The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1143: The History of California and Its 'Occupation' w/ Thomas777 - Part 2

Episode Date: December 8, 2024

61 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas continues a series in which he examines California's past in an effort to reveal why the state "went blue" when it isn't actually a "blue state."Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash Northwest. Employers, rewarding your staff? Why choose between a shop voucher or a spend anywhere card,

when with OptionsCard you can have both. With OptionsCard, your team gets the best of both worlds. They can spend with Ireland's favourite retailers or choose a Spend Anywhere card. It's simple to buy and easy to manage. There are no hidden fees, it's easy to use and totally flexible. They can even re-gift or donate to a good cause. Make your awards more rewarding.

Visit OptionsCard.I.E. today. On the many nights of Christmas, the Guinness Storehouse brings to thee Christmas nights at gravity. This Christmas, enjoy a truly unique night out at the Gravity Bar. Savour festive bites from Big Fan Bell, expertly crafted seasonal cocktails, and dance the night away with DJs from love tempo. Brett take infuse, amazing atmosphere, incredible food and drink. My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at giddlestorhouse.com.

Get the facts be drinkaware, visit drinkaware. If you want to support the show and get the episodes early and add free, head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support. I want to explain something right now if you support me through Substack or Patreon. You have access to an RSS feed that you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll be able to listen to the episodes through there. If you support me through Subscribe Star, Gumroad, or on my website directly, I will send you a link where you can download the file and you can listen to it any way you wish. I really appreciate the support everyone gives me. It keeps the show going. It allows me to basically put out an episode every day now, and I'm not going to

stop. I'm just going to accelerate. I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two, even three a day. Yeah. Can't do it without you. So thank you for the support. Head on over to freeman Beyond the Wall.com forward slash support and do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Picanuano show. Thomas is here to do part two of our series on California. How are you doing, Thomas? I'm doing well. For part two, I'm going to continue discussing the sociological factors they created California and some of the historical imperatives that shaped its political culture you know that in the final part I'll get into some of the data I coded about you know post-war electioneering and things and

why the claim that's alleged about it being you know a a permanent blue state is calf I know that's kind of what people are waiting for but this is important and And not just for context, but, you know, you're really going to understand that California is an outside significance, not just because of the electoral votes that it hosts. You know, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy's election was a really, really big deal, and it was far more significant than, like, Obama's election. I mean, Obama was like the equivalent of an industry plant anyway. He was kind of a fake candidate. Like, going to be wrong, like Obama actually did have a ground organization, and Obama is, like, a very cunning campaign. unlike Mrs. Harris and unlike President's shithead.

You know, he wasn't like a totally fake candidate in that regard, but him being just kind of like random immigrant guy who was, you know, being promoted within the kind of broader narrative of wokeism. Like it's really not that remarkable. Like Kennedy, like this Irish Catholic guy, becoming president in 1960, that was a really big deal. but it's also

what's notable about that is that was like the last hurrah of like the East Coast establishment unless you count the Bush is and I really don't because the Bush family really made their fortune in Texas you know and they they've got like East Coast

roots but they're not part of like the East Coast establishment and that really was the center of the political universe in America until the 70s man and then after that you know there was johnson and i you know johnson went down in flames and in arguably in 64 he was uh um running against like a lame duck in in goldwater but the fact that he was on

the ticket at all was significant because he was this southern guy you know and uh post reconstruction like the south i mean the south was never not significant and electric college terms, but they very much been marginalized. But then, so subsequently, you get Nixon from California, you get Carter from the south, you get Reagan from California, you get Clinton

from the south, you get Bush, who's a, you know, like a Southwest guy for all practical purposes. You know, he's the governor of Texas. You know, you get Clinton who's a southern guy. Like this, like, the Southwest became like the new like the center of the political universe, okay? And California, like, started shooting ahead of New York is not just the most

populous state, you know, but also kind of like the center of high tech, like the terrestrial economy during World War II. Like, people don't understand the degree to which there was this like savage hostility to capitalism. And that's one thing that catapulted Roosevelt in the power. and it wasn't as new dealers as they thought that way. Like arguably, other than the social engineering stuff, like Roosevelt basically appropriated Huey Long's platform.

You know, and Long in the American context, long as we'd consider like a radical right-wing populist. I mean, like, yeah, like he was a socialist in terms of his, like, redistribution schemes and his, like, a state tax scheme. But that's the way everybody thought in the 1930s. So, like, what I'm getting it is across the entire

spectrum, like, basically, like, would characterize everybody's politics was, like, a hatred of big business and a hatred of Wall Street. Like, World War II was going to change that accidentally because Roosevelt, obviously, he had to go all in with, like, making

nice, not just with Wall Street, but also with these guys who, you know, were at the helm of these, of these terrestrial like value-added manufacturing firms. You know, particularly these nascent like aircraft firms, you know, and people who are on the Fortist model to make, you know, like war materials

and these industries that could be converted, you know, to, you know, to, to war tech manufacturers and things. And this is, this is centered in California, okay? And subsequently, like California became kind of like the hyper-referencing. capital was like hub you know and I emphasize this not just because it's a key to understanding what California is important and why it's powerful and also why they kind of like after the Cold War and you know and and the subsequent like information revolution and the financialization of the economy like the

reason why California inherited that like high-tech mantle like for the reasons I said so that's again another reason why this idea that California is like just like rabidly socialist political culture, like, that's cap. Like, that doesn't make any sense. You know, like, don't get me wrong. They're, like, the,

they're not just kidding about the, you know, the taxation scheme and, and that they're killing your capital base, like, outright. You know, but that that owes to, like, what I'm getting at is that that's not organic, okay? Like, it's not something that

came from the bottom. And it's not because, like, California voters, like, slew the peruvial golden goose because they just like rose up one day and they're like yeah we're not going to tolerate this anymore like we you know we want we want this absurd tax rate and and we we we hate mcdonald douglas and we hate silicon valley like none of it you know like it um i mean that that's we'll get in more of this in part three because some of that it was too to like the the the vibration of you know the manager elite like from the high tech and manufacturing sector

and that that was a huge thing and like something that people like Burnham didn't really foresee. Like, Searight Mills, he's probably a little, he's probably a little, like, left wing for some people's taste. I think he was an important sociologist, and in some ways I think he had inside Burnham didn't. But,

you know, Burnham, and Burnham wasn't incorrect in his epic, really from, really until the end of the Cold War, although by the close of the 80s, like, this was changing. There was an integral aspect to the managerial state.

You know, the guys who, in policy planning, were also the guys who, you know, worked for big companies in advisory roles or CEO roles. You know, like, Robert McNamara was, like, the case in point. Okay. So there was this kind of like rotation of a leads from, like, the public to the private sector. And, like, applied technology was king in terms of what had clout,

as well as what, you know, could kind of compete for subsidies and things. You know, and it wasn't just, it wasn't just defense contractors either. I mean, it was a general technology, we used to be called like general technology firms, you know, telecom, obviously. But slowly, you know, like political managers and private sector managers that like started coming from different places. You know, and increasingly, like there was less of this kind of like incessuous, like cross-pollination, you know. And then by the 90s, it was kind of complete. you know and that's not accidental either then suddenly like oh california is no longer you know what it's been for 140 years like now it's you know now now it's this uh like

radically progressive um you know kind of kind of like socialist uh experiment that can never ever go republican again like that's like i'm emphasizing this stuff to to demonstrate why in in kind of totality of circumstances terms like what's alleged about it's not possible but we're going to continue first a bit on you know in the same vein as in the first episode and that people seem to respond well to that so i don't think it's going to bore them um but i mean it's important i'm not just you know this isn't just like a hobby of mine or something to drop you know factoid heavy narratives or something it's it's essential to understanding kind of like my thesis and we'll get into that in part three but anyway i think

we left all up last time with talking about these guys like Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor and Jefferson Davis and the Mexican War and how the Mexican War and President Polk, who's an underrated president, you know, that this was kind of like the day one experience of California, you know, and there was a profoundly like economic imperative behind California's capture, you know, that that wasn't the whole story, you know, like there was, like we talked about. I've got nothing about love for the Confederacy. I've got nothing about love for the South. And, I mean, they're, they're like my people, you know, like, ethnic and sectarian terms. But there was, there was a very thirsty element among them who believed in Man of Us Destiny.

Okay, like California was kind of the gateway to that. Like, literally, you know, because a lot of these guys, they wanted to essentially replace the Spaniards and ensignate themselves kind of as as this boss element over this formerly Spanish-American slave empire. Like quite literally. That's not some sort of

dystopian mother Jones kind of narrative or something. Like that's true. I'm not passing rural judgment on that. That would have led to dysfunctional outcomes but you know, not for

not for reasons of a purely ethical nature or anything like that. But you know um even before the war between the states kicked off it kind of became clear that that that wasn't going to be abided and then you know the the california gold rush i think we got in i think that's where we left off the california gold rush you know changed everything and for all time it meant that you know the federal government was going to be deeply insinuated into into california's fortunes in terms of its infrastructural development in terms of its political

assimilation, you know, like all that. So, when to the Gold Rush, California was like fast-tracked for a lot of like NASA and infrastructure. Okay, from like the 1850s until, like, really until like the 1950s and 60s.

Okay. The, there was this giant logistics firm. And this guy named John Butterfield. He got a federal contract to carry mail Overland from Memphis and St. Louis, which was kind of the, that's kind of like the westernmost frontier

of truly developed America, you know, like the south and the near south and the Midwest, like near and prox in terms to where I am. And so like twice a week, these stage coaches that run through Prestonel Passau, Yuma, the Pacific Coast. And like it had pace, it would take take 20 to 25 days, which was like rapid in those days. The Russell Major and Waddell Company, there were another big logistics firm.

Right before the Civil War, they carried something, they had a fleet of something like 6,000 wagons and oxen, like all told. they were they were like a big rival to pony express also but eventually like they they kind of developed their own like niche and they were they were moving more like freight rather like what we consider to be like freight you know rather than like letters and telegrams and stuff like that but um you know this was this was like a fur of you know

not just because you know there wasn't like the the kind of concentrated necessity you know, to serve like a discreet market like that. But, you know, this is being, like, rapidly subsidized, you know. Like, Washington, like, had its sights on California. It's, like, a literal gold night, you know, after the discovery of these, like, massive gold reserves. Samuel Morse, yes, that Morris, you know, they got the architect of Morse code. You know, he was, like, an early telecom, like, pioneer, obviously. you know the

like wiring up like why aren't he got $30,000 um appropriated for the Washington Baltimore like telegraph line

which was like an incredible like fortune in those days you know and like the first it was that line was first used it transmitted cable like by it transmitted by cable

between um the wig and the and the Democratic of Republican conventions in the 1840s, which is kind of wild. That was like the first, that was like the first, like, newswire between, you know, conventions. You know, so, like, people had both situated in both locales could, like, be advised of what was happening. You know, that's why we talk about literally the newswire, you know, like that, that term, like, never thought of favor for whatever reason. you know and um so the so the uh morris died in the early 1870s and memory serves but you know like

they him and his firm got like a huge amount of public money so like wire up california and like before i mean it's not like a 20th century obviously or the 21st century in terms like lobbying and like modern lobbying as we think of it they really didn't come into exist and it's like grant administration like this idea of like I'm a businessman or I'm some Wall Street type and I can I can just approach Congress and like make my case and be like yeah I need you know I need $30,000 which I adjusting for inflation I mean that's that's like tens of millions of dollars today you know that you know this idea you can just kind of like approach congressman or senators or approach the cabinet like the secretary of the interior or something of a of an incumbent president and it's like make your pitch for for subsidies like i was basically on a hurdle it's like something you could do you know so but i mean if you but if you had business in california relating to infrastructure like like basically like like watching it like shovel money at you you know um

and that that's hugely significance man hugely significant you know and like a telegraph it quickly became like indispensable to government you know um and this is also the uh this is uh this is uh This is also the origins of the Associated Press. You know, like AP, like the AP Newswire started in 1827, which is insane. You know, and originally, it was local to New York, you know. But then they, like, AP started, like, utilizing the fact that California is going wired up, you know, to literally be able to, like, disseminate, like, coast to coast news. like how how valid that news was

is an open-ended question. You know, like, fake news isn't like a new thing. But, you know, like, all this, like what President Polk's angle and all this was, and aside from, like, the obvious, and this is hugely important, too. You know, Texas was always really, basically what the reason,

one of the federal government had its site so much in California and it was, like, salivating. That's what they'd wanted Texas to be. You know, like, Texas, Texas is a, it's just like a bounty of, of, of natural wealth in the new world. You know, like, it's, it's incredible. You know, it's got, it's got, it's got the, it's got the commodities and the,

and the convertible energy resources of like 10 countries, you know, like to this day. Like, it's insane. But, you know, Texas is always problematic. And Texas, of course, also, like, join the Confederates. You know, we weren't there yet. you know during Polk's administration but I mean the Texans

basically wouldn't play ball and like Texas political culture there was always these problems I mean those those kind of endure to this day although it's different now I mean and obviously Texas is no longer they've lost their they've lost

the stones as it were for any kind of like rebel political culture and they're so deeply insinuated into into the military industrial apparatus that that kind of like a thinkable today but you know but Texas is always kind of on its own program you know and it's always um there and there was like discrete power bases there you know particularly related to to what became like agribusiness and

stuff you know um so people like Polk they were looking at California and saying like you know well this we can we can base see like Maine, California, and whatever image we want, you know, and we can allocate it to resources and whatever we want, you know, and we're not going to, like, brush up against this, like, established power there, you know, and we're not going to have to deal with, like, a house of political culture. And, you know, such that we can, like, convince people to move there, you know, they're going to credit us with, with kind of creating this utopia. We're, like, everything's wired up. You know, you've got, you know, you've got, you know, you've got, like, electricity. It doesn't

huge thing and I'll get to that in a minute was like literally wiring up California electricity and like farmhouses and residences which was like a herd of at scale you know basically like making California as like attractive as possible and then like when people like when these day one um pioneer types arrive there you know they'll have like you know they'll look at Washington as like this benevolent agent you know that made this possible and I'm sure that people like listening or watching right now they're making the connection that like this is a lot like how Walt Disney thought, and they're right, it is.

No way to that in a minute. But, you know, the, the, um, Polk's interesting, too, because he, he was, he was like this genius holliamath. He was an expert mathematician. He was born in North Carolina. He'd migrated to Tennessee,

served in Congress. He was Speaker of the House. he was governor for two years. But he was also, he was also like an old school southerner. Like, you know, a plantation. He was a slave owner. Like, he was part of what, you know, the Confederacy's ops, you know, derisively called the slave power. But again, he was like this high-speed mathematician and this kind of like polymath.

And, like, he had a deep understanding of technology. you know um but he's kind of cast as like this he's kind of cast as like this stodgy like old guy represented this kind of reactionary tendency you know and yeah i mean it's not totally false but that that's kind of like the wrong takeaway from polk and his administration you know and um he uh he was an accolite of andrew jackson i can't remember if we got into that or not so much that people called him young hickory so you had credibility it's like this kind of like populist like white yeoman type you know and that's one of the reasons why he was like so effective you know because like he actually was those things it wasn't it wasn't just this kind of like fake narrative around

him a remarkable guy you know i'm a big fan of him as people probably discerned and i don't think he's a president people read about her anymore. But, you know, it, uh, people like Paul Johnson claimed that Polk was the first president who was killed by the office. You know, um, and he kept, uh, he screwed his, he kept that diary, it was clearly like the stress and the workload was killing him. You know, and it, uh, got of the most, like, obvious and flagrant instance of that is

Wilson, but I mean, poke also, like, the pressures these guys were under are incredible. Like, even today, even kind of an empty suit, like Obama, like, you made a lot of the fact that, you know, like, in a few years ago, all his heroin gray and stuff, you know, like, it's, um, it's like an exhausting role, even now when there's all kinds of advantages, and you're basically a PR man and not, like, a real executive. You know, that's why when, um, I mean, obviously a lot of this stems from a kind of debate hostility to the man, but when world media

outlets and not just American ones, they talk about how, like, awful, quote of what awful Putin looks. It's like, well, he's a guy in his 70s. I think he probably beat cancer. Because all indications point to that. And the Russians are notoriously

close to the chest about health problems with anybody, let alone their leadership. But, you know, he's a war executive, and the pressures that man is under are unfathomable. I think it was remarkably good considering all of that. But that's something of a tangent. Forgive that. But

the kind of key to all this that I just suggested, I mean, obviously, like the gold rush happened immediately after the Mexican War and a lot of these ideas at scale kind of ossified in the aftermath

of the Guadalupe Hidalgo treaty. But, Polk wanted to go to war in Mexico because he wanted California. Okay. Like the men who actually fought the war, you know, guys like Jackson, guys like Zachary Taylor,

guys like Stonewall Jackson, not Andrew, guys like Winfield Scott. I mean, they had they had a sense of like white man and Southern Honor about it, obviously. And, you know, they had like a warrior's mentality about it. You know, and a lot of

you know, these Man of His Destiny type, also they viewed it in like nakedly theological terms and there's nothing wrong with that so things that made America strong I mean that's one of the things that makes our people strong like you know white dissenters but that was not Paul to the ocean Pokemon in California okay because he was he was kind of like Wilson and kind of like Eisenhower in this regard like whatever anybody thinks like Wilson or Ike politically that's not what I'm getting at like they they had serious foresight in terms of infrastructure

potentials and you know the exploitability of nature's bounty and as well as you know how America's incredible wealth could translate into applied technology and industry and things and that's also why you know I can't remember I mentioned this before Pope Pope promise only served one term and he did and I think that's part of why, you know, back in those days, like, medical treatment wasn't what it is today. I mean, Poe-up was not particularly good

of health. I, I, when he, he was a war executive who won, he was a conquering hero. America got Mexico. He was able to lock in basically these kind of key infrastructural

projects. Like, I think it was basically on, like, mission accomplished, and I younger people don't really understand this. I don't think. We're just on the slight on them. There's no way they would. And I plan to be around for a minute. I'm not, like, planning to die.

But I do have, like, more time behind me than in front. And I do understand now why people, especially men, when they're like, okay, mission accomplished, it's kind of like your body almost gives out. You know, like, it's interesting. I'm not trying to be morbid, but it's significant when we're discussing the kinds of personages and historical imperatives that we are. but um you know the uh you know and again there's a lot of cap around the mexican war there's a lot of historians a lot of traditional historians kind of cast the mexicans as a bunch

of fools and people who aren't don't have a charitable view of of poke or or the confederacy or the south or white people they view poe just kind of like this greedy opportunist other people like howard zin types they claim well obviously there was foreign knowledge of California's gold wealth and so that this was this was like basically like an economic heist like none of those things are true like that's the demonstrably false

like this was what it appears to be and that's we got under the whole issue with the the negotiation between Larkin and and Sloat and this kind

of informal contingent that was based in Monterey that then managed to lobe all the Mexicans and pay them only half would have been allocated for you know these concessions which originally was slated at 30 million dollars then have to you know 15 million but it's um you know but when Mexico was actually treated pretty generously you know they were they were compensated their their um a lot of their debts were repudiated and Mexico then is now had a terrible reputation for accruing massive

public debts and then just simply like welching on them and somehow that tracks like with Mexicans. I'm not trying to like trash like Spanish people or something but it's just funny to think about. But the

and also too and we'll move on from this in a minute but this is important. You know the Mexican government was violently anti-American. you know that's um that wasn't just some sort of rationale invoked as a cause but we you know that is true and some people seem to forget that because they view mexico is albeit you know of the in the air i mean they do it you know possibly as corrupt and stuff and the way that unfortunately uh a lot of political cultures

based on the iberian model are but they viewed it as basically this kind of like european colonial power that was that was fighting a race war against the Apache and so they they, for some reason in their mind it's like, well, no, how would America and how especially the American South

and Mexico not be friendly? They were serious, there was serious enmity there and the Mexicans hated America. Like, their government, I mean, I don't, it's outside the scope, but one of the reasons why I like Mexican people and whites, I mean, yeah, there's tensions there, there always are,

between peoples but they do get along better than than other populations like on the street in in in in in in in square life and ever and that's an interesting topic but obviously it's outside the scope but I um I don't believe that Mexican people and some like abiding hatred of America you better believe that their government did you know and um and that kind of divide between I mean there really was like a chasm of distance between like the ruling cast in Mexico and like the common man or woman like that that's what really screwed

it up when uh when it became blatantly communist oh yeah yeah much more hostile no and Mexico is a screwy when we're getting ahead of ourselves but even like the Zimmerman telegram a lot of that was cap like I don't it's not like the Mexicans

are eminently going to like assault the southwest but the very fact that I mean I mean Wilhelm was was not a good um ruler and just not a good guy in all kinds of ways but I

and it's something stupid I mean he was always saying stupid things you know whether it was like firing off a cable to Paul Kruger is antagonized the British

for a reason or you know setting off the Zimmerman Telegram but but the fact that the Mexicans were receptive to that I mean that kind of speaks for itself you know like the

I mean the Mexican the army today doesn't like America and vice versa like I mean I realized they got like a fake government now. They have to say dumpy, yenta lady. I mean, it's, it's a combination like cartel shit and and, um,

you know, big, big money interests, um, of a transnational sort and, um, like, like security state interest. I mean, she's not, like, the real consul there, but what the reason why she always, like, mouse these stupid platitudes about, you know, like evil whitey and evil Yankee-dom. I mean,

that, that's got deep roots there. You know, it's not, it's not some like new thing or whatever but um the and the and it's all the too I'll move on in a minute I but for the military hounds on deck or are going to be watching and this is important too you know the the Mexican war and specifically the assault on Mexico City that was like the first real use of combined arms in the sense we think of it yeah I know field artillery it existed for a long time but um that cordon between

artillery and the infantry element and that kind of like advance of fire in Klausowice and doctrinal terms. That's what the first time that had been that had been practiced and you know

at scale, you know, and especially it was certainly an into a first impression in America and that one of the reasons why the Confederates were so tough it's not just because of you know like the the kind of warrior culture of the American South,

which still exists today. It's because these guys like all cut their teeth fighting the Mexican war, you know, with what was then cutting edge war tech, man. You know, like they, and this was splendidly executed. And that was, it was guys like Zachary Taylor and guys like Stonewall, you know, who were

like leading company level elements. But like Winfield Scott, it was, Winfield Scott really planned that operation. You know, and Robert E. Lee was a captain on the ground. McClellan was there. Grant, Jefferson Davis, who was a full colonel.

It's literally like a who's who of, you know, the men who commanded forces in the war between the states. It was also Scott's Army. It was the first amphibious assault ever mounted. by US forces on March 9th, 1847 at Veracruz. And it was carried, it was, it was, it went off without loss with like no, no attrition on, on the side of American forces. So it's, so the Mexican War is important a lot of reasons. I think people, they look at it as kind of like this, this nothing thing or, they look at it

like the War of 1812, contra the Revolutionary War or something. I mean, War 1812 is important too, but they, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, was really important and it's honor right for all all kinds of reasons but um yeah i realize i got to pick up the pace um but um but you know just on uh on its in in brass tax terms just in in valuing neutral terms and in apolitical terms california wasn't even greater prize than Texas, you know, like not not accounting for the things that are precluding the full kind of realization of territorial potential or exploitation therein depending on where you fall on your judgments I suppose but um California the name it's it's

got a name that's like resident in fantasy like in Providence I mean it was named after this imaginary island in this kind of like epic romance by Ordona's de Montalvo that was published like right around 1500 and Hernan Cortez like knew of it and would

reference it and it I guess I guess he's left much trying to thought like the first true like permanent settlement by the Spaniards didn't begin until the

7060s like a settlement at scale I mean, you know, of both sexes and of you know, like a Yeo-Mannery as we'd think of it. You know, I mean, before then it was Franciscan missions and it was

freebooters and like pirates. You know, like Cortez himself, but he was like a warrior, like pirate, like freebooter, you know? And the Franciscan missions between San Diego and San Diego were San Francisco and San Diego were ubiquitous. You know, the Catholic Church owned a huge amount of California until the Spanish crown. And then later, you know, these various charter companies began like the vesting Rome, like of its holdings. but uh you know

California's got an incredibly rare climate um the fertility of its soil was basically like unheard of people have never seen anything like it um

the the range of natural resources is literally boundless you know um everybody wanted a piece of it the Russians had formed a plan like the Tsarist Russia at the beginning of the 19th century

they formed a plan to establish permanent settlements in California at the mouth of the Columbia River and also in Hawaii they want to do the same thing and Hawaii was going to be like their springboard basically like nothing came of it for a lot of reasons and you know by the close of the

by the close of the 19th century I mean Russia was very much like the sick man of empires. But this wasn't just fantasy. Like, you know, this, just to get an idea, like, how much it was coveted. You know, and we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. We went into this, too. It wasn't totally insane, like it was, to pretend that, like, oh, the Germans are coming to kill us.

It wasn't totally insane to postulate that the Japanese would want California to. I mean, obviously, like, there were a bunch of, there was about a half of those in, like, preconditions that would have needed to kind of be splendidly realized before Japan could have even contemplated that in operational terms. But you better believe that was one of their kind of, like, that there would have been, like, the jewel in the crown of, like, ultimate objectives for the, for, like, a victorious, like, Japanese empire, you know, because it would have had to have been, you know. one of the things that the Russian ambitions was that when relations between the United States, the United Kingdom, which didn't really mend

until the first decade of the 20th century. But in the 1820s, the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy basically collaborated to cut to cut off the Russian navies, like the civic fleet, from being able to access the sea lanes it needed to in order to realize these ambitions they had on the west coast of the new world.

You know, and that's, I mean, what really took Russia out of the game as a maritime power that was able to project transcontinentally was the Russo-Japanese War. the Japanese literally like slaughtered and sank the Russian Navy in in 1905. But that was such a big deal, not as because it was, you know, the, not as because it indicated that Japan had arrived as a world power, comparable in the power projection capability in any of the European naval forces. But also until then, the Russian Navy was a serious threat. it had serious threat potential to whoever was likely to be situated as an opposing force to it.

And that's one of the things that emboldened poke. Because after the 1820s, he was basically being told by many who would know, look, like the Spanish slash Mexican hold on, in California, Oregon is feeble at best which it was and would really

steal the deal a guy named Wilkes he was a young officer he was a lieutenant or a um yeah I think he was a lieutenant I can never remember like what the what the naval equivalent is of an army captain

because like a naval captain is like a colonel but uh will also some kind of junior officer the u.s navy and uh in 1841 you know to have a decade before the mexican war the strategic survey was commissioned of the eastern pacific and what came to be kind of the focus of it like it got underway was you know with san francisco and they the entire like san francisco region you know and and how it was literally like a gold mine and how it was um you know it was like an essential it had it was an essential capture you know if America was going to become a if America was going to become a like a truly like self-contained like continental power like the idea like superpowers obviously didn't exist in in and in and it was contemplation then

but like it's fascinating to read like what Wilkes like put the paper and you just like the impressions of these guys were worldly people. A lot of these guys had been around the world, even those who had, like, they basically been, like, all through, like, the Spanish Empire and stuff. You know, it, um,

they talk about California, like, it's, like, freaking Shangri-R-La or something, which I guess it kind of is, but what time we got, okay, we're going on for about 42 minutes. All, I'll pick up the pace. If I'm being boring or repetitive, like, let me know, but it, uh,

it's all good okay good deal um this huge boom like by by the 1880s california had about a quarter million people you know it was uh it was rapidly becoming the financial and cultural hub you know of the west which at that time was still like wide open space obviously um even as early as there always like the 1880s knobb hill was a knob hill was a was like Beverly Hills of the day

but even more so there was like you had mansions that were worth a million dollars which is basically like a billion dollar house like in today's money like I make this point to people a lot they can't really coddle like the wealth if you were like a millionaire in like the 1860s or 1880s

it's like unfathomable it's not just like being a rich guy or like these guys like Andrew Carnegie like the like the power they had like these guys literally were like matches the universe you know like they could like they um

they like world leaders and like gravel before them you know like they they owned like double digit percentages of like the GDP like that's like unfathomable now but even a guy like Elon Musk I've got like tremendous respect for

and I just think he knows a lot of like awesome stuff even like him is like nothing compared to the the kinds of wealth accrued by these guys and in in percentage terms and stuff in like 1908 1909 jp morgan paid off the american debt yeah yeah there you go and he was he was probably he was definitely like one of like the top five like most important men on this planet like morgan uh i mean basically like i mean one basically started because because of

It was like Morgan's firm that it sent that like it caught at Wall Street. And it was JP Morgan that essentially called up the White House and demanded Wilson like fixed this because they had debt that wasn't going to be serviced because they got the sold to build of goods by the British Crown. I mean, I think we got into that our World War I series. But yeah, it's like unfathomable. And this got this new money he was concentrating in California. You know, but something also is happening. A lot of people attribute the decadence. of California to post-war stuff and

Kulter-Kompf and what they kind of improperly describe as cultural Marxism. It, like, long precede that. That's, like, a whole different issue. What was called Barbary Coast, euphemistically, it was basically California Red Light District for context, for the geography economics I looked this up. I know that G.I.R. California reasonably well, but I'm not like, I was never truly local there, even though I spent a lot of time there. But, um, the Barbary Coast,

like, as a Ridley District and, like, as a, as a community area, as we call it in Chicago. It was bounded by Broadway, Kearney, Montgomery, and Pacific Avenue. And its primary revenues came from, you know, bars and taverns. like gambling joints and like dance halls that were basically just like whorehouses and there was like a bargaining trade not just for like teenage girls and adult women but like men as well as like kids like really awful stuff um basically like a smartest board of like deviancy um it was William Randolph first who who shut all that down which is fascinating and this he plays an essential role in the kind of rehabilitation of like the capitalist in the public mind

and incidentally in film citizen cane is all about that if you read between the lines but reading a little bit ahead of ourselves um the first like actual like strip joint like it'd been like peep shows and stuff obviously going back like as long as there were like people in america but like a dedicated like strip bar you know like nudie bar Like the first one in America was at the corner of a Kearney in California, and it opened in 1885. You know, and this became something California was known for. Like, especially in San Francisco. It wasn't only a port city, but, you know, it kind of had like Alaska demographics early on.

It's because of like all the 1849 minors. You know, so you had this like majority male population. and kind of rough-hewn guys, like a lot of whom were really in trouble with the law, honestly, and stuff. You know, the women who were there, like the young and youngish women who were there,

were disproportionately prostitutes. I call them prostitutes. I know that these, like, faggy, like, wiki editor types and only at their house, like, no, they're sex workers. Like, no, you're not working at sex if you sell your pussy, you were a prostitute. If you, like, sling dope,

you're not, like, an unlicensed pharmacist. You're the dope. man, you know, that this is really, really, really bothers me. I've had to, like, check people in real life when they use that term. I'm, like, don't ever use that term. But where was I? Oh, um, you know, in these days, there wasn't, uh, you know, there wasn't like real, like, like, as we think of, like, law enforcement,

that's a night, that's a mid-19th century innovation. It arrived in the East Coast first, obviously. But really, until, like, the turn of the sense. century, it wasn't this ubiquitous thing. And this idea that there's just like this police force kind of going around, looking for people committing crimes and like shaking down the local forehouse or the local, you know, or the local like poker den, the local opium den. Like that wasn't the thing.

You know, I find it fascinating. People think like the police have this like permanent perennial thing. They think the police are like the stars or something. Like they do like the national state. like the Westphalian state. They think it like has always existed. It can never not exist. And it's like time or matter or the weather.

And I try to explain to them like, no, you don't, like the police aren't like one of the elements. Like get your head out of your ass. But point being, there was this dichotomy in California. You know, and honestly, I mean, that's part of the creative destruction of capitalism. You know, it was like vice, you know, because it, I'm not, I'm not. calling back on Marxist tropes or something about a capitalism like assaults the soul. But I mean, anytime you have people with money to spend, especially when you have a heavily male population, like men aren't any more prone to sin than women, but there's certain kinds of stuff that's bad for you that men like.

I think we can all agree on that because we're all adults here. And that tends to the demand for that kind of thing as well as people willing to make it available. There's like a minuet between those two tendencies. But, so I'm getting as one of describing this, isn't to say, like, see, things have always been this way on the West Coast. I'm not saying that at all. I mean, that's true, but there was a tremendous backlash against it. And California became known, going in part to these guys like hers,

who built entire careers out of kind of cleaning up vice and things. but this kind of crusading moralist culture that was very much based in congregational Christianity specifically Methodism from day one took root in California

and the only thing really comparable is kind of like the church culture of the South you know it's this idea that this idea that California was always this kind of like massive like den of ill repute that was always different from the rest of the country and just always had this kind of

like tolerance for for debased passion particularly of a sexual nature and the things that wasn't true at all. Like if anything, people were I mean, it's not like a culture of extremes but in some ways like people were like way more uptight

in R, which I'll get into in episode 3, were in R like way more uptight about that kind of stuff than in the Midwest. Like a place like Shytown that's very much below board, you don't see it but everybody knows about it and there's not people like crusading against it. That's like a California thing and a southern thing.

I'm not putting shade on either culture, but, you know, the point is if California is like anywhere, it's like the South. It's not this, you know, it's not what people think it is. You know, it's not a bunch of people who think like Berkeley liberals, is what I'm getting it. You know, and even where the, even where the institutionalized vice comes from there. It doesn't come from the places

people think it does. But yeah, it was basically William Randolph Hearst who became this anti-kind of vice crusader during the progressive era and what immediately preceded it. He was the first real

newspaper like magnate. He founded the San Francisco Examiner, which was like a huge paper. I remember it was a huge paper still, like when I was a kid and a teenager, you know? The, uh, Hurst had sank $8 million into it to compete basically with, like, the top, like, East Coast media brands, you know, which again, that was beyond, like, a princely sum in those days. He, um, people claim he helped start the Spanish-American War. I mean, Hearst was obviously

considered the father of yellow journalism. And Citizen Kane, like, you know, it's obviously talking about Hearst and it paints him in some ways as a monster, but also paints him as kind of just like, it's kind of like godlike figure. Almost like, I don't know if people are familiar, or if you yourself are,

if you're familiar with the glass bees by Ernst Younger, like Hurst was, like, Zaparone was kind of like Walt Disney meets like William Randolph Hurst. That's the way, like, I think of him. but, you know, Hearst, he ran this incredibly hostile and bellicose copy against the Spaniards. He endorsed political assassination of America's enemies, and he backpedaled when people criticized him for it, saying,

oh, this was only a mental exercise, but it was like, obviously he was talking about, like, assassinating the Spanish leadership. It's just kind of, like, crazy, reckless stuff. But, um, he, uh, he hated McKinley, President McKinley.

So, like, some of his ops, like, tried to blame him for the, the assassination of McKinley. It, uh, it's a very, very interesting guy. Um, And obviously, too, like when World War I arrived, that California got with another infusion of capitalization, by the public subsidies, but... Sorry. That really built it as an essential hub of military-industrial power.

and it also made it even more siphlytic because you had this mass of soldiers, sailors, Marines and the camp followers that attend that. There was a whole army of prostitutes and all kinds of other incidental goodies like drugs and gambling and alcohol, which I've always been with us. You didn't used to be promoted over your smartphone,

but you know sometimes people convince themselves that these are new things because they want to idealize the past it's like what progressives do in reverse like progressives are simple dens you think that like you think that the

future is like the Jetsons you know like they're they're kind of bourgeois nominal ops or people who think that like the past was the Flintstones it's fucking retarded but um

even though it doesn't seem like a natural stopping place if I keep going like I'm gonna it's it's gonna be I'm gonna have to like interrupt the kind of next phase of what I wanted to talk about um yeah I'm sorry I didn't get to as much as I wanted today I promised episode three like I'll

wrap this up and I'll get to the meat of like data and the things about blue California okay all right no problem at all um do some quick plugs and we'll finish this up. Yeah, certainly. You can find me on social media

at capital R-E-A-L-U-A-L underscore number 7, H-O-M-A-S-7-7. I recently started using my own name, like my Christian name on social media, my government name, because X-terrorizes me when I have a post that

like catches fire and like the algorithm goes nuts and says I'm doing heat things and it got triggered somehow and or activated and saying that my name was like a hate word or something so I put in my government name so like if they say that again it's like well

how can I how can my government name be a hate word but yeah so but it's the same it's the same alt it just displays different but best place to find my work product and to just kind of get acquainted because

we've got a pretty active chat there too is on substack that's where my podcast is and all kinds of other good stuff that's also kind of where I announce like when I'm organizing meetups and fun things it's real

capital REOAL Thomas 7777 that substack.com I'm on T-Gram. I've got my own website. It's number seven, H-M-A-S-777.com. I'm on Instagram. I'm on telegram.

I'm all over the place. Just seek me. You'll find. All right. Thank you, Thomas. I appreciate it. Until part three. Yeah, man.