A Geek History of Time - Episode 40 - Captain America and the New Deal Part I

Episode Date: February 8, 2020

Damian and Ed discuss how Steve Rogers / Captain American is the personification of The New Deal.

And we begin with good days, sir. Geeks come in all shapes and sizes, and that they come into all kinds of things back up. I was thinking more about the satanic panic. Buy the scholar Gary Guy-Gak's. Well, wait, hold on. I said good days, sir. Not defending Roman slavery by any stretch. No, but that's bad.

Let him vote. Fuck off. When historians, especially British historians, want to get cute, it's in there. OK. It is not worth the journey. No. This is a geek history of time where we connect and agree to the real world. I'm Ed Blaylock. I'm a seventh grade world history teacher here in Northern California and The father of a 22 month old boy. Who are you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher up here in Northern California and sometimes I dabble in history

I'm the father of an almost 10 year old and a seven and a half year old boy and a girl. Okay, and I'm here to talk to you today about the new deal. I think it's a good idea and we should probably get behind it. Okay, wait, hold on. Wait, sorry, no. Um, turns out that already happened. Yeah, I was about to say the new deal was kind of old news. I've always liked that phrase old news. Yeah, yeah, jumbo shrimp. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Female orgasm. Mids. They're what the other half of listeners. Yeah. Are you sure? Well, both women. Okay. Actually, I'm here to talk to you about Captain America. Oh, okay. And there you go. All right. So I'm okay. So let's see. They both date to the 1930s to the 40s. Yeah.

And there's gonna be some element of progressivism, connecting to science and technology and a positive view of the future. Vigorous young men doing their duty for their country. Okay. Yeah. Government of healthcare. Oh, hey. There you go.

I'm here for it. All right. So Cap and America, as you may know, is the living avatar of both the for freedom speech and the alphabet legislation of the New Deal. Okay. That's my thesis statement.

Okay. All right. Okay. Also he's totally Antifa. You well. Yeah. Okay. For God's sake, the first issue of the comic, literally, literally in the literal sense,

like the literature. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well in the literal sense, like, like, or literature, it is, yeah. Is, he is punching Hitler in the face. Yes. Hard enough to knock him off his fucking feet. I wanna note. Yes.

So it's not, you know what, Tepad Slap. Right. It's not, oh, you nodding nothing. It's, you know. Right. Oh, it's, he clocks a manful thwack. Yes. Yeah. And that issue came out in, right. Oh, it's he clocks a manful thwack. Yes. Yeah. And, and that issue came out in, I want to say, June of 41.

Oh, yeah. So before it was American policy to be Antifa. Well, yeah. He was Antifa. Well, okay. So before it was officially American policy to be actively directly fighting against the Axis. Yes. Roosevelt was already doing all the shuckin' and jiving he could to move the country in

that direction. Yes. I mean, Lend-Lease. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Like, like, like, he lied to the American people about what he had to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the idea was, no, no, we're gonna lend these P40s and these tanks and all this stuff. We're gonna release the ammunition. Yeah. Yeah. So it, and, you know, and when they get done

with them, they'll give them back to us. Right. No one happens when you get done with a P40 warhawk. Do tell it's shot full of fucking holes. It's not an airplane anymore. It's a crap metal. It's cheese grater. Yeah, yeah, pretty much, you know, with, you know, ketchup stains, you know, it's time, you know. Yeah. Like, let's be real. Yeah, but the whole idea was it was,

it was all a loophole to get around the neutrality act. Yes, you know. Yeah, because there are some people who are like, well, there's both sides. Well, you know, and we hate the juice. There's very. You know. Yeah. Because there are some people who are like, well, there's both sides. Well, you know, and we need to do. There's very fine people on both sides. Right. I mean, they're always.

They're always. He was times man of the year. Yeah. Have you seen his magazine cover? Yes. Yeah. Thank all of them. Thank goodness.

Yeah. Thank God for that. That's historical. And not wait. Are we never mind if I'm even going to ask the question. So, we've got no off the subject. No, we haven't. That's the thing. Steve Rogers, the man who would become Captain America, is canonically born on July 4th. Yep. Okay. Around 1920. Really? There's backs and forth on it. Okay. But in the low, some have them being born July 4th, 1918.

Okay, okay. That was actually the data I was originally gonna give him. I guess, yeah, okay. He's born in the lower east side of Manhattan to Irish immigrant parents, Joseph and Sarah Rogers. Yes. So right off the bat, if they voted it all, his parents would have been Democrat.

Yeah. Given the machine that was in place in the early 19 years. So right off the bat, if they voted it all, his parents would have been Democrat, given the machine that was in place in the early 19th. And I will point out, although Captain Rogers himself never overtly professes a faith. He'd have been raised so Catholic it literally hurts. Yes. Like nuts with rulers, hurts. Yeah. Okay.

He probably would have been down for Vatican II the way that he leaned. Oh, he would have, oh, oh hardcore. He'd be, you know, Viva Francis now, like totally. Yeah. So, the thing about comics is they're not always as canonical as we'd like. They bounce back and forth.

Here's some other variables. Okay. Some have that his dad was an alcoholic who died of alcoholism. His dad was a World War I vet who died of World War Vette stuff. Yeah, World War One vet. Yes, yes, a tag. Yeah, the clergy that he's- His mom dies of TB.

Yeah. In others, they have it that his mom died of pneumonia. Nomonia TB. It's roughly the same. Yeah. It's a mercy, long thing. His mom died when he was 10. His mom died when he was in his mid to late teens. Yeah, so there's a lot of variables

But yeah, essentially here's what sticks he's young enough just young enough to be born at the end of world work one and To Irish immigrant parents those things are those stick. They were also working class folk that sticks when he was a child His father died of something that many men had at the time and nobody talked about and when he was still a child his mom died of something that poor people in cities often had. He is a very New York urban story. He's a specifically Irish Catholic living in Manhattan orphaned to adult or before adulthood before the Great Depression story. Okay. That's him. Yeah. All of these things, no matter how strictly canon they are, they give Steve Rogers the

man that we know is Cap. Yeah. A foundation to be the avatar of the New Deal and the For Foreedom speech. Okay. Now to get to him, we're going to need a little bit of context. Okay. 1929. Yes.

The American Stock Market plunged hard. Oh, devastatingly so. And it's a New York phenomenon because that's where the New York stock exchange is, right? Yeah. At that time, people's ideas of what the economy was, were still very similar to their ideas of science. It's all magic. Yeah. Well, anecdotes explain more than anything else. Yeah, we're talking about economics. Yeah. So to this day, it kind of is. Like economics fits in the social sciences in this kind of way that it's like, well, it can't fit anywhere else. It can't fit anywhere else.

And there's kind of this way we can kind of sort of give you a fuzzy picture of how this thing interacts with this thing. We can tell you after the fact. We can totally tell you after the fact how these factors all, all thinking all out, but like, trying to use it to predict the future is, is a shell game. Yes. It's, yeah.

Yeah. So in their defense, there are plenty of people, plenty of very smart people to this day who can give you the basic mechanics of how the economy works, but even they can't totally explain it. Oh, my students think I'm a wizard

because I pointed out just some indicators to them that are a little off the beaten track, like lipstick index. Oh yeah. You know, go ahead and do one or two, and you want me to. You go ahead. If you're waitress, where's more lipstick?

The economy's about to take a giant shit. Because lipstick is relatively inexpensive and it's a quick way to make yourself prettier and therefore you get more tips. Yeah, people who are in the serving industries tend to notice leading indicators quicker because it affects their pocketbook directly. Yeah, so if you're...

They're on, they're on, they're the pointy end of the economic spear. Yeah. And so my students are like, wow, how do you figure that out? Yeah. Well, let me explain. But so yeah. You're a better man than me.

It's sorcery. It's right. Well, as I flat my cloak. Literally. Yeah. But yeah. So in 1929, people were actually still clinging to the idea of ether. Despite it being disproven by the Michelson Morley experiment in 1887. Okay, hold on. Yes, I knew about the Michelson Morley experiment

Okay, I knew that the ether had been disproven. Yes, I'm a major player and it's a yeah, yeah point but There were still people Clinging to it. Yeah in the floggeston in 1929. Yeah to the point where like in science, there were several other experiments that had to be made to disprove ether, including Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Wait, okay. I might have had it. Heisenberg's uncertain, he's 20. Quantum, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quantum physics had to be, had to be harmless. Explain away ether before it could go forward. Son of a bitch.

Yeah, so people again, not to write. Yeah, all right. Well, magical thinking is a problem. Yeah, well, they also thought that baseball was better without people of color in it. So, yeah. Yeah. So, in the 1920s, while the economy was booming,

the government took a hands-off approach, allowing it to go wildly. Presidents in the 1920s ran on platforms of a return to normalcy, and the business of America is business. Yes, well, you know, after the war, we weren't bleeding to death like Europe. Yeah, you know, we were economically tightens. Yeah, because the war didn't strain our industry or our labor like it had. Like it had to kill all our workers. It didn't kill all our machines. It didn't kill off the workforce.

Yeah. We didn't destroy our infrastructure. We weren't blood white because we weren't a colony. Yeah. You know, and so really, Mm-hmm. Everybody likes to talk about World War II being the shifting point or the balance point of the fulcrum of world power shifting from British Empire to North America to us.

But really it starts the weight rolling along the lever began with World War Yeah. Began with World War One. You can see its trajectory and you know that it's, it's gonna happen and then World War Two happening just tipped it with mother. And tipped it rapidly. Yeah, catapulted the, the weight. Yeah. You know, and, and I mean, I think it's,

it's important to also note here that we were the lender nation. Yes. To everybody. Yes. And so, and it had just really stepped on to the world stage During the Spanish-American War. Yeah, and there was a debate raging is to whether or not we want to be that or not Yeah, and then we decided to do that as a country. Yeah, well, yeah

It was an actual decision. It was it was a decision that that becoming a world power in In the mold of the empires of Europe rise what we were gonna do. It was a worthwhile endeavor. And so the Philippines. Yeah. Now as a result of this, a lot of rich people wanted to do what rich people do,

which is get a lot richer. So they begin margin speculation in droves. So margin speculation essentially is, I wanna buy a stock that's worth $100, but I only have $10. You say, I'm gonna borrow 90 bucks. I'm counting on the idea that the stock is gonna go up.

Right. And if it, you're gonna pay me 10. Yeah. Or I'm gonna pay you 10. You're the broker for me. I'm gonna pay you 10. Yeah.

You're gonna give me the credit for the other 90. When the stock goes up up you take your 90 and then we sell it whatever whatever the margin after that is when we sell it I get the rest of that profit right yeah I need to talk about personal experience here. Sure. Very briefly one summer When I was very very first trying to try to get into teaching back an eon ago. Over the summer, because I was working as a substitute, so it wasn't getting paid over the summer. Right.

Over the summer, I got a temp job working for e-trade. Okay. And this was, this would have been 98. Wow, okay. So it was as the bubble right was resting and gresting and people were starting to crawl in a bubble. Yeah, people were really starting to call it a tech bubble. I had a friend at that point who was working for a tech startup in somewhere out on the peninsula in San Jose.

And I was watching based on the emails I was receiving because it was on night shift in customer service for each of you. And so my job was, their incoming emails, my job was to do responses, cut and pay stuff, make requests to get stuff done. And I saw more over the course of that summer. I was actually able to track an increase in the number of people who were sending an email saying, hey, my account allows me to buy stuff on margins. I made these purchases this afternoon. I need to cancel these purchases.

What do I need to do? In a number of times I had to cut and paste the paragraphs about, okay, well, I'm going to send this off to our retractions department and when the market opens at 9am, they'll be able to see whether or not they can make it happen. Right. But I was watching in sort of real time. Yeah. As a bunch of people were getting ready to lose their shirts. Wow. So, I mean, I remember one case in particular

where I opened up the account to get the details and looked at it. And if this guy wasn't able to retract the purchases he'd made, he was going to be in the red. He was gonna be overdrawn out of the assets he had in his account by some of the neighborhood of six grand, like that.

Wow. And that was one guy. Yeah. And that was me, you know, me seeing that. Wow. And that was one guy. Yeah. And that was me. Right. You know, me seeing that. So I know that was not just the one guy. And of course, you know, six months later,

the bubble popped and sure everybody lost their shirt. Right. And my buddy lost his job because the tech startup he was working for, created, because of a crappy business model, which so many of them were, but everybody was pumping money into the market because, oh my God, the internet!

We don't even know what the fucking means, but it's gonna make us all rich, you know? And so, when I get the opportunity to teach 1929 to my kids, someday teaching American history, that's gonna be, like that's going to be the example I'm going to use is this has happened, this has happened before and all of this will happen. Well, especially since what you're talking about is right after Glass-Steagall started

getting dismantled. Yes. Like they started being able to bar, to margins, which was put in place after the crash of 1929. Yeah. So getting back to that. It's as though we lost critical mass. Like doing that, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, the results of this were at first, fantastic.

Yeah. People are making money hand over fist until one day someone said, I think it was Kanye West, fuck you, pay me. And the broker at that time didn't have the money. Uh, and the banks didn't have the money. And the scene at the Bank of Mary Poppins collided with the scene at the end of its wonderful life and everything turned sideways. Sideways upside down, twist around, inside out. Boy, you turn me. Yeah. It does. Yeah. You know, now that was 1929. Yeah. Now, part of that was simply the fact that over in Europe, they were desperately trying to find the money, right?

To pay us back. Right. So there was there was all this rampant stock speculation. Mm-hmm. And a lot of the money that was supposed to be coming in to help pay for that was coming from debts we were owed by countries that were really badly overdrawn themselves. And then they were depending on their payments from Germany who was completely broken shit. Completely busted. And our president at the time who was an amazing humanitarian and frankly a genius who could speak like multiple languages like his wife would speak Chinese to him, he would speak Latin

to her so no one would understand them in the White House. Like this guy is a really cool guy except when he was president and when he was president he had this like I don't know what he had going on but he had this idea that people ought to bootstrap themselves and it's like wait dude you literally organized food relief for all of Europe during the war and now you can't figure this shit out. It was Herbert Hoover. Yeah. And he did every goddamn wrong thing there was to do

when that happened. Yeah. Under him, the government bought up currency, which deflates the economy, which keeps everything from going in circulation. He tried to balance the budget, which again, you deficit spend to get out of this stuff. He refused Abe to thousands upon thousands,

which again, he was the guy that organized Abe for everybody. Like, this is, it's a weird thing. And the results were that a disaster turned into a calamity. And as the Great Depression continues, farms start drying up, literally drying up, banks in an effort to cover their losses before closing and collapsing completely, before closed on thousands of farms because nobody owned their

farms even back then. The years and years of monocropping led to actual millions of tons of topsoil blowing away, and I mean millions of tons of topsoil blowing away. Well, we've talked about it in a, I don't remember which episode it was talking about, but we talked about the dust bowl. Yes. And talked about drifts, drifts of dust coming out of the Midwest and blanketing Chicago. And people in the capital, there was a speech, you mentioned.

Yes. There was a gentleman who was giving a speech about conservation to the senators and they told him the storm is almost here Stretch it for another 20 Yeah, and so he did and then everything went black Yeah, because dirt from the Midwest made everything in Washington go black Farmers had to move from their farms a lot moved to Chicago because they wanted to be with their farms Yeah farmers had to move from their farms, a lot moved to Chicago because they wanted to be with their farms. And then a lot of them wanted to get as far away from their farms as they could so they went the opposite direction. Yeah, it came out here to count up in California. Yeah, and you know,

amongst them are ancestors of mine. And actually ancestors are my dad's side of the family. Okay, well they ended up in Oregon, but the same idea. And most of our central valley is populated by folks from the middle America. So you have all that happening. And at least this increase in the demands on private and local relief efforts, collapsing them under the weight of demand. There's no infrastructure to do this.

So by 1932, America was ready for a train, change, and a drink as 1933 would prove, which in itself could be seen as tied to Irish working class in New York. Okay, I can see that. FDR was elected overwhelmingly as a patrician who cared about us plebs. He and he absolutely was. He had a very radical for the time and what would surely now lead to a fascist revolt of businessmen. Don't worry that actually almost happened then too. His basic platform was the three hours. Relief recovery and reform. Relief for us, poor folk, recovery for the banks and reform for the system to avoid this happening again.

Now at this point Steve Rogers is supposed to be about 12 years old and his parents are both dead according to most sources. Okay. He's in New York and he's lived through some pretty bleak times in New York as a poor Irish immigrant son who was an orphan whose mom died of a disease that poor people die of, whose dad died of a condition that a lot of men died of,

especially if you're poor, especially if there's no relief because people are just streaming in from everywhere. Add to that the great part. He's an archetype, is what we're saying. A little bit. Okay. And it's a lot of deprivation. Yeah, he's living with deprivation. He himself. I think and in some Cannons he's stricken by polio and others. He's just super scrawny. Yeah, by the time he's 14 the city's been blacked out at least once due to dust storms That are blowing in from 2000 miles away and I find that an important point to make.

So he lives in New York. This is not DC. DC, you name cities, things. And in Marvel, you name cities, cities. He lives in New York. New York had these things happening in them. In the real world, FDR, who by the way, was in the comics as well, he's working on those three Rs with his first of the two new deals.

And these were enormous far-reaching programs. Oh, they were massive on a scale. Yeah. Nobody had conceived of to that point in history. Not to that scale. It was so different in degree that it becomes a difference in kind. Yeah. It's kind of a wink and an nod to his cousins program,

the square deal. Yeah, it, well, his cousin's ethos of the square deal. Because Teddy was, of course, also a patrician. Yes. And he's a Republican patrician. He's a Republican patrician. But in a time when Republican meant something very different from what it means today, Teddy was pro-business, but he was considered a madman by the Republican establishment.

That's why they named my president. Yeah, well, yeah, I'm out of the way. I want to get him out of the way. How did that work out, guys? Well, if they'd read their history, they would've known every 20 years you lose a Republican president, because at that point, that's what was happening. Oh, yeah they'd read their history, they would've known every 20 years you lose a Republican president. Because at that point, that's what was happening. Oh yeah, you're right.

Yeah. Holy crap. Okay. So, well, nobody ever, we teach history. We know nobody ever fucking studies it. Right. I mean, except history teachers. Right, we're the ones always standing going,

this rhymes. This rhymes. This rhymes hard. Yeah. Like, it's the same word being repeated. This is like, really hip hop. This is yeah, like I'm an historian and I'm here to say, like that kind of early hip hop.

Holy cow. Yeah. So, but Teddy again, was really petrified. Yes. But he was also motivated by this progressive, I mean, Republican progressive, but progressive kind of ideas where the square deal was the very, very bedrock Republican idea that business is good for everybody. Yes. And when business is good for everybody, it is best. Yes.

And so, I mean, it's a little trickle down, but it's really a rising tide raises all. It's a rising tide raises all ships. It's kind of the opposite of trickle down because he wanted to see, or what he advocated for was business needs to take care of their employees.

Yeah, that's true. In order to be successful, in order to be successful, because there are no more. Are capitalism? Yeah, well, yeah. Which is the truth. That's not Republican, yeah.

It is, but it's not just Republican, it's liberal back then. Yeah, it's classic liberalism. Yeah, the employees are capital and that's it's liberal back then. Yeah. It's classic liberalism. Yeah. A good voice. The employees are capital, and that's what's good for business. Yes. All right.

And there's a noblesse oblige to what he does. Oh, oh, profound noblesse oblige. Yes. And so remember that the TR, the Republican, was the first president to legitimize a national labor movement by sitting down as the mediator between the coal miners and the coal. And it wasn't so much that he cared about the workers' rights.

That was secondary interstery. People are going to die without coal this winter. We need the silks. And not the market will decide. Sometimes you need an adjustment to bring market will decide. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's getting the adjustment to bring the population down. Yeah, no, no, no, it was okay. Look, people who are not involved in your squabble

are going to freeze to fucking death. And that's not okay. That is not okay. It is my job as the president to make sure that doesn't happen to my people. You can't see it, but I'm making a very broad waving gesture with both hands and a Patricia and my people, kind of motion, which was exactly the way Teddy thought about it.

And most of his glowering weight of personality was brought to bear on the companies because they were the ones who had more room to give. Yeah, and that really, and it was, no one, deep pockets. Yeah, he went deep, and it was, the message was essentially, look, you need to sit down with the workers.

Yeah. And you need to talk to them, and you will give them what they're looking for, because otherwise people are going to die, and if they do, I'm coming for you. Yeah. And what's interesting, for because otherwise, people are going to die and if they do, I'm coming for you. Yeah. And what's interesting especially about him is he did that,

he made all the news, but it's really Taft who took the ball. Like Teddy got, like wow, he broke through the line of scrimmage and got three yards. Holy shit, no one's ever gone up the middle that way. Yeah. Taft then ran another 30. Yeah. Wilson forward past it. Yeah. Like they each

one built on the other. Yeah. And it became the culture of what was going on. Yeah. So, so yeah, Roosevelt is doing right by this family tradition. Yeah. Of Putrition. No, less oblige. Yeah. From from the opposite side of the aisle with a different ethos behind it. Yeah bigger government Rather than smaller government. Mm-hmm, but yeah, it is it is very clearly. Yeah, it's a Roosevelt doing this. Yes Now Congress passes everything the Roosevelt asked for in the first hundred days of his administration Which is where the first hundred days tradition absolutely comes from in our modern? Mm-hmm press in our relationship with the presidency, comes from. And he sets in motion several programs

at the three AIMD, the three R's. All right. And right now, before we get into that, we're gonna do a commercial break. Okay. Because we gotta keep the lights on in here and pay the best. We gotta give our big one our revenue.

Yes, so, oh, I like that. So on the other side of this, we'll talk more about what the three are worth. That's the city, baby. All right, but right now, ads. Hey, geek nation, it's Damien. And Ed, and we're here to pitch a book at you. It's from a good friend of mine and a good friend of the show, Bishop O'Comble. The books are the American Fairytale trilogy,

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and like I said, a good friend of the show. So go out, pick him up, read him, and now back to us being smart Alex. So back from the ads. Indeed. Now we're going to talk about the three R's that we have revenue. So the three R's. Big way. You have the FERA, the Emergency Baking Act, and the CCC, which I'm going to talk a lot about in a few minutes, as it pertains directly to Captain America.

All of these got moving by March of 33, okay? So the FERA, the Emergency Baking Act, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, all by March of 1933. He also gets the NIRA, the AA and the TVA pass through Congress by June of that year. Oh yeah, TVA, TVA was a big deal. Huge. In ways that so helped us when the war that nobody could have predicted. Yeah.

But it turns out, you know, same thing with the CCC by the way. Yeah, hindsight. But all of these are aimed at the same general direction first get young men working again. Yes, so back then it was the men who were working get them physically into places that'll build their bodies up too. That's another thing. This is partly because FDR was lame and I mean he had polio. Yeah, so to him bodily strength And I mean he had polio. So to him, bodily strength mattered. And again, he's in the shadow of Uncle Teddy, or not of cousin Teddy. Cousin Teddy.

Who lived the, what did we call that? The rigorous? No. It was the strenuous life. Strenuous life. So that's just part of it. Also in the 30s, there's this worldwide movement because you had the Communist civilian corps,

which was getting young men out there and exercising exercising and you also had the Hitler Jungin. So you had this this long this this wide-reaching the youth are important and we need to get them physically from both from both sides and spectrum and FDR is more centrist given those two extremes. So you have this at building up young men's bodies again and getting them working. Secondly, get our capacity for making things back up and running. Yes. Because if you're making things, people will buy things. If people will buy things, money will circulate.

Third, get the farms and the banks moving in the right direction again. Yeah. In short, get the young men and the middle-aged men off the soup lines. Yeah. Get them out of the cities. Cap is coming up in that time. Now, incidentally, the FDIC gets set up at the same time. Despite Roosevelt's objection to it, by the way, he objected to it. Yes, really. He was still a petition after all. And in many ways, he's still married to the old ways of thinking about the government

when it comes to its direct role in banks. Okay. People should learn a blah, blah, blah. Now, there's a lot of podcasts to do history, which I've likely done a great job with the Great Depression and the New Deal at all. Yeah, yeah. I'm here to talk about nerdy geeky stuff, so I'm going to do a broad brush because broad brush saves a lot of time.

Yeah, it saves all the time. Yeah, this is another theme. Yeah. So while the United States was trying to get its feet under itself again, economically speaking, a lot of the world powers were rushing headlong into fascism in one form or another. Okay, yet well, in Lee. Yeah, also in 32 the doctrine of fascism actually appears in the Italian encyclopedia. Pinned by Benito himself.

The Nazis had the largest plurality in the Reichstag and Hitler acquired German citizenship. He hadn't been a German citizen prior to that. Well, that is an Austrian. Yeah. And while he's well on his country, but it's for the fucking Austrians And he's well on his way to leadership and in said right shot. Yeah, uh 30 okay, hold on 32 32

is after I'm forgetting my my timelines, but 32 is after the beer hole push. Oh, yeah, that was in the 20s. So this is him realizing, I gotta do it legally. So in 33 you get the election, you get the enabling acts, and you get the Reichstag fire, and then the reaction to that. But all of this is happening right around the same time

that FDR is going, no, no, let's pull left. The rest of the world's pulling right. So, as America's continuing its slow climb and recovery and it is slow. Yeah, real quick. So FDR is going economically left, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say structuralists, collectivist, government, and eventualist, Keynesian. He's going Keynesian. Yes, is what it is. Keynesian is very left. Use the government to stimulate the people's economy. All right, fair enough. So it's very left for the time. Well, yeah, yeah, this is true. He he shifted the overton window in that direction by doing all of this.

But so so we know, all right, Italy is literally going fascist in the absolute literal sense. Yes, they created it. Yeah, the Nazis are fascists, but you know, they're they're their own weird brand of it. And they're happening in Germany. Do you know, off the top of your head, where, what direction was Britain going? Were they just floundering or? Because I know, I know by Chamberlain. And then he gets defeated in 35. So it's Chamberlain.

Okay. So whatever party Chamberlain is a part of. I wanna say Chamberlain was conservative. I wanna say that too, but then he gets defeated by Churchill, who I think was conservative, because he started off liberal. That's true.

No Chamberlain was labor. Yeah. Or liberal party. I was Chamberlain was was labor. Yeah, or liberal party. Well, I was gonna say it was a liver lab. Anyway, I don't recall. Anyway, that's a good question. I know that. Because I mean, we've talked about post-war, about the post-war consensus.

Yes, we had to talk about post-war consensus to explain Margaret Thatcher. Exactly. But pre-war, I don't,cher. Exactly. But pre-war. Yeah. I don't, he was conservative. Yeah, he was conservative. Well, yeah, because it was Chamberlain and Churchill wound up taking over.

It wasn't like in a party switchover. It was just a vote of no confidence. That's right, that's right. It was such a party party. We're not conservative enough, essentially. Yeah, kind of, yeah. Which is interesting, because they, again, Churchill hated fascism. Oh, yeah, with a...

But loved empire. Yeah, well, he's British. Yeah. So, America's climbing and recovering very slowly, and it's got missteps... Rolling, crawling away out of the hole. And it's misstepping every which way. Because democracies are wildly inefficient. Yes. And messy.

And the rest of the world ends up under the boot heel of fascism. Because the attractive thing about an authoritarian regime is... Now this is only in the 30s and this is true though. No, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, authoritarianism is there is somebody who is a symbol of yes, I am going to Save us all I am gonna make everything better. Mm-hmm big daddy. Yep is is gonna and fold us all in his stern Yep, but protective arms. Yep, probably not loving but we'll get into that right somewhere else or your love can go towards your country Yeah, also gives you a role. Yeah, gives you someone to follow and it takes away your need to be a decider and your need to be accountable.

All of that is correct. Yes. Or Pete, you put it really well. Now he was talking about socialism. Uh huh. But authoritarian socialism has this in common with authoritarianism. A authoritarianism. Yeah. All have this in common with authoritarianism. Yeah, all have this in common. It gives every pissant and ant hill to piss on.

I like it. Yeah, because you're also giving somebody an outsider to blame. It's a very seductive and simplistic way of doing. Well, it's an outsider to blame, and it's also when you put on the brown shirt in the uniform, you take orders and you have, you have some petty little job. You have something to do. You have some level of importance. You have, it gives you something to tack your dignity too.

That's true. And that's part of what's seductive about. Well, and usually it's in times of either social or economic distress for the person. I wouldn't even say up hevel, I would say distress. Distress, all right. For the person in question. Because our economy was finally fixed and then fascism

kind of got really attractive to a certain segment of society. Yeah, so and it wasn't a people, it was distress. Okay. Um, and there's a sense of impotence, a collective sense of impotence. Yeah. Um, and so when you have that, you give them a sense of power again. Yeah. Um, and you give them a sense of the ship is going to be all right, and it's seductively

simple. Yeah. And people really like the solution, the problem is simple and the solution is complex but people like to think that the problem is complex and the solution is simple. Yeah and the historical problem is looking back over The historical problem is looking back over all of civilization, there's almost never a simple answer. And like ever historically we are pack animals. And anthropologically we're pack animals. So the strong man is attractive on a number of levels. On a primal level.

Yeah. There's a reason that 50 shades of grey sold so let's fast forward to 1941 all right January January state of the Union address. This is where FDR gives the for freedom speech. Yes, quote In the future days which we seek to make secure we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. It's 1941, January of 1941. In six months, Captain America is going to punch Hitler on the cover. Six months after that,

we're going to get attacked in Pearl Harbor. The second freedom of every person to worship God in his own way everywhere in the world. Yep. Everyone in the world has come up twice. Yeah. It's not just America first. Nope. I'm gonna say that again. It's not just America first. Yeah, well, he was a commie internationalist.

Well, yeah, I don't know. But, you know, whereas Lindbergh flew a plane for 29 hours. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. The third is the freedom from one, which translated into world terms, means economic

understandings, which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants everywhere in the world. And you'll notice he stresses peacetime. Yes. He's talking the welfare state. He is. He definitely is. Which everybody's down for at this point.

Well, yeah. What's the point of having a government that collects taxes if you ain't getting a few people to share? If you're not gonna get some out of it. The fourth freedom is from fear, which translated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion

that no nation will be in a position to commit and act a physical aggression against any neighbor anywhere in the world. Okay, so this is January of 41. Yes. So Poland was 39. Yep. September of 39. Duncirk was 40. Yes. And so by 41 later that year, I would say the summer 41 was Battle of Britain. Battle was... Yeah, well France falls in 40. Yeah.

And then yes, because he also then invades Russia in 41. Yes. In the summer 41, it doesn't send any winter gear, because we're going to be able to roll over. Blitzkrieg. Come on, Blitzkrieg. And math. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they did it, Dexander, and didn't they? Yeah. Well, and if you really think about like Hitler's plans, it sounds like I know somebody who did, if you listen to Sigmund Freud's theories, it's obvious he's on Coke.

No, dude, look, check it out. Everybody wants to be in their mom. I know it sounds weird, but dude, you totally do. She has nipples, right? Yeah, I know it's weird, but she had milk. If you speed up what he says by like one and a half, it's a Coke fiend. And he was. Well, yeah.

And Hitler was a methodic. And look at his plans. It's method Coke-fine. And he was. Well, yeah. And Hitler was a methodic. And look at his plans. And it's methodic plans. Yeah. And he was a methodic because he had uncontrollable flatulence. Wait. And the math stopped. Well, he thought the math would stop his farting.

Yes. How did I not know that? I don't know. That's the kind of thing that I always thought you knew. Yes. Yes. Well, that's where we're here. Oh my god. Yeah, so yeah Uncontrollable flatulence conscious about farting. Yeah, well, and so he got hooked on man Try to fix the most Regis flagellates like like how did this guy if this dude could get any more pathetic right?

And yet he keeps falling over backwards into This dude could get any more pathetic. Right. And yet he keeps falling over backwards into greater, greater positions of power and wipes out millions of people. Bill, he's a people. So, yes. Okay. All right. So, so I wanna push back a little bit on,

on second fry. Sure. I totally agree with you. I think yeah. All right. All right, look, no. No, here's the thing, man. I think yeah, all right. All right, look, no. So here's the thing, man. Like three parts, right?

And ego, super ego, right? Oh, okay. It's all about, dude, you're hit when you're a kid, when you're a party, right? Yeah, me too. And over attentive, right? All right, holy shit, we should buy a boat. All right, so.

So, but part of what happened with Freud was he was doing all these interviews. Yes. And he was doing all the stuff he was doing. And what he discovered was there were a whole lot more people he was talking to. Yes. Who had been like anybody moderately reading the interview transcripts is like This person was very clearly sexually molested. Yes, and he could not Accept that yeah, yeah, and so he

Had he backed he backed away from what he was what he was discovering and Created a bunch of shit whole cloth as a way to try to explain it. Which is actually a really good way to do lit analysis. Yeah, but I don't know about psychoanalysis. No, it's really not. So, but yeah, so yeah, interesting, he died. He died.

Clearly Freud died in 39, by the way. Oh, fuck, he did, didn't he? Yes, he did. Wow. Yes. So, now, more on did wow. Yes, all right. So now more on FDR yeah, quote that is no vision of a distant millennium It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation

That kind of world that kind of world is the very antithesis of so-called new order of tyranny Which the dictator seek to create with a crash of a bomb To that new order we oppose the which the dictator seek to create with a crash of a bomb. To that new order, we oppose the greater conception, the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear. Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change in a perpetual peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily,

quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or a quick climb in the ditch. Now this is January of 41, but he's fucking calling people out. Wow. Which means we knew about shit. Oh, we did. Well, we know, we know.

Yeah, you go in, it shows that we new shit. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody, anybody who has done the reading. Yeah, well, there's that. Knows that we new shit. Yeah. It is, it is a failure of, of the structure of our curricula.

Uh-huh. That more people don't know that we new shit. Yeah. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries working together in a friendly, civilized society. This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and the heads and the hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith and freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of the human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those

who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end, save victory. So that's what he says. Now you definitely need to address that he opposed an anti-lynching bill because you don't want to lose a certain vote. You definitely need to address the fact that black people were at best second-class citizens in this country at that time. At best. You can certainly make an argument in the current time as well. But you definitely need to call that shit out. He's speaking against concentration camps and one year later, executive order in 1966 goes up. So there's a lot of really good rhetoric here that goes unfulfilled. But I'm not here to talk about the unfulfillment of that. I'm here to talk about a comic

book's reaction to it. You take this groundwork that he's laying to declare war because that's what he's doing. Well, yeah, in January. What I was about to step in and say is he's he's setting the stage for these these are the these are our policy goals. This is what we're about. Yeah, worldwide, these are our values. We have a right to be worldwide with this. Yes, this is our utopian vision for what the world ought to look like.

Part of our worldwide vision has to do with eliminating tyranny. Freedom from fear was pointed squarely at Benito, Adolf, and Hero Hito. And whoever it was who was effectively pulling Hero Hito strings. And, or whoever it was, it was effectively pulling hero-hito strings. And, by the way. Yeah, I'd say tojo. I always put it on tojo. Yeah. And, on top of that, you, he says dictators.

He does? They called themselves that. Yes. So he's like, oh, you name yourself? Fine, fuck that. Yeah. He's doing that. Yeah.

But, he's, again, laying the groundwork to declare war a year in advance. Well, a year in advance, and this by this time, Lendleys was already going. Yep, we were already. And he's also, by this, by 41, we're eight years into a program that puts young men into physically rigorous programs.

Oh, yeah. He's playing the long game. And use the government to make people whole again. Yeah. And you've got a set of values in search of an avatar. Captain America is just such an avatar. All right. So here's looking at the CCC, the civilian conservation

corps. Took men 17 to 28 years old out of the cities and put them to work in the wilderness. Yeah. Quote. I proposed to create the CCC to be used in complex work not interfering with normal employment and confining itself to forestry. The prevention of soil erosion, flood control and similar projects. We're going gonna fix the dust bowl. Yeah. Like, I'm sorry. And also, I'm gonna read between the lines here.

We're gonna make sure, we're gonna make sure Chicago doesn't get buried by Oklahoma again. Yeah. There's also another thing at play here though. Teddy created National Parks. Yeah. Frankie here is never gonna get to go to them. So he's sending young men to see what he's missing. Frankie here is never gonna get to go to them. So he's sending young men to see what he's missing. Oh, why do you gotta give me these kind of feels, dude?

Because it's amazing. Damn son. And he's maintaining things that he's never gonna get to see a true patrician. Yeah, I'm maintaining things. I'm never gonna get to see I'm gonna putian. Yeah. I'm maintaining things. I'm never going to get to see. I'm going to put you to work and make you whole again and pay you. And I'm going to talk about the pay in just a second.

But I'm going to pay you to go live in this wonderful place that I'll never get to see. Please go enjoy it. And you're going to be fed. You're going to be housed. And it's going to be great. And you're literally going to make America great again. Wow. Yeah. So back to. Wow. Yeah.

So back to his quote. Yeah. I call your attention to the fact that this type of work is definite, practical value, not only through the prevention of great present financial loss, but also as a means of creating a future national wealth. And here's what's neat about that. Okay.

From 33 to 39, likely quite by accident, three things were occurring at the same time that would help us win a war that we weren't in yet. Well, and it wasn't even 33, it wasn't even on the horizon yet. It wasn't China, but it wasn't anywhere else. Well, he's annexing, he is annexing. Yeah, well, yeah, okay. It's on the horizon, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the road leads here, yeah, yeah. Everybody's looking. It's on the distant horizon. Yeah, all, yeah, okay. It's on the horizon. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the wrong way for everybody to look. It's on the distant horizon. Yeah. Well, it's on the denial horizon. Okay, but all right. Fair, fair. All right, fair comment.

We were employing young men and making them physically stronger with better endurance. These are the same men who would then be drafted and or join voluntarily. That wasn't on purpose, that was a happy accident. Number two, we were training them to be trainable so that when they didn't get drafted, they could still work in more time industries with minimal gap time from higher to production. Okay. Three, we were developing a lot of hydroelectric power, which really helped those mass really important for running factories.

Yes, that those men would end up being in. And by the way, so did the women. Yeah, well, I was about to say, well, most of those men, if they weren't somehow otherwise 4F wound up being sent off. Exactly. So you're making their bodies strong, you're making them trainable,

and you are setting up industries. Yeah. You are accidentally, there's no way anybody could have predicted that, that far out, I don't think. If they did, maybe I should start looking at conspiracy theories, because that's the nicest fucking conspiracy there is.

But very little bit odd. Yeah. Yeah. Now your standard CCC man was 18 to 24 years old. Okay. He was unmarried, unemployed, and from a city. Okay. Sound like anyone? Oh, yeah.

He worked five days a week, got $30 a month. He had to send $25 of those dollars back to his family wherever he was from. Really? Yeah. That was a requirement. Yep. For the sake of keeping him out of trouble

because he didn't have all that money burning a hole in his pocket where he was to go spend it on liquor and cigarettes. Yeah. And women. Yeah. And there were skating rinks that ended up cropping up right near there because they still had their five bucks and five bucks that could buy you a family of seven.

And money. Yes, so. But also that $25 going back home stimulates the economy back home. Yeah, well, keen zinism. Right. While it keeps it from having to pay for his stomach because that was covered as he was being lodged. Okay so was his lodging so was his medical care so was his clothing. The other five dollars a month he got he usually spent it nearby towns stimulating

their economy once a month. This man this average CCC guy lived and worked with other similar men. Yeah. Which also... Eric's. Yeah. You can beat me to it. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and it should be noted that training them to be trainable also meant that when you throw those same guys into basic training... Yep. When they get drafted or when they join up voluntarily. They already know the drill. They have the templates. I mean, they don't literally know the drill. But they've already been there. Like to a certain extent, it's like, okay, I know this is familiar. So yeah. So they also rebuilt lots of infrastructure. Imagine a country that rebuilds its infrastructure. Boy, wouldn't that be awesome.

Imagine a country that raises taxes to go to war. Imagine a country where Congress has to declare war. Wow. So this program was so multifaceted. All right. And it's approach that it improved nutrition, economics, and the dignity of those involved. 70% of the men who went into the CCC started out malnourished.

Really? Yeah. Of course they have statistics for that. Never mind. I don't know if that's. Yeah. Yeah. You got to give academics jobs too.

Yeah. This is true. Yeah. Which is actually really damn important. Yeah. The 350,000 men who served in the CCC by July of 34, so I'm rewinding them. Yeah.

We're able to literally point to the service that they had given their country and making it a better place. It's like, hey, you see that over there? I helped guard that road, you know? Yep. By 35, the total number of men in the CCC was nearing its high watermark of 500,000. Okay.

So only have a million men. Now, at that time, we had just over a million, a hundred million folk. Yeah. So, it's, you know, so, 50 plus million are male half a million of that. So 1% of the population. Yeah. So 1% of the population. But 1% of the population is pretty high, damn huge. For instance, during so- In a program, 3% and that was devastating.

It was devastating. Yeah, no, 1% of the male population of the country all engaged in that thing is a pretty remarkable movement. Yeah. Unfortunately, because of the South and the North, and I do want to point out the North at this Dude the whole program was segregated. Well, yeah It was also wildly popular though both parties were full-throatedly in support of it with 67% of Republicans approving of it really yep, and if you were in a CCC you could find room for advancement too

Okay, in short the CCC was a could find room for advancement too. Okay. In short, the CCC was a place for young men to go get fit, get paid and not be a burden to their families while still providing to their families, for their families. This reminds me of Lydia. Lydia. I'm going way the hell back. The King of Lydia notices there was a famine. Okay.

And he said, there's a famine. On these days, you game on these other days, you eat. Okay. He literally gained his people to stretch their food stores by double. On the other day, you gained, you didn't eat because you and I have both gained, we forget to eat while we're gaming. That's true. Right? Yeah. So he knew that. He also told a group of young men, I have a fantastic quest for you. Go east and find whatever the fuck I forget. Well. Turns out in Troy,

the skeletons that have been found and stuff have Lidian DNA. He sent them on a mighty quest. Really? That's what the CCC is. Okay. Yeah. It's a mighty quest. Well, yeah, it is. Yeah.

But yeah, that's it. To me, it's the same thing. Okay. The WPA, by the way, did the same basic thing, but in urban settings, WPA is responsible for highway one here. Is it really? I think it's actually PC, PCH is what I'm thinking of. Okay. Yeah, it goes high right? Yeah, you might be right. Yeah, I know that it's not responsible for

holding it bridge. Oddly enough. Right. No. Yeah. But if I, yeah, the markers on on, on, oh nice. Okay. On on PCH have every so often you'll see a WPA or a pre-sured WPA. So when I lived in Hollister going out to Monterey and seeing that, I remember, it's some depressionier program, I think WPA. Well, this also involved artists and writers. So it wasn't just like, hey, we need strong backs. I don't have a strong back.

Don't matter, it'll get stronger. It was What But band over yeah pick that up, but it's too heavy keep trying it won't be eventually eventually It so I'll put it to you this way. It was a, I think in some ways, we talked about classical liberalism before. Yeah, I think it was a newer version of liberalism because it's, what do you do?

Okay, let's see what we can do about helping you do that. It was, let's meet you where you are instead of like, pull yourself above it by your road straps. Yeah, yeah. But artists and writers were involved in the WPA in huge ways, in enormous ways. So put people to work at the things they were good at.

Yeah. It built up the infrastructure, similar to the way the TVA set up electrification. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Steve Rogers, as I would call, canonically, was a graphic artist once he was.

So, okay. And I'm going to get to that. Yes. Okay. The CCC ends up under the Federal Security Administration in 1940. They reorganize, which handled the bevy of things that we now see elsewhere, education among them, by the way, but also public health. Okay. I say that because I'm a big believer that Steve Rogers got government health care and

that's what made him the man that he was. That in steroids. Yeah. Magic steroids. Yes, magic. Viterase steroids. But Viterase steroids. FDR was not TR.

Okay. But he seems to embrace the same ideology of that strenuous life. It's not an overt part of his policies, but they sure seem pretty pervasive. It's, well, it would be very difficult. Yeah. To be of his generation. Yes.

In the Roosevelt tribe. Well, keep in mind Roosevelt got polio while he was swimming. He was being hella active. Oh, yeah. No, he was up until he contracted it. He was, because the expectation, after cousin Teddy, that was the template. Yep.

That was as members of this Patricia and family, this is how we develop our virtues. Are we using the right virtues? Yeah, we're too, yeah. Yeah, which is, you know, part of our class virtue is that we do this. And so, yeah, living in the shadow of his older cousin Teddy, it's impossible that that mindset wouldn't be somewhere in his worldview. Right.

If he wasn't emulating it somehow, he would have to be somehow responding to it. Right. If he wasn't emulating it somehow, he would have to be somehow responding to it. Yes. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Here's his dear cousin's words on it, because I think they actually do a really good job of capturing the spirit of the TVA,

the CCC and the WPA. Okay. I genuinely think that it's a Teddy Roosevelt inspiration. Like you said, he's responding to it. Quote, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort of labor and strife, to preach that highest form of success,

which comes not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. Above all, let us shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical within, or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness. I want you to remember that for later and I also

want to put a couple pins in that real quick. Number one, I can find quotes very similar to that spoken in national socialist ideology and literature. I can also point to the futurists who were the artists who gave birth to fascism talking about the beauty of strife. Teddy Roosevelt is not a fascist by any stretch. What it is is in the early 1900s, you have a worldwide valuation of machinery and of strife and things like that happening. And so he's baked in that. In as much as he broke all the molds ever that were made,

he's also still very much a part of his time. And at that time, valuing strife and struggle was, it was, it was, it also led the way to social Darwinism. So you have a lot of things turning around, doesn't it mean that he's a part of it? No, yeah. Or that he's the father of it, but he is in the same stew that it was born.

Yeah, no, he's operating in the same milieu. Yes. He's operating in the same stew that it was born. Yeah, no, he's he's he's operating in the same milieu. Yes, he's he's operating in the same set of movements. Yes. I think there is a very remarkable sense in that same era, where the whole world view of everybody coming out of the end of the 19th century, where everything had been about you know the national the nationalist movements, like the Unification of Germany. Yeah. The Unification of Italy. Yeah. The Unification of Italy. Yeah. This idea that we have a language,

we have a culture, we should have a nation. Right. And what that actually means. And part of the inherent definition that everybody found at that time was, we're going to have to define ourselves and that's going to involve conflict. There's gonna be a struggle, there's gonna be revolution, there's gonna be disagreements, we're gonna get into fist,

but we're gonna get into fist fights with each other and we're gonna get into weapon fights with our neighbors Because you know set the tone for World War One. Well, it was a glorious trouble. Yeah, completely set the tone for World War One and even after Mm-hmm. Well the futurists died off with World War One, but but They looked up to their ideals. They really did But you know, by the way, the dadaists, terrible soldiers, they couldn't stay on the front line.

Yeah, no they. The Cubists were just slaughtered. Just this, this, well I couldn't shoot straight. I didn't know I really can't, right turn. And they're like, fuck, I just wait back three years. How did I do that? Yeah, like it's Wednesday? Yeah, you know, right turn.

I'm a cow. Is that, is that D't ask your absurdist? Uh, well, the data is, it's a goddess because it's sort of come out in the 50s. No, okay. Yeah, you're, you're right. So, but, but, you know, imagine. It's a muddy python sketch.

I mean, it's totally a muddy python. Like, I can't have thought of that myself. Are four listeners please hunt that now? Please, hunt that down. Somewhere, somewhere. It couldn't have been a Damien creation. That the Dadaists were terrible frontline fighters. And that the Cubists got slaughtered.

Yeah, they can't. It's like, yeah. I don't know what might be. I'm just saying, but still It's totally to be mine. So, uh, I'm still getting over that. But, you know, this idea that, you know, this conflict is gonna be inevitable.

And so we should embrace this conflict. We should, this is a glorious, this is all gonna lead to all of us being the best nations, the best individuals. We're going to temper ourselves. Yeah. It's also tied to the romantic movement. Yes.

You know, I don't remember who it was, but probably Byron. Well, no. Probably Shelley. Well, if it is a romantic movement, but I'm thinking of an individual that, and I'm trying to remember the book I got it out of, but talking about the the zitgeist and the and everybody's mindset going into not not just World War I but the era before World War I. A some sensitive young German boy, young man, 20 or something years old, a young man, 20 years old, lamenting that he might not make it to the front and whatever war was going on.

Because am I doomed to die in prose? Oh wow. Was the phrase he used and it was this romanticization of the idea of like conflicts, like literal warfare. And so Roosevelt being in that milieu was pushing, what he was pushing was certainly not authoritarianism or anything like that. None of those kind of movements,

but he developed and put forward what I would call muscular Americanism. People talk about muscular Christianity. It's this idea that within Christian theological circles, sometimes it's used as a denigrating term to talk to people who have this real serious focus on the struggle involved in being a Christian. You know, you got to, you know, it's difficult to live in the world and not be of the world. And you got to do right.

And, you know, and it's always put in these very, very, you know, conflict. Sounds like a paladin. Manful kind of, yeah, well, yeah. Kind of kind of, you know, yeah. Manful righteousness kind of told. And that, yeah, kind of, you know, yeah, manful righteousness kind of, oh, yeah. And that's exactly what Teddy was talking about. And that filters into, without all the overtones of necessarily overt conflict,

the virtue of hard work, the virtue of toil, hard work, the virtue of of of of toil. Yes. The virtue of the the honest sweat on your brow. Protestant work ethic. It's well, yeah. It all, yeah. Which is itself theologically kind of bullshit, but we can get into that. Yeah, but it's inherently American. Yeah, but it's inherently American. What? Actually, it's inherently Dutch, but when you get into that later, there's not terrain in this conversation. But yeah, it all ties together in one big thread. And so we can definitely see that coming out when we look at who cap winds up beginning.

Yeah. So by 1940 it's obvious, especially with, as you've mentioned, the Len Lysack, that the United States is going to get into the war. One way or another. Yeah, somehow. It was more a matter of when than if. And was there a question? Cause here's the thing. We now know that it was catalyzed finally by us going more with Japan and then Hitler getting pissed off because the Japanese had forced our hands. Right.

And he had to declare war on us because, you know, the Axis Tripartite Pact, was it do you think? Clear to people at the time that okay now we're gonna wind up going to war with Japan. Like going to war with Japan is unavoidable because our interest in the Pacific and all this stuff or was it we don't know who the fuck we're gonna wind up declaring war on because it could be either one of them? No, it was, Japan was an afterthought even then.

Two scholars add to people who understood the news and stuff, they even kind of saw Japan as China's problem. Asia is for Asians, Europe is for white folk. Okay. So, and the thing that was, so, so that was part of the reason that everybody was so intensely shocked by Pearl Harbor. Part of it, yeah. Was, was, wait, them?

Yeah, well, it was also, you know, like, a lot of people didn't know about the oil embargo and stuff like that. Like a lot of people didn't understand geopolitics and reportage on it was not necessarily up to snuff. So they saw Japan as frankly England's problem because as England's empire over there. Yeah. So, but the Nazis, that's everyone's problem. Okay. Even on. All right. Yeah. You know. So the result was the CCC was less and less about conservation and more and more about skills and jobs training.

Okay. The kinds of jobs that would work as support for soldiers during the war and the kinds of trainings that strengthen young men and that got them used to taking orders. After Pearl Harbor, those same young men were either volunteering or drafted in service for the duration. Yes. Prior to the CCC, again, 70% would have qualified as malnourished, and that's a lot of people to be found unfit for service. Now they would have lowered the standards because we've done that historically as well. Okay, we've done that a number of times. 10 years.

I remember one of my favorite observations of it was they lowered the standards to get more people to join to go to Iraq. And somebody pointed it, wait, wait, Lundy England was before we lowered the standards? How low do they have to get? So the CCC staunched that and it got them ready, not necessarily on purpose, because a 30-minute 10 doesn't mean shit, but later on it became so. Even in geopolitics, both real intent don't mean crap. So as per the usual, anytime, I give an episode,

it turns into a multi-part episode because I spend the entire first hour on context. So we're doing that. All right. So I'm gonna stop it there, and we'll catch up to everybody next time around. Is there anything that you've gleaned from this kind of broad swath history of the depression other than Hitler's farts? Damn it!

Sorry. That was going to be it. If you could see me grinning and knew where I was going to go, God damn it. Sorry. Because I'm still tripping over that. Like honest or is ripping. Um, but I think the scale of what it was that was happening. And the way that like to us now, it's all so patently fucking obvious.

That's a problem with presentism. Is is is yeah, well, that's that's kind of what I'm saying is is realizing that in the moment, all of this was kind of a way, what do we, what huh? We're doing what now? Like how many people? Yeah, the unchurning history is really underwritten. Yeah, massively underwritten.

So that's, I'd say that's probably, if I gotta give you a takeaway right now, it's probably really easy for us to look at the CCC and go, oh look, that provided us the men, therefore it must have been on purpose. Yeah. Because when we look back at something that was eight years different, we're like, oh, those were right next to each other. Now they weren't.

No, they really weren't. That was eight years. Being, being not even four years through the current administration, let me tell you, four years is a long fucking time to live through. Yeah, well, you know, we, you know, yeah, 100% true. But like eight years is a really long time and being unsure of things, where again, the depression didn't end overnight.

No. It was a series of small bureaucratic steps that helped end it. Yeah. Government was the fucking solution. It was not the problem, even when it was the problem. Yeah. All of that is absolutely true,

and I think you're hitting an nail on the head there, the amount of unchurness for Americans. And instead of going fashy, America went conservy. We went for conservation, we went building shite-e. We went for conservation. We went building shit eat. We went several. Other folks, they went fashy because complex problems are attracted to simple solutions, or the other way around. America went with incremental solutions and it actually worked. And it didn't involve cooking the books. Well, you know, we had the capacity to go with incremental solutions though.

It's a really good point. We were not starving to death. We were not actually, I mean, there were certainly plenty of people, like say 70% of the guys in CCC were undernourished. Right. But we didn't have like literal mass starvation. That's a really good point. Germany, literal mass starvation. That's true.

Germany, literally, I'm going to burn this wheelbarrow full of cash because it's worth more to me to fuel for my stove than it is to actually try to spend. You're absolutely right. You know, in other parts of Europe, it was not as bad, but it's still pretty awful. They were recovering from the flu and the end of the war and having to pay debts back to us. Like by the way, which by the way, the only country to successfully pay all their debts back to us was Finland.

Well done Finland. Well done Finland. That's the only thing you're ever gonna hear me say good about the fins ever for personal reasons, but moving on If you can I would I would point out at one point America was giving loans to Germany so they could pay its debts to France and England

Turning around and giving that money to us because we've had money into them. Kenzie and can you get? I don't say Kenzie and I say Ponzie. Yeah, yeah. I mean, kinda. Yeah, you can see where I'm getting it, at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, anyway, where are we on the internet? We are at Geek History time on the Twitter.

I am at EH Blaylock. I am the Twitters. I am at Da Harmony, Twitter Harmony on the Twitter, as well as on the, what do you call that thing? The Instagram. The Instagram's, yeah. I'm at MrBlaylock.

There you go. On the Instagram's. And I'm trying to think if we have timed plug it. I don't think so. No. All right, but you're all just gonna have to wonder what it was. Yeah, in a couple episodes,

I'll probably plug in something that's pretty cool. All right. But all right, well for Geekers' history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm at Blaylock and until next time, keep rolling 20s. Alright, well for Geekers history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock and until next time, keep rolling 20s.