Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hate when you open the episode like that.
Speaker 1: I really do. I love it, Sophie. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel just missing shrieking. To be honest, No, I like
Speaker 1: an almost an almost sexual expression of satisfaction. That's how
Speaker 1: you start a podcast. So that's how you start a podcast.
Speaker 1: And to be almost sexual with me. My guests today,
Speaker 1: Dan and Jordan of Knowledge fight Dan and Jordan's on
Speaker 1: a scale how uncomfortable? Oh wow, Wow, you're just buying
Speaker 1: in excellent. I was doing macho and Randy seven, Yes
Speaker 1: he was. I was doing straight up. That's what I
Speaker 1: sound like during sex. Yeah. That that's gonna be very
Speaker 1: polarizing among the audience. Uh, people who have opinions. People
Speaker 1: will have opinions. I'm not going to read those opinions
Speaker 1: from my own mental health. I don't do that very often.
Speaker 1: Less polarizing, though, the gracefulness with which Randy Macho Man
Speaker 1: says will drop an elbow off the top of rope.
Speaker 1: That's something everyone can appreciate. UM On the next episode,
Speaker 1: will we'll we'll have me and the guests all slowly
Speaker 1: eat cereal in front of the mic, so we'll see
Speaker 1: what people hate more, the sex or the cereal cereal.
Speaker 1: You could have the name the Cereals. People might be
Speaker 1: constantly become the cereal that I'm eating this capa and
Speaker 1: crunch is this crunch show, Sophie, that the whole show.
Speaker 1: There's not enough money in the world to get but
Speaker 1: there is enough cereal. We can do this. So you
Speaker 1: know part two, right, we should probably get back into
Speaker 1: the story. So by by February of ninety seven h five,
Speaker 1: Field has built this list of minister representatives. Right, that's
Speaker 1: what he calls the members of Spiritual Mobilization because he's
Speaker 1: he's it's specifically an organization for religious leaders. And he
Speaker 1: calls these kind of you know, you might call them
Speaker 1: foot soldiers or whatnot. In his war to make Christianity capitalism,
Speaker 1: he calls them minister representatives, yeah, repristers, and in night
Speaker 1: he starts doing this in nineteen forty four, he has
Speaker 1: about four hundred minister representatives in forty four. By ninety seven,
Speaker 1: there's more than ten thousand of them. Within a m
Speaker 1: money behind him, he's able to get out his message
Speaker 1: and keep Spiritual Mobilization together despite its meteoric rise. He
Speaker 1: finds great success in arguing against the Pagan statism of
Speaker 1: socialist politics rather than against a social safety net, and
Speaker 1: for the dignity of individual man as a child of
Speaker 1: God rather than against the responsibility of rich people to
Speaker 1: pay taxes. Clergy begin to flood five Fields, Los Angeles office.
Speaker 1: His phone rings off the hook for weird like and
Speaker 1: it's usually people like when people call um, it's citizens
Speaker 1: who have like come across his organization somewhere and they're
Speaker 1: they're writing him because they want to get sent political tracts. Um.
Speaker 1: That's a big part of what spiritual mobilization does, is it?
Speaker 1: Since out these right wing zines and books from authors
Speaker 1: like Garrett Garrett UM and Garrett Garrett is g A
Speaker 1: R E. T is his first name and then his
Speaker 1: last name is spelled the right way. Have you heard
Speaker 1: of this guy? I don't know. No, I have not.
Speaker 1: I've never heard of anyone being named Garrett twice decision
Speaker 1: obviously twice as many times is the wrong number of times?
Speaker 1: But Barbart is it a typo? Or is its spelled
Speaker 1: the first name spelled differently than the last name? It is?
Speaker 1: It is the first name spelled differently? Is he and
Speaker 1: peel bit? Actually kind of I kind of like the
Speaker 1: different spellings. Yeah, the first name. The first name has
Speaker 1: one R, one T, the last name has two rs
Speaker 1: to two rs. To tease Garrett or is it like
Speaker 1: to Garrett? Yeah, I like it. You're gonna give him that.
Speaker 1: I have questions. He is an so he Garrett Garrett
Speaker 1: is like an Iron Rand type figure. Like he's a
Speaker 1: libertarian fiction Yes, I mean based as hell, so he writes.
Speaker 1: He writes some of the most insufferable sounding literary libertarian
Speaker 1: fiction I've ever heard of. You can find all of
Speaker 1: his books today, hosted online for free by the miss Institute.
Speaker 1: If you if you want to read Garrett Garrett. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was big in the twenties and thirties. And if
Speaker 1: the summaries I'm reading or anything to judge by like
Speaker 1: it is some of the most insufferable shit ever. One
Speaker 1: of his books is called Satan's Bushel. And here's how
Speaker 1: the Micis Institute describes Satan's Bushell. What is Satan's Bushell?
Speaker 1: It is the last bushel that the farmer puts on
Speaker 1: the market that breaks the price, that is, reduces it
Speaker 1: to the point that wheat farming is no longer profitable.
Speaker 1: The puzzle that afflicts the wheat farmers is that they
Speaker 1: sell their goods when the price is low and have
Speaker 1: no goods to sell when the price is high. Withholding
Speaker 1: goods from the market is one answer, But why should
Speaker 1: any farmer do that? What is the answer to this problem?
Speaker 1: Working from this premise then, as implausa well as it
Speaker 1: may sound, but the central figure in this book is
Speaker 1: the price of wheat. It is the main source of drama.
Speaker 1: The settings are the wheat expit at the Chicago Exchange
Speaker 1: and the Kansas wheat fields. Yes, he wrote a book
Speaker 1: where the protagonist is the concept of wheat as a commodity.
Speaker 1: I fucking love how bored Satan has to be all
Speaker 1: the time, where he's like, listen, guys, we've got nothing
Speaker 1: going on today. I don't know. Let's funk with the
Speaker 1: price of wheat. Yeah, there's no more relatable protagonist the
Speaker 1: price of wheat. The hero's journey of Wheat Wheat we
Speaker 1: initially rejects the call to adventure, but then accepts it
Speaker 1: after finding a mentor, and the resolution, of course is subsidies. Yes,
Speaker 1: it all works out. It's perfect. Um. It is also
Speaker 1: just weird. Of Darkness was my favorite book, very telling
Speaker 1: because Garrett. Garrett is huge. He's one of the most
Speaker 1: popular off the authors that five Fields distributing. It's very
Speaker 1: telling of these guys ideology that like you hear, hey,
Speaker 1: we've gotten so good at farming wheat that it's it's
Speaker 1: basically free. And instead of being like, oh good, no
Speaker 1: one will ever not have bread again, the dream of
Speaker 1: human beings for thousands of years finally realized, it's oh
Speaker 1: my god, that we won't make money. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: unfortunate the way that the system works, so that a
Speaker 1: lot of drama in the book hinges upon someone who's
Speaker 1: apparently poisoning all of the wheat as a favor to
Speaker 1: the farmers, like poisoning the wheat to kill it so
Speaker 1: that it will make wheat more valuable to help the farmers.
Speaker 1: Like this guy sounds like the name was mon Santo.
Speaker 1: This is crazy. This is the most amazing book I've
Speaker 1: ever heard of predicting programming, if I understand correctly, does
Speaker 1: is the person who's poisoning the wheat heroic character? I think,
Speaker 1: so I have that kind. I'm gonna be honest with you, guys.
Speaker 1: I didn't read this book. Absolutely did not read this
Speaker 1: fucking book. Um. I read a summary of the book
Speaker 1: by the Masa's Institute, which, by the way, this is
Speaker 1: y'all will enjoy this. In its biography of Garrett Garrett,
Speaker 1: the Misas Institute notes that he was quote as noted
Speaker 1: for his critiques of the New Deal and US involvement
Speaker 1: in the Second World War. Now right, you hear that
Speaker 1: m the only war for him being against is inherently suspicious. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's not that they're against World War two, is that
Speaker 1: they're against the concept. If you look against World War two,
Speaker 1: I had better see a Quaker somewhere in your biography
Speaker 1: or I am making some dire assumptions. You know, the
Speaker 1: Mesa Institute is the insufferable fox that run across Like
Speaker 1: they they've come up in some of our stuff before.
Speaker 1: And yeah, one of the things I note, uh in particular,
Speaker 1: is like they're like they have a long argument on
Speaker 1: their website about why you don't have a positive obligation
Speaker 1: to feed your children. Like they're good ship. That's the
Speaker 1: good ship. That's the libertarian stuff I love. Right, they're
Speaker 1: fucking when you've got like Fred Coke arguing about the
Speaker 1: fact that people should be able to sell themselves into
Speaker 1: slavery and fucking yes, that's the good ship. If you can't,
Speaker 1: then do you really own yourselves? Yeah, it's really funny too,
Speaker 1: Like it's it's shameful that you've got something as batshit
Speaker 1: wacko as that is, like slavery is good because otherwise
Speaker 1: you don't own yourself. And this guy decides to write
Speaker 1: a book about fucking wheat prices, like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: there's so many cooler places to take this. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's trading places about? But orange prices? It's the same. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's the main character, right, I feel like I also
Speaker 1: there was a gorilla that's not Is this wheat book
Speaker 1: available on tape? I don't know about that, but it
Speaker 1: is in public domain. Dan, you could do a free
Speaker 1: audio book of the week Satan's Bookshel oh Man. That
Speaker 1: is an MST three K movie waiting to happen. I
Speaker 1: had to note we're going on a bit of a
Speaker 1: tangent with Garrett Garrett, but it is important to get
Speaker 1: some some some texture as to like the kind of
Speaker 1: material that Spiritual Mobilization is putting out. And when I
Speaker 1: saw that Garrett Garrett had been an opponent of us,
Speaker 1: involvement in the Second World War. I did a little
Speaker 1: bit more digging and I found an article from Garrett
Speaker 1: Garrett titled War has Lost its Pockets from the Saturday
Speaker 1: Evening Post in nineteen forty, where Garrett argues He argues
Speaker 1: a lot in this article. One of the things he
Speaker 1: says is that it wouldn't make sense for the Nazis
Speaker 1: to use forced labor because that's bad for business. Sure,
Speaker 1: Nazis that wouldn't use forced labor. That's not very efficient.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be I'm gonna be straight with you. Indisputable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, nailed it. Get I've heard that same sort
Speaker 1: of like tone from libertarians about slavery in America as well,
Speaker 1: like that people wouldn't mistreat their slaves. That doesn't make
Speaker 1: economic sense. Yeah, okay, guys. Anyways, my favorite book of
Speaker 1: the Bible is Exodus. I don't know why. So Spiritual
Speaker 1: Mobilization sells this guy's books like hotcakes. Now flush with cash,
Speaker 1: Fivefield decides to draw in new ministers by making the
Speaker 1: gospel of free enterprise profitable. In October of ninety seven,
Speaker 1: he holds a national sermon competition with the Perils to
Speaker 1: Freedom as a theme, and he offers five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in prize money. More than twenty thousand ministers submit entries,
Speaker 1: which is fifteen percent of all clergymen in the nation.
Speaker 1: So this is now, This isn't just I sent a
Speaker 1: letter to a bunch of people. This is I have
Speaker 1: made a connection. They are engaging directly with the and
Speaker 1: making propaganda of their own now, which is a really
Speaker 1: smart way to do this, right. Can I ask you
Speaker 1: a question, Yeah, has has part of that been like,
Speaker 1: because because everything that we're talking about now is purely
Speaker 1: economic and currently in the present day, all of that
Speaker 1: is tied in with a real blood thirst. So in
Speaker 1: this time period, was that separate? Was there still that
Speaker 1: undercurrent of like and you're to have to kill infidels
Speaker 1: like that kind of thing, or yeah, that's there. I mean,
Speaker 1: these guys are very we'll talk. The Korean War comes
Speaker 1: into this a little bit um you know there there,
Speaker 1: this is this immediate post war period. There's not quite
Speaker 1: as much of that just because everyone's kind of tired
Speaker 1: of fighting for a little byone's already fought out, but
Speaker 1: we know several million died whatever. Once we start getting
Speaker 1: into these wars, and Korea in Vietnam. Yes, these guys
Speaker 1: get very pro killing the communists, and you know that
Speaker 1: this is cool. This gives birth to the to the
Speaker 1: chunks of the conservative movement that are pro Rhodesia and
Speaker 1: all that. Yes, so Pugh and the n A M
Speaker 1: are so happy with this, this thing that Fifield carries
Speaker 1: out getting all these ministers to engage with this propaganda,
Speaker 1: that they double his annual budget. Pugh generally takes a
Speaker 1: lead here in soliciting donations from his rich friends. He
Speaker 1: he sees this as a success, and he wants to
Speaker 1: like a crack has been made in this wall of
Speaker 1: leftism in in the clergy in America, and he wants
Speaker 1: to shoot as much fucking water into that crack as possible,
Speaker 1: try to expand it. Um. So he tells his fellow
Speaker 1: rich guy friends it is hot that spiritual mobilization should
Speaker 1: be at the top of the list for all their donations,
Speaker 1: citing the polls that he paid for that showed ministers
Speaker 1: as the most influential molders of public opinion. But as
Speaker 1: this experiment rolled forward, there were some on the left
Speaker 1: who could see the shape of was starting to take form.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote now from Kevin Cruz's book One Nation
Speaker 1: Under God, How Corporate America invented Christian America. Quote. In February,
Speaker 1: journalist Kerry McWilliams wrote in a cidic cover story on
Speaker 1: It for the Nation, with save Christianity and the save
Speaker 1: Western Capitalism chance becoming almost indistinguishable, A major battle for
Speaker 1: the minds of the clergy, particularly those of the Protestant persuasion,
Speaker 1: is now being waged in America, he began. For the
Speaker 1: most part, the battle lines are honestly drawn and represent
Speaker 1: a sharp clash in ideologies. But now and then the
Speaker 1: reactionary side tries to fudge a bit by backing movements
Speaker 1: which mask their true character and real sponsors. Such a
Speaker 1: movement as Spiritual Mobilization. McWilliams explained to his readers the
Speaker 1: scope of its operations, note that it now had nine
Speaker 1: organizers working in high rent offices in New York, Chicago,
Speaker 1: and Los Angeles, and had distributed hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: pamphlets to prob by pro business authors for free, but
Speaker 1: no one knew who was funding the operation. McWilliams warned
Speaker 1: there had only been vague statements from Fifield that non
Speaker 1: ministers who have a common stake in the America and
Speaker 1: Christian traditions cannot contribute service, and that it was only
Speaker 1: natural that they give substance instead. And mc williams's withering account,
Speaker 1: Fifield came off as a charlatan who prostrated himself before
Speaker 1: the apostles of rugged individualism to secure his own fame
Speaker 1: and fortune, and in return prostituted himself for their needs.
Speaker 1: So and this is how it's framed at the time
Speaker 1: because they don't have access to like the letters and
Speaker 1: stuff I've been reading. They don't know that this is
Speaker 1: all funded by the n A. M. Right, that's not
Speaker 1: super obvious to any to anyone writing it, but that
Speaker 1: he can tell from what Fifield saying that like there
Speaker 1: is some shady business interest in spiritual pobalization, like he's
Speaker 1: speaking about it. I always love more than anything whenever
Speaker 1: people use adjectives that are thoroughly inadequate for the job
Speaker 1: of like you know, he's fudging things, like no, there's
Speaker 1: a multimillion dollar campaign behind a lie, Like this is
Speaker 1: not fudging things. He's not Like, oh it's not it's
Speaker 1: not fifty dollars, it's a hundred dollars. It's this motherfucker
Speaker 1: is killing everyone. Yeah, I mean obviously at the time
Speaker 1: to like McWilliams doesn't have all that data. There's only
Speaker 1: so much you can say in an article without being sued.
Speaker 1: But you can see he's like he's he knows what's happening,
Speaker 1: he just doesn't have the proof of it, right, Like
Speaker 1: he's trying to like put that out as clearly as
Speaker 1: he can. Something's rotten in Denmark. And yeah, this scares
Speaker 1: the hell out of the n A M right that
Speaker 1: that like this guy is kind of onto them um
Speaker 1: and that he's attacking fifield is like a charlatan. So
Speaker 1: they mobilize a bunch of rich guys, including the president
Speaker 1: of the Republic Steel Corporation, to send out mass mailers
Speaker 1: to other business owners and executives defending Fifield Um. And
Speaker 1: as a fun fact, the guy who sends out this
Speaker 1: mass letter is the Charles White, the president of Republic Steel.
Speaker 1: Charles White presided over the nineteen thirty seven Memorial Day
Speaker 1: massacre when ten Republic Steel union workers were gunned down
Speaker 1: by policemen for striking. So that's the guy. He sends
Speaker 1: out a letter to a bunch of rich guys calling
Speaker 1: Fivefield one of my personal friends, to solicit donations for
Speaker 1: it's literally about to say republic steel sounds like a
Speaker 1: dystopian future for like the overarching And then the next
Speaker 1: thing you said, murdered ten people. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you know what there are quote from this letter that
Speaker 1: White writes defending Fivefield. Our company has supported this crusade
Speaker 1: generously for some years, and we believe in it deeply,
Speaker 1: the more so since I have read this irresponsible article
Speaker 1: and see how the opposition feels about spiritual mobilization. White
Speaker 1: then went on to ask the people you'd written this
Speaker 1: letter to, why don't you send a check at once?
Speaker 1: And in short order, more than a hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: had been donated by business owners to spiritual mobilization And
Speaker 1: like a couple of days, Um, it's great, Like he's
Speaker 1: doing the whole. They're trying to cancel us, like the
Speaker 1: liberal media is trying to cancel us. You need to
Speaker 1: send us money very ahead of his time, you know, Trailblazer,
Speaker 1: just such a like you're getting money from people. If
Speaker 1: you get a hundred thousand dollars from people, it's people
Speaker 1: who do not give us shit about money, you know,
Speaker 1: like in two days that's crazy. Yeah, and that's like
Speaker 1: a millionaire. Two that's like a couple of million bucks.
Speaker 1: Then yeah. So spiritual mobilization itself responded to this criticism
Speaker 1: in the nation, and that time honored tradition of smart
Speaker 1: ship heads. It got bigger and louder. It launched The
Speaker 1: Freedom Story, a fifteen minute radio program presented by Fifield,
Speaker 1: and here's CRUs in Politico describing this. In the original scripts,
Speaker 1: Fifield made direct attacks on democratic programs at home, but
Speaker 1: his lawyer warned him they would lose the public service
Speaker 1: designation that gave them free air time if he were
Speaker 1: two plane spoken with partisan attacks. In Stay, you're gonna
Speaker 1: go down the Mike Lindell route. You gotta stop, you
Speaker 1: gotta stop. I can see the future. You gotta become
Speaker 1: Mark with Lindell. No, that's not even what he's worried about.
Speaker 1: He's finder than becoming Mike Lindell. He doesn't want him
Speaker 1: to have to pay for this ad by it being right,
Speaker 1: so he advises instead that Fifield should basically, instead of
Speaker 1: don't talk about democratic policies in the US, that's not
Speaker 1: allowed you you'll get you know we'll have to pay
Speaker 1: for it then, But if you talk about foreign examples
Speaker 1: of the minister being socialism, then that's not political. Hey,
Speaker 1: why don't we own why don't we own Venezuela? Like,
Speaker 1: I mean honestly, like look into your heart. Okay, So
Speaker 1: anything outside the United States not politics, not politics, can't
Speaker 1: be politicize. Not exactly. We we just talked about how
Speaker 1: nonpart is in the Crusades were good times. So since
Speaker 1: fifields nambackers had lost a lot of friends in me
Speaker 1: or had a lot of friends in media, it was
Speaker 1: child's play to ensure that this freedom story got free
Speaker 1: airtime in over five hundred stations. So this this thing again,
Speaker 1: and they're like, your motherfucker's could pay for this. But
Speaker 1: you know, it also sounds better if it's not political, right,
Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like I'm a guy making a right
Speaker 1: wing like ad. If I'm just talking about the history
Speaker 1: and the dangers of creeping socialism to freedom in these
Speaker 1: other countries. You know, it's it's it's a smarter way
Speaker 1: to do it. Um. So this is a big hit
Speaker 1: gets out to a lot of earbuds, and five fields
Speaker 1: next big move is a four day conference in nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: with twenty five of the most popular ministers in the
Speaker 1: United States and an assortment of big business leaders, including
Speaker 1: Crane and Pew. A pair of economists, Friedrich von Hayek
Speaker 1: and Ludwig von mess were also present. Yeah, but they're great.
Speaker 1: The Austrians are here. Stop y back in the fix
Speaker 1: in between writing articles about how you don't have to
Speaker 1: feed your kids and how what are you doing feeding
Speaker 1: your kids? You're wasting here yet for him, he sits up,
Speaker 1: Perhaps children should starve, and rounds of applause come from
Speaker 1: the minute. Steers and business leaders in the audience. Listen,
Speaker 1: when I when I went to and took my dog
Speaker 1: Jake to basic dog training, the dog trainer was very specific.
Speaker 1: She said, you have to work for your paycheck. And
Speaker 1: now it makes perfect sense to me. People are dogs,
Speaker 1: is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, Um, that's that's
Speaker 1: what that's That's a big part of what's happening at
Speaker 1: this conference. So Fifield describes the goal of this like
Speaker 1: Uh Symposium as to quote, defined the conflicts in this
Speaker 1: critical period of civilization and to establish freedom's answers to
Speaker 1: these problems. Tentatively, the agenda will cover such subjects as
Speaker 1: the relationship of liberty to Christianity, equality and morality, competition, incorporation,
Speaker 1: and the application of true Christian principles to present day problems.
Speaker 1: So this is a big hit. It gets the most
Speaker 1: popular preachers in the world in the country together with
Speaker 1: all of the richest people in the country and a
Speaker 1: bunch of libertarian economists, and they all start being buddies
Speaker 1: with each other, and they start like spreading their ideas around.
Speaker 1: And these ministers go back to their gigantic churches and
Speaker 1: like start talking about some of the things they've encountered. Uh.
Speaker 1: Social Mobilization launches a magazine called Faith and Freedom, which
Speaker 1: was built as a place where ministers could write in
Speaker 1: and express their views freely, debating with one another over
Speaker 1: the issues of the day. But almost all of those
Speaker 1: debates where really just screeds against social welfare. Right, there's
Speaker 1: not like a left wing right wing debate. It's like
Speaker 1: how much should we stop feeding people? Rum and And
Speaker 1: this is actually where we get into one of the
Speaker 1: precursors of the modern right wing. Like bugbear that Satanists
Speaker 1: are secretly behind socialism, I think this is the start
Speaker 1: of that. And I want to read a quote here.
Speaker 1: This is from one of the ministers who wrote for
Speaker 1: Faith in Freedom and an essay he did called Pagan
Speaker 1: Origin of the Social Gospel um which in which he
Speaker 1: argues that pagan influenced strands of Christianity and he includes
Speaker 1: Unitarianism here, sure had led to a quote shift in
Speaker 1: faith from God to man, from eternity to time, from
Speaker 1: the individual to the group, from individual conversion to social coercion,
Speaker 1: and from the church to the state. That like Pagan
Speaker 1: origin of the Social Gospel, that like the idea of
Speaker 1: a social welfare state in anyway, um is he's not
Speaker 1: calling it Satanist, but it's it's not Christian. It's fundamentally
Speaker 1: anti Christian, is don't I think it's a transition towards Satanism.
Speaker 1: It's God, then humans, then Satan's next. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: You know, I I feel I feel for the for
Speaker 1: these people, right because you used to be able to
Speaker 1: just call someone a witch and people would believe you.
Speaker 1: But now you have to do this whole dog and
Speaker 1: pony show with all these lies. You have to do
Speaker 1: all this pagan ship. You can't just say people who
Speaker 1: like socialism or which people, but to be fair, they
Speaker 1: did do empirical tests about whether or not people were witches.
Speaker 1: Well they were heavy, yeah yeah, or or they were
Speaker 1: able to be crushed by rocks cultures like there were things.
Speaker 1: You would feed them and if they die, they're not
Speaker 1: a witch. But if they survived, they're a witch. It
Speaker 1: works both ways. Get a job or have a giant
Speaker 1: rock tossed on you. I feel like this is very simple.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen fifty, the Republicans, you know, after this
Speaker 1: is after several years of an a M and five
Speaker 1: Field working together. In nineteen fifty the Republicans have a
Speaker 1: huge win at the midterm elections. Right, and this is
Speaker 1: taken by Pew and the others in an a M
Speaker 1: as evidence that what they're doing is working. Right Like this,
Speaker 1: this ship is paying big political dividends. More funds poured
Speaker 1: into spiritual mobilization. Fivefield celebrated in a letter to the
Speaker 1: head of General Motors, writing quote, we are having quite
Speaker 1: a delusive letters from across the country indicating the feeling
Speaker 1: that spiritual mobilization has had some part in the awakening,
Speaker 1: which was evidenced by the elections. Of course, we are
Speaker 1: a little proud and very happy for whatever good we
Speaker 1: have been able to do in waking people up to
Speaker 1: the peril of collectivism and the importance of freedom under God. Meaning,
Speaker 1: now that the Nazis have been gone for a little while,
Speaker 1: fascism can totally be popular. Let's back in back freedom
Speaker 1: under God because there is a tiny number of people
Speaker 1: owning everything, and that's like it's under God because that's
Speaker 1: what God wants, you know. And also definitely not paying taxes,
Speaker 1: that's well for sure, God does not want you paying taxes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: having surfs if you have to pay taxes to help
Speaker 1: them when they work, yeah, I bet they have more
Speaker 1: than one that we did get there eventually. Do you
Speaker 1: have a positive responsibility to help people who are dying?
Speaker 1: Mysa says no, no, no, of course not. And in fact,
Speaker 1: you have a responsibility to maximize your own profit by
Speaker 1: letting people die sometimes, because that's what. Yeah. So, now
Speaker 1: empowered and properly organized, Fivefield decides to lead his most
Speaker 1: ambitious charge ever. He's going to change the fourth of
Speaker 1: July forever. And this is the thing people don't often get.
Speaker 1: Didn't he used to be like a big, big thing
Speaker 1: like we didn't always It wasn't always like the hugest
Speaker 1: deal in the world the fourth of July. Um, it
Speaker 1: has become that in recent decades, and a big part
Speaker 1: of why it is what it is, especially on the right,
Speaker 1: why it is like such an almost a holy day. Um,
Speaker 1: it is kind of a holy day to millions of Americans.
Speaker 1: That really starts in this period. But you know what's
Speaker 1: starting in this period right now? Good services. That's right,
Speaker 1: that's right, and it's never gonna stop. Baby. Ah, we're back,
Speaker 1: and I have just learned the news that Build a
Speaker 1: Bear Workshop launched an after dark series of erotic teddy bears.
Speaker 1: Yeah great, yeah, I uh, this is my whole world now. Um,
Speaker 1: so cancel our next tin podcast recordings. I have a
Speaker 1: new thing to do. Yeah. Oh, they seem to mostly
Speaker 1: just be buildings. I wouldn't openly say that on the internet.
Speaker 1: Robert to that. What what I have a new thing
Speaker 1: to do talking about bears? Yeah? Absolutely? You know, Dan
Speaker 1: and Jordan, you guys can you guys can bounce. I
Speaker 1: got I gotta deal with this bear situation. That's fair.
Speaker 1: That's a fair bear situation. More a fair bear situation.
Speaker 1: Horny horny teddy bears. I want a teddy bear. That's
Speaker 1: ready to netflix and chill. We'll see this is this
Speaker 1: is just society maintaining balance. The eminem's be called less sexy.
Speaker 1: Build bears have to get have to get more fable.
Speaker 1: Do you know what's crazy? The care bear that had
Speaker 1: a volva on its stomach got cut real quick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weird. There's a there's Oh, now I'm in trouble.
Speaker 1: I mean that is that would basically just be a
Speaker 1: fleshlight that, you know, build a Bear could make some
Speaker 1: money with a fleshlight build a Bear. Hey, I think
Speaker 1: builder Bear has already made a bit of money. Look,
Speaker 1: this is this is free cash we are leaving on
Speaker 1: the ground. We need a more fuckable teddy bear. Look,
Speaker 1: this has been the problem since time immemorial. The problem
Speaker 1: with this riff is that it hasn't gone long enough.
Speaker 1: And once again the furries have been on the cutting
Speaker 1: edge of a well they a sponsor. Yes, yeah, we are,
Speaker 1: we are. We are sponsored by the concept of having
Speaker 1: sex with anthropomorphized bears. Adam and dot com that that
Speaker 1: is really the primary reason this podcast exists. Big fuck Bear,
Speaker 1: that's that's our sponsor. Sophie. Really stay in quiet here.
Speaker 1: So when we last left our actual episode. Uh, our
Speaker 1: our buddy, Mr Fifield has decided he's going to change
Speaker 1: the Fourth of July, and to explain what his plan is,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from Kevin Cruz again. To mark the
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy anniversary if the signing of the Declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence, they proposed for the week surrounding the Fourth
Speaker 1: of July a massive series of events devoted to the
Speaker 1: theme of freedom under God. To that end, in June one,
Speaker 1: the leaders of Spiritual Mobilization announced the formation of a
Speaker 1: new Committee to Proclaim Liberty the CPL to coordinate their
Speaker 1: Fourth of July Freedom under God's celebrations. Despite its apparent
Speaker 1: spiritual emphasis, the true goal of the committee was advancing
Speaker 1: political conservatisms. It's two most prominent members had been brought
Speaker 1: low by Democratic administrations. Hoover driven from the White House
Speaker 1: two decades earlier by Franklin Roosevelt from the driven from
Speaker 1: the right, stones and chains and whims kept Pennsylvania. You
Speaker 1: want to guess who who Hoover's partner was in this?
Speaker 1: Who are you gonna put up next to Herbert Hoover
Speaker 1: in this? Douglas MacArthur, Yeah, baby, because he had just
Speaker 1: gotten fired by Harry Truman for wanting to nuke all
Speaker 1: of China in Russia basically during the war, he was like,
Speaker 1: why don't we start a nuclear war that kills tens
Speaker 1: of millions of people in order to win in Korea?
Speaker 1: And Truman was like, oh God, you're out of your mind.
Speaker 1: You should not be in charge of fighting men anymore.
Speaker 1: And then MacArthur said, what about freedom? Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: what he spends the rest of his life doing. In
Speaker 1: his defense, at the time, the military was just firing
Speaker 1: nuclear bombs into Arizona and forcing troops to walk through
Speaker 1: it in case it gave We look, we should at
Speaker 1: least knuke the enemy as much as we're knuking ourselves. Right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: that's just fair. That's Doug MacArthur's attitude. So he had
Speaker 1: gotten fired two months ago when he gets put in
Speaker 1: this committee, right like, he has just gotten out of
Speaker 1: the Korean War business. Um So he immediately goes into
Speaker 1: let's make Christianity capitalism by subverting the fourth of July
Speaker 1: to our own purposes. Um So, these guys get joined
Speaker 1: by a bunch of different legal like conservative right wing
Speaker 1: media figures, entertainment industry figures who are like very right wing.
Speaker 1: Bing Crosby is a member of this committee, right, Bingo,
Speaker 1: James O'Keefe. Um, no, but ci so every time I've
Speaker 1: watched White Christmas, I've supported a fucking Nazi. Goddamnit. Little
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, old Blue Eyes wasn't a good man.
Speaker 1: Can't imagine you not just assuming that Cecil is on
Speaker 1: the committee to proclaim liberty. Yeah, but of course he is.
Speaker 1: Walt Disney is on the committee to proclaim that bing
Speaker 1: Crosby was a Nazi. Yeah, he's been pretty far right.
Speaker 1: And of course our buddy Ronald Reagan is on the committee.
Speaker 1: And then you've got a bunch of big business types.
Speaker 1: There's j. Howard Pugh obviously, Harvey Firestone, Conrad Hilton, James Craft,
Speaker 1: Harvey Firesteam, No Firestone, very different, very different. I was
Speaker 1: living in Independence day. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Man Craft, Henry Us, Fred Maytag and J. C. Penney, Um,
Speaker 1: all of these guys are are are part of the committee,
Speaker 1: are hanging out with Bingo, you know, trying to do
Speaker 1: a kill democracy. Every time you learn the history of
Speaker 1: where you shop, if it's been around for longer than
Speaker 1: fifty years, you're like, why why aren't I burning this
Speaker 1: down right now? Why aren't I just lighting it on fire? Question,
Speaker 1: everyone briefly asked. And there's zero reason. There's zero reason
Speaker 1: for a hobby lobby hobby lobby to still standing, like
Speaker 1: zero reason they got a house those stolen artifacts, that
Speaker 1: is true. And now we're back to Indiana Jones. So
Speaker 1: you wouldn't think a group of luminaries and brands with
Speaker 1: that kind of star power. You got all the big
Speaker 1: bing Crosby and Walt Disney together finally with with Douglas MacArthur.
Speaker 1: It is a dream team of dudes who sucked um,
Speaker 1: But you wouldn't think like with that kind of they're
Speaker 1: also dudes who are pretty good at being famous. You
Speaker 1: wouldn't think they would have needed to advertise for this
Speaker 1: sort of thing, but by god they do. Disney, Firestone,
Speaker 1: all of these big corporate like Motherfucker's take out a
Speaker 1: series of full page newspaper ads advertising all these events
Speaker 1: around the fourth of July, this like week of right
Speaker 1: wing you know, uh, speeches and radio programs and whatnot. Um.
Speaker 1: Each of these full page ads focuses primarily on the
Speaker 1: preamble to the Declaration of Independence. A lot of them
Speaker 1: are just the preamble being printed. Now, you might wonder, well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't sound super right wing, right, that's just like
Speaker 1: a historical thing about the United States printing. There's nothing
Speaker 1: particularly right wing about printing the Declaration of It. No, No,
Speaker 1: you have to read it for it not to be
Speaker 1: right wing. If you print it and you don't read it,
Speaker 1: it's a little I'm saying, Yeah, that's that is essentially
Speaker 1: what they're doing because they want people to read the preamble.
Speaker 1: They don't want people to read the Declaration of Independence.
Speaker 1: If you read the Declaration of Independence, a lot of
Speaker 1: it is very specific critiques about shortcomings of the British government.
Speaker 1: Right they are their problem is a lack of good
Speaker 1: government there as as you might guess by the fact
Speaker 1: that they made a government. They're not anti government. Um.
Speaker 1: And again evidence of this is that when the revolution
Speaker 1: was one, a lot of people who had signed that
Speaker 1: declaration went on to crush a libertarian uprising in their
Speaker 1: own country with cannons, you know, like they were not.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you know, reasonably speaking, only two people
Speaker 1: have actually read the declaration, and that's King George and
Speaker 1: Nick Cage, and those are the only two to be fair.
Speaker 1: Nicolas Cage read at the back of it. He did,
Speaker 1: he did not, not even the front of it. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: quoteing just the preamble of the Declaration of Independence allows
Speaker 1: these guys to turn the declaration from what it is,
Speaker 1: which is a list of political grievances rooted in a
Speaker 1: specific place in time, and the solution of those grievances
Speaker 1: was a kind of government. It allows them to ignore
Speaker 1: that and just turned through the using only the preamble,
Speaker 1: turned the Declaration into a manifesto of Christian libertarianism. Were
Speaker 1: the only focus is in the Founding Fathers wanting to
Speaker 1: remove government. Right, That's not the declaration. Isn't the Founding
Speaker 1: Fathers saying we don't want to have government because free
Speaker 1: enterprise is best. It's them saying this government is ship
Speaker 1: and we want to do a better job. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: you don't want that thought to go into people's head.
Speaker 1: In his book One Nation Under God, Cruise quotes one
Speaker 1: version of this ad paid for by a by the
Speaker 1: San Diego Gas and Electric Company. It told its readers, quote,
Speaker 1: these words are the stones upon which man built history's
Speaker 1: greatest work. The United States of America, remember them well,
Speaker 1: and the words of the preamble were accompanied by helpful
Speaker 1: analysis by the good people at the Committee to Preserve Liberty.
Speaker 1: All men are created equal. That means you are as
Speaker 1: important in the eyes of God as any man brought
Speaker 1: into this world. You are made in His image and likeness.
Speaker 1: There is no superior man anyway. All right, so we're
Speaker 1: anywhere the period. Fine, Fine, we're all gonna go home,
Speaker 1: end of show. That guy was great. Let's get out
Speaker 1: of here. They are endowed by their creator with certain
Speaker 1: and alienable rights. Here's your birthright. Theed them to live, work, worship,
Speaker 1: and vote as you choose. These are rights no government
Speaker 1: on earth may take from you, except for the government
Speaker 1: established by this declaration, which didn't let most people vote.
Speaker 1: But like whatever, more rights than those that to secure
Speaker 1: these rights. Governments are instituted among men. Here is the
Speaker 1: reason for and the purpose of government. Government is but
Speaker 1: a servant, not a master, not a giver of anything.
Speaker 1: Right now, we get into the right wing propaganda um
Speaker 1: deriving their just powers from the consent of the government.
Speaker 1: In America, the government it may assume only the powers
Speaker 1: you allow it to have. It may assume no others.
Speaker 1: This is a subtle piece of propaganda, though this is
Speaker 1: very smart. What they are doing here is re contextualizing
Speaker 1: and repurposing history into something very different than what it
Speaker 1: was UM in order to inculcate a specific political ideology
Speaker 1: in the population UM. And this works pretty fucking good.
Speaker 1: If you want to talk about how successful replacing the
Speaker 1: real get the world today, what are you fucking talking about?
Speaker 1: All we need evidence? I am. Do you know how
Speaker 1: obvious it is you use the word inculcate? I did um?
Speaker 1: I I want to quote to talk about like how
Speaker 1: successful specifically that this word is. Both of us have podcasts.
Speaker 1: Both of us have podcasts. Yeah. But also it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me that the preamble remains a really common piece
Speaker 1: of right wing propaganda in a lot of ship that's
Speaker 1: been happening very recently. I'm gonna quote from Jacqueline Keeler's
Speaker 1: book Standoff, which is about the Bundy occupation of the
Speaker 1: Malhair Wildlife Refuge. Quote. On January nineteen, Ryan Payne, a
Speaker 1: mal Heir occupier and founder of Operation Mutual Aid, a
Speaker 1: militia coalition based in Montana, read the preamble of the
Speaker 1: declaration of independence at a community meeting held at the refuge.
Speaker 1: Political instruction in the philosophical beliefs that brought anti government
Speaker 1: activists together and armed rebellion against the fence was common
Speaker 1: at both the refuge and during Clive and Bundy standoff
Speaker 1: and Bunkerville, Nevada two years earlier. And that's this is
Speaker 1: interesting because it's not just the preamble. A lot of
Speaker 1: these militiamen carry pocket constitutions, right. That is a huge
Speaker 1: thing among chunks of the libertarian right. Um. And the
Speaker 1: specific pocket constitutions that are everyone at fucking malhair has
Speaker 1: are produced by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, which
Speaker 1: was founded by a Mormon elder named w Cleon Skousen. Yeah, baby,
Speaker 1: scousands in the Housen h was a founder of the
Speaker 1: John Birch Society, who are directly talking with five Field
Speaker 1: and with n a M. They are working with n
Speaker 1: a M right now. Welch is a member like Yeah,
Speaker 1: Scousen got sort of yet to remove himself from the
Speaker 1: Birch Society because he was too extremes. This is the
Speaker 1: guy who was too shitty for the worst people ever. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: But it is important to note that Scausen is very
Speaker 1: much copying Fifield and his organization in handing out these
Speaker 1: pocket constitutions. He this is where this idea comes from,
Speaker 1: that we can repurpose pieces of American history for this
Speaker 1: specific end without like like that that's um like a
Speaker 1: great thing for us is going to be taking these
Speaker 1: historical documents, adding our own context to them, adding essays
Speaker 1: to them, explaining them in a way that makes our
Speaker 1: ideology seem like the only possible American thing. That starts
Speaker 1: here with the Committee to Preserve Liberty and their effort
Speaker 1: to re contextualize the Fourth of July. UM, and obviously
Speaker 1: we've talked about it has been a tremendously successful thing.
Speaker 1: So basically what you're saying is that we need a
Speaker 1: fucking time machine. I look, if I had a time machine, Uh,
Speaker 1: I would I would? I would get up to some ship. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there'd be a lot of folks just missing. Boy howdy
Speaker 1: um starting. No, that's not a good joke to tell.
Speaker 1: Back to the Fourth of July. In the lead up
Speaker 1: to the day itself, Reverend Fifield gave a big radio
Speaker 1: service wherein he introduced the people of the United States
Speaker 1: to the Committee to Proclaim Liberty. He told them its
Speaker 1: purpose was to quote revive a custom long forgotten in
Speaker 1: America spiritual emphasis. On the fourth of July, they held
Speaker 1: another big essay contest, soliciting sermons on the theme Freedom
Speaker 1: under God. Fifield encouraged ministers to read the sermons they
Speaker 1: wrote to their own congregations on independent Sunday, July one.
Speaker 1: Now I want to hone in on this a bit
Speaker 1: because it's brilliant. Earlier, Pew had criticized five Field for
Speaker 1: not directly controlling what ministers wrote and said in their sermons.
Speaker 1: But data had told me at am that that handing
Speaker 1: out all right, that's just a sad criticism. It's like, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: you're not controlling what everyone's saying. You get your pastors
Speaker 1: on a hip. Yeah. But at the same time, while
Speaker 1: like p was frustrated by this in a MS, data
Speaker 1: shows that the pre written sermons and stuff that like
Speaker 1: that they're handing out don't work. They sound too much. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Fiefield gets the brothers are right, they're man was
Speaker 1: found exactly. Yeah, Fiefield gets seventeen thousand ministers to write
Speaker 1: their own sermons on a theme that he's chosen. Um
Speaker 1: and like ties that to the fourth of July. Right,
Speaker 1: has all of the all of these ministers, thousands of
Speaker 1: them around the country, giving variations of the same speech
Speaker 1: on the thing he's picked all the July. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: will put it in your own words kind of, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: that's how you copy. Well, it's like, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: a high school essay context. Yeah, it's like the winner
Speaker 1: gets to go to fucking d C. Yeah, gets to
Speaker 1: help overthrow democracy and institute an oligarchic dictatorship. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean you put it like that's a bad thing, but
Speaker 1: that is an accomplishment. It is an accomplishment. Look, I
Speaker 1: mean you got to get him taken anything from these dudes.
Speaker 1: They're good at what they're doing. So I'm gonna quote
Speaker 1: next from Kevin Cruz again. These sermons were amplified by
Speaker 1: a program broadcast that same evening over CBSS National Radio Network.
Speaker 1: Cecil Bata Mill worked with his old friend Fifield to
Speaker 1: plan the production, giving it a professional tone and attracting
Speaker 1: an impressive array of Hollywood stars. Jimmy Stewart served as
Speaker 1: master of ceremonies, while Bing Crosby and Glorious Swanson offered
Speaker 1: short messages of their own. The preamble to the declaration
Speaker 1: was led by Lionel Barrymore, who had gonna be Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 1: This is this is what happens when you make a
Speaker 1: banker the protagonist of one of the most famous movies
Speaker 1: of all time. That's entirely that's all. I know. You've
Speaker 1: got very good points about all of these people. I mean,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna blame Jimmy Stewart alone. It's it's it's him,
Speaker 1: not just a banker, but a banker who, to his credit, bombed,
Speaker 1: flew a bunch of bombing missions over Jermy and World
Speaker 1: War two, and then, to less of his credit, was
Speaker 1: an active general during the Korean War of the Air Force.
Speaker 1: Don't don't get me started on Mickey's history. And Mickey
Speaker 1: Mouse has killed a lot of people. But you know what,
Speaker 1: Mickey doesn't get up in the sky to do it.
Speaker 1: Mickey Mickey uses a knife. That's true. Um, yeah, so
Speaker 1: Lionel Barrymore, Drew Barrymore is either father or grandfather I
Speaker 1: forget right now, but stop it. Yeah, ten people alive.
Speaker 1: I'm sick of this spot about it. He poses to
Speaker 1: like help advertise this event where he's, you know, all
Speaker 1: these famous people are giving speeches and he's reading the
Speaker 1: pre embl He poses holding a giant quill and looking
Speaker 1: at a piece apartment a parchment with the words freedom
Speaker 1: under God will save our country. Again, this is we
Speaker 1: don't think about what under God means so much, but
Speaker 1: like this is a very specific political line because freedom
Speaker 1: under God, they have made mean a very specific thing.
Speaker 1: Right that you have the freedom to be poor. That's
Speaker 1: what it means freedom under God to these guys is
Speaker 1: you have the freedom to be poor, and you're not
Speaker 1: free if there aren't poor people. That's it sounds like
Speaker 1: you are not thankful for your freedom. Sir. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, that's that's that's where all this get started.
Speaker 1: So the broadcast featured choral performances of the America as
Speaker 1: well as heritage, an epic poem composed by the former
Speaker 1: leader of the US Chamber of Congress, General Matthew Ridgeway.
Speaker 1: Yeah whites are great. Yeah, whites are great. Everybody knows
Speaker 1: it's fun. The guy who takes over commanding American forces
Speaker 1: in Korea. Uh, Lionel Barrymore's great uncle to Drew Barrymore.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sophie. Uh somewhere in there, um so, Matthew Ridgeway,
Speaker 1: who's the commander of American forces in Korea, the guy
Speaker 1: who replaces uh fucking famous right wing ship head Douglas MacArthur. Um,
Speaker 1: he's also a right wing ship head. And he gives
Speaker 1: a keynote address from Tokyo as part of this like
Speaker 1: big fucking Fourth of July brew haha. And he tells
Speaker 1: America that the Founding Fathers were motivated to do what
Speaker 1: they did by their Christianity. Um, you know, don't read
Speaker 1: Thomas Paine in the whole book he wrote about how
Speaker 1: he doesn't like Christianity. They did it all for Jesus.
Speaker 1: You know, that was the genesis of America. So this
Speaker 1: is the kind of propaganda that sticks in people's hearts
Speaker 1: and souls and it becomes central to their being the
Speaker 1: genius here. And this is where Pew and the n
Speaker 1: a M come into It. Was that wrangling beloved celebrities
Speaker 1: like Jimmy Stewart and Bing Crosby Like that's they're They're like,
Speaker 1: Fifield doesn't have that kind of power on his own,
Speaker 1: but the n a M does. They've got all these
Speaker 1: fucking in roads everywhere. And this, this whole gigantic event
Speaker 1: solidifies the Fourth of July as the most Sacred Day
Speaker 1: in the right wing religious calendar right Um and as
Speaker 1: a site benefit to the corporations who sponsored the show,
Speaker 1: the Christian libertarian ideology FI Field five Field expands upon
Speaker 1: over the airwaves also gets to hit your ride into
Speaker 1: people's souls. It becomes part of the Fourth of July
Speaker 1: and part of the celebration of the Fourth of July,
Speaker 1: and part of the lexicon we used to talk about.
Speaker 1: Freedom gets infected with this thing that he's invented. One
Speaker 1: of the things that I absolutely despise most more than
Speaker 1: anything else, is finding out some horrific tradition is only
Speaker 1: like like my dad could have not dealt with it,
Speaker 1: you know, like like every time I go to a
Speaker 1: baseball game and there's a fly by by ship, I'm like,
Speaker 1: the war's over, man, Like I want to start a war.
Speaker 1: Like it's that kind of fury at like we're past this, man,
Speaker 1: Why we still? Why are we doing this? Why are
Speaker 1: we doing this? We do this for a long time.
Speaker 1: The information that you have just provided Jordan will make
Speaker 1: it so he can't watch the hot dog eating contest?
Speaker 1: Will you ever watch that hot dog eating contest? I
Speaker 1: will watch? Yeah, I mean I've never watched one and
Speaker 1: never will again, but certainly extra not now. And you
Speaker 1: can tell Jamie Loft as I said that, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: better fucking do it. Yeah, anyways, I will. So the
Speaker 1: celebrations all of this ship we've talked about is the
Speaker 1: days leading up to the fourth of July. Um. On
Speaker 1: the fourth itself, the Committee to Proclaim Liberty coordinates Americans
Speaker 1: in nearly every state to all ring their church bells
Speaker 1: simultaneously for ten minutes. I don't like that. I don't
Speaker 1: like No, that's great, it's great. In Los Angeles, the
Speaker 1: city government uses the air raid sirens like to do this,
Speaker 1: like they joined in with l A's air raids. This
Speaker 1: is the first time Los Angeles air raid sirens are used.
Speaker 1: Um scare people who didn't know. Yeah, why what did
Speaker 1: you do this? There's a cold bar on what we
Speaker 1: are fighting in Korea. Everyone has nukes now, um one.
Speaker 1: That's one of the That's one of the things that
Speaker 1: is like changed so much from growing up in small
Speaker 1: town Middle America. Is like, when I was young, a
Speaker 1: large group of people chanting the same thing was good.
Speaker 1: Now that we're where we are, if a large group
Speaker 1: of people chant the same thing, I'm running in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction. I don't care if it's USA or like
Speaker 1: fucking Sylvan Esso is great. I'm out of here because
Speaker 1: there's Nazis there. Um. Sophie also just muted me for
Speaker 1: a second. That's when everyone I knows she's trying to
Speaker 1: steal my my my voice, and my free speech. I'm
Speaker 1: being canceled by the radical left. So uh one if so.
Speaker 1: The fucking Los Angeles uses their air raid sirens to
Speaker 1: celebrate the Fourth of July, and a newspaper writer describes
Speaker 1: it as in the most fascist line I have ever
Speaker 1: heard in a newspaper, A scream as wild and proud
Speaker 1: as that of the American Eagle. Yeah, you love to
Speaker 1: hear it, Daniel, Can we get an air raid sirens
Speaker 1: so everyone can hear a scream as loud and proud
Speaker 1: as the American Eagle? I was a good air raid siren,
Speaker 1: not Daniel, Chris, sorry, beautiful Chris. Just so, the whole
Speaker 1: thing was a big hit. The Committee to Proclaim Liberty
Speaker 1: organizers wrote in a later analysis that quote the very
Speaker 1: words freedom under God have added to the vocabulary of
Speaker 1: freedom a new term. It is a significant phrase to
Speaker 1: people who know that everybody from Stalin on down is
Speaker 1: paying lip service to freedom until its root meeting is
Speaker 1: no longer a parent. The term freedom under God provides
Speaker 1: a means of identifying and separating conditions which indicate pseudo
Speaker 1: freedom or actual slavery from those of true freedom. So
Speaker 1: if you think freedom is not having to worry about
Speaker 1: going broke because you can't pay for healthcare, or if
Speaker 1: you think freedom is not starving to death, you're a slave,
Speaker 1: that's slavery. That's a really good point that I hadn't
Speaker 1: thought of it in that way before, but since you
Speaker 1: just said it, I'm convinced. Yeah, yess, I'm going to
Speaker 1: go on to vote for Ronald Reagan in a couple
Speaker 1: of days. It's it's really weird. It's really weird how
Speaker 1: you convinced me of a point that you were in
Speaker 1: opposition to. So things start to move very quickly after
Speaker 1: this point. This is a huge hit. So in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty three, the US has its first ever National Prayer Breakfast. Um,
Speaker 1: we can talk a lot about the family here, but
Speaker 1: you know what, the theme of the first Prayer Breakfast
Speaker 1: is contest almost basic government under God. There's that term
Speaker 1: under God again. In nineteen fifty four, the Pledge of
Speaker 1: Allegiance has the words under God added to it. Congress
Speaker 1: adds in God we Trust to our stamps in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four and to paper money in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty six, in God we Trust becomes the
Speaker 1: first official motto of the United States. All of this
Speaker 1: happens right after this Fourth July events. Fairly, I know,
Speaker 1: it's really not fair. That's fucked up. Like if if
Speaker 1: my dad didn't have to say under God, I should
Speaker 1: retroactively not have to have said it when I said
Speaker 1: the president, And if you and if someone suggests that
Speaker 1: you shouldn't have to say your dad's gonna be pissed.
Speaker 1: You know who else is going to be will be
Speaker 1: furious the hot dog you didn't contest people. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're always angry. No, who's gonna be piste is
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast because they're
Speaker 1: such good deals that ley're losing money on every sale.
Speaker 1: You know, they're really because of the deals that we're
Speaker 1: giving you. It's really hurting them. So they don't they
Speaker 1: do have that freedom, they have that freedom to be poor,
Speaker 1: you know. Ah, and we're back. We are you and
Speaker 1: I me us all here together talking. I just want
Speaker 1: to say now that now that we're back, you're doing
Speaker 1: a great job. Thank you, thank you, Yeah, thank you, Jordan,
Speaker 1: thank you. I'm sorry for all the mean things I
Speaker 1: said about you all fair to your face. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's okay. I cried through it. Sophie says most of
Speaker 1: stuff to me every morning. That's how I wake up
Speaker 1: every And also, also, I'd like to apologize that I
Speaker 1: kept telling you that Hoover won Pennsylvania during the you
Speaker 1: you did say that about a hundred and thirty times
Speaker 1: when Jordan was just cursing at me in an unbroken stream.
Speaker 1: I don't know what came over me, but yeah, it's
Speaker 1: good stuff. We'll just make that be the ad break
Speaker 1: next time. So, Reverend James Fifield has accomplished something amazing
Speaker 1: here right like under God is fucking everywhere, and now
Speaker 1: we all know the horrible, fucked up ideological reasons behind
Speaker 1: those words. In his write up on this whole fucking thing,
Speaker 1: Ecker Toy Junior notes quote many of Fifield's letters, both
Speaker 1: to Pew and Crane, ended with the request for funding.
Speaker 1: Fifield continuously presented himself as selfless and living a simple life,
Speaker 1: even though both his church and his Spiritual Mobilization were
Speaker 1: perpetually in a state of need. As Fifield asked for
Speaker 1: donations and monetary interventions to save himself financially, he and
Speaker 1: his staff directed, very few funds are outreach initiatives to
Speaker 1: the poor. They are spending it. Also were very We're
Speaker 1: very we're the tip of the spear. I just want
Speaker 1: to let you, but we need your money to continue
Speaker 1: fighting the good, fights, pioneering it. Yeah. Yeah, but he's
Speaker 1: just talking directly to rich guys now. Toy quotes from
Speaker 1: a letter an employee of Spiritual Mobilization sent to Crane
Speaker 1: of the n A. M. And nineteen fifty three quote.
Speaker 1: Basic to your thought in this area is the concept
Speaker 1: of vast majorities who cannot take care of themselves. They're
Speaker 1: too foolish, too week two gullible, You and a few
Speaker 1: others who really care feel the need to scurry around
Speaker 1: and get government to force somebody else to do something
Speaker 1: for these poor folk. Tolstoy made an observation that bears
Speaker 1: directly on your little crusade. He said, people will do
Speaker 1: everything for the poor except get off their backs. This
Speaker 1: is the job for the government and libertarian thought to
Speaker 1: destroy parasitism by pulling people off their victims back. For this,
Speaker 1: we need a strong government, strong enough to do the
Speaker 1: job so you might do good stuff that you might
Speaker 1: that incoherent like we need the government. Yea, sir, sir,
Speaker 1: one more time. What it's very funny. It's also funny
Speaker 1: because Fifield himself is absolutely a parasite on the rich.
Speaker 1: Like he's just sucking money away from them and they
Speaker 1: get a lot for it early on, um, but it
Speaker 1: starts it doesn't work as well after this big Fourth
Speaker 1: of July thing that's kind of like his his high point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: fifields high. He did his part. He did his part,
Speaker 1: and it's not necessary after that. That's exactly right. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, you are really getting into a tribe called quests,
Speaker 1: aren't you sure? Come on now, come on, I didn't
Speaker 1: catch that. Am I a monster? Am I a bad?
Speaker 1: It just wasn't a good joke. I'm glad you said it,
Speaker 1: Dan fair point being a hero once again. I have
Speaker 1: the freedom of expression. Well, and we you also have
Speaker 1: the freedom to go broke when you get cancer. We
Speaker 1: have glorious freedom here, all of us, Um. So the
Speaker 1: Reverend Fifield. One of the funny things about him is
Speaker 1: that for all his left of capitalism and ship um,
Speaker 1: every time he tries to do with capitalism, he's terrible
Speaker 1: at it. He he launches a television show based on
Speaker 1: his you know, ramblings that does not do well. People
Speaker 1: do not like the referend five field hour um. But
Speaker 1: um no that he doesn't try doing that, but he does,
Speaker 1: like he has like this land Deally Trade's like a
Speaker 1: couple of different business deals that all fall through that
Speaker 1: he uses the money his foundations getting from rich guys
Speaker 1: to try to fund right um. And they start to
Speaker 1: get angry because they're like, well, he's just using our
Speaker 1: money to try to get rich himself and he's bad
Speaker 1: at it. And that's the real unforgivable. Two rich guys,
Speaker 1: He's gonna say, you do not have the freedom to
Speaker 1: be bad at getting rich. You can you can take
Speaker 1: our money and get rich. You cannot take our money
Speaker 1: and not get rich. Now, the good news is that
Speaker 1: spiritual mobilization had already done the one thing that it
Speaker 1: had meant to do, which is kick open the doors
Speaker 1: of religious politicization and tie Christianity to the free market
Speaker 1: and the hearts of millions of Americans. Just a few
Speaker 1: years after that famous Fourth of July, his work had
Speaker 1: gone so far beyond him that he had been marginalized.
Speaker 1: His final straw with the Pew Brothers was a propaganda film,
Speaker 1: which they considered weak. In nineteen fifty seven, five Field
Speaker 1: quit Spiritual Mobilization altogether, and it drifted along on fumes
Speaker 1: for a few years before it died out. The cause
Speaker 1: it had birthed, however, sailed right ahead. Pew and Crane
Speaker 1: found a new minister to invest in, one who was
Speaker 1: much better with money. Do you want to guess what
Speaker 1: this guy's name was? Uh? Yeah, not Joe, Like, it's
Speaker 1: not quite I do love Marjoe, kind of love margin
Speaker 1: because he's very charming. Now it's Billy Graham, Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: Billy Graham. Baby. So we could have just gone back
Speaker 1: in time and just slapped that guy in the face
Speaker 1: and it would all been fine, and we'd have to
Speaker 1: go back further. There's actually three boats. If I could
Speaker 1: go back in time with a chain gun, there's three
Speaker 1: boats I'm taken care of. You know that sounds like
Speaker 1: that sounds like a Owen Brothers movie. Yeah, three boats
Speaker 1: sunk in the middle of the ocean by a time
Speaker 1: traveler with a gatling gun. Yeah, um so yeah. Billy Graham,
Speaker 1: Um Pew and Crane decided to back him next after
Speaker 1: they kind of abandoned Fifield. You know, he has to
Speaker 1: leave spiritual mobilization. YadA, YadA. Had a very sad story
Speaker 1: for the asshole. Here's Eckert Toy again. The mission was
Speaker 1: to spread the free market conservative message through religion had
Speaker 1: only just begun, and in many ways Graham further nuanced
Speaker 1: its delivery. As Graham himself put it to J. Howard Pugh,
Speaker 1: God has given me the ear of millions. He has
Speaker 1: given to you large sums of money. It seems to
Speaker 1: me that if we can put these two gifts of
Speaker 1: God together, we could reach the world with a message
Speaker 1: of Christ. Billy Graham much smarter guy. As a business proposition,
Speaker 1: supporting Graham was a win win. Graham's ministry would flourish,
Speaker 1: business interests would be advanced by a key opinion shape,
Speaker 1: and unlike Fifield, Graham would not continually pest your Pew
Speaker 1: about his dial or dire financial situation and the need
Speaker 1: for more funds. Graham was a public figure who ingratiated
Speaker 1: himself into the Paul Takes of America, promoting political involvement
Speaker 1: at his revival meetings. He had preached from the steps
Speaker 1: of the US Capital in nineteen fifty two, and he
Speaker 1: also had a close relationship with President Eisenhower. So yes,
Speaker 1: the fame famous communist agent Eisenhower be like communism. Well,
Speaker 1: and that's also too because the very early on n A. M.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ties with the John Birch Society.
Speaker 1: But that's not the best way to get your message
Speaker 1: out to a lot of people. Billy Graham's a much
Speaker 1: cuddlier figure. He's got a lot more people are gonna
Speaker 1: like Billy Graham than than fucking Welch, you know well,
Speaker 1: and his steaks are more real to most people, like
Speaker 1: your eternal souls and bones he's got sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The first big collaboration between you and Graham was a
Speaker 1: little publication. You might have heard about, Jordan, you might
Speaker 1: you might know about this Christianity today, Oh I've heard
Speaker 1: of Yeah, yeah, that's this is how it starts. And
Speaker 1: my family was more focused on the family by the Dobsons,
Speaker 1: but christian it's it's a different magazine now. But It
Speaker 1: was originally number one, It was originally just for ministers,
Speaker 1: and it was founded by Graham and Pew to solidify
Speaker 1: ties between the right wing and organized Christianity. Pew explained, quote,
Speaker 1: Christianity today is a magazine conservative and its theology and
Speaker 1: beamed directly to the ministerial mind mind. Those of us
Speaker 1: who have given years of study to this problem realized
Speaker 1: that it is just as important to have conservatism and
Speaker 1: theology as it is to have conservatism and economics and
Speaker 1: sociology if America is to remain great. And that was true.
Speaker 1: It was they were. They just nailed it. You know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes a lot of people are like, ah, they're
Speaker 1: bad people. But I'm telling you they nailed it. And
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Ministers only
Speaker 1: dot Com, their dating website that they had underneath it,
Speaker 1: that really nailed it. Yeah, Minister Ministers dot Com and
Speaker 1: Priest Fuck, which was its slightly slightly trashy or cousin.
Speaker 1: That was their equivalent of the then Bear Workshop, the
Speaker 1: Catholic funka Bear Workshop. We don't need to get into that.
Speaker 1: That's going to get unsettling quickly. So from the beginning,
Speaker 1: both Graham and especially Pew, took pains to ensure they
Speaker 1: could not be tied too closely to the magazine. They
Speaker 1: didn't want it to be seen as an overtly political look,
Speaker 1: even though it was. Despite claiming a hands off attitude,
Speaker 1: Peugh constantly complained about the editorial direction chosen by the
Speaker 1: man they picked to run the magazine, dr Bell. In
Speaker 1: ninety eight, Pew hired the Opinion Research Bureau to conduct
Speaker 1: one of the first Pew surveys, although it was not
Speaker 1: yet called a Pew Survey, carried out on the readers
Speaker 1: of Christianity Today. It found that nearly thirty percent of
Speaker 1: ministers still described themselves as something besides fundamentalist or conservatives.
Speaker 1: Fourteen percent even called themselves liberal. Now, this might be
Speaker 1: due to the fact that Christianity Today was blatant right
Speaker 1: wing propaganda, so only a few progressive to Reddit. Billy
Speaker 1: Graham probably knew this, but he was savvy enough to
Speaker 1: see how this data could be used to peer pressure
Speaker 1: more ministers into moving right. He wrote, I believe this
Speaker 1: poll should be widely publicized. So many of our ministers
Speaker 1: are liberal only because they think it's the popular thing
Speaker 1: to be. If they could understand that the vast majority
Speaker 1: of American clergy are conservative, it could swing hundreds of
Speaker 1: others over to the conservative position. It would also probably
Speaker 1: have a great impact on our seminaries if properly distributed.
Speaker 1: This isn't the point, but again, your character fell apart.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm not I'm starting, but it just went
Speaker 1: just I mean, I just kept thinking, like what if
Speaker 1: the DARE program was more oriented around Christian nationalism, Like
Speaker 1: if all of these pastors had peer pressured each other
Speaker 1: into doing drugs, I feel like we would have all
Speaker 1: had a little bit in an incredible place as a
Speaker 1: country is being discovered around this time around back, Christianity
Speaker 1: today is literally just sheets of acid inside of a magazine. UM.
Speaker 1: And obviously today it is a different thing. In fact,
Speaker 1: Christianity today is such a centrist magazine now that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump called it far left. UM. Obviously getting good data overall,
Speaker 1: and where priests, ministers, and reverends are politically as complicated,
Speaker 1: it's not an easy group to just certifice, like survey
Speaker 1: all of them. But it's worth noting that while roughly
Speaker 1: eighteen percent of Americans are white Evangelical Protestants, they make
Speaker 1: more up more than forty three percent of what Yes
Speaker 1: Pew Research calls staunch conservatives and thirty nine percent of
Speaker 1: so called mainstream Republicans. So there's a debate to be
Speaker 1: had as to like whether or not it's broadened or
Speaker 1: narrowed the electoral kind of possibilities of conservatives in America.
Speaker 1: But as a result of everything we've talked about this week,
Speaker 1: the center of the of organized conservatism in the US
Speaker 1: are white evangelical Protestants, the most reliable voting block, the
Speaker 1: most organized one. And it all started here. Good time
Speaker 1: refuse rewrite a story and make it less sad, make
Speaker 1: it fun. Um Yeah, yeah, if I get a time machine,
Speaker 1: I can do the fun version of this story. That's
Speaker 1: you know that that makes sense. I mean it is.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people not wanting to. Uh. I
Speaker 1: just I just hate that when stuff isn't old enough.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a period. Yeah. I can't. I can't
Speaker 1: like walk over to my grandfather and be like, hey,
Speaker 1: you remember when things weren't ship Like that's not fair,
Speaker 1: Like I should have to go way further back in time.
Speaker 1: This thing seems so trenched. Yeah, but it's not like
Speaker 1: from the heartening thing about that is is because it's
Speaker 1: not that old. We could we could do different stuff,
Speaker 1: like we could make it be different as a country.
Speaker 1: We had at a certain point of time, Christianity wasn't
Speaker 1: that old, and now it's fucking old, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. But as Robert's also, what could happen Robert
Speaker 1: to your point though, to like, you know, if your
Speaker 1: story has taught me anything. If we're going to shift
Speaker 1: this back, we need billionaires and we need charismatic preachers.
Speaker 1: Those are things that I don't think we have access to.
Speaker 1: I will accept being both at any time, as long
Speaker 1: as everybody else takes care of I know. George Soros
Speaker 1: listens to the podcast. George, Buddy, we got an idea.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna recontextualize what what holiday can we
Speaker 1: take over day? Yeah, we're gonna. We're gonna We're gonna
Speaker 1: your Riper Day is not our take over. We're gonna
Speaker 1: make Memorial Day about I was gonna say, well, that's
Speaker 1: what these guys who do We're gonna Okay, sorry, I
Speaker 1: thought that was President saying. I thought we were branching
Speaker 1: out if we made Memorial Day the center of celebration.
Speaker 1: Breaking into the House of the Alex Asar the former
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services secretary, and taking all the ill
Speaker 1: gotten gains he made from jacking up the price of insulin.
Speaker 1: That could be the new the memorial to the dead
Speaker 1: of the insulin crisis. All we need is a couple
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to really get this going, and we
Speaker 1: can do a deep fake of Bing Crosby and uh
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Stewart, we can recontext. Listen, Jimmy, both of
Speaker 1: us were kind of milk toast before you say Bing
Speaker 1: Crosby a man. I don't see why we shouldn't go
Speaker 1: to Aleck's alex He's os house and and take his
Speaker 1: and take his cars and his nice golden things. I'm
Speaker 1: James Stewart. Yeah, that was a character than I do
Speaker 1: my best there. I can't. I can't well, I'm Bing Crosby,
Speaker 1: and I think you should go to alex as Our's
Speaker 1: house and take his car. Every every time I take
Speaker 1: about doing a car, every time I think about doing
Speaker 1: a Bing Crosby, it transfers in to Yogi Bear instantaneously,
Speaker 1: just that constant like hey, we're gonna hey booboo. Like
Speaker 1: it's so fast. There's not a lot of the Sackler
Speaker 1: family toad into the middle of the ocean on a
Speaker 1: barge basket. Hey, boo boo, we gotta take down the state. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bing Crosby and fucking uh the bear. Goddamn it, I
Speaker 1: spaced on the name. I ruined the joke. Now it's over. Well,
Speaker 1: now you're great. You guys got any pluggables to plug?
Speaker 1: I just you know, we have our our podcast to
Speaker 1: Knowledge Fight dot com. Where where that lives? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just want to aggressively promote my book on this one.
Speaker 1: It's called the Quiet Part Loud. You can download it
Speaker 1: for free at the Quiet Part anything you want, just
Speaker 1: read it or don't. I really just put it out
Speaker 1: there and it was great. Anyways, it's the Quiet Part
Speaker 1: Loud dot Com. It's a passive aggressive club. Just want
Speaker 1: to aggressively promote my book. There you go and see.
Speaker 1: That's how you do it. That's how you plug your learning.
Speaker 1: I'm trying. You're learning. Soon you'll be as good a
Speaker 1: pitchman as the reincarnated digital ghosts of Jimmy Stewart and
Speaker 1: Bing Crossby. I'm just looking for them level of cells. Yeah, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, soon coming soon. Lionel Barrymore comes back
Speaker 1: and tell people to rob Bank of America locations. Mickey Mouse,
Speaker 1: Mickey Mouse and fighting in the mountains to make a
Speaker 1: Zapatista like colony in Appalachia. I'll be back over the
Speaker 1: war is fish. Um. We could do it, everybody, we
Speaker 1: could do it. All we need is a couple hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars. So now I'm now, I'm in my head
Speaker 1: reading of a war letters in Mickey Mouse's voice, and
Speaker 1: the caravan hanging in. An addition to the government troops,
Speaker 1: ri sl my love for you, burn says every night.
Speaker 1: All right, well that should get us some fun fan art. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the episode. Have a good week, everybody,