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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh. For this select I've chosen

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Speaker 1: our twenty seventeen episode on Dictators, how much the world

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Speaker 1: can change in just a few years. We mentioned a

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Speaker 1: couple of times in this episode that authoritarianism was on

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Speaker 1: the wane and that it was being replaced by good

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Speaker 1: old democracy. I'm sad in the report that has changed

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Speaker 1: in recent years as authoritarianism has come barreling back and

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Speaker 1: in some surprising places. Listen to this episode to find

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Speaker 1: out why that's a bad thing.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's

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Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there, and it's

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen.

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Speaker 2: Jerry our benevolent dictator.

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Speaker 1: Yeah for real, she's got those lis that she wears

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Speaker 1: all the time in sunglasses.

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Speaker 2: I was just commenting and I thought, this is a

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Speaker 2: pretty good article here from How Stuff Works.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've heard that before.

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Speaker 2: Who wrote this one? Do you have that on there?

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Speaker 1: No?

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Speaker 2: I always have it on there, and you didn't have

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Speaker 2: it today.

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Speaker 1: It might be a Shane of Freeman joint.

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Speaker 2: I think it may be that sounds familiar. Yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 2: it's a good one. Yeah, and here it is.

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Speaker 1: That was word for word my intro that you just stole.

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Speaker 2: Well, my mind reading classes have been paying off, chuck.

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Speaker 1: Yes, have you ever lived under a dictatorship?

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Speaker 2: Not exactly.

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Speaker 1: No, No, I haven't either. Yeah, and I think we

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Speaker 1: should kind of consider ourselves fairly lucky. Sure, because it

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Speaker 1: turns out that not only were we born in a

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Speaker 1: country that most people would argue is not a dictatorship,

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Speaker 1: although you can find plenty of websites that argue that

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Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, it's been for the last several years,

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Speaker 1: possibly even for the most part, most people would say

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Speaker 1: it's not a dictatorship. So we were lucky to be

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Speaker 1: born in a country that isn't a dictatorship. But not

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Speaker 1: only that, we're lucky to be born in a time

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Speaker 1: when dictatorships have become fairly hard to find, comparatively speaking,

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Speaker 1: because dictatorships were basically the way that people were ruled

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Speaker 1: for thousands of years. Yeah, up until very recent times,

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Speaker 1: around the time of the Enlightenment, when the idea of

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Speaker 1: individual liberties and the protection of those individual liberties became

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Speaker 1: kind of widespread.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and this article kind of starts off. I thought

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Speaker 2: it was I thought it was interesting that you don't often. Well,

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Speaker 2: first of all, the word dictator is just one like

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Speaker 2: the one who dictates the thing. It's kind of funny

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Speaker 2: when you break down the actual definition. Yeah, you're like, oh, well, yeah,

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Speaker 2: that makes a lot of sense.

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Speaker 1: Then it's the guy who paces back and fourth in

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Speaker 1: front of the desk while somebody's typing what he's saying.

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Speaker 2: Take dictation. Yeah, but they don't call themselves that very often,

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Speaker 2: although it has happened before we get into the history.

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Speaker 2: It's we should point out that like Castro and Saddam Hussein,

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Speaker 2: you never hear them say I'm dictator as a bad rap,

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Speaker 2: you know, I'm the dictator Fidel Castro.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like how propaganda got turned into pr Yeah, they.

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Speaker 2: Will call themselves premier or president or chancellor or furer

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Speaker 2: boss of you. Kim Jong Ill holds three titles, and

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Speaker 2: I think he's looking for a fourth and fifth like

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Speaker 2: as we.

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Speaker 1: Speak, well, he's in the ground his son.

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Speaker 2: Oh wait, I got this too confused, right, Yeah, well

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Speaker 2: he held three titles, Yes he did. I imagine, Well,

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Speaker 2: his son probably holds four. Then he probably found that fourth.

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Speaker 2: Just made one up.

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Speaker 1: Did you know though, that there's like a you know,

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Speaker 1: the Kim Jong un is the supreme leader of North Korea,

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Speaker 1: but he actually technically shares power with two other officials

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Speaker 1: as well. They have basically a triumvirt going there. That

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Speaker 1: was news to me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Those guys are called Keep Quiet one and Keep

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Speaker 2: Quiet two.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I was just looking up some of his greatest

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Speaker 1: hits recently. Yeah, and Kim Jong un alone has already

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Speaker 1: started to amass several but one was a North Korean leader,

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Speaker 1: pretty high ranking official was executed with an anti aircraft

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Speaker 1: machine gun for slouching or falling asleep at a meeting.

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Speaker 2: Holy cow, right, but do you hear stuff like imagine

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Speaker 2: what that would do to a body?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god. But you should take that kind

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Speaker 1: of stuff with a grain of salt, especially when it's

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Speaker 1: coming out of North Korea, because we have really virtually

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Speaker 1: no idea what's going on day to day over there,

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Speaker 1: even big events like that. Even if it is true

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Speaker 1: that that guy was executed with an anti aircraft gun,

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Speaker 1: whether or not it was for falling asleep during a

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Speaker 1: meeting or something like that, remains to be seen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're saying, take any information with a grain of salt.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's good advice. Thanks.

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Speaker 2: But as Shana I believe. Shana points out that dictators

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Speaker 2: do have some things in common, and one of the

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Speaker 2: big ones is is almost one hundred percent of the

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Speaker 2: time a dictator doesn't come to power through an election.

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Speaker 2: They're usually not freely elected to that position.

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Speaker 1: No, but they have been. They have been, yeah, pretty

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Speaker 1: prominently like Hitler.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well he was an electored though. Wasn't he named chancellor?

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Speaker 1: Yes, by the elected president though, right, but he still

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Speaker 1: wasn't elected. No, I guess that's true. Okay, fine, well.

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Speaker 2: Let's get into history then.

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Speaker 1: All right, so you say dictator's got a bad it's

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Speaker 1: gotten a bad rap over the years, right.

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Speaker 2: As far as calling yourself that, I think so.

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Speaker 1: But it officially originally and I couldn't. I saw a

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Speaker 1: couple of references to Greece. But it seems to be Rome,

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Speaker 1: classic Rome, classic Rome. Yeah, trips coming into the party

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Speaker 1: and everybody's like, that's classic room.

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Speaker 2: He tried to walk through that screen door it wasn't open.

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Speaker 1: So classical Rome. How about that? It seems to be

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Speaker 1: an invention of classical Rome. Right. There was a station

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Speaker 1: called dictator. There was an office basically, and in ancient

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Speaker 1: Rome the leadership was held by two men called councils,

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Speaker 1: and they were equally powerful from what I understand, Consuls

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Speaker 1: council Console. Okay, sure, right, And when something went down

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Speaker 1: and stuff hit the fan, the Romans had a tradition

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Speaker 1: of appointing one of the councils dictator, which is basically

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Speaker 1: an emergency investment of unparalleled power into this one person.

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Speaker 1: And the whole thinking behind it was when you were

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Speaker 1: faced with an emergency. See, when the state was faced

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Speaker 1: with an emergency, you needed somebody who could basically get

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Speaker 1: stuff done.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like a single voice.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't have to go to the Senate to

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Speaker 1: ask anything, didn't have to go worry about making the

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Speaker 1: wrong move. The dictator couldn't be held criminally liable for

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Speaker 1: their decisions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, didn't have to worry about not being invited to

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Speaker 2: the other consuls Christmas party the next year.

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Speaker 1: Right, the other council wanted to be invited to the

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Speaker 1: dictators Christmas party. That's right. So there was an investment

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Speaker 1: of these emergency powers in this one person. And usually

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Speaker 1: I saw one year. This article says it lasted for

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Speaker 1: six months, and then the dictator would be like, wow,

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Speaker 1: that was a while ride. I'm going back to my

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Speaker 1: normal life. The rebellion has been quelled or the siege

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Speaker 1: is over, something like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And interestingly, there were a few rules. They couldn't

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Speaker 2: be held legally responsible for their actions, right, big one

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Speaker 2: It says, couldn't be in an office longer than six months,

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Speaker 2: although I think I think they were there to handle

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Speaker 2: the situation as kind of as long as that took. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: for the most part.

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Speaker 1: But there were also guys who are like, whoa, I

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Speaker 1: like the feel of this. Yeah, I'm not giving this up.

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Speaker 1: And they'll say, well you have to, we say, and

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Speaker 1: then they said, well I'm the dictator and they said

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Speaker 1: we hadn't thought this all the way through.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, they could change Roman law and

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Speaker 2: the constitution. They couldn't use public money and less other

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Speaker 2: than what the Senate said you could use it for.

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Speaker 2: So they supposedly still and these are the official rules,

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Speaker 2: you know, as we see coming up here. People bent

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Speaker 2: these rules and they couldn't leave Italy was the last one.

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Speaker 1: Oh, this is a good one. And they would have

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Speaker 1: like Colombo come in and deliver that last bit we look,

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Speaker 1: just don't leave Italy for a while.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that's your Colombo impression. Yeah, he sounded just like

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Speaker 2: Josh Clark.

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Speaker 1: Thought it was spot on.

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Speaker 2: So this kind of happened here and there until about

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Speaker 2: two two BC, and then about one hundred years after

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Speaker 2: that gentleman named Lucius Cornelius Sulla. I love all these

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Speaker 2: Roman dictators sound like either seventies like black exploitation movie

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Speaker 2: stars or Roman gladiators. Sure, so he was appointed dictator

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Speaker 2: without a term limit and didn't have these restrictions, and

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Speaker 2: so this sort of changed the game from here on out.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and he actually wanted Caesar dead. So Caesar ran

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Speaker 1: off and joined the army Julius Caesar, I should say,

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Speaker 1: and just basically laid low until Sulla died. And then

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Speaker 1: Caesar came back and he was appointed counsel and then

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Speaker 1: dictator himself. He succeeded Sola, right, Yes, and Caesar is

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Speaker 1: very well known to be a dictator. But he actually,

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Speaker 1: if you look at the stuff he did, he was

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Speaker 1: a friend to the people. He forgave debts among.

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Speaker 2: The benevolent dictator pretty much.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, among the middle and lower classes. He improved infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: He he basically went to bat for the lower classes,

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Speaker 1: which threatened the elite because he made him immensely popular.

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Speaker 1: Plus he was a dictator, so he actually created a

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Speaker 1: he staged to coup to become a dictator, right, to

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Speaker 1: gain power.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, which we'll talk about a little more.

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Speaker 1: And then a coup was plotted against him and he

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Speaker 1: was assassinated by the ruling elite of the Senate.

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Speaker 2: On my birthday. Yeah, well a long time before my birthday,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: Back in nineteen seventy one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, we've tossed out benevolent dictator a couple

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Speaker 2: of times, kidding around, but that's a real term, and

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Speaker 2: that generally means a dictator who for the most part,

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Speaker 2: isn't just in it for themselves and they are trying

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Speaker 2: to make things better for the people.

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Speaker 1: Right, But it depends on your perspective.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So, like the ruling elite found him very threatening, they

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Speaker 1: would not have considered him benevolent at all. Right, But

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Speaker 1: like say, the average plebeian would have been like, I

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Speaker 1: love Caesar. Yeah, give me some more of the coins

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Speaker 1: with his face on it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean followers of Castro still after his death

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Speaker 2: say he was a benevolent dictator, sure, but again people say, no,

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Speaker 2: it's perspective, it's a subjective term.

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Speaker 1: Basically.

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Speaker 2: Napoleon actually he came to power again like many dictators,

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Speaker 2: in a state of emergency, and he was actually a

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Speaker 2: benevolent dictator in a sense because he did a lot

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Speaker 2: of great things for a while for the people.

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Speaker 1: Right. He was extremely popular. Yeah, he was undefeated at

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Speaker 1: the time that he rose to power. He was appointed

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Speaker 1: counsel and then he said, you know what, let's go

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Speaker 1: a little further that I'm going to call myself emperor.

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Speaker 1: And they said, oh, okay, Napoleon, what could possibly go

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Speaker 1: wrong with that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, first he was named consul. Then he was like,

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Speaker 2: I think consul for life has a better ring to it.

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Speaker 2: And then that wasn't enough, so he's like, let's just

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Speaker 2: shorten that. Like you said, though, he was super popular

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Speaker 2: because he was undefeated as a military leader. He balanced

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Speaker 2: the budget, he reformed government, he wrote the civil law,

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Speaker 2: which a lot of his is still around today in France.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, civil law, right, not too bad. He had a

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Speaker 1: lasting impact, for sure, he did. But again again to

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Speaker 1: call him benevolent. If you remember a parliament who was

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Speaker 1: thrown out of one of the windows of parliament. Right,

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Speaker 1: he took over, You probably wouldn't be like, you're so benevolent. Right.

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Speaker 2: He also controlled had an iron thumb on the press,

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Speaker 2: He controlled every fative government. He had a spies working

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Speaker 2: for him. So it's not like he wasn't just you know,

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Speaker 2: Buds of the Clown.

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Speaker 1: No, Boz of the Clown was super shady. No. If

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Speaker 1: you put all that together, though, Chuck, you get the

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Speaker 1: impression of why historians considered Napoleon the first modern dictator.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He checked basically every box there was. He had it

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Speaker 1: figured out.

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Speaker 2: He drew new boxes and checked those.

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Speaker 1: Right, he said, all dictators to follow, here's your box.

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Speaker 1: I just looked down at your notes and I want

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Speaker 1: to show you something. I think we should take a break.

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Speaker 1: But before then, okay, Chuck, I think you should see this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So in this article on dictators from How Stuff Works,

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Speaker 1: there's a sidebar is what they're called in web print parlance. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just a little extra bit, and the title of the

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Speaker 1: subbar is Darth Dictator.

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Speaker 2: That's all we need to say.

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Speaker 1: And it talks about Emperor Palpatine in his rise. And

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Speaker 1: Chuck had his xt out ye and I independently Xi

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Speaker 1: migne out as well. So we won't be talking about

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Speaker 1: that today, everybody.

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Speaker 2: No, but let's do take that break and we'll discuss

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Speaker 2: that in private, so you don't get to know about it,

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Speaker 2: and we'll be right back.

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Speaker 1: Definitely should now, Lars Chuck and Ryan.

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Speaker 2: Sk All, Right, so we're back. We talked about one

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Speaker 2: of the things that dictators had in common is they

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Speaker 2: generally aren't elected in it like a fair election. They

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Speaker 2: are usually ruling autocracies. A lot of times they have

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Speaker 2: what's called the totalitarian regime.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we should talk about that.

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Speaker 2: That's a big one. That means you, like you were

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Speaker 2: in control of all the news and all the media

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Speaker 2: that gets out about everything.

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Speaker 1: Right, So there's a lot of confusion over the difference

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Speaker 1: between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. And a totalitarian regime is authoritarian,

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Speaker 1: but not all authoritarian regimes are totalitarian. Yeah. An authoritarian

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Speaker 1: regime is where the government is headed by one single leader. Yeah, Okay,

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Speaker 1: there's no parliament, there's no courts, there's no nothing that

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Speaker 1: the that leader doesn't either control or just doesn't exist

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Speaker 1: to counter that leader's decisions. A totalitarian regime is like

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Speaker 1: you were saying.

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Speaker 2: I think you're missing in the eye there.

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Speaker 1: They could. It's like deletrious. They control everything, not just

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Speaker 1: the government. They control the social aspects of life in

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Speaker 1: that country. They control the economy of that country, they

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Speaker 1: control the media, they control everything. It's totalitarian.

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Speaker 2: Personal freedoms might be vanquished, might be there might be police,

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Speaker 2: secret police, there might be spies spying on citizens. It's

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Speaker 2: not a good way to live.

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Speaker 1: No, And also you will probably be encouraged that as

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Speaker 1: a citizen, to spy on your fellow citizens, because authoritarian

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Speaker 1: regimes quickly learn that if you have a large population,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of tough and very expensive to keep tabs

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Speaker 1: on everybody. So if you have a secret police going

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Speaker 1: around and people are aware that there is a secret police,

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Speaker 1: to behave themselves more. And if you can get your

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Speaker 1: citizens to kind of keep an eye on one another,

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Speaker 1: everybody's gonna behave even further. That's a terrible way to live.

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Speaker 2: Well, And you know what, Like it sounds like a

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Speaker 2: totalitarian ruler would be. I bet there's a lot of

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Speaker 2: paranoi that goes along with that. Like when you're in

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Speaker 2: that kind of position, Oh, if you're the ruler, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's not just like rule everything. So it's all good.

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Speaker 2: Like at that point, you don't know who to trust you, right,

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Speaker 2: you're probably always looking over your shoulder, you know. It's

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Speaker 2: not like why bother with all that? Right, Like you

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Speaker 2: know it's gonna end badly.

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Speaker 1: Just kickback and light of dooby instead? Why bother with

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Speaker 1: all that?

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Speaker 2: Many times there they foster what's known as a cult

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Speaker 2: of personality, and this is a big one. Yeah, if

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Speaker 2: you went into and saw Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or you

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Speaker 2: go to North Korea or in the times of like

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Speaker 2: Lenin and Stalin, you're going to see a lot of

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Speaker 2: posters and statues of these leaders everywhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, you're taught that the leader is basically

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Speaker 1: the state.

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Speaker 2: Who is this the leader?

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Speaker 1: Right, and the state is the most important thing. But

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Speaker 1: the state is personified by the leader. And sometimes they'll

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Speaker 1: even go so far as the state by the way,

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Speaker 1: the leader is descended directly from God. Yeah, so go

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Speaker 1: make a painting of a kid, right, and we're going

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Speaker 1: to put it up in the town square.

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Speaker 2: Who was the one who had the statue rotated to

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Speaker 2: face the sun?

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Speaker 1: He was the head of Turkmenistan. He changed his name

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Speaker 1: when he took over in nineteen ninety one. His birth

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Speaker 1: name was Supermarat Niyazov, but he changed his name to Turkmenbashi,

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Speaker 1: and then he started naming everything in Turkmenistan Turkmenbashi, including

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Speaker 1: the month of January. But he created that statue.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and he had the golden statue rotated to always

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Speaker 2: face the sun.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, he was always facing the sun. And he said,

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Speaker 1: read that quote, man, that quote is awesome.

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Speaker 2: Oh right, he said, quote. I'm personally against seeing my

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Speaker 2: pictures and statues in the streets, but it's what the

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Speaker 2: people want.

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Speaker 1: We got that, I think from an ode list.

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Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, we'll probably pepper in more of those, Okay,

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Speaker 2: But I mean, I hope this drives home the point

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Speaker 2: that these totalitarian dictators, they're narcissists, their megalomaniacs. They are

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Speaker 2: obviously paranoid, otherwise they wouldn't need to rule with an

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Speaker 2: iron fist. And yeah, it's it's not a good way

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Speaker 2: to run a country. Like I said, it always ends badly.

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Speaker 2: I guess to get caught up in the power and

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Speaker 2: they don't see what history has taught us time and

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Speaker 2: time again.

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Speaker 1: I wish we knew what it was because you can

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Speaker 1: look around, especially in the world today and see country

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Speaker 1: after country after country sliding down that rabbit hole.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a mental disorder on their part, I think.

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Speaker 1: But it doesn't just have to be there, doesn't just

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Speaker 1: have to be like a single leader. Like even liberal

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Speaker 1: democracies are starting to slide down that hole where like

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Speaker 1: they want all the information possible on everybody and ultimately

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Speaker 1: to keep control. You know, but is it based on

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Speaker 1: fear or is it based on paranoia, or is it

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Speaker 1: based on that desire to hang on to power or

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Speaker 1: what Witch's brew? Of all those things, is it that

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Speaker 1: creates that? Why do we keep doing it over and

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Speaker 1: over and over again. Yeah, because it always is the

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Speaker 1: it's the it's the death knell for a civilization. When

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Speaker 1: it's when the leadership starts doing that, it's unsustainable.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. But and we'll talk a little bit about how

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Speaker 2: they end, but it always is badly. Like you see

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Speaker 2: like Saddam Hussein and power like in these military uniforms,

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Speaker 2: and then you see this like sad old man pulled

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Speaker 2: out of a fox hole.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks like she's washed up on Gilligan's Island

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Speaker 1: or something.

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Speaker 2: Like that, or Noriega like wasting away in prison, like

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Speaker 2: begging to get out in a wheelchair.

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Speaker 1: And I would like to know the story behind that,

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Speaker 1: because Noega, Yeah, Panama on the UA, we're pretty good friends.

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Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden, the US invades, and now

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Speaker 1: Manuel Noriega is in prison in Miami and has been

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Speaker 1: for thirty years. Them went down that prison, is he Oh,

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Speaker 1: that's right, and then they transferred him to uh.

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Speaker 2: Well outside the Panama Canal. Ironically, Oh really, yeah, he's

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Speaker 2: in some prison there. He's like in a wheelchair and

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Speaker 2: in his early eighties and just yeah, not doing so hot.

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Speaker 1: But he served his whole sentence I think in Miami,

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Speaker 1: and then they transferred him to Panama to phil to

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Speaker 1: carry out another sentence down there. Oh really yeah, wow, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but something went down that I don't know about. I'm

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Speaker 1: intensely curious to know. If anybody knows out there, tell me.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure you could find that up pretty easy, right.

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Speaker 1: Apparently not.

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Speaker 2: I was just kidding. I bet it's highly guarded secret.

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Speaker 1: You think, even after all these years, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Noriega had motor he was a motormouth. I'm sure he

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Speaker 1: told everybody who'd listened.

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Speaker 2: Uh, well, we mentioned Hitler earlier. He, like you said,

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Speaker 2: although not elected, was legally installed. He was appointed chancellor

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Speaker 2: by President Paul von Hindenberg, and then once Hindenburg died,

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Speaker 2: Hitler said, you know what, there's this German word furor

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Speaker 2: that means leader, and he went, why don't we just

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Speaker 2: make that my new title, which is because we don't

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Speaker 2: really need a president and a chancellor. I can be

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Speaker 2: both dudes, and then eventually I'll just kill myself in

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Speaker 2: a bunker.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Another I'd say sad end, but just pitiful end.

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Speaker 1: You know, that's a great word for.

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Speaker 2: Sad indicates that, you know what I mean. I don't

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Speaker 2: have to over explain that due out.

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Speaker 1: So but Hitler he came to power legitimately. So did

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Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein. Actually he was the general of the Iraqi

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Speaker 1: Army and vice president, and then as the president came,

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Speaker 1: I think he fell ill. Saddam Hussein started to take

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Speaker 1: on more and more power and finally was just like

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Speaker 1: I'm president forever now, okay, And I think that's the case.

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Speaker 1: The point that this article is making is that there's

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Speaker 1: a number of different ways a dictator can come to power.

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Speaker 1: They can come to power and a power vacuum. They

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Speaker 1: can come to power and a coup, which we'll talk about.

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Speaker 1: They can come to power democratically. But if it's the

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Speaker 1: kind of person who wants to rule unfettered, Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: they come they know how to basically work the populace

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Speaker 1: and the circumstances are right, you know, like maybe there's

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Speaker 1: fear of outsiders coming your way, or the economy's bad

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Speaker 1: or something like that, then you can conceivably consolidate your

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Speaker 1: power and turn whatever situation into a dictatorship.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think it's more it's based on the person and

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Speaker 1: the circumstances that the nation is in when that person

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Speaker 1: grabs power than it is on how they actually get

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Speaker 1: into power.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and whether or not the current leader just happens

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Speaker 2: like be out of town or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's another big one too.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes. Yeah, that's just well, let's go ahead and talk about coups,

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Speaker 2: should we? Okay, sure, So coup is There are different

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Speaker 2: kinds of coup or coup d'eta, But a coup is

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Speaker 2: different than a revolution in that there is it's generally

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Speaker 2: a smaller affair. It's not some big mass uprising of people.

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Speaker 2: It's a dude gets a smallish band of his military

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Speaker 2: cohorts together and like we were talking about, either someone

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Speaker 2: is sick or they're dying, or they're just out of

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Speaker 2: the country on business, right, and they come back and

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Speaker 2: they're like, you're not in charge anymore.

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00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry to tell you. Yeah, And they're like, man,

438
00:23:38,119 --> 00:23:40,639
Speaker 1: they discount of this dishwasher is not worth leaving the

439
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 1: country for over this. Uh.

440
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:45,719
Speaker 2: It can be Coups can be very bloody and violent,

441
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 2: but they don't have to be. In fact, I think

442
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:50,959
Speaker 2: a lot of times they're not violent.

443
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 1: No, there's a term of bloodless coup.

444
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

445
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:57,960
Speaker 1: And it's basically a couple of the things that make coups,

446
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: uh or is it just coup like you were saying,

447
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 1: there's no s.

448
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 2: No, there's an s.

449
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 1: Is it silent?

450
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 2: I don't know that.

451
00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:08,840
Speaker 1: So we're gonna go with coups, Okay. A couple of

452
00:24:08,880 --> 00:24:11,200
Speaker 1: the hallmarks of coups that you were saying, like they're

453
00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: they're not popular uprisings. It's a small elite group that

454
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:17,600
Speaker 1: decided to do it, usually the higher ups in the military. Yeah,

455
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 1: And they can be bloodless, where it can just be

456
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: like you're not in charge any longer you were out

457
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:25,879
Speaker 1: of the country, stay out of the country. We're putting

458
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:29,120
Speaker 1: you in exile. Right. They can be bloody, especially if

459
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 1: the person who's being deposed has a lot of loyalty

460
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 1: in the military as well. Yeah, then it can turn

461
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:36,640
Speaker 1: pretty pretty bad.

462
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:38,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I get the feeling that a lot of

463
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 2: times the coup isn't attempted unless they feel like they

464
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 2: have the support to pull it off.

465
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look at Turkey or the people who

466
00:24:47,040 --> 00:24:49,640
Speaker 1: tried that coup like just a few months back. Yeah,

467
00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:52,960
Speaker 1: that's true. I don't know what happened to them. I

468
00:24:53,000 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 1: think Airdwan said like the people were going to be punished,

469
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: but not necessarily executed, But I don't know if that's

470
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,120
Speaker 1: true or not. That's another thing that can make a

471
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:04,280
Speaker 1: coup bloody is that it can fail and then the

472
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:06,919
Speaker 1: people who are carrying out the coup get executed, or

473
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: it can succeed, and sometimes, just for good measure, the

474
00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: people carrying out the coup execute the former president, which

475
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: was the case in Peru with Pinochet. Oh sorry Chile, Yeah, Chile,

476
00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:26,199
Speaker 1: where Pinochet took over because apparently the parliament asked the

477
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 1: military to get rid of the old guy. Salvador, A

478
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 1: Andde and they said, all right, fine, we'll do it,

479
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 1: and then they executed A and D.

480
00:25:33,040 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a coup doesn't always mean a dictator comes

481
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:38,639
Speaker 2: right in either. Sometimes a coup can just be temporary

482
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 2: until they can elect a new national leader. Right, But

483
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 2: it's just basically, uh, just a very small overthrowing of

484
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 2: the current government.

485
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,440
Speaker 1: All right, that's all, So you want to take another break, Yeah,

486
00:25:50,520 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: let's do it, okay. Definitely large trials of each.

487
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:14,680
Speaker 3: I asked, all right, we're back.

488
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 2: What's a junta?

489
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: Well, it's related to the Jacama root Hikkama.

490
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 2: No, that's not true at all. And I didn't really

491
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,479
Speaker 2: know this, but I've heard a military junta.

492
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,479
Speaker 1: Well you know it's junta, is it really? Yeah, that's

493
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: how I was making that joke. Okay, I wasn't sure

494
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: because I called Hikkama jama Ya. Are you sure it's

495
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 1: not Jacama?

496
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:43,840
Speaker 2: You sure it's not junta?

497
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: I asked, it is? It's a military junta.

498
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 2: So the junta is is almost like a dictatorship by committee.

499
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,240
Speaker 2: And you find these a lot in Latin America, and

500
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 2: it's a committee of military leaders who essentially act like

501
00:26:57,680 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 2: a dictator.

502
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:03,120
Speaker 1: Right, there's instead of one leader, yes, maybe three four

503
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: top ranking military. Usually there's a If you like Fiji

504
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: brand water, you're supporting a military hunt when you buy that.

505
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: As of two thousand and six, the military rose up

506
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: in Fiji and over through the government and now Military

507
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 1: Hunt runs the show there.

508
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:20,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a bad scene over there.

509
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: Yeah. Thailand apparently had a coup that same year.

510
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's right.

511
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, they followed the typical coup where the president left

512
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 1: the country. If I were a president and I were

513
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: on shaky ground.

514
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't go anywhere.

515
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 1: Nope, I'd be like I'm sitting right here.

516
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 2: You need scarface. You would just be like in your

517
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 2: office with submachine guns. Right well, probably not the mountain

518
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 2: of cocaine.

519
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: Right well, I could because I'd be a dictator. No

520
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: one could say anything, do any want. But there was

521
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: one other thing that's really important too. Not only would

522
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: I not leave the country, I wouldn't even leave the

523
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: presidential palace because that's like one of the number one

524
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: things you do in a coup is you secure the

525
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,960
Speaker 1: presidential palace. Ye, secure the prisons, secure the infrastructure, secure

526
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: like the local media. And as long as the president's there,

527
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 1: for some reason, physically it makes it exponentially harder. I

528
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: don't know why. Yeah, but couldn't if you were the military.

529
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: Couldn't you just go up to the president and be like,

530
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: you're not president anymore and they could say yes I

531
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: am yeah, you say no you're not. We have the guns,

532
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: get out of the military presidential palace.

533
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like very passive aggressive to just like change

534
00:28:30,720 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 2: change the dead vaults when it really is sorry, can't

535
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:35,960
Speaker 2: get to your bedroom anymore.

536
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: But Thailand had the same thing, but their junta was

537
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 1: the coup carried out by the junta was apparently popularly supported.

538
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: Oh it was, Yeah, it was the president who's like

539
00:28:49,280 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 1: I vote nay, everybody else said yay.

540
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 2: So sometimes when there's a dictatorship, they actually give the

541
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 2: appearance that they might hold elections, oh yeah, when in

542
00:29:01,680 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 2: fact it's just sort of a farce.

543
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:08,560
Speaker 1: That's a big deal though, actually, because I mean democracy

544
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: or liberal democracies are viewed as so legitimate that dictators

545
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: will hold yeah, like farcical elections pageantry basically, yeah, to

546
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,040
Speaker 1: make it seem like the populace is all for them,

547
00:29:20,360 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: but the elections will be like do you want to

548
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: keep the leader. No one's running against the leader, right,

549
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: But do you want to keep the leader? Yes? No,

550
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: Please write your address down and include a picture of

551
00:29:31,920 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: your most beloved person, right life.

552
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,560
Speaker 2: Or in the case of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah bin

553
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 2: abdul Aziz al Sad, that's a mouthful, he said. You

554
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 2: know what, We're going to have elections for the first

555
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 2: time since the sixties here in two thousand and five,

556
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 2: and you can choose your local civic leaders and your

557
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 2: local councils. But women can't vote, Like technically they can,

558
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 2: but you don't have the idea to vote because you're

559
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 2: a woman, so you can't vote. And a man can't

560
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 2: register you to vote because you're a woman, and there

561
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 2: just aren't enough women poll workers to register you, so

562
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 2: you also can't vote. So it's classic voter disenfranchisement. So

563
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 2: you don't have IDs, so you can't vote, so you

564
00:30:18,080 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 2: might as well not be allowed to vote.

565
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: Right, So since there's a hole an entire gender that's

566
00:30:22,840 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 1: excluded from the vote, it's not a democratic vote. That's

567
00:30:25,680 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: a little less farcical than say, you know one where

568
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 1: it's like.

569
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 2: Where you have no opposition. Yeah, yeah, And.

570
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:37,000
Speaker 1: I found this article It is hilarious. It's called Dictatorships.

571
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: It was on like kids Net in Australia, an Australian website,

572
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: and like at the top there's like Teddy Bears and

573
00:30:45,400 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 1: a sun and rainbow and blue skies and then in

574
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: the text it says dictator and it's all about dictators

575
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: It's just kind of a weird juxtaposition.

576
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 2: It had misspellings in it too, which is weird.

577
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it made some pretty good points. If I

578
00:30:59,080 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: were a if I had kids, I'd be like, you,

579
00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 1: read this website. They know what they're talking about. Read

580
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: it every day, every day. Just read the dictator entry.

581
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: That's it. But they mentioned although, yeah, they got something

582
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:16,719
Speaker 1: horribly wrong. They mentioned dictator Charles King of Liberia. I

583
00:31:16,720 --> 00:31:22,760
Speaker 1: think they mean Charles Taylor. Oh yeah, yeah, who claimed

584
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: to have won by such a landslide that apparently it

585
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,680
Speaker 1: was like fifteen percent larger than the actual total electorate

586
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: of his entire country. But then I've also seen that

587
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: he's done elections that were watched by outside poll watchers, right,

588
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: and that they they just they said that this is

589
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: a legitimate election.

590
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 2: Interesting. Well, we talked a little bit about them, the

591
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:56,760
Speaker 2: dictatorship ending badly or sadly. A lot of times it's

592
00:31:56,840 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 2: just a simple matter of time catching up to somebody

593
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 2: and they get sick and die. Lennon suffered strokes, Stalin

594
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 2: suffered a stroke, Castro got really sick. You know, all

595
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 2: the power and money and influence in the world is

596
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 2: not going to save you in the end, my friend,

597
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 2: mister dictatory.

598
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,280
Speaker 1: Paranoia will save you and keep you alive.

599
00:32:21,160 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 2: It's always just kind of pitiful, though, I don't know.

600
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: I disagree. Oh really, yeah, I think it's worth dancing

601
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: on their graves over Oh.

602
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 2: No, no, no, I don't mean I mean pitiful for them.

603
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 2: It's just they never it seems like they always go

604
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 2: out with a whimper.

605
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, some go out with machine gun fire though.

606
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, just it doesn't stay the salad days forever.

607
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:45,560
Speaker 1: No, it's true.

608
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 2: I think the message is that's no way to rule

609
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 2: a people.

610
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: I hope we've gotten that across. You know, I don't

611
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:55,280
Speaker 1: know how many dictators listen to our podcast, but I

612
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 1: hope that, if any do, we've really given them some

613
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: pause to think about what are doing with their lives.

614
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 2: Should we read a few of these weird things done

615
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 2: by dictators?

616
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:09,400
Speaker 1: Sure, and we should say it's widely believed that dictatorships

617
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 1: are on the decline worldwide.

618
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 2: What are there like seventy of them now?

619
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 1: The most I saw this was twenty four right, Oh yeah.

620
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:20,680
Speaker 1: And the reason why is again they think liberal democracy

621
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: is like basically changing the game. But there was a

622
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: big influx after the Cold War ended where a lot

623
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: of no, I'm sorry, the Cold War began. There was

624
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: a big influx because a lot of the old colonial

625
00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: powers that had colonies and say like Africa and Asia

626
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: suddenly said World War two's over, We're getting out of

627
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: the imperialism game. Good luck. And that those power vacuums

628
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:52,640
Speaker 1: allowed a lot of dictatorships to grow, and then the

629
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: polarization of the Cold War allowed them to thrive because

630
00:33:56,720 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: a dictator could say, hey, I'm strategically necessary United States.

631
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 1: Don't you like me? Don't you want to look the

632
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 1: other way on all of my human rights atrocities? And

633
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: then someone else would say the same thing. That the

634
00:34:08,120 --> 00:34:12,320
Speaker 1: USSR and the superpowers would prop up these dictators throughout

635
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 1: the world. When the Cold War ended, that actually led

636
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:18,720
Speaker 1: to a huge and almost immediate decline in dictatorships around

637
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, yeah, so they're hopefully going the way

638
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: of the dinosaur. But we'll see.

639
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was that last article you sent, the one

640
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,280
Speaker 2: it made a really good point about the United States

641
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 2: could learn a little bit about these dictatorships and how

642
00:34:36,120 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 2: they work, not to be like that, but to learn

643
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 2: that you can't not for not for pointers, but for

644
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 2: pointers and maybe not necessarily saying, hey, we can just

645
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 2: go into a country that's been run a certain way

646
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 2: for hundreds, if not thousands of years and just say

647
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 2: do it all different now.

648
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, here's a book on liberal democracies, read it and

649
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:58,239
Speaker 1: do it.

650
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that we might have a more successful approach

651
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 2: to foreign policy if there was a little bit more

652
00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,800
Speaker 2: understanding on how these systems worked.

653
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that a lot of these, uh, these dictatorships

654
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: are not totalitarian but autocratic, which makes them inherently weaker.

655
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: But if we threaten them, if we're belligerent to them,

656
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 1: we give those people a reason to be afraid and

657
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: to line up behind their leader. So when we actually

658
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:32,399
Speaker 1: threaten other countries that are that are autocratic, we we're

659
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:35,880
Speaker 1: all we're doing is making the leader more powerful, whereas

660
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: if we treat them like as kind of a week

661
00:35:39,160 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 1: a week leader of a weak state that that is

662
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: run in a way that suggests that the people aren't

663
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: really behind it. They have to be run with an

664
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: iron fist. Then that that person's probably going to eventually

665
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: get deposed.

666
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:53,720
Speaker 2: It's pretty interesting.

667
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: It was an interesting article. It was in Reason magazine.

668
00:35:56,239 --> 00:36:01,040
Speaker 1: I think it was written by John Bay utterly. And

669
00:36:01,080 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: if that guy's not British, no idea, who is?

670
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 2: All right? So we promised a few weird things. Where

671
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 2: did you find this one?

672
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 1: Odie?

673
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 2: Strange things done by evil dictators? Kim Jong Ill those

674
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:20,319
Speaker 2: dude in South Korea named Shin sang Ok, and he

675
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 2: was known as the orson Wells of South Korea, and

676
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 2: he was kidnapped and brought to North Korea to basically

677
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 2: Kim Jong Ill was like, you know, we show the

678
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 2: world that we are creative artists. Like start making movies, right,

679
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 2: we've kidnapped you and brought you here. Make good movies.

680
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 2: In fact, remake Godzilla because we just need our own Godzilla.

681
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 1: It's basically what the CIA did with Jackson Pollock in

682
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 1: the early fifties. But Jackson Pollock wasn't aware that he

683
00:36:46,440 --> 00:36:47,440
Speaker 1: was being propped.

684
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 2: Up because he was drunk, so They did remake Godzilla

685
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 2: sort of a movie called Paul Gasari and I looked

686
00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 2: it up and he basically looks like Godzilla with a

687
00:37:00,239 --> 00:37:02,560
Speaker 2: minotaur horns coming out the side.

688
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:04,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, not the best.

689
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 2: What else This Beatles story was kind of nuts.

690
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: Yeah. The Marcos's member of Melda Marcos and all of

691
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,720
Speaker 1: her shoes. Yeah, who can forget Ferdinand and Amelda Marcos.

692
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 1: They ruled the Philippines for a while and apparently they

693
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 1: loved the Beatles back in the sixties, and so they

694
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: invited the Beatles to the Philippines to play a couple

695
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,399
Speaker 1: shows on their world tour. And when the Beatles got there,

696
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:28,040
Speaker 1: the military met them at the airport and said, hey,

697
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: before you go to your hotel, you're scheduled for a lunch,

698
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:34,800
Speaker 1: private lunch with the president and the first Lady. Yeah,

699
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,760
Speaker 1: And the Beatles were like, look mate, we're really tired.

700
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 1: We're going to just go to the hotel and crash

701
00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 1: because we've got two shows tonight. And that did not

702
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:45,279
Speaker 1: go over very well.

703
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:49,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. They were acting through their manager, of course, Brian Epstein,

704
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 2: and supposedly the story isn't so much that, but he

705
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 2: said that they don't they don't accept these formal like

706
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:59,000
Speaker 2: state invitations really as a rule, I got to either way,

707
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:02,520
Speaker 2: they didn't go, and Emmel de Marcos got on TV

708
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 2: and started talking about it. Brian Epstein tried to apologize

709
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 2: on TV and they blacked him out and people got

710
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 2: really upset. The police basically their private police escort was

711
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:16,799
Speaker 2: removed and the Beatles were on their own. Wow, which

712
00:38:16,920 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 2: was in ninety sixty four. When you're in the Beatles,

713
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,320
Speaker 2: this is not a good place, especially in the Philippines,

714
00:38:21,400 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 2: right to find yourself.

715
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:26,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, They basically had to escape to the airport and

716
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,120
Speaker 1: just run out to the plane and head off.

717
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:31,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one of their dudes was like beaten really badly,

718
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 2: and Brian Epstein was kept from getting on the plane

719
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,439
Speaker 2: then had to like basically was shaken down to pay

720
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 2: them back money wow from the concert to get on

721
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:46,279
Speaker 2: the plane. And then later on mister mister Lennon, give

722
00:38:46,320 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 2: piece a chance. John Lennon said, yeah, if we go

723
00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 2: back to the Philippines, it's going to be with an

724
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:51,760
Speaker 2: H bomb.

725
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:55,839
Speaker 1: Did you really say that?

726
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:56,320
Speaker 2: Yeah?

727
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 1: Wow?

728
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 2: He said he won't even fly over it. So they

729
00:38:59,200 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 2: did not have a good exp your answer, Wow, who's next?

730
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,320
Speaker 2: I think that ed I mean one was kind of interesting.

731
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: That sounds so Edie, I mean totally. He he declared

732
00:39:11,440 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: himself President for life, p farrel, and he he said,

733
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm going to do this in high style.

734
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 1: I'm going to get four white men to carry me

735
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:24,560
Speaker 1: around in a chair to celebrate being president for life.

736
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,759
Speaker 1: And he called it the white Man's Burden, yep, and

737
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:30,479
Speaker 1: everybody loved it. He was an odd duck.

738
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:33,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you if you look up white Man's Burden

739
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:35,799
Speaker 2: and I mean and google images, there's a couple of

740
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 2: really great pictures of these kind of blonde white men

741
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:43,279
Speaker 2: in suits carrying around its giant Ugandan man in the chair.

742
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:48,520
Speaker 1: Have you ever read the Bukowski book that was the

743
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 1: it was the basis for Barfly.

744
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 2: Yeah. Which one was that?

745
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:55,399
Speaker 1: Hollywood? I think is what it's called.

746
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 2: I read Hollywood? Was that the one?

747
00:39:56,760 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: Yeah? He talks about watching a documentary about I mean,

748
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,880
Speaker 1: and how he d I mean, didn't have the money

749
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,520
Speaker 1: for an air force, but he had pilots that really

750
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,879
Speaker 1: wanted to fly. So like in the documentary, they're showing

751
00:40:09,920 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: these pilots running down a runway and then jumping and

752
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: then going back to the to the end of the

753
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: line and just doing this over and over again to

754
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: practice flying. Yeah, even though they didn't have planes.

755
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:23,760
Speaker 2: That movie was good. The Forest Whitaker movie.

756
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, The Last King of Scotland. Yeah, great movie where

757
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:27,600
Speaker 1: James mckelboy.

758
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,400
Speaker 2: You know you can stay in Charles Bakowski's house that

759
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 2: he grew up in an airbnb now really, yep, nice,

760
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 2: it's been remodeled.

761
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: Oh, he wouldn't like that, but.

762
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:40,440
Speaker 2: No, he would hate the whole thing.

763
00:40:40,480 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure. How about Kadafi, we'll end with him. Sure, So,

764
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:49,359
Speaker 1: Momar Kadafi loved women apparently. Did you know that about him?

765
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 2: I did not.

766
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 1: He loved women, and he actually surrounded himself with female

767
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 1: bodyguards who he very graciously allowed to wear makeup and

768
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: high heels while they were protecting him. And in the West,

769
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,600
Speaker 1: these women were called the Amazonian Guard. This is just

770
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:10,000
Speaker 1: off the rails at this point.

771
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:13,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh, and this podcast.

772
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 1: No is the whole Amazonian Guard, the whole thing.

773
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

774
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:23,040
Speaker 1: So the Kadafi actually had some sort of legitimate thinking

775
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 1: behind it. He thought that an assassin would have trouble

776
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:27,520
Speaker 1: shooting a woman.

777
00:41:28,080 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, it stands to reason.

778
00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: So he surrounded himself with female body guards. Who were

779
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:34,799
Speaker 1: also trained to kill. Yeah, but they weren't like the

780
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,800
Speaker 1: four more makeup and lipstick. Yeah.

781
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:40,520
Speaker 2: Oh, actually, can we mention the Hitler thing, because.

782
00:41:40,680 --> 00:41:43,960
Speaker 1: Is this true? I don't know this is I walked past.

783
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:48,239
Speaker 2: It sounds like urban legend. But supposedly Hitler came up

784
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 2: with a synthetic blow up doll to comfort soldiers, and

785
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 2: it was referred to as a synthetic comforter. Yep, blonde hair,

786
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 2: blue eyes could fit in a batpack, and they only

787
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:04,359
Speaker 2: made about fifty of them because the soldiers were like,

788
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 2: I'm not carrying that thing around. What are you crazy?

789
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:09,120
Speaker 2: And he went in fact, I am.

790
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 1: You'll see waka waka uh. If you want to know

791
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:19,200
Speaker 1: more about dictators, you can type that word into the

792
00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:21,279
Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot common Sense. They said,

793
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:22,799
Speaker 1: search bar, it's time for listening mail.

794
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:28,319
Speaker 2: A quick correction beforehand, because this has to do with

795
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:35,359
Speaker 2: bottle feeding kittens. But in our feeding babies episodes, which,

796
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:37,200
Speaker 2: by the way, thanks for all the support on those,

797
00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 2: which really made us feel good to know we did

798
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:43,440
Speaker 2: a pretty good job there. But I erroneously many times

799
00:42:43,520 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 2: said pump and dump, as like, you know, pump breast

800
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:47,919
Speaker 2: milk can dump it in the bottle to use.

801
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: Oh no, yeah, pump pick up on it.

802
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 2: Well, I just I think I kind of threw that

803
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 2: term around as just the general term for breast pumping.

804
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 2: That's but dumping is dumping it down the drain for

805
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 2: one reason or another, like you maybe have had some alcohol.

806
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 1: Or dumping it straight to hell.

807
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, So yeah, pump and dump it sort of just

808
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:09,359
Speaker 2: kind of went wild there.

809
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: That's okay, Chuck, that's right. I did notice a couple

810
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,719
Speaker 1: of people saying that, but I didn't get what they

811
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: were saying.

812
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:17,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was wrong, huh.

813
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: All right, so it feels weird.

814
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 2: I promised the story about bottle feeding kittens, which have

815
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 2: you ever done that? A little baby animal that you

816
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,760
Speaker 2: gotta care for at that young age? Pretty darn cute. Sure,

817
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:30,480
Speaker 2: very powerful feeling.

818
00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 1: It's very stressful.

819
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 2: It is stressful, Hey, guys. When I was a kid,

820
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 2: powerful you're like, you want this bottle or not?

821
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:41,080
Speaker 1: Crisch you.

822
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 2: When I was a kid, my older sister had a

823
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 2: habit of rescuing animals that became family pets. She rescued

824
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,839
Speaker 2: a pair of ferrets from drug abuse quote what quote?

825
00:43:50,920 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 2: Drug abuse in quote? When the ferrets were being abused

826
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 2: with drugs or themselves active users. I still don't know.

827
00:43:57,960 --> 00:43:59,080
Speaker 2: That's a weird thing to say.

828
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a weird email.

829
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:03,840
Speaker 2: The family ended up stuck with those smelly little weasels

830
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:05,840
Speaker 2: for years. What really I wanted to talk about THO

831
00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 2: was much more mundane. One day we rescued a random

832
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 2: stray kitten from our gutters. Beautiful little thing, fluffy and snowy, white,

833
00:44:12,520 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 2: practically newborn, too young to lap milk. She became a

834
00:44:15,800 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 2: family project of sorts. Throughout the day, almost all the

835
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 2: family members would take turns cradling the little kitten. Feeding

836
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:25,839
Speaker 2: her with a dropper was pretty special. Was maybe nine

837
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 2: at the time, but gladly took time away from playing

838
00:44:27,719 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 2: Zelda to feed the kitten playing Zelda.

839
00:44:31,760 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 1: I forget it, here's the kicker.

840
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,919
Speaker 2: Though as much as pure love that we pumped into

841
00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 2: that little kitten, that cat ended up being one of

842
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 2: the most purely mean and different cats we ever had.

843
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 1: Sounds about right.

844
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 2: She grew up to be beyond ungrateful. She came and

845
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 2: went as she pleased, and was prone to swipe at

846
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,680
Speaker 2: you as if you tried to pet her. She hung

847
00:44:51,719 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 2: around for the food, but after a few years, she

848
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 2: just disappeared entirely.

849
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: Sounds like the cat was on drug abuse too.

850
00:44:58,320 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 2: Most of our cats were sweet and true. Maybe the

851
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 2: point is there are just some bad seeds out there.

852
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:03,879
Speaker 2: That is from Chris ps. The ferrets ended up living

853
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:04,800
Speaker 2: for years and years.

854
00:45:07,120 --> 00:45:11,280
Speaker 1: What that was a mysterious email in a lot of ways,

855
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:16,000
Speaker 1: like a it's like a David Lynch email. Thanks a lot,

856
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:20,919
Speaker 1: Chris with a K. I imagine no, okay, thanks a lot, Chris.

857
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 1: We appreciate that. And if you out there want to

858
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: get in touch with us like Chris did, you can

859
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:28,279
Speaker 1: tweet to us at SYSK podcast. You can join us

860
00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: on Facebook, dot com slash Stuff you Should Know. You

861
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: can send us an email to stuff Podcast at house.

862
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:35,640
Speaker 1: Stuffworks dot Com has always joined us at our home

863
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 1: on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot Com.

864
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

865
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 2: more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

866
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.