Speaker 1: Oh boy, what a great day. I'm feeling so good.
Speaker 1: You know what, I'm just gonna Oh, what's that, Sophie,
Speaker 1: there's a knock at the door. Should should we? Should
Speaker 1: we see who it is? I mean, yeah, why it's
Speaker 1: Dan and Jordan's from Knowledge Fight. I had to come
Speaker 1: running when I heard that weird noise come out of
Speaker 1: your mouth. Check on you. All I want to say
Speaker 1: is thank you, thank you. Normally it's my atonal grunting
Speaker 1: that opens the show. I don't know how you guys.
Speaker 1: You have a you have a great song to lead you,
Speaker 1: and I don't know how you so consistently open a
Speaker 1: show without just grunting and moaning. We do that under
Speaker 1: the theme song turned off. We're just getting stretching before
Speaker 1: you go run a marathon. You guys just go just
Speaker 1: putting out on wet and like heavy, heavy breathing up. Hello, God,
Speaker 1: you're Jordan's You're Dan of the podcast Knowledge Fight and
Speaker 1: also in Dan's case of the legal effort to see
Speaker 1: Alex Jones for repeatedly doing crimes. Yeah, it's weird that
Speaker 1: maybe a credit now, I guess I was a yeah,
Speaker 1: consulting expert on uh the the latest deposition that Alex
Speaker 1: did in the Texas cases. People have pointed out multiple
Speaker 1: times that on like episode three or four of our show,
Speaker 1: we I made the joke that he would be involved
Speaker 1: somehow in the lawsuit, and we laughed and laughed and laughed.
Speaker 1: Seven hundred episodes later. I remember when I first started
Speaker 1: listening to your show, because I was doing the Behind
Speaker 1: the Bastards episodes on Alex Jones. I was like, God,
Speaker 1: I fucking hope someone involved in the case against him
Speaker 1: knows about these guys, because they are they are uncovering
Speaker 1: damning stuff every week. It should probably be involved in
Speaker 1: the case. It's finally finally came about and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: good times. Yeah yeah, well congratulations. Would you like to
Speaker 1: talk about something completely different from Alex Jones. I think
Speaker 1: that would be a delight. So here's a spoiler. I
Speaker 1: I lied. I lied to you. It's it's not complete.
Speaker 1: It's not it's it's a precursor to Alex Jones. Um.
Speaker 1: This is a story about how the wealthy in America
Speaker 1: eight and transformed Christianity. Uh that's fun. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 1: this is this is a story that is adjacent to
Speaker 1: the story of the John Birch society. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: come into it much here, but they are. They are involved. Um.
Speaker 1: And it is a story that is adjacent to the
Speaker 1: rise of Alex Jones, because obviously he's heavily influenced by
Speaker 1: the John Birch society. This is this is a pre person.
Speaker 1: We've talked on this show a bunch, and I know
Speaker 1: y'all are very well aware that like seventy two, ish,
Speaker 1: was the first time the religious right was like a
Speaker 1: political block in the country. Right, You've got fallwell and
Speaker 1: these people kind of we welding Billy Graham welding the
Speaker 1: right wing into a Republican coalition for the first time. Um.
Speaker 1: But that only was able to happen because of a
Speaker 1: process that got started in the nineteen thirties. And that's
Speaker 1: what we're going to talk about today. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would have argued that the first was the Crusades, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's very similar politicized the Crusades. Sometimes people look,
Speaker 1: people were just vibe vibing, you know, modes on horseback,
Speaker 1: al armies, a children getting sold into slavery, not a
Speaker 1: cell phone insight. You know, it was non apartisan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the important thing about it. Yeah, and that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Every we were able to put down all of our
Speaker 1: petty disagreements to deluge Jerusalem in a river of blood,
Speaker 1: trickle down economics andized mass killings. I like that. You
Speaker 1: asked if we want to talk about something other than
Speaker 1: Alex and I was like, Hey, maybe something light and breezy.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. Maybe maybe it was going to be an
Speaker 1: episode about the bagel Boss. This episode is is going
Speaker 1: to be me reading you letters that different millionaires sent
Speaker 1: each other talking about how to destroy democracy. Sounds about right?
Speaker 1: That sounds good? Yeah. Um, you know, I I'm a
Speaker 1: big advocate fan of interested in storytelling. I think it's
Speaker 1: probably the most powerful thing that people do. Um, you
Speaker 1: don't get no empire or social movement or civilization gets
Speaker 1: anywhere without like having a set of stories that the
Speaker 1: people who are inside that thing believe, and that really,
Speaker 1: to a significant amount, determines reality. Right. There's a degree
Speaker 1: to which you can kind of ignore even physical reality
Speaker 1: if the stories are strong enough, as uh, some of
Speaker 1: our um, some of our anti vax and anti anti
Speaker 1: vaccine friends can candid test you know. There's limits to that.
Speaker 1: But it's it's it's it's a pretty powerful thing. If
Speaker 1: you can get people to believe a story, even a
Speaker 1: ridiculous one, Um, you can. You can get them to
Speaker 1: do almost anything. And capitalism itself thrives because of the
Speaker 1: stories people tell about it. The reality, of course, is
Speaker 1: that capitalism is a system that was cobbled together by
Speaker 1: a handful of rich people in the sixteen hundreds and
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds. They created the first corporations, which allowed them
Speaker 1: to pull their money, share risk and profits for risky
Speaker 1: ventures overseas. And the first things they did was go
Speaker 1: to the Spice Islands and carry out a brutal genocide
Speaker 1: in order to gain a monopoly on nutmeg. That was
Speaker 1: the first thing capitalism. Okay, I feel like you're being
Speaker 1: unfair to the East India Company. Okay, this was the
Speaker 1: Dutch East India Company. Yeah, I mean they were fine.
Speaker 1: It was a non part of absolutely. And hey, capitalism
Speaker 1: is not unique. Every system human beings have developed on
Speaker 1: a large scale is a river of blood, like they
Speaker 1: all are. You know, that's just the way. That's just
Speaker 1: the way people be. Uh. But if you if you
Speaker 1: tell the story of capitalism accurately, which is that it's
Speaker 1: you know, another chapter in the history of human beings
Speaker 1: finding ways to be shitty to each other in large groups. Um,
Speaker 1: that's not something people like to hear. Right, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get You're not gonna get a whole bunch of people,
Speaker 1: rah rah rah over capitalism. If you're just talking about
Speaker 1: how they murdered several ethnic groups for nutmeg, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to get a lot of raw ra from the
Speaker 1: people who have a lot of capital. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And those people like to find better stories to explain
Speaker 1: what capitalism is, um and to get people to identify
Speaker 1: it enough that they'll threaten a race war. Uh if
Speaker 1: you you try to amend the system at all, which
Speaker 1: is why groups like the Acting Institute, a right wing
Speaker 1: Christian think tank, right stuff like this. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: quote from an article titled how Christianity Created Capitalism. The
Speaker 1: people of the High Middle Ages were a dog with
Speaker 1: wonder at great mechanical clocks, new forms of gears for
Speaker 1: windmills and water mills, improvements in wagons and carts, shoulder
Speaker 1: harnesses for beasts of burden, the ocean going ship rudder,
Speaker 1: eyeglasses and magnifying glasses. Iron smelting and iron work, stone cutting,
Speaker 1: and new architectural principles. So many new types of machines
Speaker 1: were invented and put to use by th hundred. The
Speaker 1: historian John Gimpel wrote a book in nineteen seventy six
Speaker 1: called the Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. Without the
Speaker 1: growth of capitalism, however, such technical discoveries would have been
Speaker 1: idle novelties. They would seldom have been put in the
Speaker 1: hands of ordinary human beings through swift and easy exchange.
Speaker 1: They would not have been studied and rapidly copied and
Speaker 1: improved by eager competitors. All this was made possible by
Speaker 1: freedom for enterprise, markets and competition, and that, in turn
Speaker 1: was provided by the Catholic Church. Okay, I'm gonna throw
Speaker 1: this out there. I'm gonna throw this out there. It's
Speaker 1: a little late to respond. No, I think it's about
Speaker 1: time somebody has got to refute this. Okay. I think
Speaker 1: kind of the underlying words that he was saying was slaves.
Speaker 1: Nothing would have been made without slaves, you know, like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just it's so comprehensively silly because it's like, well,
Speaker 1: but during the Middle Ages, a huge amount of the
Speaker 1: most significant technological development and philosophical development and like mathematical
Speaker 1: developments were being made by the different caliphates that were
Speaker 1: in charge of the Muslim world. Um, which we're not
Speaker 1: living under a capitalist system. They were under the Catholic Church. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: famously the Addison Caliphate, big fans of the pope Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's it's it's it's a pretty ludicrous
Speaker 1: way to look at at at to argue that, like, um,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty ludicrous description of history, I think, And
Speaker 1: we could dunk on this article all day, but it's
Speaker 1: the reality of the situation is just the Christianity did
Speaker 1: not create capitalism. But there is a story which we're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about today of how capitalism hijacked Christianity, and
Speaker 1: the specific capitalists who masterminded this ship have names and
Speaker 1: like sent letters to each other, and we have those letters.
Speaker 1: A bunch of people have written about this. So now
Speaker 1: it's it's time for a fun story, guys, um hooray.
Speaker 1: Our tale starts in the decades before the Great Depression,
Speaker 1: when the massive trusts and fortunes accumulated by robber barons
Speaker 1: of the Gilded Age clashed increasingly with organized labor. Right,
Speaker 1: you start to get the eighteen eighties eighteen nineties workers
Speaker 1: being like, well, what if what if we all formed
Speaker 1: together into a large organization and tried to compete with
Speaker 1: the people telling us that our children should mind coal
Speaker 1: until they die. Hey, hey, fellas, you want to stop
Speaker 1: getting murdered and worked to death? Yeah? All right? Do
Speaker 1: we do? We feel like there's an alternative to getting
Speaker 1: machined gunned by our boss when we ask for a race.
Speaker 1: And then they got machine gunned by their bass and
Speaker 1: then they absolutely did and occasionally the US government. Um,
Speaker 1: So this this clash is happening. And while it's you know,
Speaker 1: part of why all of these clashes are happening is that,
Speaker 1: like the late eighteen hundreds are just the recession after recession,
Speaker 1: these like economic collapses, um, brought on by the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, you know why they're brought on. We've
Speaker 1: all lived through a bunch of economic collaxes now, yeah equivalent, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like it was bitcoin. We've been on bitcoin
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah. So the left is like swelling
Speaker 1: in this period into the early nineteen hundreds because of
Speaker 1: all of these economic collapses, which, as economic collapse does
Speaker 1: tend to make tends to make people go like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe capitalism is not so great, you know, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: the system could be changed somewhat. Um. A lot of
Speaker 1: those rabble rousers in the in this period, these like
Speaker 1: labor leaders, a lot of them were not just Christian,
Speaker 1: but Christian members of the clergy. Uh. And these folks
Speaker 1: saw the socialist ends they were fighting for is not
Speaker 1: just in line with but but demanded by their faith.
Speaker 1: This was an era in which one in every twenty
Speaker 1: six workers in the United States could expect to be
Speaker 1: maimed on the job. Like that is the early nineteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: one out of every twenty six workers is going to
Speaker 1: be serious Lee and jer killed on the job. And
Speaker 1: everybody in Amazon is like, holy shit, one, what a
Speaker 1: glorious area? Are you kidding? Yeah? This is such a
Speaker 1: glass half empty? Yeah yeah, yes. Ministers like George D.
Speaker 1: Herron were outraged by the reduction of sacred human life
Speaker 1: to an economic unit, and they actually saw what capitalists
Speaker 1: were doing in this period as like offensive to their
Speaker 1: religion the day yeah. Um. He wrote in eighteen nineties
Speaker 1: sermon called the Message of Jesus Two Men of Wealth,
Speaker 1: in which he compared the struggle between labor and capital
Speaker 1: to the story of Cain and Abel. Heron argued that
Speaker 1: Kine's choice to murder his brother was quote the first bald,
Speaker 1: brutal assertion of self interest as the law of human life,
Speaker 1: an assertion always potential with murder. So he was like, literally,
Speaker 1: the owners of capital are the descendants of Caine. Like
Speaker 1: that is a right, right, all right? Although then in
Speaker 1: that form Christianity did create capitalism. Yeah, right, I mean
Speaker 1: there's an argument if that's what he's gonna argue. I mean,
Speaker 1: but you're taking it out of Jdayism's blocked in right,
Speaker 1: Kine enables they got more claim to that. But then,
Speaker 1: of course we get to a really uncomfortable conversation when
Speaker 1: we start saying that I'm a small minded fellow who
Speaker 1: didn't read the tour close enough, and that's on me
Speaker 1: the Abrahamic religions. I guess you can say that the
Speaker 1: devil created capitalism um by convincing Kine to murder his brother.
Speaker 1: That's the argument Heron's kind of making here. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: quote the trial in progress and he's talking about like
Speaker 1: the trial of the labor movement is Christ versus Kane,
Speaker 1: the decision to which the times are hastening us is
Speaker 1: shall Christ reign in our American civilization? Like shall Christ
Speaker 1: or Caine rain in our American civilization? Sorry? Um, so
Speaker 1: that that's how Heron frames it. Is like the struggle
Speaker 1: between labor and capital is the same as the biblical
Speaker 1: struggle between like Cain and Abel and are we going
Speaker 1: to let the murder us? And unfortunately the answer was yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. The first thing that's unfamiliar to me about
Speaker 1: this guy it seems as though he has read the Bible,
Speaker 1: which does seem like he might have read the Bible.
Speaker 1: That's that's an issue for me. I don't think Christianity
Speaker 1: is allowed to do that, as to see the Middle
Speaker 1: Ages minister who read the Bible? Now, that doesn't seem right.
Speaker 1: So Heron stumped for Eugene V. Debs, the hero of
Speaker 1: our episode on the Pullman Strike, when he ran for
Speaker 1: president heading the Socialist Party of America. And I want
Speaker 1: to quote now from a write up on this in
Speaker 1: the website Sojourners. He was not the only minister to
Speaker 1: become a socialist either. One his story and estimated that
Speaker 1: between five and of all mainline Protestant clergy were Socialist
Speaker 1: Party members or voted for the party. In the first
Speaker 1: three decades of the twentieth century, Congregationalist minister Franklin Monroe
Speaker 1: Sprague wrote Socialism from Genesis to Revelation. In EIGHTEWO John Spargo,
Speaker 1: Methodist minister became a socialist educator. Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister,
Speaker 1: ran for President of the United States as a socialist
Speaker 1: candidate from nine to ninety eight. Charles Vale Universalist minister,
Speaker 1: was an important socialist writer. African Americans, both outside and
Speaker 1: inside of the Socialist Party, also demanded fairer economic systems
Speaker 1: that affected other facets of life, pushing white Christians and
Speaker 1: socialists too towards quote a new abolitionism. So there's some
Speaker 1: cool stuff happening in Christian thought in the first thirty
Speaker 1: years of the twentieth century. Um, that doesn't is it?
Speaker 1: For them? Yeah, I'm really I'm really proud of them.
Speaker 1: They had a good stretch. They did have a good stretched.
Speaker 1: This is the story that all got sucked up horribly.
Speaker 1: But is that the prevailing attitude of it's it's not.
Speaker 1: That is a really good question. It is not as
Speaker 1: they said. This is somewhere between five and of ministers
Speaker 1: in this period are members of the Socialist Party. Um.
Speaker 1: Could it could well, it could be something like that. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's also this like you have to assume if
Speaker 1: you know fifteen or twenty of them are members, you've
Speaker 1: got another probably twenty or who or at least sympathetic,
Speaker 1: but like not quite as far left. Um. I think
Speaker 1: mainstream Christianity, because of how popular the labor movement is,
Speaker 1: is probably broadly sympathetic to a lot of these aims,
Speaker 1: if not as radical as the guys we just cited. Um,
Speaker 1: it is certainly not uh pro capitalist, and it is
Speaker 1: not seen by the capitalists as being pro capitalists. UM.
Speaker 1: So Christian socialists often you know, combined the Gospel of
Speaker 1: Jesus and what they had read in Marks. The interpretation
Speaker 1: that these guys had was that Jesus was a radical
Speaker 1: who opposed capitalism. Um. Less common was the idea that
Speaker 1: socialism could be a foundation for a universal humanistic religion.
Speaker 1: But there were some guys um who said that who
Speaker 1: were like who kind of went from being Christian minister
Speaker 1: to being like, well, now I'm more of like just
Speaker 1: a socialist minister, and I feel like my Christianity is
Speaker 1: wrapped up in that. But this is like socialism is
Speaker 1: the religion should be the religion of mankind. You get
Speaker 1: that on, Like that's the fringe. Yeah, like legislating from
Speaker 1: the pulpit, I'll tell you that right now. That's that's
Speaker 1: not what I'm in for here. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: exactly what alex is terrified. Yeah, the nightmare of nightmares.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the capitalists in this period are
Speaker 1: fucking terrified of this because it's spreading really widely. Um,
Speaker 1: the cause of Christian socialists got a big shot in
Speaker 1: the arm in August of nineteen twenty nine when the
Speaker 1: global economy collapsed in the Roaring twenties yielded to the
Speaker 1: Great Depression. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: two on the promise of providing Americans with a new Deal.
Speaker 1: This involved a bunch of banking reforms, a raftive new
Speaker 1: social programs, and jobs program a whole bunch of stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: actual socialists like Nicole Ashoff, who wrote The New Profits
Speaker 1: of Capital, saw the New Deal, or see the New
Speaker 1: Deal as it was essentially a way for capitalists who
Speaker 1: were more reasonable and less monstrous than some of the
Speaker 1: other capitalists to keep the system limping along. Without a
Speaker 1: socialist revolution. The Elizabeth Warren plan. Yeah, socialists saw the
Speaker 1: New Deal is like, well, this is like a shameless
Speaker 1: compromise to keep capitalism going, and it's it's actually not
Speaker 1: a good thing. Um. And then FDR was a little
Speaker 1: bit like, hey, you know, they could buy a lot
Speaker 1: of people to murder all of us, So maybe let's
Speaker 1: just chill out this one. I'm not going to take
Speaker 1: a stance on this, but I can't even walk many,
Speaker 1: I can't run away. I'm not gonna run away. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I do wanna. I'm not gonna necessarily endorse that. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, we should never have done the New Deal.
Speaker 1: We should have just like let the revolution come, because
Speaker 1: I don't know that that would have worked out. But
Speaker 1: that is an argument of people will make um and
Speaker 1: Nicole Ashoff writes in her book quote Capital's ability to
Speaker 1: periodically present a new set of legitimating principles that facilitate
Speaker 1: the willing participation of society accounts for its remarkable longevity
Speaker 1: despite periodic bouts of deep crisis, for allowing Max Webber,
Speaker 1: one of the foremost social thinkers of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: uh this belief system is called this belief system which
Speaker 1: justifies and legitimates capitalism and the primacy of profitmaking is
Speaker 1: the spirit of capitalism. Um. So that's like this the
Speaker 1: term that these some of these thinkers use the spirit
Speaker 1: of capitalism for the ways in which our justifications for
Speaker 1: it change over time. And the argument here is that
Speaker 1: kind of f DR was putting a new set of
Speaker 1: principles to legitimate capitalism. So capitalism is legitimate because we
Speaker 1: also have the social safety net and we'll take care
Speaker 1: of people, and it's not this solar system that we
Speaker 1: had in the decades prior. We've changed it and so
Speaker 1: it can keep going right. And the fact that capitalism
Speaker 1: is the syncretic um is seen by critics of capitalism
Speaker 1: is part of why it's so hard to fucking kill.
Speaker 1: It's like i'll change, yeah, it'll yeah, take me back,
Speaker 1: take me. That is what actual socialists are saying at
Speaker 1: the time. But that's not what capitalists see. So like
Speaker 1: the the capitalists who are opposed to FDR see him
Speaker 1: as the literal embodiment of Linen coming to burn their
Speaker 1: mansions and molest their expensive pets, right like that. They
Speaker 1: don't they don't see this as like, oh, he's keeping
Speaker 1: the system that makes us all rich alive. They see
Speaker 1: this as he's coming to tear it all down. People
Speaker 1: are dying in the streets as much. Actually, I brought
Speaker 1: a letter from this time period because I wanted to
Speaker 1: join in. Uh and this was written by a millionaire
Speaker 1: at I think it was. It just went oh yeah, sorry, oh,
Speaker 1: you gotta stop this. Yeah that was the last Yeah
Speaker 1: that that that is an adequate summary of what these
Speaker 1: people are saying at the time. And a number of
Speaker 1: these dudes, titans of industry, guys who owned companies like
Speaker 1: General Motors UM form an organization called the National Association
Speaker 1: of Manufacturers in eight. Yeah, you know that, you know,
Speaker 1: Nam the can the candyman. He shared He shared it.
Speaker 1: He shared it. Welch, one of the founders of the
Speaker 1: John Birch Society. Yeah. Now, the the n a M
Speaker 1: had been right in the thick of those Gilded Age
Speaker 1: recessions we talked about early, Like that's why this comes
Speaker 1: out in eight there's all these collapses and the left
Speaker 1: is rising. You know, you have these these huge armed
Speaker 1: strikes and like militant workers organizing and these people are like,
Speaker 1: well if they're if they're organizing with guns to stop
Speaker 1: people from bringing scabs and couldn't they organized with guns
Speaker 1: to take our our stuff? You know? You know that
Speaker 1: is that is one of the things about the organized left,
Speaker 1: so somewhat is like that, that obsession with policing each other,
Speaker 1: of being like, no, this is how we protest. We
Speaker 1: only do it this way. And then if you go
Speaker 1: back in history and it's like they broke windows and
Speaker 1: threw grenades into places, they lit everything on five, there
Speaker 1: was not a lot of discussion about like, well, now
Speaker 1: you're making it violent. There was this discussion of like
Speaker 1: build the best grenades to throw at our boxes, the
Speaker 1: nitpicking arguments about how many males should go through the back. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a different time. And so these
Speaker 1: these these businessmen get very scared of this different time
Speaker 1: and they create the n a M. As a way
Speaker 1: to kind of like organize um and develop a strategy
Speaker 1: to protect themselves. Um. So, you know, Roosevelt comes to power,
Speaker 1: and initially they're kind of they have a bunch of
Speaker 1: different things that they're that they're scared about. They're also
Speaker 1: really worried about like domestic industry getting flooded by foreign
Speaker 1: imports and stuff. But when Roosevelt comes to power and
Speaker 1: they actually see this big socialist legislation get past UM,
Speaker 1: they start flipping out and thinking like, uh, you know. Also,
Speaker 1: the thing that's happening this period is the U s
Speaker 1: s R has just formed, So they're they're both seeing, Okay,
Speaker 1: we had these armed workers in the streets. They're getting
Speaker 1: more organized, they're in the halls of power in Washington,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna make They're gonna do what the USSR did,
Speaker 1: and soon we'll all be you know, executed, and our
Speaker 1: stuff will be taken from us UM. So in a
Speaker 1: M pivots to opposing the New Deal. UM. Their primary
Speaker 1: contention was that FDR sought to provide people with a
Speaker 1: sense of security and a safety net, and this was
Speaker 1: a bad idea. This is literally what they're writing at
Speaker 1: the time. Giving people a safety that is a bad
Speaker 1: idea because if people aren't scared of dying in the street,
Speaker 1: they won't work as hard and the free market system
Speaker 1: will fail. I mean, this is absolutely true. I've seen
Speaker 1: a lot of trapeze acts and they work harder when
Speaker 1: there is not a net. Yeah, a lot of lazy
Speaker 1: trapeze artists. Walmart will have fewer employees. If no one
Speaker 1: is going to starve to death if they don't work there,
Speaker 1: you might not be able to run Walmart the current
Speaker 1: way that it's run. People don't dance quite as fast
Speaker 1: as they do when you're shooting at their feet. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's my plan. All right, we give everybody a social
Speaker 1: safety net, but you have to go through a gauntlet
Speaker 1: of like spiked things that are moving and like spinning totally.
Speaker 1: You have to climb the aggro crack. That's the way
Speaker 1: to get to work every day. I I actually think
Speaker 1: that would be dope. What if what if the build
Speaker 1: back better plant We're like, I'm gonna say a trillion
Speaker 1: dollars for more aggro cracks. What if it was just
Speaker 1: a better salary for mica O Malley. It goes to
Speaker 1: Mico Malley. Something that's got to go to mo Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's that's what's going to split
Speaker 1: the left, Dan is how much money goes to mor Malley.
Speaker 1: It's going to end like fucking U of Madrid in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight, people shooting each other in the street,
Speaker 1: banners with mos face shin guns. Insistance on paying mow
Speaker 1: equally it's woke is M run amuck? God fantastic. You
Speaker 1: know what else's woke is M run Amuck? Dan and
Speaker 1: Jordan's what's up the products and services that support this podcast?
Speaker 1: Oh unless it's the Washington in State Highway Patrol. M h. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they advertising, they do, they do from time to time.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, you're doing ads for cops. I know we're
Speaker 1: we're not doing them. They just come on the fucking feed.
Speaker 1: We're we're working on it. But we did an episode
Speaker 1: on the Washington State Highway Patrol recently, which they advertised
Speaker 1: on It was like what happened with Bloomberg? That's that's
Speaker 1: meta as hell. I don't think I mean, they're wasting
Speaker 1: their money. I don't think anyone who listens to any
Speaker 1: of these shows is going to become a Washington State
Speaker 1: Highway Patrol officer. Probably not. Probably. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: kelsee like Epoch Times ads on left wing videos I
Speaker 1: see on on YouTube. It's very weird. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's funny. Um, but you know, here's fucking Probably I
Speaker 1: do that because Sophie has to believe it. Ah, we're back.
Speaker 1: Did you guys know that Blue Apron is the only
Speaker 1: food box company that runs an island off the coast
Speaker 1: of Indonesia where you can hunt children for sport. Did
Speaker 1: they buy Little St. James? They did, They did, They
Speaker 1: bought Little St. James. But they haven't said. They haven't
Speaker 1: got that one going yet. That's down in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: The only the only person I want to hunt is
Speaker 1: John Leguizamoh. And that's because The Pest was my favorite
Speaker 1: movie in the nineties. So that's just how it's got
Speaker 1: to go for me. I mean, I don't think any
Speaker 1: court would convict you. But that's a separate discussion. So
Speaker 1: we're we're talking, we're talking, uh this period where you've
Speaker 1: got you know, the n A M who is terrified
Speaker 1: that who starts advancing the idea that if you build
Speaker 1: a safety net, the free market system will collapse because
Speaker 1: people won't be scared enough of dying in the street,
Speaker 1: Which is an argument you here today. I actually just
Speaker 1: this week, Representative John Rose, Republican from Tennessee, use this
Speaker 1: argument to explain why healthcare was not a right, why
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have universal healthcare. Uh quote, if you really
Speaker 1: want to be free, it can't be a right. We
Speaker 1: have to have an incentive for people to struggle to
Speaker 1: support themselves, like this is this is when that lion
Speaker 1: is invented. Right. That was not always a justification that,
Speaker 1: like if we try to do a safety net, people
Speaker 1: won't work hard. Um that that's in They're coming up
Speaker 1: with this stuff in this period. You know, it's the
Speaker 1: it's cool, it's it's a great scam. It is a
Speaker 1: really great scam to just look people dead in the
Speaker 1: eye and say live or die, buddy, you should go
Speaker 1: to work today. Yeah, starving, then this whole system falls apart.
Speaker 1: It's a little insulting to in terms of like saying
Speaker 1: that people who do things don't have any reason to
Speaker 1: do it other than like pure survival. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of jobs people would do it if if
Speaker 1: money didn't exist in the same form. I think most
Speaker 1: of the people who were doctors would be doctors if
Speaker 1: you know, we lived under a different system. I think
Speaker 1: all of the people who are artists would still be artists,
Speaker 1: except for maybe Pitbull. I mean, I had to cut
Speaker 1: Dan's Achilles towns to make sure that he stayed here,
Speaker 1: but other twill I'm always in this chair exactly. Yes,
Speaker 1: just basically what you have to do with chickens to
Speaker 1: keep them in the room and keep them laying those
Speaker 1: eggs with Dan's wings. He doesn't right start another podcast.
Speaker 1: Can't have me going to Austin again. The thing too,
Speaker 1: that it seems weird like this seems to imply that
Speaker 1: the people in the National Association of Manufacturers are only
Speaker 1: doing that too. They wouldn't be doing this stuff if
Speaker 1: they didn't fear for their lives. No, I mean, you
Speaker 1: are you are right that that is kind of they're
Speaker 1: projecting a bit that like, yeah, literally, everything you do
Speaker 1: is because you're afraid of winding up like the people
Speaker 1: you are fighting to keep struggling. Um So, the resistance
Speaker 1: of these manufacturers to the rising tide of socialism was
Speaker 1: it first disorganized and somewhat incoherent, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: said this, the argument line they advanced is still around today.
Speaker 1: But that's not something that you're going to immediately get
Speaker 1: a lot of people on board with and order for
Speaker 1: that idea to become universal on the right, Um, you
Speaker 1: have to lay some groundwork. Um. So they decided to
Speaker 1: do that in a couple of different ways. They're trying
Speaker 1: sort of a shotgun approach. They have like a propaganda
Speaker 1: campaign dedicated to fighting anti business sentiment. But people don't
Speaker 1: like big businesses ever, really, like even even today people
Speaker 1: on the right, nobody likes big corporations. So that's not
Speaker 1: an easy thing to do. They do the most important
Speaker 1: thing to do on the right is demonized giant corporations
Speaker 1: while at the same time being like, but you need
Speaker 1: to make sure they have all of your money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean like make sure of that. Yeah. And and
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of why like they that that doesn't
Speaker 1: prove to be a very productive line for them either. Um.
Speaker 1: When when they first get their real idea of like
Speaker 1: what's actually going to work to advance these ideas in
Speaker 1: American society is when the Red Scare hits in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen thirties, UM and Texas Democratic Congressman Martin D's
Speaker 1: founds the House Committee on Un American Activities. Um, the
Speaker 1: media starts going nuts with like there's you know, Red's
Speaker 1: coming here trying to do what USS are in the
Speaker 1: United States, all these dangerous anarchists and communists and whatnot. Um,
Speaker 1: they do in Vain, Iraq, And that these these business
Speaker 1: businessmen realized that like, well, no, the thing to do.
Speaker 1: It's not to fight anti business sentiment. Um that's not
Speaker 1: going to be productive, and it's not going to be
Speaker 1: to tell people they need to struggle. It's it's you
Speaker 1: have to cloak this and fighting communism because people are
Speaker 1: scared of what they're hearing in the U. S. S R.
Speaker 1: And that's gonna work a hell of a lot better
Speaker 1: than anything else. Um So. D S publishes a book
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty called The Trojan Horse, in which he
Speaker 1: claims communism is a religion that has replaced religious faith
Speaker 1: with materialism. DS warns that communists were waging a psychological
Speaker 1: invasion to conquer the American way of life, and some
Speaker 1: of the brighter guys that the n A M see
Speaker 1: this and as the opportunity that it is. D's isn't
Speaker 1: saying anything about free enterprise here, but he's tying socialism
Speaker 1: in as opposed to religion, which obviously in the U. S.
Speaker 1: S R. At least it was. You know that they
Speaker 1: like they outlaw it. You know, you have a lot
Speaker 1: of there should have been like the far right sending
Speaker 1: up fireworks the moment he put that to paper of
Speaker 1: just like this is the birth of a new girl lah.
Speaker 1: They get out there. It's like the telegram scene at
Speaker 1: the Independence Day. They're like, this is how, this is
Speaker 1: how to do it. You know, essentially a compound noun
Speaker 1: at this point, godless communism. And some of these guys
Speaker 1: at the n A M who are not dumb men,
Speaker 1: recognize that what needs to be done. He's got the
Speaker 1: germ of a good idea. But it's not enough to
Speaker 1: just say the Communists are going to replace religion. You
Speaker 1: also have to tie capitalism to religion. You have to
Speaker 1: make Christianity intimately a part of capitalism. And that that's
Speaker 1: how you fucking do this ship right, that's the groundwork
Speaker 1: you need to get people to believe all the ship.
Speaker 1: You need them to believe if you want to keep
Speaker 1: all of the money in your hands. You know, if
Speaker 1: you want people to believe something fake, go to the
Speaker 1: people who already believe fake ship. I I do apologize
Speaker 1: to our our our number one listener, the Pope. Uh
Speaker 1: do not speak for everyone here, um, big big fan
Speaker 1: of the pope. Um not not the new one, the
Speaker 1: one who was a Nazi. Um. I don't like that
Speaker 1: he was a Nazi or that he covered up a
Speaker 1: lot of sexual harassment. But he's actually he's incredible at
Speaker 1: ping pong, and UM, you know, I I appreciate, I
Speaker 1: appreciate that Sophie is just letting this happen. Unbelievable. I
Speaker 1: can't believe that, Sophie. I've just been sitting here. I
Speaker 1: I probably would have jumped him, but I was trying
Speaker 1: to come up with AD's nuts. Yeah, it's impossible to
Speaker 1: not think about that. Yeah, I was thinking, can you
Speaker 1: believe how influential when they come up with this idea
Speaker 1: that like, Okay, we need to we need to tar
Speaker 1: the left as anti religion, um, and we need to
Speaker 1: we need to make people associate capitalism and Christianity together.
Speaker 1: When this idea is like born, it's a pretty long
Speaker 1: like it's not an easy thing to do. Right. For
Speaker 1: one thing, FDR is in office and he is famous
Speaker 1: for being the first president to basically give religious sermons
Speaker 1: as speeches. Um. A lot of his speeches he's quoting
Speaker 1: from the Bible constantly. The National Bible Press actually publishes
Speaker 1: a chart where people can like find on a regular
Speaker 1: basis and it'll like give his speeches and it'll list
Speaker 1: the Bible quotes that he's like real paraphrasing or talking
Speaker 1: about or like Scot Card. Yeah, yeah, for because because
Speaker 1: he's basically like a preacher, like that's how FDR talks
Speaker 1: to the nation. Um and FDR, FDR is really for
Speaker 1: for all of the you know arguments that are very valid,
Speaker 1: you know about him essentially stopping a socialist revolution by
Speaker 1: introducing reform. He also really ties um Christianity to anti
Speaker 1: capitalism in his speeches, and one FDR states quote, the
Speaker 1: money changers have fled their high seat in the temple
Speaker 1: of our civilization when he's talking about the new deal,
Speaker 1: So he's he's in a MS plan to like reverse
Speaker 1: this is there they are they are dealing with, Like,
Speaker 1: this is not an easy thing right today. It's obviously
Speaker 1: the left is godless and the right is Christian and capitalist.
Speaker 1: That is Um. They have a long road to get there.
Speaker 1: At this point. You gotta basically climb the grog. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they gotta climate aggrow crag. That's exactly right. That the metaphor,
Speaker 1: you have to hit each button along the way. You
Speaker 1: have to hit the combined capitalism with Jesus button. You
Speaker 1: have to hit that. Yeah a lot, what needs do
Speaker 1: a lot? And they get delayed by a little thing
Speaker 1: you guys might have heard of. You haven't really covered
Speaker 1: it in your show, so I'm not sure if you're
Speaker 1: aware of it. Um. World War two, Um, which what? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a second one. It was not as interesting.
Speaker 1: It was not as I gotta go it was. It
Speaker 1: was less less Aliens and more Temple of Doom, you know.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, unfortunate. You hate to see, you know, a
Speaker 1: sequel that just doesn't live up to the original. But
Speaker 1: sophomore slump. World War three, though, that's gonna be that's
Speaker 1: gonna be our that's gonna be our Alien three, you know, finally,
Speaker 1: finally the good one. You don't you don't like the
Speaker 1: Last Crusade. I like the last Actually, the Last Crusade
Speaker 1: is maybe my favorite of them. Yeah, Sean Connery and
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford. What man, Sean Connery and Harrison Ford. Stamp
Speaker 1: He's got the stamp in the library and at the
Speaker 1: same time he gets this and that's just great comedy.
Speaker 1: That's just great comedy, man, it is. It's a good,
Speaker 1: good movie. So let's hope our World War three is
Speaker 1: less Alien three and more Indiana Jones and the Last
Speaker 1: Crusade Fingers crossed everybody um our World War three that
Speaker 1: may have started by the time this episode drops. That's
Speaker 1: World War four according to some people, because of the
Speaker 1: Cold Cold War, some of the people who are maybe
Speaker 1: involved in the story you're telling. My argument is, if
Speaker 1: if the Germans don't it started, it's not a world war.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's not from Champagne and France, it's not.
Speaker 1: It's just a sparkling global conflict. I just say, all
Speaker 1: of your laughs about the next world war pretty scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: terrified if you realize we're terrified. It's like World War
Speaker 1: two kicks off. And this is bad for the n
Speaker 1: a M. Both because a lot of the guys involved
Speaker 1: in the n a M were part of the America
Speaker 1: First Movement and did not want to go to war
Speaker 1: because they were big fans of Nazi Germany. But it's
Speaker 1: also I thought it was because they had spent too
Speaker 1: much time in nam bom Na. We got it. We're
Speaker 1: just all right. Everybody's got the same, which is quiet
Speaker 1: and I want more. I can't help you out when
Speaker 1: you gell boom and then want to high five, I
Speaker 1: just can't help you. So during the war years, in
Speaker 1: a M S propaganda, they can't really like execute this
Speaker 1: plan that they've started to cobble together because the US
Speaker 1: is allied with the U S s R. So fearmongering
Speaker 1: against the Reds does not work as well when you
Speaker 1: are shipping them as many tanks as you can possibly
Speaker 1: put together, you know, when you are handing as many
Speaker 1: guns as you have to the Soviets because they're the
Speaker 1: only thing standing between the world and a tide of Nazis,
Speaker 1: it's hard to get people scared about the commist you know. Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so they are. They are kind of planning and thinking
Speaker 1: during this period, though, And one of the things that
Speaker 1: some of these people start to realize is that if
Speaker 1: they're really going to push this agenda through, if they're
Speaker 1: going to make Christianity and capitalism be the same thing
Speaker 1: in the minds and millions of Americans, it's not gonna
Speaker 1: a bunch of CEOs aren't going to make that happen.
Speaker 1: They need an inside man. They need a popular, charismatic
Speaker 1: preacher who knows how to talk to other ministers and
Speaker 1: to congregations. They need an active partner who is a
Speaker 1: religious leader. And they find this partner in James W.
Speaker 1: Fifield Jr. Now I want to quote from a write
Speaker 1: up in Politico by Kevin Cruz, who's done a lot
Speaker 1: of writing on this subject. Quote. In December of nineteen forty,
Speaker 1: more than five thousand industrialists from across the nation made
Speaker 1: their yearly pilgrimage to the Waldorf Hisstoria Hotel in New
Speaker 1: York City, convening for the annual meeting of the National
Speaker 1: Association of Manufacturers. The program promised an impressive slate of
Speaker 1: speakers Titans at General Motors, General Electric, Standard, Oil, Mutual
Speaker 1: Life and Sears Roebuck, popular lecturers such as etiquette expert
Speaker 1: Emily Post and renowned philosopher historian Will Durant, even FBI
Speaker 1: Director j Edgar Hoover. Tucked Away near the end of
Speaker 1: the program was a name few new initially, Reverend James W.
Speaker 1: Fifield Jr. Handsome, tall, and somewhat gangly, the forty one
Speaker 1: year old Congregationalist minister bore more than a passing resemblance
Speaker 1: to Jimmy Stewart. Addressing the crowd of business leaders, Fifield
Speaker 1: delivered a passionate defense of the American system of free
Speaker 1: enterprise and a withering assault on its perceived enemies and
Speaker 1: Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, decrying the new deals incroach upon
Speaker 1: our American freedoms. The minister listed a litany of sins
Speaker 1: committed by the Democratic government, ranging from its devaluation of
Speaker 1: currency to its disrespect for the Supreme Court, singling out
Speaker 1: the regulatory state for condemnation. He'd announced the multitude of
Speaker 1: federal agencies attached to the executive branch and warned ominously
Speaker 1: of the menace of autocracy approaching through bureaucracy. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: have to assume Emily Post had some notes on the
Speaker 1: I think she was on board. Might not have been
Speaker 1: great etiquette. We might not want to look too much
Speaker 1: into what Emily Post believed. It's wild that you could have,
Speaker 1: like someone who is an etiquette expert whose name is
Speaker 1: still recognizable, you know it is it is going around
Speaker 1: now being an expert. Yeah. Is that what an influencer
Speaker 1: is ultimately? Yeah? No, no, well, okay, Emily Post was
Speaker 1: shot and I missed, and that's fine. That's fine. She
Speaker 1: was an early influencer. I mean she was kind of
Speaker 1: like Marie Condo um of being polite in dinner parties,
Speaker 1: try and not saying go fund yourself. Yeah, So Fifield's
Speaker 1: primary argument to this, this huge room full of the
Speaker 1: richest people in the world, was that capital could only
Speaker 1: save itself from the menaces of unionism and social democracy
Speaker 1: by tying itself in religion in opposition to Soviet socialism,
Speaker 1: which was godless. He was adamant that the clergy would
Speaker 1: be big businesses strongest ally in this quest, and his
Speaker 1: speech was met with thunderous applause. So they this guy
Speaker 1: is saying exactly what these dudes have been thinking, um.
Speaker 1: And he's also seems to be proposing a way forward
Speaker 1: in this plan. Fifield had been beating this particular drum
Speaker 1: for a while. He'd gotten his start in Michigan. His
Speaker 1: big brother was a really popular preacher who gained prominence
Speaker 1: in that area for taking over a struggling church and
Speaker 1: turning it profitable. And Fifield did the same thing he himself,
Speaker 1: and it was so successful that he got a gig
Speaker 1: at the first Congregational Church in Los Angeles in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five. And I want to quote now from a
Speaker 1: paper by Eckert Toy from the University of Washington on
Speaker 1: five fields background. When Fifield became minister of the church,
Speaker 1: he realized it had incurred a substantial debt of seven
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which is like thirteen million
Speaker 1: dollars today. To address the church's debt, he launched a
Speaker 1: campaign to raise the profile of the church both locally
Speaker 1: and nationally, and he instituted an adult education series called
Speaker 1: College of Life, which employed fourteen professors from universities throughout California.
Speaker 1: He began broadcasting five radio programs and initiated a speaker
Speaker 1: series Club. His public relations talent soon paid off, and
Speaker 1: the church was out of debt by nineteen forty two.
Speaker 1: So this is the guy who creates the first megachurch,
Speaker 1: like and he does this in a very interesting way
Speaker 1: because that's his first sermon was called Sinners in the
Speaker 1: Hand of a Wealthy God. That's that basically, Yes, that's
Speaker 1: almost exactly what he does because he's he's in l A.
Speaker 1: This is a church in an affluent part of the city.
Speaker 1: That's like the modern equivalent of thirteen million dollars in
Speaker 1: debt um And how were you going to make thirteen
Speaker 1: million dollars heading a church? Become l Ron Hubbard, Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: become an influencer, create a sort of cult but instead
Speaker 1: of you being the cult leader, you create a cult
Speaker 1: where you convince all of these rich people that they
Speaker 1: are godly by virtue of being rich, and then they'll
Speaker 1: give you enough money that you can get your church
Speaker 1: out of debt. Right do you think do you think
Speaker 1: he's the guy? I don't know if you've heard this,
Speaker 1: but for for I, I'm more than passingly familiar with Christianity.
Speaker 1: But when I grew up the explanation of the like,
Speaker 1: you can't get a it's harder for a rich man
Speaker 1: to get into heaven than a camel through than an
Speaker 1: eye of the needle. Somebody had this pitch of like
Speaker 1: the eye of the needle was actually like this really
Speaker 1: narrow that they've now built totally. I actually I just
Speaker 1: looked into this recently and that's nonsense. No, of course
Speaker 1: it's nonsense. But what I'm wondering, if this is the
Speaker 1: dude who fucking pulled that ship off, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying? Yeah, I think so. I don't think it
Speaker 1: goes by that far. But yeah, that's that exists in
Speaker 1: multiple of the Synoptic Gospels, and the word that's used
Speaker 1: is different, So it wouldn't be like referring to a
Speaker 1: specific gait, it would have to be no concept. It
Speaker 1: was very clear. But I think I think that that
Speaker 1: came about after this period that we're okay that that
Speaker 1: I think that specifically does. But the general thing of
Speaker 1: figuring out like saying that no, no, no, no, despite
Speaker 1: what everyone says about Jesus, he actually thinks if you're
Speaker 1: a good person, you get rich. What everyone Jesus was
Speaker 1: violent once in his life, and it was against bankers. No, no, no.
Speaker 1: Every time he said he likes swords, there was that
Speaker 1: sell your stuff and get a sword. If you read
Speaker 1: the Good Gospels. At one point in time, he murders
Speaker 1: a kid just for getting in his way. So you're gettingnostic, now,
Speaker 1: that's that's the ship. He killed dragons. Jesus was ultimate superhero,
Speaker 1: just murdering kids left and right. Um, that's the back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just fucking with that is that is the kind of
Speaker 1: Christianity I could get on board with. Um. So Fifield
Speaker 1: gets his church out of debt by appealing to the
Speaker 1: wealthiest people in Los Angeles, um and and finding ways
Speaker 1: to show them that like Christian doctrine actually says, you
Speaker 1: don't need to give money to the poor, sources will
Speaker 1: often describe him as politically conservative but doctrinally liberal, and
Speaker 1: what that means is that like he was right, he
Speaker 1: was very conservative with his politics, but he was liberal
Speaker 1: in his interpretation of the Bible because it let him
Speaker 1: justify his politics. It was loose. He's a fun guy. Um,
Speaker 1: so he tweaked the Bible a lot. Cruise notes that
Speaker 1: he quote dismissed the many passages in the New Testament
Speaker 1: about wealth and poverty and instead of shared the elite
Speaker 1: that their worldly success was a sign of God's blessings.
Speaker 1: This is a huge hit he I mean again, he
Speaker 1: makes thirteen million dollars in the space of a few years,
Speaker 1: like four years, to get his church out of debt.
Speaker 1: He is very good at this. If you've if you've
Speaker 1: ever read Douglas Adams is UH. I think the fifth
Speaker 1: book in the UH there was there's a character where
Speaker 1: Ford Prefect goes to this planet and there is a
Speaker 1: sex worker who explains that her job is telling rich
Speaker 1: people that it's okay to be rich. And that is
Speaker 1: exactly what that guy's job is. That that is literally
Speaker 1: the whole thing he's doing, the whole thing. It's just
Speaker 1: it's okay for you to be rich and funk with everybody. Yeah. Good, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to give your money up in taxes and
Speaker 1: keep telling you I'll find I'll cut the Bible apart
Speaker 1: to make you feel like a decent person. It's actually
Speaker 1: charity to get me out of this debt. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like diametrically opposed to the slave Bible. Is his Bible
Speaker 1: is the rich person Bible. And then they cut out
Speaker 1: the different ship for the other. Yeah yeah yeah, so
Speaker 1: he he um he this is wildly successful. Again. He
Speaker 1: makes grand in like four years, you know, in donations,
Speaker 1: which is a buckload of money. So he decides, I
Speaker 1: gotta take the ship on the road, you know, like
Speaker 1: I could this works this well in l A. I
Speaker 1: could make this work everywhere. He found an organization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's gonna go on tour, yes, exactly. He founds an
Speaker 1: organization called Spiritual Mobilization. Their mission was to quote arouse
Speaker 1: the ministers of all denominations in America to check the
Speaker 1: trends towards pagan statism, which would destroy our basic freedom
Speaker 1: and spiritual ideals. Pagan statism is the term you will
Speaker 1: hear a lot. It is the first cultural Marxism um.
Speaker 1: It's directly in that line of lineage to like pagan
Speaker 1: statis um um or two to where we are now,
Speaker 1: Like pagan statism is kind of like the first boogie
Speaker 1: man term they come up with. I can see why
Speaker 1: they upgraded to. Yeah yeah, because throw pagan in front
Speaker 1: of anything and it sounds cool as hell. You know
Speaker 1: that's true, that's true. When I hear pagan statis m
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like Romans getting like drunk and and
Speaker 1: running around the city carrying a bull on their shoulders
Speaker 1: and ships. Yeah hell yeah. Um. So the specific way
Speaker 1: Fifield justified Christian capitalism was to argue that God had
Speaker 1: imbued people with certain rights and responsibilities. We had the
Speaker 1: right to private property and the freedom of choice, including
Speaker 1: the choice to be poor. So if the government were
Speaker 1: to take private property from the rich and give it
Speaker 1: to the poor, that is a violation of God's law.
Speaker 1: The church then has a duty to defend against this.
Speaker 1: So you're not being political by being a capitalist church.
Speaker 1: You're actually following God's law by being a capitalist church.
Speaker 1: So not only did Christianity invent capitalism, they also created
Speaker 1: sovereign citizens. Yeah yeah, So the ideals Fifield was exploring
Speaker 1: eventually formed into an i theology called Christian libertarianism, which
Speaker 1: is most accurately summed up as letting rich people do
Speaker 1: whatever they want and saying that's what God wants. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, that's the that's the idea. I've seen that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you you You kind of spend every waking day of
Speaker 1: your life in wading through the waters of Christian libertarianism.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk weren't great, God wouldn't have given him billions
Speaker 1: of dollars, right, that makes sense. That's what everyone says
Speaker 1: about Elon Musk. One of five fields major supporters was
Speaker 1: Herbert Hoover, the president who had gloriously led the United
Speaker 1: States into the jaws of the Great Depression and then
Speaker 1: spent the rest of his life angry that people had
Speaker 1: voted for FDR when they'd had a chance to get
Speaker 1: him out of office in nineteen thirty two with living
Speaker 1: in a tent. What's wrong with that? Is Hoover's like,
Speaker 1: why don't you like your tents? Come on, it's a
Speaker 1: good tent. Uh. FDR won that election four hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy two electoral votes to fifty nine. So who Herbert
Speaker 1: Hoover is like? Licking his wounds. You know, he feels
Speaker 1: pretty honorree about this. What were those you can look
Speaker 1: you can look it up. There were a couple of states,
Speaker 1: you know, the bad ones, Nuts Nuts five bucks as
Speaker 1: Tennessee is on there. Yeah, throw that out. It was
Speaker 1: like there was a it was a union hot bet
Speaker 1: at the time. Though, I don't know Texas that's true, Texas, yeah,
Speaker 1: Texas probably. I don't know. Maybe we're getting it wrong
Speaker 1: and someone's going to get like up at us on Reddit.
Speaker 1: I have no idea who those who those states were.
Speaker 1: Um Hoover wanted to use five Field, so they start
Speaker 1: up like a conversation and he and he sees five
Speaker 1: Field as like a representative of Protestant Christianity that he
Speaker 1: can use to snipe at FDR. In e. N eight,
Speaker 1: he writes to five Field, if it would be possible
Speaker 1: for the church to make a non biased investigation into
Speaker 1: the morals of this government, they would find everywhere the
Speaker 1: old negation of Christianity that the end justifies the means.
Speaker 1: So he's like, I want you to look into, you know,
Speaker 1: this government as an anti Christian government because FDR gave
Speaker 1: people social security. Um Fifield follows her Hoover's advice. Later
Speaker 1: that year, he writes and sends out a tract to
Speaker 1: more than seventy thousand clergymen in the United States, and
Speaker 1: in the tract he says basically what Hoover had said,
Speaker 1: and he begs his fellow ministers to follow him in
Speaker 1: opposing FDRs socialist policies. Um Fifield wrote, quote, we ministers
Speaker 1: have special opportunities and special responsibilities in these critical days.
Speaker 1: America's movement towards dictatorship has already eliminated checks and balances,
Speaker 1: and it's concentration of powers in our chief executive, which
Speaker 1: you know, Jesus said, the meek shall inherit the earth.
Speaker 1: But after the current rich people are already dead and
Speaker 1: their money is given away, right, well it actually we'll
Speaker 1: see a thousand or two thousand, three thousand years or so,
Speaker 1: the meek will totally inherit the ears. Meek, you stay
Speaker 1: meek though, otherwise you're not going to inherit the earth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got. You do have to get be a little
Speaker 1: fair here when people are talking about, you know, FDR
Speaker 1: being a dictator. Obviously these folks are looney. But also
Speaker 1: if you are ever going to accuse the president of
Speaker 1: trying to be a dictator. FDR is a pretty good
Speaker 1: one because, like he does have a lot of power
Speaker 1: that he has centralized in himself totally. I mean, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, he had a lot of folks to
Speaker 1: fight against who are there on you know, there was
Speaker 1: a lot going on in that period. It's he definitely
Speaker 1: was the president at one of the toughest times to
Speaker 1: be president. Um, did a lot right, did a lot wrong?
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah, So Hoover, after five Field sends this letter
Speaker 1: out to seventy thousand clergy, Hoover notes like sends a
Speaker 1: letter back, like thanking him and telling him how much
Speaker 1: he appreciates it. Um. But all of this stuff, it's clear,
Speaker 1: like sending out letters to ministers about this ship isn't
Speaker 1: enough to catch on in any in any meaningful way.
Speaker 1: Like five Field may have sent this letter out, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean people are going to start preaching to
Speaker 1: their congregations that the FDR administer ration is evil. For
Speaker 1: one thing, he's the most popular president there's ever been,
Speaker 1: you know, like there is that people. He got elected
Speaker 1: an awful lot we like eating. Yeah, this guy is
Speaker 1: very popular, and so a lot of these ministers say
Speaker 1: to five Field basically like, I'm not gonna do this
Speaker 1: like everyone. He the only reason my my, my congregation
Speaker 1: haven't starved to death as this guy. What are you
Speaker 1: talking about? Um? Yeah. And of course there's also the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, churches are tax exempt, but there's
Speaker 1: ways they can lose that by lobbying directly politically. Um,
Speaker 1: there were, there were, there were. He's got a lot
Speaker 1: to overcome and he writes this letter. Hoover likes it,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't do anything. So Fifield on his own,
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's accomplished a lot in his little church.
Speaker 1: He can make rich people feel good. He's not going
Speaker 1: to change Christianity all on his own, but the N
Speaker 1: A M has the resources that might allow him to
Speaker 1: do this. And kind of on their own, they're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to make any of this make inroads.
Speaker 1: But together they can be an oreo of fucking up
Speaker 1: democracy forever, like a vultron of ships, like a ship voltron.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen forty six, with the Cold War in
Speaker 1: its early days in World War Two behind us in
Speaker 1: a ms PR department commissions a poll from the Opinion
Speaker 1: Research Corporation to determine which groups did the most to
Speaker 1: shape public opinion in the United States. Ministers topped the list.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to quote now from a doctoral thesis
Speaker 1: by Carmen Celestini of the University of Waterloo. Quote inn
Speaker 1: AM interpreted this finding is being potentially harmful to the
Speaker 1: American people because, according to n a M, ministers tended
Speaker 1: to be on the very left, both socially and fiscally.
Speaker 1: And AM members decided to take on the responsibility to
Speaker 1: halt a broader American swing to the left that was
Speaker 1: led by the clergy and influenced by the social gospel
Speaker 1: of the yearly twentieth century, Robert Wilson, the board chairman
Speaker 1: of the Standard Oil Company at the time, wrote, or last,
Speaker 1: the practical minded men of business take the time and
Speaker 1: trouble to point out the facts of history and the
Speaker 1: serious flaws and these widely touted old world systems that
Speaker 1: have failed so miserably. In practice, church leaders are likely
Speaker 1: to be swung to the left. They will hear only
Speaker 1: one side of the questions from left wingers who do
Speaker 1: take the time to talk with them, and on them,
Speaker 1: you lost that impression. I felt like I felt like
Speaker 1: he's alive. I felt like trying to look. Do you
Speaker 1: know who my favorite person on SNL was Jimmy Fallon.
Speaker 1: That was my favorite one because he never did a
Speaker 1: good job. I do. I did, like you know, the
Speaker 1: beautiful thing about Jimmy Fallon is that it's it's proof
Speaker 1: that you don't need to be funny or talented, or
Speaker 1: good at talking, or good at anything, or even legally
Speaker 1: a human being to be a popular television host. It's
Speaker 1: gotta be nice. So the the n a M launches
Speaker 1: a bunch of PR campaigns kind of based on Wilson's
Speaker 1: idea of trying to explain the facts of history, you know,
Speaker 1: to Americans to enter this leftward swing of the clergy um.
Speaker 1: And this is like a full court press. By nineteen
Speaker 1: forty nine, there's print, radio, TV ads, billboards all aimed
Speaker 1: at mobilizing Americans against socialism and for Christianity. So Lestini continues, quote.
Speaker 1: An initiative was led by Charles E. Wilson, General Electrics
Speaker 1: President under the Religion in America An American Life r
Speaker 1: i a L Committee, which was a religious public relations
Speaker 1: campaign sponsored by corporations, religious leaders, and the American government.
Speaker 1: As his storian, John P. Herzog described in this successful
Speaker 1: ten year campaign used celebrity endorsements to convince Americans that
Speaker 1: religious participation was a normative act. So they're kind of trying.
Speaker 1: They're trying to like make the case in this that
Speaker 1: like socialism is anti religion, and religion isn't Christianity is
Speaker 1: inherently American. They're not yet saying capitalism is inherently Christian,
Speaker 1: but they are. This whole effort is sponsored by like
Speaker 1: General Electric and ship right, So you can see this
Speaker 1: stuff starting to get tied together. Um to lay the groundwork, groundwork,
Speaker 1: that's what they're trying to do here. And in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty four in a M spent thirty six thousand dollars
Speaker 1: on PR. In ninety seven it was eight hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: and it goes up from there. So they are they
Speaker 1: are like massively increasing their PR budgets to put this
Speaker 1: propaganda out there. One technique they pioneered, they're the first
Speaker 1: people to do this is they had a speakers bureau
Speaker 1: that would get speakers into public schools to talk to
Speaker 1: kids about Christianity and against socialism. They also were the
Speaker 1: first to build a press service that would provide editorial
Speaker 1: articles for newspapers to publish. Um just like, well here's
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're they're they're the first
Speaker 1: people doing that, and they're this originally eventually reaches more
Speaker 1: than seventy five hundred newspapers in the United States that
Speaker 1: they put editorials, and this is a massive propaganda. Like
Speaker 1: I I understand that this is obvious and it's fundamentally
Speaker 1: a little naive, but like, that's not fair. It's not
Speaker 1: it's not it's not like it seems like it seems
Speaker 1: like it should be easier to convince people like of
Speaker 1: of my positions on things just by telling them that,
Speaker 1: because it seems so obvious that it's just like, that's
Speaker 1: not fair, Like even if you disagree with my ultimate ends,
Speaker 1: just like, let's make that fair, just one thing. Let's
Speaker 1: try and make one thing fair. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: you don't like freedom. It sounds like you don't like
Speaker 1: the people's ability to speak, freedom of a couple of
Speaker 1: dudes to play seventy and the only Freedom and Oppression Band.
Speaker 1: But what is that other than speech? That sounds like
Speaker 1: you don't like the First Amendment. You know what, I
Speaker 1: probably would have been a bad Supreme Court. I think
Speaker 1: we found the Pinko get Hoover over there. You know
Speaker 1: who else will purge the reds from our mists that
Speaker 1: actually exclusively purchased children from their parents homes and puts
Speaker 1: them on their island off the coast of Indonesia where
Speaker 1: you can hunt them for sport. And coming soon to
Speaker 1: Little St. James, Coming soon to Little St. James. It's
Speaker 1: going to be the euro Disney of hunting children for sport.
Speaker 1: Uh ads, We're back. So as we've talked about, this
Speaker 1: propaganda campaign that the n a m. Carries out has
Speaker 1: reaches a shipload of people, but it also doesn't do
Speaker 1: the trick. It is not as successful as they wanted
Speaker 1: to be because it's really crude and obvious propaganda. And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from Kevin Cruz again here. Ultimately, though
Speaker 1: industry self promotion was seen as precisely that Jim Farley,
Speaker 1: chairman of the Democratic Party, joked that another group involved
Speaker 1: in this public relations campaign, the American Liberty League, really
Speaker 1: should have been called the American Cellophane League. First, it's
Speaker 1: a DuPont product, Farley equipped. And second, you can see
Speaker 1: right through it. Even President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took his shots.
Speaker 1: It has been said that there are two great commandments.
Speaker 1: One is to love God and the other is to
Speaker 1: love your neighbor. He noted soon after the Liberty League's creation,
Speaker 1: the two particular tenants of this new organization say you
Speaker 1: should love God and then forget your neighbor. Off the record,
Speaker 1: he joked that the name of the God they worshiped
Speaker 1: seemed to be property, which is absolutely I mean, you
Speaker 1: could have you could have put the nail on the
Speaker 1: with the molock, but you know, you still you still
Speaker 1: crushed it. I'm still proud of him. So this effort
Speaker 1: that the n A M is like, and the the
Speaker 1: part of the n A M that kind of like
Speaker 1: Wilson is leading. Um, they're trying to support public religion,
Speaker 1: make the act of religion anti socialist um, and tie
Speaker 1: that into capitalism, just by the fact that it's sponsored
Speaker 1: by corporations. Right. It's kind of a subtle thing compared
Speaker 1: to what Fifield is doing. Reverend Fifield wants to make
Speaker 1: Christianity capitalist and celebrate wealth as the evidence that God
Speaker 1: loves you. Um. And that is like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: that chunk of the N A M. That's kind of
Speaker 1: going about it in a different way. But there's increasingly
Speaker 1: in the forties a group of guys in the n
Speaker 1: A M who start to see what five Fields doing
Speaker 1: and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, this is
Speaker 1: the way. This is what's gonna fucking work. And the
Speaker 1: two men who are leading that charge at the n
Speaker 1: a M are Jasper E. Crane, who is a DuPont executive,
Speaker 1: and J. Howard Pew. Now does that name sound familiar
Speaker 1: to you, guys? P p doesn't mean anything. There's that
Speaker 1: per Listen, listen. If you expect me to know that ship,
Speaker 1: you're way off. Now you've heard like the pu Pole period.
Speaker 1: Yeah well yeah, well yeah yeah, that that's that's who
Speaker 1: this is. What do you think he came up with
Speaker 1: church legitimately thought he came up with churchmanship? I know,
Speaker 1: you think that's a joke. Everyone was just stand in
Speaker 1: the centuries before named them that. It had to be
Speaker 1: a guy named p. No. Pew is. He was the
Speaker 1: namesake of the Pew Research Center. He and his brother
Speaker 1: are He and his brother are both rich business guys,
Speaker 1: and they start an organization called the Pew Charitable Trust
Speaker 1: UM and in nineteen six the Pew Charitable Trust starts.
Speaker 1: So before the Pew Research Center is the Pew Research Center.
Speaker 1: It's owned by the Times Mirror Company, and it's doing
Speaker 1: polling through there. And in the Pew Charitable Trust starts
Speaker 1: funding the Times Mirror companies research Center and it gets
Speaker 1: renamed the Pew Research Center. So that's where the name
Speaker 1: of the Pew Polling does. He does not found Pew Polling,
Speaker 1: but it is founded like in his name, by the
Speaker 1: organization that he helped to found. So J. Howard Pew
Speaker 1: was the founder of sun Oil Company and one of
Speaker 1: the wealthiest men on the planet Sunoco, right, Like that's
Speaker 1: that's this dude, um, and he has all of the
Speaker 1: money ever, Yeah it was. It's literally him in a
Speaker 1: du pot right like it is talking about the oligarchy
Speaker 1: good times. Definitely. These guys had strong opinions on yacht racing. Um,
Speaker 1: no questions. How are we going to fix the World
Speaker 1: Series this year? That's what m Yeah yeah um. So J.
Speaker 1: Howard Pew dedicated a lot of his time earlier in
Speaker 1: his life to supporting the Republican Party. He backed a
Speaker 1: slew of anti New Deal organizations with names like Sentinels
Speaker 1: of the Republic, the Crusaders, and the Independent Coalition of
Speaker 1: American Women. When he founded his J. Howard Pew Freedom Trust,
Speaker 1: he stated that its mission was to warn Americans about socialism,
Speaker 1: welfare state, is m Marxism, fascism, and any other for
Speaker 1: like forms of government intervention, to equate the American people
Speaker 1: with the values of the free market, the dangers of inflation,
Speaker 1: the need for a stable monetary standard. And again Pew
Speaker 1: like all these other guys, these are like America first types.
Speaker 1: But then fascism. You can't support fascism because about half
Speaker 1: a million Americans die fighting it. So facis Marxism are
Speaker 1: the same same thing, ignoring the twenty million dead communists.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna complaine? Same thing? Um. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: obviously fascism only ever gets to power with the buy
Speaker 1: in of the wealthy. But you know, that's a story
Speaker 1: for another day, and a story we told a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. Yeah, I was gonna say, that's a
Speaker 1: story for literally every story you tell. Yeah, that's just
Speaker 1: a story for that's just the story. So hughes first
Speaker 1: big attempt to culture jam his beliefs about capitalism into
Speaker 1: mainstream religion came through his work with an organization called
Speaker 1: the Layman's Council for the National Council of Churches. The
Speaker 1: n c C is like this big national church organization UM.
Speaker 1: And his goal was not to put politics in the
Speaker 1: n c C. First. He just wanted to push them
Speaker 1: to not be political, because he thought the clergy was
Speaker 1: so left wing that you could never like turn them right.
Speaker 1: So the best you can do is get them to
Speaker 1: not talk about politics. And he eventually gave the n
Speaker 1: c C up as hopelessly liberal. And when he reported
Speaker 1: back to his n a M colleagues about the fact that, like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna get We're not gonna at these leftist
Speaker 1: ministers to stop talking about socialism, his buddy Jasper Crane
Speaker 1: agrees that, like the n c C is a lost cause. Now.
Speaker 1: Crane had made his millions in plastics, and like Pew,
Speaker 1: he spent them backing a variety of far right causes,
Speaker 1: including a newspaper he called The Free Man. He was
Speaker 1: heavily involved in Princeton's theological yeah, and he kept up
Speaker 1: a bracing correspondence with different pastors. When Pew came to
Speaker 1: him complaining about the n c C, he wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: this nation under God was the slogan of the National
Speaker 1: Council of Churches when it was organized, and I have
Speaker 1: always felt that it was an incomplete quotation that has
Speaker 1: been improperly used in some quarters. What Lincoln said was
Speaker 1: this nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom.
Speaker 1: That has sounded magnificent, for liberty comes from God, and
Speaker 1: freedom it's environment is maintained by the state. The United
Speaker 1: States of America dedicated to freedom affected the separation of
Speaker 1: church and state. But that in no way through over
Speaker 1: the doctrine that this nation is under God's governance. So
Speaker 1: you see why they're one under God. To he added
Speaker 1: to things right, because under God, to them means God
Speaker 1: wants you to be free. Freedom is property. So by
Speaker 1: saying this nation is under God, we are saying this
Speaker 1: nation has to be dedicated to the preservation of property rights.
Speaker 1: That's the argument he's making. It's like an entire speech
Speaker 1: is just like shut down to just like I feel
Speaker 1: like you guys are incapable of critical thought, and they're
Speaker 1: all like you we yeah, totally you were. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: the smartest dude I've ever met. Yeah, um oh boy.
Speaker 1: And Dan, we are coming up to a quote you're
Speaker 1: gonna like, um, So, I think that might be the
Speaker 1: first time I've come across an idea that is now
Speaker 1: very normative in right wing circles, that like, separation of
Speaker 1: state doesn't mean this isn't a Christian country. Um. And
Speaker 1: to Crane into Pew, Christianity and capitalism, we're hand in glove.
Speaker 1: They very much are in agreement with five Field about
Speaker 1: this and Crane and Pew exchange letters that we have,
Speaker 1: And in one of these letters, Crane writes that the
Speaker 1: United States was presently mired quote with ensuing bewilderment and terror,
Speaker 1: mounting crime, juvenile delinquency, sin, suffering, and sorrow. As the
Speaker 1: different manifestations of socialism have spread across the world communism, fascism,
Speaker 1: national socialism, interventionalism, Fabian socialism, the New Deal, the welfare state,
Speaker 1: the danger becomes a cute civil civilization with liberty and
Speaker 1: human dignity seems doomed. List five more things I do love.
Speaker 1: We got a Fabian socialism. You're all about Fabian socialism, Dan,
Speaker 1: I'm all about it. I mean, I guess Alex yells
Speaker 1: about it a bit. Yeah, I learned about it from
Speaker 1: watching you and talking about Alex, do you sound like
Speaker 1: you're talking to like dad, Like I'm doing these drugs
Speaker 1: watching from watching so Pew and Crane, you know, this
Speaker 1: is a dark hour for them there there they convinced
Speaker 1: civilization is doomed because they're they're rich, are being taxed
Speaker 1: and it could have been a great comedy duo in Britain.
Speaker 1: Pew and Yeah, Pew and Crane, I would watch the
Speaker 1: ship it out? Is that the King and Buckingham Palace
Speaker 1: a fife. Yeah, Hey they call him Dr Pepper because
Speaker 1: he drinks a lot of soda. That would have been
Speaker 1: that would have been a better world. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they they decide after this thing with the n c
Speaker 1: C fails and they see like the propaganda that their
Speaker 1: buddies in the n a M. Coming up with just
Speaker 1: does not seem to be sticking the way they wanted to,
Speaker 1: they decide to invest in Reverend fifield Um. Now, Pugh
Speaker 1: was well aware of five Field's work, and while he
Speaker 1: while he admired the Christian libertarianism that Fifield supported, he
Speaker 1: was really cynical about the hands off approach that Fifield
Speaker 1: took to actually spreading his ideology. These like letters that
Speaker 1: he's sending ministers. Fifield mainly just like Shotgun to essays
Speaker 1: and arguments out to ministers that he had on his
Speaker 1: mailing list, But he believed in leaving the details of
Speaker 1: what they should do up to the individual ministers. He
Speaker 1: didn't want to actually tell people what to do. And
Speaker 1: Pugh wrote about this quote, I am frank to confess
Speaker 1: that if Dr Fifield has developed a concrete program and
Speaker 1: knows exactly where he is going and what he expects
Speaker 1: to accomplish, that conception has never become clearly defined in
Speaker 1: my mind. So he's kind of critical about this guy.
Speaker 1: But Pugh was savvy enough to realize that in a MS,
Speaker 1: propaganda has failed. One of his colleagues in the organization
Speaker 1: reported in quote of the approximately thirty preachers with whom
Speaker 1: I have thus spar talked, I have yet to find
Speaker 1: one who was unqualifiedly impressed. One of the men put
Speaker 1: it most typically for the rest when he said, the
Speaker 1: careful preparation and framework for the meetings to which we
Speaker 1: are brought to is too apparent. We cannot help but
Speaker 1: see that it is expertly designed propaganda, and that there
Speaker 1: must be big money behind it. We easily become suspicious,
Speaker 1: So like, what you're doing is obvious. So alright, alright,
Speaker 1: bail on the ministers. Now we gotta go for the kids. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're not smart enough to cut through our bullshit, so
Speaker 1: let's convince that they're their children to support capitalists after
Speaker 1: the kids. Yeah, that's the plan. I also I also
Speaker 1: like the idea that there's that that realization of like
Speaker 1: this propaganda is too good. Yeah, no one's gonna fall
Speaker 1: for it. It's so obviously well funded. It's really shamefully
Speaker 1: obvious Twitter account. Yeah, and it's one of these things.
Speaker 1: You know, what these guys are doing is very self
Speaker 1: serving obviously, and it's it's very cynical, and it's easy
Speaker 1: to believe that they're kind of like doing it um cynically.
Speaker 1: But I don't. I don't. I think these guys are believers.
Speaker 1: I think they really believe what they are saying about
Speaker 1: Christianity and capitalism. I don't think they're doing this as
Speaker 1: sort of like a cold uh act of culture jamming.
Speaker 1: I think they're they are trying to get their sincere
Speaker 1: beliefs out into the mainstream. Feels generous, Yeah, I let me.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read a letter to you that Crane wrote
Speaker 1: to Wilbert Leroux, a prominent Presbyterian, in ninety seven about
Speaker 1: spiritual mobilization five Fields group, because it gives you an
Speaker 1: insight and how Crane's thinking about things. They spiritual mobilization
Speaker 1: have simply stood for liberty of man as a son
Speaker 1: of God, created as a free being in the image
Speaker 1: of God. Now, the insistence on liberty is a fundamental
Speaker 1: principle for mankind, maybe termed controversial because it is a
Speaker 1: revolutionary concept, so is Christianity. Liberty is being attacked and
Speaker 1: called lots of things which it is not by the
Speaker 1: fellow travelers and even by many who lack understanding of
Speaker 1: the truth and indulgent idolatry of the state, a pagan philosophy.
Speaker 1: So that that's that's he's he's making like a pretty
Speaker 1: nuanced theological argument that liberty is property. Supporting property is
Speaker 1: a revolutionary concept because it means overthrowing the state. But
Speaker 1: you have to overthrow the state as a Christian because
Speaker 1: the state is a pagan philosophy. It is a it
Speaker 1: is an idol that's anti God. Like that's what this
Speaker 1: I think he believes what he's saying. Hmmm, that is
Speaker 1: a question of I mean, people believed a lot of
Speaker 1: crazy ship. Yeah, I mean that doesn't make it is
Speaker 1: the question like are these millionaires trying to like, uh
Speaker 1: like exploit capitalism. Are they doing it cynically or are
Speaker 1: they doing it because that's what they believe about? It
Speaker 1: is like a question of cynicism. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it gets to the ultimate like stupid v evil continuum.
Speaker 1: You know, like, yeah, of course you're stupid, But where
Speaker 1: on the evil continuum side are you if you're capable
Speaker 1: of like analyzing how evil your own actions are? Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you know what I'm saying? Yeah? Yeah, And that
Speaker 1: is Yeah, that is the question. Um. And obviously I
Speaker 1: don't I don't purport to have an absolute answer to that,
Speaker 1: but I kind of feel like these guys were believers,
Speaker 1: uh and I want to I don't know. I feel like,
Speaker 1: if you get a million dollars, the only thing you
Speaker 1: believe in his million dollars, you know what I'm saying. Also,
Speaker 1: you're gonna yeah, well yeah, that's kind of what I like,
Speaker 1: your your core belief is, I would like more than
Speaker 1: a million dollars and then everything that spirals out from there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But also if you're if the belief system you live
Speaker 1: in is Christianity, your core belief isn't just I want
Speaker 1: to have more money. Your core belief might be Jesus
Speaker 1: wants me to have more money. You know, like that's true,
Speaker 1: that it's it's a debatable point. Um. I'm going to
Speaker 1: read a quote by Eckert Toy writing for Pacific Northwest
Speaker 1: Quarterly again kind of about is this is this Eckhart
Speaker 1: to hurt Toy Toy Jr. Actually so far still an
Speaker 1: inspirational person. In nineteen seven five, Field and Spiritual Mobilization
Speaker 1: planned a program called Freedom in Peril. The plan was
Speaker 1: to send out the manuscripts of more than fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: copies of sermons on the subject of freedom. Ministers across
Speaker 1: the country were to preach them in October that year.
Speaker 1: All they had to sign was a return postcard indicating
Speaker 1: their willingness to preach on the subject of freedom. There
Speaker 1: were built in incentive incentives in the plan. If they
Speaker 1: preached one of the sermons on a specific date, ministers
Speaker 1: will be entered into a contest for substantial prizes. In
Speaker 1: a telegram dated October ninety seven five, Field wrote to
Speaker 1: Crane that twenty five thousand pastors from a wide spectrum
Speaker 1: of denominations had preached his sermon on the Perils to
Speaker 1: Freedom as a part of spiritual mobilization's crusade. So now
Speaker 1: we have five fields take their money. And he has
Speaker 1: shifted his tactics. Now he is trying. He is specifically
Speaker 1: trying to get people to do a thing. He's not
Speaker 1: just trying to convince them of something. He's saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: I want you to write. I want you to write
Speaker 1: like a sermon. I've like or I've written a sermon. Um,
Speaker 1: I want you to UM, I want you to give
Speaker 1: this to your your If you do, you'll be entered
Speaker 1: into a lottery. And yeah, you can win money if
Speaker 1: you read this sermon. And like, if you could write
Speaker 1: a sermon, if it's the best sermon on the subject freedom,
Speaker 1: we could like, yeah, you could. You could call it
Speaker 1: the shameless manipulation of faith for corrupt and venal ins Um.
Speaker 1: But Fifield also is a true believer. Um, we have
Speaker 1: or at least I I I think, so we have
Speaker 1: the correspondence these guys wrote out um, and Fifield feels
Speaker 1: like he's being sincere in what he says. In he
Speaker 1: sent this letter to Crane about their next move. I
Speaker 1: am believing more and more that we will not win
Speaker 1: our fight for liberty by laying the principal emphasis on
Speaker 1: the material accomplishments of our American civilization. We must stress
Speaker 1: the spiritual and cultural accomplishments. The greater justice and the
Speaker 1: increase in the solution of social problems. The results of
Speaker 1: voluntary corporation should be set forth as against the dire
Speaker 1: consequences of compulsion. The argument is clinched by the amazing
Speaker 1: material wealth, the aesthetic enjoyments, and the greater opportunity for
Speaker 1: the pursuit of happiness. I think following this line of thought,
Speaker 1: we are in a stronger position to combat the attack
Speaker 1: of the collectivists. Do you see what he's saying there?
Speaker 1: I think if everybody has a microwave, there'll be a
Speaker 1: lot happier. Yeah. If everyone has a microwave and we say, hey,
Speaker 1: you have that microwave because of Christian libertarianism, because this
Speaker 1: like and if you, if you back, if you if
Speaker 1: you were to get healthcare, for example, maybe we don't
Speaker 1: get microwaves anymore. And celebrating the possession of that microwave
Speaker 1: is godliness. Let's let's remember Jesus's parable of the servants
Speaker 1: and the talents, you know, like a the master gave
Speaker 1: one servant one and said betted on this, and you
Speaker 1: might win a microwave. And then everybody you know didn't
Speaker 1: win a microwave. But that's what hope is. That's what
Speaker 1: hope is, that you might might a microwave. So yeah,
Speaker 1: by the late nineteen forties, you can see all of
Speaker 1: the pieces for the what we've got going on now
Speaker 1: on the Christian right, Like you can see all of
Speaker 1: the pieces are there. They haven't quite been put together yet,
Speaker 1: but everything's in line. And when we come back in
Speaker 1: part two, we're going to talk about how five Field,
Speaker 1: Pew and the other plutocrats at in a m struck
Speaker 1: back at the collectivists like this is now they've built
Speaker 1: this machine and it is raring to go. But you
Speaker 1: know what else is raring to go before you get
Speaker 1: to that. Also, Hoover mostly was Pennsylvania. Sorry, I looked
Speaker 1: that up during one of the breaks, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure people didn't tweet it. Okay, that's what
Speaker 1: that's that's what he won. Pennsylvania was most god damn
Speaker 1: at knowledge Underscore Fight. Don't tweet anything about Pennsylvania. Goddamnit.
Speaker 1: Just get out ahead of that fucking Hoover. Uh. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Herbert Hoover, he's a big fan of your podcast,
Speaker 1: Knowledge Fight, which people can find at knowledge fight dot
Speaker 1: com or wherever podcasts are in existence. Yeah, it's some
Speaker 1: of those places. Yeah, I've heard of that. We're not
Speaker 1: on some things though. We're not on a lot of
Speaker 1: things like Happiness not Scher. We're not on the impersonate
Speaker 1: Dan and Jordan's and downloading all of their episodes and
Speaker 1: upload them on Stitcher. Do it. It'll take um, all right,
Speaker 1: Dan Jordan, any other plugs you want to you want
Speaker 1: to throw out? No, I think we're good. You got
Speaker 1: a novel Jordan's, Oh I do. But that was that
Speaker 1: was a while back. People have been uninterested in that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm working on another one. I'll
Speaker 1: tell people about that when it's done, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: Well that's gonna do it for us here at behind
Speaker 1: the Bastards, Um until Thursday when we'll come back and
Speaker 1: I'll make you guys sadder than you are right now. Hey,