A Geek History of Time - Episode 340 - Damian Annotated Dorothy Thompson's Harper's Article; Yes, THAT One

Episode Date: October 31, 2025

When I think nuclear annihilation, I think la la la la la la la la la la la la I'm gonna drink a metric fuck time of coffee and hope that I stop right before I start seeing sounds that's one of my one of my favorite I don't know if you know like yeah favorite awful thing I get it I get it yeah like it took the ice trays meanwhile this guy is going into unicorn cave. This is better than the, what is the orientation of the chicken strapped to your head question. The essential part of democracy to me is not that I should spend a lot of time in governing myself, for I have many more amusing things to do. But I want to be quite certain that I can change the person who governs me without having

to shoot him. That is the essence of democracy. You mean heresy? Probably. Okay. Well, I mean, yeah. I don't know if that's just, you know, my inner drama queen. Okay, so this is really hard because you're talking about like serious important things to you. The amount of jokes that like I think they're funny as shit.

This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. and my son for a while was watching a whole lot of videos on YouTube about Among Us, the game. And the other day, he and I were out, and we were waiting for something, and there's a game on my phone that he likes to play. And in the process of going to that game, he saw that I had the icon for Among Us on my phone, which I, had only played, like, once back during lockdown, you know, four plus years ago.

And he got so excited, oh, can I watch you play? Can I watch you play among us? Can I watch you play among? Okay, fine. So we started the game then, and then before anything could really happen in the game, what we were waiting for came up and we had to get going. And so that night, he watched me play it, and my wife was like, I don't know, is this no-key game?

she downloaded it and started playing it. And she and I, after her son went to bed, we wound up playing like five rounds of the game each. And so right now, the two of them are out in the living room. She has among us up on the TV. And she's playing. And he is so invested. So pretty cool.

Yeah. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a U.S. history teacher up here in Northern California. And my news is also about my son So as you know I have a deal with both my kids That after they've turned 16

I take them that next summer To wherever they want to go in the world My son has chosen a railway tour of England Checking out all the railroad museums I got on him to like give me a list And he hand wrote it and I said Okay Now type it

And so he did finally And now I said okay there's a lot we ain't going to be gone three months like so i need you now to prioritize what's gold what's silver what's bronze you know and i took him through that so i just got alert actually uh minutes ago uh via my email saying uh you know your son has sent you a new email and i pull up the list and just the gold standard stuff that he wants to see there's I think 19 of them so he's going to get to see as many of those as he wants or as we can but like we're going to be making multiple trips back sounds like it's it's going to be cool though

like he's really excited and he even said he's a little nervous about leaving the country but he knows it's going to be a lot of fun and so he's really excited yeah cool that's awesome yeah my my daughter has a few more years to go and she said so So far, the plan seems to be that she wants to go to Hobbiton in New Zealand. So I'm like, okay. Goals. Yeah. Goals.

I approve of all of this. This is awesome. We shall see. You know, things can change. But anyway, let's see. When last I was looking into anti-fascist literature from the 1940s, I started with a pamphlet that was put out by the Department of War in March of 45. Right.

which is a wild goddamn, what do you call it, time capsule because the Battle of the Bulge was maybe close to ending and Roosevelt was less than a month from dying. Yeah. We didn't know this at the time, but there you go, you know. And so it's really interesting to see what they were grabbing onto to talk about the dangers of fascism and why we need to fight it.

um yeah and the and the um kind of comparison between okay well there's fascism and then our allies in the soviet union over here right and is not fascism and in fact communism is totally palatable yeah and that's coming from the department of war yeah which you know um my my i'm sure i'm sure my cold war professor would have an awful lot to say about that uh uh but yeah Um, yeah, real politic is, is a thing. Yeah. So, so I'm going to go backward in time. Um, and actually this, this item, I'm going to go backward in time to examine.

And then there will be one other item, uh, that I will go backward in time further to examine. So I don't know why I started with the, the 45 and now I'm going back to 41. But here we are. Um, this is the article written in Harper's, in Harper's magazine in August of 1945. in August of 1941 by Dorothy Thompson called Who Goes Nazi? And if you remember my approach before, my approach before was to annotate the hell out of it. Not just read the article, but annotate it as we go. So I'm actually going to copy paste from our V episode, the one about the lizard people.

Dorothy Thompson, as a reminder, reported on the growing power of Nazism in Germany so much so that, she became the first American journalist expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 Thompson had met and interviewed Adolf Hitler in 1931 writing the book, I saw Hitler in that same year because she wanted to warn the world of what would happen if he came to power. Could you imagine? She's a bit of a Cassandra, obviously.

She said of Adolf Hitler, quote, he is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous without bones he is inconsequent and voluble ill-poised and insecure he is the very prototype of the little man she said that about him in 31 number one i just want to say how much i admire the use of cartilaginous uh-huh as as as a pejorative that way that is that is that is brilliance right there Yeah. And the analysis of him as a little man is genuinely spot on.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. You can see why she was jackbooted from the country in 34 after the Nazis had entrenched themselves in power. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Now, Harper's Magazine has been an American New York-based magazine since 1850. It was the magazine for luminaries in writing and in statecraft to write their essays. So certain people are reading it. It is acknowledged as the thing that certain people read. Now, August of 1941. At this point, the United States is not actively involved in combat during World War II.

Europe is almost entirely Nazi and or fascist. The only states not conquered by the fascist at this point. are Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden, Ireland, England, and the USSR. However, the USSR was heavily invaded by the Nazis, and hell, North Africa was mostly fascist at this point. Right. Japan had conquered a huge chunk of China, all of Southeast Asia, stopping short of Papua and Australia.

Japan had not yet attacked the Philippines or Hawaii yet, but it was obvious what was coming. So that's setting the context. Yeah, okay. For the article that she writes and publishes in August of 41. So here it goes. It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one's acquaintances to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types. The born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain to be fellow travelers, and I also know those who never under any conceivable circumstances would become Nazis. It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any

racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would hile Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become, quote, honorary Aryans and Nazis. There are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler's secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. Yeah, it appeals to a certain type of mind. It is also, to an immense extent, the disease of a generation, the generation which was either young or unborn at the end of the last war.

going to break in here real quick i really like that she points out people who didn't experience the previous are more likely to engage in this yeah yeah and um i think we uh have uh have gotten so used to nazism within the context of any appearance it makes here in the state right it being tied to white supremacy her statement that you know there there is no there is no racial component to being a nazi right um is is a meaningful one like there is racism inherent in the ideology but you you don't you you aren't immune to it because of your race right you know it's you know like i've said before it's it's warmer under the wing of a dragon than in the village that he just burnt down.

Yeah. So. Yeah. And also there's people who just coddle up to power. They just do. Mm-hmm. Okay. So back to her.

This is as true of Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Americans as of Germans. It is the disease of the so-called lost generation. Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work, a type of education, feeding, and physical training, which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins. filled within energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated two forms of education, which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish.

His soul has been almost completely neglected. So I'm going to break in here and just kind of annotate here. She talked about honorary Aryans and Nazis. This was a semi-official category that came with fucking certificates for people in Germany who demonstrated greatness despite not being Aryan. that allowed them to It allowed the holder of the certificate to breed with Aryan women without it be considered

being considered race mixing. They literally got a license. Yes. To have sex with. Ariens. Ariens. Okay.

It comes from the Nuremberg Laws of 35. Wow. And it was also an honorary status declared for the Japanese who were the allies of the non- Nazis in 1940. See, this is how you square that circle, right? Well, they're honorary Aryans.

They wanted to do the same for the Turks, whom the allies would end up courting to try to bring into the war on their side. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Again, I always look at this. I'm like, so your puritanical, your purity bullshit is exactly just that because it's, it is absolutely negotiable as soon as you want an ally who doesn't fit all the things oh yeah i mean

it's it's as bullshit as the rest of the ideology like well at least like this is i got to thread this needle carefully if you are ideologically insistent on a certain level of purity with stuff i am not going to like it but okay fine i i know how to fight it i know how to fight it i know how how to discount it, et cetera. But if then you turn around and say, oh, but of course there's exceptions for people who are completely not part of that, it's like, you're full of shit and you know it. You know, it's, I want free, I want everybody to have guns and we should all have AR-15. It's cool.

So the John Brown Gun Society, well, the thing is, you know, it's like, no, then fuck off. Like, you either stick to your guns or just shut the fuck up the whole way. Like recognize that you came to the end of logic and it doesn't work and find something else or fix your shit. But yeah, okay. Then she talked about full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler Secret Service. Now, this is probably a reference to Max Nauman. He was probably one of the most famous of this group that she's referencing. He was the founder of the League of National German Jews.

He called for assimilation and then elimination of the Jewish identity. He founded it in 1921 during the Weimar Republic. So this group predates Nazis. Wow. And he's basically, yeah, go ahead. So the self-loathing runs deep is what we're saying here. Yeah. And there's, I don't know, I'm not him.

I'm not. I didn't grow up when he grew up. I mean, there was a tremendous amount of anti-Semitism in a lot of the Central European states, especially, but let's not give England or Spain a pass. That being said, his reaction to it is to say the Jewish identity does not exist because we are so assimilated into the country. It, yeah, there's. Yeah, there's, that's. And it predates the Nazis. Now, he and this group supported Hitler's rise to power, and largely it was made up of, guess who, anti-communists.

Oh, yeah. Middle and upper class, small business owners, and skilled professionals. These are not your mouth breathers that, like, you would associate with white supremacy today. This is your white collar who you would associate with white supremacy today. Right. It was also conservatives and nationalists. So either way, despite Hitler's anti-Semitism being on full display, Nauman continued to deflect that idea as being just a tactic.

I mean, Hitler's saying it, but he doesn't really mean it. And then when Hitler came to power in 33, Naumann accepted that Jews would be targeted because, well, it's a necessary thing to go after those who he should really hurt. The fifth column within German society that they were characterized as being. Exactly. Like, he's really, look, he's using anti-Semitism to rouse up the dummies, but he's actually going after the people who really deserve it. And some of them are Jewish.

And we need to not just protect them because they're in our community. That's what Nalman's saying. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, why would we support Hitler if he really was anti-Semitic? Let's be real. It's just a tactic, you guys. He doesn't mean it.

Yeah, well, except you're anti-Semitic. You want to do away with the Semitic identity. Well, okay, so now you're blaming me. Who can blame a Jew for being anti-Semitic? I mean, come on. That's a ridiculous accusation and blah, blah, blah. That's the kind of defense. And this is the cover that he gives to people who want to not pay attention to this, right?

Right. Now, in 1935, this group gets shut down by the Gestapo. useful idiots i didn't think i didn't think the leopards would eat my face right right who knew leopards were kosher yeah um nowman was interned uh in one of the first concentration camps in berlin um and then he died of cancer in may of 1939 couldn't have to do a nicer guy yeah i just there are very few people that I think deserved to die at the hands of the Nazis and he's not one of them for me

because he wasn't actually a Nazi. Like, I only think that the Nazis are the only legitimate victims of the Nazi party and even then I want a means test them. Like, you know, Yeah. It's, you know, it's real uncomfortable. It's real uncomfortable.

It's like supporting a football team. So most of the other members of this group were murdered in the camps, and that's awful. You shouldn't be murdered for being who you are in the camp of a fascist dictatorship. I know that her reference here about like the full-blooded Jews who've enthusiastically entered Hitler's service. I know it's not a reference to Stella Ingrid Goldschlach, also known as Stella Kubler. Stella Kubler was a child when the Nazis took over, but her hatred of being poor led to her displacing that anger onto her own community. And because her family was eventually forced to go underground and her parents were held in a detention camp, Stella turned into a collaborator. But that was in 43, two years after this article.

So it's not her. Kubler did it to keep her family from being deported to a murder camp and again I am not going to criticize how people tried to survive in a situation

they had no justification for being shoved into she Kubler helped the Gestapo specifically to find Jews who were in hiding and that's fucking awful and she delivered upward of 3,000 Jews into the hands the Nazis intent on killing them I will judge that I will not judge the concept of collaboration

to keep your family alive but if if you are keeping your family alive by throwing other people under yeah there's there's collaboration and then there's you know accessory to murder like yeah so it's it's it's all terrible all of it so that's definitely not who um Thompson is referring to but I felt like, you know, just in case people are like, well, what about other collaborators? This article predates Coobler. She then referenced the Lost Generation. And the Lost Generation is a reference to veterans who'd come of age just in time for World War I. Were it not for World War I, they might have actually enjoyed a good life.

Toys had entered mass production. Sewers started working better. Electricity was growing as an infrastructural feature. But instead, these people were ground. men were ground to death in a war that left millions shattered just in time for a worldwide epidemic, a worldwide depression, and then the march of fascism. And at the same time, because of all these changes, there was a noticeable uptick in mass media and its consumption.

And this meant that people who didn't have, were seeing others who did have get to enjoy what they did have and enjoy what these people didn't have, right? And so the have-nots were getting to see the haves. joy what the have-nots did not have in a in a much clearer much more pervasive way yes than before yes and those uh with the means used it to mollify their trauma which was an unfillable hole for them right and and by the way if they were american lost generations then is right when we banned alcohol which is like the worst timing um yeah honestly like f scott fitzgerald is usually held up as the example, the Great Gatsby,

incredible writing about terrible people. Like, you know, this is, yeah. So this is a lost generation. They, as she said, are more likely to go Nazi. So because all that disillusionment and stuff like that. So now back to Thompson's writing. She says, at any rate, let us look around the room. The gentleman standing beside, so she's like setting a tableau.

Is that the word? Yeah, yeah, tableau. I'd say it's a tableau. The way it's the way it's being described so far. I'd say so. So, you know, you look to your left, there's Burt, and you look to your right, there's Dina, you know, and so here we go. So at any rate, let us look around the room. The gentleman standing beside the fireplace with an almost untouched glass of whiskey beside him on the mantelpiece is Mr. A, a descendant of one of the great American families.

There has never been in an American blue book without several persons of his surname in it. He is poor and earns his living as an editor. He has a classical education, has a sound and cultivated taste in literature, painting, and music, has not a touch of snobbery in him, is full of humor, courtesy, and wit. He was a lieutenant in the world war, is a Republican in politics, but voted twice for Roosevelt, last time for Wilkie. He is modest, not particularly brilliant, a staunch friend, and a man who greatly enjoys the company of pretty and witty women, his wife, whom he adored is dead and he will never remarry. He has never attracted any attention because of outstanding bravery, but I will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi. He would greatly dislike fighting them, but they could never convert him. Why not?

Beside him stands Mr. B, a man of his own class, graduate of the same preparatory school and university, rich, a sportsman, owner of a famous racing stable, vice president of a a bank, married to a well-known society bell. He is a good fellow and extremely popular. But if America were going Nazi, he certainly would join up and early. Why? Why the one and not the other? Mr. A has a life that is established according to a certain form of personal behavior. Although he has no money, his unostentatious distinction and education have always assured him a position. He has never been engaged in sharp competition. He is a free man.

I doubt whether ever in his life he has done anything he did not want to do or anything that was against his code. Nazism wouldn't fit in with his standards, and he has never become accustomed to making concessions. Mr. B. has risen beyond his real abilities by virtue of his health, good looks, and being a good mixer. He married for money and has done lots of other things for money. His code is not his own. it is that of his class no worse no better he fits easily into whatever pattern is successful that is his sole measure of value success nazism is a minority movement that would attract him as a movement likely to attain power it would so um that's mr a and mr b and she writes

quite a bit about several others but i i just wanted to stop for a second um is there anything that you noticed about either of them that she may have missed or that she is mischaracterizing. If not, I'll go on. I wouldn't say there's anything there that I think she missed or is mischaracterizing. I think the fundamental thing she points out, I think, I think the tagline there is the one of them who has risen above his abilities and and you know has not ever had his own code I think what what that makes me think of

is you know we we hear you know people talking about within within our own politics right now a lot of people who have a have a have a pale skin tone um feeling threatened because they are essentially mediocre and actually having to worry about competing with people who are not white is to them an existential threat yeah because the people who are not white who are allowed to compete with them in this system are exceptional and it highlights their mediocrity and yeah they feel threatened yeah yeah and I I think what she, if there is anything, she leaves out, I feel like it's the element of fear.

Perhaps. Yeah. The element of, of. She's certainly not naming it outright. You're absolutely right. But she does, she measure, what got me is that is his sole measure of value, success. Here's a man who is intrinsically motivated purely and needs to be seen to be successful. Therefore, he will go Nazi.

He will join the winning side. Right. Whereas the other guy never, it never really bothered him. And she even said, he has never been engaged in sharp competition. There's a mediocre man who's accepted as mediocrity and recognizes, it's my name that gets me into these places. But like, I'm not much. And he's fine with that, which he's coming from a tremendous position of privilege there. Right.

You know, but it's a privilege. privileged understanding of his own mediocrity. Oh, yeah. You know. Okay. Right. Let's see. Let's go.

Oh, the Saturnine man over there talking with a lovely French emigre is already a Nazi. Mr. C is a brilliant and embittered intellectual. He was a poor white trash southern boy, a scholarship student at two universities where he took all the scholastic honors, but was never invited to join a fraternity. His, so just real quick, I'm breaking in here. there was an article written recently about the fascists have two types there's the jock and the creep um or it's like the jock and the weirdo or something like that yeah and you need both for fascism to work because you have the jock you're herman gurring but you also have your weirdos Hitler and uh gerbils gerbils yeah you have your jock oddly enough you know a guy who's not that bright but forceful and has a weird charisma So I can think, I can think of one circus peanut, but then you have your creep, your Stephen Miller's. You're Peter Thiel's. Right.

But then you have your jock, the, you know, Heggseth. Yeah. So having that dynamic. So this guy is really pissed about being shunned by the jocks. He's a weirdo that never, you know. Yeah. It's really interesting just to see how this in 41 mixed with this article that I read in 25. um let's see uh back to her his brilliant gifts won for him successfully governmental government

successively his government his his brilliant gifts won for him successively government positions partnership in a prominent law firm and eventually a highly paid job at wall street as a wall street advisor he has always moved among the important people and always been socially on the periphery his colleagues have admired his brains and exploited them but they have seldom him invited him or his wife to dinner. He is a snobbing his own snobbery. He despises the men about him. He despises, for instance, Mr. B, because he knows that what he has had to achieve by relentless work, by relentless work, men like Mr. B have won by knowing the right people. But his contempt is inextricably mingled with envy. Even more than that, even more than he hates, I'm sorry,

Even more than he hates the class into which he has insecurely risen, does he hate the people from whom he came? He hates his mother and his father for being his parents. He loathes everything that reminds him of his origins and his humiliations. He is bitterly anti-Semitic because the social insecurity of Jews reminds him of his own psychological insecurity. Pity he has utterly erased from his nature and joy he has never known. he has an ambition bitter and burning it is to rise to such an eminence that no one can ever again humiliate him not to rule but to be the secret ruler pulling the strings of puppets created by his brains already some of them are talking his language though they have never met him there he sits he talks awkwardly rather than glibly he is courteous he commands a distant and cold respect but he is a very dangerous man

Were he primitive and brutal, he would be a criminal, a murderer. But he is subtle and cruel. He would rise high in a Nazi regime. It would meet men just like him, intellectual and ruthless. But Mr. C. is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism.

He would laugh to see his head. He would laugh to see Heads roll. I think Young D. over there is the only born Nazi in the room. Young D. is the spoiled son, the spoiled only son of a doting mother. He has never been crossed in his life. He spends his time at the game of seeing what he can get away with. He is constantly arrested for speeding and his mother pays the fines. He has been ruthless toward two wives and his mother pays the alimony.

His life is spent in sensation-seeking. theatricality he is utterly inconsiderate of everybody he is very good looking in a vacuous cavalier way and inordinately vain he would certainly fancy himself in a uniform that gave him a chance to swagger and lord it over others so just want to break down for a second here so you've got two guys that she's just described one is the the the kid that like kind of fits the school shooter motif now the very frustrated and angry I'm smarter than everybody why am I not getting

laid in cell yeah and then you've got the other one who was just born to privilege and he's just that fucking brat yeah the jock and the creep there you go yeah pretty much captures it yeah

but also like how he's she's basically describing a sociopath with this kid oh very much that mommy takes care of yep so all right mrs e would go nazi as sure as you are born that statement surprises you mrs e seems so sweet so clinging so cowed she is she is a masochist she is married to a man who never ceases to humiliate her to lord it over her to treat her with less consideration than he does his dogs he is a prominent scientist just real quick doesn't this sound like sue storm

and Reed Richards A little bit Or Janet and Hank Yeah, a little bit Yeah Who Okay He is a prominent scientist

And Mrs. E who married him very young Has persuaded herself That he is a genius And that there is something of a superior womanliness In her utter lack of pride In her dog-like devotion

She speaks disapprovingly Of other masculine Or insufficiently devoted wives Her husband, however, is bored to death with her. He neglects her completely, and she is looking for someone else before, she's looking for someone else before whom to pour her ecstatic self-abasement. She will titillate with pleased excitement to the first popular hero who proclaims the basic subordination of women.

You know, the funny thing is the adjectives that are getting used there and all of that, I'm I'm picturing the evil defense against their regards professor all the pink and the oh umbrage umbrage yeah yeah but like her married to

Gilderoy Lockhart yeah yeah you know yeah I mean honestly this this sounds like if the wasp Janet Van Dine was then hit on by Mussolini like that's the end part is that like

because it says she's looking for someone else before whom to pour her ecstatic self-abasement she will titillate with pleased excitement to the first popular hero who proclaims the basic subordination of women yeah you know I don't want to throw that shade at Namor because he has a lot more depth to him but but I absolutely would see like

Janet Well honestly Julius Fritz Coon Did this with like one of the former Miss Americas like he's an ugly troll Of a man but he fucked his way From Michigan like through the Midwest And back again to Jersey

Like plenty of these women Existed apparently All right On the other hand Mrs. F would never go Nazi She is the most popular woman in the room Handsome gay, witty And full of the warmest emotion

She was a popular actress 10 years ago married very happily promptly had four children in a row has a charming house is not rich but has no money cares has never cut herself off from her own happy go lucky profession and is and is full of sound health and sound common sense all men try to make love to her she laughs at them all and her husband is amused she has stood on her own feet since she was a child she has enormously helped her husband's career he is a lawyer she would ornament and any drawing room in any capital, and she is as American as ice cream and cake. Wow. So the people that she's talking about who aren't going Nazi, what I'm seeing here, there is a running theme of they know who the fuck they are and they're fine with it. And it's that last part that really matters.

Yeah, the self-sufficiency. Yeah, the self-possession. Yes. Like, I'm fine with who I am. I'm not the greatest. I'm not the worst I'm cool where I'm at whereas the others

really don't seem to like who they are and they don't like anyone else for knowing who they are well they either don't like who they are or they are hollow yeah they're extrinsic they're getting their entirely extrinsic all of their all of their

locust of control all of their their exertion of power is external, you know, they, they have, everything is exterior. Yep. And, you know, the, the one that, the one that really drives that home is the, you know, upper class brat, you know, sociopath, as you pointed out. I'm just not happy and I'm going to make everyone else around me feel what I feel. It's that weird, aggressive, viral empath. empathy yeah like yeah empathy only goes one way you all feel what I feel yeah I need to I need to

inflict on you yeah it's that narcissism right the world exists to reflect myself back to me yes you know whereas the other guy he's really upset that he didn't get you know get to first base when he was in high school right you know and yeah yeah so yeah they're either they're either clinging to hurts or they don't have any hurts because they are thoroughly empty and their emptiness and their shallowness is what makes the

ideology the shallow ideology of fascism appeal to them because it sounds like like you know to to a foolish man it sounds wise to a to a weak man it sounds strong yeah you know and and so they're they're drawn to that because they are shallow themselves and they don't look at the depth of it maybe because they've they've never sharpened that ability like because to reflect on your

self it contains pain and if you are not sure of who you are then you only have your hurts again to hold on to so there's there's something that like flittered in and out of my head about what you said about how the shallowness of nazism of fascism is appealing to them and it's it almost is like they are looking for the next you know what it is okay they are sports starts now within five years of of being retired from the sport tend to go broke and they tend to go broke in large chunks because they are looking to hit home runs financially still and they get invested

in dumber and dumber shit that if it just pays off then all my problems are solved so there's a bankruptcy to their to the morality or to their self-image I love how you tie that together thank you

there's a there's a get rich quick yeah mentality there's a a get power quick you know yeah get get validated quick get validated quickly yeah

there's there's no no I need it now yeah and and I need it with minimal effort on my part I need to join a thing where other people make the decision and I just see other people getting hurt so that means I'm not getting hurt so that elevates me it's it's also it reminds me of the people who um they just you know like the midlife crisis of if I just bang that secretary I'll feel like a man again and it's like so short-sighted so or if I just buy that car. And it's like the sticker shot or like buyer's remorse is going to set in in like a month. Or faster. Right. And that's what these people are doing. They are looking for, yeah, that kind of a thing. Yeah.

There's a gambling kind of mindset. I need it that's going to pay off. Yes. You know, and I'm going to keep pulling this. And they're not taking the time to do the math and figure out the odds. Yeah. Yeah. Precisely.

Yeah. all right so now she goes on how about the by the way good on her for recognizing this like she's a good fucking writer again i have deep problems with her when it comes to race she she shits the bed terribly on that and and that needs to be said every time she gets mentioned yeah she was wrong about black folks and their ability to understand things or vote she was the left-wing eugenicist extraordinary, you know? Okay. Yeah, yeah. That being said, she does address this next part. She says, how about the butler who is passing the drinks? So there's some class consciousness here, right? She's not just selling integrity

for access. So she says, how about the butler who's passing the drinks? I look at James with amused eyes. James is safe. James has been a butler to the eyest aristocracy which is interesting. I guess she's trying to affect an accent like the Boston Brahmin or something considers all Nazis parvenous and communists and has a very good sense for people of quality. He serves the quiet editor with that friendly

air of equality which good servants always show toward those they consider good enough to serve, and he serves the horsey gent stiffly and coldly. Bill, the grandson of the chauffeur, is helping to serve tonight. He is a product of a Bronx public school and high school, and works at night like this to help himself through City College, where he is studying engineering. He is a proletarian, though you'd never guess it if you saw him without that white coat. He plays a crack game of tennis, has been a tennis tutor in summer resorts, swim superbly, gets straight A's

in his classes, and thinks America is okay and don't let anybody say it isn't. He had a brief period of Youth Congress Communism, but it was like the measles. Okay, and now we can start triangulating her. A little bit, yeah.

Yeah, okay. Let's see. It was like the measles. He was not taken in the draft because his eyes are not good enough, but he wants to design airplanes, quote, like Sikorsky, end quote. He thinks Lindbergh is, quote, just another pilot with a buildup and a rich wife, end quote, and that he is, quote, always talking down America, like how we couldn't lick Hitler if we wanted to, end quote. At this point, Bill Snorts.

Mr. G, so I love that she, like, names the servers. Yeah. but doesn't name any of the other people. Yeah. I'm torn on it because there is a touch of elitism. Yeah. In, you know, these men are Mr. So-and-so, Mrs. So-and-so, and, you know, he's Bill. Because we can call him by his heart.

first name because you know if she names if she names the names these other people though liable yeah yeah i i get the feeling that these are these are archetypes but yeah yeah so whereas bill and james you know very yeah very common uh multiracial names um but yeah now uh mr g is a very intellectual young man who was an infant prodigy. He has been concerned with general ideas since the age of 10 and has one of those minds that can scintillatingly rationalize everything. I have known him for 10 years and in that time have heard him enthusiastically explain Marx, social credit, technocracy, Kensian economics, Chestertonian distributism, and everything else one can imagine. Mr. G will never be a Nazi because he will never be anything. His brain operates quite apart

from the rest of his apparatus. He will certainly be able, however, to fully explain and apologize for Nazism if it ever comes along, but Mr. G. is always, however, or is always deviationist. When he played with communism, he was a Trotskyist. When he talks of Keynes, it was to suggest improvement. Chesterton's economic ideas were all right, but he was too bound to Catholic philosophy. By the way, I have to jump in here. Okay.

Let me finish this sentence. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Hang on. So we may be sure that Mr. G would be a Nazi with per-sliped qualifications. He would certainly be purged. Now, I'm going to just jump. I'm not going to let you start with distributism yet. I'm going to explain Kenzian economics, but I want you to hold on to that ticket.

Kenzian economics is the thing that actually saved capitalism, liberal inflationary government policies to build and refurbish infrastructure and public works in order to keep people employed, build the things that businesses will then use to innovate and develop new markets and products and services, which will ultimately lead to economic depression flattening out. And then the confidence of society

will then lead them to amp up the economy, and once that comes online, government spending can recede, allowing capital to be more liquid and let people fly higher. That's the theory. It worked pretty well in the 30s once people committed to it.

Now, Chestertonian distributism, Ed, this one's yours. Yes, it's a third way. Well, we've talked about it already. We have. But we talked about the Mandalorian. Yeah. So rather than going anywhere near communism or, you know, fully, fully socialist, but still

recognizing that laissez-faire capitalism is ultimately still. defeating and toxic. Distributism basically says, you know, private property is awesome and individuals ought to own their own homes and have their own individual ownership of the means to make a living because that's the best way to protect the family, which is the core of the Catholic outlook on the whole thing. and steps should be taken by governments to avoid having corporate interests become too powerful, powerful enough to threaten the ability of the individual worker. Distributism is big on labor unions as a counter to capital power and takes a very dim view of any kind of large-scale international.

national corporate interest. If you can do something with a smaller unit, do it with a smaller unit. Don't build a bigger unit. Right. So, yeah, go Chesterton. Yay. So he would say that, yeah, they were, what do you call it, two Catholic. Yeah, yeah.

So, and she mentions Trotskyist, and I think we spent enough time talking about the difference between like Trotsky was the purest uh the purest not purest the purest when it came to communism and and theory he wanted worldwide revolution all the time he wanted um he wanted communism to work really well Stalin was much more real politic about it Stalin was I want security for Russia above all else I will absolutely sacrifice aspects of communism so that we could at least have it fucking here. And also I'm going to kill anybody who gets in my way. Yeah.

Up to an including Trotsky. Kind of important. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so Trotsky was very much more the intellectual. Trotsky was snowball. Yes. You know, and Napoleon or, yeah, Stalin was Napoleon.

So Trotsky got run off. It didn't work. And, yeah, it was. So it's kind of like I don't know Edge Lordy a little bit to be like Well I'm I'm a communist but I'm a Trotskyist and it's like Yeah

You know especially in 41 because I believe Trotsky gets murdered in 40 So you know you're claiming you're actually I better look that up because you're responsible of me to I thought Trotsky survived in in Mexico until like the 50s I you might be right I don't want to know it's 1940 he gets killed in 1940 yeah August 40 so literally a year before this comes out yeah I don't know where I got the idea

I did so because he his death definitely precedes Stalin's um oh yeah but but trotsky you know it's it's a little edge lordy to be like well I'm a Trotskyist it's like well Trotsky just died a year ago you know you're there's

there's a you know a puritanism that kind of comes from that it's the you know i yeah there's there's just something about being a trotskyist in 1941 um where it's like it's it's how you prove that you're an intellectual you know yeah this this individual is somebody who is in love with his own genius yeah i mean that's what she says right he's he's you know and he's never he's always a deviationist you know it's like he's he's the well actually oh a thousand percent but a well read well actually yes you know yes so um and and and and i love what she says about him you know

winding up being a purse-lipped nazi yeah you know and and again and again it comes back around to she says he's he's he's not going to ever be anything right Because he can't, he doesn't have enough of a moral identity to stick to any ideology. He never developed it because he's too smart and he sees everything kind of through that lens of it's all a game. And then that very last sentence he said about him, he would certainly be perched. oh well yeah because after a certain point he's not going to be able to keep his well actually to himself yeah and the Nazis would be like oh no no we don't need you now

yeah you prefer that you have become yeah you have become superfluous yeah you become harmful by being too smart you'll remember all the shit we did you know um she goes back h is an historian and biographer by the way i'm just going to break in here She used an historian. Thank you very much. So there's a rule for when words start with an H. The H is technically part of the vowel.

This goes back to Roman poetry. It probably goes back to Greek poetry because an H was actually represented by a breathing. It was like a little apostory. So my last name, Harmony, would just be Alpha, Ro, Mu, Omicron, new, Eota, alpha again.

So it'd be, and you'd put a breathing in front of the first alpha, so harmonia. Mm-hmm. Right? So anything that has an H in it automatically needs an

an an, and, not an uh. So, for instance, it's an honor. Yeah, but that's,

that's an un, that's an unbrathed age. Exactly, right? So, back then, she's doing it she got it through in fucking harpers and harper's article uh so this is one of those things i'm a stickler about but i'm not a snob about i'm not like oh i'm sorry you didn't use anne but i will always fucking use anne and i don't use it to be like oh now i can explain to you

why but if somebody asks or they try to correct i'm like oh okay we're going to stop this right Hold on. See, it's going to bug me if I don't tell you why you're wrong. Right. Yeah. But I'm fine with you using it. That's, you know, language develops. But Anne historian, thank you very much.

Yeah. It is an hysterical point of mine. So it is Anne Hill I am willing to die on. Anne Hill on which you are willing to die. I'm sorry. I know. Preposition. Ending a sense where the preposition is behavior.

you're up with which i will not put there you go and and so long as you're okay with me ending all ending any and all sentences with with uh contractions do you think i'm joking no do you think i'm serious i'm hmm just full body squick just just like blah it's so messed up Well, it's, we've talked about this before, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a development or a consequence of English being a language that has just mugged everybody else historically. Like, oh, hey, that's some Latin grammar. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll steal that. And, you know, just, just take a whole bunch of, a whole bunch of Germanic everything. Sure.

And, uh, and our vocabulary, we're just going to steal our vocabulary from anybody who wanders by. Right. But, like, also, like, there are certain things where it's. It's just like, oh, that just sounds wrong. Is there a rule? Well, not really, but it's wrong. There isn't a codified rule. Right.

But if you look at the patterns of the way we speak. Right. You know, again, language is grammar descriptive or prescriptive, you know, so. Yeah, size before color, the big red ball. Right, exactly. You know, the red big ball should be fine. But it doesn't feel right. Right. Well, and then, you know, you can get into like tone, you know, I didn't say we should kill him. I didn't say we should kill him. Like that whole thing. But also, you know, it sounds wrong when I, when I answered a question like, you know, are you serious? I'm. Right. Does it work? It doesn't. What the fuck? Yeah. Doesn't just worked? Like it's all kinds of.

of fun. Yeah. Yep. All right. So H is an historian and biographer. He is American of Dutch ancestry born and reared in the Middle West. He has been in love with America all his life. He can recite whole chapters of Thoreau and volumes of American poetry from Emerson to Steve Bonae. He knows Jefferson's letters, Hamilton's papers, Lincoln's speeches. He is a collector of early American furniture, lives in New England, runs a farm for a hobby, and does doesn't lose much money on it, and loaths parties like this one. He has a rebald and manly sense of humor, is unconventional, and lost a college professorship because of a love affair.

Afterward, he married the lady and has lived happily ever after as the wages of sin. I just, this seems really specific. It could be an amalgamation. Yeah, yeah, I think it could be. There's a couple of different people being lumped together. Yeah. Now, she talked of Thoreau. Thoreau wrote civil disobedience and tons of other stuff, including poems and things about nature.

He was an early transcendentalist and a lifelong abolitionist. He codified the idea of not cooperating financially with a government with which you do not agree. His writings inspired Gandhi and King. He also was all about checking out and not participating when the dominant value was the duty of participation. And yes, we could absolutely criticize the fact that Auntie did all. all his laundry and cooked all his meals and those things are all true too yeah you meet me to it classic silver spoon leftist but yes yes but the fact remains she's talking about she knows her thoreau he can quote whole chapters of thoreau it's not going to be oh and then auntie came

and took care of things it's going to be the stuff that is important about him yeah yeah yeah that other stuff is vital too but sometimes it takes away from his ideas and you know Gandhi and king had some good shit that they got from him yes now she also mentioned emerson uh he's a leader of the transcendentalist movement of poets uh emerson was big on god what was that emerson's first name ralph waldo emerson there i was going to like scott steve emerson um um jason rick emerson mrston you know what would be the worst ryan Ryan Ryan Emerson oh god but anyway uh ralph wadoe emerson was a a leader of the transcendentalist movement of poets he really valued individualism he was critical he was big on critical thinking rejecting conformity

and also a poet he also was an abolitionist and he was acknowledged as one of the great american writers of not only the 1800s but fucking ever yeah and he was the rose mentor yes now steve beney is another poet. So she's talking about how this guy is like very professorial, very literate, very very well read. Yes. Steve Bonaugh wrote an epic poem called John Brown's body in the 1920s, and he won a Pulitzer Prize in poetry. He did a play, The Devil and Daniel Webster, and it had opened in Broadway in 1939. That's where I recognized his name from. There you go. So as far as this article goes he's a commonly and currently known author poet and playwright of that specific time for smart people who read harpers like her dropping his name is like everybody's oh okay yes right yes yes um

Jefferson's letters she's uh referring to the precursor to the Jefferson papers uh which also themselves were a precursor to the Jefferson airplane um and the Jefferson starship yes though. But the Jefferson letters were, the Jefferson papers were being developed as an archived collection at the same time as this article was written. In 1943, the Jefferson letters and Jefferson papers, no, the Jefferson letters, I'm sorry, had been fully collected. So that's 1943. Many of his letters to John Adams and Abigail Adams were included amongst these letters. So she's mentioning like contemporary gathering WPA shit to contemporary gathering of historical documents. Was that part of the WPA? I am going out a limb and saying it probably was because the

WPA paid a fuck ton of historians to go do good historical shit. Yeah. Including interviewing people who had lived through slavery. Including interviewing people who had, who were over 100 and getting their voices and listening to songs of people whose tribes had been decimated by the American government. But like there is a huge move on the WPA to to categorize and catalog a whole lot of stuff. So I'm going out on a limb saying that, yes, this was a WPA project. But geek timers, look it up, tell us, given the amount of brilliant minds that Jefferson knew at the time, and given the important writings that Jefferson regularly produced regarding

the American character and government, this is a liberals treasure trove, right? Good liberals are all about that liberty, all about that, like, what is the character of American liberty and stuff like that? Yes, they're going to overlook the slavery thing. Yes, they're going to look past all that because they're looking at what he wrote because that's what good liberals cared about at that time yeah yeah the idea is not the practice yeah um and honestly there is there needs to be room for the ideas like again well i mean you don't separate the man from the art but yeah you got to look at the art you know or the the writings so she mentioned hamilton's papers which are literally on the opposite side of the spectrum politically from jefferson uh it's not only

the federalist papers hamilton wrote so prolifically and there were plenty of his papers that were also preserved at this time. So if someone read both, then they'd really understand democracy. That's kind of the point that's being made here, right? So, wow, you read both. You didn't just read the one you agreed with. You, it's, you know, and again, this is 1941.

This is what good intellectual liberals really value. And then she mentioned Lincoln speeches, which is really fucking obvious, right? Yeah. He's a great speaker, the Gettysburg Address. second inauguration, which is actually my favorite, both of which are on the walls of the Lincoln Monument, which at this point had only been around for 15 years, I want to say, because I think it finished in the 20s. I think 25 it might have finished. Right, yeah. His stump speeches, the Douglas

debates, Lincoln, the great martyr, Hamilton, the great federalist, Jefferson, the great liberty lover and writer. These three things, the three poets and the writers, if you know these things, you are going to get laid by smart women in the 40s who smoke. If you can quote them, the panties drop that much faster. The garter belts unsnap. Yeah. Now, I go back to what she says. H has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant.

This is his country, and he knows it from Acadia to Zenith. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since. He is certainly an intellectual, but an intellectual, smelling slightly of cow barns and damp tweeds. He is the most good-natured and genial man alive, but if anyone ever tries to make this country over into an imitation of Hitler's, Mussolini's or Patain's systems, H will grab a gun and fight.

Though H's liberalism will not permit him to say it, it is his secret conviction that nobody whose ancestors have not been in this country since before the Civil War really understands America or would really fight for it against Nazism or any other foreignism in a showdown. I find that fascinating. Yeah. So he won't admit it to anybody,

but he's secretly xenophobic. Yeah. But he's also like... But he's also that... I'm going to protect this country. Yeah. And that, yeah, that xenophobia is a double-edged sword. Yeah.

On the one hand, it cuts against Nazis on the end. other hand it it you know what it would be yeah he would be happy to take the enlistment of anybody who yeah whose family didn't precede the civil war right they shouldn't be officers yeah i think that's that's where it yeah yeah there's a there's a chauvinism in yes yes yeah now she did mention petan and i want to talk about uh henri philippe benoit o'm Omar Joseph Patan. Or I did my best. Henry Phillips, Benoit, Omer Joseph Patan.

The French Marshal, who is put in charge of the Vichy government, legally by the French government, by the way. He is legally in charge. The government in exile was an illegal government. I always like to point that out to my students when I'm teaching this part of history. That legal is a distinction worthy of. making, but recognize what sometimes is legal. Like, the Nazis legally took power, you know. Okay, so he was a collaborator who was maintaining a version of France within the new world

order that the Nazis had developed by 1940. Patan was a war hero from World War I who had put down the French mutinies. He was commander-in-chief of the French military. He absolutely signed off on the anti-Semitic laws that the Nazis wanted. Uh, Patan's goal was to maintain France's government and state, uh, as a state, uh, in the European order that Hitler had envisioned. He shook Hitler's hand and accepted all the demands that the Nazis made of them. So, you know, that's, that is Patan. Um, now she goes on, she says, but H is wrong.

There is one other person in the room who would fight alongside H and he is not even an American citizen. He is a young German emigre whom I brought along to the party. The people in the room look at him rather askance because he is so Germanic, so very blonde-haired, so very blue-eyed, so tanned that somehow you expect him to be wearing shorts. He looks like the model of a Nazi. His English is flawed. He learned it only five years ago. He comes from an old East Prussian family. He was a member of the post-war youth movement and afterward of the Republican Reichsbanner.

He, all his German friends went Nazi, without exception. He hiked to Switzerland, penniless. There pursued his studies in New Testament Greek, sat under the great Protestant theologian Carl Barth, came to America through the assistance of an American friend whom he had met in a university, got a job teaching the classics in a fashionable private school, quit, and is working now in an airplane factory,

working on the night shift to make planes to send to Britain to defeat Germany. He has devoured Von derives. of American history, knows Whitman by heart, wonders why so few Americans have ever really read the Federalist papers, believes in the United States of Europe, the Union of the English-speaking world, and the coming democratic revolution all over the earth. He believes that America is the country of creative evolution, once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, and its tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets itself inner leaf free. there's there's a lot going on in that passage boy howdy I had to annotate a lot of the shit just for the terms yeah but psychologically you're absolutely right um and and a lot of it says an awful lot about our author yeah um so he he is this this individual is a witness to nazism who has who has literally fled to get away from it and is now working in a lower status, probably lower pay job in order to fight it. He is, he is ideologically driven. Yes.

By the way, I just, I love the way she described it as he's so tan. You expect to see him wearing shorts. That's just, that's a great, that, that paints a picture. So, so well. And the cadence, what struck me in the midst of that, he believes in, you know, this thing, he believes in, he believes, he believes, he believes, he believes, that felt very much as it was going on as a, and what's the word I'm looking for, and an evocation of, um, the the Nicene Creed. I believe in Father the God, I believe in God

the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ His only son. I believe in, you know, the Holy Spirit. I believe in, you know, the communion of saints

and the, you know, et cetera, et cetera. It's, it's a statement of, you know, I believe this thing, you know, theological detail. I believe this thing. Theological detail. It's, it's, and I,

I don't know, I can't say, of course, she intentionally did that with that in mind but it speaks to the way we as a nation have made our

democracy into a secular faith yeah yeah absolutely you know whether that's a conscious ploy on her part or not. This guy is a convert to Americanism.

Right. I think she's absolutely pulling on those strings for the liberals who read Harper's. And she's making an unimpeachable case in case any conservatives want to like shit talk. Harper's is being communist rag. Right. Yeah. Now, she talked about the Reichs banner. And this was a Weimar Republic, Weimar Republic group that aimed to defend parliamentary German government against the extremists.

both from the left and the right. They're like forceful centrist's. And I, you know, my stance on centrism, but like in Weimar, Germany, there really was this swinging back and forth between ultra-right and ultra-left that they described as being burning the candle at both ends. Now, I'm going to put the blame where it belongs.

The ultra-right kept picking fights with the ultra-left and then going, see, you need us to stop the violence. The centrist should have picked up that play. But anyway, they're forceful centrist. So, of course, that means you know who they're going to target mostly as communists. And then they're going to look the other way when the fascists do shit. So, you know, that's super dope. If only we had examples of forceful centrists right now who platformed far-right talking points.

then stood up to uh a federal incursion into our state um huh yeah funny yeah but they did sound respectably nationalist and tried really hard to promote themselves as the reasonable middle sounds familiar that said when the essay stepped up their violence paramilitary ritesbaners folks did actually fight them and once the nazis took over many of these paramilitaries joined the anti-nazies resistance and adhered to other groups. So they do have an ideology. I think they came out a little late, but, you know, points for showing up. Carl Barth was a Swiss reform theologian. He published something called the Epistle to the Romans, which focused on the saving grace of God and God's unknowability. I think you would have liked this. He grew quickly disillusioned with liberal theology

in the 20s, which is what led to its publication. Liberal theology had enabled the biggest war in human history after all. So he's like, it allowed a blending of nationalism and Christianity that legitimized killing other Christians. That's what liberal theology had done. Yeah. He had troubles with all of this, and he rejected Nazism in the 30s,

specifically signing on to something called the Barman Declaration that stated that Hitler was trying to make himself a lord of sorts and that Christians had a duty to resist that shit. He mailed these declarations personally to Hitler. hell yes he had to resign from his professorship at bond because he refused to swear an oath to Hitler he also criticized Heidegger for being

intellectually dishonest by supporting the Nazis So he's turning over tables Yeah In 38 Barth even endorsed the idea that Christians Shooting and fighting killing and killing Nazis were fighting for God since Nazis weren't

so here's a guy who was like y'all liberal Christians got it wrong because you allowed you allowed Christians to shoot Christians yeah then in 38 in 38 right so this is before they invaded Poland he's like yeah you should fucking shoot the Nazis yeah but you just said not to shoot no no no no these guys aren't Christians yeah no I told you you shouldn't be shooting other Christians right Nazi is a completely different did did you look at the shape of the cross that's not Right. Yeah. No. That's a different, that's a different thing. Yeah. And they're evil. And look at what they're doing and saying. Yeah.

So, yeah. Turn over the fucking tables when you have to turn them over. Don't do it willy-nilly. Rip a veil, you know. The boss, the boss wove a whip out of leather thug. This is not something you do impulsively. Yeah. With every strap, there was intent.

like yeah read it right yeah so Walt Whitman obviously he's the American poet who went to DC to help in hospitals caring for the injured and the wounded during the American Civil War he's a famous and prolific poet considered one of the most gifted and amazing of all American poets if you know his work you know the work of a man who wrote beautifully about conscience so this is pulling on all kinds of strings Federalist papers I mentioned them with the Hamilton Papers, but they were a collection of 85 essays that argued for a strong centralized government, published under the name Publius. They were written by three of the most influential men in the formation of the American

government, the first secretary of the treasury, the father of the Constitution, and the first Supreme Court, the first Supreme Court chief justice. The Federalist papers argued for the ratification of the United States Constitution became the intellectual backbone for how the Constitution would be defended and executed. she talked about the United States of Europe there had been this idea of a peaceful United States of Europe stretching back to before Napoleon was even thought of but what Thompson is referencing specifically

is the multiple attempts after World War I to create a federated Europe an EU of sorts but on a much grander scale since they just finished trying to kill each other why not avoid all of that by becoming a federation of sorts many folks saw this as the only bulwark against communism growing beyond the USSR, and others saw it as a way to spread French constitutionalism. Either way, there were a bunch of intellectuals and statesmen all over the political spectrum who advocated for something like this from about 1919 until Germany started to expand. There was also the Pan-European Union, the Com Intern. All of these things are a version of a federated Europe.

There was a lot of talk about it until the Wall Street crash of 29. Then in 1933, a guy named Arthur Salter, a British civil servant, and the eventual conservative MP who worked with Jean Monnet, M-O-N-N-N-E-T, a French civil servant and a businessman. They developed a book called The United States of Europe. This is what she's talking about. I'm pretty sure, at least. Now Salter had attended the World Conference for International Peace Through Religion and developed something called The Salter Report.

The Salter Report was about the truce, or I'm sorry, not about the truth, about the true costs and benefits of continental train and road system so that cooperation is already on his mind. He's like, look, if we're going to travel between places, unencumbered, we need to cooperate. And so this book was aimed at binding Europe together politically and financially to such a degree that the causes of war would not overcome them. Monet, M-O-N-N-N-E-T. How would you say that in French?

I think you're right. I think it's Monet. But the other one is Monet and it's one end. Well, it's Monnet. There's a, there's a pause on the, on the Monet. Okay. It's supposed to, Monet. Oh, okay, because there's two, okay.

So Monnet would take this after World War II and help develop this idea into the EEC. Right, the precursor to the European Union. Right, and that's in 1957. Salter was adamantly anti-Nazi, and he worked hard to help England and France become the bulwark against Nazism. And then she also mentioned creative evolution, and I think here she's referencing a book by Henri Berger. from 1907. This book promoted the idea that evolution has a goal point, I have problems, and that evolution is motivated by what he called the Elan Vital.

So humanity's creative impulse, essentially. This absolutely, again, remember, I have problems with her when it comes to her stance black folks. I think this is her doing that left-wing chauvinistic eugenics shit, right? Yeah. And I just have to say, Elan Vital sounds like Chi with extra steps. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. The biologized and scientificized approach that this took was the thing that modernists, writers, and thinkers loved to think that they had. I have that creative spark. I just must write. You know, that kind of shit.

And, of course, such things should be turned toward government and development of human systems. And there's an intuitive component to this that smart people love to think that they have access to and that the pores don't. It's like secret Wi-Fi, the force, just good genes. And we can do it better for democracies if we're just allowed to be in charge. Let the brilliant ones shine through and everyone benefits. Yeah, and then that that leads me to the bit that she said at the end there about the creeping tentacles of government and letting Americans free themselves up to accomplish whatever. Like, there's, there's, for somebody who's writing in liberal rag, there's a very notable flavor of, um, And now I've just completely lost my threat of thought of libertarianism or libertarian language going on there.

That it's like, okay, wait a minute, hold on. You're kind of talking down the new deal here. Well, libertarians. Are you one of these people? Libertarians and liberals can get along if the liberals aren't looking for equality. They're just looking for liberty. and liberals in the 40s weren't looking for equality they were they were they were looking for liberty so i think i think this is where you find that overlap now later on liberals will make gestures toward equality and i think

even sometimes support it uh too limited fashion um but at that time i think that you know again the new deal was aimed mostly at the whites um so you know there's there's a lot of this i got to say say on the screen listeners won't see this at all, but the exact spot where the the mic is covers up your head because you're leaning back and I see your arms

and so it looks like a anthropomorphized microphone with hands like something that would have like guested at MST3K for an episode it's really funny anyway back to her writing the people in the room

think he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them. He has discovered America and his spirit is the spirit of the pioneers. When I say I've got problems with her. The pioneers.

Uh-huh. The pioneers. Yeah. You're gonna... Yeah. Again. Okay. Yeah. There's some great shit she's got here. There's some other... There's a reason I'm reading this, you know?

I will say this. uh hitler also loved stories about the american west uh so all right back to this young german uh blonde fellow yeah yeah he is furious with america because it does not realize its strength and beauty and power he talks about the workmen in the factory where he is employed he took the job quote in order to understand the real america end quote he thinks the men are wonderful quote why don't you american intellectuals ever get get to them talk to them end quote quote, I grinned bitterly to myself, thinking that if we ever got into a war with the Nazis, he would probably be interned, while Mr. B and Mr. G and Mr. E would be spreading defeatism at all such parties as this one.

Of course, I don't like Hitler, but Mr. J over there is a Jew. Really? Really? Yeah. You had to be, you had to be that on the nose. Jesus. You couldn't go on Mr. M. Right.

Mr. K. Right. Oh. don't go Mr. K. Yeah, no. Okay. But yeah, select your letter a little more carefully.

But Mr. Jay over there is a Jew. Mr. Jay is a very important man. He is immensely rich. He has made a fortune through a dozen directorates in various companies, through a fabulous marriage, through a speculative flair, and through a native gift for money

and a native love of power. What do fuck? What? Really? Yeah. You can be anti-Hitler and still be anti-Hitler. Semetic.

God damn it. Uh-huh. He seldom associate. He is intelligent and arrogant. He seldom associates with Jews. He deplores any mention of the Jewish question. He believes that Hitler should not be judged from the standpoint of anti-Semitism. He thinks that the Jews should be reserved on all political questions.

He considers Roosevelt an enemy of business. He thinks it was a serious blow to the Jews that Frankfurter should have been appointed to the Supreme Court. So, yeah. Okay, so does she think he's going to go Nazi? No. Okay.

Well, no. Kind of waffly? The Saturnine Mr. C, the real Nazi in the room, engages him in a flatteringly attentive conversation. Mr. Jay agrees with Mr. Mr. C wholly. Mr. J is definitely attracted by Mr. C. He goes out of his way to ask his name. They have never met before. A very intelligent man. Mr. K contemplates the scene with a sad humor in his expressive eyes. Mr. K is also a Jew. Mr. K is a Jew from the South. He speaks

with a southern drawl. He tells inimitable stories. Ten years ago, he owned a very successful business that he had built up from scratch. He sold it for a handsome price, settled his indigent relatives in business and now enjoys an income for himself of about $50 a week. At 40, he began to write articles about odd and out-of-the-way places in America. A bachelor and a sad man who makes everybody laugh, he travels continuously, or continually, knows America from a thousand different facets and loves it in a quiet, deep, unostentatious way. He is a great friend of H, the biographer. Like H, his ancestors have been in this country since long before the same.

of a war. He is attracted to the young German. By and by, they are together in the drawing room. The impeccable gentleman of New England, the countryman, intellectual of the Middle West, the happy woman whom the gods love, the young German, the quiet, poised Jew from the South. And over on the other side are the others. Mr. L. has just come in. Mr. L is a lion these days. My hostess was all of a dither when she told me on the telephone. And L. is coming. you know it's dreadfully hard to get him. Elle is a very powerful labor leader. My dear, he is a man of the people, but really fascinating.

Elle is a man of the people and just as fascinating as my horsey bank vice president on the make acquaintance over there. And for the same reasons and in the same way, Elle makes speeches about the third of the nation. And Elle has made a darned good thing for himself out of championing the oppressed. He has the best car of anyone in this room. Salary means nothing to him because he lives on the expense account. He agrees with the very largest and most powerful industrialists in the country

that it is the business of the strong to boss the weak, and he has made collective bargaining into a legal compulsion to appoint him or his henchman as labor's agents, and with the power to tax pay envelopes and to do what they please with the money. L is the strongest natural-born Nazi in the room. Mr. B regards him with contempt tempered by hatred. Mr. B. will use him. Elle is already parroting B's speeches.

Elle has the brains of a Neanderthal man, but he has an infallible instinct for power. In private conversation, he denounces Jews as parasites. No one has ever asked him what are the creative functions of a highly paid agent, who takes a percentage off the labor of millions of men, and distributes it where and as it may add on to his own political power um okay so um fuck this author with a sleeper sofa why um i'm i'm i'm sorry are you the same union thug i've known all this time like she's calling out john l lewis i think uh i think she's calling out

labor leaders who are, um, labor leaders who don't work. I think she's calling out the guys who use the union as a way to martial influence and then enrich themselves. And there were plenty of them at that time. All right. That's what I think. She didn't mention that he just came from the coal mines. She didn't mention that he's, you know, he's a teacher's union steward or anything like that. He's the one at the top and he lives on an expense account. All right. Yeah. Fair. So that's, That's why. Okay. And also, there's a reason that the National Socialist Party called itself the National Socialist Party.

Yeah. They were absolutely, like, grabbing labor leaders. Yeah. By doing that. So. Okay. Fair. Yeah.

He's the reason I would quit that union. Well, yeah. So it's fun, a macabre sort of fun, this parlor game of who goes Nazi. And it simplifies things, asking the question in regard to specific personalities. Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly secure people never go Nazi. So that goes back to what we were saying. Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. Yeah.

Well, oh, darn it. Now I'm forgetting his name. Brennan. One of the guys from... Brendan Lee Mulligan? Yeah, Brandon Lee. And I think I've mentioned it before here on the podcast. Brendan Lee Mulligan has a great line in an interview somewhere where he says personality predates ideology.

Yes. You're a fascist because you're an asshole. You're not an asshole because you're a fascist. Right, right. And it's this is this is that idea given greater detail and a typology. Like, all of these guys are assholes. Right. Like, they're all, they're all assholes.

If they're going to become Nazis, they're assholes first. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Because what makes you an asshole, what makes you an asshole is insecurity, lack of self-knowledge, um, shallowness, uh, you know,

all of these things we talked about. And almost pathological fear of pain. Right. Yeah. you know, emotional, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so kind, good, happy, gentlemanly secure people, never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes. You'll never make Nazis out of them.

But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success. by smelling out of the wind of success, they would all go Nazi in a crisis. Believe me, nice people don't go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them. Those who haven't had any or who haven't anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don't, whether it is breeding or happiness or wisdom or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern go nazi it's an amusing game try it at the next big party you go to yeah that's really i mean there's there's so much there right so we've already spoken about like people who are

self-actualized are not going to go nazi if they're if they're self-actualized out of a place of kindness of security in who they are of authenticity my word's not hers then they're not going to go But the ones who will go Nazi, there's always a fear component and there's always a willingness to turn over their moral compass to something that sounds stronger than what they don't have. Yes. So I like the way you turned that phrase there at the end. Thank you. Stronger than something they don't have. Yes.

I think that's, that's, that's really, that's really important. And, you know, when you look at the people at the top of the fascist hierarchy in Italy, if you look at the people at the top of the fascist hierarchy in Germany, if you look at the people at the top of the fascist hierarchy in Germany, if you look at the people who have wound up being the leaders of white supremacist neo-Nazi movements in the United States. you know you cannot tell me or you cannot convince me you can tell me but you will never convince me that David Duke

was not a shithead in high school right you know now he might have been charming yeah but he's still a shithead yes

you know and you know There are the outwardly popular charismatic jock types. There are the ones who are the brains of the operation. But all of them in the end are coming from places of, like we've already said, it's always coming from a place of insufficiency. They are insufficient personalities.

There is always something lacking. Yeah. you know they are the johnny wringo not the uh the the the white herb like yeah yeah yeah and by the way doc holiday would also never go like there's a security in who he is there's yeah he's a shit but he's secure you know he's he's he's a brat and a and kind of a jackass but he knows who he is right so anyway uh what have you gleaned from miss doris Thompson. I have gleaned that

even people on our side are capable of being problematic in their own colorful ways. Yes. And and yeah, it just, again, it reinforces

the, you know, personality. predates ideology you know and I mean based on that I guess we shouldn't be as surprised as we kind of have been repeatedly about you know how could how could all these people do all of these things like there's a lot of assholes in the world like you know when you when you when you think about how many people are jackasses like right yeah all right well there you go you know yeah yeah so it's not it's not a very you know dramatic kind of takeaway but that's that's kind of what I've got there

yeah that works um let's see what are you going to recommend for people to read uh I'm not going to recommend anything for people to read this week um I am going to instead recommend something to watch yeah um hold on a sec here while I look it up um well while you're doing that I'll recommend mine yes you do that please I'm going to recommend Dorothy Thompson's political guide, a study of American liberalism and its relation to modern totalitarian states. This is by Dorothy Thompson herself. And it's, it's, you know, it was written at that time. And so her idea of liberalism is very different than what it's turned into. But I think it's important to read, like, what she thought politically to kind of get.

underneath and find you know how she came to the writings that she came to otherwise so um again she's absolutely right when it came to fascists uh she might have been wrong a few times about uh why people are are you know ought not be fascists but um and she certainly was dead fucking wrong when it came to race stuff but um she was right about the fascist part and i think that it's okay to have those two uh what's the word i'm looking for contradictions within a person. So I'm going to recommend her book Dorothy Thompson's political guide a study of American liberalism and its relationship to modern totalitarian states. Okay, I like it. And you?

I am going to point to a science fiction film that is that has overtones of fascism, anti-fascism, but that's all in the background Gundam Reckleum for Vengeance It is a six-part series

You can watch it right now on Netflix It is part of the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise And it premiered Last year And I have so far Only caught the first episode The animation is amazing

If you are a fan of the Gundam series, subgenre. This is the Evangelian stuff? The big megasuits. Yeah, this is, this, the mobile suit Gundam franchise is kind of the

trope codifier for a particular brand of mecca anime. Okay. And so anyway, this is, this is the latest iteration of it. Well worth watching.

by I can't watch it with my son because it involves realistically portrayed violence and that's not not something we want him watching right now but it is it is excellently well made and so far I'm on to the second episode and the storyline is awesome so perfect okay yeah where can they find us we collectively can be found on our web

website at wauba, wauba, woba, woba, wupehistime.com. We can be found on the Apple Podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app, and on Spotify. Wherever it is that you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five-star review

that you know we deserve. And where can you be found, sir? Let's see. You probably have missed the November 7th show at the Comedy Spot in Sacramento at 9 p.m. If you haven't, get that ticket. because this would be recording right around that time or this will be released right around that time

so November 7th at the Sacramento Comedy Spot December 5th at the Sacramento Comedy Spot January 2nd at the Sacramento Comedy Spot and February 6th at the Sacramento Comedy Spot all at 9 p.m. It is our ninth year we have just been a juggernaut continually picking up Steam you really got to get your tickets in advance

so go to sackcomitop.com and go to the calendar section and buy your tickets in advance. That way you can make sure that you see the show. Come on out, check us out. It's, you know, watch us spin that wheel. Watch us pun battle and win. It is always a treat.

So, yeah, that's where you can find me. 9 p.m. first Friday of every month with capital punishment, Justine, Emily, and a bevy of new guests. So there you go. Cool. Cool. Well, for a geek history time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.