The Eric Metaxas Show - James Howard Kunstler

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

James Howard Kunstler joins to discuss the current state of the republic.  ...

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:09 Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. It's a nutritious smoothie of creamy, fresh yogurt, vanilla, protein powder, and a mushy banana. For your mind? Drink it all down. It's nummy. I wub, I wub, I wop, I wap, I wap, vanilla. Here comes Eric Mataxas. Hey there, folks.
Starting point is 00:00:30 Welcome to Hour 2. We, in hour 1, spoke to our friend Kevin McCullough, whom you know as, quote, Stradamus. And in a minute, we're going to talk to my old friend James Howard Cuncelor. That's Jim Cuncelor. He is next level. We've got to have him on here more regularly. A lot of announcements, Chris, a lot of crazy announcements. Yeah, I was going to say, I started packing my bags.
Starting point is 00:00:58 Maybe I don't know if it's too soon. But, yeah, I'm really excited about the cruise. Packing your backs for the cruise on June 6th of 28. I could be 800 pounds by June, you know, my stress level. my cortisol, all that stuff. So maybe I should wait a little bit. Well, yeah, maybe. Well, the cruise, I mean, I want to say we're getting,
Starting point is 00:01:17 every day people are signing up. And in case you missed it, folks, I'm doing a cruise. June 6th through 16th. It leaves from Athens. It's going to go to all the Greek islands, going to go to Istanbul. Johns Merak is going to be with us.
Starting point is 00:01:32 Victoria Jackson is going to be with us. And a lot of special guests that we're talking to. but just for me to explain because maybe I haven't what it is. It is, it's a cruise. And I'm going to give six talks. You don't have to attend every talk. But I'm going to give six talks, one on Bonhoeffer, one on Luther, one on Wilberforce, one on is atheism dead?
Starting point is 00:02:07 one on my book Fish Shadow Water telling the story of my coming to faith, and one on my book, if you can keep it. And after every one of the talks, we're going to have Q&A for everybody to ask whatever questions they want. If you don't ask questions the first day, well, then there's the second day, and the third day, and the fourth day, and the fifth day, and the sixth day, when you can ask the question. So to me, this is kind of an unprecedented thing.
Starting point is 00:02:37 where we get to interact. I am, I keep saying this, I'm really excited about it. I'm so excited about it. We'll be giving you details over the days and weeks ahead. But the cruise company, the folks putting this together, said, let people know that on October 31st, things change. You will have to pay more money up front to say the price doesn't change, but you'll have to pay more money up front.
Starting point is 00:03:07 If you want to get in now or you have to put very little up front, I mean, that's what they're suggesting just in case you, that matters to you. And also there's a number of rooms on the ship that are reserved, and some of that goes away on October 31st or November 1st. So I just want to let you know, if you want to sign up, you want to go to ericmetaxis.com slash cruise, ericmetaxis.com slash Cruz. All right.
Starting point is 00:03:40 I want to mention also, Chris, man, on, I, well, we've got, in a couple of minutes, we have Jim Kuntler coming up on the program. I wanted to mention him.
Starting point is 00:03:56 We also have this week coming up my interview with Kevin Roberts. I think tomorrow we're going to air that. He's the head of the Heritage Foundation. And folks, I've always admired the Heritage Foundation, but he brings them to another level. It gives me hope for America. I actually, you should look them up. Heritage.org is the website. They are not merely conservatives. They really, really get it because there's a lot of conservatives
Starting point is 00:04:31 in America who don't get it. I will not mention Mike Pence by name. I won't mention George W. Bush by name, not on this program, but there are many so-called conservatives or Republicans who really don't understand where we are. The Heritage Foundation does, and I thank God for them. Check them out at heritage.org. They're behind project 2025. You can look that up at 2.5Truth.com. They are, they're heroes.
Starting point is 00:05:04 Who should I be voting for, Eric, if I'm in. favor of forever wars, you know, the party of forever. Whom should I be voting? That was your question. I know that's what you meant. Sorry, I went to the English school taught by Russell Brand. That's funny. You saw my tweet.
Starting point is 00:05:23 I did. I corrected Russell Brand. I do this, you know, I find it funny because I love Russell Brand. I love what he's saying. We need to get him on the show. He said who when he should have said whom. And I'm all over that. I'm all over that.
Starting point is 00:05:37 Anyway, yeah, so for whom should you be voting? Yeah, I would vote. I would vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walts if you're, if you're forever wars, if you're into corruption. But you know, even better. If you're Christian, just don't vote. Don't vote. Just let it happen.
Starting point is 00:05:54 And you can say, oh, I didn't do anything. Of course, you did. Of course, you made it happen by not voting. That's called the Pontius. Yeah, Pontius route where you wash your hands of it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think what would Jesus do.
Starting point is 00:06:08 Think what would Pontchus pilot do? You shake, you wash your hands of it. And you know what? Yeah. All right. I want to mention a couple of our sponsors on the program, if I, if I might. Might I? Sure.
Starting point is 00:06:22 Yeah, yeah. I actually. These guys keep the lights on, so it's important. Yeah. Well, they're heroes. I mean, this is literally Tunnel to Towers Foundation. I want to say, well, listen to this. I'm going to read this. Christopher Chambers enlisted in the U.S. Navy later graduated from seal training. While conducting a nighttime raid on a ship illegally transporting aid from Iran to Houthi forces in Yemen, Christopher was reported missing.
Starting point is 00:06:50 In the eight-foot swells that night, he and another service member lost their lives, serving their nation. He was 37 years old, left behind a wife and a young daughter. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation provided Christopher's family. with a mortgage-free home. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation honors the legacy of those who've made the ultimate sacrifice or are catastrophically injured while serving our country and our communities. They're also working to eradicate veteran homelessness by providing housing assistance and services to those in need. Tunnel to Towers is committed to helping America keep its vowed and never forget 9-11
Starting point is 00:07:21 or the sacrifices of its greatest heroes. God bless them. Please donate $11 a month to Tunnel to Towers at T2T.org. T, the number two, t.org. Before we go to our guest in our two, I want to remind people that the Bonhofer book, I keep, we finally work this out. I say to everybody, get the hardcover. Do not get the paper back.
Starting point is 00:07:59 I'm telling you, it's a really big book. do not get the paperback. I mean, it's a great paperback, but I would get the hardcover. You can get it for a very low price at Eric Mataxis.com. You can also get a hardcover autographed copy of the book at Ericmetaxis.com. But the best price, $20 for the hardcover at Ericmetaxis.com.
Starting point is 00:08:23 I want to say that because I really believe that in the months ahead, we have tremendous evangelistic opportunities. The Bonhofer film is coming out in November 22nd. You can bring friends to that. Mark it down on the calendar. By the way, if you go to the website for that, you can get like $5 tickets. But mark it down.
Starting point is 00:08:44 Take friends. You don't need to be a Christian or a conservative to see the film, to love the film. It's a mainstream film. It's a spectacular film. But I think that a great Christmas gift would be a hardcover of the Bonhofer book. Obviously, you can get it autographed,
Starting point is 00:09:03 but whether you do or don't, it draws people into the larger conversation about what is our duty, when you encounter the Bonhoffer story, you can't help but want to be heroic. And so you can get the book at ericmetaxis.com. Also, you can pre-order the Socrates and the city book. I mentioned that in our opening segment.
Starting point is 00:09:27 It is such a beautiful book, folks. you'll see, you'll see. And it's just in time for the holidays, so that's what's exciting. Well, no kidding. And if you pre-order, you get 20% off. So you've got to go to Ericmetaxis.com under books. But it is a gorgeous book. And it's really just, it's everything I'd hoped, which is saying a lot because I'm very
Starting point is 00:09:47 persnickety about, you know, the look and the feel of a book. So we're just thrilled about that. Okay, when we come back, I've got the privilege talking to James Howard, counselor buckle your seat belts. Hey folks, hold off on purchasing your first order from Balance of Nature because I've got some information you need to hear. If you go to Balance of Nature.com to buy their popular fruit and veggie supplements, a discount offer will pop up.
Starting point is 00:10:11 It may say 20 or 25% off your first order. Don't click that because if you use my code, you'll get a much better offer, 35% off your first order plus free shipping. My special code is Eric. You guessed it. Use my code, Eric, and say big. And here's another bonus. Balance of Nature has a risk-free money-back guarantee.
Starting point is 00:10:31 So go ahead and find out for yourself what I already know. There's no other product out there like Balance of Nature when it comes to fruit and veggie supplements. Whether you order online or call them direct, you must use the promo code Eric to get the special offer of 35% off and free shipping. Call them at 800-2468-751 and use discount code Eric or order online at Balance of Nature.com. Use discount code Eric to get 35% off plus free shipping. 35% off with the code, Eric. There's a revolution happening right above our heads. It's about to make silver more precious than ever.
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Starting point is 00:11:54 That's Noble Gold Investments. Folks, in case I haven't made it abundantly clear, I am very excited about my guest right now. His name officially is James Howard Kunstler, but he lets me call him Jim. I've known him for many, many years. And as a result of those decades of friendship, he now lets me call him Jim or even Jimbo. Jimbo, welcome to this program. It's a pleasure to be with you, Eric. Reading your stuff, I mean, I have been reading your stuff since the 1980s.
Starting point is 00:12:45 I was very precocious in the nursery. Well, I was only 11 when I wrote him, Eric. It's amazing. But, I mean, no kidding. I've been reading your stuff since the 80s. And I knew you initially as a fiction writer and a, a, a very, very, very, very, very funny, funny writer. But you now are commenting on current events at your website,
Starting point is 00:13:19 Jameshowardcuncelor.com. And when I read your substack, I read your stuff, I just, even when you are, you know, giving us the grimaced of news about our decrepitating republic, you managed to make it very entertaining because of how you write. And I want to be clear, I learned the words decreputating and the phrase decrepitating Republic from you, James Howard Cuncelor. Well, they aren't really a hard ones, Eric, but it's true.
Starting point is 00:13:51 That's our republic is really crumbling and we got to do something about it. And I'm trying to do my part of, you know, by pointing out to people just how dangerous it is to live under a regime that is devoted to lying and actually going to war against its own people. The thing that is difficult for me, honestly, Jim, very difficult, is when something is so obvious, even talking about it rankles me. It's like having to say, ladies and gentlemen, don't believe the lies. The sky is traditionally blue. You feel like an idiot having to say this, and you feel like an idiot living in a world with idiots that need to hear that the sky is traditionally blue. It's a weird moment that the level of lies, confusion has risen to where it is.
Starting point is 00:14:57 And I think I keep commenting on that, that I understand it's difficult to process that we have to restate the basics. We have to recadigize ourselves in the basics. We were taking them for granted so much that many people have forgotten the basics of what it is to be a free people. And that's part of what you do is you talk about this stuff. But you managed to do it entertainingly, which I think helps. Well, thank you. It's probably the essence of gaslight. that the self-evident is no longer,
Starting point is 00:15:32 no longer appears to be self-evident to so many people in a society. And that's exactly what we're seeing, is that things that ought to be self-evident have simply been erased. You know, the photo circulated on Sunday just passed of DHS Secretary Mayorkas shopping in Georgetown, mincing about with his little shopping bag full of his new clothing. At the same time that, you know, half the state of North Carolina had been scraped off the map and the people were stumbling around dazed in the hills and hollows of Western Carolina. And you have to ask yourself, why is Secretary Mayorkas out shopping when he should be, you know, in a meeting somewhere in federal,
Starting point is 00:16:25 building in Washington, D.C., helping to direct what appears to be a hapless FEMA to help these people in Carolina. And, you know, that's just a snapshot of the kind of picture that we're presented with in. And it's got to stop. And I think that many of us are hoping that it will stop with the election. You know, there, the Democratic Party is running this empty pantsuit, Kamala Harris, who hasn't even really talked to the press through her entire 70-plus-day campaign. She talked to 60 minutes last week, but we also learned on Monday after it was broadcast that 60 minutes not only edited the interview, but they moved around questions and answers from one part of the interview to the other.
Starting point is 00:17:22 so that it misrepresented what Kamala Harris was actually saying, how she responded to the question. So, you know, we're just, we're drowning in dishonesty from the people managing our republic in the same way that the people in Carolina were drowning from the washed out hills and hollers of their region. I think, again, the real issue, I mean, the ultimate question is whether enough people will wake up in time to vote for Donald Trump. Because without that, we don't stand a chance in recovering the republic, in recovering the America that was awarded to us by the blood of patriots through the centuries. We don't have a chance. So the question is, will enough people wake up?
Starting point is 00:18:17 I mean, I have said this a few times, but I couldn't be more disgusted than I'm disgusted by former vice president Mike Pence and former president George W. Bush, who have not endorsed Donald Trump. They are so petulant that they do not seem to care if the country goes to hell. or maybe they are what their liberal critics have always said about them, extremely ignorant. I don't know which it is. Maybe it's a combination of both. But if you want to know where we are in America, the thought that these people whom I have met and I thought well of at this crucial moment are AWOL, they seem not to care. Well, in a way, they've made themselves irrelevant by doing that. And, you know, probably the biggest problem is that we don't have a functioning news media.
Starting point is 00:19:18 And that's the reason that figures such as you and I are able to function in the alternative media because people are struggling to find out what's real. The people who run our society have decided that it's okay to live in a lot. a reality optional world. But that's not really okay. And there are a number of theories that are circulating now about the election and where it's going. And because we really lack reliable concrete information, it is hard to tell. I tend to believe that the polls are gamed and that they're being gamed for the benefit of the Democratic Party so that it will appear to be closer than it is. But I kind of think that you're correct, that a majority of the people in
Starting point is 00:20:17 this country have woken up. They are disgusted with what's going on, the way that they're being treated and the way their country is being managed. I do worry about what will happen in a swing state like Carolina, or indeed now in Florida. By the time your listeners see, this or hear this, Florida is going to be swamps, and we don't know how many voters are going to be left stumbling around in the debris of Hurricane Milton. And that may affect the outcome of the vote in Florida because probably there's more blue concentrated on the Atlantic coast and more red concentrated on the Gulf Coast, where Tampa is, where Hurricane Milton's going to hit.
Starting point is 00:21:14 So these things are worrisome, but on the whole, I think that probably we're going to see Mr. Trump win the election. It'll be interesting to see how much disorder emanates from that, and whether the authority authorities, ensure the election authorities even allow it to happen because, you know, they may try a major gaslighting operation after the election and attempt to demonstrate that Kamala Harris won when she didn't win. And, you know, that's going to enrage a lot of people. So, boy, this is going to be an interesting month ahead. That's the question, right? And before we go to the break, I want to talk to you about what you just said, but before we go to the break, I have to say,
Starting point is 00:22:04 if you want to know how bad things are, ladies and gentlemen, the term gaslighting, which no one ever heard of 10 years ago, it is now the only term you can use that makes any sense and refers to a film. Actually, there were two films, but the one I always think of as Ingrid Bergman and Charles Bouillet. And to gaslight someone is to try to make them think they're insane, lying on a level that is just, you know, absolutely brazen. That's kind of where we are. We've never been there before. It is demonic level of lying.
Starting point is 00:22:42 That's what we're facing. We'll be right back talking to James Howard Kunstler. From the creators of Jesus Revolution comes a new film that's bound to touch your heart. White Bird, a wonder story. Discover the moving tale of Julian as he encounters his grandmother's incredible journey to escape Nazi-occupied France during World War II. Based on the beloved book by the best-selling author of wonder, this inspiring film demonstrates how one simple act of kindness
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Starting point is 00:25:06 But he used who where he ought to have used whom. And I just kind of find it funny to, you know, correct him on Twitter, not that he's following me on Twitter. But what cracks me up is how many people are upset with me for having to, like, they kind of don't get the joke or they're so pious that they can't. Maybe because they don't know how to use whom and they feel they're just angry at me for using whom. Well, there's a lot of free-floating anger and anxiety out there right now, probably understandably. You know, when a society comes under stress, people really behave strangely. And that's why we're seeing things like, you know, the mass formation of chardonnay moms out there who have decided that Donald Trump is, you know, like one of those Halloween monsters that people are planting on their lawns these days. Those $300 Home Depot werewolves and vampires.
Starting point is 00:26:09 Personally, I wonder where they're getting the $300 to buy those things, even in my town, which is, I, live in the upper Hudson Valley in a former factory village, which is, you know, full of people who are not doing that well economically. And yet they seem to be able to go out and fill up their lawns with thousands of dollars worth of animatronic figurines. But the technical word is crap. Yeah, well, you know, plastic crap. Yeah, it's unfortunate. But it does say something about the zeitgeist. And the zeitgeist is telling us, I think, that Americans are terrified of what the future is going to bring, even the future like three weeks ahead of today. And, you know, that they feel like they're living in a horror movie and they have to express it somehow.
Starting point is 00:27:03 And it is kind of a horror movie because, you know, the Democratic Party in its quest just to stay in power has managed to turn American. American life inside out and upside down. And it really is about this staying in power thing because it's become just another patronage racket, the same way that the Democratic Party was a patronage racket in the late 19th century and had to be, you know, had to be broken up with a new civil service law. But we're in that same situation again where the Democratic Party has basically taken over the permanent bureaucracy and the permanent bureaucracy, which includes the levers of a lot of power, like the Justice Department, you know, are really punishing the American public, the citizens of this country. And so we need to take the country back from the
Starting point is 00:27:54 Democratic Party and clean up this government. I'm not sure that the government is not going to be permanently impotent and ineffectual and unable to discharge its duties in the future. That's how bad the bureaucracy has become. I mean, look, Trump, the question is, has Trump been radicalized enough by what they have done to him to go scorched earth on the deep state the way Sherman burned everything on his march to the sea? We're at that point where if you do not burn everything on your march to the sea, so to speak, we can't get the country back. I mean, the level of there are two, there are probably two channels for, for understanding what Trump may do, emphasis on what he may do. First of all, he, we know that the main thing about him is he's a dealmaker.
Starting point is 00:28:51 I think that he will probably try to make a deal with the, the blob, the intelligence blob, and the DOJ blob to cough up a few sacrificial people who are going to be prosecuted for their their misconduct and that he will demand that they be high-profile people. But I also think that if that doesn't happen and if they don't play ball with him, he's going to absolutely disassemble the CIA, the FBI, and all the rest of the Intel apparatus and the things, the organs connected with it. I think you can go after a lot of people. That's why they try to put a bullet in his head.
Starting point is 00:29:30 You bet. And he's not going around, he's not going around advertising that he's out for reverect. But, you know, after what he's been through, I think he needs to really clean out the, the ogian stable of American politics. I'm offended that you would use a classical reference like that, knowing some people won't get it. How dare you? Well, you can explain it to your audience. You, well, you know, part of what has to happen, not only do we need,
Starting point is 00:30:06 to dismantle, you know, the intelligence agencies and go scorched earth on them. Look, they're evil. Let's cut to the chase. They're evil. It's not like they're bad or they're off track. They're evil. They're at war with the American Republic in the same way that King George III was at war with George Washington. There's absolutely no difference. And they're really harming people. Well, for sure. But also, I think it needs to be said that, you know, you mentioned CBS in the interview with Kamala Harris. The idea that we have a journalistic class that has completely sold their souls to the devil, whether metaphorically or literally, they are no longer doing journalism.
Starting point is 00:30:54 They're carrying water for exquisitely incompetent human beings. that to me is another major issue. We've got another segment coming up with James Howard. Consler, we'll discuss this. But that to me is at the heart of it, is that we have to have some semblance of real journalism or you cannot have the United States of America in any real sense. We'll be right back.
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Starting point is 00:33:29 trump coins or a 10-ounce silver American flag bar with every qualifying IRA. That's noblegoldinvestments.com. Welcome back, folks. Talking to my friend James Howard Cunceler. We call him Jim. So, Jim, you have written journalism. I mean, the fact that CBS, this is just the latest example, but they get a pretty solid reporter to actually question Kamala Harris in a way that was decent. But then they re-edit it. We no longer have journalists holding people's feet to the fire. And that, to me, is what makes it possible for us.
Starting point is 00:34:22 to lose the republic. Without them, you know, working as propagandists for the globalist left, we wouldn't be where we are. It's very hard to, the hardest thing to understand about the predicament we've been in for the last decade is how and why the press sacrificed its honor altogether to become pimps for an evil political. movement. And, you know, there don't seem to be any dissenters, and it's very peculiar. Now, I started out as a traditional newspaper reporter in the 1970s working for daily newspapers,
Starting point is 00:35:09 you know, which really, for practical purposes, don't really exist anymore. And the reporters I worked with were generally, you know, misfits, dissent, and, you know, misfits, dissent, people who didn't necessarily go along with any kind of narrative because they were out there in the streets and the precincts and the police headquarters and the government offices and they knew how crooked politics could be and generally often was. But they operated as a governor on the misbehavior
Starting point is 00:35:48 of the people who ran things. and, you know, they often did it with a sense of mission that it was important and necessary for their fellow citizens to know what was going on. The fact that the entire press corps in America has absolutely no sense of comparable sense of mission or telling the truth is an amazing thing. And I think it will probably only be, probably only be experienced. by the psychologists and necromancers of the future. Because right now, we're so deep in the soup of this strange phenomenon that it's very hard to understand.
Starting point is 00:36:33 Well, I would say it's not that they don't have a sense of mission. They have a sense of mission. It's just no longer a mission to tell the truth. It's a mission to... Look, I think that, you know, Watergate made this happen, right? that basically it was kind of like it's not it's not about telling the truth it's about sticking it to the man in other words you you start defining power along certain lines and so you're you think you're truth to power and they look they think i mean you know the editor of the new york times
Starting point is 00:37:06 effectively says this uh what was it in 2016 that you know like we're no longer doing business as usual now i guess at some point they they define, you know, the America of the founders and the advocates for that America as Adolf Hitler. And we've got to kill Hitler. Once you believe that, which I think many of them do, you see journalism as advocacy journalism. You no longer believe the truth is enough. The facts are enough. You're not confident in that. And so now you have to interpret the facts according to your narrative, and they really believe they are on a mission to do that. Well, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:37:52 Interestingly, another thing that happened with 60 minutes in the last week was that Scott Pelly got on camera and denied that Leslie Stahl a few years ago had said that the Hunter Biden laptop was. disinformation. And he just came out. Scott Pelley said, no, we didn't, we didn't say that. We, you know, we never claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop was, you know, was not real. And he just, he's just starkly lying about it. He must know. I mean, how could Scott Pelley not know that the Hunter Biden laptop is real by now after four years? It's not possible for him to not know that. So, So there's something else going on.
Starting point is 00:38:49 I don't think that it's simply a matter of people following orders from their corporate superiors. It can't be that simple. Perhaps it's a combination of them being afraid of defying the pressure of their peers from their economic and social caste and a combination of them living in fear of losing their sinecures and their perquisites of their jobs. And you know, you both have lived in this world, and you know that that's what it is. You know that that's most of what it is.
Starting point is 00:39:27 Yeah, for the higher-placed people who are making, you know, five, ten, twenty-five million dollars a year, certainly that's true. But, you know, for the regular Shlubb newspaper reporters on the Washington Post and the New York Times, who are, you know, maybe making just barely enough to live in a studio apartment in Manhattan, You wonder, you know, the Maggie Habermans and, you know, her peers who are actually out there pretending to report. It's hard to understand why they've become so devoted to lying. And another thing about it is that the past four years of the Biden administration has demonstrated so abundantly how evil this group is that you think that that would have made an impression on the people reporting on. on it. I think it's made an impression on some of them.
Starting point is 00:40:20 I also think that folks like Maggie Haberman and others, they really have bought the narrative and they also believe that the way they will move ahead is by mirroring that narrative. They really do believe. It's not that they're hanging on to something great. It's that they're hoping to move in that direction. So it works on it. Well, one thing we know for sure. Eric, is that they have spent the last four years trafficking in lies that they are eventually
Starting point is 00:40:52 going to be confronted by, lies about the COVID-19 capers. Who will confront them? They will be confronted by, you know, by history. Because, look, look, lying, the truth is sturdy and lying is fragile, and eventually lying falls apart. Walter Durante still has his Pulitzer. The New York Times has not disavowed that. Final segment with James Howard Kunstler.
Starting point is 00:41:21 Sorry about that. We'll be right back. Talking to James Howard Consular. James Howard Kunstler.com is the website. Jim, I was just talking about Walter Durante. I mean, these people, they kind of don't care. At some level, they don't care. Well, he was kind of an anomalous figure.
Starting point is 00:42:03 Now, Walt, for your audience, Walter Durante was a New York Times reporter of the 1930s, who basically shield for the Soviet hierarchy back in the Stalinist era. And he wrote dispatches back to the New York Times saying that everything in Stalinist, Russia was wonderful. And, you know, they published it. And that kind of reporting convinced a lot of the intelligentsia and the arts community in America that so, you know, the Soviet governing was the wave of of the future, and a lot of them became the communists who were later persecuted in the 1950s, you know, for having joined the Communist Party in their youth out of enthusiasm, because Walter Durante said it was so wonderful in the New York Times. But, you know, he was really probably
Starting point is 00:42:56 one of the few guys who was doing it. It wasn't everybody in the journalism business that was doing that. So, you know, the problem now is that everybody is doing it. all I'm saying is that, you know, the New York Times to this day has not dealt with that. Yeah. And the interesting thing about the Scott Pelly thing on 60 Minutes was that Donald Trump had declared that he would come on 50 minutes if they apologized for the way they treated him with Leslie Stahl four years ago. and, you know, they still refuse to apologize for basically lying about him on camera to his face. And, you know, so there it is. I was once seated next to Leslie Stahl in a restaurant in Manhattan,
Starting point is 00:43:58 and I just want to say that I think her hair is the punishment. I'll leave it at that. Listen, these folks, they don't ever bump into anyone who, you know, who has common sense views. They are in that bubble. And I think that that's part of the reckoning that we have to have in this country. It's not just about taking our government back. It's taking back all of our institutions. And the world of journalism, I mean, how many people really watch 60 minutes?
Starting point is 00:44:31 I cannot imagine that it's anything comparable to what it was a few decades. Yeah, fewer, certainly fewer. But, you know, I do think, actually, that a lot of those people, you know, both the people on camera and the people behind the camera, the producers and the editors, et cetera, I think a lot of them are secretly tortured and secretly recriminating themselves. And we just, you know, you don't know because it's secret. but they can't possibly square their own behavior and square the lies that they've been telling with what is actually going on demonstrably in front of our faces, which gets us back to this whole question of how can you deny the self-evident? Well, you know, that's the story of the emperor's new clothes.
Starting point is 00:45:16 And eventually somebody steps out a line and says, the emperor is naked. And that's exactly what's going to happen. And it's happening. I mean, it's happening right now. every single day. More information comes out. More whistleblowers come out. More information comes out with regard to the COVID vaccine, with regard to the stolen election. The information keeps coming out. And the question is ultimately what will happen. Let's not forget, Eric, that one of the reasons we're seeing the behavior in the newspapers and TV as it is today is because of the extreme
Starting point is 00:45:54 desperation of the Democratic Party right now in October of 2024 to win the election at all costs. And that's why things seem as crazy as they are in the media. I'm afraid we're at a time. Always a joy. Folks, check out Jameshowardcunceler.com. Jim, thank you so much.

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