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.240 too soon? It's from UM, well yeah, this I mean, 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:57.280 I don't I don't know that it originated there, but 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:00.560 this was the response to him. Um, and I think 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:03.280 it's the first time I ever recall hearing someone say that. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.360 Godfried said that like the reason he decided to tell 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.280 a joke this close to nine eleven was that he 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.120 was personally offended by the fact that anything could be 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.440 too soon to make a joke about. Um. One of 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:16.719 these is interesting about this A little side thing is 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.520 that like, after bombing and getting shouted at by the audience, 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.839 Godfried like decided to get them back by telling a 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.240 particularly long and foul version of the Aristocrats, which is 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:31.400 a meta joke about jokes primarily anyway. Um, it's basically 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:33.760 just being his foul mouth to shoot can possibly be 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.880 to an audience. Um. And that that audio has been 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.359 lost to time apparently, But boy, you can watch a 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.080 fun documentary about the Aristocrats if you want to learn 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.400 more about that now. I think the first good actual 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:48.840 comedy bit about nine eleven came out a little bit 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.039 after this. This is about two weeks after the day 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:53.400 and a couple of months later at like the three 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:57.080 month point. South Park season five aired, Uh, and they 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:01.000 ran an episode about nine eleven. Um has been criticized 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:03.719 rightly so because there's some kind of racist bits of 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:08.760 humor in there, using that's not surprising. Um. That said, 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.640 it's also kind of a valuable snapshot of history. For 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.040 one thing, The huge part of the episode is just 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:17.960 kind of like the Afghan child counterparts to the main 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:20.760 characters in the show, walking around their town as everyone 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:23.760 is murdered by US air strikes. UM. So it's it 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.880 is not like the it stands kind of an opposition 0:05:26.920 --> 0:05:30.120 to sort of the kind of like bootlicking responses you 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.000 got for For some context, the show The West Wing, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:35.839 which is the favorite show of everybody who runs anything 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.400 in politics right now, ran an emergency nine eleven episode 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:41.880 like a couple of weeks after the attack, which was 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.320 the kind of turnaround you didn't do in TV at 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.520 that point in time. So you put in a ton 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.160 of effort to have this special nine eleven episode of 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.480 The West Wing. Um that number one. In the alternate 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:55.040 West Wing universe, there's no nine eleven. There's like some 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.320 vague like there's basically basically the episode focus on like 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:00.080 a bunch of kids on a tour getting stuck in 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.640 the White House because it locks down because some vague 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.840 terrorist attack thing happens in a fake country they made up. 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:08.200 So when the West Wing needed to talk about Muslims, 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.360 um and kind of like the breakout piece of this. 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.240 While there's two breakouts, one of them is a very 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.279 racist retelling of the story of Isaac and Ishmael that 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.160 explains like why Muslims are always so angry all the time, um. 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.599 And then the White House Press Lady C. J. Craig 0:06:23.640 --> 0:06:27.720 goes on a rant about how awesome the intelligence apparatus 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.920 is and how like what good people uh CIA agents are, 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.280 and how the best thing to do for politics sometimes 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.279 is to have a guy dressed as a waiter murder 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.359 somebody with a silence pistol like it was out of 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.960 its mind, unhinged. That's the fucking like. So the fact 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:45.720 that South Park does an episode that's like, yeah, we're 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:47.919 gonna murder a bunch of people in Afghanistan for no 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:51.000 reason is like, not a not a bad response, not 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.159 a bad thing to recognize about that day. Um, the 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.719 other things that are like pretty good or pretty I 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.359 think meaningful sort of bits in that episode. It opens 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:03.640 with all of the kids at the bus stop wearing 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.320 gas masks as they stand in line for the bus. 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.520 There's a piece in that episode that kind of sticks 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.680 with me today still, um that I'm gonna play for 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:18.320 you guys. I don't know, I always found that bit fun. 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:21.160 So when the school bus arrives, there's a cop on it, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.400 searching bags and confiscating items that might be used as weapons. 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.880 The school classroom doors are reinforced with a massive military 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.920 grade lock, which resonated more in a time when like 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.240 school shootings weren't a constant thing. Um, and it it 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.720 kind of hit me because, you know, when this episode 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:38.280 came out and I watched it when it came out, 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.440 I was at middle school, Clark Middle School in Plain, oh, Texas, 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.120 and on nine eleven and twelve, the attacks were like 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.360 the only topic of discussion that anyone had. And I 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.360 have this vivid memory of a couple of girls in 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.480 my US history class weeping because they were scared that 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.440 Al Qaeda was coming for our schools next. Um, Like, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.240 this was a a very real worry for kids that 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:03.480 I grew up with of what like Midland, Texas or something. No, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.880 it was, indeed, it's a big school. But like, I 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.080 don't I'm certain that fucking Osama bin Laden had never 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:13.080 heard the name plane of Texas, let alone the Joatha 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:18.200 thing with like anytime a plane was like going down, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.400 people would point at it and be like, oh my god, 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.600 yeah yeah, um No. That was definitely a meme and 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:27.920 there was, you know, one of the most famous ones 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:32.079 was this this video called Triumph Dot a v I 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.679 that started to spread on the Something Awful forums. That 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.800 was just footage of the September eleven attacks set to 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:43.040 yakety sacks um. And again, these were all kind of 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.200 the comedy that that you know, the South Park put 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.520 out here and that you saw, and stuff like the 0:08:48.559 --> 0:08:53.880 Triumph video were reactions to how fucking seriously everybody else 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:56.000 took nine eleven right. Like I have to, I have 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.240 to point out that like watching an episode like this 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:02.520 or watching something like Trump felt like legitimately transgressive in 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.400 the days and weeks after nine eleven, because it was 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:08.079 kind of a as we'll talk about, had turned into 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.160 kind of like a secular cult um. And I think 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.480 people who were just a few years old then or 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.040 born after nine eleven missed this part of nine eleven. Um. 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.560 I think you inherited the wars and the intrusions on 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:22.839 civil liberties and the creeping fascism, but not the derangement 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:26.000 by terror that had preceded it. Like everybody's permanently deranged 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.640 from nine eleven, But you didn't really get to know 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.800 people before that kind of happened and drove a lot 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:35.320 of them mad. As a kid, it was like a 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.880 strange and exciting and scary moment. But I think my 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:40.679 parents and I think the people who were kind of 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.920 in their age range, um, completely lost their minds, and 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:46.400 oddly that that South Park episode has kind of the 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:49.920 best depiction of that too. There's a scene in which 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:52.080 stand who is one of the main characters they're all 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.000 like middle school kids, walks into his house and sees 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.640 his mom like lying on the couch staring blankly ahead 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.720 UM and just like weeping. She's surrounded by tissues. She's 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.120 been crying for days, UM and as her husband says, 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.760 she's just been watching CNN for like the last eight 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:11.320 weeks straight. And the the image of her just kind 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:13.400 of like lying on the couch staring at the TV 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.240 is I can remember every adult that I knew as 0:10:16.240 --> 0:10:18.880 a kid doing that, and it really did go on 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.240 for days, Like people moved around as if they were 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.520 like in kind of a shocked stupor. I'm sure there's 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:28.959 places where this wasn't the case, UM, But for my family, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.560 who were very very conservative people, and I think for 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.760 people particularly who lived closer to the attacks, like it 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:38.440 was just this period of um like post traumatic stress 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:59.000 for the entire country. I think a good amount of 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.360 research backs up the act that this it had this 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.600 kind of and I think it is hard to understand 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.840 if you weren't there impact on people. I found a 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.960 Pew Research study that I'm gonna quote from now. Our 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.280 first survey following the attacks went into the field just 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.720 days after nine eleven. From September thirteenth seventeenth, two thousand one, 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.800 A sizable majority of adults said they felt depressed. Nearly 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.600 half said they had difficulty concentrating, and a third said 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.040 they had trouble sleeping. It was an era in which 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.520 television was still the public's dominant news source. Said they 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.839 got most of their news about the attacks from television, 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.520 compared with just five percent who got their news online, 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:33.960 and the televised images of death and destruction had a 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:36.959 powerful impact. Around nine and ten Americans agreed with the 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.640 statement I feel sad when watching TV coverage of the 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.800 terrorist attacks. A sizable majority seventy percent found it frightening 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:47.240 to watch, but most did so anyway. Fear was widespread, 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:49.560 not just in the days immediately after the attacks, but 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.760 throughout the fall of two thousand one. Most Americans said 0:11:52.760 --> 0:11:55.400 they were very twenty eight percent or somewhat forty five 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:58.280 percent worried about another attack. When asked a year later 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.640 to describe how their lives changed in a age a way. 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.440 About half the adults said they felt more afraid, more careful, 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.000 and more distrustful or more vulnerable as a result of 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:09.760 the attacks. And I think you can't separate this because 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.840 the main people were talking about here and we're talking 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:14.440 about the response to this. When we're talking about the 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:17.320 people who got to make decisions, it's boomers, right, which 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:18.880 is not all that different from how it is today, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:21.800 but even it was even more so boomers then. And 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:24.240 you know, my parents and the people of their generation 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:27.079 are all children of the Cold War. They both grew up, 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.960 my parents on different military bases. Um. And I can remember, 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:33.640 you know, my dad told me stories about doing like 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:35.839 duck and coverage drills as a kid, like literally hiding 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.520 under a desk to get ready for an atomic bomb. Um. 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.400 His family like went out into the countryside during the 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.800 Cuban missile crisis to hide because they were afraid all 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:46.840 the cities we're going to get nooked. And this is 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.920 not These are not uncommon experiences. So you have to think, 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:53.760 like all of the all of the adults were either 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.600 very close to this period or had spent most of 0:12:56.640 --> 0:13:00.480 their formative years, like constantly scared of being ordered by 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.120 a nuclear weapon. Um. There have been clinical like studies 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.440 and stuff that have shown that that fear of nuclear 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.360 annihilation is a major factor and anxiety like it's not 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:13.000 ever been properly I think explained how much that fucked 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.640 up that generation. But what you had is all these 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.120 people who had spent the first couple of decades of 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.120 their lives living with the sort of damocles over their heads. 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:25.040 And then the war ends, right, the Cold War ends, 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.880 the USSR falls apart, and suddenly people aren't talking about 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:32.760 nuclear warfare for the first time in anybody's memory. Um, 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:36.600 And I think for most of that generation they felt 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:38.960 safe for the first time. There was this kind of 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:43.400 celebration that was pretty bipartisan that capitalism and democracy had 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:45.720 triumphed and that like this kind of horror that had 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.200 stalked through their childhood had been defeated. When people like 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.360 Francis fuki Yama talked about the end of history, what 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.040 Fukiyama meant was that liberal democracy was kind of, in 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.760 his eyes, the end of the evolutionary road for states, 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:00.600 which is a flawed idea, but the intern pritation that 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.640 I think people like my parents had was that we 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.400 didn't need to worry anymore, right, like that that's the 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:08.120 end of history, right, our way of life had one, 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:10.600 and we like we we didn't need to worry. And 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.120 in nine eleven happens and suddenly this decade or so 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.160 of relief from that all ends in a minute, and 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:19.160 all of that fear that they lived with their whole 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.720 lives came roaring back with abandoned. Nine eleven was like 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:25.720 the emotional equivalent of splitting an atom. And and the 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.480 Internet that was released by that is going to be 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.400 used for something, right. I want to kind of touch 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:33.400 on that a little bit, because I mean, I obviously 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.920 don't remember the nineties because I wasn't there, And it 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.160 is such a fascinating idea to me of like this 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.840 time where nero liberalism kind of reached their paradise, like 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:43.880 like we didn't we could we we? We we did 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.000 the thing. We found the spot And how that you know, 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:49.840 talk about like the edge of chaos theory, how it 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:51.880 was built up to this super high point and then 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.359 all because because it got so high and then immediately 0:14:54.400 --> 0:14:58.080 crumbled um and shot down. And there's this thing that 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.360 one of my favorite there's graat. Morrison talks about how 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:06.880 nine eleven kind of became this moment where the world 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.120 of imagination and the world of like the lowest material 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:15.560 visceral reality crashed into each other. Um. And he says 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:19.000 a quote the collapse expressed itself in the material world 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.200 when the twin towers of the World Trade Center were 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.680 reduced to dust by determined extremists. When cement occurred, reality 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.720 and fiction began their slow collapse into one another. After 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:33.280 the fall of the towers, quote unquote, reality became more fictional, 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:38.480 and quote unquote fiction became more realistic, I think plausible, realistic, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:43.200 superhero movies like The Dark Night films, fake news, deep fakes, 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:48.040 a r VR, and the rise of magical thinking. Um. 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:50.120 And I would extra plate that out to like stuff 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:52.520 like you know Q and on um and you know 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:56.720 the how just these images that we thought were only 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:03.120 viewable in film and television, uh, became descended down onto 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:08.240 the onto the dirtiest, most visceral material plane. Um. And 0:16:08.280 --> 0:16:10.760 then things that were fake, like this idea like the 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.400 Perfect Nineties, It's gonna be this is gonna continue continue 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.200 like dis forever that fiction. Uh, it felt almost more 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:18.960 real like it like that that that should have been 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:22.360 what's real and it's not anymore. Yeah, it feels like 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:24.360 there's an alternate and I think that's part of why 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.640 liberals are still so goddamn in love with the West wing. 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.040 And by the way I talked about liberals, my parents, 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.000 who loved Ronald Reagan more than life itself, watched every 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.200 episode of that show. They thought it was wonderful. And 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.720 the Republicans are always portrayed very sympathetically on the West wing. Right, 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.680 it's very much this noble opposition sort of idea um 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:47.680 and uh, the the that I think there's something in 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.960 that that there's lists almost since that we've been locked 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.560 out of the right reality. And that's that's what you know, 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.000 That's what liberals are constantly harkening back to with with 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.120 nine eleven. But it's also or with with stuff at 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.960 the West wing. But it's also like what conservatives. I 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.000 think for a while they were looking for that. I 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:10.919 think that's what George W. Bush promised and failed to deliver. Um. 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.600 It's what they were hoping to get with Romney and 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.200 when that didn't happen. I think part of what's going 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.359 on with Trump is this desire. Part of the desire 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.400 to burn it all down is the inability to get 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:25.680 back to this imagined If you're talking about the collapse 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.480 of reality and fiction going into each other, that's what 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.880 Donald Trump represents. He is this so fictional person that 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:35.600 in order to meet this new world of reality and 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:38.359 fiction the same thing, you need somebody that under that, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.000 that represents that. Um So they turned to him because 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.080 he he was meeting the way they saw the world 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.720 was going. The reality and fiction are going into each other, 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:52.000 So you're going to get the reality television president who 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.320 who who? Who kind of embodies that essence on a 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.879 very very visceral level. And I think that's part of 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.399 why when you have of nine eleven happen, you have 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:05.960 all of this energy released. Both parties kind of come 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.679 together in this idea that the United States should strike 0:18:09.760 --> 0:18:12.680 back and that we were at war. It's rightly pointed 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.400 out by people that particularly protests against the Iraq war 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.520 were massive, and they were, they were historically large. But 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.520 President Bush was also the most popular president of our 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.720 lifetime briefly, and it's because people were in line behind 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.040 this idea that we need to hit someone well and 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:31.000 and I think something that's important about this that's completely 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.440 forgotten is that the invasion of Afghanistan there was like 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:36.959 no protests. There were there were a few, but like 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.280 the left imploded, Like here's I'm going to read a 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:44.000 quote from Doug Henwood. This is an attack on us. 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.359 There is a near certainty that something will be done soon. 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.960 Clearly considerable use of force will have to be used 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:56.399 to capture these motherfucker's um like Adolph read He's like 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.479 talking about how like there's gonna have to be military action. 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.040 Like a bunch of the people from like who like 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:05.960 the the old school, like anti Vietnam War protesters like 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:09.080 from STS are like, well, we don't oppose all wars, 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:11.600 we just opposed bad wars, so like here we should 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:15.520 go in vadive guys like everyone lost their minds. Well, 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:17.800 and I wanna what I really the core of when 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.359 I talked about today is why that happened. Because I 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:23.359 think there's on particularly kind of some of the more 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.520 superficial left wing analysis of this, this idea that like 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:31.000 George Bush did what he did in response because he's 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:34.280 like this Christian holy warrior um. And there's a couple 0:19:34.320 --> 0:19:36.240 of reasons people do this, including the fact that he 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:38.639 once referred to the invasion of Iraq as a crusade, 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.880 but as a general rule, what Bush did was not 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.560 because of his Christianity and had nothing to do with 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.040 any kind of conflict with Islam in particular. What it 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:52.120 was was the reaction of a group of a kind 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:57.000 of fundamentalists, fundamentalists of belief in the American state, reacting 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.960 to an attack on the sanctity of that kind of idea. 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:03.800 Uh um. And this is this is you know why 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:06.040 all these liberals were on board at least with you know, 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.119 the strike on Afghanistan or attacking Afghanistan. Christopher Hitchens probably 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:12.520 no one embodies like what happened to a lot of 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.600 the left better than Hitchens. Hitchens was a well known 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.600 liberal journalist. He wrote an excoriating book about Henry Kissinger. Right, 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:22.439 he's one of these people who was criticizing the Empire, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.560 who was attacking it for its excesses. For builds his 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:28.439 career on that and the nine eleven happens. And the 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.359 first big thing he does is he puts out a 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.719 massive column titled Bush's Secularist Triumph, in which he argues 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.720 that the war on Terror is not a crusade, but 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.919 a battle to keep religion in public power separate. And 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:42.800 I want to quote now from a study published in 0:20:42.800 --> 0:20:46.440 the Journal of Political Theology by William Kavanav of DePaul University. 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:50.960 It's kitled the War on Terror Secular or Sacred. There 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:52.879 may be some Christians who think that we are fighting 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:54.639 for Jesus, but the battle is being one in the 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.399 name of secularism. George Bush may subjectively be a Christian, 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.879 but he and the US armed for Is have objectively 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:03.160 done more for secularism than the whole of the American 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:07.240 agnostic community combined and doubled. While the left makes apologies 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:10.320 for religious terrorists, the right supports their obliteration to protect 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.680 our secular state. Secularism is not just a smug attitude. 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:16.720 It is a possible way of democratic and pluralistic life 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:20.119