A Geek History of Time - Episode 355 - Declaration of Independsith Part 2 Because Always 2 There Are

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

When I think nuclear annihilation, I think... La la la la 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 Like it took the ice trees meanwhile this guy is going into a 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 herge? 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. My name is Ed Blaylon. Sixth and seventh grade level. Has anybody who listens to this podcast for the last, I don't know, a year and a half, knows I've been working toward my master's.

I am about to start the final week of my last required course. I've already taken a couple of my electives, but like one of the requirements, since I've got to focus in the history, I had to take a course that is on, you know, theory of development of military theory. And it's been a great course. I've learned a lot from it. It's one of the courses I've had where it's like, you know, if I could just read this stuff without having to do it on a timeline, that would be great. And I just a couple of days ago turned in my term paper for this course. and I have to say it is the most adequate piece of writing.

I think I've ever completed in my entire academic career. I remember on the day, I don't know if it was the day I turned it in or the day I finished it. I think I messaged you and Dr. Cruz and I said. So I turned in my H-TIS 640 paper. It's done. is it good? Well, it's 18 pages long and it cites enough sources

and it hits all the points on the rubric. Good? I don't know. But, you know, bees get degrees. So there we are. So that's what I've had going on. How about you?

Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a U.S. history and economics teacher at the high school level up here in than California. And I, you know, between shows, as folks know, I go downstairs, check in on the kids, et cetera, et cetera. My son was watching a fan film of Thomas the Tank Engine. Okay.

Like you do. Yeah. This is on brand. Yep. And I'm walking by and like I just hear a familiar sound. And I look, I'm like, hey, turn that up a little bit. He does. And I'm listening to the background music.

as the mystery of the episode that this person put together is starting to build. And it's the March of the Marionette. Okay. And I said, is this on, you know, YouTube or is this a movie you got on a streaming service? He's like, no, it's on YouTube. I'm like, okay. Give me a remote, and he gives it to me. And I bring up the introduction to the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock.

Mm-hmm. And it's only 41 seconds long. So I hit play and I'm like, that sound familiar to you? He's like, yeah. Well, you know, getting introduced to the classics kind of through a backdoor method. Yeah, I like it. Yeah. So last week, my daughter was reading the incident at Owl Creek Bridge for her creative writing class.

She's going to do later. And I was like, oh, I have that on, on, I've got the video or I've got the, the, the movie of that, the small, the short film of that. She's like, what? I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, Twilight Zone published it on their, in their fourth season. Yeah. And so we went to the streaming service and it goes like episode 21, episode 23. Episode 22 is missing and I'm like, oh, it's probably a rights issue. Luckily, I have all of the discs because I'm a big believer in owning the physical medium. Yeah. And so I showed her the French short film that Rod Serling brought back over,

having gone to Cannes Film Festival. And he's like, I'm going to buy this from you. Name a price. And I will put it up on my show. And he sure enough did. Nice. Yeah. Classics.

Classics. When speaking of classics, when last I left us, I think I had proven that George the third was not the brutal villain that the American colonists labeled him as. And by the American colonists, I mean, the wealthy, landowners and or northeastern Bostonians. Entrepreneurs. Yes. Those guys.

By the way, fucking rum runners. They were smugglers. That's where they made their fucking money. Anyway, sorry. That's okay. You're talking about the Kennedys? What? Anyway. They were only

one end of a very long line of getting wealthy that way. in the Northeast. But yeah, anyway, carry on. So I think I'd shown that he was not the villain that they'd wrote him out to be. And yet, according to Thomas Jefferson and the Second Continental Congress, George the Third was, in fact, a tyrant. And from the American colonists' perspective, being ignored when you write heavily

debated letters, I totally get it. Like, how dare you not to pay attention to me? I'm rich. And there were several important colonists who really wanted to be. all about the Enlightenment and anti-monarchy. Like I said in the last episode, Thomas Payne had called George III a royal brute in common sense. Or a European brute. No, actually, he used the word royal brute.

Okay. I'd misquoted. And one of the first statues that got pulled down in American history was one of King George at the Bowling Green in New York City. Yep. Which is wild because statues of George III were put up nine years earlier because of the repeal of the Stamp Act. So fickle. So, okay, Seneca the Younger wrote a satire of Claudius. Likely.

Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. You just, without preamble. It's the, it's the, oh, hey, I just, I just mugged you and threw you in the way back machine. Yes.

Without. A fly got in there with you. It's not going to go well. We're having a black bag party. and moving. So how many how many centuries back are we are we talking about here? From where I was? About 16 centuries.

Yeah, okay. 17, yeah, 16, 17 centuries back. Okay. Because it says Claudius. Yeah. All right. So Senneka the Younger wrote a satire about Claudius, probably after Claudius's death,

called the apaco now here's the thing this is a Greek word so I struggle Apaco Apocococytocytosis There we go Apococytosis Yes

Now this is a takeoff on apotheosis Okay But apocco Is that in the sense of Secrets Or is that in the sense of massive destruction More of the second, but it is a takeoff on apotheosis, which means the deification or the changing or the glorification of a Roman emperor into godhood. Apacoly. Apacolyc...

I should drink more. Apococinosis means the gortification of Claudius. Gordification. Or the pumpkinification of Claudius. Either way. He's turning Claudius into a pumpkin. Yes, but Gord and God, that's clever. That's, yeah.

Okay. So the poem that Seneca the Younger wrote is more of a story than it is a series of complaints, but it satirizes Claudius post-mortem. And the idea that Claudius, applying for divvying for divvents, divinity from, you know, to the ancestors and to the gods was denied such divinity and cast down into the underworld where his punishment was reminiscent of what happened to Sisyphus. He is condemned to forever throw dice in a frying pan and having them bounce out so that he has to search for them on the ground. Claudius was famous for his love of gambling. Okay.

I just want to interject here that you said, you know, this was written post-mortem. Yes. It kind of would have to be because doing this one Claudius was alive was a really good way to get murdered. That's true. And Claudius was not above murdering the fuck out of people. He's the one who ended the druids as an order. Yeah. So yeah.

Yeah. So here's a little bit of Latin for you. Namco-tien's miscerus was resonant to fritillo, Uttra, utra, subducto fuguea, therrano, whom, colected, audere, mitra talos, Yusuro similis semper, and peatenti, decepera fide, refuget digitost, and, per ipsos phalax, ad-siduo, dilabitur alia furto, And what all of that'stum yam sumi, tanguntur culminamuntis, irita Sisypio, Wolwantur, Ponderacolo.

And what all of that means is, for whenever he was about to throw the resounding frying pan, both the dice, having been withdrawn, fled to the bottom. And when he dared to throw the dice, like a gambler, always seeking to deceive faith, the deceitful dice flees and through them the fingers constantly slip away by theft thus when the highest peaks of the mountain are already reached the weights roll around sycifis neck in vain okay so you can never get a good roll and you always have to keep rolling okay so it's not exactly the melody and the tempo of the poem but more the content and the tone of the poem that makes this a minipion satire and it might seem familiar to you Claudius long made fun of for being inarticulate and out of touch and also brutal to people far from the imperial center. Remember, he's the one who genocided the druids. I'm going to get to an excerpt where this Claudius is brought up to the spectral Senate for trial to see if he can be deified or if he gets cast down presided over by Hercules. Hercules is presiding over the trial because the Romans had a special love for Hercules, because

he kind of founded what would eventually become the area that would be the place where the thing with the stuff Rome. You know, with the bulls basically. Caucasus's bulls going backwards. Right. That's the area. So things are going Claudius's way at this trial until Augustus stands up and roast the ever-loving shit out of Claudius, leading to what I spoke of above. but a thing to note, this particular poem by Seneca Minor has huge gaps of missing text, and most of them are when the gods speak, which I found hilarious.

Antiquity is a motherfucker. So here's the English of this poem that Seneca Minor wrote. The next person to be asked for his opinion was D.S. Peter, the son of Wickei Poetai, and himself the consul designate, a coiner. He supported himself by this pursuit by selling small cities. Hercules approached him gracefully and touched his ear. He therefore considered in these words, since the divine Claudius and the divine Augustus are related by blood,

and no less so by his divine grandmother Augusta, whom he himself ordered to be a goddess, Claudius did, and far surpasses all the mortals and wisdom, and there is someone in the state who can, devour the turnips with fervor with Romulus. In other words, he can sit at the table with Romulus, but it still has that that pinch of austerity because satirists love austerity. I consider that the divine Claudius should be a god from this day forward so as so as to

precede him who was made by best right, by the best right, and that matter should be added to Ovid's metamorphoses. There were various opinions, and it seemed that Claudio, was winning the opinion. For Hercules, who saw that his iron was in the fire, now rushed here, now there, and said, this is a quote of Hercules, do not envy me, my business is being done. Then if you want anything, I'll do it in return.

One hand washes the other. Then the divine Augustus rose to speak it. So this is all happening at the trial of whether or not Claudius can be a god. Right, right. Then the divine Augustus rose to speak his sentence, and with the greatest eloquence, he, Augustus argued, I, he, Augustus said, have you as witnesses that since I became a God,

I have not uttered a single word. I always do my business. But I can no longer conceal myself, contain the pain which shame makes more severe. And this have I brought about peace on land and sea? For this reason, have I restrained civil wars? For this reason, have I founded the city with laws, adorned it with works so that I cannot find what to say. All words are beyond indignation. So are you hearing the repetition there? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Therefore, we must resort to saying, to that saying of Masala Corvinus, the most eloquent man, I am ashamed of the empire. This man, he's pointing to Claudius. This man, by pact with the people who seems to you. unable to rouse a fly, killed men as easily as a dog sits on a stick. By what shall I say about so many and such men? There is no time to weep over public disasters when one is looking at domestic evils. Therefore, I will admit those and relate these. For even if my sister does not know Greek, I know that the knee is nearer than the shin. This was, that was a Greek colloquialism, basically. Is that like, you know, Literally the knee is nearer to you than your shin, right? Like, so I know what's closest. This man, whom you see, hidden under my name for so many years, did me this favor, that he killed my two great-granddaughters, Julius, one by sword, the other by hunger.

One great-grandson, Lucius Silanus. You see Jupiter, whether in a bad cause, certainly in yours, if you are going to be fair. Tell me, Divine Claudius, why did you condemn any of those whom you killed before you the case before you heard. Where is this usually done? It does not happen in the heavens. Behold, Jupiter, who reigned for so many years, broke the leg of one Vulcan, whom he seized by the foot and hurled him from the threshold, and he was angry with his wife and hanged her.

Did he kill her? You killed Messalina, whose uncle, I was much older, I was as much older than yours. I don't know, you say. May the gods do you harm. So much is the, so much. much is that more shameful that you did not know than that you did than that you killed guy you caesar did not cease to persecute the dead the four and i think this is actually it took me a minute because i thought this was a reference to um germanicus uh what do we call uh caligula

i thought it was a reference to him but no this is uh julius um guyo caesar did not cease to persecute the dead. The former had killed his father-in-law, the latter, his son-in-law. Gaius forbade the son of Crassus to be called Magnus. He the latter gave him his name back. He took his head. He killed in one house, Crassus, Magnus, Crabona, Tristivonius, Asario, pardon me, nobles through Crassus, so foolish that he could even reign. Do you now want to make him a god? See his body born of angry gods. To sum up, let me, let him, let him, him say three words quickly and lead me as a slave. And I think he meant to like make three points here because even in Latin, none of what comes next adds up to three words. One of them is a four word

phrase in the next one and the other one is two. So here are the questions he asks. Who will worship this God? Who will believe it? While you make such gods, no one will believe you are gods. The bottom line, through a pact with the people, if I have behaved honestly among you, if I have answered no one more clearly avenge my injuries. I hold this opinion, and he recited from the tablets thus. Since the divine Claudius killed his father-in-law Apius Salinas, his two sons-in-law, Magnus Pompeius and Lucius Salinas, his daughter's father-in-law, Crassus Frugie, a man similar to himself as an egg to an egg. I love that comparison Scrobonia

his daughter's mother-in-law his wife Messalina and others whose number could not be entered it pleases me to take strict action against him not to give him leave to judge matters but to have him taken away as soon as possible and to leave heaven within 30 days

and Olympus within the third day wow so this this is Minipian satire right recount all of the incompetencies and terriblenesses for everyone to see, and therefore let it be known that such and such and so and so should happen. Right.

Okay. Now, there were plenty of other books that Thomas Jefferson may have had, but looking at the handwritten indices that he created for his libraries, he had a bunch of satires written by Romans. On page 220 of his index, there were eight references to Lucretius, six by Horace, seven by Juvenal, and six by Perseus. by my research Jefferson did have books by Seneca about Claudius, but I could find no index of him having this particular book.

Okay. Could have been that he read it, though. All the satires that he owned seemed to, he filed all under didactic poetry, which I get a kick out of. And Thomas Jefferson appeared not to have classified them down to the type of satire or not noted them as Manipion at the very least. Okay.

And yet Thomas Jefferson had a number of influences. He absolutely drew on the preamble of the Virginia Constitution, which was the same exact whereas this dude is a dick kind of style. And he drew on the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was all about the natural rights and the government's duty to do this and that. And both of these came out within weeks of his declaration of independence. This shit was 100% in the air and this approach was definitely in the water. But Manipian satire seemed to have been in the very soil, and all three documents landed within 40 days of each other. I had never realized that the timeline was that compressed.

Yeah. Now, keep in mind, King George largely ignored all of this shit. Well, I mean, the lion does not respond to the bleeding of the goats. Like. Right. You know. And I think that's how the colonists. took it.

Well, yeah. But the reality is he didn't respond to it probably because he had bigger fish to fry. Remember, his brother was fucking around. So, yeah. And also, constitutional goddamn monarchy. Yeah. It's the parliament's job. Like, and, and they've got plenty of other shit to deal with.

America was not the top of their list. No matter how irritating. Yeah. So George at this point was how old, 25 at this point? No, by 1770. he was 30 something coming up on 50. Okay, all right. Yeah, well, let's see.

He was born in, I want to say he was born in 27. Okay. But it might have been, I think he was born in 21. Okay. So, okay, yeah, so he's, all right. Because Thomas Jefferson's only about seven years younger than him. Okay. Well, let's see.

He was 33 by 1767. So add nine years. So, yeah, he was 42 years old. Okay. He's 42 when the Declaration of Independence comes. Okay. And the brother of his that was... Flander.

Sowing his seed as a per... How much younger than him? I forget. That one I don't know. Okay. So, but he's a solid, you know, middle-aged, married guy. Yes. And his presumably younger brother is off just filling the skin.

Candle sheets with you know what a what a prick he is Okay, all right All right I'm just trying to try to get a handle on on like Where where he is In his life And like where his brother is in his life And it's like my fuck up younger brother is you know

Right Cause I remember he's still dealing with William Pitt the elder And Charles Watson Wentworth and just all kinds of other people like that. Oh, yeah. Well, and just like in the modern era, anything any member of the royal family does gets a lot of attention in the press.

And the Hanoverians as a group, I mean, part of the reason for Victoria being such a public prude about so many things had to do with the reputation that that the Hanoverians had by the time she got to the throne, which was why it was such a, you know, disappointment to her that her son, who eventually became George V, but was Prince Edward, was such a libertine. And, you know, it was one of his scandals that she blamed for Albert's death.

And it was just like we worked so hard to bring the family's reputation up from the dirt where it was lying and you've got to go, you know, doing this shit. Yeah. So yeah. All right. So I just looked it up. George's brother was seven years as younger. Okay. And that makes him two years younger than Thomas Jefferson. Okay. George's brother who was Henry of some fucking place. Yeah.

It's probably a famous place. I just don't, I don't remember the actual place. Okay. All right, so George largely ignored this. Now, here's an excerpt from the Virginia Declaration of Rights, because I want you to hear what's in the air this whole time. By the way, the Virginia Declaration of Rights was unanimously adopted. June 12, 1776, a declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, assembled in full and free convention, which rights do pertain to them and their posterity as the basis of the foundation of government.

1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity, namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. 2. That all power is vested in and consequently derived from the people, that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them. Three, that government is or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community.

Of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration, and that whenever any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it in such a manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public wheel. 4. That no man or set of men are entitled to

exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the community, but in consideration of public services, which, not being descendable, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legislator or judge be hereditary. So. Okay. I don't know. Just seem like a thing to read out loud.

Now here's one. Go ahead. No. I'm already seeing the direction we're going to be going in here very clearly. Yeah. Because I was awake in American history class, but carry on. Now here's one for the Virginia Constitution. Seven.

The Constitution as adopted by the convention. 29 June 1776. Again, there's a 40-day turnaround here. And again, dude was writing in Philly, but it's not like he's not getting letters from his buddies in Virginia. Right. In a general convention, begun and Holden at the capital in the city of Williamsburg on Monday the 6th day of May, 1,776,

and continued by adjournments to the day of June following. a constitution or form of government agreed to and resolved upon by the delegates and representatives of the several counties and corporations of Virginia. Whereas George III, King of Great Britain and Ireland and elector of Hanover, heretofore entrusted with the exercise of the kingly office in this government, hath endeavored to pervert the same into a detestable and insupportable tyranny. By putting his negative on laws, on laws the most wholesome and, and necessary for the public good. The public is spelled with a K, by the way. Yeah, well, as was the style at the time.

Yeah, yeah. It was a red onion. By denying his governor's permission to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation for his assent, and when so suspended, neglecting to attend them for many years, by refusing to pass certain laws, unless the persons to be benefited by them would relinquish the inestable right of representation, in the legislature by dissolving legislative assemblies repeatedly and continually for opposing

with manly firmness his invasions of the rights of the people. When dissolved by refusing to call others for a long space of time, thereby leaving the political system without any legislative head, by endeavoring to prevent the population of our country and for that purpose obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners. by keeping among us in times of peace standing armies and ships of war, by affecting to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power, by combining with others to subject us to a foreign jurisdiction, giving his assent to their pretend acts of legislation,

for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us, for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world, for imposing taxes on us without our consent, for depriving us of the benefits of trial by, jury for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretend offenses for suspending our own legislatures and declaring them invested with the power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever by plundering our seas ravaging our coast burning our towns and destroying the lives of our people yada yada yada yada yada yada yada okay yeah just seems like something maybe we should

read yeah you know pay attention to yeah yeah know, yeah. Do you notice any parallels with those two and maybe another document that you know I'm going to read? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There are some significant themes there. Yeah.

And in the middle of all that, there was something that really strong. Oh, the, the, the, the, the, uh, placing the military over the civil authority. Uh-huh. What I find interesting about that is the the interpreted the way that's being described by the Virginians is

technically correct, the best kind of correct in that the governors that had been appointed by parliament, technically by the crown. Mm-hmm. had military authority. Right. And, you know, it had actually been an issue at the outset of the seven years war.

Right. That any British officer of any rank, no matter their level of seniority, outranked any colonial officer of any rank. Right. So a British lieutenant outranked a colonial general. Yeah. Yeah. And that was that was something that the Pitt government had to come in and go, no, okay, no, look, we can't do that because we need the manpower and that's just going to, we can't do that. And part of the issue with that was colonial soldiers had signed contracts. Right. many of which said, look, I'm taking orders from that guy. You know, our officers are elected.

Like you can't, you can't buy a commission in the New York militia like you can in the British Army. Right. You know, and so the idea that, you know, he's placing the military over civil authority. Well, he's placing the military over your civil authority. Right. Which is, you know, where your goose is getting cooked here. But, like, technically speaking, he's not. But, well, meaningfully, he is, you know, yeah.

It's like violating posse comitatis. Yeah. Because you said, well, they're at war in that city. You know, just for a random example. Right. Yeah. So just, you know, what I tell you that events in American history have always been this way. Yeah.

Boy. So, all right. So now the Declaration of Independence also unanimously ratified by the Second Continental Congress, which Jefferson wrote with the input of others, but largely wrote in isolation from June 11th to June 28th, which almost exactly matches when both of the above were developed, right? here's what the Declaration of Independence says. In Congress, July 4, 1776, the unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands,

which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to write themselves by abolishing the forms by which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, usurpations, pursuing invariably by the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now the necessity. which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain

is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. So there's a long preamble. You can see where he's getting a lot of the, we have these rights, we have this, we have that, and he's making it a lot prettier. Yeah.

Well, it's all, it's all enlightenment, you know. Yeah. Very locked in. The government. Yep. Yeah. Lock. But also, yeah, Virginia.

Yeah. Like just their declaration, right? Yeah. So, and then he says, now, now here comes the roast. And that he's, you know, you're, you're seeing that show up, uh, just like it did. Um, in the, uh, the, what do you call it? The constitution, uh, of Virginia. which was just a few days earlier.

Okay. Let's see. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation until his assent should be obtained. And when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation to the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable,

and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness in his, or with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. That was the repetition of the phrase manly firmness. Oh, I mean, he's copy pasting. Yeah. Several times. He has refused for a long time after such disillutions to cause others to be elected,

whereby the legislative powers incapable of annihilation have returned to the people at large for their exercise. The state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states. for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of the new appropriations of land. He has obstructed. Just deep breath. There's a lot here. There is.

Yeah. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone. for the tenure of their offices and the amount of payment and payments for their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unaccompliant,

and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us, for protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states, for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world, for imposing taxes on us without our consent, for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury, for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretend offenses. For abolishing the free system of English laws in neighboring province, establishing therein

an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of government. For suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection

and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death,

desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidity, or perfidy, scarcely paralleled, in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,

the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of free people. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of the attempts by their legislature. to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here.

We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by their ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace, friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, due in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as free and independent states, they have the full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which

independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Yeah, pretty comprehensive. Seems, I don't know. Timeless. Time, yeah, timely, oddly. Yeah.

One note that struck me as you were reading through all of that. Yeah. is mention of other provinces of which he intends to make an example. Oh, set up an arbitrary government and uses an instrument against us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's of course there, he, Jefferson, is of course talking about Canada.

Mm-hmm. Which interestingly, it's like, yeah, Canada was French until. 15 years ago and and so like the establishment of a different form of government there like we get

why you're bringing this into the argument but this is this is you're kind of comparing apples and oranges here I think he's pulling on regional biases across all these things because he mentions native peoples

Oh, yeah. That's Ohio Valley. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that too. But also, like, he's making sure to cover all the quadrants, as it were. Mm-hmm. So, so here's, so basically, here's why our king sucks.

Here's what he's done because he sucks. Here's why we're leaving. Again. Yeah. Like, like, and that's, it reads Minipian. It reads, like, here's all of the, and it's soaring rhetoric. Here's all the ways. Yeah. Again, very powerful, wealthy, self-important men wrote and ratified this document.

They were upset because they got left out of decisions that affected their lives and that their complaints continue to go unheard. And they acted like this shit happened in a vacuum. Yeah. And lest we forget, they wanted to be in charge themselves. These men were chosen by other powerful men to represent everyone and wanted to remake the government in a way that they, saw fit, which largely just replaced who was in charge, but kept a lot of what had been, what had made them great amongst the colonists. Like, on a cynical level, this is a power grab. Yeah, well, the, the American Revolution is very much, and, and oh my God, as a high schooler,

I would be shocked to hear myself saying this, but it's a bourgeois revolution. 100% It's a revolution by the landed or business-owning class in furtherance of their interests. Never more than a third of American colonists supported this war. Never more. And that's at its height. It was a third didn't give a shit.

A third were against it and a third were in favor. Right. And that means two-thirds of the people did not want this shit. it to happen. Yeah. You know? So that being said, fuck could he write?

Well, yeah. Like, I don't know. It just, everything that he's mentioned just sounds so applicable. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like you could use it as a check. You remember when I talked about Pliny using the Ten Commandments as a checklist to test people? Yeah.

Yeah. It's as though you could do that. Yeah. It's as though the plan is to use it as a checklist. So anyway, they, I mean, it's a power, it's a cynical power grab. And because Enlightenment thinkers and those who revered them were believing their own k-fabe about destiny and human nature and eventually their own will to power, which I totally get as anachronistic here, but Nietzsche was absolutely drawing on these people.

They wanted to break the old ways and develop new ways. be in charge of those new ways. Yeah. You know who else? This makes sense. You know who else was all about that? Breaking the old ways. Establish new ways and be in charge of those new ways.

This is going to be a wrestling thing, is that? No. No? Okay. I see the look in your eye, though. I'm going to hate this. This has all been a set up. Fucking.

I want to throw something. So. But I'm not in the office because my mother-in-law is here. I'm out of the living room. So if I throw it, there's a good chance I'm going to break shit. God damn it. Despite the title being obvious to the listeners. Because you know I never tell you the full title of things like this until I get to the point.

Yeah. Yeah. This episode is titled The Declaration of Independence. I fucking hate you so much right now. I am so inconceivably fucking angry. So, yes, listeners, this is, this whole episode was me finally breaking hearts and finally doing a Star Wars episode on my own. And I know you could say that I mentioned Star Wars elsewhere,

and you would be right. And that the smuggling episode, sidekicks episode, the analysis of and or mandolorean in the book of boba-fet but never have i focused exclusively on star wars on my own right and this has all been a build-up for that i hate you so much you need a minute you want me to pause god damn no i think i think i want the audience to hear my my processing of this in real time sure god damn it you know all of this is about Halveteen. Oh my God.

So, so like we've gone, we've gone through now an episode and I don't know what, three quarters, two thirds. A half. Okay. Yeah. You know, we've gone through an episode and a half now. Yeah. And, you know, there was there was one set of things that that was coming to mind, you know,

that like, oh, well, this is an excuse for you to read off the, uh, Declaration of Independence, you know, for no reason. Yeah. Just stare at the audience. Just, just, yeah. Yeah. Just St. Bernard it, you know, just. Yeah, you should all, those of you listening should all picture both of us staring at you pointedly right now for half a second.

You know, and like, I was totally cool with that. And then you got to that line. And literally the look on your face, the expression on your face, I was like, This is going to be some WCW plotline thing. It's Paul Heyman all the way down. It's the Shane Douglas speech all over again. Yeah, it's going to be some nugget of pro wrestling history that I've never heard before and is like willfully obscure. It's Rick the model Martel declaring himself, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that, but no. No. But no, the betrayal runs deeper. Oh, yes. Wow. Yeah. Okay. All right.

You've built it up. Yeah. Start bringing us home. Yeah. So in 2012, James Luceno published Darth Plagis. This is about two years before legends became a thing, by the way. Right. So at the time, it was canon.

There was a whole rules for canon and stuff like that. It was not movie canon, which was called George Canaan. but it was a layer below that. They had gradations of canon. Right. Remember, the books all had to hang together, and you had to get it through Leland Shee, and you had to get it through a whole bunch of other people to make sure that it fit with, like, for instance, you could never name Yoda's species.

George Lucas was like, you never get to marry Luke off to anyone. So if he gets romance, you got to break it off in a few books because he thought he was going to write the prequels, or I'm sorry, the sequels. right um once he gave up on the sequels then he was like fucking go ahead and immediately luke gets married to mara right you know and and like you could see you could you could just see that moment right it's it's like watching enterprise and being like oh nine 11 okay yeah yeah the historiography is really obvious yeah yeah but uh this book darts placas was reviewed by some as the best star wars book to date by 2012 which is at once both easy and difficult considering

the wide spectrum of the quality of the EU books. Yes, we've talked about that before. So, as it... I'm glad it was you who made that sound as the guy who is the fan of the whole Uvra and not me. Yes. You know, I have suffered. I have suffered. I have suffered.

I feel like the wife in network. I hurt, you know. So, turns out that Palpatine wasn't lying to Anakin in the opera that night during episode three. Darth Plagueis did in fact exist and he did in fact get murdered by his apprentice. But to get there, I got to get through Darth Bain. So I got to go back a millennium because Darth Bain changed everything, also in the EU books. Oh my God, it's a Claudian satire all over again. It never hasn't stopped. Matter of fact, it's going to wrap up with a

Manipian satire. Oh, my God. All right. All right. And I kind of feel bad that I told you that. Oh, well. So Darth Bain turned the Sith into what we know them as now. And by the way, this is all according to legends now.

So it's not canon. It's not current canon. It's Diane Cannon. That aspect of current canon has not entirely been established yet. Yeah, and they borrow from it. And I love that they do because that way nobody else has to read the shit that I had to read because it was the only thing around. Okay.

But both you and I don't necessarily like who or what splintered off after the schisms and reformations. Right, right, right. I'm sticking to the EU. And I call it EU, even though it's now legends. So recognize just as I did with Britain and England, I'm going to do with EU and legends. Right. Darth Bain was born, Dessel. Son to an abusive drunk of a father on a cortosis mining planet that tempered him in violence, hatred, and an incredibly fit

body. Now, cortosis blocks or shorts out, depending on the book, depending on the strength of the cortosis. It's an ore that blocks or can short out a lightsaber. Okay. Okay. Now, at this time, the war between the Jedi and the Sith was much more conventional war and very, very violent. So you had soldiers for the Army of Light, you had soldiers for the Sith. Also, mining planets like one were absolutely caught in the middle because cortosis and they saw the gross and awful underbelly of such armies to the point where there was so little difference to the miners between these two forces desl's first unconscious use of the force was to commit well his first unconscious used to commit murder was when he killed his father after a beating that he received at the age of 18

Dessel continued to stand up for himself and beat the shit out of his father's friends after that. And when he'd bested a republic, so light side of the force, ensign at cards in a local canteena, the ensign took issue with that to the point where the soldier, the ensign, for the side of the light, tried to stab Dessel outside of the canteen. And Dessel in the struggle turned his Vibro blade on himself and killed the guy in self-defense. So his first experience with the light side is that like it's it's a shitty, shitty, you know, junior grade officer. Right. Now this, of course, meant that Desil had to get off planet, Desil who later becomes Bain, peace be unto his name, as the soldiers of the light side would absolutely come down on him and close ranks.

And he would spend the rest of his life in prison or enslaved. And so he ran off and he joined the Sith. his only salvation. Desil rose through their ranks quickly as a company commander of a group called the Doom Walkers. And he ends up fracking his own lieutenant to keep his soldiers safe. Now, because of the way that he'd saved his platoon from the shitty lieutenant, he basically the lieutenant was advancing them too far.

They get ambushed by the soldiers of light. Desil frags the guy. And then he gets blinded by a, like basically a flashy bank. he gets blinded and he picks up a sniper rifle and in eight seconds wipes out the ambushing platoon and saves his whole company well he fragged his superior so of course a Sith finds out about this comes and gets him but instead of him getting brought up on charges of mutiny one of the Sith takes him in and brings him to the Sith Academy on Corrigon or Corribon sorry now at this time the Sith were considered one army and there was an agreement amongst all the force using Sith

that they all worked for the same goal and so they wouldn't fall to murderous internecine factionalism and this was kind of working okay so it's not quite the one Sith but it's close okay now once at the Academy he becomes known as Lord Bain and he read his way into a heresy of sorts basically Bain, Lord Bain, none of them called themselves Darth. Lord Bain saw the Sith as a shell of itself, needing to be broken in order to beat the Jedi, that they were just content with the status quo and keeping it going, and they weren't really using the Dark Side for what it was for.

You know, it's through, you know, I forget the Sith code, but at the end of it's through my victory, my chains are broken. Right, right. So this leads eventually to Lord. Bain defying all of his teachers and all kinds of shit and there's all kinds of stuff that I'm yada yadaing over because it's a really good book but too much to go into depth here he takes the title Darth which is a huge affront to all the Sith who are in charge and it's absolutely at odds eventually through the use of a holocron that he finds through ancient knowledge and Sith sorcery Bain unleashed something called the thought bomb and it kills every Sith on the planet planet and and every Jedi who is within a certain proximity of the bomb as well and that planet was going to be the final battle site for the Sith Jedi War and he just nukes the whole fucking thing oh wow and so when when you're a Jedi of course when you die you become one with the force this bomb stops you from being able to do any of that it's just unending pain for whatever passes for your soul or your consciousness and that's fucking it the goal was to make it so that all the dark side was contained in one guy. And that's what he did.

And in so doing, he made it so that the Jedi thought that there were no more Sith, that they'd blown themselves up, hung up by their own petards, literally. Okay. And it worked. And while there were some Jedi who had their suspicions, he either killed them or he escaped from them enough to never reveal himself. And during this time, Darth Bain takes on an apprentice, and he creates something called the rule of two. One to hold the power, the other to crave it. And when the apprentice gets strong

enough, they kill their master and take their place. And then they take their own apprentice. And on and on and on until the Seth are ready actually to revenge themselves upon the Jedi and destroy the Jedi. Specifically, here's what he says to his apprentice when he first takes her on. There are no other Sith. There never will be except for us, one master and one apprentice, one to embody the power, the other to crave it. So that's the doctrine. Right. So Darth Bain took on an apprentice, a young girl who was a Jedi in training named Rain. She becomes Darth Zana. And for three books, you follow the two of them as they are the proto rule of two. And at first, it's just him being brutal and her learning, right? And her craving power and him just teaching. And then

working together and him working behind the scenes and on all this kind of stuff. There's all kinds of cool shit that happens. There's these orbulous discs that attach to him and all kinds of stuff. By the end of the third book, he's starting to doubt whether or not she's got what it takes to challenge him and he's starting to think, I need to live forever because of course you do. Right. Yeah. Well, yeah.

She finally challenges him and defeats Lord, or defeats Darth Bain. And then she takes on her own apprentice, Darth Cognis. Okay. And now the rule of two is codified, surviving its very first test. And it sets the tone for the Sith. And by the way, Bain and Zana are kind of the prototype of what we saw in Asoka, where you had a gray-bearded dude and young gal who had like the double lightsaber. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Same exact, like minus the beard, but it's the same dynamic, same visual. they clearly took it from this and that's what I love about the new Star Wars is that they're taking cool shit from things that I like and just changing them a little. Right, right. Have at it. So the rule of two is codified.

It sets the tone for the Sith. They are master and apprentice and the knowledge that the apprentice and it's known that as soon as I pick you, someday you're going to try to kill me. Right. And I'm going to try my best to survive and you can't just wait until I die because that's cheating.

So the seizure of power must absolutely be a power struggle, and you'd better fucking earn it because otherwise, what have you been doing? Like, that's the vibe. Right, right. It's normal. It's expected. It's tradition.

But it also means that there's a lot of resentment and hatred as they grow together. Bain started the rule of two about a third. thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. So the best lineage that I could find from Bain to Plagueis was this. They're all Darth's, okay? And some of them had multiple apprentices along the way, but never more

than one at a time that I could find. Except for one, but there's always a line of legitimate Darth. And the way you can tell is he kills the other one. You know? Yeah. So, of course, those apprentices recording their own apprentices and

cultivating connections. There's a lot of illegitimate claims to the title you could say, but ultimately power is the ultimate decider. And so whoever's the most powerful, they, they win. So it goes from Bain to Zana, Zana to Cognis, to an unnamed, but there was also an apostasy with her main apprentice before that. One, two, skip a few, and you get to Darth Gravid, who it was some sort of fucking disaster, lots of lost knowledge because he dabbled in the, the light actually. Gravid to Gein, G-E-A-N, who seemed to be like the midpoint because she's somewhere around 533 before the Battle of Yavin. Okay. One, two, skip a few. You get to Darth Vectavis.

And I find Vectavis actually kind of fascinating because he had a family that he loved, a business that he ran well, and a bunch of friends that he cared a lot about. He was a Sith Lord because he loved the lore. But he had no personal ambitions beyond gathering all the knowledge.

Like, wow, okay. If Damien was a Sith. Yeah. Anyway, Vectivist to one, two, skip a few again, until eventually you get to Ramage. One, two, skip a few, and you get to the unnamed Twilac master of Darth Tenebrus.

And then you go from the unnamed Twelik master of Darth Tenebris to Tenebris, to Plegis. and technically there's a guy named Venomis, but Plagueis defeats him and then kept him alive for experimentation purposes for like the next 80 years. It's Plagis. He's awful. Plagis to Sidious, who called himself Palpatine popularly. So I'm going to probably just keep it with Palpatine.

Palpatine had several apprentices, but none of them took the mantle of Sith Master unless you count Vader for 15 minutes after he threw him down the pit. Right. From there, there's a bunch of pretenders to the throne in the legend series in the EU. Palpatine comes back a couple of times. We even fucking see that in the movies.

Right. But in the EU, Jason Solo becomes the Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Kytis. Okay. Question about that. Sure. Because that's a part of the EU. I didn't read. Oh, it's one of my favorite sets of eight books.

Okay. So, and then we know where your style of, of, uh, episode writing for this podcast comes from. Yeah. Uh-huh. Usually long series was 19, so. Yeah. So, but, um, so Jason Solo, Darth Kedis. Yes. Takes the title of Darth.

Yeah, declares himself as such. Declers himself as such. He doesn't actually have a Sith master. is never apprenticed to anybody as a autodidact yeah okay all right I just wanted to verify yes and no

he has an advisor named Verger I always took her name as Virgera because it looks like the Latin word for it to change but she was a oh fuck I forgot her race but she was a Jedi who when the temple fell she was away

oh no no when the temple fell she was not only away, she and she and her master were like deep spacing it. Okay. And the Eugen Vong captured them. And Verger became the familiar of a shaper. So think biomechanical person. Right, right. A priestess.

And she became the familiar. So like a pet slave. Okay. And Verger just kind of like kept herself small in the forest for the longest time. when Jason gets captured by the Ejean Pong in my absolute favorite Star Wars book, Traitor. It doesn't, it's not a standalone is the problem.

But oh my God, it's amazing. And this is where Jason turns, actually. And it's because of her advice because she'd spent 50 years with this death cult of biomechanics. Yeah. And, but boy, she talked a good game. Oh my God.

She was just, she was as existential as it gets. She's like, it doesn't matter what you're, beliefs are. It doesn't matter who you were raised by. What matters is the choice that you make right now. And I'm like, that's existentialism. But she used it to pervert him and get him going to him. Okay. So anyway, Jason becomes a dark lord, uh, Darth Kytis. And while he had advisors like Verger and Lady Lu Maya, who was in the comic books, um, she's her own, her whole other own story. Uh, he also took on Tahiri Vela, Anakin Solo's girlfriend when he died.

Remember, he dies at like 16. She's like 15. So she's traumatized by this. By now she's 30. And he takes her on as an apprentice for a while. And she does his bidding. And he basically teaches her how to go back in time. And she gets to basically she gets to see the home movies of Anakin, you know.

And that's how he perverts her. But anyway, she doesn't stay with him. And so the line begins and ends with him, right? Okay. And then one, two, skip, a few, 140 years later, you get Darth Crate. And that's its own fun story. Turns out he's Asharaed Hett, which was one of the two Tuscan Raider Jedi from the comic books of the Commonwealth. Wow.

Anyway, one of the reasons you get the one, two, skip a few so often is because that's so much room to write about cool shit that happened when other authors want to do it. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, that's the same as why there are two legions of space marines that are, you know, what's what I'm looking for? They're as yet unwritten. Yeah. Yeah, well, they've been obliterated from the Imperial record. There you go. Because, like, well, you know, my, my chapter doesn't know who their prime arc was.

Right. Hmm. You know, somebody's going to write that book someday. You know, that's fucking awesome. I love that. Yeah. You know, you don't just have rogue and wraith squadrons. I can't wait to see Pages Commandos get written about.

So tons of room for movies, TV shows, cartoons, more books, lots of gaps in the lore for all sorts of creativity. Right, right, right. But what I really wanted to focus on was Sheev Palpatine. Okay. At a young age, now, by the way, he's never called Sheave in this book. He doesn't get his name until the EU stops existing. Huh. Kind of interesting. And I also want to kind of interject here that a large portion of his story got developed for the role-playing game before it got put in any novels.

Only his rise to power from senator to emperor. Okay. And this book actually fleshes all of that out. Okay. It can so it it gives you the constellation of how he got to power. Okay. He was a middling senator from not a very well-known world and through this and that and the other and blah, blah, blah. Well, it turns out all the machinations that led him there were things that he and Plague us were doing.

But yes, the role-playing games did start with that. Okay. So Palpatine, at a young age, he was a sion of a Naboo family, and he hated everyone around him and saw them only as useful or not useful to him. So what we're saying is he started out as a sociopath. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Plagueis, who is a Muun, M-U-U-N.

Okay. Remember the banking clan, thin-faced guys? Oh, okay. He's a that. He is, and I have his name written down later, and it'll come up. Oh, well. But anyway, Plagueis cultivates Palpatine. He meets him on Naboo when he's, and the book starts like many, many years before little Annie.

It starts many years before that, like when Palpatine is like 18. Oh, wow. Okay. Because on Nabu, you are not your own person until you're 22. Oh. Yeah. And Nabu's just stepping into the world because they discovered a shit ton of plasma. And the banking clan and a trade federation are going for the plasma.

And that's blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So he manipulates, he being plagus, manipulates Palpatine and all the events around Palpatine. and eventually he takes Palpatine on as his apprentice, Darth Sidious. Trains him for 10 years. You skip all of that until you get to the next chapter. And then it's like 10 years later. Now, between all these efforts, Darth Plagas explains to Palpatine that the two of them would rule side by side in the galaxy

and that it would become a partnership, that the rule of two was antiquated and that they were the first, they were going to be the first step away from it into an eternal rule by the Sith. All sorts of long game. Hago de Mosque, that's the guy's name. All sorts of long game planning and the like to manipulate these events, removing certain people from the board,

putting others in different spots, strumming on this string over here for the financials over there, for this and that and the other thing, has to do with the pod races on Tatooine, has to do with the pod races on Malisterre, has to do with the underworld, has to do with the opera house itself,

like fucking everything. And Hago de Mosque, that's Darth Pagas, his whole thing is, our power is not the power. Our power is the mundane. That's how our power will be recognized and realized, right? And so, yeah. So, okay, so essentially,

the wizardry is really cool. Yes. But the way we're going to actually run shit... The way we're going to get to the point where we run shit. Right. And then once we're running shit, we can do whatever we want. Then the wizardry comes out.

Okay. All right, all right. I'm there. All right. So always, always, always, the goal that Palpatine is... The goal for Hago de Mosque for Darth Plague is that Palpatine, Cidius,

will become chancellor, and Plagueis will remain largely invisible behind the Rostrum, with the two of them shaping the galaxy together. Hago Damascus is known for being super wealthy, known for supporting this politician. So that's, you know, that's it. So Sith are Sith, though, right? And as such, Palpatine absolutely isn't about that shit. And so during episode one, here's what was happening in Luceno's book, okay, because his book encompasses episode one all the way to the end of the episode. Plagueis has been maneuvering Palpatine into position for years and years and years, both on Nabu and in the Galactic Senate.

Palpatine has also been cultivating all kinds of contacts and a careful reputation of untouchability when it came to ethical and moral concerns. the way that he does this it's all the machinations all behind the scenes kind of thing Damasque has people meeting on a secret world for a secret hunting party

every year he's pissing off all these other groups yeah it's there's all kinds of ship that Lusano's digging into here and the thing is is that you have

all these things happening and it's all strands that are pulling here and there. And Damasque is actually cultivating in addition to Palpatine being his apprentice. He's also destabilizing the Jedi from within by appealing specifically to Seifodias and, and what's his name, Duku. And so Duku and Palpatine start having a bit of a talk with each other as Duku is talking about

breaking away. And Palpatine's like, I agree with you. I'm going to be in charge, but I agree with you. And so they dance around it the whole time. Cipodeus is encouraged to go off. And Palpatine even says, if I can get a clone army paid for, would you go and pick up the invoice? Wow.

There's all kinds of like just, you know, and they recognize that they got to play both sides, et cetera. So, but like I said, Sith or Sith. And as such, Palpatine is not about sharing that power. So during episode one, here's what's happening. Plagueus has been maneuvering Palpatine into position for all these years. Palpatine has also been cultivating his contacts, including a young Zabrock that gets given to him on Dathamere. Right, right, right.

He tortures him and trains him and makes him his knife. and that way, when Palpatine did interact with Plagueus in person, it was fairly unassailable and dismissable by Palpatine, because, look, we all know that I'm not ethically compromised. We all know that I come from enough wealth that I don't have to, you know, I'm just friends with this guy. Like, it's not a big deal. Right, right?

And clearly you're just jealous, and you've been spurned by Hago de Mosque and you're trying to stain me with that. That's your shit. Plaguez, Hego de Mosque, was a very wealthy mover and shaker amongst the Muwan banking clan. And here's where I'd like you to please read to me

what you put in the chat. You're leading up to Thiel in Vance. Imagine if Thiel had less of a need for the spotlight. Mm-hmm. then you'd have Hago de Mosque. Now this is in 2012. Wow. Yeah.

Now, those who weren't especially in the know, likely only ever rarely heard his name, knew about Hago de Mosque. He was an invisible unknown except for those at the very, very top. He was a fairly unimportant and unremarkable son of a banking clan administrator on Magido. And by virtue of his age and his machinations as the Dark Lord of the Sith, Plagis was finishing his grand plan, capitalized grand plan, to culminate with him and Plagueis, or him in Palpatine ruling things.

So yes, Peter Thiel. Yeah. Meanwhile, back on that boo, Amidala, a newly elected queen at 14 years old, not even the youngest to be elected. Her predecessor had been a corrupt leader lining his own pockets and those of his friends. And that's why he gets deposed, and that's why she ends up being the queen. Because they want idealism. They want somebody who's not corrupted.

So they elect a child. Well, she ends up surprising Plagueis and Palpatine with how bold and decisive she is because she's a fucking kid. And yet, she storms in and retakes. Like, she comes to Coruscant. She escapes from the blockade. She does all this shit. So during the Trade Federation's blockade, which was also manipulated. But prior that, Palpatine had manipulated Amidala into calling for, no, after they escaped from the blockade, I'm sorry.

He manipulates her into calling for a vote of no confidence in Valorum, to whom Palpatine had seemed like a loyal booster. In fact, his name, among others, ends up on a short list of being chancellor. This is all episode one shit. This book is happening at the same time. And prior to that vote of no confidence, Palpatine, who'd raised a young Zabrock to think that he was the Sith apprentice, named Moll, sent the pseudo-apprentice to kill Quigon Jin because Plaguez had identified Quigon Jin as the linchpin to the whole thing unraveling. okay that tracks right now that death doesn't happen on tattooing like plagueus had hoped and like palpatine had planned but he does still end up dying on that boo but that's after palpatine had been elected chancellor so since palpatine had urged veloram to levy taxes on the outer rim trade routes

so as it turns out taxes matter under the or tariffs if you will under the trade federation's control in order to better protect those trade routes against pirates and to make sure that the trade federation's power was suburb legally palpatine was able to look like he was protecting Nabu. I would just like to point out that you've got somebody encouraging someone to raise taxes to protect people against piracy out on the frontiers. Yeah, hi, George. Yeah.

And simultaneously, while he's looking like he protects the Nabu, As Darth Sidious, Palpatine is cajoling the Trade Federation. He's admitted that he's a Darth to them. And now they're bound to him because he's divulged his secret. They don't know that he's Palpatine, though. They only know that he's Sidious. Now there are two of them. Like that whole thing, right?

So Palpatine, as Darth Sidious, cajoles the Trade Federation into blockading the Naboo and invading them as a former protest against these taxes. All right. Nabu had a ton of plasma and had been selling it for like 40 years via the trade federation and its subsidiaries. So in episode one, Chancellor Valorum is a feckless leader who cannot handle the invasion. He gets bogged down by procedure and parliamentary fuckery. Right.

Palpatine allows Amidala to see this happening. He brings her to see how the Senate works right as this is happening. And he's even in her ear calling the shots. now enter the so-and-so, the real power, and blah, blah, blah. Right. And that leads to her the next time she comes into the Senate to call for no vote of no confidence. And that opens the door for Palpatine to be nominated for Chancellor, making him the ideal sleeper candidate. Because he's from Nabu.

So the invasion gives him pity votes and protest votes. And his planet's proximity to the outer rim gives him. those outer rim planets are reason to vote for him. And others who didn't like Bail Antilles, who was essentially a corrupt, the others who didn't like Bail Antilles were essentially corrupt senators who didn't want someone with morals in there.

Right. They instead wanted to elect Aenly team of Malistair, who himself was hideously corrupt and the successor to the Grand Protectorate. Protectorate, yeah. Kind of like electorate. Nice. Who was the successor to the Grand Protectorate Chief

who'd ordered a hit on Plague's 20 years earlier. Oh, hey, there you go. You said, sorry, bail antilles or do you mean bail or Ghana? No, no, bail antilles. Okay. Yeah, bail is apparently a common name, like George. All right.

Now, given this split, Palpatine becomes everybody's favorite second choice, and he, Bill Clinton, his way to victory. Okay, I can buy it. Now, we all know that because it was in the movies. But behind the scenes, in the book, Darth Plagas, Plagueis himself had been moving things in this direction for quite some time. In the book, the last 20 pages or so encompass Amidala's retaking of Nabu, reports of Anakin winning a pod race on Tatouin because the pod races were a plot point for several other aspects

of what was happening in the galaxy 20 years prior as well. And it's a hell of a web that Plague is woven. So on the eve of the election of Palpatine to the chancellorship, he and Plagueis retire to Plague's penthouse to celebrate Palpatine's upcoming victory. Plagas is tired. Now, Plagas, again, there was a hit that was put out on him 20 years ago, and it carved off part of his face and it fucked up one of his hearts. Moons have three hearts.

Okay. And so he's got like a respirator and all kinds of stuff. And so he's a shell. of who he was, but his strength in the dark side has never waned, actually. Like, he's super duper strong in the dark side. And Palpatine is still... Remember, we see Chancellor Palpatine.

He's in his late 40s, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah. He's still the apprentice. Right. Right. Okay. So they go to Plaguez. Hego-Demask. They go to his penthouse to celebrate Palpatine's upcoming victory. Now, Plagas is tired,

and he lets his guard down around Palpatine, thinking that Palpatine is just enjoying the wine and his upcoming victory, and he's exuberant, and Palpatine is rehearsing and getting notes for his acceptance speech, and Palpatine makes sure that the wine is continuing to flow, and he keeps sandbagging parts of his speech so that Plagueis doesn't notice what Palpatine's doing. And this is a quote from the book for education purposes, of course, with dreamy weariness, beginning to get the better of him. It was all Plagueis could do to lift the glass to his nose.

No sooner did he set the drink down than it tipped over, saturating the tablecloth. His eyelids began to flickering clothes and his breathing slowed. In 20 years of never having had to contend with Plagas in a state of sleep, the transpirator clicked repeatedly in adjustment, as if almost as if in panic. So just real quick, Plagis was using the dark side for the last 20 years to never sleep

because he didn't want to be taken by surprise again. Oh, fuck. So his transpirator, like his respirator and bypass device, was like adjusting to the fact that he's actually sleeping. Okay, back to the thing. A few meters distant, Sidious came to a halt, gazing at Plague is for a long moment, as though making up his mind about something.

Then blowing out his breath, he set down his own, he set his own glass down, and reached for the cloak he had draped over a chair, swirling it around himself, he started for the door, only to stop shortly before he reached it. Turning and stretching out with a force, he glanced around the room as one might to fix, as one might to fix a memory in the mind. Briefly, his gaze fell on the droid, its glowing photoreceptors whirring to regard him in evident curiosity. A look of sinister purpose contorted Sidious's face.

Again, his eyes darted around the room, and the dark side whispered, your election assured, The sun guards absent. Plagis is unsuspecting in asleep. And he moved in a blur. Now, there had been a good deal of attention given throughout the book at the idea of the Sith's most important ability was to remain in an emptiness in the force so that those who could access the force would never notice them. Like, again, Plagas is standing there with Cipodeus and Duku and Quigon Jin. Right. None of them fucking notice, right?

Right. And it's why Palpatine was able to hang with multiple Jedi without them knowing who he was. And you see this in the later movies. So this is Lusano kind of retcon explaining, retconning, because the book is a prequel, but yeah. So it's also why Hago Damasco was able to do the same. And it's why their identities of Darth Sidious and Darth Plaguez were both secrets that only they knew. So I think that this was Palpatine's plan all along. Here's what follows.

crackling from his to fingertips, a web of blue lightning ground itself on the moon's breathing device. Plagas' eyes snapped open, the force gathering in him like a storm, but he stopped short of defending himself. This being, who had survived assassinations and killed countless opponents merely gazed at Sidious, until it struck him that Plagas was challenging him. Confident that he couldn't be killed, and in denial that he was slowly suffocating, He might have been simply experimenting with himself, actually courting death to put it in its place. Momentarily taken aback, Sidious stood absolutely still. Was Plagueis so self-deluded as to believe that he had achieved immortality?

The question lingered for only a moment. Then Sidious unleashed another tangle of lightning, drawing more deeply on the dark side than he ever had. Let's go over the second part of the speech, shall we? He said smoothing his tussle cloak, you useless old fool. With a snarl, he threw the... cloak back behind his shoulders and leaned toward Plagueis, planting his palms on the low table that was now puddled with spilled wine. It was Hago de Mosque as Darth Plagas who came to Nibu, determined to suck the planet dry of plasma and set the trade federation up as its overseers.

It was Hago de Mosque as Plagas who then set his sights on seemingly confused young man, and with meticulous skill manipulated him into committing patricide, matricide, fratricide. Darth Plagas, who took him as an apprentice, sharing some of his knowledge, but withholding his most powerful secrets, denying the apprentice his wishes as a means of controlling him, instilling in him a sense of murderous rage and turning him to the dark side. Cidius stood at his full height glaring. It was Plagas who criticized the early efforts of his apprentice, and who once choked him in a demonstration of his superiority. Plagis, who denigrated him in private for hiring an anept assassin to carry out the murder of Senator Kim, and who yet allowed himself to be tricked

by the grand and nearly killed by mercenaries. Plagus, who turned away from the grand plan to focus entirely on himself in an egotistical quest for immortality. Plagas, who had the temerity to criticize his apprentice for having inculcated too much pride in the assassin he had trained. Plagas, who attempted to turn his equally powerful apprentice into a messenger and mere intermediary. and Plagas, who watched in secret while his apprentice tasked their true intermediary to reveal the reborn Sith to the galaxy. Sidius paused, then in derision added, Plagis the Wise, who in his time truly was, except at the end, trusting that the rule of two had been superseded,

and failed to realize that he would not be excused from it. Plagas the wise, who forged the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy has ever known, and yet who forgot to leave a place for himself, whose pride never allowed him, to question that he would no longer be needed. Still struggling for breath, Pagas managed to stand, but only to collapse back on the couch, knocking a statue from its perch. Sidious moved in, his hands upraised,

to deliver another bolt, his expression arctic enough to chill the room. A forced storm gathered over the couch, spreading out into concentric rings, to wash over Cidius and hurl objects to all corners. In the center of it, Plagas' form became anamorphic, and then resumed shape as the storm began to

Wayne. Sidious eyes bored into the moons. How often you said that the old order of Bain had ended with the death of your master. An apprentice no longer needs to be stronger, you told me, merely more clever. The era of keeping score, suspicion, and betrayal was over. Strength is not the flesh, but in the force. He laughed. You lost the game on the very first day you chose to train me to rule by your side, or better still under your thumb. Teacher, yes, and for that I will be eternally grateful, but master, never. Sirius peered at Plagueus through the force. Oh yes, by all means, try to gather your midi-chlorians, Plagus.

He held his thumb and forefinger close together. Try to keep yourself alive while I choked the life out of you. Plagis gulped for air and lifted an arm toward him. There's the rub, you see, Cidius said in a philosophical tone. All the ones you experimented on, killed and brought back to life, they were a little more than toys. Now, though, you get to experience it from the other side, and look what you discover. In a body that is being denied error in which even the force is failing, your own

midi chlorians can't accomplish what you are asking of them. Hatred stains Sidious's eyes. I could save you, of course, return you from the brink as you did Venomis. I could retask your body to repair the damage already done to your lungs, your hearts, your aged brain, but I'll do no such thing. The idea here is not to drag you back at the last moment, but to bring you to death's door and shove you through to the other side. Sidious side, a tragedy really for someone so wise, one who could oversee the lives and deaths of all beings except himself. The moon's eyes began to

bulge, his pale flesh to turn cyanotic. You may be wondering, when did he begin to change? The truth is that I haven't changed. As we have clouded the minds of the Jedi, I clouded yours. Never once did I have any intention of sharing power with you. I need to be. I need to be a needed to learn from you, no more, no less, to learn all of your secrets, which I trusted you would eventually reveal. But what made you think that I would need you after that? Vanity, perhaps, your sense of self-importance? You've been nothing more than a pawn in a game played by a genuine master, the Sithari. A cruel laugh escaped him. Reflect back on even the past few years, assuming you have the capacity. Yinshore, Dorvala, Eradu, Mal, the Nemoidians, Nabu, an army of clones,

the fallen Jedi Duku. You think those were your ideas, when in fact they were mine, cleverly suggested to you so that you could feed them back to me. You were far too trusting, Plagueus. No true Sith can ever really care about another. This has always been known. There is no way but my way. Cidius's eyes narrowed. Are you still with me, Plagis? Yes, I detect that you are, although barely. A few final words then. I could have let you die in the Fibosi district, but I didn't know. I couldn't allow that to happen when there was still so much I didn't know. So many powers that remained just outside my reach, and as it happened, I acted wisely in rescuing you. Otherwise, how could I be standing here and you be dying? I actually thought you would die on sojourn, and you would have had, you would have if the

hut hadn't tipped you off to Varunus scheme. And yet, that also turned out for the best, for even After all you've taught me, I might not have been able to take the final steps to the chancellorship without your help in manipulating the Senate and bringing into play your various and sundry allies. If it's any consolation, I'm being honest when I say that I could not have succeeded without you. But now that we've won the race, I've no need for a co-chancellor. Your presence, much less your unnecessary counsel, would only confuse matters. I have mall to do what the rest, I have only, I have mall to do what the risk of discovery might not allow me to do. While I execute the rest of the grand plan, growing an army, fomenting rebellion and fabricating

intergalactic war, corraling the Jedi and catching them unawares. Rest easy in your grave, Plagas. In the end, I will be proclaimed emperor. The Sith will have had their revenge, and I will rule the galaxy. Plagis slid down to the floor and rolled face down. Death rattled in his lungs as he died. Wow. That is a prime example of monologing as a trope. Yes. Like, oh, and he started monologuing. But in this context, between those two characters, it makes perfect sense.

Yeah. Because what are the Sith, if not absolute egotists? Oh, yeah. Absolute egotists. The Sith. are what happens when you have, like as an organization, they are what happens when you have, what's it called? Griffiths?

Griffindor gone wrong. Yeah. Yeah. That's why Annen was never an effective Sith because he was Hufflepuff gone wrong. Okay, I can see that. Yeah. The only problem with the idea of Aniken being Hufflepuff gone wrong is there. There is never a point at which he does not choose to do things in the most dramatic way possible.

That's true. That's true. But every fucking time. He is a trauma queen. True. But every fucking time, it's my mommy, my girlfriend, my wife. Yeah, all right. My best friend.

My best friend. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. All right. I see what you're saying here is he's a helpful puff with with a secondary. Gryffindor.

Lunar Gryffindor. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Pretty goddamn well written. Yeah. And I appreciate the way they managed to, the way the author managed to hit literally every one of those points. Mm-hmm.

without it feeling like okay right okay and you're bringing us all up to date on you know this is the this is the mandatory info dump what is the staff of raw you know it's yeah yeah yeah um like managing to communicate all of that without it feeling forced uh and he i didn't even mean to do that um I blame the beer. Friend of the show, Derek, by the way, has pointed out to me that you did a really good pun without realizing it, like a few, a few episodes back. You said something was fractally awful. Yeah.

And apparently, I don't remember the context for it, to be honest. It's been many episodes since. So I'm going to go back and re-listen, but apparently it was a good pun. Okay. Cool. Yay. But go me. Yeah.

But I, you know, in this instance, you know, from what I have gathered about Darth Plagueis from you and what we all know about Sidious Palpatine,

this is exactly the kind of drama queen shit. Yes. That would be a thousand percent in character. Yes. You know, for both of them, really, but especially for Sidious.

You know, if you look at his characterization. I'm not going to say development because he doesn't really develop very far from here. No, he doesn't. But if you look at his characterization in Clone Wars and in, you know, rebels, a couple of times I think he shows up. It's a thousand percent on brand. Oh, 100 percent. For him to do that. Yeah. So, yeah, well done there. Yeah. So it's clear that Plagueis' death is. Palpatine's coming out party. His murder of Plagueis is his declaration of his own independence of the rule of two. Not only as a person, but as a Sith who is now rejecting that same rule of two.

He, Palpatine, a very powerful man was put there by the wealth of others and by the votes of others still, and he has sought to overthrow the current order and put himself in charge of all of it. Might I remind you, it was Hago. de Mosque as Darth Plaguez, who came to Nabu, determined to suck the planet dry of plasma and set the trade federation up as its overseers. Sounds a lot like he has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. Or he has plundered our seas, ravaged our coast, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our

people. Yeah, there's a parallel there. It was Hago de Mosque as Plagas who then set his sights on a seemingly confused young man and with meticulous skill manipulated him into committing patricide, matricide, matricide, and fratricide. Or he has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. Okay. Yeah.

It was Plagueis who criticized the early efforts of his apprentice and who once choked him in a demonstration of his superiority. Or he has called together legislative bodies unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. Okay. Plague is who turned away from the grand plan to focus entirely on himself in an egotistical quest for immortality. Or he is abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. Yeah. No, I definitely see it. How often you said that the old order of Bain had ended with the death of your master,

an apprentice no longer needs to be stronger, you told me, merely more clever. The era of keeping score, suspicion, and betrayal was over. Strength is not in the flesh, but in the force. Or, we must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in peace friends. We therefore, the representatives of the United States of America and General Congress, assembled appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, due in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish,

and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved in that as free independent states, they have the power to fully, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace,

contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts, things which independent states may of right do. Yeah. Yeah, I can see it. The,

the question I have, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say quibble because I'm not thinking, I'm like trying to find a whole, here but the question that occurs to me as you're pointing out these parallels is in a situation where we have anybody declaring their independence how to what extent these parallels are unavoidable or or I don't want to say universal but that's that's the word that comes to mind like you know you're a dick fuck off I'm done right I'm out of here um you know and and the

the um the um manipian uh model of the of the of the repetition and list how much of that like the author of Darth Plagas mm-hmm It occurs to me to wonder, to what extent he was consciously aware of that, or if that's just enough of a trope? Yeah. You know what I mean? There's got to have been, like, I mean, obviously, all of us who have grown up here have heard the Declaration of Independence

at least once in our lives all the way through, you know? Yeah. the missed all the shit you've done wrong as you're killing the guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean. I guess I'm just wondering if it's a conscious thing or if it's, you know, pattern on the wallpaper.

I think it's pattern on the wallpaper because I dug deep to find all kinds of interviews with James Lucano and nobody asked that question. He did not say at any point that he was patterning it after the Declaration of Independence or at least that I could find. If I'm wrong, somebody feel free to correct me. But yeah. And there's no mention of Manipian satire. But like you said, like, you know, when one is dissolving, it's almost like the bonds, whether it's through murder or it's through, you know, a breakup letter that the rest of the world gets to read.

Right. You know, it seems to be every time by a very powerful person who was put in that position by wealth and by politics. Right. And now they're like, oh, it's my turn. And efforts like that seem to require the will to power of wealthy and powerful men who were put there by those who came before them who then want to pull the ladder up. And they do seem to require a Manipian satire to a company that will to power. yeah it's it's kind of a repetitive trope it's it's a it is a thing that keeps coming up over and over again yeah so anyway all right there you go there's uh the declaration of independent you're such a prick yes episode and a half then you drop that shit on me yeah so but you know what that's why i

showing up to do this yeah yeah um because every so often you manage to pull one of these and I have to I have to go into the other room and be like Damien's a dick my wife is my husband says and you know I'm like no no I need to explain to you the details well now you have a model for how to do it yeah well you know I got a birthday coming up I mind that being a toast you know okay there you go that'll work that'll where I'll save it for your 50th though there you go oh yeah yeah there you go so yeah yeah I was gonna ask what you've gleaned but like we're gleaning so yeah um what I what I have what I have what I it's not so much what I have gleaned because at this point I'm two very strong beers in so it's

kind of what's rattling around in my head sure um the the political philosophy and and political will of people in positions of privilege is a well that will never run dry. Yeah. Like however you can be born on second or third base and think you hit a triple. and you're going to assume that, you know, your concerns are the universal concerns. Yeah. And like, no matter the time period in history, no matter who we're talking about, that seems to be, like, part of the human condition is, you know, we all, we all look at our children or we all think, you know, I want to leave something better. for my kid, right?

And then we leave something better for our kid, and our kid takes that and sees that as the baseline. Yeah, that becomes an arm. And thank goodness. Well, yeah, I mean, that's awesome. Yeah. But then depending on exactly how much entitlement is involved in that baseline. True.

You know, and I think one of the failures of the United States, in the 20th century as a society is we did not think enough, and I'm saying we, but I really mean the generation before you and me, did not think enough about the importance of teaching values that were not tied directly to

late stage capitalism. Yeah. Like, you know, the value of community, the value of compassion, the value of empathy, the value of empathy, like to the point that now we have people saying that, you know, empathy is a sin. Like, I'm sorry, read the goddamn book. Right. You know, as an adult. convert to Catholicism, you're getting it wrong. Yeah.

You know, and so now we have these very wealthy, very powerful people in positions in our society who have no moral compunction. They have not been, they have not been educated to have a moral compunction to give a shit about anybody but themselves. In fact, they've been shown quite the opposite through a steady diet of propaganda. Yeah. Yeah. And all of that, and all of that, in service to the manufactured narrative of the Cold War.

Mm-hmm. The, the, I mean, the Cold War, the Cold War itself, the, um, uh, potential. that existed, you know, in a conflict between the United States and the USSR, the potential there for, you know, nuclear annihilation of, you know, civilization as we know it is, is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the narrative that we all get educated about, you know, capitalism is synonymous with democracy and freedom. Like, yeah, there's a couple of very significant flaws in that logic. If you spend any time actually studying economics and politics, they're not synonymous.

No, no. In fact, there might be a time where they can braid together okay, but they will always end up in a knot and a rat's nest that stops everything. Yeah. And, you know, and so that that has led us into. that and you know going back farther of course our nation's original sin

of you know effectively I don't want to yeah well chattel slavery ultimate expression of of capitalism of yeah not even late stage capitalism

I don't want to say that our country invented racism because there was some stuff going on with the Spanish that was a thing but we certainly did a lot of work there. Oh, we took the baton and ran with it hard. And so, you know, our own relationship to and legacy of white supremacy and our own elevation of capitalism and our own elevation of capitalism to a level of it being an ethic.

A virtue. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what I meant. But, yeah. Like I had somebody say to me the other night, that she feels very torn because she's 26 and most of her life was aimed at being productive of use and finding a way to make a living doing that.

And she said to me, she's like, I no longer dream of labor. And yet she still feels bad, not knowing what she's going to do for life, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm like, well, yeah, because there's software, there's firmware. and there's hardware. That's firmware. It's been put into your head long enough that you will forever struggle against that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's as real as body dysmorphia is. Yeah. So, yeah, fully agree. Yeah. And, you know, the, I had a whole thing in my head, but like I said, two strong beers.

Sure. So, but, you know, yeah, We have cultivated a society where the narcissistic virtues of late stage capitalism have put awful, awful, incompetent people in charge. Mm-hmm. In charge. Yeah, it's no longer a bug. It's a feature. It's, yeah.

And the ways that, like, seeing the juxtaposition of the Declaration of Independence, which I have a very profound love of, like, that that document for me is, a sacred thing. And like everything we said about the people who wrote it, I 100% agree with. But what they created in that document as a template for, you know, ideally how shit ought to be. Like, okay, you know what? If you could live up to that and maybe take out the part about, you know, Native Americans being savages and all. Yeah. Like that's, that's, that's, that's bad.

but, you know, the, you know, rightful power of the government being taken from, you know, being derived from the will of the governed, I'm, you know, a thousand percent there, you know, if every government could embody that, that would be awesome. You know, and looking at that and then looking at the Manipian satire of Darth Plague is telling, or not Darth Sidious, rather. telling Plagueis, here's your you suck speech, which by the way, is itself a trope. Yep. Which I'm going to have to do

one of my trope things on because it's a good one. But like, you know, here's your you suck speech. A you, seeing those do you ex-exposed, I'm like, oh, yeah, they're, you know,

whether you believe in God or not, the idea of original sin does have some real world applications there. Like there are some deep-seated flaws here that we need to reckon with. So, yeah, that's what's rattling around my brain at the end of all of this, along with just like, oh, my God, you break. Yeah. Well played.

Thank you. That's one in the wind column for you. Good job. Good job. Well, what do you want people to intake? this week. What I would like people to intake is I would like people to look at the Declaration of Independence. I would like people to read the Federalist papers.

There's a lot of those. Can you narrow it down? There's a lot of them. You know, the numbers right now are not coming together for me. I will, at a later date, I will have to figure out which numbers I think are most important. So I'm going to say, forget about the Federalist papers. but the preamble to the Constitution, I think I very much want everybody to also take a look at.

Those are going to be my recommendations for this week. What about you? Darth Plagueis by James Lusano. It's a wonderful stand-alone. If you have seen your Star Wars movies, it'll slot right in there for you. And if not, I dare say it's still a really good character study. And I highly recommend it.

So very cool. Cool. Where can they find us? We collectively can be found on our website at wauwobo-wabwoba.gikhistorytime.com. We can be found on the Amazon podcast app, on the Apple podcast app, and on Spotify. And wherever you have found us, please take the time to give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. and be sure to hit the subscribe button. And beyond that, sir, where can you be found?

You can find me every first Friday of the month down at Sacramento Comedy Spot at 9 p.m. So as of this recording, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you missed February. So March 6, April 3rd, and May 1st. Come on down to Sacramento Comedy Spot, $15. Capital Punishment. I, Justine, Emily, and four guests will make you laugh your ass off that night and grown in a very similar way to the way that Ed both loves and hates me right now.

So go to a sackcomityspot.com and get your tickets there, $15 and then bring some money for some merch and come on down and enjoy yourself. Very cool. Cool. Well, oh, by the way, on the Apple podcast app, you will not be able to find our episodes before episode 44, I think. Really? Yeah. I think we've just, we've gone through so many that there's no way. So I think, I think, I think, I think that you've, can still find all of our episodes on Spotify. Okay. Although I'm not entirely sure, and I'd rather you went elsewhere anyway. But you could go to our website and download them from there, because all the way back to

episode one is still there. So, I highly recommend. So, but anyway, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, I will make it legal.