1 00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:39,119 Speaker 1: If you want to support the show and get the 2 00:00:39,159 --> 00:00:43,560 episodes early and ad free, head on over to Freemanbeyond 3 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:47,359 the Wall dot com forward slash Support. I want to 4 00:00:47,399 --> 00:00:52,039 explain something right now. If you support me through substack 5 00:00:52,640 --> 00:00:56,719 or Patreon, you have access to an RSS feed that 6 00:00:56,799 --> 00:01:01,240 you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll 7 00:01:01,280 --> 00:01:04,239 be able to listen to the episodes through there. If 8 00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:08,159 you support me through subscribe, star gum Road or on 9 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:11,719 my website directly, I will send you a link where 10 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:14,120 you can download the file and you can listen to 11 00:01:14,159 --> 00:01:18,439 it any way you wish. I really appreciate the support 12 00:01:18,519 --> 00:01:21,760 everyone gives me. It keeps the show going. It allows 13 00:01:21,799 --> 00:01:24,959 me to basically put out an episode every day now, 14 00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:28,120 and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. 15 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:30,760 I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two 16 00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:37,079 even three a day, and yeah, can't do it without you, 17 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:39,920 So thank you for the support. Head on over to 18 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:44,159 Freeman Beyond the Wall dot com, forward slash support and 19 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:44,840 do it there. 20 00:01:45,959 --> 00:01:46,319 Speaker 2: Thank you. 21 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:50,560 Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekingano Show. 22 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:53,480 Two returning guests John Slaughter, how are you doing? 23 00:01:54,359 --> 00:01:54,519 Speaker 3: Oh? 24 00:01:54,560 --> 00:01:55,120 Speaker 2: You know, Pete. 25 00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:58,319 Speaker 4: It's Friday, and I'm going to have a nice discussion 26 00:01:58,359 --> 00:01:59,040 with two good friends. 27 00:01:59,120 --> 00:01:59,840 Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good. 28 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:03,760 Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, Yeah, that's gonna be great. What's going on, Paul, 29 00:02:03,760 --> 00:02:04,159 how are you? 30 00:02:05,159 --> 00:02:07,200 Speaker 3: Things are going very well. Thanks again for having me on, 31 00:02:07,239 --> 00:02:08,960 and thank you mister Slaughter for coming on. 32 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:13,479 Speaker 1: All right, So this is a converse that you mentioned 33 00:02:13,479 --> 00:02:16,159 that Paul and I for most people who don't know, 34 00:02:17,039 --> 00:02:20,599 Paul and I are doing a Golden Age of Spain series. 35 00:02:20,680 --> 00:02:25,479 And on episode officially episode four, but really episode five, 36 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:31,919 we started talking and I think it was afterwards, and 37 00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:37,360 we started talking about flags and symbols, and Paul started 38 00:02:37,400 --> 00:02:41,000 talking about American symbols. So I'll give you the floor, Paul. 39 00:02:41,039 --> 00:02:42,719 Why don't you introduce the subject? 40 00:02:43,639 --> 00:02:44,199 Speaker 3: Absolutely? 41 00:02:44,280 --> 00:02:44,520 Speaker 2: Yeah. 42 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:48,360 Speaker 3: So for those of you who have followed me for 43 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:51,520 a while, you understand that one of my biggest fonts 44 00:02:51,560 --> 00:02:55,879 of inspiration and in terms of artistic creation and content 45 00:02:55,919 --> 00:03:00,120 creation and understanding and specifically in political myth making is 46 00:03:00,159 --> 00:03:02,960 Fallout New Vegas. The reason I like Fallout New Vegas 47 00:03:02,960 --> 00:03:05,479 so much is I really do think it has like 48 00:03:05,639 --> 00:03:10,000 Cannon tier writing to it. Chris Avalone, who did a 49 00:03:10,039 --> 00:03:12,280 lot of the writing for it, is an is an excellent, 50 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:18,240 excellent writer who's written many, many, many great games. But 51 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:20,599 the reason I like Fallout New Vegas so much is 52 00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:24,199 that it's a it's a you know, parody to the 53 00:03:24,240 --> 00:03:28,919 point of insan of insanity, of ludicrousness, of which allows 54 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:31,680 you to better understand whenever the bad parts of your 55 00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:35,240 world are exaggerated, the pitfalls and shortcomings of the of 56 00:03:35,280 --> 00:03:38,560 the world and the society you inhabit. And so there's 57 00:03:38,560 --> 00:03:41,439 a character in the game Fallout New Vegas by the 58 00:03:41,520 --> 00:03:46,280 name of Ulysses, and Ulysses, you know, used to be 59 00:03:46,400 --> 00:03:50,759 a sort of an equivalent of a scout slash, spy splash, 60 00:03:50,919 --> 00:03:55,840 special Forces uh slash, like you know, you know, sleeper, 61 00:03:55,879 --> 00:04:00,080 operative infiltrator who you know, kind of did all of 62 00:04:00,120 --> 00:04:04,080 those things. That was one of Caesar's frumentarius for those 63 00:04:04,159 --> 00:04:06,199 who are unfamiliar with the game. They kind of serve 64 00:04:06,280 --> 00:04:09,159 this unique role of people who go deep, deep, deep 65 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:12,080 undercover behind enemy lines. And in the game, actually one 66 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:14,319 of them, one of them, is so good at it 67 00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:17,040 that he ends up achieving a high rank within the 68 00:04:17,079 --> 00:04:21,600 military of Caesar's Legion's primary enemy, the New California Republic. 69 00:04:23,759 --> 00:04:25,000 But I don't want to get too much into that. 70 00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:31,160 But Ulysses is interesting because his whole thing, his whole 71 00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:35,720 character arc, is about symbols, very specifically symbols, and he 72 00:04:35,839 --> 00:04:39,279 specifically talks to you, the player character, about the symbols 73 00:04:39,319 --> 00:04:41,759 of the two big nations in the game, the New 74 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:46,560 California Republic and Caesar's Legion, represented by the Bear and 75 00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:50,160 the Bull, respectively, and he talks about the differences of 76 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:52,959 those two symbols and the men that uphold those symbols. 77 00:04:52,959 --> 00:04:55,839 He talks about how the NCR and in this post 78 00:04:55,839 --> 00:04:58,959 apocalyptic world and Fallout after a nuclear war is just 79 00:04:59,040 --> 00:05:05,680 a recreate of the terrible twenty first century corporate quote 80 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,279 unquote democracy that caused the nuclear war, and it's just 81 00:05:09,480 --> 00:05:11,839 repeating the same mistakes over and over again. But then 82 00:05:11,879 --> 00:05:16,560 he critiques the Bowl as like every warlike society, it's 83 00:05:17,160 --> 00:05:21,120 too reliant on forward momentum, on constantly being at war 84 00:05:21,199 --> 00:05:23,879 with neighbors, right, And so he talks about how both 85 00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:26,920 are flawed. But the symbol that he wears on his 86 00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:31,399 back is the Fallout Universe's American flag. It kind of 87 00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:34,319 changes in the game, and I don't want to talk 88 00:05:34,319 --> 00:05:36,199 about Fallout for too long, but this kind of sets 89 00:05:36,199 --> 00:05:39,120 the scene of what gets me thinking about symbols, right, 90 00:05:39,680 --> 00:05:45,600 because nations in many ways can be reduced to their symbol. 91 00:05:45,639 --> 00:05:49,160 That's what symbols are. Symbols are a picture, a sign 92 00:05:50,160 --> 00:05:54,120 which we assign a certain meaning to. And you know, 93 00:05:54,160 --> 00:05:58,319 if you see that picture or that sign, that meaning 94 00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:01,920 is immediately into your mind. When you see the low 95 00:06:02,079 --> 00:06:05,040 like it, like to the point where you see our avatars, 96 00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:09,079 our characters, like you see my profile picture, mister Slaughter's 97 00:06:09,079 --> 00:06:14,120 profile picture, or mister Pete's profile picture. It's a symbol, 98 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:16,920 you know, It resonates things in your mind. Even someone's 99 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:20,000 face can be a symbol, you know, you know, or 100 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:21,920 or the whole of a man can be a symbol. 101 00:06:21,959 --> 00:06:25,079 This is why statues are so important, because when you 102 00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:30,079 see the picture of the man, the ideas that that 103 00:06:30,199 --> 00:06:33,480 man lived and the ideas that that man embodied are 104 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:37,279 immediately get inserted in your mind. This is also why 105 00:06:37,360 --> 00:06:42,800 flags are so important. Flags immediately bring up a certain 106 00:06:42,879 --> 00:06:46,399 connotation of symbols into your mind, you know, and different 107 00:06:46,480 --> 00:06:50,240 national flags throughout time. You know, you look at the 108 00:06:50,279 --> 00:06:53,079 flag of the of the Second Reich, of the of 109 00:06:53,399 --> 00:06:56,160 of of the Kaiser's Germany, and you think of a 110 00:06:56,199 --> 00:06:58,920 whole different set of things from when you see the 111 00:06:58,920 --> 00:07:01,920 flag of the Third Reich or the flag of the 112 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:04,959 First rig for that matter, you know, or you see 113 00:07:05,759 --> 00:07:07,920 the Betsy Ross flag, you know, to bring this to 114 00:07:08,279 --> 00:07:10,279 America and talking about American symbols, when you see the 115 00:07:10,279 --> 00:07:13,399 Betsy Ross flag, you think of a different thing than 116 00:07:13,439 --> 00:07:15,480 when you see the modern American flag, or when you 117 00:07:15,519 --> 00:07:18,639 see the Pine Tree flag, the Appeal to Heaven flag, 118 00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:23,920 or the Gadsden flag, or the primary flag that Pete's 119 00:07:23,959 --> 00:07:28,000 background is based off of. In part that has us 120 00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:32,279 talking here, the Confederate flag, or specifically the one everyone 121 00:07:32,319 --> 00:07:35,639 thinks of is either the Confederate Navy jack or the 122 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:39,360 battle flag of the Army of Tennessee. It's not the 123 00:07:39,399 --> 00:07:43,680 actual Confederate flag, but we all know that. But that 124 00:07:43,759 --> 00:07:47,720 flag specifically has all of the meaning assigned to it, 125 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:51,600 and it's a very very very powerful symbol. I can 126 00:07:51,639 --> 00:07:53,759 tell you why it's a powerful symbol. It's a powerful 127 00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:56,439 symbol because it's been banned and taken away from so 128 00:07:56,519 --> 00:07:59,319 many places. They don't do that to symbols that have 129 00:07:59,399 --> 00:08:03,600 no power. And to kind of finish this up and 130 00:08:03,600 --> 00:08:06,399 then hand this off to either of you, gentlemen. The 131 00:08:06,519 --> 00:08:09,720 reason that I believe that that symbol is banned and 132 00:08:09,879 --> 00:08:13,160 pushed down and kept out of public consciousness is that 133 00:08:13,720 --> 00:08:19,120 when Americans see that symbol, when they see the Confederate flag, instantly, 134 00:08:19,560 --> 00:08:22,279 in all of their minds, they see a picture of 135 00:08:22,319 --> 00:08:27,439 a society where white people are number one Christian for 136 00:08:27,519 --> 00:08:33,480 a very large extent, and number two explicitly legally, politically, 137 00:08:33,960 --> 00:08:38,080 racially superior to any other non white group of people, 138 00:08:38,519 --> 00:08:41,080 you know, in the fact that they possess a nation 139 00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:45,120 at the expense of other people. Right that, and you know, 140 00:08:45,159 --> 00:08:47,360 for good or for ill, that's what the symbol conjures 141 00:08:47,399 --> 00:08:50,960 in people's minds. Right And people could argue that the 142 00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,919 symbol has transformed and maybe it means different things, but 143 00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:57,440 that's primarily and it's the same reason why I think 144 00:08:57,559 --> 00:08:59,799 the statues of the men who fought under that flag 145 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:02,799 have been taken down, is that when people see statues 146 00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:07,679 of those men, when people see that flag, specifically white people, 147 00:09:07,840 --> 00:09:11,879 they have in their mind an image of a society 148 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:16,120 in which they, even if in an imaginary sense, live 149 00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:19,759 in a better political position than the society in which 150 00:09:19,799 --> 00:09:22,279 they currently live. And so with that, I want you 151 00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:25,120 gentlemen to you know, I want to see what you 152 00:09:25,200 --> 00:09:25,720 gentlemen think. 153 00:09:27,919 --> 00:09:28,759 Speaker 1: God, mister slaughter. 154 00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:33,840 Speaker 4: Well, I think as Paul was speaking and he was 155 00:09:33,879 --> 00:09:38,279 explaining the power of symbols, the first thing that actually 156 00:09:38,360 --> 00:09:44,799 kind of came to mind was, Mark, my French is terrible. 157 00:09:44,919 --> 00:09:47,960 I think it's a gay or algie. I don't know 158 00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:51,440 my French. But anyways, in his essay on non places, 159 00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:56,799 he one of the fundamental concepts of what makes a 160 00:09:56,879 --> 00:09:59,759 place you know, valuable to an individual is the fact 161 00:09:59,799 --> 00:10:03,559 that when you grow up in a place, you can 162 00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:06,360 operate sort of on assumptions because you don't have to 163 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:10,000 communicate everything because it's it's communicated to you. And if 164 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:13,240 you think of the way the way a child learns 165 00:10:13,279 --> 00:10:15,559 to to talk, you don't you don't sit down and 166 00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:18,639 explain everything to them or teach them every word. They 167 00:10:18,879 --> 00:10:22,279 observe these things and they learn them, you know, basically, well, 168 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:25,799 they learn them through observation, right, it's not a it's 169 00:10:25,799 --> 00:10:29,480 not a classroom setting. And because of that, the home 170 00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:34,759 becomes familiar through this process of sort of the the 171 00:10:34,879 --> 00:10:38,879 unspoken assumptions, and that creates this feeling of the familiar. 172 00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:42,399 And I think that's a big part of what these 173 00:10:42,399 --> 00:10:48,200 symbols are specifically, you know, for the Confederate flag, it 174 00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:52,320 communicates so many things without words, and it creates this 175 00:10:52,320 --> 00:10:56,519 this sense of meaning and purpose, not dissimilar from the 176 00:10:56,559 --> 00:10:59,840 way a home makes an individual feel. And I think 177 00:10:59,879 --> 00:11:05,320 the because of that, it has a certain type of power, 178 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:08,720 or symbols have a certain type of power that nothing 179 00:11:08,799 --> 00:11:12,200 else can really replicate, except for maybe the feeling of home. 180 00:11:12,240 --> 00:11:14,720 But then you could argue that home is a symbol 181 00:11:14,759 --> 00:11:19,440 in and of itself. But the Confederate flag is an 182 00:11:19,440 --> 00:11:23,440 interesting case because I grew up, you know, in a 183 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:26,360 world where it wasn't considered, you know, sort of this 184 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:29,159 this polemical or this this negative symbol at all. I 185 00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,799 even remember as a child going to Hank Williams junior 186 00:11:32,840 --> 00:11:37,440 concert and behind him is this this enormous Confederate flag 187 00:11:37,519 --> 00:11:41,000 with a phoenix on it, and nobody bad it than 188 00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:43,840 I at that at all. And even in my lifetime 189 00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:46,960 I watched it sort of melt away and get turned 190 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:50,519 into something else. And I don't know if that start 191 00:11:50,559 --> 00:11:53,559 the first incident I remember that is South Carolina removing 192 00:11:55,559 --> 00:11:58,559 or actually is Mississippi, I believe removing the changing their 193 00:11:58,600 --> 00:12:01,639 state flag. But I think we're at a point now 194 00:12:01,759 --> 00:12:05,879 where a lot of people have forgotten that. When we 195 00:12:05,879 --> 00:12:09,799 think of the post war consensus and as it recedes 196 00:12:09,919 --> 00:12:13,120 what goes with it, we often think of, you know, 197 00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:15,919 the mid century Germans, We think of World War two. 198 00:12:16,919 --> 00:12:19,679 People often forget that the Confederacy is a victim of 199 00:12:19,919 --> 00:12:25,600 the post war consensus. And as as that that the 200 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:29,480 leaf system sort of melts away with the Boomers, that symbol, 201 00:12:29,559 --> 00:12:31,879 I do believe is going to be up for grabs, 202 00:12:31,960 --> 00:12:35,879 to be sort of not necessarily reinvented, but to be 203 00:12:36,120 --> 00:12:39,720 to be reused and re established without some of the 204 00:12:39,759 --> 00:12:44,039 baggage that has kept it sort of on the kept 205 00:12:44,039 --> 00:12:45,519 it out of the public eye for so long. 206 00:12:45,559 --> 00:12:45,799 Speaker 2: Now. 207 00:12:48,360 --> 00:12:50,639 Speaker 1: Yeah, as you were talking about that, it reminded me 208 00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:56,080 of Marcia eli Odd's book The Sacred in the Profane, 209 00:12:56,360 --> 00:13:02,240 which basically talks about how it talks about symbols, It 210 00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:04,679 talks about myth, it talks about ritual, but it also 211 00:13:04,879 --> 00:13:08,879 talks about how when something happens at a certain place, 212 00:13:09,159 --> 00:13:13,519 whether it be somebody believes, a miracle happens, a battle happens, 213 00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:19,360 a statue is put up. Now that place has become sacred. 214 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:22,919 Now that place has become something that people point to 215 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:27,440 that a mythology is built around. And that's one of 216 00:13:27,440 --> 00:13:30,720 the things that has to be destroyed by the post 217 00:13:30,720 --> 00:13:38,440 war consensus is anything that is anything that you can 218 00:13:38,519 --> 00:13:44,039 point to that comes from the past, that comes from history, 219 00:13:45,200 --> 00:13:48,240 that takes away from their power, that takes away from 220 00:13:48,639 --> 00:13:50,960 what they want you to look at, what they want 221 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:56,399 you to concentrate on. And the flag. You know, it's 222 00:13:56,440 --> 00:13:59,279 like the first time I remember where I was, the 223 00:13:59,279 --> 00:14:03,120 first time I ever read about the war between the 224 00:14:03,159 --> 00:14:06,320 North and the South, and I remember how I felt 225 00:14:06,399 --> 00:14:10,000 about it, even being a Northerner and just being like, oh, 226 00:14:10,840 --> 00:14:17,720 these they called themselves the Confederate States of America. They 227 00:14:17,720 --> 00:14:23,440 didn't call themselves the Confederate State of England or France 228 00:14:23,559 --> 00:14:29,200 or something. They weren't trying to They weren't trying to 229 00:14:31,639 --> 00:14:35,600 leave behind their history. They weren't trying to leave behind 230 00:14:35,639 --> 00:14:39,679 who they are, who they were. They were just splitting 231 00:14:39,720 --> 00:14:45,159 from a people who had basically made everything that they 232 00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:47,720 were about, had tried to turn everything that they were 233 00:14:47,759 --> 00:14:54,480 about into something that was forbidden. And it's really just 234 00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:58,039 like you're it was a grasping and a holding on 235 00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:02,919 to where we came from and who we are, and 236 00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:08,360 to make it about tariffs, to make it about slavery, 237 00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:13,799 to make it about anything other than mythology and history 238 00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:19,840 and those things that bring people together and in this 239 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:25,720 case white Europeans together, that had to be that had 240 00:15:25,759 --> 00:15:29,519 to be destroyed. And that was just the beginning of it. 241 00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:32,919 You know, I've said clearly the line runs all the 242 00:15:32,919 --> 00:15:37,879 way through through to Nuremberg. The people who won the war, 243 00:15:38,519 --> 00:15:41,919 the war between the States, are the same people who 244 00:15:41,919 --> 00:15:44,240 won World War One, and are the same people who 245 00:15:44,320 --> 00:15:47,519 won World War Two. It was just the beginning of 246 00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:52,440 creating that new world in which man only gets to 247 00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:58,000 live the history of this post war consensus and this 248 00:15:59,080 --> 00:16:00,679 march towards progress. 249 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,120 Speaker 4: You know, Pete, I think you raise a really good 250 00:16:05,159 --> 00:16:08,320 point that I feel like there will be some people 251 00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:10,240 that are going to push back, and they're going to say, well, 252 00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,000 why don't you know this? This symbol has so much 253 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:14,440 baggage behind it, why don't you get rid of it? 254 00:16:14,879 --> 00:16:17,080 Speaker 2: But as you you highlighted. 255 00:16:16,519 --> 00:16:20,120 Speaker 4: This, there's a mythology already behind this symbol, and you 256 00:16:20,759 --> 00:16:23,519 to create a new symbol, we would have to arbitrarily 257 00:16:23,679 --> 00:16:29,240 attribute value to it or have that new symbol raised 258 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,399 during a time of crisis in which mythology can be born, 259 00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:36,879 and I think that that's something that needs to be 260 00:16:37,639 --> 00:16:39,360 to be clear to people. Is one of the reasons 261 00:16:39,360 --> 00:16:42,799 that this symbol should be used and not thrown out 262 00:16:42,879 --> 00:16:46,840 is because it already has ties to a mythology and 263 00:16:46,879 --> 00:16:49,879 a meaning and a purpose and a specific people with 264 00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:54,039 a specific goal. So I think that that's something that 265 00:16:54,080 --> 00:16:56,600 needs to be clear. So people don't think we should 266 00:16:56,639 --> 00:16:58,480 just get rid of it and start with something new, 267 00:16:58,519 --> 00:17:01,639 because you can't. I don't think that's something easily done 268 00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:04,319 or that should be done well. 269 00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:06,880 Speaker 3: And there there are times when oh, sorry, you want 270 00:17:06,920 --> 00:17:07,920 to say some mister Peter. 271 00:17:08,559 --> 00:17:10,440 Speaker 1: Well and I was going to say, and of course 272 00:17:10,519 --> 00:17:13,559 I'll be real quick with this, and of course some 273 00:17:13,599 --> 00:17:16,799 people will step in and say, well, if you're going 274 00:17:16,839 --> 00:17:20,039 to use that flag, then Germany gets to bring back 275 00:17:20,079 --> 00:17:23,920 the flag of the Third Reich or even the Second Reich. 276 00:17:24,079 --> 00:17:27,279 Is that's just saying there's too much history there, so 277 00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:32,640 now you're just opening the door for every quote unquote 278 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:37,119 oppressive symbol that that has appeared in the past. 279 00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:40,759 Speaker 3: No. Absolutely, and I mean one of if you want 280 00:17:40,799 --> 00:17:44,400 to if you want to rule over a people, or 281 00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:47,640 if you want a people to be docile or much 282 00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:51,400 less willing to resist certain policies that go against their 283 00:17:51,400 --> 00:17:53,599 best interests, one of the best ways to do that 284 00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:56,680 is to erase their history, is to is to decrease 285 00:17:56,720 --> 00:17:59,000 the cultural prominence of their history, is to sort of 286 00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:04,400 give them a sort of amnesia. And there are times, 287 00:18:05,079 --> 00:18:09,880 there are times where new symbols can be created writ large, 288 00:18:09,920 --> 00:18:12,920 but those are usually times of great strife and suffering 289 00:18:13,079 --> 00:18:15,799 in which the strife and suffering is poured into that 290 00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:20,240 new symbol, you know, which you know, the value of 291 00:18:20,279 --> 00:18:22,759 it is attributed to the amount of strife and suffering 292 00:18:22,799 --> 00:18:26,759 that went into the establishment of that symbol. And frankly, 293 00:18:26,799 --> 00:18:29,880 I don't think we're I mean we we kind of 294 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:31,839 did just come out of a time where, you know, 295 00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:35,400 a new symbol was created. The Maga hat is a 296 00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:38,599 symbol that brings with everything, you know, Trump himself is 297 00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,640 a symbol, you know, Make America great again is a symbol. 298 00:18:42,039 --> 00:18:45,799 You know, it's kind of the first murmurings of a 299 00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:49,799 great cultural remembering. And I'm very glad that it has 300 00:18:49,880 --> 00:18:55,240 proven victorious at least as of recording, you know. And 301 00:18:55,599 --> 00:18:58,160 this brings us to the you know, like you said, 302 00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:01,640 mister Slaughter, you know that you can't. It's very difficult. 303 00:19:01,680 --> 00:19:04,200 It's not impossible. It just takes the It takes a 304 00:19:04,279 --> 00:19:08,000 kind of capital I don't think we have. It takes 305 00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:13,519 a lot of I guess you could say historical capital. Two, 306 00:19:15,559 --> 00:19:20,640 create a new symbol, writ large, a new symbol that 307 00:19:20,799 --> 00:19:26,160 you may have some like minor, you know, what's the word. 308 00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:32,279 I'm looking for precedent. But you can't. It's difficult too, 309 00:19:32,359 --> 00:19:34,240 especially in the time in which we live, which is 310 00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:38,279 a time of attempted reform. When you're trying to reform something, 311 00:19:38,359 --> 00:19:41,839 you look for the place where it went wrong. You're saying, 312 00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:45,799 this thing is in a bad place, but it's not unsalvageable, right, 313 00:19:47,480 --> 00:19:49,279 And that's what you know. I mean, we're both in. 314 00:19:49,359 --> 00:19:51,079 We're all in the Old Glory Club. And that's I guess. 315 00:19:51,079 --> 00:19:54,119 One of the contentions about the Old Glory Club is 316 00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:57,480 that the idea of an America is in a bad place. 317 00:19:57,519 --> 00:19:59,839 The idea of an American people is in a bad place. 318 00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:02,599 Even an American government and an American nation and an 319 00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:05,720 American body of laws, you know, are in a bad 320 00:20:05,839 --> 00:20:09,519 place and are very poorly run. But they're not unsalvageable, 321 00:20:09,599 --> 00:20:13,519 or at least they shouldn't be thrown out entirely. There 322 00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:17,279 was something of value there at some point, and perhaps 323 00:20:17,359 --> 00:20:20,240 to a certain extent, some part of it can be reformed. 324 00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:23,119 What that reform looks like is a whole different matter. 325 00:20:23,400 --> 00:20:25,839 And if it can't be reformed, then well, at least 326 00:20:25,839 --> 00:20:29,079 we can start hiding away symbols for when the great 327 00:20:29,079 --> 00:20:31,920 time of crisis comes that we can then plant and 328 00:20:32,039 --> 00:20:35,319 see flower once the time of crisis passes. And this 329 00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:38,519 leads me to sort of how symbols change over time, 330 00:20:38,559 --> 00:20:43,440 and specifically the Confederate flag. The Confederate flag today does 331 00:20:43,519 --> 00:20:45,759 not mean the same thing that it did even when 332 00:20:45,799 --> 00:20:47,720 you were growing up, mister Slaughter, even when you were 333 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,119 growing up, mister Pete, it it means, and it kind 334 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:52,440 of you when you were both growing up with it, 335 00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:56,279 it kind of mean. It started that transition. But the 336 00:20:56,319 --> 00:20:59,759 Confederate flag has, at least in my opinion, and you 337 00:20:59,759 --> 00:21:03,279 made disagree with me. Although I do see a lot 338 00:21:03,279 --> 00:21:07,240 of them in Virginia, not so many of them in 339 00:21:07,279 --> 00:21:14,359 North Carolina, funnily enough, but the Confederate flag has sort 340 00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:20,640 of been partially de territorialized from the South. You know, 341 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:24,160 you will see more Confederate flags in Oregon and in 342 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:27,880 eastern Oregon or eastern Washington where the Rednecks live, or 343 00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:32,160 in western Pennsylvania, or in Indiana, or in southern Ohio, 344 00:21:32,839 --> 00:21:36,119 or in you know, Missouri, or places that weren't even 345 00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:40,319 Confederate states, and yet you will see those Confederate flags 346 00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:45,240 of what much more wide spread, much more prominently displayed 347 00:21:45,880 --> 00:21:47,599 than a lot of places in the South. And I'm 348 00:21:47,640 --> 00:21:49,480 not saying you won't see it in the South, but 349 00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:55,599 you know, it's it's few and far between. So I 350 00:21:55,640 --> 00:21:59,799 think that the it's it's possible. 351 00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:02,920 Speaker 5: That you could say that perhaps the Confederate flag and 352 00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:04,759 the fact that it's displayed in so many of these 353 00:22:04,799 --> 00:22:09,319 places outside of the South, doesn't necessarily mean, at least 354 00:22:09,519 --> 00:22:12,640 when they're thinking about it, doesn't necessarily mean the cause 355 00:22:12,799 --> 00:22:16,799 of or the struggle for Southern independence, or maybe even 356 00:22:17,559 --> 00:22:20,920 the struggle for Southern independence in their mind doesn't mean 357 00:22:21,079 --> 00:22:22,519 the struggle for Southern independence. 358 00:22:22,519 --> 00:22:24,400 Speaker 3: If you know what, if you know what I'm saying there, 359 00:22:24,839 --> 00:22:26,880 you know, it's it's it's it's it's it's a map 360 00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:29,319 of meaning, it's a symbol. But you know that I 361 00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,559 just wanted to I wanted to throw that out there. 362 00:22:31,559 --> 00:22:32,559 What do you gentlemen think of that? 363 00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:38,319 Speaker 4: Do you do you think that it's possible that it 364 00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:44,480 could be transformed into a symbol to represent something analogous 365 00:22:44,599 --> 00:22:48,119 or we'll say, to the original intention of America sort 366 00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,720 of in the similar vein that many of the Confederates 367 00:22:51,759 --> 00:22:54,039 believe that they were sort of fighting a second revolution 368 00:22:54,519 --> 00:22:58,440 for the original intention of the founding fathers. And if 369 00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:01,000 that be the case, then it would it would make 370 00:23:01,079 --> 00:23:03,799 sense that it would sort of transcend the South and 371 00:23:03,839 --> 00:23:08,599 then be adopted by the sort of the the white 372 00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,759 working class or or even middle class of across America 373 00:23:12,839 --> 00:23:17,440 that sees it or sees that relation to the original 374 00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:19,680 founder founding. 375 00:23:20,319 --> 00:23:23,680 Speaker 3: Well, and mister Pete said earlier that you know, the 376 00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:29,480 the the third word of the Confederate States of was America. 377 00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:32,400 It wasn't the Confederate States of the South. It wasn't 378 00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,680 the Confederate States of Dixieland, it wasn't the Confederate States 379 00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:38,000 of you know and insert. It was the Confederate States 380 00:23:38,039 --> 00:23:41,319 of America. Their constitution was almost you know, I don't 381 00:23:41,319 --> 00:23:44,039 want to say it was modeled off the United States Constitution. 382 00:23:44,559 --> 00:23:48,799 You know, it was a different iteration of this same 383 00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:53,319 concept which had existed before. It was incontinuity with the 384 00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:56,680 United States of Washington and Jefferson and others like they 385 00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,400 did believe it was a second Revolution. And I mean, 386 00:24:01,599 --> 00:24:05,200 perhaps the listener may think, okay, well, perhaps there is 387 00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,559 a need for a new symbol which can represent the 388 00:24:08,559 --> 00:24:12,559 real America that you know, which when we say the 389 00:24:12,559 --> 00:24:16,160 real America, we mean we mean, we mean the white 390 00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:18,400 people who live in this country. That's the real America, 391 00:24:18,440 --> 00:24:20,319 the Christian white people who live in this country and 392 00:24:20,319 --> 00:24:26,480 built this country. Perhaps they, you know, they may counters like, okay, well, 393 00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,240 perhaps these people do need a symbol that that tells 394 00:24:29,279 --> 00:24:31,440 them what they are. But you know, the Confederate flags, 395 00:24:31,519 --> 00:24:33,960 as you know you've both pointed out, has all this baggage. 396 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:36,759 You know, you can't you know, slavery, and you can't 397 00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:39,119 you know, you don't want the story of the white 398 00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,119 man in the United States to be one of oppression, 399 00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:49,160 of bondage, of all these other things. And my counter 400 00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,680 to that would be, okay, yes, perhaps you know, even 401 00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,839 let's let's assume you're right for a second, and we 402 00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:59,160 can't use this symbol. What other symbol, could you put 403 00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,319 forward that the same poll on people? Because that's what 404 00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:07,599 that's what I believe differentiates the Confederate flag Besides every 405 00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:10,880 other symbol is that it has poll on people. It 406 00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,680 puts people into fight or flight, It puts it has 407 00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:18,519 a visceral reaction, and in that sense, it's more art 408 00:25:18,599 --> 00:25:22,160 than most art that is displayed nowadays. It forces people 409 00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:26,079 to confront something and make a reaction to it, either 410 00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:30,160 to totally condemn it or to make peace with it, 411 00:25:30,279 --> 00:25:32,759 or to accept it and take it up and follow it. 412 00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:39,480 And that's the kind of symbol that mobilizes people in 413 00:25:39,519 --> 00:25:43,039 one direction or another, you know. So yeah, I guess, 414 00:25:43,079 --> 00:25:45,160 I guess you could say I might be alluding to 415 00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:45,880 something like that. 416 00:25:47,559 --> 00:25:50,440 Speaker 1: Well, I think the power of it can be seen 417 00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:57,759 in location. So when someone in the South goes north 418 00:25:57,799 --> 00:26:01,000 and passes to Mason Dixon line, or when someone who's 419 00:26:01,039 --> 00:26:05,319 in when someone who's a Southerner, let's say, goes north 420 00:26:05,319 --> 00:26:08,400 of the Mason Dixon line, and someone who considers themselves 421 00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:11,960 to be a norther, proud northernner crosses the south of 422 00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:17,880 the Mason Dixon line, they instinctively know, they know they're 423 00:26:18,039 --> 00:26:20,960 entering into a different world. They're entering into a place 424 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,960 where the culture is different, where the people are different, 425 00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:29,480 and they they're like, well, these aren't my people. A 426 00:26:29,519 --> 00:26:32,640 lot of people think that way, especially people who are attuned, 427 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:36,799 people who have been educated, people who quote unquote educated 428 00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,759 people have been educated about the war, about you know, 429 00:26:40,839 --> 00:26:45,319 the strife, you know the recent unpleasantness it. If you 430 00:26:45,519 --> 00:26:51,680 know about it, crossing either way, crossing either way, people 431 00:26:51,839 --> 00:26:57,240 just they know there's something. There's something spiritual there, there's 432 00:26:57,279 --> 00:27:03,359 something metaphysical there, and yeah, to talk about it is 433 00:27:03,519 --> 00:27:06,160 just that it just turns into it. People just start 434 00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,240 joking about it. But it's not a joke. It's a 435 00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:09,240 very serious thing. 436 00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,119 Speaker 3: It is. It is and and it you know, the 437 00:27:15,440 --> 00:27:20,960 ghosts of the past never really do go away. But 438 00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:28,079 the thing is a great many, a great many Southerners 439 00:27:28,119 --> 00:27:31,319 on the eve of and this is I don't necessarily 440 00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:33,759 want this episode to be a relitigation of the Civil War, 441 00:27:33,799 --> 00:27:36,640 because there's too much of that. But on the eve 442 00:27:36,759 --> 00:27:43,000 of secession, a great many Southerners, very notably including people 443 00:27:43,039 --> 00:27:48,039 like Nathan Bedford Forrest and Roberty Lee, thought secession was 444 00:27:48,079 --> 00:27:51,440 the worst idea ever and that the South would more 445 00:27:51,480 --> 00:27:55,119 than likely lose, and that it was reducing the South, 446 00:27:55,279 --> 00:27:58,640 that the South was economically symbiotic with the North. And 447 00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,759 you know, despite how bad they didn't deny that the 448 00:28:01,759 --> 00:28:06,319 North had, you know, had done very unjust things and 449 00:28:06,400 --> 00:28:08,960 had treated the South very poorly. They did, and they 450 00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,960 did not deny the legitimacy of succession, but they denied 451 00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,880 the wisdom of it. That said, however, they you know, 452 00:28:17,119 --> 00:28:22,599 stepped forward and fought, and you know, I mean, and 453 00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,799 there were there were shoot there. You know, not every 454 00:28:24,839 --> 00:28:27,640 Southern general was born south of the Mason Dixon line, 455 00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,839 most famously General Pemberton, whose first name I forget, but 456 00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:34,519 General Pemberton, who was in charge of the Vicksburg defenses, 457 00:28:35,279 --> 00:28:37,799 was born in Pennsylvania, and he had married a Southerner 458 00:28:37,839 --> 00:28:41,400 and that's why he sided with the South. And he 459 00:28:41,519 --> 00:28:43,680 is he was a very good engineer, and that's and 460 00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,880 he was the reason why the Vicksburg defenses lasted as 461 00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:49,799 long as they did. You know, you compare this to 462 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,599 General Thomas on the Union side, who was a Virginia 463 00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:58,759 born Union officer who betrayed a state. And you know, 464 00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:01,920 so this is the thing, right, like, this is the 465 00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:06,000 thing in many ways the story of the Confederacy is 466 00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:10,039 in and the story of the South large is inseparable 467 00:29:10,079 --> 00:29:11,880 from the rest of the United States. And we kind of, 468 00:29:11,920 --> 00:29:14,839 mister Pete, we talked about this in the Virginia First documentary, 469 00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:17,880 not documentary, the thing we did talking about the Virginia 470 00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,720 First documentary and the idea of Virginia First, which mister Slaughter, 471 00:29:21,759 --> 00:29:26,279 I think you're familiar with as well. Yeah, Virginia culture 472 00:29:26,400 --> 00:29:32,519 is Southern culture. Virginia culture is Southern culture, and Virginia 473 00:29:32,519 --> 00:29:37,240 culture large Southern culture is American culture. And I think 474 00:29:37,279 --> 00:29:40,680 perhaps the great flaw is to attempt to separate these 475 00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:44,759 two things rather than to find a symbol that re 476 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:46,680 knits the wound, if that makes sense. 477 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:55,920 Speaker 1: You were talking about like like Pemberton, John C. Pemberton, Pennsylvania, 478 00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:05,279 someone like that. You Yeah, I obviously, I I'm with 479 00:30:06,039 --> 00:30:07,519 I'm on his side. 480 00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:07,880 Speaker 3: You know. 481 00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,440 Speaker 1: It's I'm someone who was born in the North, raised 482 00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:12,200 in the North. But I got as I got as 483 00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:14,240 far as I got south as soon as I could. 484 00:30:16,079 --> 00:30:20,519 What we're looking at is going forward, and instinctively I 485 00:30:20,599 --> 00:30:25,759 knew even back then that we were coming, we were 486 00:30:25,799 --> 00:30:29,240 going to come to this reckoning where you were just 487 00:30:29,279 --> 00:30:35,119 going to have to choose sides. And it's obvious from 488 00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:37,480 you know, a lot of people call it rural urban, 489 00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:41,720 the oral urban, rural urban divide. And you do get 490 00:30:41,759 --> 00:30:43,400 a lot of that because you know, even in a 491 00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,599 lot of the urban areas, I mean, Atlanta in Georgia 492 00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:50,359 is no longer a Southern city. It's just not. It's 493 00:30:51,359 --> 00:30:55,519 it's something else. It's a post war consensus city, it's 494 00:30:55,559 --> 00:31:03,359 a Nuremberg city. You were just you knew instinctively you 495 00:31:03,359 --> 00:31:08,599 were going to have to choose. And what you see, 496 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:13,359 basically what I saw was and what I still see 497 00:31:13,440 --> 00:31:17,079 is even if people don't want to in the South, 498 00:31:17,799 --> 00:31:20,720 they're not willing to say it, they're not willing to 499 00:31:20,799 --> 00:31:26,119 express it because it's you know, it's just not done anymore, 500 00:31:26,519 --> 00:31:32,759 or they're they're scared of the fallout is that the 501 00:31:32,799 --> 00:31:39,559 Southerners embrace the history of white America. And when you see, 502 00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,559 you know, in Alabama, you don't, like you mentioned Oregon 503 00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,240 and the flags in East Oregon, the flags in East Washington, 504 00:31:46,279 --> 00:31:49,680 there are more you will see more flags in East 505 00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:55,920 Oregon flown than you will in Alabama. And it's it's 506 00:31:56,000 --> 00:32:03,400 not because people have forgotten it's just because people have 507 00:32:04,079 --> 00:32:08,240 It's almost like it's been put on the shelf, and 508 00:32:08,839 --> 00:32:11,359 it's almost like people are waiting for someone to come 509 00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,559 along and say it's okay, you can do it. You 510 00:32:15,559 --> 00:32:18,079 can be who you are, you can celebrate your history, 511 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:20,240 you can look at your past and you can be 512 00:32:20,319 --> 00:32:25,119 proud of it. And that's not something that in the 513 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:30,920 north north of the Mason Dixon line, what is what 514 00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:34,680 are they celebrating other than the post war consensus. I mean, 515 00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,279 you get outside of rural area, sure, western New York, 516 00:32:37,559 --> 00:32:42,079 there's some great places out there, you know, bright red 517 00:32:42,319 --> 00:32:46,480 country out there. Same in most of Pennsylvania. But when 518 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,839 it comes down, when it comes down to it, a 519 00:32:48,839 --> 00:32:53,039 lot of those people just they're embracing like that classic 520 00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:58,640 civic nationalism, that classic kind of classical liberalism, and they're 521 00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:04,480 not embracing the kind of full on culture that you 522 00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,079 can really only get down here and you have. It 523 00:33:09,119 --> 00:33:11,319 almost feels like you have to be someone who's lived 524 00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:17,440 up there and lived here to experience exactly what someone 525 00:33:17,519 --> 00:33:21,119 is talking about when they talk about the South being 526 00:33:21,839 --> 00:33:27,480 basically America, that Virginia is America, and that you know 527 00:33:27,599 --> 00:33:32,279 that flag represents what America was as much as people. 528 00:33:33,759 --> 00:33:36,200 So many people hate hearing that, even people listening to 529 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:37,720 this probably don't like hearing that. 530 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:43,519 Speaker 4: I think you're one hundred percent correct. P. 531 00:33:43,759 --> 00:33:43,880 Speaker 3: One. 532 00:33:44,039 --> 00:33:48,400 Speaker 4: One of the first substacks I ever wrote was in 533 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:53,000 reference to the fact that growing up in in the 534 00:33:53,039 --> 00:33:56,680 Deep South, my entire life I had I had never 535 00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:07,559 went I always, I always, and it wasn't until I 536 00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,920 left the South that I met people that would reference them, 537 00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:14,239 you know, talk about themselves as they were Italian Americans 538 00:34:14,599 --> 00:34:19,639 or some hyphenated American. And I realized that at some 539 00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,159 point that the only people that I had ever met 540 00:34:22,159 --> 00:34:24,840 that saw themselves as actually American were Southerners. 541 00:34:25,679 --> 00:34:26,239 Speaker 3: And that was it. 542 00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:28,119 Speaker 4: Because everywhere else I had been in my life, even 543 00:34:28,119 --> 00:34:32,440 in the Midwest, people would identify as as being German American, right, 544 00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:34,719 And it was only the South where people just saw 545 00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:39,639 themselves as Americans. And I think, I think you're correct 546 00:34:39,679 --> 00:34:43,000 that people are sort of waiting for the go ahead 547 00:34:43,079 --> 00:34:48,559 to use the Confederate flag again. And I don't necessarily 548 00:34:48,599 --> 00:34:51,840 want to be the optics guy, but I think a 549 00:34:51,920 --> 00:34:54,480 large part of that is because the only people who 550 00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:58,239 have still had sort of the the guts to use 551 00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,480 that symbol or as large the lower class, and it's 552 00:35:01,559 --> 00:35:05,480 going to take some of our guys that are gonna 553 00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,360 sort of form a new aristocracy, if you will, to 554 00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:10,599 use that symbol and say no, this is this is 555 00:35:10,639 --> 00:35:13,679 our symbol, and it's not something to be relegated to 556 00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,800 two people that are looked down upon, that that it 557 00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:19,079 belongs to all of us, and that it's okay for 558 00:35:19,559 --> 00:35:21,960 anyone in the South to fly it again. 559 00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,679 Speaker 3: In some ways I kind of understand what you all 560 00:35:27,719 --> 00:35:32,079 are saying, and especially you, mister Pete, when you talk 561 00:35:32,119 --> 00:35:34,920 about how in the in the North, it's you know, 562 00:35:35,039 --> 00:35:39,039 in many ways, it's it's the people up there. They 563 00:35:39,039 --> 00:35:42,599 don't really have anything like the South has. On the 564 00:35:42,639 --> 00:35:46,239 other hand, people in Upstate New York wear cowboy boots now. 565 00:35:46,679 --> 00:35:49,039 People in upstate New York where cowboy hats now, People 566 00:35:49,039 --> 00:35:54,199 in upstate New York, in West Pennsylvania, in any rural area. 567 00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:57,719 There's a book about this called the Southernization of America. 568 00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:05,679 I forget the author's name, but functionally, rural culture anywhere 569 00:36:05,679 --> 00:36:10,440 and everywhere has become Southern, like, for for better or 570 00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,480 for worse, there is you know, there's been this strange 571 00:36:14,519 --> 00:36:17,719 homogenization amongst red America, that you have this sort of 572 00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:23,639 this vaguely southern Ish monoculture, which you know has also 573 00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,360 kind of come to the South as well, and that 574 00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,239 has good and bad. And I think that's part of 575 00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:33,239 the reason why the Confederate flag is so widespread, and 576 00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:38,400 so if white if the white portion of the United 577 00:36:38,400 --> 00:36:43,159 States has functionally Southern eyed, because that's the only strain 578 00:36:43,199 --> 00:36:47,239 of it that has survived the you know, the selection pressures. 579 00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:47,679 Speaker 2: Of the last. 580 00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:59,639 Speaker 3: You know, however long. Perhaps then I don't I don't know, 581 00:36:59,679 --> 00:37:01,360 I don't know how to how to connect this here, 582 00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:03,599 But I guess I guess I don't really know. I 583 00:37:03,599 --> 00:37:05,639 don't really know how how to follow that up. Is 584 00:37:05,639 --> 00:37:09,039 is the it appears that the country is southernized in 585 00:37:09,119 --> 00:37:11,719 response the white portion of the country have southernized in 586 00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:16,039 response to the selection pressures, unless you count millennial RII, 587 00:37:17,119 --> 00:37:22,119 Blue City, Christopher Sanbatch hiking culture as a as a 588 00:37:22,119 --> 00:37:25,920 as an alternative. But I don't know. I'm kind of 589 00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:26,719 at a loss here. 590 00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:32,559 Speaker 4: Well, well, my question would be, and maybe either of 591 00:37:32,599 --> 00:37:35,559 y'all can answer this, is, do you think that if 592 00:37:36,199 --> 00:37:40,159 we had people in positions of authority, you know, people 593 00:37:40,159 --> 00:37:45,039 that present themselves well as leaders start to use that 594 00:37:45,119 --> 00:37:47,400 symbol that that would be the catalysts that would sort 595 00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,639 of free it for use for for the rest of Americans. 596 00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:55,239 Speaker 3: Actually, mister Peter, you maut if I take this real quick, 597 00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:59,599 go ahead. So you remember when God's in Generals ca 598 00:37:59,679 --> 00:38:01,559 I was was a baby when God's in Generals came out. 599 00:38:01,599 --> 00:38:03,079 You remember when God's in Generals came. 600 00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:06,880 Speaker 1: Out and I actually saw it in the theater. 601 00:38:07,119 --> 00:38:10,400 Speaker 3: Like being a Confederate was like the coolest thing on 602 00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,239 earth for a little while when when that movie came out, 603 00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:18,000 because it made the Confederates just look really awesome, like 604 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:19,519 like that's that. 605 00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:21,159 Speaker 2: Yeah, it had the same. 606 00:38:23,039 --> 00:38:24,639 Speaker 4: I was gonna say it had the same effect as 607 00:38:24,679 --> 00:38:26,480 Braveheart did for Scottish people. 608 00:38:26,559 --> 00:38:29,880 Speaker 3: Exactly right. And and Gettysburg had a very similar effect, although 609 00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:34,559 Gettysburg was a lot more even handed. Not to say 610 00:38:34,599 --> 00:38:39,400 I dislike Southern propaganda. I love Southern propaganda, but but 611 00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:43,159 I want it to be anyway. It's like, you know, 612 00:38:43,199 --> 00:38:46,280 the North and South mini series, the ken Burns miniseries, 613 00:38:46,599 --> 00:38:49,039 you know all of these other like media products about it. 614 00:38:49,119 --> 00:38:52,800 Any you know, any neutral portrayal of the Civil War, 615 00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:55,760 and people immediately like you know, like everything. The only 616 00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:59,199 reason anyone anyone reads about the Civil War, no one really, 617 00:38:59,599 --> 00:39:01,519 no one really reads about the Civil War to read 618 00:39:01,559 --> 00:39:03,800 about the North. They do it to read about the 619 00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:07,000 South and like the personalities and the character and all 620 00:39:07,039 --> 00:39:09,960 that other stuff. And so the way that you would 621 00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,559 do it the way that you do. And this of 622 00:39:12,599 --> 00:39:16,079 course necessitates some kind of media control, which oh gee, 623 00:39:16,119 --> 00:39:18,159 I wonder if if that was trending in our direction 624 00:39:18,199 --> 00:39:21,280 at time of recording. But when you have some kind 625 00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:26,079 of media control, what you do is you make a 626 00:39:26,159 --> 00:39:30,400 big blockbuster movie about you know, like let's say the 627 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:33,719 Battle of Shiloh or something, or or or like or 628 00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,280 a bio. Let's say you do the Roberty Lee biopick. 629 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:38,559 Has there been a Roberty Lee biopick? You could make 630 00:39:38,559 --> 00:39:41,840 a Roberty Lee biopick of just his whole life from 631 00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:47,719 beginning to end, from the repossession of Stratford Hall to 632 00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:52,920 his his death as president of Washington College. You could do. 633 00:39:53,159 --> 00:39:56,119 You could. There's so much there that hasn't been done. 634 00:39:56,519 --> 00:39:58,679 I was kind of, you know, growing up, I was 635 00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,599 very disappointed with how few Civil War like good Civil 636 00:40:02,639 --> 00:40:05,039 War movies there were, Like there's so many World War 637 00:40:05,079 --> 00:40:07,840 two movies like I can count I can rattle off 638 00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:09,800 like five or six World War two movies, but like 639 00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:13,159 Civil War movies, there's there's hardly any. There's Gettysburg and 640 00:40:13,199 --> 00:40:16,280 Gods in general, and that's that's pretty much it, you know. 641 00:40:17,119 --> 00:40:21,039 Speaker 1: And there's many Cold Mountain, Yeah mountains. 642 00:40:21,079 --> 00:40:24,039 Speaker 3: I never saw Cold Mountain, but I'll add that to 643 00:40:24,079 --> 00:40:27,199 the watch list. I mean, but yeah, like that's three, 644 00:40:28,119 --> 00:40:32,679 you know, and and and there's just there's so much there. 645 00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,440 And I think part of the reason is because people, 646 00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:41,320 the powers that be do not want the American people 647 00:40:41,559 --> 00:40:45,000 to be seeing media depictions of them being brave, heroic 648 00:40:45,039 --> 00:40:47,679 and cool and fighting for causes that they think are valuable, 649 00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,239 you know. And but the way that you reintroduce this 650 00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:53,920 symbol is you just start doing like you do the 651 00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,719 Roberty Lee biopic, where you do the the you know, 652 00:40:58,320 --> 00:41:01,599 you do a movie about the you know, you could 653 00:41:01,599 --> 00:41:04,239 do a movie about what happened afterwards, but I can't 654 00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:10,880 talk about that on stream. But like like like that's 655 00:41:10,880 --> 00:41:14,800 how you do it. You you you start slowly reinserting 656 00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,880 the symbol in the public consciousness through just passive media consumption. 657 00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:20,800 And yeah, people may get mad about it, but if 658 00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:24,480 you have enough promoting, pretty soon the symbol gets normalized 659 00:41:24,519 --> 00:41:27,159 and pretty soon people start thinking it's cool. You know, 660 00:41:27,559 --> 00:41:29,159 So that's that's kind of how you do it. 661 00:41:31,119 --> 00:41:34,280 Speaker 4: I think you're you're probably absolutely correct, because I am 662 00:41:34,360 --> 00:41:39,119 thinking of that that line from Faulkner, and I'm paraphrasing here, 663 00:41:39,119 --> 00:41:43,079 but he makes the point that that at some point, 664 00:41:43,159 --> 00:41:48,199 every every Southern boy pictures himself, you know, online at 665 00:41:48,199 --> 00:41:51,800 pickets charge and wonders, you know, if if the day 666 00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:56,440 could go different, basically, And I think that's that's dormant 667 00:41:56,480 --> 00:42:00,159 in a lot of people. And as you said, if 668 00:42:00,159 --> 00:42:03,920 you were to start injecting that symbol into popular media 669 00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:07,719 and have and I also think having people that that 670 00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:10,840 are respectable enough to carry that right, that that would 671 00:42:10,840 --> 00:42:14,960 that would awaken that same spirit the Faulkner was referencing. 672 00:42:16,639 --> 00:42:23,400 Speaker 1: The it can't start obviously on the national I mean, Trump, 673 00:42:23,639 --> 00:42:26,840 you try to present this, he's well, they lost. That's 674 00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,440 this has to be something that starts in the South. 675 00:42:31,119 --> 00:42:36,480 Starts either a local county, state you know we've already had. 676 00:42:36,519 --> 00:42:39,519 I mean, do we even have a state flag left 677 00:42:39,559 --> 00:42:42,360 that has the Confederate flag in it? Or are they 678 00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:46,840 all gone? 679 00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:48,880 Speaker 4: I think South Carolina was one. 680 00:42:49,519 --> 00:42:54,800 Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, so it would have to be something at 681 00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:56,760 the state level, and it would have to be like 682 00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:00,719 a governor, a lieutenant governor, someone like that, somebody who 683 00:43:02,159 --> 00:43:07,000 yeh made the made the argument, someone who was highly respected, 684 00:43:07,039 --> 00:43:13,679 somebody who was beyond reproach, because it's yeah, so what 685 00:43:13,679 --> 00:43:18,519 we're seeing is, let's just compare it here. What we're 686 00:43:18,519 --> 00:43:22,679 seeing is we're seeing the World War two narrative is 687 00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:29,000 having holes shot in it quickly because we're in the 688 00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:35,360 information age, and information travels and independent the the regime 689 00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:39,639 media doesn't control the flow of information anymore. Information can 690 00:43:39,679 --> 00:43:45,440 go can go through. And you will see in this 691 00:43:45,559 --> 00:43:48,440 country the World War two narrative fall before you will 692 00:43:48,440 --> 00:43:52,480 see the you know, the war before the war between 693 00:43:52,480 --> 00:44:00,920 the states being you know, the Confederacy, seeing a comeback, 694 00:44:01,000 --> 00:44:08,480 seeing a way of I don't know, humanizing them. It's 695 00:44:08,639 --> 00:44:12,199 just it's too close to home. If you have a 696 00:44:12,199 --> 00:44:19,000 battle overseas, that doesn't affect the people, it doesn't affect 697 00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:21,280 World War two didn't affect us like it affected the 698 00:44:21,280 --> 00:44:27,960 people of Germany, Poland, Russia, France, Italy, North Africa. But 699 00:44:28,079 --> 00:44:31,679 that affected it was a big effect here. You know, 700 00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:32,920 six hundred thousand. 701 00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:33,639 Speaker 2: It could be. 702 00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:36,440 Speaker 1: Some people say as much as none. You know, so 703 00:44:36,519 --> 00:44:39,719 many of those people dying just of you know, dysentery, 704 00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:45,440 the worst things possible. But the problem, the biggest problem 705 00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,800 we have is that that post war consensus is that 706 00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,559 we deal with with World War two is it's the 707 00:44:52,599 --> 00:44:57,320 same exact thing with World with with this war. And 708 00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:02,280 in order for this to be done, I mean, it 709 00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:06,519 just has to be done in the most perfect under 710 00:45:06,559 --> 00:45:11,000 the most perfect circumstances, and in the perfect environment. And 711 00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:14,280 I think it's going to have to be in an 712 00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:19,239 environment where the United States as a whole is in 713 00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:23,960 the ascension. Again, it can't be as a reaction to 714 00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,360 you know what Kamala Harris and Joe Biden and this 715 00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:33,239 whole post this whole post Nuremberg regime has done. It's 716 00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:35,079 going to have to be in the ascension. It's going 717 00:45:35,119 --> 00:45:37,719 to have to be like, hey, let's look at this again, 718 00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:41,039 where everybody's where most people are happy about what's happening. 719 00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,079 It can't be a reaction. I guess that's what I 720 00:45:45,119 --> 00:45:46,880 was trying to say. And I could have said that 721 00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:49,119 in two sentences instead of a hundred. 722 00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:52,239 Speaker 2: Well, I'm wondering Pete. 723 00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:57,000 Speaker 4: As you're speaking, I'm thinking, hypothetically, let's say you had 724 00:45:57,039 --> 00:46:01,480 the you know, the new governor of our Alabama who 725 00:46:02,639 --> 00:46:06,000 did exactly what you're saying, and all of their policies 726 00:46:06,079 --> 00:46:10,880 and their prescriptions were at the benefit of Alabamians across 727 00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:14,679 the board. That would in my mind, I'm thinking that 728 00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:18,800 would be something that would work because I watched the 729 00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:22,360 documentary a few years ago about George Wallace, and one 730 00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:24,119 of the things that struck me about it was that 731 00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,840 they were interviewing some older black individuals, most of them 732 00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:33,920 were civil rights leaders of some sort, and they were 733 00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,000 shocked by the fact that most of their parents had 734 00:46:36,039 --> 00:46:40,199 voted for Wallace. And when they asked them why, they said, 735 00:46:40,199 --> 00:46:42,480 it's because Wallace did more for us than anybody else. 736 00:46:42,519 --> 00:46:44,440 And they referenced the roads he built, in the schools 737 00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:49,000 he built. And I think, using that sort of as 738 00:46:49,119 --> 00:46:54,800 sort of an example, that that could possibly work, because 739 00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,840 despite all the baggage that Wallace had, he still was 740 00:46:57,920 --> 00:47:01,199 able to get support from people that you would assume 741 00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:04,400 would not support him because all of his goals were 742 00:47:04,440 --> 00:47:05,840 to better the people of Alabama. 743 00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:08,559 Speaker 2: Regardless, I remember. 744 00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,800 Speaker 1: If it's going to be good, no, it was just 745 00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:11,719 I was just gonna. 746 00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:14,119 Speaker 3: Make a comment. I remember on Wallace's interview one of 747 00:47:14,159 --> 00:47:16,239 the few things I've ever watched with Bill Buckley in 748 00:47:16,280 --> 00:47:20,679 and on firing line, Will Wallace, Uh not Will, that's 749 00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,119 that's sorry, wrong Wallace. When George Wallace was on Bill 750 00:47:24,159 --> 00:47:28,239 Buckley's firing line, I'm remembering how he was debating both 751 00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:31,480 Buckley and the moderator, and he was running circles around both. 752 00:47:31,519 --> 00:47:33,639 If you ever get a chance to watch that interview, 753 00:47:33,679 --> 00:47:36,719 it really is something to see because Buckley is trying, 754 00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,519 you know, as like the nascent neo Khan is trying 755 00:47:39,519 --> 00:47:41,320 to catch him on a bunch of things, and Wallace 756 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:44,960 is just Wallace, as sharp as attack man. He he 757 00:47:45,039 --> 00:47:47,800 does not take it for a second. It's it's it's 758 00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:48,679 something to see. 759 00:47:50,159 --> 00:47:53,719 Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's uh that that's exactly it is. That 760 00:47:54,639 --> 00:47:56,519 when you bring it up, if you bring it up 761 00:47:56,519 --> 00:48:01,239 at the wrong time, it's going to you're going to 762 00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,239 have two on one. You're going to have oh, this 763 00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,599 is this is an interview, it's a debate. Well, then 764 00:48:06,599 --> 00:48:11,280 the moderator gets into it because especially especially if you 765 00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:14,239 know what you're talking about, especially if you start making sense, 766 00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:20,519 especially if you start seeming. Your message is sympathetic, your 767 00:48:20,559 --> 00:48:23,920 message is logical, Your message is something that people can 768 00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:26,400 hold on to, especially for hope. 769 00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:28,000 Speaker 2: You know. 770 00:48:28,039 --> 00:48:31,280 Speaker 1: That's why, you know, I think this has to start locally, 771 00:48:31,599 --> 00:48:39,559 if anything, because the the amount you see, what happens 772 00:48:39,599 --> 00:48:44,079 when anyone steps over the line. You know, if a 773 00:48:44,159 --> 00:48:48,199 governor or lieutenant governor, the mayor of a city with 774 00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:52,239 more than twenty thousand people, if they step out of line, everything, 775 00:48:54,119 --> 00:48:58,840 you know, it's just wars declared on them. So yeah, 776 00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,960 I mean I think that it's I think the most 777 00:49:01,960 --> 00:49:06,480 important thing is is that it has to be done 778 00:49:06,519 --> 00:49:10,400 when you know, if if we're looking at four years 779 00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:14,760 of you know, Elon Musk and his kind of you know, 780 00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:18,320 his kind of ilk doing everything they can to get 781 00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:22,320 this country running right again. And basically what they're I 782 00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:25,480 think what they're trying to do not to derail this 783 00:49:25,679 --> 00:49:31,320 at all, is when they talk about eliminating this, elimiting 784 00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,440 this amount of people ninety percent of this thing can go, 785 00:49:35,039 --> 00:49:39,800 they're basically taking us back to what America was at 786 00:49:39,840 --> 00:49:45,360 one time. Problem. You know, the hardest things to overcome 787 00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:49,519 with that is that comes along with waiving, you know, 788 00:49:49,599 --> 00:49:56,599 the stars and the bars and in order to use 789 00:49:56,679 --> 00:49:59,280 the flag, you know, use the flag of the South 790 00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:02,719 of the con Federate States of America, then it's going 791 00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:07,599 to you're going to maybe even see a kind of 792 00:50:07,639 --> 00:50:12,039 federalist movement of some sort. And maybe a federalist movement 793 00:50:12,079 --> 00:50:16,440 only works in this kind of way when things are good, 794 00:50:16,519 --> 00:50:19,119 as opposed to in the middle of a quote unquote 795 00:50:19,199 --> 00:50:23,559 pandemic like twenty twenty, when federalism became a you know, 796 00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:27,920 was back on the table and people were discussing it again, missus. 797 00:50:27,639 --> 00:50:28,960 Speaker 3: Slot, You got anything on that. 798 00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:36,440 Speaker 4: No, I'm just thinking that that It is also it 799 00:50:36,559 --> 00:50:42,400 might be possible that if a federalism is back on 800 00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:46,480 the table, or if something similar to twenty twenty were 801 00:50:46,519 --> 00:50:51,440 to happen again, if we were to use the Confederate 802 00:50:51,480 --> 00:50:55,679 flag as the symbol of resistance against that, that could 803 00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:57,000 also galvanize people. 804 00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,079 Speaker 3: It could, it could. The thing is is, it's it's 805 00:51:01,119 --> 00:51:04,519 it's it's been the symbol of resistance for a long time, 806 00:51:04,639 --> 00:51:07,159 and and and and resistance in the kind of way. 807 00:51:07,199 --> 00:51:09,639 I don't like resistance in the in the guerrilla sort 808 00:51:09,679 --> 00:51:11,960 of no victory condition kind of way where the only 809 00:51:12,039 --> 00:51:20,239 victory is survival. I think personally. Federalism is only going 810 00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:25,119 to expand because the federal government is I've said this, 811 00:51:25,159 --> 00:51:27,039 I think I've either said this on your shore, I've 812 00:51:27,079 --> 00:51:29,400 said this on the o GC streams, but I've said 813 00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:32,480 this in your presence on air before, mister Pete. The 814 00:51:32,519 --> 00:51:36,920 federal government is the weakest it's been since you know, 815 00:51:37,000 --> 00:51:39,639 and and it's it's strange to say that, but it 816 00:51:40,119 --> 00:51:43,960 really is. It is the weakest it has been since 817 00:51:44,199 --> 00:51:46,960 the Tyler administration. Really. Yeah, it's got a lot of 818 00:51:47,079 --> 00:51:51,239 spooky power and concentrated in Washington, and yet it does 819 00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:55,280 tyrannize the mid Atlantic pretty well. But for the most part, 820 00:51:55,360 --> 00:51:58,280 the federal government doesn't have a lot of authority outside 821 00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:01,519 of its general area, outside of its out hoss. And 822 00:52:02,159 --> 00:52:04,559 you know from what I'm hearing at time of recording 823 00:52:04,639 --> 00:52:10,079 on Trump discussing moving all of these different executive agencies 824 00:52:10,159 --> 00:52:13,800 out of Washington. Number one, it's gonna depopulate northern Virginia, 825 00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:17,960 which I think the Lord my state will be finally 826 00:52:18,119 --> 00:52:25,039 back with the solid South again. But secondly, it's going 827 00:52:25,119 --> 00:52:29,280 to this idea of like this decentralized federal government with like, 828 00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:33,360 you know, its primary agencies in different places you're gonna 829 00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:37,480 see a sort of regionalization occur because of that. And 830 00:52:37,519 --> 00:52:40,400 I don't know how you recentralize something like that in 831 00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:44,920 any in any in any timeframe. That's soon, and so 832 00:52:45,119 --> 00:52:50,280 it's it's possible, you know, alongside general economic improvement, you know, 833 00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:52,960 we're talking about like, you know, it's possible that if 834 00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:55,639 things start getting better that you know, you said, mister Peter, 835 00:52:55,719 --> 00:52:58,159 new federalist movement could kind of emerge. Well, it's possible 836 00:52:58,159 --> 00:53:01,119 that that time is star arting to come upon us, 837 00:53:01,199 --> 00:53:04,320 that that time is is is you know, might come soon. 838 00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:08,280 Because the thing is, it's like, you know, esthetically and 839 00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:10,559 in a vacuum, there would be nothing wrong with the 840 00:53:10,599 --> 00:53:13,559 American flag that we currently have. That is a symbol 841 00:53:13,639 --> 00:53:17,639 of the American people. That is a white symbol created 842 00:53:17,679 --> 00:53:21,159 by whites, the thirteen stripes you know of of red 843 00:53:21,199 --> 00:53:24,519 and white. You know, it's beautiful, you know, it's an 844 00:53:24,599 --> 00:53:28,280 esthetically pleasing flag. You know, the problem with it is 845 00:53:28,280 --> 00:53:33,199 is that flag has become has had the meaning of 846 00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:36,440 the post war consensus poured into it, and more more 847 00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:39,079 so than the post war consensus, specifically, the post nineteen 848 00:53:39,119 --> 00:53:42,480 sixty four civil rights consensus poured into it. That is 849 00:53:42,519 --> 00:53:46,480 what the flag is now, you know, as opposed to 850 00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:48,719 like you know, say the Betsy Ross or something like that, 851 00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:52,239 which harkens back to an old America, which I don't 852 00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:54,400 know if you could adopt as the American flag. 853 00:53:54,159 --> 00:53:56,159 Speaker 5: But but. 854 00:53:59,199 --> 00:54:01,760 Speaker 3: It is possible that we're in an environment where something 855 00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:06,079 like this might start becoming a thing might start becoming possible, 856 00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:10,400 and you know, shoot, maybe maybe it won't be the 857 00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,840 Confederate flag that's adopted. But like I said earlier, find 858 00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:16,320 me a better symbol, Find me a symbol that pulls 859 00:54:16,320 --> 00:54:19,639 it people. Better. Find me a symbol that tells the 860 00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:22,400 story that the Confederate flag tells. 861 00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:28,239 Speaker 1: And that's it, isn't it. You're we're we're in a 862 00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:30,920 myth war here, something I was talking about on my 863 00:54:30,960 --> 00:54:35,239 sub stack not too long ago when they started when 864 00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:38,199 these quote unquote right wingers who are really just classical 865 00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:41,039 liberals who are leftists started talking about the woke right, 866 00:54:42,599 --> 00:54:46,239 because you know, Darryl Cooper went on and questioned and 867 00:54:46,280 --> 00:54:48,880 said that he thought that he said that Churchill was 868 00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:54,480 the villain of World War two. Well, they're saying that 869 00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:58,679 the reason, the reason why where the woke right is 870 00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:03,079 because the left is always seeking to destroy the myths 871 00:55:03,599 --> 00:55:11,119 of America, and well, okay, that's fine if you want 872 00:55:11,159 --> 00:55:13,079 to do that, if you want, if that's your game 873 00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:15,880 is to say, well, you're doing something the left does 874 00:55:15,920 --> 00:55:18,360 that that means you're a leftist, and that means you're woke. 875 00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:21,480 Sure you can play that game. It doesn't discount the 876 00:55:21,519 --> 00:55:25,960 fact that if we're living under a false myth, we 877 00:55:26,039 --> 00:55:28,280 need to destroy that myth. But we not only need 878 00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:30,480 to destroy that myth. That myth needs to be replaced 879 00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:35,559 with something. And what it can be replaced with is 880 00:55:35,599 --> 00:55:39,440 something that is familiar, something that is something that has 881 00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:43,039 stood the test of well, something that got put on 882 00:55:43,079 --> 00:55:45,440 the back you know, put into the back on the 883 00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:48,360 back of the shelf, and you can roll something out. 884 00:55:48,559 --> 00:55:51,159 But then again, like you said, it could be something 885 00:55:51,199 --> 00:55:56,159 brand new. Whatever it is it is going to replace, 886 00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:59,679 it has to replace these myths and it has to 887 00:55:59,719 --> 00:56:02,880 be its own myth. So it has to be equally 888 00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:06,880 as powerful. And when you talk about the Confederate flag, 889 00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:12,480 there are very few that are more powerful. And that 890 00:56:12,519 --> 00:56:14,559 doesn't mean that it has to be that that's a 891 00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:21,320 positive power. Sure it's positive for many, but it also 892 00:56:21,519 --> 00:56:25,880 is negative for many. So there is power behind a symbol. 893 00:56:25,960 --> 00:56:29,079 We have to remember that. So whatever that symbol is, 894 00:56:29,159 --> 00:56:33,559 it has to be equally as powerful and it will 895 00:56:34,119 --> 00:56:38,519 one thing we have to understand. It will unite some, 896 00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:44,039 but it's going to divide us from others. So we 897 00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:48,679 can't stay with this post war consensus myth that we 898 00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:51,960 all need to come together and this only works if 899 00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:57,840 we're all together. A's nonsense. That myth is gone. It's 900 00:56:57,880 --> 00:57:00,639 been proven wrong. We have one hundred years of trying 901 00:57:00,679 --> 00:57:04,920 that over one hundred years. It doesn't work. We need 902 00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:08,280 a new We need a new myth or an old myth, 903 00:57:08,719 --> 00:57:11,639 and we need a symbol and it needs to be 904 00:57:11,639 --> 00:57:12,599 a powerful symbol. 905 00:57:14,920 --> 00:57:19,320 Speaker 4: Yeah, I I tend to agree, and I think something 906 00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:22,239 that a lot of maybe people don't understand early. Maybe 907 00:57:22,239 --> 00:57:25,280 this is just me, but I think that largely what 908 00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:29,760 gives especially when we're talking about flags, the symbol of flags, 909 00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:32,719 what gives them power is the sacrifice and the blood 910 00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:37,119 spilt underneath them, because that's, in my opinion, what gives 911 00:57:37,159 --> 00:57:40,280 them the power in the first place, because it's been 912 00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:43,239 proven to be such a powerful symbol that men were 913 00:57:43,280 --> 00:57:46,440 willing to die for it, and the Confederate flag already 914 00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:51,239 has that, as to do most flags. I think, and 915 00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:54,360 this is just maybe this is just me talking, but 916 00:57:55,159 --> 00:57:59,000 I tend to think that the path forward, because this flag, 917 00:57:59,400 --> 00:58:02,480 this symbol has so much power, is that it has 918 00:58:02,559 --> 00:58:06,760 to be carried forward by men who are respectable in 919 00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:10,880 the same vein that Lee is respectable and that are 920 00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:14,360 proven to be good, honest, decent people, you know, in 921 00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:17,039 the same way that you know, we sort of have 922 00:58:17,239 --> 00:58:20,440 this this this folk you see this focus on the 923 00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:24,760 metaphysics of dress. We understand the power of that that 924 00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:28,559 extends out outside of just the way that you the 925 00:58:28,599 --> 00:58:31,519 clothes you wear. It extends to the way you carry yourself, 926 00:58:31,559 --> 00:58:33,760 the way you treat other people. And I think having 927 00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:37,880 somebody that can carry that symbol and at the same 928 00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:42,119 time garner respect from all individuals because of the type 929 00:58:42,119 --> 00:58:46,000 of person that they are, that will allow that will 930 00:58:46,039 --> 00:58:48,880 sort of free up that symbol to be used, because 931 00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:52,039 I do think I don't think finding a new symbol 932 00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:55,440 is is something we should seek out. I think that 933 00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:58,320 that happens on its own. That's not something you intend 934 00:58:58,400 --> 00:59:02,079 to do. And so we have to use what we 935 00:59:02,239 --> 00:59:05,559 what we have currently, And as Pete said, that there's 936 00:59:05,639 --> 00:59:07,920 there's really no, I don't know that there's a more 937 00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:10,639 powerful symbol for us than the Confederate flag. 938 00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:15,800 Speaker 3: Well, and in this this this raises the primary question. 939 00:59:16,079 --> 00:59:19,480 You know, the Confederate flag is currently, at least at 940 00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:21,519 the end of this live stream, the best entry that 941 00:59:21,559 --> 00:59:24,800 we have into I guess you could say the grand 942 00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,599 competition of you know, as mister Pete said, we're in 943 00:59:27,599 --> 00:59:30,079 a myth war. And while as the post and the 944 00:59:30,079 --> 00:59:33,519 post war consensus, whatever you think of, it was a 945 00:59:33,559 --> 00:59:36,400 myth that was suitable enough to last for the time 946 00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:38,760 the period of time that it lasted, for good or 947 00:59:38,760 --> 00:59:41,719 for ill. It was a myth that people saw as legitimate. 948 00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:44,480 People a lot of people still see as legitimate. Though 949 00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:48,760 it is breaking down, and a new myth will not 950 00:59:48,920 --> 00:59:53,119 come forth very quickly. You will have a great competition 951 00:59:53,199 --> 00:59:56,079 like you already saw two myths. I mean, this kind 952 00:59:56,079 --> 00:59:59,639 of brings me back to the character of Ulysses in 953 00:59:59,679 --> 01:00:01,679 the game Fall at New Vegas, because he talks a 954 01:00:01,719 --> 01:00:06,039 lot about how, you know, myths go to war and 955 01:00:06,119 --> 01:00:08,960 one triumphs over the other, you know, and he talks 956 01:00:09,000 --> 01:00:11,960 about how individual people you know, you talking like, you know, 957 01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:13,800 mister Sawery, you talking about Lee Well, what is the 958 01:00:14,280 --> 01:00:16,960 what is the individual of the Confederate flag. It's Lee. 959 01:00:17,000 --> 01:00:19,519 There's no one else. There's no one else who holds 960 01:00:19,599 --> 01:00:21,320 up that flag. You know, it is it is, it 961 01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,400 is the flag of Lee. You know, even you know, 962 01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:27,519 even the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia 963 01:00:27,639 --> 01:00:33,239 was a square version of that flag. And and you know, 964 01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:37,920 this is this is the thing. What other myth do 965 01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:40,400 we have? Because the myth that we're looking for right now, 966 01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:43,199 we saw two myths conflict of two days or three 967 01:00:43,239 --> 01:00:47,840 days ago. Now, the myth of the you know, culmination 968 01:00:48,239 --> 01:00:52,079 of the Long March through the institutions, of everything that 969 01:00:52,119 --> 01:00:55,239 the Left had for us, and it was utterly torn 970 01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:57,800 apart by the myth of make America great again. And 971 01:00:57,840 --> 01:00:59,760 that is currently the ascendant myth. But it's not a 972 01:00:59,840 --> 01:01:02,280 lot term myth. Everyone knows that that myth will end 973 01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:06,239 with Trump, you know it. And but it's it's suitable 974 01:01:06,320 --> 01:01:09,559 enough for now. But in that vacuum, a deeper, much 975 01:01:09,599 --> 01:01:11,840 more profound myth will need to be found. And I 976 01:01:11,880 --> 01:01:15,119 think the myth, you know, as crappy as that Civil 977 01:01:15,159 --> 01:01:19,519 War movie was, it attempted to at least say something 978 01:01:19,559 --> 01:01:22,199 to the situation that we were in and the question 979 01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:25,719 is is like, what kind of American are you? And 980 01:01:25,760 --> 01:01:29,760 that question, the one like good moment in an otherwise 981 01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:36,079 terrible movie, is is exactly the question that is being asked, 982 01:01:36,199 --> 01:01:39,599 what kind of America are we? What is the America 983 01:01:39,679 --> 01:01:42,000 we want to be? Because there's more than one. There 984 01:01:42,079 --> 01:01:44,480 is more than one, and the Confederate flag is one 985 01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:47,960 is one that is very very very very close to 986 01:01:48,639 --> 01:01:54,360 what we want America to be. And so in the 987 01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:58,519 coming battle of myths, in the war of belief, you know, 988 01:01:59,719 --> 01:02:04,000 what is the myth that number one we want to be, 989 01:02:04,320 --> 01:02:07,159 the one that triumphs and the one that remakes America 990 01:02:07,199 --> 01:02:11,559 in its image? And is that myth a new one 991 01:02:11,599 --> 01:02:16,039 that we create completely, you know, not not totally separate 992 01:02:16,079 --> 01:02:19,239 from the past, but incontinuity with the past. Or do 993 01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:23,800 we unearth and revive a castaway myth that still has 994 01:02:23,960 --> 01:02:27,519 some possibilities left in it? That's I suppose the And 995 01:02:27,920 --> 01:02:31,719 every myth has a symbol, and what symbol represents that myth? 996 01:02:32,559 --> 01:02:34,280 So I suppose that's the question we have to ask. 997 01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:43,920 Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I'm I think that we're I think we 998 01:02:44,079 --> 01:02:46,880 know what needs to be done. I mean, I don't 999 01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:50,119 think the old Glory Club wouldn't exist if we didn't 1000 01:02:50,199 --> 01:02:53,440 know what needs to be done. Now it's just a 1001 01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:55,840 matter of doing it. You know, it's a matter of 1002 01:02:58,159 --> 01:03:01,480 will people listen to this and and you know, have 1003 01:03:01,559 --> 01:03:04,880 that who have that flag and have it hidden, you know, 1004 01:03:04,960 --> 01:03:07,559 have it folded up and it's in their in their closet, 1005 01:03:08,320 --> 01:03:11,639 And will they think about it? Will they think about 1006 01:03:12,159 --> 01:03:14,960 you know, do I put this out? Do I do 1007 01:03:15,039 --> 01:03:16,000 I fly it again? 1008 01:03:19,800 --> 01:03:20,159 Speaker 2: We we. 1009 01:03:21,840 --> 01:03:26,360 Speaker 1: It's a hard question to ask because we know what 1010 01:03:27,599 --> 01:03:30,760 we know what the zeitgeist is right now, and it's 1011 01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:37,039 one hundred percent against that. But how do we start 1012 01:03:37,079 --> 01:03:41,400 to make little little strides towards that? And how do 1013 01:03:41,519 --> 01:03:44,920 we you know, are you you know, I guess the 1014 01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:51,400 question is are are you willing to let people know 1015 01:03:52,079 --> 01:03:55,000 that that's what you that's what you believe, that's what 1016 01:03:55,079 --> 01:03:59,000 you stand for, that's what you think America is. And 1017 01:04:00,039 --> 01:04:02,920 you know, at this time it seems you know, I mean, look, 1018 01:04:04,079 --> 01:04:08,440 I'm using my real name and I'm not saying I 1019 01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:10,920 should be proud of that, and everything is probably really 1020 01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:16,400 fucking stupid. But we're at the point where people are anonymous. 1021 01:04:17,159 --> 01:04:20,960 And why is that? Because you're saying things in a 1022 01:04:21,039 --> 01:04:28,039 culture that just isn't accepted. So I think that's a 1023 01:04:28,079 --> 01:04:32,800 good way to think about. You know, well, how do 1024 01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:35,400 you start showing that this is what you this is 1025 01:04:35,400 --> 01:04:40,199 what I think America is in a time when showing 1026 01:04:41,119 --> 01:04:44,599 America what you think it is, you know, can get 1027 01:04:44,639 --> 01:04:47,960 you to lose your job or not get promoted, or 1028 01:04:48,719 --> 01:04:51,880 you know, if you're in the military, you face some 1029 01:04:52,039 --> 01:04:56,039 kind of some kind of discipline, possibly get kicked out. So, 1030 01:04:56,719 --> 01:04:58,679 I mean, I think these are all good questions, and 1031 01:04:58,719 --> 01:05:02,559 I think that's questions that basically needs to be individually 1032 01:05:02,719 --> 01:05:05,920 answered at this point. Or you know, if you have 1033 01:05:06,039 --> 01:05:08,239 a if you have a group, if you have some 1034 01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:12,760 kind of organization, how would you handle that if you 1035 01:05:12,880 --> 01:05:16,280 actually agreed that that was what the symbol going forward 1036 01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:18,800 should be. So I think there's just a lot of questions, sir. 1037 01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:23,159 Speaker 3: I guess we could leave it at that, unless you 1038 01:05:23,199 --> 01:05:26,039 all have anything else to say. 1039 01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:29,360 Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's the place to end it. So, 1040 01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,480 mister Slaughter, what do you have to promote? 1041 01:05:34,159 --> 01:05:39,159 Speaker 4: Well, I just dropped a new substack about the ghost 1042 01:05:39,440 --> 01:05:43,199 sort of the ghost dancing nature of our current holiday 1043 01:05:43,320 --> 01:05:48,400 season and working on the first draft of my novel, 1044 01:05:48,559 --> 01:05:50,639 So I guess everybody can be on the lookout for that. 1045 01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:55,280 Other than that, I don't have anything pressing at the moment. 1046 01:05:56,920 --> 01:05:58,440 Speaker 1: All right, I think I have some links from the 1047 01:05:58,480 --> 01:06:00,360 last time you were on. I'll include the in the 1048 01:06:00,360 --> 01:06:05,079 show notes. Uh, mister Fahrenheit, support the Old Glory Club. 1049 01:06:07,639 --> 01:06:09,760 I knew that's what you were going to say, Support 1050 01:06:09,800 --> 01:06:12,639 the Old Glory Club. I think we all three of 1051 01:06:12,719 --> 01:06:16,000 us echo that message. 1052 01:06:16,280 --> 01:06:19,599 Speaker 3: Yeah, but don't join John's chapter. He's been too busy lately. 1053 01:06:19,679 --> 01:06:20,679 He needs a break. 1054 01:06:22,599 --> 01:06:22,880 Speaker 2: Yeah. 1055 01:06:23,199 --> 01:06:28,159 Speaker 4: It's literally almost sixty people. These interviews are taxing to watch. 1056 01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:30,239 But uh, but it's good to know that we have 1057 01:06:30,320 --> 01:06:34,239 so many based and and extremely competent guys are eager 1058 01:06:34,280 --> 01:06:36,159 to join join. 1059 01:06:37,280 --> 01:06:40,559 Speaker 3: I can't even I can't even conceive sixty people. 1060 01:06:42,199 --> 01:06:44,599 Speaker 1: I will just say, if you're in Alabama and you've 1061 01:06:44,639 --> 01:06:49,280 reached out, just please be patient because you heard how 1062 01:06:49,320 --> 01:06:55,760 many peoples. All right, gentlemen, have a great weekend. Thank 1063 01:06:55,800 --> 01:06:57,360 you very much, take care. 1064 01:06:57,920 --> 01:07:24,960 Speaker 2: Thanks Bete.