All right there, Jeff, jump on up in the chair there and let
me just roll up a bit. Help this up. You don't mind,
I've I've got a step stool for children. Here. Here you go.
So I am an adult, I understand. Having said that, I am
an adult mongoose, I'm not above being picked up, and I would ask
you politely strip me like an adult and lift me up gently onto this seat.
You have to understand to see the bottom of it. It's taller than
my head. I'm just a mongoos I want Oh, okay, here you
go. Thank you? Is that? So? Let me go and wash
my hands real quick. I wouldn't be in my mouth, I'd be I'd
have some questions if you didn't. Jeff, Oh no, no problems up.
All right, I'll washed up and let's see. So what are we
in for today? You're having a little pain? Is just to check up,
just to clear you have the most noisers. I brush regularly. That's
good, that's good. Lost a lot of my life to get in there
a little bit, all right, all right, so if you just carte.
Yeah, a lot of keynines going on, a lot of keynines.
There's a little staining around there that's got broke on the gums, just a
little bit to see how they responding. Normal? Does this saying yes,
yes, I'm poking the gums to uh make them a little puffy, to
just see how they how they react and old hands out? Okay, are
you trying to tell me I've got puffy receding gums? Not? Boy,
I'm just good, you know on number one number two back there in the
in the back. Um listen, I don't know your maths. I don't
know what you're trying to tell me, but I know that I take immaculate
care these teeth, these teeth on my tools, I'll tell you. And
did I tell you? I use these tools to kill cobras? Okay,
Well, your incisors look great. There's there's a lot um. There's a
little steaming birds you got working out Frontay? What what's what's her name?
Rebecca? Rebecca? Right? I like to rub Becca. You get that,
as I said, I like Becca. She she get pardo, as
I say, I don't know. I haven't asked her, Jeff, I
haven't asked her. All right. Sometimes I guess you just gotta go for
it, buddy, too, right too, right now, you're speaking my
language. You know, we've got common common ground. Now, alright,
get back in there. I'm a dentist, all right, I'm not blind
right right too. It's a little dentist joke. It's a little get your
hands back game on that. This is fine, this is fine. Here,
let's see that incisors good. Incisire Molo molo moo moo moo ms to
the ram. It's just a little dinners jokes, dinner joke Indiana Jones.
Although I'll store interviewing, Okay, okay, I need to open up a
little more, Okay. In this case, I would I would really recommend
some some mouthwash, you know, if it's gonna go easy on the milk
mouthwah yeah yeah, but butter milk's not not that great. It's a content
in there, and and then it'll get the sugar in there. You you.
That's where the gentle the gum disease ginger vitus comes in. So the
gum disease, what comma, I'm sorry, gets that's that's what I just
said, just making sure we have to say that. It's union. You
know, I need to know about the gum disease, Rebecca. You know,
that was a little stretch. No, that was a bit of a
stretch, granted, but I was just coming. I've got an assistance get
away. Listen to this particular discussion back onto the birds on the front of
the house. No, but I was going to tell you I have an
assistant named Ginger that that joke. Will would have really flown with that one.
But you know, she's only on Tuesdays, Tuesdays and Thursday. She's
only these things. Off I listen, I see, uh, Rebecca is
actually flagging me down. Let me let me go. I think it may
him. May him? Are you doing to me? No? No,
you wouldn't have dentist Okay, okay, Jeff, you Jeff, Rebecca is
actually saying your your insurance has been denied. So you well, Mike,
well, I can't continue examining you right now. Oh is it? What
is it? A credit card? Maybe? I don't even again now it
doesn't work like again, run the card again. I'm sorry, Jeff,
it's just what I don't like that. It's just it could have been magnetized.
I travel extensively. It could have been demagnetized back scat to X ray
machines. Security. If you would hopped out out of the chair. There,
grab graber roller had and you can make enough appointment with you can because
you see it's good insurance. I mean i'd got that. Okay, you
know what, Jeff, I I really need to get onto the next patient
here, so I really really like it if if you'd leave please, well
don't see how that didn't you chairs yet? Oh it's hot. Well that
that's that's my next patient time. I actually he I think he's he's in
a lot of pain. It just sounds like it from his voice. Took
good the examined and because of the wiggle truth cool, Oh, Jeff jaff
every day is a struggle down on his luck, Cobra say, I said,
And hope he doesn't forget his bowler. That or not, it's most
of his charm. It's how he gets most of the ladies, most of
the birds. Hey, everybody, I'm doing for I'm David Stecco. You
caught me sipping. I still love him though. Ah, this is blurry
photos, the blurryest Welcome to episode one oh two. We I never counted
them, but now that we've crossed a hundred, it seems perversely fun disgusting,
episode numbers. Um, yeah, we we got a good one for
you tonight. I got a great one. This is really fun. Flora
found this one and I'm so into it. The full slice of a Murican
history, Murican disgusting, Murican history, nothing more a Murican than its Yeah,
let's uh, let's just jump into this. Yeah, I look at
Yeah, we don't need to. There's no no backrubs, no Dave Matthews
band, no, no incense burning, isn't trying to Let's just jump into
bed with this mystery. Yeah, we don't even need to tell you to
go to audible trial dot com. So yeah, it would be a waste
of time to say it the donut. I just called it the donut button,
but not on accident. I mean, it wasn't that. I don't
know. I just called it the donut button. And that's that felt right,
Okay whatever? Right? Could you imagine if if we sent out free
donuts every time they used donate button? So great, Yes, thank you
though for we've gotten some some donations recently. Yeah, we so appreciate it.
I cannot tell you how great that is. Things that your donations are
funding one T shirts. That's really happening. I've got two out of three
pieces, yep. We're about to finish our try for a third one should
be coming in any day now, yep. So we're we're using the money
for that, so we'll have t shirts available soon. We're working on setting
up the new website. Let's take a little bit of karash. We've got
a lot of things out there. We've actually, uh, you know,
been using the money for things like are you noticed that a few months ago
we got new logos, things like that. Yep, Flora and I lots
of fun on a microphone. Don't let us draw anything some mistake, so
you'll see that. You'll see that when we draw our own shirts, and
you're be like, yeah, oh buddy. But I just want everyone to
know that, like how much we appreciate the donations. It lets us do
more. It lets us be more ambitious, and we are ambitious folk.
That's right. Um already planning maybe a trip, a bit of a trippine
little road trip. I don't think that'll take much money, just just for
the short one that we're planning right now, but yeah, I hope it
can be put to good use on there, and if and if it's not,
then we'll save it for the next tripeine. Yeah. Maybe maybe once
we get it all settled out, maybe we announce our location. Maybe there's
a listener in the area we could grab launch. You don't have a beer,
there you go. So thank you guys for all of your support.
Thank you for listening right, thank you for likes, thanks for all that.
I don't feel like we ever say enough. Oh and you know what,
you know what me being the giant dick I am. I never got
around to doing last episode. Thank you to Mark Soulof, to Mark Coolomb,
to Evans, to Dathan Kapaser and Craig Leuith, yes, to Greg
Bach, to my girlfriend, and it writes thanks everybody. Yeah, thanks,
thank you everyone for for helping with our our big Hildo episode, being
a part of our Hildo. Thank you all for for listening to it.
So I never just I didn't say that last time. So Mart, that's
a very good point. It's on me too. Yeah, So we're dicks
and we're sorry and thank you. And now you guys you're in for a
treat. We're talking about the business plot. When Flora first said that to
me, I just thought that it was like some New World order, like
skull and bones kind of thing that and then when he did his research he
found out it was some new world kind of thing. But this is a
this is an extraordinarily interesting thing I'd never heard of, and it is a
real piece of American history with some with some mystery, with some unknown to
it. Yeah, some conspiracy, a lot of conspiracy. It's a lot
of expiracy. Yeah, it's a conspiracy. But also it's a conspiracy with
tangible records in the National archives like this. This is something that Congress had
to do deal with and plausible deniabilities. Right, So let's let's kick this
whole thing off. Doo doo doo doo dateline a hundred years ago. World
War One sucks for everybody. Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers return home from
the front only to find most things suck. Things are all right for a
little while, until you know the interests that'd be decide to pull a fast
one on good old Joe blister foot. Yeah, exactly. There was.
There was this problem and this is there's there's kind of a lot of set
up to this, and it's important, so bear with us. But unfortunately
you're going to learn something. Um. So, right after World War One,
all of these soldiers come home and the initial standing agreement was you're mustering
out, you got sixty dollars and a train ticket home. And all of
these soldiers coming back. You know, the America had had filled these these
jobs. When they all left, they had a really hard time finding employment.
The economy was awash with labor and we didn't have the enough jobs for
these people. And sixty dollars in a train ticket not enough. And so
the veterans started a group together. They petitioned the government to say, hey,
come on, you know, he lamma about a little sum. Pretty
effort there, like they're trying to get something because they wanted a pension,
right, Yeah, they wanted a pension. They wanted the government to say,
yeah, I'll take care of you because you hung it all out on
the line in one of the ugliest wars. It's the biggest. There's a
war so big they named it after the world, well the World, and
at the time it was just called the Great War. Yeah, they didn't
think anything would surpass it. Human ingenuity trials again, So they came back,
they petitioned the government and the government. M head and Hod went back
and forth and said, finally, and this is the Herbert Hoover administration under
which most everything went to crap. He was the president. He was nice.
He was the president after burned it like those soldiers got burned. All
they came home well burned by the government, government, not Mustard gas.
Come on, man, I'm not a monster. So Herbert Herbert Hoover took
over after Woodrow Wilson, who and I thank Ken Height for this really turned
me on to what a complete toll. Wondrow Wilson was turned America into a
very terrifying place for a while with each neighborhood had an American activities all then
he encouraged neighbors to watch each other for Unamerican activities. Kind of a sketchy
time. Also, you had problems with uh. This is not particularly Germane
to this, but uh. Nineteen eighteen Spanish flu outbreak. The government knew
that this disease was out there, but they still said, oh no,
no, have war bond parades. We need those war bonds, even though
knowing that that this flu would spread. When everyone came cluster everyone together in
a very tight space and here in Chicago that was a particularly big problem,
you know. So, Um anyway, so Herbert Hoover just carries the torch
for these these these bad programs. But he was also a big friend to
uh the capitalists, yea, very much in their pocket. A lot of
the military excursions in up two World War one. Uh and even after we're
the US's foreign policy was really um pushing individual corporations interests um as a matter
of fact. Uh, well we'll get we'll get to this. But one
of the main characters in this this story, this episode, major General Smedley
Butler, Smedley Smedley. He's not a villain, No, not at all.
He actually went to China as a Marina United States Marine to protect to
standard oil outpost. Yeah, for the Boxer rebellion. Yeah. So so
these kind of a lot of weird things happening, a lot of stuff.
And don't forget. In nineteen thirteen, speaking of corporate interests, the Federal
Reserve was created yep, which I actually almost suggested as a show topic for
this week. I didn't tell you this, but I wanted to have more
time to do research on it. Yeah, maybe we will. There's I
definitely want to do a whole episode on the creation of the Federal Reserve and
all the all the stuff that goes along with that, because there's a lot
of allegations, implications, and other things that ran with nation. Whenever there's
something with that much money in determining economic you know, futures, that's a
lot of people think that that was that's has spelled the end of America for
the people people. And I would count to that by saying, it's the
it's the feed is the reason why the United States has come out of the
recession faster than any other country on the planet has because of a unified federal
reserve system. It's uh, there's just so much cool stuff there. So
I think we should do that something one day, but but for the time
being, a lot of stuff going on. So these these soldiers they returned
to the United States, they want a better deal. They're they're like,
come on, man, we deserved like this old deal, right, I
didn't even mean to do that. And you're like, are they right?
So, uh, the Hoover administration finally reaches this this compromise of sorts.
They say, oh, you know what, you're right. You were all
heroes and you deserve something better. How about a thousand dollars US bond payable
in twenty years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the fine print.
Yeah. Everyone's like, oh that sounds good. I'm sorry what well,
yeah, you want a thousand dollars with interest payable in twenty years. Yeah.
And I it was twenty five, nineteen twenty five. I think that
that was. Yeah, it was the it was the World War Adjusted Compensation
Act. Jesus, what's the acronym on that, Yeah, that would be
the ww ACA w Yeah. So all these soldiers are like, that's great,
but that's in the but also twenty years in the damn future. Come
on, man, we need money now. None of us can afford food
now, none of us will be alive in twenty years. What are you
going to do about that? So and so, they these these veterans groups,
they started to converge on Washington. They marched on Washington and they formed
this this I mean it was the name of open until they formed it as
though some formal thing. But they was called the Bonus Army. Yeah,
because they were looking for their bonus. Yeah, there there. It was
the bonus for having served in fucking World War one, right, and so
out of this, uh, some some big players. And one of these
guys was Major General Smedley Butler. He was a marine and like a Marines
marine and he um, he lied about his age so he'd get in at
sixteen. And he fought everywhere and everyone. Yeah, he went to every
action all over the world, South America, China, I mean places that
I didn't know that we sent soldiers, Yeah, the Philippines. Yeah,
all over the place. And so we'll we'll we'll go into a bit more
detail a little later too. But yeah, he's yeah, his life will
have to go over So that kind of I just that's that's sort of like
what led up to this moment. Yeah, that well yeah, yeah,
and um gosh, it's it's it's one of those things where I don't know
about your public school experience, but never got into twentieth century at all with
with my American history. Oh no. And here's the thing, like this
part of history is so rarely really examined. There's there's World War One.
We're just in the war and it's all about trenches and mustard gas, right,
and then there's yeah, then there's the Depression and then World War two,
Like there's these big points that get it. But this is a fascinating
section. And I gosh, I wish Ken Height was here because man,
that man knows history backwards and forwards. Um, all of the tiny little
things that coalesce into this event. Um. And mostly this is a really
interesting study in the influence of economics on politics, political science. Yeah,
and how all these things are intermixed. It's just a great thing. Oh
yeah. And so what we're going to tell you tonight today, tomorrow to
morning the business plot. We're gonna tell you what it is, who was
involved with it, did it really happen? Yeah? And what maybe maybe
we'll get into some like what would have happened if it was successful or you
know, yeah, what if here's a here's a general overview of what's going
on. Then, Um, now that we're now that we're caught up with
that, now that we have literally law, an army of disgruntled veterans MPEd
around the capitol. Yeah. In nineteen thirty three, an apparent coup to
overthrow the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was set in motion by a shadowy cabal
of wealthy businessmen. What ever, heard of that The aim of the plot
was to install a state of fascism quote, to save the nation from the
communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in
America. End quote. Now here's a weird thing for your historical ven diagram.
And at this time, Benito Mussolini is over in Italy and he is,
by most people's accounts, killing it. He has got their industry up
and running. He is actually people are like, oh that that that Mussolini
guy. Look at what he's doing with Italy. What a brilliant guy.
Yeah, this is what we should be doing people, right. And you
know who else is a real rising star? Yeah? Some a hitler,
right, I don't know, but I like the cut of his jib.
And that's that's a part of history that people forget that on their on their
rise up, these people are organizing their nations, nations that were devastated by
war. Germany in particular, disenfranchise left just to burn. No one cared
about it after the war. And these these guys, these charismatic leaders,
they they get these countries back on their feet, only to then drive them
back to their knees. We haven't gotten there yet later in the book.
Yeah, and so it's it's a hard thing to think about. But at
this at this point in history, people there's there's and I'm not saying everyone,
nothing's absolute, but there are a lot of people, especially on the
of the capitalist persuasion, are saying, Man, that guy over there,
he's really onto something, he's really getting that country going. We had some
of that juice and and the other thing on the old history lesson leading up
to this nineteen twenty nine Black Tuesday, the crash of the stock market that
you know, of course, you know what what happens with that, you
know, besides people losing everything that they own, right and and jumping from
buildings, it sends the country spiraling into recession and then depression. Yeah,
the Great Great Depression. Just a horrible time. And then nobody was having
fun with it. Then to top it all off, of course there's prohibition
going on. So you can't even drink your problems away. There's nothing good
happening. The middle of America turned into a huge pile of dusty shit.
Ye. The only thing that would grow was the grapes of wrath and grow
the so so America is just stagnant, if not just completely fallen on its
ass. Uh. The rich industrialists and Wall Street fat cats, they were
scaredhess of FDR. Yeah, here comes this guy who has this this this
idea for all these social programs, because I mean, America is reeling.
We're fifty years out from the Civil War. Yeah, um, you know,
it's it's been a it's been a bumpy fifty years, you know,
of of rebuilding and then the World War One, and so FDR decides,
you know what I'm we're let's let's try something like we've got to change what
we're doing. Yeah, and that's where that so he launches this sweeping number
of reforms that we now refer to a aggregate as the New Deal. Right,
and and the rich, the elite, who were fine during this time.
By the way, they had already made their their millions. They which
will come up in a later episode if we do the Federal Reserve. There's
a whole thought that they orchestrated the crash, pulled all their money right at
the last minute, caused the crash, and then sat pretty while America burned.
So anyways, they were fine during this time. Then they started getting
scared when when the what the social norm was was questioned or challenged by FDR,
he comes in. He was poised to conduct what they saw as a
as a massive redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. To achieve
this goal, they sought to recruit retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler,
a popular and influential veteran and all around real American hero. And again we'll
come back to him in a little bit. Butler would organize an army of
five hundred thousand veterans to march on Washington and ask nicely if President Roosevelt would
pretend to become sick and let Butler run things in his stead while doing the
bidding of Wall Street. And if Roosevelt refused, he would be overthrown by
Butler's army and executed. And then yea, and still Butler would be in
charge, and he, you know, might curiously reverse all of FDR's changes.
Yeah. Yeah. However, Butler ended up blowing the whistle and causing
a hearing to be convened by the House of Representatives to investigate the allegations.
Yeah, because what they what they didn't. Somehow, despite his two Congressional
medals of honor, his distinguished service career, the fact that he almost ended
up running the entire Marine Corps, that he is a true patriot in that
he is willing to say I don't think this is right, and this is
what we shouldn't be doing, but I love my country and I'm not going
to let it burn. Yeah, not going to let it be taken over
by a bunch of ass hats, right, and that looking for a buck.
Right. Their mistake was thinking that because he was speaking out against the
government on behalf of the Bonus Army, oh well, this guy hates the
government. He'd love to see it burned just as much as we would,
but for stupid reasons that don't involve money. Though the apparent coup ended there,
and the hearing found Butler's story to be mostly true, no one was
convicted of any crimes, and soon the story faded into relative obscurity even I
mean, they even went so far as to redact from his testimony the names
of the most prominent people, amongst which JP Morgan. Yeah, they redacted
them from the official record and said, oh, well, those names are
hearsay. But these other names, these lesser people, Yeah, we'll put
them in the record. Yeah, no more plotting against the president and knock
it off. So we we've told you about how we got to disappoint a
mayor was embroiled. In the Great Depression, people began to get worried that
capitalism was a failure and even democracy was a bust. That's how that's how
depressed people were in the Great Depression. Well, i mean, look at
I mean, we were at that point, uh, you know, just
better than one hundred and fifty years old. We've already had a civil war.
Yeah, you know, like you know, it's like it's a tough
thing. You know, we're still acquiring land, there's still stuff happening in
the West, and we're we're still duking it out for just the simple sovereignty
of the nation. And it's not going well. Yeah, it's it's it's
rough. So some people wanted a dictator to straighten things out, and other
forms of government began to look a little better than what was going on.
This included fascism, communism for some people, Nazism because that was becoming a
popular and communism always popular in industrial areas. I mean, you read Upton
Sinclair's The Jungle. You know, it gets you hooked because there's people in
the meat products. There's terrifying stories. Uh. As a matter of fact,
fun anecdote, when I moved to Chicago, I didn't know a single
person here, So you cooked. So I cooked people in nath them.
And the only book that I read as far as research was The Jungle.
I moved out here and read The Jungle, which is just it's a if
you hadn't read it, it's it's a very important work from the nineteen twenties
by Upton Sinclair, and it was this sort of scathing expose on the Chicago
meat packing industry, how the whole city was like this running graft of bringing
in immigrants into Chicago instantly fleeced them of all their money. They would work
in these these these horrifying conditions in the stockyards and his butcher's they and then
the minute they were broken or would die, they would kick right back out
again. And it was it was just a just a rough, brutal system.
And that's what he was writing about. But the I mean, the
last a big chunk of the book are just these giant communist and socialist screes.
It's always like he writes it. Oh, and then the gentleman came
in and in a clear voice said, twelve pages later, I mean like
it was. It was. You know, it was a very It was
a very popularist because people were treated so badly that communism sounded like a great
idea. Yeah, no one heard Yakov Smirnov yet, so they'd had no
idea. But to a lot of people, communism was the devil. Yeah.
Still, and now keep in mind some of these these forms of government
were still new and not full of atrocities that would later emerge. And like
you said, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini already admired by conservative businessmen for solidly
dealing with unions, with social unrest and getting Italy's economy up and running again,
if only at the point of a gun. Right. In my research,
I didn't see, you know, it just said that they were very
They were intrigued by what he has done, and there was a lot of
people who were like, oh, look at all he's doing great. I
don't know if they were willfully ignoring the other practices. Maybe at this point
they were unaware of them. I don't know, probably unaware. Yeah,
yeah, I have no idea which way that went. But but it was
just, yeah, it was a weird, a weird time for that.
Yeah. And then when Roosevelt took office in thirty three, he instituted what
he called the First hundred Days yep, or the First Hildo, the First
Hildo, which was an economic program aimed at stimulating the economy, which,
by the way, I think every president thereafter has been expected to pull some
sort of damn miracle of the first hundred days. It's never happened again than
that. Before they even take office, they're blamed. But this included such
things as the Glass Stiegel Act, the establishment of a glass ceiling with an
eagle paint at all ye, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and um. He
ended prohibition and helped legislation to relieve mortgage burden and unemployment. And also a
very important thing, he got America off the gold standard. I think we
have a I think we have an audio clip of that speech. It's time
America to work hard and play hard. America's need jobs and be as to
drink all on those jobs. That's all right. So yeah, so he
gets us off the gold standard, and that that right there is what really
paints the target on him. Yeah, thing about the gold standard. Now,
the England had already abandoned the gold standard a few years before. Yeah,
you know what this did economically was further hurt the US because the without
gold underpinning the value of the dollar, it could fluctuate and real quick.
The gold standard means that one dollar is equal to so many ounce parts of
an ounce of a of gold. So maybe like twenty dollars equals one ounce
of gold, one dollar equals point The exact conversion was one dollar one was
equal to an amount of gold equal to one point six seven dollars. Okay.
Now, the problem with this is that you can you can pull a
very easy slide of hand because there's tons and tons and you the US contracts
had these. This gold underpinning was part of mortgages, it was part of
business loans, that that gold was currency. You could go to the bank
with your dollar bill and say I want this six changed for the gold that
it's worth now and I don't understand this part. It's and it was kind
of outside of the scope of this. But so the conversion was one US
dollar was equal to one point six seven dollars. That they called a gold
dollar. And this is a horrible situation because it means that a bank,
because gold is written into your mortgage, can say, oh, yeah,
that that ten thousand dollars that we lent you, now you owe us sixteen
thousand, seven hundred dollars. We want you to pay that to us in
gold. And it can go both ways, and it's it was this this
very tricky thing. So getting off the gold standard meant that the British dollar,
actually the British sterling pound sterling was when it was when they remove the
gold standard, it actually fell in value. Now the problem with this is
that means that the pound is weak against the dollar and Britain buys less from
the US, so now we don't have as many exports. Further drives us
into trouble. And they didn't expect it to get better. They were they
at that point. They thought it might get worse. And so all these
companies are withholding their orders waiting for the pound sterling to gain values so they
don't get robbed on it. They thought, oh, in the future it'll
get better, so we'll wait for now. While this happens, the US
economically is starving, right, so FDR says, effort, we're off the
gold standard. He manages and it was extraordinarily controversial, went to the Supreme
Court, narrowly passes the Supreme Court because he by executive order, stripped out
the gold clause on every contract, nullified it across the land with one maneuver,
which was tearing off one hell of a band aid. And so suddenly
all these these capitalists who didn't give a what happened economically because they had their
money and they knew how much it was worth, all of a sudden,
oh my god, we could turn poor like anybody else. The dollar could
devalue, it could it could inflate you. There's all these problems that could
they could affect their money. Now, yeah, when you come off the
gold standard, gold is anything can happen. It's a man held the gold
backed that's different, gold backed up the dollars, so you know, they
you can't print more money than the gold that you have in reserve, right,
which is a great way to regulate everything. But with all this economic
turmoil going on, you take yourself off the gold standard, then you've got
fiat currency, which is just it's a fancy way of saying made up currency.
You can print all the money you want. It's we all agree what
it's worth, right, That's why it's worth anything. It's a currency based
on faith, which means if you're in trouble and every everybody this, oh,
I'll print more money. But the problem is you print more money,
that means each individual piece of money is worth less. And that is the
definition of inflation. That's why I think it was a Germany at one point
they were wallpapering their apartments with money. It was cheaper than any other paper
and that they could get at the time. It means every virtually every economy
on the planet has had to deal with us to some degree another. And
sometimes it's crazy. I think that there's is it. Maybe Zambia or Tanzania
has large has pretty much they have like twenty trillion dollars bills because it's just
gotten. It's just ridiculous, like why even But but that happens. Inflation
can get to be very dangerous. It can be a huge problem. There's
actually a really great NPR series about Brazil in the nineties into eighties working through
this this problem and how they fixed it. U But well, again,
this is getting Yeah, this is fart. Note fart sounds well wow,
drive fus what there we go. We're back in the saddle. So that's
what's going on. And this is this scared everybody. Yeah, that that
was rich. What it boils down to is or coming off the gold standard.
Finally gave the hardcore capitalist a genuine like Okay, no, now that's
that's too far. We have got to do something about This helps the economy
in the short term. Uh. Scares the capitalists like crazy. They saw
it as anything from socialism or communism to even what some considered a Jewish Zionist
plot. Right, there was definitely a good amount of simmering racism to throw
into the pot. Yeah, they hated FDR got a lot of hate from
both sides, even a burther conspiracy in there. I who love him from
his Dutch origins, Well, no one trusts the Dutch. And keep in
mind Henry Ford had written, you know, a decade before the International jew
I mean there was there was a fair amount of anti Semitism already simmering an
industrialist and capitalist America. Yeah, and so when when everyone gets threatened at
this point, we're no better than Germany, you know, like like when
when there's a problem, when things start getting scary, find those guys.
Blame them, Yeah, blame somebody else. Now we we've given you your
economic lesson for today. But the bell has rung and it's time to go
to the next class. And the next class is um health. Miss strong
bus teaching. Oh dude, she's so hot the other day though, I
was like, I was in there after class. I think I think I'm
gonna ask you to problem. I think it'd work. I think it would
work so cool. Miss strong boss would never go to prom with you.
You say that now, dude, say that now. But she's into me.
It's all on your head, bro, it's on your head. Start
broum. No, we're going to political science class. Oh god, sorry,
we're gonna I want to talk about forms. Mister Nursman's a dick Nursman.
Adam Nursman is Yeah, good dog out Nurstman. I want to talk
about forms of government because it's something that people throw around. These are terms
people throw around. I never got the the boring pleasure of having it explained
to me. You didn't know how Doc Lynn felt. Then go to back
at good old Shine Mountain High School, it was one of the best.
Well, good on him. I'm gonna throw out out some very rudimentary definitions
for some of the high rollers in the government. Terms that we're talking about.
When all the world's governments played baccarat, the only four allowed into the
ivory room. Wow, the ivory Yeah. Well, first of all,
let's talk. Let's let's tell about democracy. That's something we've heard of it
I think heard of, thanks Obama. Democracy. Democracy is funny. It
refers to a broad range of types of government based on the consent of the
governed. Yep, we have to vote things into happening. The majority rules.
Yeah, like a mob, an angry, angry mob. It's disinterested
in voicing its opinion once every four years? Is it so fucking hard even
every two years? Come on? Now, there's also a republic, which
is government that's ruled by elected leaders and run according to law. What we
what we're told we live in is a democratic republic. Yeah. So we
we have elected leaders um that are elected by consent of the government and supposedly
holding the interests of those constituents. So the government is for the people and
by the people. Well, would you say then that we have a Democratic
People's Republic here in the US. Yeah, there's a there's another Democratic People's
Republic. Yeah, it's over in Africa. It's in North Korea. Well,
well there's that too, the DPRK, and I'm thinking of Congo.
Oh see, all the great countries have this incommon. That's probably that's probably
a whole different subset. Like there. When I was looking at democracy,
it was like, here's here's an off shoot. Here's an off shoot,
here's an off shoot. And you'll find that with all these So you're saying
that Korea doesn't have a democracy. Oh, you know, everybody voted for
Kim jung Yeah, it's because he's the first man on the moon. Yeah,
is mandatory to vote Kim chungoon. Therefore Kim Jungoon glorious leader. Oh
now we're going to get hacked nat NORP. Same thing I didn't. I
didn't make a but joker. Oh now, let's talk about fascism. This
is rule by a totalitarian and corporatist government. Uh. Nazism is just the
same thing as fascism, except there's a stronger emphasis on race. Yep,
it's fascism racist. Yeah, it's it's racism. M h m. How
about communism. Communism is a socioeconomic system based on the common ownership of the
means of production, with the absence of social classes, money and government rule.
Yeah, everyone contributes and everyone benefits. Has that ever worked? It's
it works in theory. The problem is that it's meant to govern humans,
Yeah, who are inherently greed day week Biggs the karaky from bored in things
money. It's called the animal farm people read it, George orwell, milk
and apples, man, it's all about milk and apples pilled that windmill.
Um, I'm sounding well read tonight. You really are hand in hand.
There's socialism which is much like communism, and some people even posture that it's
it comes before communism, but it's focused on economics and not become to America
before Obama. It's so funny, how because even in the thirties there,
in the late twenties, early thirties, it was like they had a socialist
party like it wasn't it wasn't as hated as communists or I don't think which
is funny. A quick communist versus socialist? How do you tell the difference?
It all sounds the same well, a couple things. There are a
lot of differences actually that it's like reading the VCR manual though right to find
the differences, well, it's pretty easy. All you have to do is
read O bomb my care. That's it. I'm done making stupid jokes.
For communism, it's from each according to ability, to each according to needs.
Everyone gets to do what they're good at and everyone gets what they need.
Right. Socialism is from each according to ability, to each according to
contribution. So whatever you put into it, you get out of it.
Yeah. Yeah. Also in communism, also known as the lazy clause.
I don't get that though. If you don't put into it, you don't
get out of it. How's that a lazy clause? Are you saying?
That is, if you're lazy, you don't get right. Yeah, it's
the clause that cures that because there's some guy in communism going, so you
guys are just gonna take care of everybody, right, right? That,
Well, that's what people try to make you think socialism is. Right.
I feel like this is it's a very slippery slope because we're we're not um
political scienceman, we're not a commissman. But we we want to know more
about this. We're trying to get some information out there. Might we might
be slenderman. I'm not a slenderman me neither. I've been running somebo but
to stretch my arms and I take your soul. We do take children though.
So um lots more on communism versus socialism. If you type in communism
versus socialism, a lot of websites will have little charts that are like,
here's how they differ, and you'll probably also get an epic rack battle from
history. I'll tell you what though. They they did one of all the
Russian rulers. It was like, oh, i'd rescute and versus um Stalin
or something. I don't know, but they have a bunch of them.
Is one of one of the best ones they've done. It was. But
anyway, that's a that's a little forms of government rant for you. So
now you've got that in your pocket, tell your friends about it. Yeah.
So so the plot. So the plot. A military coup was deemed
to be the answer to these rich people's fears, and a group of mergowealthy
men met in private in New York to plan one at a place called the
Medals Uh it was all to be financed by leaders of industry, and heading
it up was your friends at DuPont and your friends at and including JP Morgan.
I'm glad to see that JP Morgan has at no point changed their perspective
or their behavior, not at all. Some of the high rollers in this
Urine DuPont. There was, I guess a guy named urinee Irene. Sure,
I don't know, it's dumb. You're in, You're in, You're
in Mouth DuPont. This was a right wing chemical industrialist and founder of the
American Liberty League, which will come up in a second. The organization assigned
to execute the plot. And you've got Grayson Murphy, director of good Year,
William Doyle who was a former state commander of the American Legion and a
central plotter, John Davis, former Democratic presidential candidate and senior attorney for JP
Morgan. Who Al Smith, who's just a good guy, is my neighbor.
I try to include him on these things. You know, he doesn't
get out of the house much. Oh No, his wife, you know,
she's keeps him on a short leash. But you know he likes to
get out with the boys. You know, a way and say he buys
me as a lot, so he's a nice guy. This Al Smith was
Roosevelt's apparent bitter political foe from New York extraordinary better former governor of New York
and co director of the American Liberty League. It's it's really funny, how
like, well, Fdr beat me. Now, I want to Instruburn institute
a coup. Yeah. John J. Rascob a high ranking DuPont officer and
former chairman of the Democratic Party. It's his own party plotting against him.
In later decades, Rascob would become a Knight of Malta, which was a
Roman Catholic religious order with a high percentage of CIA spies. Apparently Robert Clark,
one of Wall Streets just bankers and stockbrokers. And then fellow by the
name of Gerald McQuire, a bond salesman for Robert Clark and a former commander
of the Connecticut American Legion. Those are your Mayhorr players in this. Now
it was decided that the quote man on the white Horse end quote would be
Smedley Butler because he was a very popular war vet and thought by this group
to be easy to manipulate. Yeah, there was a few things that they
thought they had levers on him. I mean, he was extraordinarily popular because
every veteran knew that he was a soldier. Soldier, Yeah, he was
fighting for them. He had also recently been snubbed as it were. I
mean, he was a soldier. He wasn't a politician, but he was
in line to be the next commandant of the Marine Corps. One of his
another guy who had a less experience, who was who hadn't done as much
he was. There was even you know, headlines things like this that that
Butler was expected to take over the Marine Corps. He did not get it.
He said this this rival of his, didntting Fuller, who was a
more politically savvy, more politically connected, less mouthie yep. And so he,
you know, he took over. At which and at which point um
Smedley retired. He was like, you know what, you guys, I'm
just going to become a speaker, which he did and did very well.
And he traveled the country speaking about veterans benefits, veterans rights and really holding
a lot of shining a lot of light on on like this is what the
government has done. That's not fair, you know, these guys deserve more
than they got. That's not that's that's not the America that they fought for.
Not not to mention being outspoken on anti war sentiment and war profiteering.
Yep. He didn't like the fact that the United States military was being used
to protect private business interests from other countries. He thought they were I think
he called them, uh uh glorified police officers. Yeah. Yeah, and
and Butler to give you an idea of his time, his glory glory days.
Uh. He was born in eighteen eighty one. He died in nineteen
forty. He was I mean, like we've said in the Marines, he
was a career marine. Yeah, that was what he did. That's what
he wanted to do. Nicknamed Old Gimlet Eye, the Fighting Quaker, an
old duckboard, although at this point in history they had already repudiated duckboarding,
and it was not done any longer. No, not after they took over
a guantal, not after the Frank and Duck incident. Sorry we said duck,
and we need some more sounds in this night. So how I feel
about it. He was the most decorated marine in US history, with sixteen
medals, two Congressional medals, and honor for separate actions. Yeah. The
French even gave him a medal. Oh, I love you, Smedley,
Oh, Smedley, Smedley Darlington Butler. Nice. Yeah. He joined the
Marines in eighteen ninety eight. Like you said, he lied about his age
to get in there, but he wasn't very far away from seventeen anyways.
He served until nineteen o eight when he had a nervous breakdown and they gave
him a nine month sick leave and he just itched to get back into military
service. Went back in nineteen o nine, served till nineteen twenty four when
he was asked to become the public safety officer of Philadelphia because Philadelphia was apparently
more corrupt than a bowl full of wet geese. I'll support what you just
said, thank you. So he did this for a year. He had
sort of like a like a contract for a year. Was super corrupt,
very like from the police down to the hookers on the street. The city
was not him. The city was Yeah, and he like took a baseball
bat to it. Now, this was during, like we said, Prohibition,
which was the time in America where alcohol was unlawful the dark times.
Yeah. Illegal. He was a big proponent of prohibition. That's that's one
strike against him. But I mean he was a Quaker, so he fell
in line um a fighting Quaker, fighting Quaker. He was a He was
a mascot. Listen to Pennsylvania Fighting Quakers. Also a frequent contributor to the
early letter writing campaign of blurry of a furry, three free throws, florry
free throws. When breaking up a speakeasy, I always like to have a
red barren pizza. A little elaborate. I just go with Max. But
sure, so he kicked Philadelphia, started getting it into shape. They asked
him to stay on another year. He stayed on another year year, and
then when when two years was up, they wanted him to stay on another
year. The President said no, that's enough, send him back into service.
And he defied, or he tried to defy the mayor and the president
and stay on to continue cleaning up in Philadelphia. Well, everybody got pissed
off at him, apparently, and kicked him back into the Marines. I
don't know, it's a weird it was a marine. That's a weird marine
part of his story. But anyway, he's In nineteen twenty six, he
returned to service, served till nineteen thirty one. Towards the end of his
service, he started getting a little jaded from the whole thing. In thirty
one, he repeated gossip about Mussolini. Apparently Mussolini had run over a kid
and everybody just sort of brushed it under the rug. And he I heard
Benito doesn't even wear under pants. Bonito wears boots made of giraffes. Disgusting.
Come on, come on, gros, there's plenty of girafts still left.
We don't even have to worry about it right now. But it's growth
slippery slope. Anyway, the Italian government got pissed off at him. Jesus,
yeah, and they they bitched to Herbert Hoover was clearly the most board
government on earth, to President Hoover, and Hoover apparently didn't care for him
and had him court martialed for it. Heard you were talking. Yeah,
He apologized and then got away with a reprimand so he didn't end up getting
court martialed in the end because he said him sway, you're an apple,
I'm sorry you such a dicke. In nineteen thirty the commandant of the Marine
Corps had died, and Butler was, like you said, in line to
replace him, but then was passed over by this Ben Fuller. Uh.
And that that just royally. Yeah, that was the last piece of cheese
on his biscuit. Right. So he requested retirement shortly after, and then
he became this outspoken proponent of veterans and then anti war sentiment and toured,
lectured, lectured against fascism. Actually and uh. And then he stood with
the Bonus Army Army in nineteen thirty two, which and that's what really kind
of catapult him. This is this leading figure of the Bonus Army, right,
and I have a quick sound clip of that. Yeah, take it
from me. This is the greatest demonstration of Americanism we've ever had, pure
Americans willing to take this downright study, to keep every law. And why
in the hell shouldn't My god, that sounds at least eighty years old.
He was a firecracker man. So in nineteen thirty three, keep in mind
the the Bonus Army had been run out by Hoover and Douglas MacArthur. Yeah,
he asked General Douglas MacArthur, who everyone's heard of. And uh,
Douglas MacArthur was supposed to just kind of keep the peace. Douglas MacArthur said
the piece, these hippies disobeyed a direct order from the president and ran them
the down. Yeah, rode in with cavalry. Yeah, on horses killed
seventeen I believe, burned their their tents, their little Hooverville, their makeshift
Hooverville. Yeah. He just was like, nap you, I don't need
your hippie talk. It's time for me to do this. Yeah, which
is nuts him being a military man. But in nineteen thirty three, Butler
was approached by two men, Gerald McGuire, a bond salesman and member of
the Connecticut American Legion which I mentioned before, and Bill Doyle, who was
the commander of the Massachusetts American Legion Veterans. McGuire claimed to represent the committee
for a sound dollar Yeah, and they wanted him to run for national commander
of the American Legion, which at the time, even by McGuire's own admission,
was really just a bunch of strike breakers. Right, he declined,
which is to be which is which, which means functionally stooges of the capitalists.
Yeah, they go in and beat up people who are trying to get
better working conditions, better pay. Yeah, he declined, but McGuire kept
coming back to him and eventually brought along another veteran, this Robert Stirling Clark,
who also mentioned before this rich bitch army vet. He was the heir
to the Singer corporation. Ye, Singer being the sewing manufacturers and quite the
aught Connoisseua, sure so he says. Yeah. In nineteen thirty four,
McGuire put it bluntly to Butler. Butler was to lead a new veterans organization
in a coup against the president, saying, quote, you know, the
American people will swallow that we've got the newspapers will start a campaign that the
president's health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and
the dumb American people will fall for it. In a second quote, yeah,
so he was supposed to take all of these disenfranchised veterans, march them
down. They would be armed, paid for by the sponsors of this coup.
Yeah. It was Remington Pistols, which was a part of what de
pont. Yeah, I think the Pistols of freedom, the pistols of capital,
this freedom, and yeah, it was to take five hundred thousand soldiers
down there or veterans down there, march on Washington. And McGuire implied that
his claims had the support of several political leaders and bottomless financial backing. Which
if that's true, it's true, right, because if you've got the backing
of JP More Morgan and DuPont and right, yea, all these other ass
hats, you you've got the financial backing. They'd found the perfect soldier,
but they didn't expect him to disobey orders. This fall Dunn, dont dont
Smedley dun du Butler, Dunn is the whistle blower. It's been done,
dude, dude. Smedley Butler is Smedley. Smedley Butler as Smedley Butler in
Smedley Butler. So so Smedley has these meetings with these guys, right he
um mc sure even proved that he had cash resources, and he even predicted
some personnel changes in the White House. So Butler believed him. Finger of
the pose A Butler decided, you know what, let's do this. I'll
go along with it, all right, all right around he had a friend
come over and join in named Paul Comeley. Fringe asterisk not a portn star.
Two asterisks should be a portn star could be calmly, I guess,
yeah, I don't know. McGuire said that his backers, which were called
the American Liberty League Citizens United, had a plan for the economy modeled after
Mussolini's YEP because they were in awe of what he was doing with Italy and
for unemployment. Here's what he said, quote, all unemployed men would be
put in military barracks under forced labor, as Hitler does, and that would
soon solve that problem. Another thing we would do immediately would be to register
all persons in the United States as they do in Europe. That would stop
a lot of communist agitators wandering around loose Yeah, open parentheses, job flap,
close parentheses. Butler then went before the nation in a press conference and
was going to address everyone, in which it was thought he would demand the
surrender of the government. Instead, he tore off his Scooby Doom mask,
showing that he had played them for fools, and he blew the whistle like
it was his job. Because he was an American ended was his jobs right
was a patriot. Here is an excerpt from that speech he gave. I
appeared before the Congressional Committee, the highest representation of the American people, under
Sebthoena, to tell what I knew of activities which I believe might lead to
an attempt to set up a fascist dictatorship. The plan, as outlining to
me, was to form an organization of veterans to use as a bluff or
as a club at least to intimidate the government can break down our democratic institutions.
The upshot of the whole thing was that I was supposed to lead an
organization of five hundred thousand men which would be able to take over the functions
of government. I talked with an investigator for this committee who came to me
with a subpoena on a Sunday, November eighteenth. He told me they had
on earth evidence linking my name with several such veteran organizations. Has It then
seemed to me to be getting serious. I felt it was my duty to
tell all I knew of such activity these to this committee. My main interest
in all this is to preserve our democratic institution. I want to retain the
right to vote, are the right to speak freely on the right to write
if we maintain these basic principles our democracy and say no dictatorship can exist,
the suffrage freedom of speech and press. So it was decided that a congressional
hearing should investigate these allegations, and the representatives John McCormick and Samuel dick Stein
headed up the Special Committee on Unamerican Activities. Now that's actually a German for
a dick Stone. Butler named the wealthy conspirators and this Gerald McGuire and the
less wealthy ones. Yeah, and his friend French, mister Cumley. French
turned out to be a journalist who corral berrated his testimony. So he played
them like a fiddle too. He brought the next since a wire didn't exist,
he just brought a journalist. Yeah. He almost got found out though,
when the guy couldn't stop saying, scoop, that's right, please speak
into my giant man sized cowboy had a coup for the president. What a
scoop? Shut off? What did that man say? He's fringe. Don't
worry about it, it's right. So they go, they have these congressional
investigations. Unfortunately, if there's one one of the rare things that stays constant
this country is the ineptitude of any congressional investigation. And so these guys they
sit down, they're like, well, these guys literally to quote, they're
too important to bring down here. We consider their inclusion, hearsay, redact
them from the record. These guys less so kitten pause, kitten pause,
knock it off. Yeah, including McGuire. McGuire was one of them.
He was the main guy. He was called to testify, and of course
he denied everything, but apparently he gave conflicting accounts in his testimony, and
that to the committee he held zero credibility, so he was it was pretty
people were pretty sure he had something to do with it, and he was
a jag another rich bitches like he said, we're not called. And in
the end the committee agreed that there was evidence of a coup and then it
was dropped. Yep, that's all, thanks, mister, I said,
good day. Yeah, no criminal investigation was started, no one was prosecuted.
Butler went on to speak against corporations and wars, saying in nineteen thirty
five, quote, I spent thirty three years and four months in active military
service and During that period, I spent most of my time as a high
class muscle man for business, muscleman for big business, for Wall Street and
the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I helped make Mexico and especially Tampaco safe for American oil interests. In
nineteen fourteen, I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National
Citibank boys to collect revenues. In I helped the raping of half a dozen
Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for
the international banking house of Brown Brothers. In nineteen o two to nineteen twelve.
I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in nineteen
sixteen. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies. In nineteen
o three. In China, in nineteen twenty seven, I helped see to
it that standard oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it,
I might have given al Capone a few hints. The best he could do
was to operate his racquet in three districts. I operated on three continents Mike
Drop. Yeah, five years later he was dead. Coincidence George Sukalow.
Sound, it's such a thing, even possible, Yes it is. I
mean I didn't fit. I just I'm sorry if I say it fits.
But newspapers at the time completely ridiculed him. But you know, right,
yeah, right, And and that's the thing, like there's even a mention
in the congressional record that, um, yeah, the newspapers have all are
all calling this a hoax. They have heard no testimony, No testimony was
given before. They just said that, So we're going to kind of ignore
them. And McGuire. The guy who did who was called to testify shortly
after his testimony, died of anything from natural causes to maybe pneumonia falling on
a handful of bullets at the atom of an elevator shaft. This is this
is like when I say shortly there after, it's like a month. Oh
so coincidence. Yeah, it could be sure, could be sure, could
be sure, sure, could be a coincidence. Wow, So he died
that quickly afterwards, and and it was just of natural causes. George Szukolo.
Sound, it is such a thing, even possible, Yes, it
is. Yes it is. Yes, it is. Ah man, this
thing is is. Yeah, it's disgusting it is. And I'll say this,
like, you know, now that we're kind of in the post analysis,
what do you think happened part of it? I think that I think
that, in my opinion is this is it happened as reported. I you
know what I mean, Like, it's it's not pulling any punches, it's
not hiding you know, like, oh yeah, we straight up don't want
these guys in looted in this. So no, you know, I think
that's pretty pretty accurate. I agree. I mean, there are arguments that
historians have made whether or not this thing was was the truth at all.
Now people people come up and say, well, this guy was obviously a
jaded marine. Yep, he was definitely had an extracrin so therefore all eyes.
But but the the theory that he's operating on, like it seems counterproductive
if I mean, that's I mean, if you believe the entire narrative,
which I'm inclined to, that's why they approached him. They thought that he
would be on their side. I have a problem with a jaded marine suddenly
trying to um get corporations in trouble Wall Street fat cats. Yeah, it's
it's a weird turn to se suddenly take Yeah, why when when? Even
I mean before before, I assume also during and after he his his his
his focus, his push was veteran's rights, right, like, why why
take this boondoggle into demonizing capitalists and saving the government? That right? That
didn't let him become commandant right that that he was still you know that that
was that was mistreating his fellow soldiers. So I don't feel like that really
tracks. I don't either. I don't either. And he went on too
before he died, which apparently he died of cancer. Sure, sure,
Before he uh died, he wrote a book called War is a Racket,
which I haven't read, but is out there to read so you can find
it. I think he's even on somebody's got it on a LibriVox somewhere.
You can have someone read it to you poorly for free. Sweet. So
there there was the theory that it was a hoax to win support for the
flagging uh FDR administration. Right, And one thing that's important to point out
that would maybe potentially lend some credence to this is that the New Deal,
while extraordinarily transformative in the long run, saving grace of sorts, it took
a while to work. I mean when the dollar was destabilized for a while,
like there there work, there were consequences for a little while after this
and that that that built a lot of animosity towards the New Deal before it
kind of caught on in these programs really got into effect, and the public
works things like that that we're putting people to work really started to swing into
action, and that money started making it back into the economy. Yeah,
people from each each side of the old stupid ass aisle, you know,
Republicans, Democrats both were speaking out against him on some of the stuff,
and he didn't have overwhelming support, which is no odds he won the popular
election, right, but his plans were radically different. I mean, really
stuff up. Yeah, And it's so funny that a country that's in such
grips of hill economically is so scared of change, right, Yeah, that
seems paradoxical, right, Well, you know it's it's I don't know,
it's I think if you're in a lifeboat that's sinking, the last thing you
think to do is get out of the lifeboat, because it's a boat,
you know, you know, it's it's like the raccoon grip. You know,
raccoon grabs a thing, won't let go of it. You know,
they used to make raccoon traps based on that that their hand could fit in
there and grab a nut, but they couldn't pull it out, and that
would functionally trap the raccoon. I don't know if that's true. I've never
trapped raccoon, but that's the story I heard growing up. And but you
know that that sort of mentality that people are like, no, no,
no, this is the thing that's going to save me. I just need
to wait a little bit longer. I can. I can see, I
can see that. I guess. So the unknown verses. Yeah, you
know, you're right, there's something to be said about FDR as a businessman
before his presidency. I didn't have time to look into all his life,
but he was definitely, maybe even ironically, part of the aristocracy. Yeah,
the American aristocracy, the elite. He was a rich Richmond. He
was you know, the Roosevelts had plenty of money. We don't elect poor
guys president. Yeah. Look where the country is. So so there is
the thought the the double down conspiracy that uh FDR knew what was going on
along and it was all part and parcel of selling it to the American people.
To touch a little bit, I'm going through some of my some of
my jotted notes to touch on the fascist sympathy was that was in the US
at the time. Nazi Germany was seen by many on the right and the
right wing in American politics as the US is potentially most important ally against international
communism, by people who saw Stalin as as potentially a lot scarier than Hitler
at the time, right, And yeah, because he learn't done anything yet,
you know, but Germany was considered to be toothless, having been just
devastated in the previous war. But it's still this this large country that could
serve as a buffer to Europe. Um, yeah, I see that.
Yeah. And um one of the other Prescott Bush is thrown around a lot
yep. That would be the grandfather of George W. Bush. Yeah,
father of HW. This guy by all accounts from he pops up here and
there in our research. Yeah, you'll you'll see him. I mean,
I think people there's there's the Bush animosity, and so people are quick to
point it out, even even though and he was a politically active guy.
So yeah, there's a lot of paper trail where he was and when he
was doing. People are very quick to include him in their theory because it's
yeah, and he did. Actually, I think he even was brought up
on charges of war profiteering, wasn't he Maybe I don't know about that.
Well. I know that he was involved in selling, selling weapons and tanks
and things to both sides he like backed and this is in World War Two,
back to Germany, back to America. Like it was all the name
of money. And I think that he was brought up on charges and got
away with got away with with most of them with kind of maybe a slap
on the wrist and like to cut off his left hand. I don't know,
but that's one of the that's one of the shitty things, is Um,
all the war profiteering is is totally people sold arms to the enemy to
kill their own countrymen. Yep. And that still goes on. Oh yeah,
it still goes on today. Um. You may be wondering why didn't
anybody get tried, Why was there you know, shouldn't this be treason?
I don't think they had strict treason laws for something like this in peacetime.
Well, I think that they had. I think also, and there was
a lack of evidence. It really did just come down to these two guys
stories. So that's a lack of evidence. The people involved still extraordinarily influential,
very powerful. Yeah, and at what point does it does the crime
begin? Yeah, exactly, And I think that you know, this wasn't
like some master underground sting operation. He just kind of said, hell,
you know this guy and the bus is getting close to me, and so
the bus driver goes, don't get so close to him, you know,
like I think it was, which is so shy because if it's real,
he did exactly what he should have done, right, which is honestly that's
the that's the battle cry of whistle blowers, Like it doesn't work out for
whistleblowers a lot of the time. Yeah, only one of them got Julia
Roberts to play her, you know, like it's it's asked, Karen Silkwood,
how things work out for whistleblowers. You can't because she was killed.
Yeah, you know, like these things happen. It's it's it's it's unfortunate
and even with all of our whistle blowing protections and laws that are in place,
they still there was a really great news story just this week, um
that an air an air marshal um. This is in the mid two thousands,
the sky marshal Um. There was a big alert that went out that
the United States had some intelligence that there was going to be a terrorist activity.
They wanted all their sky marshals in the air all the time. Two
days later they were like, oh, um, only short domestic flights,
nothing international, nothing for four hours because they didn't homeland security didn't want to
pay hotel accommodations and perdems for these guys just have to spend the night in
other cities. And this guy, this, this guy marshal like was like,
whoa two days ago, we were a threat and now you're telling us
that all these flights we can't do. So he told a reporter he leaked
the story to get attention to it. The administration cleaned up their act and
everything. But then he was fired and he said, no, you can't
fire me as a whistleblower. They're like, oh, no, no,
you broke the law. He's like, no, I broke your regulations.
Those aren't the law. So there was just recently a court decision about that
that no regulations are different from the law. He didn't break the law.
He blew the whistle when he needed to. There was a lapse in security,
you know, that's he made that people aware of that and we fixed
the problem and it was fine. And so it's those kind of things,
like even now with whistle blower protection laws, it's taken him over ten years
to get you know, to get this sorted out. Yeah. Yeah,
but he he came out on on their good set. Yeah, I think
he's still coming out on. I mean it's like still I think wrapping up.
But but yeah, accidentally natural. Yeah, so it's it's you know,
like that, and that's that's always been the problem with whistleblowers, and
they're they're extraordinarily brave people who never get rewarded for it. Everything goes to
hell for them anyway. Yeah, well, man, there there's there's so
much to this in terms of learning. Yeah, I mean I really had
fun with surprised how much I enjoyed it because it was such a neat topic
and yeah, and I know this episode has been fairly dada heavy and fairly
light on the sound of a fart, but sometimes that's the way the ball
bounces. And sorry, you just learned. Yeah, sometimes America. That
about it, American. His chord doesn't have that many farts him. Yeah,
oh man, we could. We could spend and many more hours on
this, just on the branches that come that, that feed into it and
come out of it. It's oh man, it personally just discussed the hell
out of me because it's still going on. But the thing, the thing
is, the people who would be the ones to instigate a coup are now
doing it covertly. They've learned from this and they're taking a different angle on
it. And it's I think it's already in place, dude, I mean,
I I don't. I don't go that far down the rabbit. Well.
I think we're in an oligarchy completely. You left it off your list.
I did. I'm sorry. Oligarchy is the rule rule by the elite,
by the wealthy, by aristocracy, right, and that I mean,
I mean wealth gaps things like that certainly are like a problem, and it
doesn't doesn't seem to get better, it seems to increase, and maybe maybe
it's time for us to rise up yeah, you heard it here. Yeah,
podbout revolution, it's right, the blurry phonus army you burned it.
Oh well, anyways, it's crazy. It's true. I mean in that
something happened. Yeah. So I think that's really cool. That's something that
i'd never learned anything about, never heard anything about. I think it's fascinating.
And that's that's the business plot in a shadowy, well funded Yeah,
veteran army laden nutshell economics underpinned a nutshell man. That was awesome. Yeah,
and now it's time for me and you to get on our horses and
ride down the Hoover town known as Puns. Oh god, no, don't
do it. I can't tell me what to do. All right, I
got one right off the back. We'll go for it. Recently, Congress
had to do an investigation. It was actually regarding plot. It was found
people were organizing and using German metal like the music. Yeah yeah, German
metal music in order to spread the word covertly because you know, most of
the squares weren't going to listen to it. And so finally this committee finally
convened and it was the McCormick Ramstein Committee. Nice yeah, nice, dust
dust met testimone test. Also, if you get the opportunity to listen to
Ramstein did an extraordinarily great cover of Depeche Modes Stripped, which is awesome because
the whole first part is just spoken word by that great voice called with me.
In threes we lay as the class let all's pass. Yeah, we
should do a cover of all right and well too far Jewin so um,
I think I made a sound that might hurt somebody's ears. Sorry about that.
What do you got, Flora? I have this, I really I
have to say. I broke my bat on both of us. Oh night
of these this week I'm playing with broken bats. This is a conspiracy to
overthrow the government by getting them all high and then now staying them. It's
the business pot But yep, infield fly rule to you, I am going
to I'm gonna show you how to do a broken bath bunt. Okay,
okay, show you how it's done. I guess at this point it'd probably
be about seven years ago. Five to seven years ago, there was a
massive demonstration in Washington adolescent girls or very upset about the government's ability to provide
and maintain access to three related gentleman musicians and the fact that the government was
not proper. You know, there weren't enough concerts. There weren't enough albums
available. Posters were scarce. They were the Jonas Army. Yeah, he's
on base on an error. Yeah. The Alps just scratched their head and
said, well, I hope no one noticed that, all right, rounding
out these amazing American puns. Yeah, I've got an American icon who was
a sex symbol of the thirties. He was outspoken against nudity laws. What
his name Study Struttler. Wow, porn stars before talkies? What would that
look like? Just had like that jangly piano. Then like the card that
said, oh Mi, lady, which wouldst thou care for? Another?
Touch? Back to Jakie Leeback in the thirties when they spoke like medieval.
Yeah, what they did was all script and stuff. Oh God, there
you go. Yeah, them is ponds buns And now a side chat from
your President of the United States. Thank that amount American I have Marhan patience
and patiens of what has did you ever written? And then this I bring
to him, the American tables of hope. I love I'm not telling him
this. He's listening Mary. That's awesome. All we have to fear is
listener mail itself. It's just enough, all right, right off the bat,
Uh, Scott Scott pun for us, Scott Scotty. Um, he
was surprised that we missed a really important part of the Arthurian. Yes,
well there was a lady from Ireland. Um, we don't miss any ladies
from Ireland. I'll tell you that right now, Scot. Ever, but
yeah, she was. She was quite short. Um. I think her
name was Deborah Beck. I suggest that maybe we should He suggests that he
that we should look her up. Um, unless we've already heard of the
Little Debbie aka the Lady of the Cake. M h. I look her
up every day. He's sorry about it, but we thank you. Thanks,
Scott Be sorry. You think Scott Be's done. He's not. Oh,
I got another one from Scott b. He says, listening to the
Bunyip episode, and this is us blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
Dot in the Kangaroo. He says, irmager, or you actually mentioned Dot
in the Kangaroo. I had so many nightmares about the Bunya because of that
show. What's worse is when I mentioned that cartoon to people, no one
ever knows about it, which made it far more horrible that he was the
only one who had experienced the sheer terror. Oh man, that was bun
Gets gone to get you, dude. I'll tell you what, Scott.
Look that shut up on YouTube and it will scare you just as much today
as when you were a kid. It still skives me out to no end.
There's just something mortifying about it. I can't, oh God, even
thinking about it now. That is in the middle of my brain like a
sliver. I'm glad that maybe we can go to a support group together someday.
He thanks you for letting him know that he was not the only one
who's lived through that mentally scarring animated sequence, and he's looking forward to our
T shirts with the pumpkin sweet Thanks Scott, Thank you, Scott. Okay,
I'm not trying to approach on this. Oh yeah, here we go,
Hey Flora. Yeah, if you ordered to say, I don't know
a corona, I wanted to put a piece of fruit in it. What
would you use? Watermelon? Mitch goes with everything. Thank you, David
Flor well, try to try to do something nice for your dark Lemon,
but Florish all over it. So I was gonna make a really cool bit
out of your name, as I always do. It's my way of showing
my appreciation for you writing in But I guess those days are over. Um
giant moron says blah blah blah. I eat my own poop. Next letter.
Why are you taking your anger out on the listener? That's what you're
doing. I'm pretending to be you, and that's why you disrespect the people
who love our podcasts and write emails. I just like Watermelon. You ruin
everything, not like Watermelon that she goes on anything. Oh my god,
Dark Lemon, I am so sorry for what Flora has done and all of
the horrible, horrible insults that he spoke through my mouth. Just now,
all right, So dark Lemon, in addition to trying to help you,
thank you. Yeah, I hope you feel like an ass more than usual.
Uh he and he and we're you know, says congratulations on getting to
the ninety nine mark. Thank you? Well yeah, well, hey,
everyone knows these things are operating a little bit of backlog, sorry America.
UM in the UK and Australia. He has been a listener since Hollow Earth
won and followed every bonus supplement Candy, Chatt and Bulstone ever since. That
always makes me feel bad forget seas beatings. That's right, yeah, wow,
thank you very much. Loved it all. Even tried to get his
wife on board with the resput and episode tragically backfired because she's something of an
expert on that field. Um, like, we aren't bro what what?
Oh we got it wrong. Probably he didn't have a massive wing. Oh
yeah, I know he did, little known fact um that he's adding in
here, which I'm sure it's not upon at all. I'm sorry, he's
just giving little in fact. As well as sword and scabbard, Arthur had
another item of immense magical power. He wielded a simple gold band that,
when held aloft with someone too ferocious, feelines to fight alongside him. It's
often called Arthur's Ring of the Kittens. Yeah yeah, and a mundane superpower
which you think you don't deserve it. You don't. Sat nabbed able to
ascertain from the ether the exact location of any and all supervillains within three meters
squared, but only for the period in which they are in custody. Wow,
I like that specific because they get out of custody right and then you
don't know. I think that's just called like a penitentiary report radio. Thank
you, doctor Lemon, and thanks for listening. You're a you're a veteran
thing. And thanks for trying to get your wife on board. Yeah boy,
If rath Putan can't do it, nobody can try. Try Civil war
ghost stories. Yeah. See see if she likes the weird ones, she
likes the weird ones heard from Angie, Hello, Angelina, Oh, very
formal helloa with stas uh. She says, Hi there Hi, hates to
admit it, but was so disappointed nice at our guest was not able to
tell the entire McDonald's coffee case. We she said she had. She studied
this case in a law class that she took totally changed how she sees litigation.
Here's here's the deal. I'm not sad that we didn't listen to more
litigation. Although Greg Box spins an entrancing yarn, that's true. Yeah,
in in in a fine pirate accent. Yeah, this is we were talking
about the woman that spilled coffee in her lap sued got money. Yea,
She says. The poor woman did go through the drive through, but was
the passenger. The driver parked so she could add cream and sugar to her
coffee. The coffee spilled when she tried to open the pool tab and closed
to go all over her lap. She was completely cautious about handling the coffee,
which was entirely too hot for human consumption, And she says, sorry
to be a whiner about it, but yeah, well, I and I
wonder if if they're if they're even talking about the same case. Imagine there
was more than one of them. That's probably the maybe one. I mean,
I don't disagree with you, but yeah, I don't know. I
don't know, but thank you. My question is, at what point does
hot become too hot? Well, and that's why you have lawsuits and lawyers,
you're right, Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
I mean, look at me, At what point does this hotness become
too hot? I don't know, but I don't think I'm anywhere near it
yet. I gotta ways to dig. Yeah, I think that was like
a really good like car talk joke. I just told thank you, Angie.
Thanks thanks for writing in it's always good to get, you know,
all the perspectives you can on on stuff that, especially when you hear it
as bowls at first. So good. So we got an email, thank
you, Angelina. Thankay, we got an email here from Jeremy, who
tells us this is j Me, the one who speaks girl who wait,
wait, wait, wait, barrel barrel parrol. Wait, I've got a
little something here. Who home and ridingemails to blood hot hippods on hippod bless
and play my dunes doesn't get me? The rector Florida. There's a guy
who hates all My p is a jan it's something away. Oh day,
all right, how long can we? Ok? Yeah, that's fun,
fun to do. Thank you for that. Cheremy, he's got a fun
By the way, we mashed up two songs. I hope you know that
it was my fault. I stayed on point. I stayed on point.
Uh. Some man just like to watch the podcast, but it's me I
do. I was born and even flow, Oh my god, I was
born and pearl which one of these tubes? Do you breathe up? Okay?
No, no, no, I don't Okay, we already gone too
long? You gotta, we gotta, we gotta focus. You're right,
people of England would recite this poem and to remember a fierce encryptid. There's
a little stage note in here, thank you, remember remember the fit September
for the day that I lost my pie. To make sure you're out of
sight, don't just look left and right what a creature will come down from
the sky. They're responsible cryptid pie hawks too right. And also he likes
our podcast, Thank you, Jeremy, And I hope you like that.
Ten minutes of us just playing with your pearl jam. Yeah. And anytime
you write, remind us of that bit and we will do it again.
I guaranteing it. Thank you, Jeremy. From here, one more,
got one more not pearl jam song, just one more email okay, my
podcast hurting all drop bottle Okay. We both thought we were gonna get to
the other guy there, but then we were still just doing a bit too
good. This one's from Goat Yeah. No relation to the goatman. Well,
of course that's what he'd say, And I don't think any relation to
goat girl. Maybe maybe I wanted to mention the goat because we hadn't heard
from goat before, so, uh give us a show suggestion, So thanks,
go sweet, thank you, sir. Don't don't eat McCann do you
should, don't do it. Let's just because someone's like goat doesn't mean they
eat cans. Dude. Man, we'll crop the grass on your roof though.
Do a really good job of it, really good job. That's it
for mail for this week. Thank you so much for all of your emails.
Don't forget to write us five star reviews on iTunes, yea Twitter,
blurry understore score photos, YEP, store score, store score. You could
stumble upon us. It's just fun to say. I don't know why.
Check out. We've got the first season up on YouTube, working on the
second season, and uh, like us on Facebook. Like us on Facebook.
We are man, we are doing really well on Facebook. We're on
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forget to hit our donate button. We covered that. You know that we're
a big fan of that audible trial slash blurry photos, do that get yourself
free book. Give us a monetary high five. Everyone's a winner. Yeah,
that's all. That's that's that's what's going on. Thanks Bobcat at the
time of the podcastside off anyways, that's it. That's all. That's all
we're gonna do. Thanks for listening. This has been blurry Photos another episode
in that order. Wow for this episode of blurry Photos. Thank you.
I have been Dave Yo, other People of America and the Shining Star in
the pair there communic performances Stecco, and I've been David the Fighting Quaker Flora.
Nice podcast. Bye,