A Geek History of Time - Episode 181 - V the Leftist Allegory Turned Fascist Dogwhistle Part III

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

You know, Stalin and the Nazis were these welfare state types. One of us is a stand-up comic. Can you tell me it is? Ladies and gentlemen, everyone, brick. Um. But the problem. Oh my god. That's like, I could use that to teach the whole world. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută.

Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută.

Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. Nu-i văzută. This is a geeky time. Where we connect to the real world, my name is Ed Boilock, a world history and an English teacher here in Northern California. And recently, there's been, I mean, not just for a long time. Anytime there's a move to try to realistically portray the stresses that women have to deal with in the world, in fandom. There's always to push back from guys, always. There's this male. Talking about how the struggles of male characters are underappreciated and you introduce a female character and they just, you know, gripe and complain.

And what occurred to me in talking with my wife about this recently was anybody who makes those arguments on Twitter or anyplace else is basically telling on themselves that either they've never been in a relationship with a woman or when they have been in a relationship with a woman, they have never actually listened to the shit that women have to put up with on a daily basis. Like just just this week, for example, my wife has had to carry emotional labor for literally everyone else in her office at some point. Some of them on multiple occasions. And when she had, she had a thing happen today where she got a look at her paycheck. She had a thing happen today where she got a look at her paycheck and

The the company that she works for had changed from one payroll service to a different payroll service and the The layout of the check was different, you know where where they put all the information about withholdings and all that stuff All of that had changed and so there was this there was this long second where she was looking at, like, wait a minute, what happened to my money, right? And this happened at the end of the week during which she literally talked to one of her male co-workers down from quitting on the spot. And that was actually just earlier today. She had multiple interactions with a coworker who is the biggest mansplainer like, oh my god, this is, yeah. And then, and then finally she had this thing happen and she went into her manager and she said, name

I'm not going to give out of the air. What happened with our check? Oh, well, we changed into service. Oh, all right, yeah, no, for a second there. You know, I was kinda, I was about to freak out. And no shit, her boss looked at her and said, well, you know, name of my wife. Maybe you just need to try to have a more positive attitude about these things.

Like, like, and of course, every day she tells me about what's going on at work. So she told me this, and I could not stop myself from going, excuse the fuck out of you, sir. Like, you don't even fucking know. So so I just I just want to say for anybody who who wants to gripe in complain about you know all of the the quote unquote whining that you see female superhero characters do in in in more recent depictions of them. Son, that just proves you haven't actually listened

to a wife or girlfriend ever in your life. And I've needed to get that off my chest kind of for a while now, but today was like the topper on that. So yeah, that's what I've got going on. How about you? Who are you and what's happening? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a first-while Latin teacher as well as a US history teacher, mostly US history now. So, uh, up here in Northern California as well at the high school level. And for me this week, let's see, my kids and I just finished a Voltron Defender of the Universe. Okay, nice. I think the most recent iteration, but like, it's certainly a very comprehensive one. It is a well done one. Yeah, we binged it one Saturday recently,

or one Sunday recently, and have a lot of fun with that Because there are about 13 episodes each season kind of thing So I think we lost we watched the last five in a sitting Oh wow, which you know, it's it's like you know, that's one Lord of the Rings movie So you guys bar right So But we watch it and it was it was really cool I liked how it wrapped up and my kids and I have had a lot of really good discussions about, you know, spoiler alert to something that ended before the pandemic began. I believe, Alora, Princess Alora, sacrifices herself and gives her life essence for a hunnervo to like not be evil.

Okay. It was all a little confusing to me. My kids could tell you the exact plot and everything that happened, but this is short. Alora did sacrifice herself, leaving Lance behind and Lance was her paramour. Yeah. And it was really I'm having flashbacks

to like nine year old me. Sure, sure. Yeah. I don't know how the other one ended if it ended at all. But you know, seeing Lance, uh, settled the rest of his life in terms of like honoring her sacrifice and honoring the love that they had by being a simple farmer. And he was by far the most, uh, complex slash, slash, he was the comedy relief. He had a lot of out loud feelings kind of thing.

And so he was kind of the most featured character by virtue of his ability to annoy everyone. And it was really interesting just to see his arc and to have my kids talk about it afterwards. So it was a lot of fun. I like ending things as far as long things with them. We're still working our way through the legend of Kora. And yeah, I mean, we've rewatched the Hobbit in anticipation of the Lord of the Ring stuff, caught up to date on that. I'm not going to say which

up to date we are because this is somewhat timeless. And yeah, we're kind of looking around for a new thing. And I think we found it, but we're going to decide that this week. Or I think we're just going to work our way through Kora and just like do double dips. Okay. And then we'll see what we like. So it's really cool to get to watch these things with them. Yeah. I can't wait until my son is old enough to be able to handle some of these things. I am looking forward to hearing about that. That is that is going to be awesome. So well, when last we left it, NBC had made a shit ton of money and had a lot of success that they did not anticipate. Off of Michael Johnson's series V, the mini series.

Yes. Yes. And this is the one that original mini series. Yes. And this is the one that ended relatively ambiguously or it didn't have a nice pretty bow on it. It was in the fighting. The end was the beginning. or it didn't have a nice pretty bow on it. It was, and the fighting was off. The end was the beginning.

Yeah, but it could have just been the end there. Yeah, yeah, you could have left it off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and that's how he had it in mind. It's done, and now what, you know, it's that kind of. Yeah, well, his, the mirror to us. Yeah, because his whole point was,

this isn't something that the fight doesn't actually stop. Right. That's, um, you, you need, as you love to say, you need to finish the full course event of Ionix. Yes. And then be prepared for flare ups after that. Exactly.

So now afterward, NBC wanted to follow up its success to make more money, of course. And, uh, Johnson in an interview said that the mini series was So now afterward NBC wanted to follow up its success to make more money, of course, and Johnson in an interview said that the mini series was going to act as a pilot to a full series, but given the budget necessary to make the series work and given NBC's finances, Michael Tartekoff altered that to make a sequel mini series instead. And Johnson started gathering writers to him. But then Warner Brothers came in and declined. And they figured that a mini series wouldn't be as profitable for them as would a series. So the compromise with struck, let's do both, but like throw half the money at both. So NBC explained some shit right there.

NBC would get the six hour mini series and Warner Brothers would get a full series out of it. And while Johnson was getting things going, Warner Brothers said that they wanted a different director for the second mini series from Johnson. Or no, they want a different writer, I apologize. They basically Warner Brothers studios wanted Johnson out of the way, despite Johnson being contracted right and direct the second mini series. And they just, they're like, no, we don't want him as a writer or as a director. Why not? Do we know what their issue was?

Yeah, actually, Warner Brothers were concerned that he would worry about the artistry while they were trying to get the bottom line thickened up. what their issue was? Yeah, actually Warner Brothers were concerned that he would worry about the artistry while they were trying to get the bottom line thickened up. So get the mini series done fast and cheap, then we could get on to the series where that's where we're going to get the money. So Warner Brothers breached his contract by doing this and didn't seem to care. And they're like, okay, what are you going to do? Walk and he said, yes, I am.

And he fucking walked. And here's his quote on it. He says, quote, it was a bit like having a baby and giving it over to the foster parents that you didn't know or trust to this day. I've only seen 30 seconds of it and watch them make every wrong choice in 30 seconds. Wow. Yeah. Now the writers. The shudder coded there, man. Yeah. Oh, and he did. He never did. Yeah. But the writers that were in that room were people that he picked.

But, you know, they they answered to the studio more than they answered to him as a head writer. So V, the final battle was a six hour three episode miniseries that was directed by Richard T. Heffrin Heffrin directed future world He also directed most of the North and South miniseries that you might remember. Oh, okay And explains a number of things. Yeah, and he directed several other miniseries So he's kind of a miniseries director and Johnson's contributions were listed under Lilian Weezer. So if you go and you find the credit given the Lilian Weezer, that's that's Michael Johnson. So interesting choice of normed boom. Well, you know, it's not Alan Smithy because whatever. But so the final battle, it picks up right where V left off. It was a huge ratings win again, which reassured both NBC and Warner Brothers that an ongoing series would totally work and that Johnson wasn't necessary for success.

And this, this particular many say he gives us the happy ending that we didn't get in 1983. No. So for those who've not seen it, here's the plot. John and Diana are still in command of the visitors. And we open with Mike Donovan running with his son through the brightly lit hallways being chased by visitors with rifles now, who shoot Sean down, Michael's son, and Mike is cut down moments later as he holds his dying boy. Of course, that's a dream sequence. Mike suddenly awakes from sleep. Having dreamed the whole incident. You have like the Bobby thing, you know, from dad. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which has it was 1983. And like, that was this, this

pretty intro, this actually predates that. Okay. Yeah. Bobby, being in the shower, I think was 85. Um, yeah, but that trope was still everywhere. Oh, it was. And like, by the time Dallas did it, it was, it was part of the reason it was, it was the thing that it turned into was that it'd become a cliche. Yes. Because it had been done everywhere. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And the thing with doing it there is they went through two full seasons on Dallas, where it was then like, you know, good morning. You're like, what in the shit is this? Like minutes? Are you serious? Yeah. So yeah, it's, it was, speaking of Patrick Duffy, turns out he was in like talk about commercials in 1975. Okay. So I thought that was kind of funny, just a little fun aside. But anyway, so Mike Awakes suddenly from sleep having dream the whole incident. And if you recall, Sean, Mike Sun had been taken aboard the visitor ship in the original mini series. Yes. So you can't just blow the fucking ship up because his son is aboard there as a lizard popsicle, basically.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The resistance fighting, the resistance that's now fighting out of a light rail station in LA, I think, which literally an underground fails in their attempt to stop Stephen, the head of visitor security, and the plant that's being used to process humans to take up to the mother ship. It's essentially freeze drying them, like drying them into jerky.

The resistance loses several members. We open with the resistance trying and failing and Fortunately in the month since the last mini series The resistance has a famed but aging actress on their side a woman named Ruby Ingalls who's posing as a cleaning woman at the visitor's Friendship Center, which is in LA and there's another resistor a name Maggie who started sleeping with Daniel, the brown shirt. Remember Daniel? Yes. And he equates sex with power.

So he likes the attention that she's giving him because he's also a teenage boy. And of course, in their sweet, sweet moments afterwards, he's bragging to her and he lets it slip that there's an important media event that's going to be held at a local hospital and attended by the aliens leader. John, this information works its way back to Julie, the leader of the resistance, and they set up a plot and motion to expose John for the lizard that he is. And most people don't yet believe that they're lizards. Okay. So to get into the hospital, it's going to require a special pass. And Donovan thinks that he can steal his mother's special pass because she's the rich collaborator.

And then they can get that special pass to folks who can then forge such things. There's a fun little moment where, because one of the resistance people is a cop, an ex cop, literally he stopped being a cop. And there's another one who is, you might remember Elias, the one who, his brother was a doctor who died and Elias was the hood.

And Elias was like, it's supposed to have been me in blah, blah, blah. So now he's dedicated himself. And at one point, Donovan says, hey, look, I mean, we get this pass and Elias, or he says to the cop guy, you know, you're a cop and he's like, ex cop and he's like, and Elias, you're a hood, hood X hood between the two of you and then

they both turn to each other like Pascal Pascal and they so it's clever clever writing right yeah like like honestly it's good writing for a comic book I think it's shit for many series but yeah but it's it's what I believe people would call Mary Sue they call call it that any number of times that like a woman just like conveniently waltzes through something even though that's not Mary Sue. But this feels more like you. So on board the mothership Martin and Barbara, these are the fifth columnists, reconfigure the computers in the control room to keep the broadcasts going so that when they pull his lizard face off, they can't just go to black.

Okay. Robin Maxwell. What's that? Can't cut the feed. Correct. Yeah. So, and that's the fifth column working with them now. Yeah.

Now, Robin Maxwell, meanwhile, has noticed that she is pregnant by Brian. Brian was the visitor who befriended Daniel and was kind of in charge of the youth brigade. Remember, Diana was running of in charge of the youth brigade. Remember Diana was running experiments. She notes a green scaly patch on her neck which she covers with a scarf for a while. However, Willie, now Willie's the one that you kept mistaking for everyone else. This is Robert England. He's the visitor who's on the side of, you know, he's on their team. He's a vegetarian for one and he's, you know, he's basically a pacifist and kind of useless except for when he's not. He notices it and immediately asks her how her pregnancy's

going. She admits to the affair with Brian and she asks her father and Julie to help her get an abortion. Okay. And now this is 80, 84, yeah. And this is there's kind of a hot, that's, that's, that's a point at which that would have been a hot button thing. Because that was, that was a deal for, you know, Reagan's supporters was, that was, that was one of the things that got Reagan elected. Right. And we're now moving into the election for his second term.

So okay. All right. Now, of course, this upsets the priest who's on their side. Yeah. So that deals with that. But Julian Robbins father go ahead with it over the strident objections of the priest. They sneak Robin into a hospital where she and her friends named Fred King examined her child in utero. They discover that Robyn's baby cannot be aborted without killing her, so she's going to have to carry it to term. So Reagan wins again. At the big hospital, I think it's because like the lizard baby has like worked its way into her nervous system or some shit like that. If I remember the plot point, right?

It's like in the Alien movies, the egg, the embryo, it's inextricable from your person. Yeah, makes it self-pericidic and inextricable. Yeah. Now, speaking of Reagan, now at the big hospital event. That shouldn't be as funny as that is. Yeah. I know.

All right. At the big hospital event, the resistance members gain entry with the phony passes that Pascal provided. Christine Walsh, the journalist that Mike knew who has absolutely traded any integrity whatsoever for power. She's their foremost media spokesperson now. She heads up the broadcast. John announces that his people's cure for cancer will be given to the population of the earth. At that point, Julie rushes him and announces to the cameras that the visitors are vicious, conquering aliens who

plan to destroy the earth and enslave the human race. Then she tears his mask off revealing his partially lizard face, or at least revealing part of his lizard face. The visitors forced the resistance's retreat, Diana charges Christine Walsh with making an announcement that the broadcast was a hoaxed by the resistance, you know, fake news, with the audience forced at gunpoint to react appropriately. Um, at this point, Christine finds her spine and shifts her rhetoric on camera to and tries to tell the world that what they witnessed was real. In rage, Diana blasts her on camera and Christine dies. Meanwhile, you know, it's, you know, what's what's funny about this is it turns out the the trumpet figure here is Diana. Yes, the the female leader of the of the lizard

aliens. Yeah, yeah, all right. Yep. Meanwhile, Fred King, Robyn's friend, is killed while trying to rush the barriers outside in a stolen ambulance and Julie gets captured by Diana and Stephen. The visitors rebroadcast the event according to what they want to have seen so that the unmasking could just be seen as fake news by those who wanted to. So they just like redo the whole thing and they put out that copy. On board the LA mothership, Diana tries to convince Julie that her greatest fears surround her and that Diana is the only thing that she can trust. It's a process called conversion that we saw mentioned in the original series. We never saw it done. And it doesn't work, but Diana learns

that Julie has a congenital heart defect and she thinks she can use Julie as a sleep agent. So then we meet probably your favorite character, Ham Tyler. Okay. Michael Ironsides. Oh, yeah. Shoots with the newsie at his dick. Yeah, probably probably right up there. Yeah, pulls up the leather sleeves on his jacket before shooting his dick. Yeah, yeah, it's about as it's about as Michael Ironsides as you can get. Yeah. Basically, I think this is as close to to homosexuality as you've ever gotten is admiring him Tyler. Uh, yeah, probably. Yeah. I'll, I'll, you know, and I, and I will say that,

you know, the greatest intensity of my admiration for him was sometime around puberty when like, you know, I wasn't sure. Sure. Yeah. I understand. So, he tells everyone that the resistance is larger than they know and that he has a new type of ammunition, which is coated with Teflon. And so therefore, the bullets can easily penetrate the visitor's armor and into their skin. So now, bullets will actually work because that's one of the reasons that they failed at

the beef jerky factory. Yeah There's a bigger world effort out there and he's come into link the LA group with everyone else So LA has been on their own and he's trying to link them up unfortunately for the LA resistance the guy they used to fake the fast-code he absolutely informed on them after getting beat up Pascal and him hems warns the resistance about a second before the attack comes. So it's the weirdest I told you so.

Yeah. But Ham and his companion, who's named I forget, but he's kind of a fat red headed guy, they blow up the remainder of the hideout and they retreat with Donovan, calling Donovan gooder for the remainder of the series and then the TV series. And it's because Donovan knew Tyler because Tyler is a mercenary and Donovan was always covering war zones. And so Tyler called them do good or all the time. So there's a history.

Okay. Yeah. Now, the new resistance headquarters is in an abandoned movie ranch, which is echoed later in the TV series. Ruby, while undercover, hears that Julie is being set loose, which changes the resistance's plans for her rescue, and Martin plans to aid them in freeing Julie. Hamm has a heart to heart. He is this hard-assed, hard-case guy, and then he has this heart to heart with Ruby. Um, he lets out how incredibly culture he actually is because they banter about Broadway acting. And he's like, I saw you do such and such role. And she's like, Oh, I did such and such.

She's like, I saw him when he did such and such. And it's like this really deep like, okay. You know, it would be like, um, you know, one of the resistance members is, I don't know, Kathy Bates. Yeah. You know, I remember when you were in Mystic Pizza, you know, it's like, wow. Okay. Deep down there. When I was in Mystic Pizza, I did this and blah, blah, blah.

And it's like, yes. And I saw Marlon Brando when he was on stage doing such and such. You're like, holy shit, dude. So of course he and Ruby make plans to chat more as she's the only one that he's been soft with. So you know what's gonna happen to Ruby. Yeah, but yeah, Ruby is able to disable the lighting and security systems. Julie is freed and they all retreat.

However, Daniel finds Ruby and recognizes her behind her disguises a cleaning lady. He shoots her on the spot. The resistance later holds a small memorial service for Ruby at the movie Ranch hideout and ham definitely vows revenge. Julie's conversion experience has her preferring her left to her right. And now she's doubting herself entirely. So she doubts herself because she doesn't know what is locked up inside her kind of, you know, in terms of kind of sleep. Yeah. Man sure, kind of thing. Exactly. And the fact that she prefers her left hand to her right hand has her a little bit spooked. So, logically. Yeah, yeah. So Mike absolutely convinces her that she's still human and then a bit of a romance buds out of this. And then Mike and Julie used stolen uniforms

and a new device that was provided by Ham Tyler that reverberates a human's voice to sound like the aliens because you remember they had the cool echo. Yeah, they had that weird electronic kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Now, they case the plant where the visitors are draining all the water to steel and they're able to find weaknesses in the structure in order to blow it up because why wouldn't a reporter and a biologist know those things? I mean, duh. Right. Like, yeah. Security is tighter than ever before. And the main tunnel that they'll use to infiltrate it is protected by a massive laser system because it's 1984. And it will instantly disintegrate anything that comes in contact with it. Yeah, that was, that was a, that was a, that was a mcguffin. It was very popular. It's usually like the laser grid. Yeah. Yeah. I remember there was a

MacGyver episode. It was the very first one that it's where he first meets Pete Martell. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And he uses, uses a mirror. Blow up its, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then he uses the mirror to guide it. Yeah. And he even says, and this is back when they were like still trying to feel out what his character would be. So he's a little bit more smart-ass than anything else and he's like you never seen a scorpion sting itself You know, he does this. Yeah, yeah, I'm bad ass. Yeah, so yeah his early stuff as McGiver I really liked because there was a lot more Lucy Goosey to him It was you know, he had a satchel and he would just pick things up along the way. And I really liked that,

because I'm like, no, Jerry would go. So. And I think there was more of Harry Dean, and I'm about to miss, miss say the act, but there was a lot more of the actor. Oh, Harry Dean Anderson. Harry Dean Anderson. Yeah, there was a lot more of,

there was a lot more of him in there, rather than the scripted kind of, you know, when they figured out who the character was, he didn't get to have his personality shine through quite as much. He was much more virtuous, like he wasn't not virtuous, but suddenly the virtue became his chief factor. Yeah. Like he went from being like a, an interesting rogue to being a paladin.

Yeah, kind of. Yeah. So, uh, their whole plan depends a lot on coordination so that they can shut off the lasers, use the new explosives that are unstable at higher and lower temperatures, which is weird. Um, meanwhile, Maggie and her boyfriend, Mark, the ex-cop, they reconcile. Mark had been very jealous of the fact that she's fucking Daniel. And I can get that, but Mark comes to understand that this is her duty for the greater good and she hates it more than he does. Okay. Now, at the plant, the laser security system is shut down in the tunnel and the resistance led by Ham Tyler sneaks into the plant and places their explosives charges. Before

long, they're spotted and begin to shoot their way out of the plant. The explosives reach the threshold of temperature stability, but the resistance members make it back to the tunnel, or don't, and then Mark gets hit by a laser blast and stays behind to hold off the visitor shock troops while the rest escape. So, you know, they just reconciled and then he dies But he does it to do his duty for everyone you see. Yeah And then he's killed the beams activate and that kills the shock troops. Ha ha The explosives go off the plant is destroyed the water still contained in the plant

Cascades out drowning visitor guards and flows back into the reservoir. And this is like a major success. And we're starting to see a success amongst the resistance. So now Diana and John are focused on finding specific members of the resistance. They focus especially on bringing Michael Donovan out of hiding now that they found his free dry freeze freeze dried son. And they broadcast a message saying

that Sean had been found wandering alone. And Mike turns himself over to Diana exchange for Sean who's obviously been converted. On board the LA mothership, Mike is met by a visitor fifth columnist who tells him that Diana has developed a very powerful truce that Mike won't be able to resist. And knowing that Mike will not only reveal the location of the resistance, but also the fifth columnist in the visitor ranks, he prepares to give Mike a suicide capsule. But then he's shot when Diana bursts into the room. Oh, yeah. Now with Martin accompanying him, Mike Donovan is fastened to an interrogation chair and is given the drug. Uh, and when he's asked who his fifth columnist contact is, he says, Martin, uh, who quickly draws his side arm and kills Diana's guard, but not Diana. He takes Mike through the ventilation tunnels again to a event that opens on the ground below and near the vent are parachutes for evacuation.

Uh, Mike is reluctant to jump, but Martin pushes him out. Meanwhile, Robin has gone into labor. The delivery is tough on her, and she bears a human baby. And when the baby is presented to Robin, it hisses and flicks a reptilian tongue. So that freaks her the fuck out. Millie immediately takes charge of the

infant and Robin is quickly sedated. And then suddenly Julie says that Robin is going to deliver another baby. But then she recoils in fear when the baby crawls out of Robin's womb on its own. And the child is reptilian and appearance with blue human eyes. Yeah. Yeah. Meanwhile back back to Sean, Michael's son, who used to love sports and other activities. And now he doesn't care about any of that stuff. Julie shares her belief with Mike, who has escaped and comes back. And Mike, of course, refuses to believe that his son would act as a spy. And this starts their lover spat, but he definitely realizes that it's also true. and this starts their lover spat, but he definitely realizes that it's also true. Kind of a bummer. Yeah. Meanwhile, back to Julie's infirmary,

Robyn's human child, whom she's named Elizabeth, is growing at a rapid rate, and she is the size of a toddler after only a few weeks, and she molts her skin like a reptile. I had forgotten that detail that's indescribably got him creepy. Yes, it is. Wow. The other baby is left in an isolation chamber and it dies. Julian Robert, this is Robin's dad, study its blood and discover that the baby had a form of bacteria that Elizabeth and humans are immune to. This means that they can now engineer a bio weapon, which they will turn into a red powder. So it's getting dodgy and questionable. Now, Maggie's surveillance of Daniel, remember Maggie, she shows that he reports often to Brian. Well,

Ham Tyler breaks in on Daniel at his parents house when he's celebrating his promotion. Brian is captured and Daniel is left for the authorities when Ham's friend Caleb, that's the red-headed fat guy. Caleb calls and tells them that Daniel had set up Brian in the hopes of ascending to his position. Revenge for Ruby. It's a dish best served cold. Robin visits Brian at night now that he's a prisoner of the resistance and she introduces him to his daughter Elizabeth. He of course uses this to manipulate her and tries to persuade her to leave him, leave with him and bring Elizabeth. But Robin instead opens his prison long enough to throw in the red dust at him, which becomes gaseous and suffocates

Brian. So we have proof that the red dust works. Robin gets to murder Brian in front of her own child. And now we need to know is will this hurt humans. So Julie locks yourself in the chamber and breathes deeply to see if it works on humans because that's how science works. Yeah. And now in all fairness, that is possibly what you would do as a resistance. And you're like, fuck it. We'll do genocide to get these people out of here. Like there's, there's lines that you cross as a member of a resistance. And I get it, including common sense, the cool ones of like, we're not going to do good science. We need to test this shit. Let's go. I got it. Yeah. It doesn't work on humans. Julie and Robert also begin the

process of developing an inoculation for fifth column members who want to assist them. Martin meets with Donovan and warms him of a doomsday weapon that Diana invented that will turn any mothership into a thermonuclear bomb that could destroy the earth, some Cold War level ship. Yeah. Now Elizabeth is part reptile and actually she incapacitates her aunt, who's only a little bit older than Elizabeth, is a Robin's little sister. She spits venom in her at her from her own mouth. Father Andrew, fearing for Elizabeth's safety, takes her to Diana to keep her safe. He also gives Diana a copy of the Bible, which she reads and then she cruelly kills Father Andrew,

telling him that the Bible showed her that she has vulnerabilities that can never be revealed. Okay. Yeah. And Diana is fascinated with Elizabeth and starts raising her as a visitor. Now, the resistance uses Sean Donovan to actually misinformed visitor intelligence because they know that he's a spy, so they start feeding him the wrong information, make him a double agent without him knowingly. By holding a meeting to work out the details of the attack, they plan to steal fighter jets

from Edwards Air Force Base and use those fighter jets to spray the Red Dest into the atmosphere. They do this with an earshot of Sean, and he reports it back to his grandmother and Stephen, who's kind of like honeydicking Donovan's older mom. He's a visitor. The resistance has an alternate plan to actually use hot air balloons, though, and the plan is structured to introduce a small quantity of the red dust into the atmosphere for the bacteria to multiply and invest, invest the earth. All right.

So on the morning. Yeah. On the morning of the final battle, Stephen has his security forces waiting at Edwards and the LA resistance begins a battle on two fronts. First at the visitors' round headquarters where the red dust is launched by mortars and on the LA mothership where stolen tankers used to pump the dust into the ventilation system while another team tries to reach the control room to stop Diana from using the doomsday weapon. Diana realizing that the resistance has beaten her demands that John assist her

in activating the doomsday weapon. I guess it's one of those you need an exo. Multiple keys. Yeah, like like you know, MX missile. Exactly. Well, he resists So she shoots him and gets the key Then she activates the weapon just is Donovan and Julie and Martin and Barbara and God, what's the name of that movie with the swingers? You know what I'm talking about like Ted and Nancy and Bob and Ann. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, everybody. Yeah, just anybody. They all show up. They enter the control room. Diana uses her conversion on Julie to slip away. She kind of like, you know, does the do you remember? You wouldn't hurt me. Would you? And just enough to give her hesitation. So she misses.

So she slips away. Martin and Mike are unable to deactivate the bomb and in desperation, Martin pilots the ship away from the earth, knowing that it's not going to do enough to stop Earth's destruction. Now, how Martin can single-handedly pilot this thing, I'm astounded, but okay, cool. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, it's a lot of necessity. Exactly. Elizabeth steps up to the control panel and a strange energy surges from her body in a 1984 kind of way. And she disarms the bomb. I'm sorry, I love the phrase in a 1984 kind of way. Because because the thing is I remember the effect. And you can visualize that I can totally yeah, yeah, yeah. So the world celebrates the departure of

their occupiers and Martin Steers the ship actor So That's that's be the final battle. It's a much more sci-fi thing than the previous one was Yeah, there's a lot less Political discourse. Yes, lack of a better word a lot less. This is how they slip their hand up our skirt kind of stuff Yeah, and a lot more actual science fiction. Yeah, like we got to, we got to create this dust. We got to use science.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, it feels a lot more like an action film. Yeah, bit, you know, now there's also plenty of resistance stuff in there too. Um, but there's not really a message being communicated here. I'm also noticing there's it's much less of a political statement as it is a action sci-fi thriller with that as a background a little bit because like it like you're the beginning. And the beginning was let's unfaste these people.

That's about it though. Yeah, it's an adventure story. Yeah. Yeah. With all of that stuff as the theme. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but it's not built around the ideological concepts of, this is how authoritarianism works. This is how they co-op people, and these are the things that you have to do in order to

be vigilant and avoid that. Yeah. You know, none of that kind of stuff is there. It's just the okay aliens bad guys resistance good guys. Right. And sometimes good guys have to do bad things. And sometimes there are fifth columnists who are actually good guys. And that's about as morally ambiguous as we're going to get. But to be honest, it very much isn't that what most sequels will do? I mean, look at alien versus aliens. Aliens went action, sci-fi, there's some ambiguity. Yeah, well here's the human. Yeah, the thing is, I'm not going to really disagree, but I think there's a shading of difference.

Because the original alien movie versus aliens is a shift in genre. And that's kind of all it is because alien was not trying to. Right. Alien was absolutely a horror film. Alien was was a gothic horror film in space. Well, I think that I think that this is actually still holds because V was a political examination. The news fiction as its mechanism. Right. And that was forced on it, remember. But the fact is it was there. But this one is like, here's your characters that you know, they're doing largely what you know they'll do but the stakes are deeper because it's a sequel and the action is more actiony like they

they go away from the original substance and take you into the action. I guess I guess what I'm trying to say is yes it's a change both of them are changes in genre or changes, yeah, changes in genre, basically. But I think there is a bigger, I don't want to say sin because I don't necessarily want to be judgmental about it, but but that's the best word that comes to mind. There's a deeper intellectual step down. Yes. Involved with V and V the final battle, as opposed to, you know, when you take a horror movie and you're like, okay, well,

we're gonna keep some of the horror elements, but we're basically gonna turn it into, you know, an action film. Yeah. An action thriller. It's actually not even a horror movie. It turns into an action thriller. It's not horror elements anymore. It's tension. Right. Right. And as opposed to we're going to take something that is actually deeply intellectual and politically meaningful and we're going to turn it into a six-hour action flick.

Yeah, you know, and like there's nothing wrong with six-hour action flicks like I will I will happily watch them like forever and some of them can even be high art But on an intellectual level That's a bigger step down the amplitude of changes greater. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. That's that's a bigger step down. The amplitude of changes greater. Yeah. There you go. That's a very good way of summing it up. Yeah. Now, what I did notice, though, was that in this one, whereas the last one was, this is how they take over.

Look at the steps toward fascism. This one was much more intelligence and counterintelligence work. Psychological brainwashing, collaboration, double agenting, sleeper agents who didn't know they were sleepers. All of those things were very heavily focused on in this particular one. I'm not saying they did a good job, but these were definitely major plot points. Michael and his son, Julian, her trust of herself, Dan as efforts are all that except for

let's go cold war too. You know, you have the resistance. But it's all cool. Yeah, but you also, yeah, and that's that's exactly right. And let's take a look at what's going on in 1983, 1984. Because by the time V, the final battle heirs on May 6th through 8th 1984, a few things have come to light. We're going to get real depressing here. So keep drinking. Okay. I have, yeah, I have, I have nearly a whole nother beer good in this bottle because we're going to talk about eight.

No. Oh, eight. Well, shit. It's not even okay. Mate. Yeah. I think it would be like cold word depressing. No, mate. Yeah, you're gonna be like cold word depressing. No, AIDS, we're starting with AIDS and we'll work our way from there.

Yeah, because AIDS was verified in two separate studies published in the same issue of science, the journal. Now, this ties somewhat into the imagination that went into the Red Dust, given that it was based in blood, that there was a lot of discussion as to whether or not it was a danger to more than one group of people or all people. Okay. men in Southern California that suggested that there was a sexually transmitted infectious agent at play in the rise of pneumocystis pneumonia. I probably didn't say that right. Numerous cystic pneumococcus. It's pneumonia. I'm pretty sure it's pneumocystis, but it's also called PCP. Okay. And a friend of the show, Tessa could absolutely crack me on this. I know. Yeah. So because the group studied and the reported and and reported was specifically homosexual men, the syndrome was initially called grid for gay related immune deficiency.

It had other names that were also specific to being gay, both medically and in layman's terms. It was called gay cancer, gay plague, homosexual syndrome, gay lymph node syndrome, gay compromised syndrome, and community acquired immunodeficiency or cade. So just to, just to confirm, you were correct. It is do most his. Okay. Good.

Yeah. I saw that and I remember like double checking, but I know fuck all about lungs. So yeah. So that all of these things were gay related. It really clad up the feed of anyone in the federal government because the president at the time was Reagan. Ronnie Ray gun. Even though by the end of the summer in 1982, it was clear that it wasn't simply a gay disease, which is a stupid fucking idea. Anyway, I'm not saying that there aren't, I'm not saying that there aren't health concerns that are, I'm going to say prevalent, possibly even close to exclusive amongst queer communities. There are different behaviors.

There are different accesses to all kinds of things, but being gay isn't what gets you those things. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And also, it's a self-selecting population. So those tend to be a little more inculatory. So the breakout is usually slower, but that doesn't

mean it doesn't move forward. But it did. So anyway, half the people that were getting this thing weren't gay, even in 1982 in the summer. And although it was still marginalized as the four H disease, because people getting it were normally either homosexual men, H heroin users,, people from Haiti, H, or hemophiliax, H. Okay. I remember it being called that when I was a kid too. I don't remember that one.

Yeah. Now, I do remember. Okay, good point. So they're, they're positive, a, a regional level of attention. Yeah. Difference. Yeah. Because at the time I was in Hawaii. Right. So yeah. Now at a press conference in October of, oh, I'm sorry, I skipped a bit. By August of 1982, the CDC was calling it acquired immune deficiency syndrome. We know that. At a press conference in October of 82, Lester King solving the reporter asked Larry speaks, the then acting president, or the then acting press secretary after Jim Brady had been shot, he asked him if the White House was aware of the new disease that was ravaging the gay community. And so here is the transcript of that. So it's, it's, again, Lester King solving is the

reporter. And Larry speaks is the press secretary or the acting press secretary at the time. So Speaks asked, but this is this is a it picks up at this point. What's eight speaks asked? It's known as the gay plague King solving replied, everyone in the room laughs. Like I've seen the video. Speaks replied, I don't have it. Do you? The reporters and the government officials start bursting out into another fit of laughter. And then Speaks continued to dodge and joke with King Solving's questions. Joking that King Solving himself might be gay simply because he knew about the disease. Now, like King Solving, well, you know, and all these reporters are laughing along with it. Like this is the culture at the time All these reporters are laughing along with it. Like this is the culture at the time,

is, you know, it's not too different than watching the first season of Friends. Now, I'm speaking of a large number of episodes that at some point we're gonna have to do something about you. You spent all that time doing that research. I know. Yeah.

Well, it's a game, I know why I didn't finish it was because friends got sold to HBO and I didn't have a password for HBO at the time. And then WWE signed all of its shit over to the Peacock network and the Peacock network did not do a good job of indexing Jack or squat. So it made everything harder. So I was like, fuck this. I'll watch, that makes sense. All right.

There you go. Yeah. Boy, there's a life choice. Yeah. So. So the teasing King's solving for it, eventually speaks, does Relent, and he acknowledges that nobody in the White House, including Reagan knew anything about the epidemic, which okay, it's really early on. It's only killing a segment of the population that doesn't get mainstream press.

I could see it not making it wait its way to the president's desk because he only wants things on one side of paper. A few hundred people get sick, you know, that's, that's, that's what would work its way up eventually. You remember Reagan wanted his PDB, his presidential daily brief to just be one sheet of paper. You know, I knew that. Yeah, I had forgotten that it was only one side. Yeah, she's a paper. Jesus.

So anyway, uh, speech says there has been no personal experience here, uh, and everybody's laughing. And this is what you get when your boss is the great communicator, but has zero substance. Uh, and as a result, plenty of misinformation at a crucial time was in the public sphere. Incidentally, Reagan didn't mention it until the summer of 85 because he was asked about it by a reporter. And because of this caprice, it was very much still in the public mindset that AIDS was a gay thing by the summer of 85.

I know because as a Jesus Christ, it was 83 84. So I was like, I know exactly where I was living. I know where I was sitting when I when I was doing it. AIDS became the way it kind of you remember how like in the early 2000s and for way to God damn long, that's hella gay was a way of saying that's stupid. Yeah. You would just say AIDS and it connoted homosexuality weirdness and disapproval all at once. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And in San Francisco, the area in San Francisco that was known as being the gay district and it's not like gazed and live everywhere, but was the Castro. Yeah. And at that point, I very much was, you know, I, I paraded what other people said. And if it was dumb shit, then I'd stop parroting it.

And my mom told me that I've said this, I don't recall saying it, but, yeah, I was like six. I didn't want, that I didn't want us to drive through the Castro because I didn't want our tires to get AIDS. So now I had all of the, where with all of a six-year-old whose best friend was six-year-old two years older than me and who saw me licking the butter out of a bowl of popcorn, you know like the edges and the salt. You know like kids will lick the

bottom of the thing and he walked in and said AIDS and walked away. So that was me at six. Okay. That that shouldn't be the country's culture because the president hasn't given a shit about it. So yeah. Yeah. So anyway, now it's not a one-to-one about the Red Dust, but you can certainly see that there's a disease that most people believe is largely targeting one group of people that cannot be stopped. That is fatal and that regular people don't think they can normally get. Regulars and quotes of course. Red dust targeted only the visitors who look just like us, but they are different and will leave the planet safe for us regular people. Okay, that got darker real fast. I told you to drink like darker. Oh, it's

already. Yeah, it's already, you know, abyssal plane, but somehow you found darker. Yeah. So well, we'll cheer you up with Abel Archer. Yeah, will we? So, April, April, archer 83 was an annual NATO exercise. It was a five day exercise undertaken every year and simulated the escalation toward Defcon 1, which I always forgot which one Defcon 1 and 4 were like I could never get the order right. Yeah.

Like is it us ending or descending? But apparently it's descending. So they would do this so that the Western European countries and the US would be ready in case of a coordinated nuclear attack from Soviet Union, which was a considerable fear at the time on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Yeah. There were some new aspects to this particular exercise, though, including the involvement of actual heads of state, new coding, radio silence, etc. And because the paranoia that was already extant amid the nuclear powers toward each other, the Soviet Union was firmly convinced the US would someday launch a secret nuclear first strike against them. So they'd been

preparing for just such a thing since 1981 and as such several officials in the Soviet Union thought that these exercises were merely aroused by NATO and the US to launch the real deal that November day in 1983. There had been other. Ed is pouring more. He has poured the entire thing out and he will now pour it into himself. There had been other things to escalate the paranoia intentions, of course. NATO and the US specifically launched exercises to psychologically put Soviet staffers on edge.

They were doing that on purpose. They would launch wings of bombers right at the radar stations and then they make them veer off before crossing into Soviet space. Your ships would sail through open waters in the Greenland, Icelandic, United Kingdom gap, which is a gap that has more hyphens than any gap should. Well, you got to mind that gap. Yeah, well done. So same thing in the bearing and the bearings and the Baltic seas. So it's a lot of like I'm not touching

you flexes. I'm not touching you. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then there's yeah, go on. Go ahead. Okay. So and then there's the fleet exercise of April 1983, which had also done something similar. The largest US Armada ever sailed from the Aleutian islands toward Kempchakka in order to provoke and then analyze the Soviet response. This included flying American fighters over the Curial Islands, where Soviet military installations

were placed. So all of that takes us to September 1st, 1983. Korean Airlines flight 007 left from Kennedy Airport in New York, a little late bound for Seoul. I told you it was going to get worse. They refueled an anchorage and then they diverted course a little bit, and then went on their way. The short version is because of a number of technical repairs and failures at the redundancies that are supposed to keep these things aloft, the flight ended up crossing over Soviet airspace.

And because of the tension that was brought about by Reagan's obsession with the Strategic Defense Initiative, the planned deployment of perching two missiles and the flyovers during the fleet exercises of April of 83, six months earlier. Actually, I don't know if that's six months earlier, but you get the idea. And because of dumb fucking luck, the Soviets had planned a nuclear test

on the Kim Chakka Peninsula that very day. And the noted presence of a US Air Force spy plane in the area and the situation was primed for shit to go just bad. And it went bad. And did the MIG 23s were scrambled and Arctic Gale had knocked out a bunch of earlier warning radar stations that would have allowed earlier interception and plenty of time to identify the plane as a passenger plane and not an American spy plane that

was bent on violating their airspace. But the gale happened and the local officials had lied about getting shit repaired. Thus, when the Korean Airlines flight 007 crossed into Soviet airspace and then back out, the Soviets were unable to intercept it in time to identify it. So when they reentered the Soviet airspace, so imagine Soviet airspace is kind of curvy. And so it's like in that in that, yeah, and that stretch it, if you're flying in a straight line, you're crossing over into and out of repeatedly. And if you're trying to reassess your course, which is what the Korean Airlines flight 007 was trying to do, you're going to also go Ziggy's Aggie. Yeah. So the second time they entered Soviet space, it was nighttime. And even though the pilots made visual contact with the passenger plane, they were unable to identify it as a passenger plane. And even though they fired warning shots, the shots weren't incendiary. So what's the fucking point of firing a warning shot at a plane

that won't see the warning shots? Yeah. So there's no way that the pilots of Korean airliner would have been able to see that because they're not lighting up. It's at night. I'm firing bullets in front of you. And and airliners don't carry aircraft detecting radar or they certainly didn't in in 1984. Yeah. 83. Yeah. And since they didn't see anything, the Korean airliner went about its business ascending to a higher flight deck in order to save on fuel economy. Now, if you're going up, up, that looks like an invasive maneuver, which the passenger plane would never make. Yeah, after being fired.

Unless they were climbing to a higher altitude, save gas. Yeah. So as such, the commanders on the ground ordered the plane destroyed before it got back to international waters. The pilot who shot the plane down, uh, Genaddi, uh, Osipovic, sounds right. Yeah, Russian is probably easier for me to read because it goes

consonant vowel, consonant vowel, consonant vowel, and I can hang with that. Yeah, you can, yeah. Anytime you start doubling consonants or doubling vowels, I'm fucked. Yeah, you can yeah, anytime you start doubling constants or doubling vowels of fucked You're your bone. Yeah, but Russian yeah Usopovic said I saw two rows of windows and I knew that this was a Boeing I knew that this was a civilian plane, but for me this meant nothing It is easy to turn a civilian type of plane into one for military use I did not tell the ground that it was a Boeing type of plane. They did not ask me. Now his, his forensic report of what happened kind of puts into perspective how fucking stupid war is. Like he wasn't wrong, right? At every

step of the way, he did his job letter let her perfect. Yeah. So I'll continue. Here's what he says. They, Korean Airlines 007, quickly lowered their speed. They were flying at 400 kilometers per hour, 249 miles an hour. My speed was more than 400. I was simply unable to fly slower. In my opinion, the intruders intentions were plain. If I did not want to go into a stall,

I would be forced to overshoot them. That's exactly what happened. We already had flown over the island, which the island's name was Sakaolin, sack, sack, Halin, Sakaolin. That, Jesus. See, you combine two consonants and I'm fucked again. And an H. Yeah. Okay. Okay. A bunch of ways to say that shit. All right. So, uh, quote, it is narrow at that point. The target was about to get away. Then the ground, uh, he's talking about the controller gave the command, destroy the target. That was easy to say, but how with shells, I had already expended 243 rounds. Ram it. I had always thought of that as poor taste.

I, that might be translation issues. Ramming is the last resort. Just in case I had already completed my turn and was coming down on top of him, then I had an idea. I dropped below him about 2,000 meters, 6,600 feet, afterburners, switched on the missiles and brought the nose up sharply. Success! I have a lock on. We shot down the plane legally. Later we began to lie about the small details.

The plane was supposedly flying without running lights or strobe light, but that tracer bullets were fired or that I had radio contact with them on the emergency frequency of 121.5 megahertz. Yeah. Now it's not even that weird to me that they lied afterward. I mean, that's kind of what you do when you want to cover up that you fucked up, despite all the things being bright. Yeah. So all the things were right. And then they were like, oh, this is fucked.

Yeah. Like this is this is where you get to reevaluate your protocols, right? Yeah. Or you just lie about it and keep the protocols, which are very much that's really what which is what they did. Yeah. Now it took just under four minutes for the Korean airliner to disintegrate, killing all 269 passengers. That's four minutes long. Yeah. Because I mean, look how high up there were, right? Oh, my God. And just because they got shot doesn't mean they blew up.

I mean, you know, let's we're still trying to keep it together. The US, South Korea, Japan, and the US's are did not coordinate, coordinate search and rescue operations, either. It was more of an effort for the US and her allies to implicate the USSR and vice versa for this tragedy. Yeah. Additionally, let's go over to Grenada in October of 1983, the United States helped depose the left wing new jewel movements government that had taken over

in the revolution of 1979. This helps to balance the books for Vietnam. It was we need to win. It will. Yes. And Rambo has come out yet for Rambo too. So Maurice Bishop. There enough. Yeah. Maurice Bishop had been the prime minister of the new of the new people's revolutionary government. But by 1983 in Grenada, his deputy prime minister Bernard Cord, had enough support to demand a two-boss system. The fight at the top led to Bishop being placed on house arrest, which itself led to mass demonstrations until Bishop was freed. But now, the government and the people were fractured, which gave breath to a military coup that executed several

top officials, including Maurice Bishop, but not Bernard Corde. This, of course, meant that the U.S. had to invade and appoint an interim government until the election of 1984. This was considered by the United States and United Nations a quote, flagrant violation of international law. So the United States, hearing that, said, cool. And on November, so they said that in November 2nd of 1983, the vote in the United Nations was 108 to 9. I didn't bother the 9 were, but on November 14th, 1983, 50,000 people marched on Washington, DC to protest it. But one week prior to the march, something rather remarkable happened because Marie Spishup was a Western hemisphere socialist leader and because effectively the US government decided to sanction him fatally radical leftists in the US took a part of prompted the left wing military group or the militant group called resistance conspiracy, which was an offshoot of the May 19th Communist organization. They called themselves the May 19th Communist organization prompted them to act out in a

way that seemed correct to them, which meant bombing the shit out of the Senate. So just to cover back, Korean Airlines get shot down. While all this is happening, AIDS is an ignoring concern, growing problem. Grenada gets invaded. The United States finally pronounced it the right way. Oh, it's Grenada. It's Grenada. Oh, I thought it was Grenada. Anyway, no Grenada. I throw Grenada's Grenada. It's Grenada. Oh, I thought it was Grenada. Anyway, Grenada.

I throw Grenada. Grenada. Let's go. Yeah. But we didn't. We invaded them instead. Oh, yeah. So United States invades Grenada. And then 50,000 people protest. And amongst those protesters, there is actually for like, it's very rare and it's almost all like centered in this period of time that you have left-wing extremist violence in the United States. You really, the only time you have that is when it's retaliation against specifically white-wing groups, you very rarely have it against the government proper. right wing groups, you very rarely have it against the government proper. Whether underground not count.

Well, I'm saying from like in this period of time, like you go back to the 70s. Okay. All right. We're going back to the 70s. I thought you were talking about. Okay. Oh, I don't think I'm talking about just me just like Reagan administration. Okay. We can go back to next. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Whether underground CBD's liberation army. Yeah. No, you're right. Even the SLA, I would argue, weren't really, I mean, they co-opted the verbiage. But you think they were a fundamental conspiracy. Yeah. You know, they were a total, total slash criminal conspiracy. Okay, fair enough. All right. So, and you know, it's, it's that whole, and here's the kicker. When people use left wing rhetoric to justify their

terrorism, everybody's like, see, it's equally bad, et cetera. When you actually have to take a look at, yeah, you actually have to take a look at things. So so this group though, they did that. They bombed the Senate. So originally, I'm going to call it M19 co. Uh, so the main 19th communist organization M19. So originally, they were called the Prairie fire organizing committee or P foc. So and P. Let's, let's go with them 19. and let's go with them 19. I like people. Fuck. Yeah. You like this mess with me.

But okay. P.Foc was dedicated to spreading the cause of the weather done, one to weather underground, but by legal channels. So P.Foc was the legal like the, you know, they were, they were the for the provisional IRA. Yes. To the, to the IRA. yes, of M19 code. Yeah, they were agitated, but

they were legal. Yeah. Right. Yeah. They pushed for malicious, they pushed for raising class consciousness, they pushed for advocating for a violent overthrow of the oppressive systems, but stay lay like, uh, oppressive systems, oppressive systems, but stay like like, uh, oppressive systems, oppressive systems, not all the systems. Okay. So okay. It's that whole thing. Me thinks that does protest too much. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But state, but stay legal. But keep it legal. Yeah. The fig leaf, the fig leaf ain't working. That's that look. It's the erection of holding it on. You know, so.

So, so when the weather on their ground splits, PFOC reformed with groups that shared their objectives and then their tactics changed. So they went from being agitative and legal to maybe not. The Black Liberation Army, as well as members from several other leftist organizations that either got dissolved or didn't go far enough for some folks turned into M19 co. And that was named for the birth date of both Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh. Okay. Now resistance, conspiracy. Interesting synchronicity there.

Yeah. Resistance conspiracy was an American franchise of the increasingly bomb happy and international M19 code. During it's during its nine year history M19 code carried out 20 bombings or terror incidents with only one fatality. Then normally they went for sabotage and jail breaks with fake weapons. And there was a ton of stuffage and jail breaks with fake weapons. And there was a ton of stuff that involved two box of course, mom, which I remember that mean a thing. Yeah.

So this group is really quite something. So November 7th, the Senate adjourned just after 7pm. Just after 9pm, all significant gatherings were gone from the building. Just before 11 PM, a phone call came into the capital switch ward from someone claiming to be the armed resistance unit. Quote, listen carefully, I'm only going to tell you this one time. There is a bomb in the capital building. It will go off in five minutes, evacuate the building. End quote. Five minutes later, the bomb went off on the second floor of the North Wing of the Capitol.

Robert Bird's door was blown off its hinges. It shattered chandeliers. It sent a shower of pulverized glass, brick and plaster into the Republican cloakroom. A portrait of Daniel Webster was damaged, and a canvas shards of it were strewn across the floor. A jogger nearby called it a sonic boom. That's I could find nobody was injured.

Later that night, someone left a message with National Public Radio. Quote, tonight we bombed the US Capitol. We purposely aimed our attack at the institutions of Imperial's rule rather than at the individual members of the ruling class and government. We did not choose to kill any of them at this time, but their lives are not sacred and their hands are stained with the blood of millions." It was specifically due to the U.S. occupations and attacks on Lebanon and Grenada. Grenada.

Wow. This group was the first American terrorist group entirely organized and led by women. So some girl boss action. Really? Yeah. The women picked the targets, the women made the bombs, and the women implanted the devices. And there were well-educated middle-class women who spent most of their adult lives using Marxism and Leninism as their guide. Accordingly, they believed that they could bend the arc of history and usher in a new world free from injustice and oppression, but it clearly would take violence and they were

willing to use violence. Quote, we lived in a country that loved violence, one member said. We had to meet it on its own terms. They saw themselves as a resistance movement in a police state and pulling it the facade that the American imperialists used to hide their predations on the world. Okay. Now, emboldened by this attack, one member wrote that the M19 code needed to, quote, transform ourselves from target shooters into combat shooters. And that quote, investigative work showed the possibility of doing an action that could possibly eradicate several high ranking officers.

We believe that selective assassinations of very clear targets is on the agenda now. End quote. They also wanted a target specific cops, prosecutors, judges, and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger as political targets or potential targets. Wow. This was the second such attack. The first had been in April of 83, similar result, but near the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, DC. Nobody hurt damaged. I think it was barracks or an armory. And then finally, let's talk about Nicaragua.

I don't have enough beer and what I have isn't strong enough like okay. Now before I get to Dicorog, what you do see the bombing parts tying into V. Oh, okay, yeah, just making sure. Okay, so this is all the stuff that they're pulling on. The writers are is swimming in the suit, right? Yeah. And the resistance is led by Julie. Yeah.

Yeah. And the resistance is led by Julie. Like yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And interestingly, as I remember, the visitors, Diana was like the big bad. John, John, like thought he was, John was officially the big bad. But Diana, Diana was, I suppose, TV tropes terms, Diana was the dragon, but she was an ambitious dragon who wanted to be the one in charge. Right. You know, just to clarify, the TV tropes term, the dragon, is the monster or, you know, underling of the actual big bad. So like Darth Vader is the dragon to Palpatine. Right. Palpatine is the actual mastermind.

Vader is the terrifying, he's scary, murder bot. Yes. That, you know, and acts as will. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So back to Nicaragua. Yeah.

Shit. So, do you remember where we kind of, we kind of back to Nicaragua. Yeah. Shit. So we're we kind of we kind of started with Nicaragua because we That was also we got into that was a Salvador woman. Sorry, my bad. Sorry, Yankee Yankee It doesn't look like America fucking with another girl. Like, yes, it's okay. Yeah. Anyway, Nick Raga on December 1, 1981, Ronald Reagan signed something called the presidential finding, also known as a memorandum of notification or an M.O.N. It's something that he has to send to certain congressional members because

it has to justify commencing a covert operation by the CIA. congressional members because it has to justify commencing a covert operation by the CIA. So this wasn't known to the public when it was sent, but it justified the authorized and authorized a joint covert operation with Argentina against Nicaragua. However, Argentina withdrew support because of the United States supports of the UK and the Falklands. Okay, wait, hold on. Yep. Wait, wait, wait. Okay. Why? Why are you confused?

The whole, no, the whole, the whole Dicorag was like, no, fuck that. We're, we're going to, you can take your ball. We're going home about the Falcons. I, I totally get that. But Argentina is multiple countries away. Uh huh. Like, Argentina is multiple countries away. Uh-huh. Like, are we?

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So the origin tenions originally were like, yeah, we're totally unbored, followed by fuck you and thatcher, too. Yep. Yeah, OK. Yeah. All right. So here's the short version. There was a group of rightist rebels in Nicaragua who opposed the Marxist provisional government called the Sandinistas. Yes. Yeah. Now largely these are made up of Somoza's former guards,

military people who'd supported Somoza or anti-Samozaists who then felt betrayed by the Sandinistas when they set up the provincial government. You know, I don't know, maybe this is I don't arrogant of me, culturally, showvonestic of me, but I hear you saying all of that and talking about anti-Samoaists who are now pissed off at the San Anestas because of what happened after Samosa went down. And I can think of is, you know, this is the same part of the world that gives us telenovelas maybe for a reason. Yeah, I would just point out that you get operas and melodramas from Italy for a reason too. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

And France. I mean, you know, yeah, and not that different. And, you know, and IRA ballots from, from, you know, I don't know. Yeah, you're not wrong. But like, anyway, sorry. So the Sandinistas. Visiting. Yes.

So the Sandinistas had ousted Anastasio Somosa de Baile, B-A-Y-L-E, in 1979 in a revolution that had been brewing since at least 1972 when Nicaragua suffered a huge earthquake. And the problem was that de Baile and his cronies had embezzled most of the international aid that was meant for helping the people to rebuild in the capital. Uh, monoghwa. Oh, yeah. Well, some of some of the, like, you know, anything about history, his name is a byword for just, yeah, mystic corruption. Like it's like, oh, he's some of that. Oh, shit.

Yeah. Oh, damn. Yeah. Yeah. Now, uh, as a result, most of monoghwa never got rebuilt. And this leads to hostage takings by the Sandinistas, and the freeing of political prisoners, including Daniel Ortega in 1975, and an effort to increase the wages of soldiers. Now the Sandinistas take their name from Augusto Cesar Sandino.

As a near adult, Sandino witnessed US Marines invading and suppressing and uprising in 1912 to maintain the puppet president, Adolfo Diaz when he was 26, that is the Sandino. He attacked the son of an important town's man who had insulted Sandino's mom. Sandino had deflated the country and ended up in Mexico right as the Mexican Revolution was winding down. And he was hooked by revolutionary efforts and especially like the ideology of indigenismo, the elevation and respect for indigenous culture. Yeah.

He also got into anarchism, communism, anti-claricalism, etc. It was the 1920s. Yeah. When he got back to Nicaragua in December of 1926, Diaz had just been reinstalled by the US after a coup by a third group succeeding that the US had refused to recognize. The following year. Okay, so hold up. I need to back up.

So he was gone. Yeah. Well, he was gone. All of this had happened in his home country. Yes. So so he witnessed Marines invading in 1912. Yes. And then can that would have been yeah Which which US president would have ordered that that would have been taft Okay, yeah, and then come back and because in 13 March of 13 is when Wilson took over. Right. Okay. So then taft. So that's taft. Right. And then he comes back in 26. Uh-huh. And that would

have been Hoover. Uh, no, no, no. Um, let's see, uh, harding and then cool it. That would have been cool. Okay. Yeah. Because sweet Jesus. Uh-huh. I just, I just need to need to get the, the, the, the, the landscape of, of American presidents. I like that. Really, really exercising that Monroe doctrineate like yes, oh really just just bench pressing the hell out of that yeah, okay, yep, okay, thanks so just so yeah, Diaz had just been reinstalled by the US after a coup by a third group succeeded and the US refused to recognize so they put those guys down the following year having joined up with liberal uh general uh general moccata, Sandino led a failed attack but showed tenacity to his commanders

and he ended up with a field commission granted by uh uh previously distrusting general moccata. So moccata didn't trust him much but like okay kid I like your moccata. So Makata didn't trust him much, but like, okay kid, I like your moxie. And Makata was leading the liberal army against Diaz, stating that Sakasa, who is the former vice president under Diaz, had the rightful claim to leadership of Nicaragua. Okay. Sandino recruited local peasants, because remember what he loved. Yeah. And he played a very vital role in attacking the Capitol.

But the United States threatened to intervene again if they sacked the Capitol. So the Liberal generals all agreed to a ceasefire instead. Like we'll get right up to the Capitol, but we won't sack it. Okay. With the US special envoy Henry L. Stimson looking on. The conservatives under Diaz and the liberals under Sacasa agreed to let Diaz finish his term and the US could stay until they finished supervising

the 1928 election, which would then that so that's going to be under coolage as well, but by 29 whoever become is, you know, he's been elected, right? Yeah. So until they finished supervising the 1928 election and create a nonpartisan national guard and police force and this was called the pact of Espino Negro the black spine okay most of the liberal forces were on board but Sacasa's refused and he left the country remember he, he's the rightful ruler, uh, the VP. Yeah. Sandino refused to lay down his arms and he took to the hills, uh, with a group of fighters, uh, into the Segovia mountains. And he carried on a guerrilla war against the United States and

Nicaragua's new National Guard. And this included seizing a mine that had over 500 pounds of dynamite. He said that he would use it to quote, kill Yankees. So, wow. Yeah. The US Marines reacted in the way that they will react. And in 1927, Sandino renamed his group, the Army and Defense of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua. And he declared that quote, I will not abandon my resistance until the pirate invaders, assassins of weak peoples are expelled from my country. I will make them realize that their crimes will cost them dear. There will be bloody combat. Nicaragua shall not be the patrimony of imperialists. I will fight for my cause as long as my heart beats. If through destiny, I should lose. There are, there are in my arsenal five tons of dynamite, which I will explode with my own hand.

The noise of the cataclysm will be heard 250 miles. All who hear will be witnessed that Sandino is dead, let it not be permitted that the hands of traders or invaders shall profane his remains. That's fucking metal. Yeah. So like wow, okay. So for those years, it was very much what you'd expect

from an occupying army training a local army hunting down a gorilla army. Which is to say black comedy. Yeah, the gorilla's mostly got defeated, but then they'd get away, right? Yeah. They suffered more than they inflicted, but they only needed to harass,

not defeat in a pitch battle. At one point, Sandino even staged a fake funeral for himself to draw them into an ambush. In December of 1928, the US Marines got a hold of Sandino's mom and they got her to write him a letter saying to stop. He said that he would stop when the Marines left. Now, I would just point out to you, you have a resistance movement that keeps losing but keeps getting away.

And they use his family members against him. Yeah, the parallels are very clear. Good, good, good. I'm glad. Yeah. Because I kind of worry sometimes I get lost in the details for some folks. Whereas to me, it's like, here's a straight line. Yeah.

Coolidge saw this as a point of pride, but Congress didn't. They refused to fund further operations in Nicaragua, not because invading another country's sovereign borders and picking who wins in elections was bad, but because killing good white American soldiers wasn't worth it. Senator Wheeler said that if American soldiers were meant to quote, stamp out banditry, let's send them to Chicago to stamp it out there. I wouldn't sacrifice one American boy for all the damn Nicaraguan's, which what is it? What is it with conservatives in this country in Chicago? Thank you. Exactly that. I'm like at this point because there's Italian gangsters there. Yeah, right. But it's always fucking Chicago. It's like Stanley with his obsession of redheads, you know?

Like, yeah, well, as a non-redhead, I understand, and weasews. But like, really? Right. Hell. Right. Yeah. So the great depression's happening. The dwindling funds are there, or are not there, I guess. The funds are drying up. So in January of 1931, Secretary of State Stimson under Herbert Hoover elected to withdraw all the Marines from Nicaragua after their 1932 election. Okay. So again, there's a mother ship, right? Why are you even sticking the fuck around that long? But okay. But then in May of 1931, there's another earthquake and it hit Managua. No, shit. So the central government wasn't strong enough as a result to stop Sandino who then attacked the Marines, occupied several towns and generally took over a bunch of places in Nicaragua.

Right. Now I would point out that he had his thumb on the Doomstay device, right? Yeah. He's like, I'm a blow shit up. Tons of dynamite. Don't talk with me. We're seeing these themes. They're not always on the same sides, but we're seeing these things. Yeah. So in the 1932 election, Sakasca was elected and after his, so that VP and after his inauguration, the Marines left.

And after that, Sandino said he'd never attack a working class American visiting Nicaragua. People asked, like, will you attack Americans? No, fuck no. Like, I attack the Marines. I attack colonizers. I'd never attack a working class guy. I do like the distinction though. Yeah. Because like, if you show up in your, in your, you know, wearing your tiffeting watch and, uh, yeah, you know, in a three piece suit, you're on the other fucker. Yeah, you better watch out. Yeah, no, no, you show up with a soft cap. You're good. You're okay, man. Yeah. You're our people. Yeah. So, all right. So that

at that point, Sacasa negotiates Sandino's disarming. So the new president is like, look, dude, we need to disarm you. And he says, cool, I'll do it for squatters rights for my soldiers, as well as their legitimizing and it co-opting in that area by the government. So you can disarm us, but a lot of us are good policemen. And also we want land. And we fought really hard for your ass to be in power. So what are you going to do? Okay. But Sandino still took issue with the National Guard because of its leader and because of its ties to the US Marines.

So he still had trouble with that. The general who was in charge of the National Guard was a man named Anastasia Somosa Garcia. Oh no. named Anastasia Somoza Garcia. Oh no. And Garcia ordered or Samoza Garcia ordered San Dino's assassination without Sikasa's knowledge. After a meeting with Sikasa, San Dino and five men that he trusted were stopped by the National Guard who then took them to the crossroads nearby

and killed them all. Anastasio Samosa Garcia's National Guard then took the the next month and destroyed Sandino's entire army who'd mostly laid down their weapons already. Wow! Two years later Anastasio Samosa Garcia forced Sikasa to resign and declared himself president of Nicaragua starting a four decade dynasty of Samoza's ruling the country. So the group of rebels who were right wingers against the Sandinistas Revolutionary government that had overthrown the Samoza dynasty called themselves Contras, Contras Spanish for against, which again, I'm going to say this about right-wingers. I'm not going to say it about conservatives. Right-wingers don't have any plan for governance. They simply stand against things.

Yeah. We're not for anything. There's no positive policy. Well, I mean, yeah, look at, look at the classic examples. What, what policies besides genocide, besides genocide and imperialism did the national socialist party stand for? Right. What policies other than, I mean, you could argue that Mussolini kind of had policies. I'll make a transition on time, but that's still like it's not a coherent policy platform. It is, I'm going to make Italy great again. This is why they're called reactionaries. Yeah.

Yes. And my biggest goddamn complaint with the people in our country right now who are calling themselves conservatives is you're not fucking conservative. Yeah, yeah, like really good at like parasitic branding. Oh, they're excellent at it. It's one of it's one of their only talents. Um, but you know, conservatism, like I'm, I'm a conservative. I believe in, in institutions, believe in the importance of, uh, tradition and continuity of, of continuity of tradition. Yeah. And public to the point where it's because it's public order. Like yeah, yeah, social order matters a lot to you. Yeah, and I recognize though, that society changes, and the key is not resistance

to all change or undo trying to undo change and reverse change. Right. It's it's to make sure that the changes that get made are beneficial ones. And not at the expense of social order. And yeah, yeah, that's that's conservatism. Yeah, every like if you go if you yeah, that's sorry, I get it. I do not agree with this stuff about the shit.

Yeah. But yeah, so the contras were just like, we do not like Danny or Tegin, the Sandinistas. We want that out. We want, we don't like, you know, we didn't like Samosa because he was a bit of a dick, but we damn sure don't like y'all. We want to be in power. We don't like you either. Right.

Yeah. So when the Sandinieses had taken over in 1979, American President Jimmy Carter refused to recognize them as a leftist revolutionary government is super scary to Americans, no matter who they are, and no matter what they replace, no matter who the president is.

That said, Jimmy Carter also had stopped sending support to Simosa in 1979 when he was fighting against the Sandinistas. So he was committing, he was committing crimes against humanity. Right. So he was backing right, right? Terrorist militias like, yeah. So it just wasn't enough for the leftist in Nicaragua. So they took things over for themselves. And when Ronald Reagan was elected president, he condemned the Sandinistas for linking up with other Marxists like Cuba and El Salvador. Seeing this as a worldwide threat, Ronald Reagan signed the presidential finding and started funding the Contras. He also imposed a full trade embargo.

My lord, is that legal? I will make it legal. The Contra's main goal was to disrupt everything that the Sandinistas government was trying to do for the people. Sorry, I just, I just am picturing Ronald Reagan in a, in a, in a floor link, yeah, with a deep cow. Yeah, I'll make it legal. So the whole platform of Contra is, we're just going to fuck up what you're doing. Yeah, just not you mother fucker. And this meant that all the social reform programs that they were putting in place became targets. So they use their training and

the money from the United States to attack school, they being the Contras, use their money that they got and their training that they got to their training that they got to attack schools, medical centers and any peasant communities sympathetic to the Sandinistas or who were receiving help from the government, which is like almost all of them because social welfare matters and you're trying to, you know, better the life of peasants using tax money. And yeah, I think while while we're bringing this up, it should be noted that they were, the contres drew a lot of their support from the land owning, not quite gentry, but the upper middle and, you know, lower upper classes, society. They were funded by people who owned shit.

Yeah, largely funded by the United States. Well, yes. So with all that money, they raped and tortured and mutilated and burned and kidnapped and terrorized people in order to terrorize the population who was getting aid from the San Dinesda government, the legal government that was in place after they'd overthrown the Somosas, so as to destabilize the Sandinista government further. The links to the CA were no longer secret, especially given the efforts of the Reagan administration to propagandize the world,

especially the Nicaraguan's, to get them to think of the Contras as their friends. And enough stink was made in Congress about it though, and early on. And in December of 1982, the first Boland Amendment was passed as a part of the fiscal budget for 1983. There had been a prior bill aimed to prohibit the use of funds by the CA or the DOD department of defense

to support military activities in Nicaragua, but it fell. However, represented a representative Edward P. Bowland added an amendment to an appropriations bill, which was very popular. And with the recorded vote of 411 to 0, it prohibited the CIA or defense department to use funds of the bill for military. But it didn't specifically name covert purposes in Nicaragua. Bolin then sponsored a bill that did pass in 1983 that limited the amount to be spent for military purposes in Nicaragua

and he added an amendment that prohibited covert assistance for military operations in Nicaragua since you need the letter of the fucking law not just the intent apparently. Like, I love it. It's like no military shit. Well, that's okay. We'll do it covertly.

God fucking damn it. You know what we meant. Yeah, well, yes. Now as- But I use my left hand. Yeah, but it was a certain amount of legal training. It's probably a good idea to basis anyway. Like, you know,

yeah, the thing she's gonna lift it, you know. But also yes, because, you know, the, the thing she's gonna have to hit, you know, but, but also yes, because, you know, the way the law needs to be written is a specific kind of thing. And so yeah, but I mean, it does it does point out the moral bankruptcy of the whole situation. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And the the the zealotry of like, gotta do it this way. Now, this is after the airing of V the final battle, but it was in the ether by this point by 1984 the Boland amendment prohibited the federal government from spending mill from providing military support, quote, for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Nicaragua, like you have to put that in there now. It aims to prevent the CIA funding of rebels opposed to the revolutionary provisional junta in any way, most specifically it was trying to block Reagan administration support for the contra rebels. Reagan's administration narrowly interpreted it to apply to only US

intelligence agencies, which left the door open to the National Security Council, because that's not an intelligence agency, you see, because it's labeled differently. So they could continue to channel funds to the Contra Rebels this way. In order to block the funding through the NSC, the amendment was then changed to prohibit any funds for military or paramilitary operations. But because the law was a prohibition rather than a criminal statute, no one could be indicted for violating it. National Security Advisor Robert McFarland, for whom one of my hamsters was named. Deputy National Security Advisor Admiral John Pointexter, for whom another hamster was named, both of whom, oh, I actually said that in my script, both of whom I'd named my

first hamsters after. And national security council staffer, staffer Colonel Oliver North, whom I didn't name any hamster because even I knew he was a fuckhead. As well as others, they kept up an illegal operation to fund the contras, which led to the IREI Contras scandal. At that point, members of the National Security Council staff continued covert operations forbidden to the CIA. Such operations were justified under the pretense that the 1984 bull in the amendment

did not specify what constituted, what constituted an agency involved in intelligence gathering beyond that of the CIA or the DOT. A few months after the second mini series aired, it came out that the CIA was flying cocaine into South Florida. As I had mentioned in my slumugglers episode. And yes, all of that led to the Iran Contra affair, which wasn't really well known to the public at large in 1985. So when you look at the plot of V the final battle, and you see that it's not hardly at all about a resistance movie and what they have to do after they own mass john.

And more about move counter move truth serum fifth column using a son against his dad sleeper agents genocide you can see what's going on that led to the writers that john's and had hired and supervised but then left one Warner breached his contract. Okay. I'm going to, I'm going to slightly counter a little bit. Cool. Because I, I, not so much that I think that's wrong, but I think you're, there's, there's a very Western hemisphere or focus in all of that. The writers were in LA. Well, they, they were, yes, but there's also the fact

that this was the height of the Cold War between us and the Soviets. And we were engaged, the CIA was constantly doing all of these same kind of moves encounter to the KGB for intelligence as to where military assets were trying to get secrets not only on one another, but making sure that they had tabs on like we wanted to know what Poland and Czechoslovakia and I added that all the states were doing.

Perfection stuff. Oh, yeah. Also, the time that I'm looking at is 83 to 84. And a lot of the infections are coming later and a lot of the gamesmanship became known only after the the Berlin wall fell. That's true, but at the same time, I'm trying to think of what the frequency was of James Bond movies being made during the same time period. Uh, of you to a kill head come out around this time.

That's the one of San Francisco with great sounds and Christopher Wacken. Okay. So you still have madman. Basically, you don't have necessarily cool work, kind of figures. I mean, there's all cold worship. But it's like he's against, you know, gold specter. Yeah, you know, stuff like that. So, okay. Yeah. I see that. But I think I think we were culturally also very directed to ward that whole spivarous spy kind of thing that was going on, you know, yeah. And that's what I'm saying.

In Europe and globally. Yeah, there's true. There's using his none against them. There's sleep agent. There's a lot of sleep agent shit. That's all there. But a lot of what you're talking about was concerns after the Korean War or during the Korean War.

Okay. That's when that really matured as a paranoia when you start to see the Syrian candidate. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm not that it didn't exist. Well, yeah, no, there's also the fact that there was at the same time as this going on, there was nostalgia at that point for the 50s. And so the paranoia of the 50s

were also kind of being regurgitated with some of that stuff, if I'm not a level. But a lot of that was, again, what was in the papers and what was in our national media diet. Okay, yeah, the 50s was still the good shit. You know, you still have happy days. Was really winding down at this point. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, was kind of one season ago.

So, yeah. So that's where I ended actually, because next episode we can finally talk about V the series. Okay. And then we'll eventually get to V, which is the other series. The other series. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's going to get really saddened pressing again. So Oh shit. Anything that you've leaned. I need to buy stock in Inbev. The willingness of American society to overlook the moral degradation of right-wing allies because of our desperate bourgeois fear of anybody

left-wing. I fully agree. It is really remarkable. Now I'm fully going to stand here and be the annoying moderate in the room and say that, you know, there was, there was later on, I mean, not necessarily during this point, but there was shit that, that Danny Ortega later on wound up doing as a, oh, he was not, you know, of a, as a, you know, boss man dictator, you know, kind of guy. But with that being said, it's like in order for us to point fingers at him as a left-wing guy,

we have to completely overlook everything. Stamosa had, the Stamosa. Exactly. And done, you know, and, and, and for 40 years. for, yeah, Jesus, for multiple decades. Yeah. And it is, it is something that continually comes up to me when we're, when we're talking about the real world history that we discuss in this show, it, it, it, it never stops striking me. It's not a surprise anymore, but it's always something I'm like,

oh, and there it is. Like, you know, that our national genesis in a specifically bourgeois anti-tax revolution is something that has had a fundamental effect on our attitude about the political spectrum. Our world wide. Our cultural immune system will always flare up against anything left. And it will let in tons of right wing shit. Yeah. But anything left, it will, it will be like my friend used to run a D&D game years and

years ago, this is, you know, more than 20 years ago for me. He ran a D&D game where in his world, the Kender were the most hated species ever. And so you would have entire battalions go out and they'd be fighting against like the big bad evil guys with like, mithral water and shit. But if they saw a Kender, they would all turn their guns on him and empty their clip and then turn back to try to figure out how to kill the big bad evil guy again. And it always feels like that's, that's how America is toward the end. Yeah. Let's stop that through the ground. Um, after all, there was a bomb that went off in a building when everybody was gone. That's terrible. Um, but you know what? Let's, uh, let's, let's soft pedal this, uh, hearing thing about

these people who stormed that same self-same building. Yeah, one, let's ask pedal that to never mind all of the clinic bombings, doctor assassinations. I didn't even think of that. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's let's you know just completely overlook the infiltration of our law enforcement by white supremacists. These two things are equally in the same at nearly every level. Yeah. You know, like, like the FBI is screaming at us, like constantly, literally screaming at us. It's top of their lungs.

No, no, white supremacist right wing groups. This is who we need to be fucking worried about. Yeah. Like, can we please get some more money to deal with these fuckers? Yeah when when the FBI are your good guys Like holy crap like yeah, that's that's like way, you know, I think the Pinkerton's have a point here Yeah, like what that's not good Okay, the moral event horizon is behind you. Yeah. Couple of miles. Like, yeah. So what's your reading?

Uh, I am still working on the memoirs of Ulysses Desk Grant. Well, I don't have memories. I don't, I don't have a lot of a lot of free time to read. Good point. Good point. So, you so you know that's that's an issue but Yeah, I will I will continue to recommend it. I actually separate from what I am reading a An exchange I guess not really a conversation but an exchange I had online leads me to very strongly recommend the games people play. And this is kind of totally random,

but it's on my mind at the moment, which is a textbook for transactional analysis written by a psychiatrist Eric Byrne. And I really, really highly recommend it, especially if you have any suspicions that you might be in a relationship that is unhealthy. It gives a really remarkably clarifying paradigm. Cool. To take a look at how we interact with each other and how to break out of unhealthy situations. Okay, so how about you? Well, I just got, and I'm not, I have not yet cracked it open, but I am looking forward to it

I just got a philosopher reads Marvel Comics is Civil War by Mark D. White Exploring the moral judgments of Captain America Iron Man and Spider-Man So I look forward to having my shit challenged So I'm gonna dive into that at my convenience, so But yeah. All right. So let's see. They can find you on Instagram, TikTok.

I can be found on TikTok as Mr. underscore Blalock. I can be found on Twitter as EH Blalock. Don't go looking for me on TikTok. I don't have very much there except a rant about the Jedi and George Lucas bugging it up. And then we collectively can be found online at www.geekhistorytime.com. We can be found on Twitter at Geek History of time. I'm remembering correctly. It's late and I had to drink myself through that whole thing on Central America. So I might be wrong on that.

Geek history time, yeah. Geek history time. And then where can you be found? Sorry. You know, honestly, if you're in the Sacramento area, geez, this will probably drop, this will probably drop after the October 7th show. The first inaugural show went really wonderfully

in September, the next one that you could probably go to if you're in Sacramento area, if you're vast and you have $10 is the November 4th capital punishment at Luna's at 8 p.m. on November 4th. So come on down, support, local comedy, live comedy if you're in the area. Other than that, that's pretty much where you can find me right now. I still have some puns up on TikTok, but you know, they're wonderful and beautiful, but I'm not sure what I'm doing with them. So, but yeah, you can find me there. So, well, for Geek history of time, I'm Damien

Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.