Behind the Bastards - Part Two: How The Rich Ate Christianity

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

Robert is joined again by Dan and Jordan from knowledge fight to continue to discuss the plot to make Christianity capitalist. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is M. William Phelps. For the past several years, I've been reinvestigating the cases of two young women abducted from their small towns, their bodies dumped deep in the Ozark woods with a connection to one very familiar name. Find them, torture them, kill them, BTK. Secrets finally revealed, sending authorities rushing to confront a suspect who's been hiding in plain sight for decades. Listen to Paper Ghosts Season 4 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at The Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on The Daily Show Ears Edition Podcast. The Daily Show Podcast has everything you need

to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to The Daily Show Ears Edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. more to offer you than you ever thought. You know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? In this world where there's a lot of hopelessness, people need this movie. George Bailey was never

born. Join the many partaking in this one-of-a-kind podcast experience. Listen to all 10 episodes available now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. SaveGeorgeBailey.com. Subscribe now. This is Adam Davidson, and I'm talking with John Seifer and Jerry O'Shea. So what did you guys do for a living? We worked in the CIA for 30 plus years, trying to recruit and run spies around the world.

We are the guys who steal secrets. And we deal with a lot of conspiracy theories inside of the agency. Each episode, we take a conspiracy and deconstruct it. Listen to Mission Implausible on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, yeah. I hate when you open the episode like that. I really do.

I love it, Sophie. It makes me feel... I miss the atonal shrieking, to be honest. No, I like an almost sexual expression of satisfaction. I hated it so much. That's how you start a podcast, Sophie. That's how you start a podcast. And to be almost sexual with me,

my guests today, Dan and Jordan of Knowledge Fight. Dan and Jordan, on a scale of one to ten, how uncomfortable? Oh, wow. You're just buying in. Excellent. I was doing Macho Man Randy Savage. Yes, he was. I was doing straight up, that's what I sound like during sex.

Yeah. That's going to be very polarizing among the audience. Why? You know know people will have opinions why people will have opinions why i'm not gonna read those opinions uh i i for my own mental health i don't do that very often uh less polarizing though the gracefulness with which randy macho man savage would drop an elbow off the top rope that's something everyone can appreciate um yeah our next episode we'll uh we'll we'll have me and the guests all slowly eat cereal in front of the mic so we'll see what people hate more the sex

or the cereal cereal see you could uh have them name the cereals people might accidentally become a proud boy yeah robert guess the cereal that i'm eating is this cap and crunch is this crunch that could be our new show sophie that's the whole show there's not enough money in the world to get me to sit through that but there is enough cereal we can do this uh so you you know, part two, right? We should probably get back into the story. So, by February of 1947, Fifield has built this list of minister representatives, right?

That's what he calls the members of spiritual mobilization, because it's specifically an organization for religious leaders. And he calls these kind of, you know, you might call them foot soldiers or whatnot in his war to make Christianity capitalism. He calls them minister representatives. Repristers. Yeah, repristers. And he

starts doing this in 1944. He has about 400 minister representatives in 1944. By 1947, there's more than 10,000 of them. With NAM money behind him, he's able to get out his message and keep spiritual mobilization together despite its meteoric rise. He finds great success in arguing against the pagan statism of socialist politics rather than against a social safety net, and for

the dignity of individual man as a child of God rather than against the responsibility of rich people to pay taxes. Clergy begin to flood Fifield's Los Angeles office. His phone rings off the hook for weird, like, it's usually people, like, when people call, it's citizens who have, like, come across his organization somewhere, and they're writing him because they want to get sent political tracts. That's a big part of what spiritual mobilization does, is it sends out these right wing zines uh and books from authors like garrett garrett um and garrett garrett is g-a-r-e-t is his first name and then his last name is spelled the right way have you heard of this guy i don't know no i have not i've never heard of anyone being named garrett twice yeah it's a bad decision

obviously that's twice as many times as is the wrong number of times. But Robert, is it a typo or is it spelled the first name spelled differently than the last name? It is the first name spelled differently. Is it a key and peel bit? I actually kind of like the different spellings.

Yeah, the first name has one R, one T. The last name has two r's two two r's two t's yeah or is it garrett yeah i don't know you're gonna give him that i have questions so he garrett garrett is like a an ayn rand type figure uh like he's a libertarian fiction writer yes uh i mean based as hell cool so he writes he writes some of the most insufferable sounding literary libertarian fiction i've ever heard of you can find all of his books today hosted online for free by the mysis institute if you if you want to read

garrett garrett uh he was big in the 20s and 30s and in if the summaries i'm reading or anything to judge by like it is some of the most insufferable shit ever one of his books is called satan's bushel and here's how the mysis institute describes satan's bushel what is satan's bushel it is the last bushel that the farmer puts on the market that breaks the price that is reduces it to the point that wheat farming is no longer profitable the puzzle that afflicts the wheat farmers is that they sell their goods when the price is low and have no goods to sell when the price is high. Withholding goods from the market is one answer. But why should any farmer do that?

What is the answer to this problem? Working from this premise, then, as implausible as it may sound. But the central figure in this book is the price of wheat. It is the main source of drama. The settings are the wheat pit at the Chicago Exchange in the Kansas wheat fields. fields yes he wrote a book where the protagonist is the concept of wheat as a commodity i fucking love how bored satan has to be all the time where he's like listen guys we've got nothing going on today i don't know let's fuck with the price of wheat yeah there's no more relatable protagonist than the price of wheat the hero's journey of wheat wheat wheat initially rejects the call to adventure

but then accepts it after finding a mentor and the resolution of course is subsidies yes it all works it all works out it's perfect um it is also just the weed of darkness was my favorite book very telling because garrett garrett is huge he's one of the most popular authors that five fields distributing it's very telling of these guys ideology that like you hear hey we gotten so good at farming wheat that it's it's basically free and instead of being like oh good no one will ever not have bread again, the dream of human beings for thousands of years finally realized, it's, oh, my God, then we won't make money. It's unfortunate the way that the system works.

A lot of drama in the book hinges upon someone who's apparently poisoning all of the wheat as a favor to the farmers like poisoning the wheat to kill it so that it will make wheat more valuable to help the farmers like this guy sounds like the name was monsanto this is crazy this is the most amazing book i've ever heard of predictive programming if i understand correctly does is the person who's poisoning the wheat a heroic character? I think so. I'm going to be honest with you guys. I didn't read this fucking book. I absolutely did not read this fucking book.

I read a summary of the book by the Mises Institute, which, by the way, y'all will enjoy this. In its biography of Garrett Garrett, the Mises Institute notes that he was, quote, as noted for his critiques of the New Deal and U.S. involvement in the Second World War. Now, hmm, right? You hear that? Hmm. The only war for whom being against is inherently suspicious. No, no, no, no, no.

It's not that they're against World War II. It's that they're against the concept of war. If you are against World War II, I had better see a quaker somewhere in your biography or i am making some dire assumptions you know the uh the misa institute is one of the most the insufferable uh fucks i've ever run across like they they've come up in some of our stuff before and yeah one of the things i i note uh in particular is like they're like they they have a long argument on their website about why you don't have a positive obligation to feed your children that's the good shit that's the good shit that's the libertarian stuff i love right there

fucking when you've got like fred coke arguing about the fact that people should be able to sell themselves into slavery and fucking yeah yeah that Yeah. That's the good shit. If you can't, then do you really own yourself? Yeah. It's really funny to like, it's, it's shameful that you've got something as batshit wacko as that is like slavery is good.

Cause otherwise you don't own yourself. And this guy decides to write a book about fucking wheat prices. Like, come on, man. There's so many cooler places to take this i mean what's trading places about but orange prices it's the same central no no it's the main character right i feel like i also there was a gorilla that's not okay is this wheat book uh

available on tape uh i don't know about that but it is in the public domain. Dan, you could do a free audio book of the week. Let me write this down. I'm going to do this. Satan's bushel. Oh, man, that is an MST3K movie waiting to happen. I had to note, we're going on a bit of a tangent with Garrett Garrett, but it is important to get some texture as to the kind of material that spiritual mobilization is putting out. And when I saw that Garrett Garrett had been an opponent of u.s involvement in the second world war i did

a little bit more digging and i found an article from garrett garrett titled war has lost its pockets from the saturday evening post in 1940 where garrett argues he argues a lot in this article one of the things he says is that it wouldn't make sense for the nazis to use forced labor because that's bad for business sure nazis they wouldn't use forced labor that's not very efficient i'm gonna be i'm gonna be straight with you indisputable indisputable great argument i've heard that same sort of like tone uh from libertarians about slavery in america as well like that people wouldn't mistreat their slaves? That doesn't make economic sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Cool. Okay, guys. Anyways, my favorite book in the Bible is Exodus. I don't know why, but... So, spiritual mobilization sells this guy's books like hotcakes. Now flush with cash, Fifield decides to draw in new ministers by making the gospel of free enterprise profitable.

In October of 1947, he holds a national sermon competition with the perils to freedom as a theme, and he offers $5,000 in prize money. More than 20,000 ministers submit entries, which is 15% of all clergymen in the nation. So this is now, this isn't just I sent a letter to a bunch of people. This is I have made a connection. So this is now this isn't just I sent a letter to a bunch of people. This is I have made a connection. They are engaging directly with the and making propaganda of their own now, which is a really smart way to do this. Right. Can I ask a question?

Yeah. Has has part of that been like because because everything that we're talking about now is purely economic and currently in the present day all of that is tied in with a real bloodthirst so in this time period was that separate was there still that undercurrent of like and you're gonna have to kill infidels like that kind of thing or yeah that's there i mean these guys are very we'll talk the korean war comes into this a little bit um you know they're they're this is this immediate post-war period there's not quite as much of that just because everyone's kind of tired of fighting for a little bit everyone's already fought out but once we know several million died whatever once we start getting into these wars in korea and vietnam yes these guys get very pro killing

the communists and you know this is cool this This gives birth to the to the chunks of the conservative movement that are pro Rhodesia and all that. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Love it. Yes. So Pew and the NAM are so happy with this. This thing that Fifield carries out, getting all these ministers to engage with this propaganda that they double his annual budget. Pew generally takes a lead here in soliciting donations from his rich friends. He sees this as a success and he wants to like a crack has been made in this

wall of leftism in the clergy in America and he wants to shoot as much fucking water into that crack as possible to try to expand it. So he tells his fellow rich guy friends, it is hot, that spiritual mobilization should be at the top of the list for all their donations.

Citing the polls that he paid for that showed ministers as the most influential molders of public opinion. But as this experiment rolled forward, there were some on the left who could see the shape of what was starting to take form. I'm going to quote now from Kevin Cruz's book, One Nation Under God, How Corporate America Invented Christian America. Quote, In February 1948, journalist Kerry McWilliams wrote an acidic cover story on it for The Nation. With Save Christianity and the Save Western Capitalism chants becoming almost indistinguishable, a major battle for the minds of the clergy, particularly those of the Protestant persuasion, is now being waged in America, he began.

For the most part, the battle lines are honestly drawn and represent a sharp clash in ideologies, but now and then the reactionary side tries to fudge a bit by backing movements which mask their true character and real sponsors. Such a movement is spiritual mobilization. McWilliams explained to his readers the scope of its operations, noting that it now had nine organizers working in high-rent offices in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and had distributed hundreds of thousands of pamphlets

by pro-business authors for free. But no one knew who was funding the operation, McWilliams warned. There had only been vague statements from Fifield that non-ministers who have a common stake in the America and Christian traditions cannot contribute service and that it was only natural that they give substance instead. In McWilliams' withering account, Fifield came off as a charlatan who prostrated himself before the apostles of rugged individualism to secure his own fame and fortune

and, in return, prostituted himself for their needs. So, and this is how it's framed at the time because they don't have access to, like, the letters

and stuff I've been reading. They don't know that this is all funded by the NAM, right? That's not super obvious to anyone writing it, but he can tell from what Fifield's saying

that, like, there is some shady business interest in spiritual mobilization like he's speaking about it i always love more than anything whenever people use adjectives that are thoroughly inadequate for the job of like hey you know he's fudging things like no there's a multi-million dollar campaign behind a lie yeah this is not fudging things he's not like oh it's not it's not fifty dollars it's a hundred dollars it's this motherfucker is killing everyone yeah i mean obviously at the time too like mick williams doesn't have all that data there's only

so much you can say in an article without being sued but he you can see he's like he's he he knows what's happening he just doesn't have the proof of it, right? He's trying to put that out as clearly as he can. Something's rotten in Denmark. Ooh. The Dutch East India Company. Yeah. This scares the hell out of the NAM, right? Like this guy's kind of on to them.

And that he's attacking Fifield as like a charlatan. So they mobilize a bunch of rich guys, including the president of the Republic Steel Corporation to send out mass mailers to other business owners and executives defending Fifield. And as a fun fact, the guy who sends out this mass letter is Charles White, the president of Republic Steel.

Charles White presided over the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre when 10 Republic Steel union workers were gunned down by policemen for striking so that's the guy he sends out a letter to a bunch of rich guys calling five field one of my personal friends to solicit donations for i was literally about to say republic steel sounds like a dystopian future name for like the overarching and then the next thing you said murdered 10 people and I'm like well you know what

let's not even I'm going to read a quote from this letter that White writes defending Fifield Our company has supported this crusade generously for some years and we believe in it deeply the more so since I have read this irresponsible article and see how the opposition feels about

spiritual mobilization White then went on to ask the people he'd written this letter to why don't you send a check at once and in short order more than a hundred thousand dollars had been donated by business owners to spiritual mobilization in like a couple of days um it's great like he's doing the whole they're trying to cancel us like the liberal media is trying to cancel us you need to send send us money. Very ahead of his time, you know? Trailblazer. Just such a, like, you're getting money from people. If you get a hundred

thousand dollars from people, it's people who do not give a shit about money. You know? Like, in two days, that's crazy. Yeah, and again, that's like a million or two. That's like a couple million bucks then. Yeah. So, spiritual mobilization itself responded to this criticism in the nation in that

time-honored tradition of smart shitheads it got bigger and louder in 1949 it launched the freedom story a 15-minute radio program presented by fiefield and here's crews and politico describing this in the original scripts fiefield made direct attacks on democratic programs at home but his lawyer warned him they would lose the public service designation that gave them free airtime if he were too plain spoken with partisan attacks. Instead, he advised. Hey, buddy, you're going to go down the Mike Lindell route. You got to stop. You got to stop.

I can see the future. You're going to become Mark Lindell. No, that's not even what he's worried about. He's fine with him becoming Mike Lindell. He doesn't want him to have to pay for this ad by it being too political. It's going to cut into overhead. Right, right. lindell he doesn't want him to have to pay for this ad by it being too political overhead yeah right so he advises instead that the five field should basically instead of don't talk about

democratic policies in the u.s that's not allowed you you'll get you know we'll have to pay for it then but if you talk about foreign examples of the minister keeping socialism then that's not political hey why don't we own why don't we own Venezuela? I mean, honestly. Look into your heart. So anything outside the United States, not politics. Not politics. Can't be politics.

Let's start the Crusades, baby! Nonpartisan. Exactly. We just talked about how nonpartisan the Crusades were. Yeah. Ah, good times. So since Fifield's NAMM backers had lost a lot of friends in media, or had a lot of friends in media, it was child's play to ensure that this freedom story got free airtime in over 500 stations.

So, this thing, again, and they're like, you motherfuckers could pay for this. But, you know, it also sounds better if it's not political, right? It doesn't sound like I'm a guy making a right wing, like ad if I'm just talking about the history and the dangers of creeping socialism to freedom in these other countries. You know, it's it's it's a smarter way to do it. So this is a big hit gets out to a lot of earbuds. And Fifield's next big move is a four day conference in 1950, with 25 of the most popular ministers in the United States and an assortment of big business leaders, including Crane and Pew.

A pair of economists, Friedrich von Hayek and Ludwig von Mies, were also present. I bet they're great! The Austrians are here! Ludwig von Mies! Top, yeah, Mies was so great! Yeah, Mies is back in the mix! In between writing articles about how you don't have to feed your kids

and how child labor is fine. What are you doing feeding your kids? You're your time shows up here good absolutely yeah good for him he sits up perhaps children should starve and a rounds of applause come from the ministers and business leaders in the audience like freedom hey listen when i when i went to and took my dog jake to basic dog training the dog trainer was very specific. She said, you have to work for your paycheck. And now it makes perfect sense to me. People are dogs is what I'm trying to say.

Yeah. That's that's what that's that's a big part of what's happening at this conference. So Fifield describes the goal of this like symposium as to, quote, define the conflicts in this critical period of civilization and to establish freedoms answers to these problems. Tentatively, the agenda will cover such subjects as the relationship of liberty to Christianity, equality and morality competition and corporation and the application of true

Christian principles to present day problems. So this is a big hit. It gets the most popular preachers in the world or in the country together with all of the richest people in the country and a bunch of libertarian economists. And they all start being buddies with each other and they start like spreading their ideas around. And these ministers go back to their gigantic churches and like start talking about some of the things they've encountered. Social mobilization launches a magazine called Faith and Freedom,

which was billed as a place where ministers could write in and express their views freely, debating with one another over the issues of the day. But almost all of those debates were really just screeds against social welfare, right?

There's not like a left-wing, right-wing debate. It's like, how much should we stop feeding people? Right, right. And this is actually where we get into one of the precursors of the modern right wing like bugbear that Satanists are secretly behind socialism.

I think this is the start of that. And I want to read a quote here. This is from one of the ministers who wrote for faith and freedom and an essay he did called Pagan Origin of the Social Gospel, which in which he argues that pagan influenced strands of Christianity, and he includes Unitarianism here, had led to a, quote, shift in faith from God to man, from eternity to time, from the individual to the group, from individual conversion to social coercion, and from the church to the state.

That, like, pagan origin of the social gospel, that, like, the idea of a social welfare state in any way, is is he's not calling it satanist but it's it's not christian it's fundamentally anti-christian is is don't swear that argument starts i think yeah it's a transition towards satanism it's god then humans then satan's next yeah yeah yeah totally you know i i feel i feel for the for these people right because you used to be able to just call someone a witch and people would believe you. Yeah. But now you have to do this whole dog and pony show with all these lies.

You have to do all this pagan shit. You can't just say people who like socialism are witches, so let's kill them. But to be fair, they did do empirical tests about whether or not people were witches. Wow, they were heavy. Yeah. Yeah. Or they were able to be crushed by rocks if they weren't cultures like there were things you would feed them and if they die they're

not a witch but if they survive they're a witch or vice versa it works both ways get a job or have a giant rock tossed on you i feel like this is very simple so in 1950 the republicans you know after this is after several years of nam and five field working together in 1950, the Republicans, you know, after several years of NAM and Fifield working together, in 1950, the Republicans have a huge win at the midterm elections, right? And this is taken by Pew and the others in NAM as evidence that what they're doing is working, right? Like, this shit is paying big political dividends. More funds poured into spiritual mobilization. poured into spiritual mobilization. Fifield celebrated in a letter to the head of General Motors, writing, quote, We are having quite a deluge of letters from across the country indicating the feeling that spiritual mobilization has had some part in the awakening which was evidenced by the elections. Of course, we are a little proud and very happy for whatever good we have been able

to do in waking people up to the peril of collectivism and the importance of freedom under God. Meaning, now that the Nazis have been gone for a little while, fascism can totally be popular again. Let's move it back into fascism. Let's get back into it! But we'll call it freedom under God, because freedom is a tiny number of people owning everything,

and it's under God, because that's what God wants, you know? And also definitely not paying taxes that's yeah well for sure god does not want you paying taxes yeah what's the point of having serfs if you have to pay taxes to help them live when they're too old to work yeah i bet they have more than one that'll be twice as many of them we did get there eventually do you have a positive responsibility to help people who are dying misa says no no no of course not and eventually do you have a positive responsibility to help people who are dying mises says no no no of course not and in fact you have a responsibility to maximize your own profit by letting people die sometimes because that's why i read an essay yeah so now empowered

and properly organized fiefield decides to lead his most ambitious charge ever. He's going to change the 4th of July forever. And this is the thing people don't often get. It didn't used to be like a big, big thing. Like we didn't always, it wasn't always like the hugest deal in the world, the 4th of July. It has become that in recent decades. And a big part of why it is what it is, especially on the right, why it is like such a, almost a holy day. It is kind of a holy day to millions of Americans that really starts in this period. But you know what's starting in this period right now?

Good services. That's right. That's right. And it's never going to stop, baby. All of a sudden, he says, Linda, I see a skull. Deep in the heart of the Ozarks, a mysterious disappearance turns into a grisly discovery. Two young women murdered. My name is M. William Phelps. For the past several years, I've been reinvestigating the cases of two young women abducted from their small towns,

their bodies dumped deep in the Ozark woods. With a connection to one very familiar name. He chose his own moniker, binded them, tortured them, killed them, B2K. Cold cases I'm breaking wide open as a heated confrontation with an alleged psychopath ensues. Did you kill those girls? You got all this information. Now why did you ask me

if you already knew? Long-held secrets finally revealed sending authorities rushing to confront a suspect who's been hiding in plain sight for decades. Listen to Paper Ghosts Season 4 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews, and more. Now this is a second term we can all get behind. Listen to The Daily Show, ears edition, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Merry Christmas! It's a Wonderful Life is one of the most popular movies ever, but it has more to offer you than you ever thought.

Do you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? In this world where there's a lot of hopelessness, people need this movie. George Bailey was never born. Join the many partaking in this one-of-a-kind podcast experience. Listen to all 10 episodes available now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

SaveGeorgeBailey.com. Subscribe now. Nancy Grace here, host of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Every day on Crime Stories, we shine a light on missing people, especially children, seeking justice for victims of violent crime. Crime Stories is the only daily podcast bringing listeners the latest breaking crime and justice news. Every day is a

mission another chance to help crime victims and bring criminals to justice listen to crime stories with nancy grace on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts ah we're back and i have just learned the news that build a bear workshop launched an after dark series of erotic teddy bears oh fuck a bear love that place fuck a bear yeah so great yeah i uh this is my whole world now um so be cancel our next 10 podcast recordings i have a new thing to do oh they seem to mostly just be Build-A-Bears in pajamas with wine. I wouldn't openly say that on the internet,

Robert. What? I have a new thing to do talking about fuck-a-bear. The fuck-bears. Yeah. Absolutely. Dan and Jordan, you guys can bounce. I gotta deal with this bear situation. That's fair.

That's a fair bear situation. What's a more care bear than a fuck bear? A fair bear situation. Horny, horny teddy bears. I want a teddy bear that's ready to Netflix and chill. Well, see, this is just society

maintaining balance. The M&MMs become less sexy. The Build-A-Bears have to get more fuckable. Do you know what's crazy? The Care Bear that had a vulva on its stomach got cut real quick. Yeah, it was weird.

Oh, now I'm in trouble. I mean, that is, that would basically just be a fleshlight that you know builder bear could make some money with a fleshlight builder bear hey uh i think builder bears already made a bit of money look this is this is free cash we are leaving on the ground we need a more fuckable teddy bear look right this has been the problem since time immemorial the problem with this riff is that it hasn't gone long enough and once again the furries

have been on the cutting edge of fuckable teddy bears always well are they a sponsor yes yeah we are we are sponsored by the concept of having sex with anthropomorphized teddy bears. AdamandEve.bear.com That is really the primary reason this podcast exists. Big fuck bear. That's our sponsor. Sophie, really stay in quiet here. So, when we last left our actual episode,

our buddy, Mr. Fifield, has decided he's going to change the 4th of July. And to explain what his plan is, I'm going to quote from Kevin Cruz again. To mark the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they proposed for the week surrounding the 4th of July a massive series of events devoted to the theme of freedom under God. theme of freedom under God. To that end, in June 1951, the leaders of spiritual mobilization announced the formation of a new committee to proclaim liberty, the CPL, to coordinate their 4th of July

Freedom Under God celebrations. Despite its apparent spiritual emphasis, the true goal of the committee was advancing political conservatisms. Its two most prominent members had been brought low by Democratic administrations. Hoover, driven from the White House two decades earlier by Franklin Roosevelt. Driven from the White House.

Driven from the White House. Driven from the White House. With stones and chains and whips. If only. Kept Pennsylvania. Yeah, you're not. You want to guess who Hoover's partner was in this? Who are you going to put up next to Herbert Hoover in this Fourth of July event?

General Douglas MacArthur. Get out! Yeah, baby! Why? Because he had just gotten fired by Harry Truman for wanting to nuke all of China and Russia, basically. Yeah, I mean, sure. During the Korean War.

He was like, why don't we start a nuclear war that kills tens of millions of people in order to win in Korea? And Truman was like, oh, God, you're out of your mind. You should not be in korea and truman was like oh god you're out of your mind you should not be in charge of fighting men anymore and then macarthur said what about freedom yeah that's what he spends the rest of his life doing in his defense at the time the military was just firing nuclear bombs into arizona and forcing troops to walk through it in case it gave them yeah why don't we know look we should at least nuke the enemy as much as we're nuking ourselves, right?

Absolutely. That's just fair. That's Doug MacArthur's attitude. So he had gotten fired two months ago when he gets put in this committee, right? Like he has just gotten out of the Korean War business. So he immediately goes into let's make Christianity capitalism by subverting the 4th of July to our own purposes. So these guys get joined by a bunch of different legal, like conservative right wing media figures, entertainment industry figures who are like very right wing. Bing Crosby is a member of this committee, right?

Bingo. James O'Keefe. No, but Cecil B. DeMille. Wait, so every time I've watched White christmas i've supported a fucking nazi god damn it yeah a little bit i mean yeah if you had old blue eyes wasn't a good man i can't imagine you not just assuming that cecil b is on the committee to proclaim liberty well yeah but of course he is walt disney is on the committee to proclaim of course he is i just didn't know that bing crosby was a nazi yeah he's pretty far right and of course our buddy ronald reagan is on the committee well yeah um and then

you've got a bunch of big business types there's jay howard pew obviously uh harvey firestone conrad hilton james harvey firestein no firestone the guy for the tires very different very different i was living in independence day i was like oh my god how can we do this oh man craft henry used fred maytag and jc penny um all of these guys are are part of the committee are hanging out with bingo you know trying to do a kill democracy every time you learn the history of where you shop if it's been around for longer than 50 years you're like why why aren't i burning this down right now why aren't i just lighting it on fire it should be everyone briefly asked in 2020 and there's zero reason exciting times there's zero reason for a hobby lobby a

hobby lobby to still be standing like zero reason well they got a house those stolen artifacts that is true and now we're back to indiana jones so you wouldn't think a group of luminaries and brands with that kind of star power you got all the big ben crosby and walt disney together finally with with douglas mcarthur it is a dream team of dudes who sucked um but you wouldn't think like with that kind of they're also dudes who are pretty good at being famous you wouldn't think they would have needed to advertise uh for this sort of thing but by god they do disney firestone all of these big corporate like motherfuckers take out a series of full page newspaper ads advertising all these events around the fourth of j take out a series of full page newspaper ads advertising

all these events around the 4th of July, this like week of right wing, you know, speeches and radio programs and whatnot. Each of these full page ads focuses primarily on the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. A lot of them are just the preamble being printed. Now, you might wonder, well, that doesn't sound super right wing, right? That's just like a historical thing about the United States. There's nothing particularly right-wing about printing the Declaration of Independence as preamble. No, no, no, wrong. You have to read it for it not to be right-wing. If you print it and you don't read it, it's right-wing.

You see what I'm saying? That is essentially what they're doing because they want people to read the preamble. They don't want people to read the Declaration of Independence. If you read the Declaration of Independence, a lot of it is very specific critiques about shortcomings of the British government, right? Sure. Their problem is a lack of good government. They are, as you might guess by the fact that they made a government, they're not anti-government.

And again, evidence of this is that when the revolution was won a lot of people who had signed that declaration went on to crush a libertarian uprising in their own country with cannons you know like they were not yeah but i mean you know reasonably speaking only two people have actually read the declaration and that's king george and nick cage and those are the only two to be fair nicholas cage read the back of it he did he did not not even the front of it yeah yeah so quoting just the preamble of the declaration of independence allows these guys to turn the declaration from what it is which is a list of political grievances rooted in a specific place in time and the solution of those grievances was a kind of government, it allows them to ignore that and just turn through the using only the preamble, turn the declaration into

a manifesto of Christian libertarianism, where the only focus is in the founding fathers wanting to remove government, right? That's not the declaration isn't the founding fathers saying we don't want to have government because free enterprise is best. It's them saying this government is shit and we want to do a better job, right? You don't want that thought to go into people's head. In his book, One Nation Under God, Cruz quotes one version of this ad paid for by the San Diego Gas and Electric Company. It told its readers, quote, these words are the stones upon which man built history's greatest work, the United States of america remember them well and the words

of the preamble were accompanied by helpful analysis by the good people at the committee to preserve liberty all men are created equal that means you are as important in the eyes of god as any man brought into this world you are made in his image and likeness there is no superior man anyway all right so we're anywhere stop right there period fine fine we're all gonna go home end of show that guy was great let's get out of here they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights here is your birthright the freedom to live work worship and vote as you choose these are rights no government on earth may take from you except for the government established by this declaration which didn't let most people vote but like whatever i would like

more rights than those thank you yeah that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men here is the reason for and the purpose of government government is but a servant not a master not a giver of anything right now we get into the right-wing propaganda um deriving their just powers from the consent of the govern in america the government may assume only the powers you allow it to have it may assume no others right this is a subtle piece of propaganda though this is very smart what they are doing here is re-contextualizing and repurposing history into something very different than what it was um in order to inculcate a specific political ideology in the population. And this works pretty fucking good. If you want to talk about how successful

replacing the real... Look at the world today. Exactly. What are you fucking talking about? Oh, we need evidence. Get the fuck out of here. Do you know how obvious it is? You used the word inculcate

i did um i i i want to quote to talk about like how successful specifically the evidence that this worked is both of us have podcasts both of us have podcasts yeah but also it's interesting to me that the the preamble remains a really common piece of right wing propaganda in a lot of shit that's been happening very recently. I'm going to quote from Jacqueline Keillor's book, Standoff, which is about the Bundy occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. Quote, On January 19th, 2016, Ryan Payne, a Malheur occupier and founder of Operation Mutual Aid, a militia coalition based in Montana, read the preamble of the Declaration of Independence at a community meeting held at the refuge. Political instruction in the philosophical beliefs that brought anti-government activists together in armed rebellion against the feds was common at both the refuge and during Cliven Bundy's standoff in Bunkerville, Nevada, two years earlier.

And this is interesting because it's not just the preamble. A lot of these militiamen carry pocket constitutions, right? That is a huge thing among chunks of the libertarian right. And the specific pocket constitutions that everyone at fucking Malheur has are produced by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, which was founded by a Mormon elder named W. Cleon Skousen. Yeah, baby! Yeah! Skousen's in the housing oh there's our guy was a founder of the john birch society who are directly talking with five field and with nam they are working with nam right now welch is a member like

yeah and skousen got uh sort of he had to remove himself from the birch society because he was too extreme this is the guy who was too shitty for the worst people ever yeah yeah um but it is important to note that skousen is very much copying fiefield and his organization in handing out these pocket constitutions he he this is where this idea comes from that we can repurpose pieces of American history for this specific end without like that. That's like a great thing for us is going to be taking these historical documents, adding our own context to them, adding essays to them, explaining them in a way that makes our ideology seem like the only possible American thing. That starts here with the Committee to Preserve Liberty and their effort to recontextualize the 4th of July. And obviously, as we've talked about, it's been a tremendously successful thing.

Right, right, right. So basically what you're saying is that we need a fucking time machine. Look, if I had a time machine, I would get up to some shit. Yeah, the present would be fucked up if you had a time machine yeah there'd be a lot of folks just missing oh boy howdy um starting no that's not a good joke to tell back to the fourth of july in the lead up to the day itself reverend f Fifield gave a big radio service wherein he introduced the people of the United States to the Committee to Proclaim Liberty. He told them its purpose was to, quote, revive a custom long forgotten in America, spiritual emphasis on the

4th of July. They held another big essay contest soliciting sermons on the theme Freedom Under God. Fifield encouraged ministers to read the sermons they wrote to their own congregations on Independent Sunday, July 1st. Now, I want to hone in on this a bit because it's brilliant. Earlier, Pew had criticized Fyfield for not directly controlling what ministers wrote and said in their sermons. But Data had told the NAM that handing out... Sorry, that's just a sad, fucked up criticism. It is fucked up, yeah. Just like, hey, listen listen you're not controlling what

everyone's saying you piece of shit hey bro get your pastors on a leash yeah exactly yes but at the same time while like pew is frustrated by this in am's data shows that the pre-written sermons and stuff that like that they're handing out don't work they sound too much like propaganda yeah right right so fyfield gets and the coke brothers are right fucking there man well fred coke was found a number of the john birch exactly yep so yeah fyfield gets 17 000 ministers to write their own sermons on a theme that he's chosen um and like ties that to the fourth of july of July, right? Has all of these ministers, thousands of them around the country, giving variations of the same speech on a thing he's picked on the 4th of July. That'll put it in your own words, kind of thing.

Yeah, exactly. That's how you copy in high school. Yeah, it's like a high school essay contest. How you cheat. Yeah, it's like the winner gets to go to dc yeah that kind of gets to help overthrow democracy and institute an oligarchic uh dictatorship yeah i mean you put it like that's a bad thing but that is an accomplishment it is an accomplishment look i'm not taking anything from these dudes they're good at what they're doing so i'm going to quote next from

kevin cruz again these sermons were amplified by a program broadcast that same evening over from these dudes. They're good at what they're doing. So, I'm going to quote next from Kevin Cruz again. These sermons were amplified by a program broadcast that same evening over CBS's national radio network. Cecil B. DeMille worked with his old friend Fifield to plan the production, giving it a professional tone and attracting an impressive array of Hollywood stars. Jimmy Stewart

served as master of ceremonies, while Bing Crosby and Gloria Swanson offered short messages of their own. The preamble to the declaration was led by Lionel Barrymore, who had been Mickey mouse. This is, this is what happens when you make a banker, the protagonist of one of the most famous movies of all time.

That's entirely, it's all, I know you've got very good points about all of these people. I mean, but I'm going to blame Jimmy Stewart alone. It's all i know you've got very good points about all these people i mean but i'm gonna blame jimmy stewart alone it's it's all him not just a banker but a banker who to his credit bombed uh flew a bunch of bombing missions over germany in world war ii and then to less of his credit was an active general during the korean war of the air force oh yeah that's not good don't get me started on mickey's history and mickey mouse has killed a lot of people but you know what mickey doesn't get up in the sky to do it mickey mickey uses a knife that's true um yeah so lionel barrymore drew barrymore is either

father or grandfather i forget right now but yeah stop it yeah there's like 10 people alive i'm sick of this shit we need more characters in the human race when you complain about that i complain about it he poses to like help advertise this event where he's you know all these famous people are giving speeches and he's reading the preamble he poses holding a giant quill and looking at a piece of parchment parchment with the words freedom under god will save our country again this is we don't think about what under god means so much but like this is a very specific political line because freedom under god they have made mean a very specific thing right that you have the freedom to be poor that's what it means freedom under god to these guys is you have the freedom to be poor and you're not free if there aren't poor people that's i'm confused it sounds like you aren't it sounds like you are not thankful for your freedom sir yeah i mean yeah that's that's

that's where all this gets started so the broadcast featured choral performances of the america as well as heritage an epic poem composed by the former leader of the u.s chamber of congress uh general matthew ridgeway yeah whites are great yeah whites are great it's dope everybody knows it's fun to be eight the guy who takes over commanding american forces in korea uh oh lionel barrymore's great uncle to true barrymore thank you sophie uh somewhere in there um so matthew ridgeway who's the commander of american forces in korea the guy who replaces uh fucking famous right-wing shithead douglas mcarthur um he's also a right-wing shithead and he gives a keynote address from tokyo uh as part of this like big fucking fourth of

july brouhaha and he tells america that the founding fathers were motivated to do what they did by their christianity um you know don't read thomas paine and the whole book he wrote about how he doesn't like christianity they did it all for jesus you know that was the genesis of america so this is the kind of propaganda that sticks in people's hearts and souls and it becomes central to their being the genius here and this is where pew and the nam come into it was that wrangling beloved celebrities like Jimmy Stewart and Bing Crosby. Fifield doesn't have that kind

of power on his own, but the NAM does. They've got all these fucking inroads everywhere. And this whole gigantic event solidifies the 4th of July as the most sacred day in the right-wing religious calendar, right? And as a side benefit to the corporations who sponsor

the show the christian libertarian ideology five few five field expands upon over the airwaves also gets to hitch a ride into people's souls it becomes part of the fourth of july and part of the celebration of the fourth of july and part of the lexicon we use to talk about freedom gets infected with this thing that he's invented one of the things that i absolutely despise most more than anything else is finding out some horrific tradition is only like like my dad could have not dealt with it you know like like every time i go to a baseball game and there's a flyby by shit i'm like the war's over man like i want to start a war like it's that kind of fury at like we're we're past this man yeah why are we still why are we doing this why are we doing this we didn't do this for a

long time the information that you have just provided jordan will make it so he can't watch the hot dog eating contest i will never watch that hot dog eating contest i will watch yeah i mean i i've never watched one and never will again, but certainly extra not now. And you can tell Jamie Loftus I said that. Oh, I will. Sophie is sending her an email right now. Yeah, you better fucking do it. Yeah.

Anyways. I will. So the celebrations, all of this shit we've talked about is the days leading up to the 4th of July. On the 4th itself, the Committee to Pro proclaim liberty coordinates americans in nearly every state to all ring their church bells simultaneously for 10 minutes i don't like that i don't like that at all it's great it's great in los angeles the city government uses the air raid sirens like to do this like they join in with la's air raids this is the first time los angeles's air raid sirens are used.

I'd probably scare people who didn't know. Yeah. Why would you do this? There's a cold war on. What is wrong with you? We are fighting in Korea. Everyone has nukes now. One newspaper.

That's one of the things that has like changed so much from growing up in small town, middle America is like when I was young, a large group of people chanting the same thing was good yeah now that we're where we are if a large group of people chant the same thing i'm running in the opposite direction i don't care if it's usa or like fucking silvanesso is great i'm out of here because there's nazis there um sophie also just muted me for a second i just want everyone to know she's trying to steal my my my voice and my free speech i'm being canceled by the radical left so uh one of so the fucking los angeles uses their air raid sirens to celebrate the fourth of july and a newspaper writer describes it as in the most fascist line I have ever heard in a newspaper.

A scream as wild and proud as that of the American Eagle. You love to hear it. Daniel, can we get an air raid siren so everyone can hear a scream as loud and proud as the American Eagle? Oh, that was a good air raid siren. Not Daniel. Chris. Sorry. Beautiful.

Chris. Just so beautiful. The whole thing was a big hit. The Committee to Proclaim Liberty organizers wrote in a later analysis that, quote, the very words freedom under God have added to the vocabulary of freedom a new term. It is a significant phrase to people who know that everybody from Stalin on down is paying The very words freedom under God have added to the vocabulary of freedom a new term. It is a significant phrase to people who know that everybody from Stalin on down is paying lip service to freedom until its root meaning is no longer apparent. The term freedom under God provides a means of identifying and separating conditions which indicate pseudo freedom or actual slavery from those of true freedom.

So if you think freedom is not having to worry about going broke because you can't pay for health care or if you think freedom is not starving to death you're a slave that's slavery that's a really good point that i hadn't thought of it in that way before but since you just said it i'm convinced yeah yes i'm gonna go on to vote for ronald reagan in a couple days it's it's really weird it's really weird how you convinced me of a point that you were in opposition to yeah so things start to move very quickly after this point this is a huge hit so in 1953 the u.s has its first ever national prayer breakfast um we could talk a lot about the family here, but you know what the theme of the first prayer breakfast is? Hot dog eating contest.

Almost, basically. He's funnier. Government under God. There's that term, under God, again. In 1954, the Pledge of Allegiance has the words under God added to it. Congress adds, in God we trust, to our stamps in 1954 and to paper money in 1955 in 1956 in god we trust becomes the first official motto of the united states all of this happens right after this fourth of july event i know it's really not fair that's fucked up like if i if my

dad didn't have to say under god i should retroactively not have to have said it. Yeah. When I said the present. And if someone suggests that you shouldn't have to say it, your dad's going to be pissed. I'm going to be. You know who else is going to be pissed? He will be furious. The hot dog eating contest people.

Well, yeah, but they're always angry. No, who's going to be pissed is the products and services that support this podcast, because there's such good deals that they're losing money on every sale. You know, they're really because of the deals that we're giving you, it's really hurting them. So, you know,

they don't have to go broke. They do have that freedom. They have that freedom to be poor, you know? Oh, all of a sudden he says, Linda, I see a skull. Deep in the heart of the Ozarks, a mysterious disappearance turns into a grisly discovery. Two young women murdered.

My name is M. William Phelps. For the past several years, I've been reinvestigating the cases of two young women abducted from their small towns, their bodies dumped deep in the Ozark woods. With a connection to one very familiar name. He chose his own moniker, bind them, torture them, kill them, BTK. Cold cases I'm breaking wide open as a heated confrontation with an alleged psychopath ensues. Did you kill those girls? You got all this information.

Now why did you ask me if you already knew? Long-held secrets finally revealed, sending authorities rushing to confront a suspect who's been hiding in plain sight for decades. Listen to Paper Ghosts Season 4 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at The Daily Show, which means he's also back in our ears on The Daily Show Ears Edition Podcast.

Join late-night legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews, and more. Now this is a second term we can all get behind. Listen to The Daily Show, ears edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's a Wonderful Life is one of the most popular movies ever, but it has more to offer you than you ever thought. You know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? In this world where there's a lot of hopelessness, people need this movie. George Bailey was never born.

Join the many partaking in this one-of-a-kind podcast experience. Listen to all 10 episodes available now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. SaveGeorgeBailey.com. Subscribe now. Nancy Grace here, host of Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Every day on Crime Stories, we shine a light on missing people, especially children, seeking justice for victims of violent crime. Crime Stories is the only daily podcast bringing listeners the latest breaking crime and justice news every day. It's a mission,

another chance to help crime victims and bring criminals to justice. Listen to Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back we are you and i me us all here together talking hey listen i just want

to say now that now that we're back you're doing a great job thank you thank you yeah thank you jordan thank you i'm sorry for all the mean things i said about you off air to your face that's that's that's okay i cried on air through it sophie says most of that stuff to me every morning that's how i wake up every day and also also i'd like to apologize that i kept telling you that hoover won pennsylvania during the break you you did say that about 130 times jordan was just cursing at me in an unbroken stream i don't know what got uh came over me but yeah we're a good team it's good stuff we'll just make that be the ad break next time so reverend james fiefield has accomplished something amazing here right like under god is fucking everywhere and now we all

know the horrible fucked up ideological reasons behind those words in his write-up on this whole fucking thing eckert Tolle Jr. notes, quote, many of Fifield's letters, both to Pew and Crane, ended with a request for funding. Fifield continuously presented himself as selfless and living a simple life, even though both his church and his spiritual mobilization were perpetually in a state of need.

As Fifield asked for donations and monetary interventions to save himself financially, he and his staff directed very few funds or outreach initiatives to the poor. They were spending it all on capitalism. Listen, we're very, we're very, we're the tip of the spear, I just want to let you know, but we need your money

to continue fighting the good fight. We're going to just need it. He's pioneering it, yeah. Yeah. But he's just talking directly to rich guys. Now, Toy quotes from a letter an employee of spiritual mobilization sent to Crane of the NAM in 1953. Quote, basic to your thought in this area is the concept of vast majorities who cannot take care of themselves. They are too foolish, too weak, too gullible.

You and a few others who really care feel the need to scurry around and get government to force somebody else to do something for these poor folk. Tolstoy made an observation that bears directly on your little crusade. He said, people will do everything for the poor except get off their backs. This is the job for the government in libertarian thought, to destroy parasitism by pulling people off their victims' back. For this, we need a strong government, strong enough to do the job. That's good stuff. You might kind of find that incoherent.

Like, we need a strong enough government to do the job of you might good stuff you might find that incoherent like we need a strong enough government to do the job of destroying the government yeah sir start one more time uh a what it's very funny it's also funny because fiefield himself is absolutely a parasite on the rich like he's just sucking money away from them um totally and they get a lot for it early on um but it starts it doesn't work as well after this big fourth of july thing that's kind of like his his high point you mean five fields yeah five fields high like he did his part he did his part right and he's not necessary after that that's exactly right oh my god you are really getting to a tribe called quest aren't you sure five feet

oh all right come on now come on i didn't catch that what am i a monster am i a bad person it just wasn't a good joke i'm glad you said it dan fair point being a hero once again i have the freedom of expression well and and we you also have the freedom to go broke when you get cancer we have glorious glorious freedom here, all of us. So the Reverend Fifield, one of the funny things about him is that for all of his love of capitalism and shit, every time he tries to do a capitalism, he's terrible at it. He launches a television show based on his, you you know ramblings that does not do well people do not like the the reverend fife field hour um what about his shoe line um no that he doesn't try doing that but he does like he has like this land deal he has like a couple of

different business deals that all fall through that he uses the money his foundation's getting from rich guys to try to fund right um and they start to get angry because they're like well he's just using our money to try to get rich himself and he's bad at it and that's the real unforgivable sin to rich guys i was gonna say you do not have the freedom to be bad at getting rich yeah you can you can take our money and get rich you cannot take our money and not get rich now the good news is that spiritual mobilization had already done the one thing that it had meant to do which is kick kick open the doors of religious politicization and tie Christianity to the free market and the hearts of millions of Americans. Just a few years after that famous 4th of July, his work had gone so far

beyond him that he had been marginalized. His final straw with the Pew brothers was a propaganda film, which they considered weak. In 1957, Fifield quit spiritual mobilization altogether, and it drifted along on fumes for a few years before it died out. The cause it had birthed, however, sailed right ahead. Pew and Crane found a new minister to invest in, one who was much better with money.

You want to guess what this guy's name was? Uh, Creflo A. Dollar. Not quite yet. Not quite yet. Fucking Marjo. Like, I don't know. It's not quite Marjo quite i do love marjo no i kind of love marjo but he's very charming no it's billy graham uh yes of course yeah it's

billy graham baby so we could have just gone back in time and just slapped that guy in the face and it would all been fine we'd have to go back further there's actually three boats if i could go back in time with a chain gun there's three boats i'm taken care of you know three boats yeah that sounds like that sounds like a coen brothers movie yeah three boats sunk in the middle of the ocean by a time traveler with a gatling gun yeah um so yeah uh billy graham um pew and crane decide to back him next after they kind of abandon Fifield. You know, he has to leave spiritual mobilization, yada, yada, yada. Very sad story for the asshole.

Here's Eckhart Tolle again. The mission was to spread the free market conservative message through religion had only just begun. And in many ways, Graham further nuanced its delivery. As Graham himself put it to J. Howard Pew, God has given me the ear of millions. He has given to you large sums of money. It seems to me that if we can put these two gifts of God together, we could reach the world with the message of Christ. Oof.

Billy Graham, much smarter guy. As a business proposition, supporting Graham was a win-win. Graham's ministry would flourish. Business interests would be advanced by a key opinion shaper. And unlike Fifield, Graham would not continually pester Pugh about his dire financial situation and the need for more funds graham was a public figure who ingratiated himself into the politics of america promoting political involvement at his revival meetings he had preached from the steps of the u.s capital in 1952 and he also had a close

relationship with president eisenhower so much better bet yes the famous communist agent eisenhower yeah be like ike communism well that's also too because the the very early on the nam there's a lot of ties with the john birch society but that's not the best way to get your message out to a lot of people billy graham's a much cuddlier figure he's got a lot more people are gonna like billy graham than than fucking welch you know well and his stakes are more real to most people like your eternal soul he's got t-bones he's got yeah sure yeah yeah so flank yeah the the first big collaboration between pew and graham was a little publication you might have heard about jordan you might you might know about this christianity today, I've heard of that.

Yeah, this is how it starts. My family was more focused on the family by the Dobsons, but yeah. It's a different magazine now, but it was originally, number one, it was originally just for ministers. And it was founded by Graham and Pew to solidify ties between the right-wing and organized Christianity. Pew explained, quote, Christianity today is a magazine, conservative in its theology, and beamed directly to the ministerial mind. Mind, those of us who have given years of study to this problem realize that it is just as important to have conservatism in theology

as it is to have conservatism in economics and sociology, if America is to remain great. That was true. That was true. That was true. They just nailed it. Sometimes a lot of people are like, ah, they're bad people, but I'm telling you, they nailed it.

And I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about ministersonly.com, their dating website that they had underneath it. That really nailed it. Yeah, ministers.com and priestfuck, which was its slightly slightly trashy your cousin that was their equivalent of the fuck a bear the fuck a bear workshop the catholic fuck a bear workshop we don't need to get into that that's going to get unsettling

quickly so from the beginning both graham and especially pew took pains to ensure they could not be tied too closely to the magazine they didn't want it to be seen as an overtly political look, even though it was. Despite claiming a hands-off attitude, Pew constantly complained about the editorial direction chosen by the man they picked to run the magazine, Dr. Bell. In 1958, Pew hired the Opinion Research Bureau to conduct one of the first Pew surveys, although it was not yet called a Pew survey. Carried out on the readers of Christianity Today, it found that nearly 30% of ministers still describe themselves as something besides fundamentalist or conservatives.

14% even called themselves liberal. Now, this might be due to the fact that Christianity Today was blatant right-wing propaganda, so only a few progressives read it. Billy Graham probably knew this, but he was savvy enough to see how this data could be used to peer pressure more ministers into moving right. He wrote,

I believe this poll should be widely publicized. So many of our liberal ministers are liberal only because they think it's the popular thing to be. If they could understand that the vast majority of American clergy are conservative, it could swing hundreds of others over to the conservative position. It would also probably have a great impact on our seminaries if properly distributed this isn't the point but

again your character fell apart in the middle of that i know i'm not a i'm not a voice strong but it just went just you know i mean i just kept thinking like what if the dare program was more oriented around uh christian nationalism like if all of these pastors had peer pressured each other into doing drugs i feel like we would have all had a better we would have been in an incredible place as a country acid is being discovered around this time amazing time it would have blown everyone's mind if only rogan was around christianity today is literally just sheets of acid inside of a magazine um and obviously today it is a different thing in fact christianity today is such a centrist

magazine now that donald trump called it far left um sure obviously getting good data overall and where priests ministers and reverends are politically is complicated it's not an easy group to just certify like survey all of them but it's worth noting that while roughly 18 of americans are white evangelical protestants they make more than up more than 43 percent of what yes pew research calls staunch conservatives and 39 of so-called mainstream republicans so there's a debate to be had as to whether or not it's broadened or narrowed, the electoral kind of possibilities of conservatives in America,

but as a result of everything we've talked about this week, the center of organized conservatism in the U.S. are white evangelical Protestants. The most reliable voting bloc, the most organized one and it all started here good time no refuse rewrite this story and make it less sad

make it fun um yeah yeah if i get a time machine i can do the fun version of this story that's you know that that makes sense i mean it is just a lot of people not wanting to uh i just i just hate that when stuff isn't old enough oh when it's kind of from a relatable time period yeah i can't i can't like walk over to my grandfather and be like hey you remember when things weren't shit like that's not fair like i should have to go way further back in time yeah this thing yeah it seems like so entrenched yeah but but it's not like from 1700 the heartening thing about that is is because it's not that old we could we could do different stuff like we could make it be different as a country sure but at a certain point of time christianity wasn't that old and now it's fucking old you know

what i mean but also robert that's also what could happen robert to your point though too like you know if your story has taught me anything if we're gonna shift this back we need billionaires and we need charismatic preachers yeah those are things that i don't think we have access to uh i will accept being both at any time as long as everybody else takes care i know george soros listens to the podcast sure george buddy we got an idea we're gonna we're gonna recontextualize what what what holiday can we take over arbor day yeah we're gonna we're gonna make already we're gonna make arbor day is not ours to take over we're gonna make memorial day about car finding i was gonna say well that's what these guys would do we're gonna

okay sorry i thought that was president's day i thought we were branching out. What if we made Memorial Day the center of celebration, breaking into the house of Alex Azar, the former Health and Human Services Secretary, and taking all the ill-gotten gains he made from jacking up the price of insulin? That could be the memorial to the dead of the insulin crisis. All we need is a couple hundred million dollars to really get this going. And we can do a deep fake of Bing Crosby and Jimmy Stewart. We can recontextualize them too. Listen, both of us were kind of milk toast before. You say Bing

Crosby, ah man. I was in on Hall of Grace. I don't see why we shouldn't go to Alex Azar's house and take his cars and his nice golden things. I'm James Stewart. See, now that was a character you committed to. That's a bit.

I did my best there. I can't do... Well, I'm Bing Crosby and I think you should go to Alex Azar's house and take his car. Every time I think about doing a Bing Crosby... Go to Alex Azar's and take his car every every time i think about doing go to azar's and take his a's car every time i think about doing a big crosby it transfers into uh yogi bear instantaneously just that constant like hey we're gonna hey boo boo like it's so fast yeah there's not a lot of not a lot of distance of the sackler family distance. Dreaming of the Sackler family.

Toed into the middle of the ocean on a barge. We could do this. And, of course, a picnic basket. Hey, boo-boo, we gotta take down the state. Yeah, Bing Crosby and fucking the bear. Ah, goddammit, I spaced on the name. I ruined the joke. Now it's over. Now you're great.

You guys got any pluggables to plug well just you know we have our podcast knowledgefight.com where uh where that lives yeah i just want to aggressively promote my book on this one it's called the quiet part loud you can download it for free at the quiet part loud anything you want just read it or don't i really just put it out there and it was great anyways it's the quiet part loud.com it's a passive aggressive plug just want to aggressively promote my book there you go yeah see that's how you do it that's how you plug you're learning i'm trying you're learning Soon you'll be as good a pitch man as the reincarnated digital ghosts of Jimmy Stewart and Bing Crosby. I'm just looking

for that level of cells. Yeah. Which, by the way, soon. Coming soon. Anytime. Lionel Barrymore comes back and tells people to rob Bank of America locations. back and tells people to rob Bank of America locations. Mickey Mouse takes up arms.

Mickey Mouse fighting in the mountains to make a Zapatista-like colony in Appalachia. I'll be back over after the war is finished. We could do it, everybody. We could do it.

All we need is a couple hundred million dollars. Now I'm in my head reading Civil War letters in Mickey Mouse's voice. And that will be the rest of your evening. We burnt a caravan bringing ammunition to the government troops. Dearest Liza, my love for you burns us every night alright well that should get us some fun fan art okay that's the episode have a good week everybody

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