Brain Soda Podcast - Episode 40 - Animorphing Socialists...In America?!

Episode Date: November 4, 2023

On this week's episode we are discussing the genre breaking 90s book series and tv show Animorphs, and we're taking a historical look at socialism in America up to the Cold War! This also marks our one month break for Kyle's move, we'll see you guys on December 2nd!

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. Dom held their chameleon. Ah, brain soda. It's the Brain Soda Podcast. I, as always, am your host Kyle, joined by my co-host and comrade, Brad. How's it going? Today, we're going to be talking about the history of socialism in America.

But first, Brad, yes. I want to tell you a war story today. A war story? Yeah. Are there any commies in it? No, no, no pinko commies gum. Okay, we're about any fascists. Any fascists?

You know, any Nazis? Maybe. Yeah, they kill Hitler and one of the boys. Yeah, really? Yeah, that's Hitler and one of the books Yeah, it's good. It does get murdered in this series. So yes, okay, all right Nazi punks exactly yes, but it's a different kind of war. That was what what I'm getting at okay imagine It being war and your real hope and driving force for this war is like 15-agers. Okay.

You're in for that? I mean, sounds like a young adult book. How do you think those kids are gonna turn out, too? Yeah, well, it's kind of what started all those young adult books doing that. Today, we're gonna be talking about Animorphs. Oh, yes. Now, okay, I've read a lot of these books and you told me how many there are. So, I did not read nearly all of them, but I've definitely read a lot of these books and you told me how many there are so I did not read nearly all of them But I've definitely read a lot of them right and yeah, I don't remember much about it, but they were great

60s some odds right and and I will say I'm gonna say this part of the reason why We're dedicating one sole episode two animorphs and not doing like ongoing coverager anything of that is because like well number one it did have a lot of like other media to it too but I will say this like like comic books and things like that like there's a lot of those books that are ghost written and it's do whatever you want put everything back in the box you know what I mean like by the end of that book put everything back in the box. You know what I mean? Like by the end of that book, everything is back in order so the Andalite Yerk war that we're going to talk about as the premise basis of animals, right? Like, yeah, is still in place in happening, right? Okay. The coming and goings of it though is absolutely bad crazy and I think it's something that we're gonna have a lot of fun with.

But out of those books, I couldn't even tell you how many are like Rachel gets divided into a good half and a bad half after she becomes a starfish. Do do do do do do do. You know what I mean? Like it's just take your concept at principal level and kind of tuck it in your back pocket and go forward with this wacky sci-fi premise, right? Sure. Okay, so speaking of this wacky sci-fi premise, like how did this start? Was it aliens?

Absolutely, so let's get into it. Five teenagers walking through an abandoned construction site late at night, spot a spaceship, one of them spots a spaceship, and it crashed lands. And in that space pot or whatever, there is a blue centaur-ask being with a scorpion-like sighted tail,

and Tana with eyes, and no mouth. Yeah, so I remember this now. This is an andalite, and an and a light has telepathic speech and something called like a morph cube That he then gives those five teenagers powers to be able to touch any person or animal You'd like transcribe some of their DNA and then you are able to morph into that for like two hours. If you elapse that two hours, you're stuck in that position and you're a non-looker. Okay, I remember like, you just explained that

and like, they're TV show. They did, yep. And that, it's like, it's all just playing in my head now. And like, I know I read the books too and they were like, maybe you're getting in this, there was a cave, I, there was a cave. I remember there being a cave. Yeah, we're definitely gonna get into that.

Yes, okay. Literally, we're gonna probably talk about like the first six books the most. But as a core concept of where we're going, that is the initial like called action, but almost immediately after that. Right. Another alien thing like shows up turns into this other giant evil

centipede alien and eats him. The animal that gave him the powers. And that is an alien known as Viser 3. And later on it's kind of revealed that Visser 3 is this high ranking what they call Yerke Alien, who has an Andalite body that he uses, and the way Yerke's work is that they are actually slugs who wrap in two people's minds or other animals minds, things like that. Like the faculty? Yeah, oh my God, yes, and like that like the faculty. Yeah, oh my god

Yes, yeah, like the faculty. Yes And the film of the time viscer three is like the head alien of this Invasion because it's like but invasion of body snatchers man like they they tank as many people or high-ranking members of society as they can and Then they have underneath the city, underneath their town, is like a giant underground city with a pool so people would be caged. The pool, yes.

Yes, yes, so they go underground, the yirks then go into this, your pool, which has these things called Kendrona Rays, and like, man, it is honestly just, this is book one. Yeah. Like, this is the initial wave of stuff. And I want to say right now that like, I feel like we're the failings of that TV show. And like, perhaps maybe why that film didn't rush out after it was announced in 2020. Besides the pandemic, obviously is like, and this is a hard sci-fi pitch, like right from the red.

It is, when you say that, like that's very complicated. It's not super complicated, but it's like, you gotta know all these random. It's pretty f**king intricate, especially when you take into effect that like, so Yerks are these like, stuck in a pool, low, low, proliferating capability

as a society. That's what I mean. I remember them, like they had like lure the people down into the pools, right? That was like the whole thing, is they had to get down into the pool. Yeah, kinda, I guess they would have to because like the way that it works is like,

oh, your gets into one person's head. And then in three days, every three days, he's got to get back to that pool. That's what it is. That's it. Okay. So either, either A, they can, they can try to manipulate people and get them to willingly be controllers or whatever, or there's people who when they go, when the animals finally go down there and go fight and try to do stuff like that, which actually is kind of relatively early the first time they do.

But when they do, you see that it's this underground city and there's some people who are willingly like, hang out and doing whatever they do as their york is off in the pool. And there's people who are a cake. It's just like, it's like a housekeeper there like, let me go, please. Oh, which is terrifying.

Which is the absolute terrifying. Exactly, like I remember, that's what I remember. Like that's why I said, there's some cave. Like I can't, when you started, just when you started speaking about the, you know, like tell me about it and also rushing back to me. And like, man, I love this show. And I love those books. Like they were probably one of the first like, you know, whatever, young a dollar,

whatever books that I read, whatever it's a kid. Let's get into the fact that like, so this scholastic at one point had come into some financial issues, went private before going public again later on. And one of the biggest markers for how well the giant flip turn around that they did with that were two major things Goose bumps and the Scholastic Book Fair love that

They had other stuff like sweet Valley high and stuff like that these again young adult like kids books, right? Like and Littonies of books that came out sitting Sister series and they all have like, animorphs level, goosebumps level, chronological numbering and stuff like that. But the thing I love about this book series so much is that instead of it being like a horror anthology for kids, this is like, dude, like, yeah, dude. And when you talk about like, because there's not just those two aliens heavily involved You have another race that

Comes in later that it's been on earth and they're just like little androids and like there's just so much different stuff Yeah, and you're saying there's 60 something books, you know like that just there's gotta be like just it becomes a soap opera at that point They're 60 books, right? Well, I think a lot of it, again, like comic books. When you make your big war epic and stuff like that, if you were to make it 64 books, it just seems like that's based our characters in the Punic Wars. And in book 27, we go on to the child of our hero for the first you know like yeah true you could it just seems like a generations long litany tale but they

don't do that what they do do instead is go the kids go investigate a down submarine it explodes and they go back to the crustaceous period for this book okay for just this book now all right now right. Now, well, that is awesome. By the way, but I do have one question about these books. And one thing I loved about these books, and probably most people that have seen this show or the books is that on the cover of the book, it's always the person and like, they're transitioning into the animals. So you get like these like four or five pictures Exactly Yes, these books have now is that every does every single book have that is it one person like through these 60 These books as there's 60 pictures of this because if there is I need to go look these up right now

So I don't I don't think every single book like there's some books like there's a book about visser There's a book about Andolites in and of themselves called like the and there's chronic really okay fork but you're like back story prequel Sequel things and all that yeah Yeah, but a lot of them do have some serious development and like involvement in the story this so really quick serious development and like involvement in the story. This is so really quick. This ran from 96 to 2001 to and like the show or the books. The books. Seriously? Yeah, these things came out at like a rapid monthly thing. So in five years there's been 70 books. But remind you many of these are ghost written. Okay, that's true. And what they did is they they they looked at Scholastic with

this Bible. kind of again Like a TV show you hear about now Here's our core concept and what the the main five characters are kind of like You know, here's this here's that Later on you get it very early on in the series overall But later on from what we've been talking you get the sixth ranger kind of guy in acts who's an analyte Came to earth and I swear like I'm pretty sure I read like a good bit. Like probably the first six.

I think I read all six of them. Like, you know, the ones you were saying, like the main ones, I'm pretty sure I read all those. By the end of that sixth book, I'm pretty sure that Tobias has turned into a hawk and is stuck as a nothlit. You've met Acts, they've went to the Yerke pool for the first time.

Oh, for sure, yeah. You know Visser, you know the whole invasion of Earth, invasion of the body snatchers like premise that has to go into their daily lives. You know that Jake, the leader's brother Tom is a controller. They're able to get as many or more says they can because Kasey or Cassie has parents who are vets so they can always

kind of stole off and go over there and get a more for real quick and cheese. Yeah, but I want to propose this to our listeners and everybody else. If you're willing for the ride, everybody, I got the keys to the car. Let's cover animorphs in depth like we're doing drag ball. I'm going coverage for animorphs. Let us know if you want it. But so you're saying this is you've just talked about the first six. I think this should be a primer for people episode 40, a primer for animorphs is what this likely could be because I want to keep going I want to get more in depth. I mean, will you go into life? I feel like this is something we definitely could have a

Field date with if we go in depth for sure, but if people want to hear yeah, I would love to hear some you know Listen to feedback. Let us know what you guys want to hear or if you what you are you like it? What we're hearing all that for sure Yeah, if you're into this those specifically let us know because I'll put it on the table right now. I feel like this is something that like is slept on. Yeah, I'm going to have to go back and read these books for sure. And dude, the way that again, part of the reason why you've said this on this podcast, part of the reason why I love comic books so much is you can grab Patrick Gleason's run and rebirth Superman and be like, wow, Superman's got a son, it's it's pre-crisis Superman,

but he's in rebirth and all this other crazy stuff. But like issue two, you're past all that and you're going with what Patrick Gleason does. And then at the end of his run issue 45, he packs it all in and hands it off to Brian Michael Bendis. If you're invested, you go on that ride and Bendis is going to unfold and pull everything out of his box. And sometimes it's just going to continue on with a different guy, but like, again, big fun stories can get as wild and adventurous as they need to be. and a detailed skilled writer can go pack it all back in by the end and hand it back off to the next guy. So like, it is one of those things that like just is the kin

to this type of story telling I love that, episodic like. And this week the animorphs go off and kill Hitler. You know what I mean? Like yeah, I want to see that. Yeah, it's like the perfect, it is the perfect, like, show to have just a million plot lights for sure. And I remember these books, man. I remember Meyer as a local department store.

I remember walking through a Meyer. It was probably like eight and seeing a book where mind you, the POV character who reads out the events or leads out the events to you as a narrator and it's like kind of war-journal-style story. Each and every book rotates between the cast of characters. This is a pretty well like ethnically and generally mixed cast of characters as well. Yeah, it is. Very much so. And like that, that's the thing I think I loved about the show or the books is that each book was like a specific person, you know, like this person turning into this thing and that person to that thing, yeah. Yeah, and in turn with that, like to say all their names

and kind of lay it out, Jake is the leader of the group. You know your Leonardo Optimus prime red ranger kind of guy, but like Dude is like a ruthless war chief at times like at one point Way later in the series dude. He flushes a pool into space Of Yerks, so he like commits a war crime so wait, okay Of Yerks so he like commits a war crime so wait, okay Yeah, and intergalactic work crime or I mean that would be considered genocide to kill like 17,000 innocent in a war right? There's wait there's 17,000 it's something like that yeah, cuz it's a giant

Yes, cuz it's like a pool with like a bunch of like, well, they're not tadpoles, but like, think of like, they're slugged. They're like slugs. So, I mean, I don't know, man. If you were having a war with like slug people, you know, I want to call that a genocide. I mean, yes. Yeah, I don't know, man. I don't know. Like, okay, like, we're talking realistically speaking

right now. A 13 year old kid's book, The Morality of War point and slug people on slug aliens. That's like people Let's say sorry slug aliens. They're trying to like invade us like invade our minds and like you know take over our bodies No, you're right. How was that jet? I mean you're right. Come on. Come on listen No, come on Kyle why are you I'm gonna Go out right now and say Jake did nothing wrong. Okay. I was gonna say I was gonna say but I'm also gonna come out and say Imagine in this day and age because divergent and the hunger games and all that we just weren't old enough to read I'm just saying all the stuff that we didn't read because we weren't in a YA audience at the time, right?

That came from books like Animorphs when we were kids in 9899 whatever this in particular story came out to say Jake is gonna flush a pool full of sentient beings into space and like Wow, wow. Yeah, I don't even care. No, if they're trying to invade our people, like, I mean, like literally take over our bodies. Again, if we're talking about the actual moral grace, these are slugs taking over our bodies. Absolutely. Because they're slugs. That's what I said.

If animals were real and I were to be asked in that situation, I would be like, yes boss, I would pull, I would need the war prints to tell me. I wouldn't need it. I would just do it. Are you sure? Are you sure? Because I mean, you're really like, it sounds to me like you might be like pro slug here.

I do believe that it is a moral gray. That is the one thing. I'm totally willing to say I have a black heart, but it's a moral gray situation. And again, I love the fact that this series is a YA book and is willing to have your main character protagonist to be like, yeah dude, dude straight up kill all those people. And like the for a book that's just a sci-fi epic, the K.A. Applegate really does like get into some kind of disfigurement things like that because you can jump out of your morph and all of your injuries are repaired. Really? Okay. Yeah, but again, you have characters like Rachel, Jake's cousin, and she becomes like the warrior princess of the group, dude, like she's a beast.

How does the morphing happen? I don't think we like explain how that, like how does like, I know you touched them, you touched them and then they're like, apparently it's pretty graphic. I've never read any of these books, but like they shape shift and you can feel. Can they just do what I will?

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I don't know. I just think the whole concept, and they could definitely, they should have man, they should have went with the movie, because if they would have went with the movie, that probably would have been a big hit. Let Disney pick that shit up or something. You know? Disney would run with that I think or even yeah, like any of the Netflix or Hulu or whatever

I like you're saying. I think HBO Max is who would have the rights to it right now. Okay, so that's perfect Yeah, as far as I know that film is still in its Pre-production Yeah, it's just it's just a thigh experiment. Yeah. It's late 2023 getting there now, but but look I'm gonna be honest man I think it's something that like again it's it started to become so much more than oh yeah that book series that had like it's it's more than just a book series that was kind of like a sister series to Goosebumps and Concept for Scholastic, right? Like it's more than something that had a two-season

stint on Nickelodeon. Although that may be what a lot of people know it as. Like in reality, I think this is something that like really influenced the YA genre like years ahead of time because like is there a hunger games a divergent and things like that if this in the other episode? Yeah, like that that seed creates the trajectory kind of says so I mean you know, I think Twilight and Harry Potter were responsible for it as well but Anomarce I think has a large part. Sure, that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, but Anomarce was like the first like sci- kid sci-fi show. You're I mean there was definitely other ones but yeah that's very true. The showy and love itself being a property of Nickelodeon and adapting this stuff at times cringely admittedly, but like, I feel like if you're only look at that show, it's a bad example of like, you can go out in your YA kids novel. You can make allegories for kids of all types because like, yeah, Marco, a

Hispanic character, Casey, African American female character. And if you don't have something that you're going to implicitly say with like a character's race or gender, you have Tobias, this kind of loner kid who ends up becoming a Northlet hawk. And like, now if a kids in a kind of more questionable predicament kind of position in his life now he has a melancholy character. That's yes. This kind of kid who has to try to fit in and scholastic didn't think that kids would take to that so well so that rotating POV lineup used to have those characters being covered every 10 books right?

Yeah, five books in Tobias gets to zone book and then acts and then no boom They're in the regular lineup after a while because kids identified with that so much. Yeah, no I loved that about that series like that there was like a different story every time That's what I'm saying like this man. I can't wait till my kids get older because this is gonna be definitely a series that I'm gonna Like you know, I hope they I'm hope they're they're definitely in the books right now. I mean they're small Right Yeah, they are they and that is one thing I will say is for a YA book apparently this is pretty large font They're they're pretty small exactly what I mean like I think some of the Chronicles books are a little bigger and stuff like that

But still yeah, you probably can get through them through them in like a day or two. I mean if you're as an adult Yeah, they're like 150 page books. I'm pretty sure man there. Yeah Yeah, if you're a reader, you know, if you're definitely a reader. Yeah, you can get through it pretty quickly I you breeze through the whole thing right but this has been adapted into audio books They've been making graphic novels out of some of them and stuff like that. Um, I definitely suggest it and like I said, man, let us know. I think either way we might end up finding an anamorph's book or two. Oh man. Making its way up here on the podcast coming soon, man. For sure. So I, it's definitely something I've been wanting to touch on for a while. I hope you guys

appreciate it. And for episode 40, I just want to say we love you. We appreciate you guys, but with that, you know, one thing that kind of seems similar is that there's a lot of people at America that think that this topic I'm about to talk about is like a slug in people's mind that's taking over. And that's just going to corrupt the country. But you know, I really don't, when you look at what it is,

not talking about the extreme sides of it, but socialism as a whole, I think is, you know, essentially just a good thing to live by, but let's get into that, to define socialism, because we should define socialism. So I do think like most people don't understand what really what socialism is. Like they're called, like who call like, you know, our current president, you know,

invited a socialist. He is like not a socialist at all. There's some people who will say it about anybody who disagrees with like a certain level of capability in the capitalist system we live in, right? I guess you can see it as a political or economic theory because you need the political side of it to happen. You know, like you need the politics behind it,

you know, you can't have a socialist economy without a socialist political system in a sense. You know, I mean, you do, a democracy is a socialist political system, you know, for to, okay, so let me just define it. Socialism is defined as a political or economic theory of social organization, which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange of goods should be owned and regulated by the community as a whole. Okay. So you mean the people control the market? Yes. So let me, let me, okay, let me say this again.

This is the means of production, the distribution, and the exchange. So we're talking about the economy. As they were, we're talking about the political system, socialism is not a political system. From your employer type people to, we're talking about like companies and things like that owned by the workers that work there.

Not one or two people in a, you know, that like, you know, on the company. Or even even the employers who work hand in hand with a union, the union is now the business, essentially, right? And we'll see this a lot. And what I'm talking is that there is so many different types and definitions and like ways you can do this and because

like to say that like that's that's defining it as a whole like there is so much like because there's the extreme with communism which is you know I think of a failed the overreaching of socials. It could happen I guess not and like we did the world what the world itself would have to change like you would never be able to have a Communist society function well When there's capitalism and like and that's the whole thing that was the whole thing Communism is like we need to take over the whole world But like you're gonna always get those people you're always gonna get somebody that's gonna take over the leadership

You know and like right and that's like Like but like there's also there's leader versions of that, like the Scandinavian countries and stuff like that, where they're able to add socialist elements, even in most of Europe, like universal healthcare and stuff like that, where it works for them. And they pay in their taxes, but would pay actually we pay more and you know our premiums for our employer funded healthcare. Yeah it's essentially just having it auto paid

through the governance. Right. Well in Marxist theory though like socialism though is like the stepping stone to communism but not everybody agrees with that like I said socialism though is like the stepping stone to communism. But not everybody agrees with that. Like I said, like this is, like it's not, it can just be like this is the way we want to run our society. We don't need, this isn't a transition in every state, you know. Right, steadfast. Exactly.

Yeah, we're like, you know, where like there's more unions, like there's the majority of the account, the account of these, you know, the majority of sectors are unionized and things like that. Like unions are a very strong, like socialist type idea, right? And they were like the backbone of proliferation for middle class Americans. Well, let's start with socialism, like starting, okay. So socialism actually like kind of developed in in Europe, right? But Americans picked it up really quickly and this was in the early eight or 19th century, right the early 1800s Um, and there was communities in America such as the shakers, which I'm sure a lot of people know about

That were like kind of like a you know like these utopian communes like that's really like the initial things of like, you know, like these utopian communes. Like that's really like the initial things of like, socialism, like everybody, you know, everybody chips in and we're all this let's close knit commune, you know. Right, okay. There's been tons of those and a lot of them turn up, you know, kind of cultish and stuff like that. But I'm not talking about like these early ones,

but maybe some of them, I don't know. Well, right, I mean, like you have Jonestown things. Exactly, like a thing where things that were really positive five to ten years beforehand became Helishly bad. Yeah, it's usually like it's usually one like one person like this is the thing about all these things like Socialism you can't take it to the extreme like the same thing with like right wing ideals and you know I mean obviously people that have listened to all of our episodes

It probably guess by now that we're you know left-leaning people yeah if you haven't surprise surprise but I take off my mask to show the face but like you can't take things to the extreme you know there's always my there's moderation and everything right there's great areas and all stuff and I like to keep things gray. The initial like the first like socialist I would say like community though was a conductor by this industrialist named Robert Owen and he made this commune called New Harmony in Indiana in 1825 and it fell apart about four years after mostly due to internal conflicts between like ideologues and not

ideologues between like you logs and not ideal logs between like you know socialist writings and I'm gonna tell you what that's a recurring theme and this whole entire topic I'm gonna be telling you about. Purely tests. Exactly like yeah but he turned the coin socialism though like Robert Owen was like and the idea soon spread like throughout the world. You know you got your Marxist, and that came later on, and we're not gonna get into communism right now.

Even, well, we're gonna touch it. It's gonna float around. The communism obviously is gonna float around this whole terror topic because that was the extreme of socialism, you know? There's also, there's transcendentalist Utopia and founded in 1841, and that is where people believed that like everybody's good at their their core You know and like when it was society that was causing the corruption in evil so everybody had just get back

You know to their like you know their roots and be self-reliant and independent and then like kind of like libertarian Find your center in nature not in being self-centered in society, right? Yeah, almost like diogenies a little bit, you know? Okay, all right. They were like really spiritual though. They're like, they like saw like signs and stuff everywhere, you know, so like, they were kind of called this. And my eyes. They knew AG kind of people later on maybe.

Yeah, yeah. They like slowly dwindled until like 1847, like six years later when they're they had this like huge main building they're building you know building that would house everybody right like you know like the main center hall and all that and there it was under construction and then it caught on fire and burned down and there was all our money in our plans. Right. But in 1848, there was a bunch of revolutions in Europe.

And I would love to talk about this subject one day. I don't exactly know how I would cover that because it's like, there's like, there's all, it's a whole podcast. There is a whole podcast dedicated to that or a series of podcasts, but still, um, yeah, it's, it's just a lot. But a lot of Germans came over to America. Like, there was like immigration from Europe to America, happening in waves.

It wasn't just like this constant wave of people, you know? Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yes, there was constantly people coming over, but like, you know, there was like big waves of people that would come over. I'm just saying ease of it. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, you definitely. And like we said, the famine happens, that would come over. I'm just saying ease of it. In that case. Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, definitely. And like we said, the famine happens Irish, come over. You're right, yeah, things happen somewhere and then those people come here, usually, right? Yes, for sure. That's kind of happened.

Yeah, that happened a lot in the late 1800s, mid to late and the 1900s for sure. But this, this bunch of them, because of the revolutions and stuff from what it took place, a lot of like these German Marxists came over, these, these communists. And like, but there was also like other, you know, like different types of like, you know, maybe more socialist leading people and stuff like that, they came over too. But these people, all these left leading people, you know, these progressive and liberal people, they started organizing. And that's when, like, for the first unions actually started happening in America.

When the first organizations of unions were actually done by German immigrants, from what I'm seeing. Like, the National Labor Union was formed in 1866. And by, like, 1872, it had, like like 22 sections around the country. And there was like enough people to have a convention in New York. And these were all led by German immigrants, you know? So the union, the start of unionization in America was led by like socialist and communist, actually.

Right, right. Like some people don't like realize that. Like, and unions, man, like, right, like some people don't like realize that like and unions man like Yes, there is there I don't know Unions are a completely different story like because they are very closely tied to this subject But like they're important for our country and they're important for our workers And they like I mean just, just right now, if they're not mistaken, they're still the auto workers strike going on at this time currently,

when we're recording in Michigan. And I know some people that work there that are on strike. So like it's important. Right, yeah. And they lead the way for things. They're the ones that lead the way. Over the history of this podcast, we're looking at the train to reel meant to.

I mean, that previously had a strike that was eminent Got shut down and then those maladies happened. That's true. That is very true But no, I mean to be fair. I mean you're right like it's it's one thing to sit there talk about how important unions are and I think more people can get behind that than like the cloud of cynicism and misconstruing elements of socialism to call it communism and etc. I don't know like it and I think a lot of the scare and we'll get into this in a second Like what really pushed America away from socialism and not like communism is another thing like I'm trying to separate these two things in this You know and they are separate. That's what I'm trying to separate these two things in this, you know

They are separate. That's what I'm saying like in the zeitgeist people always yes Misconstrued to be like that. They they always leave them together. Yes, but Because of the red scarred everything like we As Americans and because America is like well, I think More so it's because America is the capitalist country. We are the country that really took capitalism to the extreme. So of course, we're going to be against the opposite thing. So this national labor you to get back into the government, sorry, they dissolved in 1976

because of internal conflict, like everything. Like each one of these groups, you know, they're gonna come, they're gonna form, and they're gonna say, no, like, we think this thing, we think that thing, boom, they break up. It almost seems like, like, a constantly. But during the 70s and 80s, there was another wave of German immigrants that came over,

and they brought more social Democrats and stuff over. So these are more people, they're like like kind of like what the Scandinavian countries are nowadays. And more of what like I see is like integrating elements of it versus taking a whole cloth right? Exactly. Yes. And there is one by the name of Ferdinand LaSalle that thought that the way to work his

rights was more from the ballot like from the politics versus like through unions, right? And that was the first person that was like, you know, let's get political with this. Right. Right. Because like, before I was just unionization, right? But yeah, so he formed the Social Democratic Party of North America in 1874. And then another group of social Democrats formed the, um, and Marxist formed the working man's party of 1876 and They're the working man's party is kind of like I've heard of that before They helped lead a general strike along with the Knights of Labor and the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 Right, I think and maybe if you're not mistaken, you know, mother Jones I don't know there was so many things that she did she might have been involved with some of these not mistaken

Well, I'm not mistaken. Well, I mean, even if not, there's a wave of people who are doing a similar thing. So if they haven't crossed paths, they were definitely on the same parallel line, right? Yeah, exactly. No, I'm sure she worked with the working man. I'm not mistaken, she was with the Knights of Labor.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I know you had said she had worked with the Knights of Labor, right? So maybe they had crossed paths here, right? Exactly, yes, yeah. But yeah, she definitely was like cross-paths with Socialists like crazy during her time. And that's what kind of led me to like want to talk about Socialism, because like, I don't know. There's a dirty word element with it. Dirty word, it's definitely especially with like, you know, you know, right-leading people, and I want to be able to, like, I have a lot of right-leaning friends

and I think that, like- Friends and family same, right? Yeah. We grew up in a right-leaning area, right? And I, like, there's the, I, like, the divided America right now is just so terrible between, like, the right and left and it just sucks because, like, at the end of the day,

man, we're all just trying to get by. That's what's happening. And, like, you know, and- You're absolutely right. I mean, and I think that's one of the day, man, we're all just trying to get by. That's what's happening. And like, you know, and- You're absolutely right. I mean, and I think that's one of the things is like we've said before off-might. And a little bit on here is, I think we all always come up with the same conclusions

as to what the problem is, right? Like, there's too much political influence, there's too much money, there's too much political influence, there's much money, there's too much of this, there's too much that. And then it's how do you resolve it? Then some people's eyes, it's making the government smaller. Yeah, exactly. Like that's the thing, like it's just, we all kind of feel the same thing, but we just have different end games. Approaches. I mean, end games approaches exactly. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely something I think

of that's a good topic for you to bring up. And Mother Jones is, it's it's definitely something I think that's a good topic for you to bring up. And Mother Jones goes to because it's important no matter what for people to fight to be given certain amenities as a worker. And it's for sure. certain things as a worker to expect certain things back and return that's reason. And that's really what it is. Like, I mean, at the end of the day, like, socialism is just it's all about workers' rights. And that's what I'm all about, is making sure everybody's feeling this,

or at least the people I know, they're kind of me a sh** right now. They may see my paper books, oh yeah, everybody's employed, and all this. No, everybody's struggling to get by, except for there's a few that obviously aren't. But they continued to organize and there was countless strikes, like I said, and labor movements throughout the late 19th century.

But many soon began to feel that like political action wasn't working, and they switched their approach to unionization. Like, this is where we're going to be able to get our movement through right. And like the working man party renamed themselves to the socialist labor party in 1876. And after you know more internal disagreements. And then again in 1901 there was this big schism when the leader Danielle de Leon, which all these people sound French to me. But like you know I guess they're Germans.

I don't know this guy might be French. I didn't actually look that up, but he sounds French to me. Dayleon, that sounds French. Criticized, yeah, but anyways, he criticized collective bargaining. Even though he was like, he was pro-union and everything. He just thought collective bargaining wasn't like the way to do it. I'm not exactly sure how you can be like well What you're alternatives. Yeah, yeah, there's different ways I mean just collective bargaining is part of unions now like that's like the main way of like you the way unions function It's actually yeah, but there was still there was a schism and the the half that you know

Why did collective bargaining left and join Eugene Debs? that you know why did collective bargaining left and join Eugene Debs social democratic party and they turned themselves a rename themselves into the socialist party of America which is like they're the ones that kind of have stuck throughout you know they're still around if not mistaken very small but yeah but still Eugene Debs though he's he's actually like pretty well known in history if you know anything about about movements and stuff like that, in politics and stuff like that. At one point, he got like 900,000 votes for president, which at the time, this was like the early 1900s.

I think World War One. Right. That's a lot. You know what I'm saying? There was like 300 million people. There, yeah. Right. Yeah. So he kind of of he really like changed the landscape for socialism

Like he really pushed for it, but in what like World War one came and Russia had you know the revolution and all that and that's when they became communist the the Soviet Union and whatnot You know the empire fell the Russian empire fell and yeah, so, and then like in between World War One and World War Two, the Socialist Party declined just because like at that, like the roaring 20s, right? Yeah, like that was when like capitalism was at its max, you know? Yeah, it was like everybody's making it. Exactly, like it was, yeah, like I mean, well that that's that's what caused the rate depression again so this is when this is why you know I tend to lead more left and stuff like that in like economic theory is because of things like this

when when capitalism was as when they were just roaring and bust yeah it boomed and busted exactly we're not getting into that right now continuing on to the history of this That was when the first red scare happened though like people don't really realize like when we Many have heard of the red scare and McCarthyism and stuff, but there was our the first red scare Happened in like the 20s and like during the end days of World War one and then when Eugene Debs was you know like actually getting some supporters and Russia had all this stuff, right? So they started to get a little scared of that, but in the government suppressed or the

socialists in the area, they didn't know exactly what I didn't look into too deeply. They might have arrested or questioned people or kind of taunted them a little bit, but it wasn't the second red scare where they were arresting people and stuff, like against trees and a conspiracy and all that. Right, yeah, but I mean, but it also is a little bit of a precedent. It's political intimidation. Exactly.

You know what I mean? While it's not Trotsky getting exiled or something like that, it is definitely like, yeah, you know what I mean? Like, kind of being questionable in the American society and know that happened right like a political party being suppressed anywhere is not a good thing. Yeah no America as free as we are like I mean we do there is less freedom in America. There is some

shady that happens within our government and it's still happening. Like, yeah, for sure. Like any government. But, okay, so after the roaring 20s, the Great Depression came, you know, this caused a lot of harm and, you know, pain and suffering to America. And they ended up electing a guy that some people I know of, name FDR Franklin, Delano Roosevelt. Yeah, he was, I mean, he's probably the most socialist-like president we've ever had. If you know-

I would say he's probably the most important president in like, honestly, American history. Yeah. Honestly, I think that, hot topic. I agree. Yeah. Like, just like what he did. What it made America capable of being at that point, because that really I feel like

is the ultimate socialist integration quick fast. Yep. Right. And then everything works off that precipice for a while until it starts to degrade because nobody services it. Exactly. The new deal and everything that he enacted, the National Industrial Recovery Act, and all that, like, he, ah, man, like, he really took us out of the depression.

And like World War II, if it wasn't for World War II, it is the perfect pipe bomb of the Depression, World War II, and FDR. Like, I mean, well, the depression, it was a worldwide depression. So it wasn't just America. Like this, I'm like, okay. Yeah, well, you got to think about it. Germany, well, this is different things because of World War One and all that, but like, it all, like the whole timing and everything just all fell in place for America to blow up. We were in the perfect position to be the superpower.

And we're because of World War II, we're at where we are today. He enacted a bunch of socialist policies, like I said though, you know, like he brought in a bunch of like, you know, government programs and the New Deal, like brought us back like the infrastructure, the infrastructures, the highways, all that, like it's built the parks and like different, like, you know, water systems in electrical and like all these things were made possible through like socialist like programs right. So with Russia and communism and the Cold War and all that obviously socialism was like extremely repressed and the red scare or the second red scare, but what people know as the red scare,

and McCarthyism came, you know, there was a Senator Joseph McCarthy that like he just like went after. He started like, you know, making lists of different, of people that were related or like associated with Communists or any just anything. One of the things that actually impacted comic books as well because there is books that come out around this time about how negative influencing comic books are and thus creates

the comic book code authority. So McCarthyism literally smashes in to some of our pop culture coming from here too. That's crazy. Yeah, probably TV too. Oh, absolutely. I'm sure that yeah, like so much stuff. Yeah, I know like a Hollywood people a lot of Hollywood people were, you know, isn't the majestic based on somebody that Jim Carrey film that happens around this. Yeah,

I don't know. There's talk about that. For sure. It was a witch hunt though. Like seriously, like they just see it. Absolutely. And then like, I mean, one of the beautiful things about this is that McCarthyism for a man like who was he's become vilified in our Like guy still American culture because he made Houndogs of people or you know, he was a hound dog of people for a political ideal and literally little to no harm Yeah, I think that's when which heart became a name a political witch hunt is yeah, it is different Exactly. Yeah, I think that's when witch hunt became a name. A political witch hunt is, yeah, it is different. Exactly. Yeah. My profile picture, absolutely.

There was another surge of socialism kind of during the civil rights era and stuff like that. But that's another subject again. There's so many, this thing, socialism is hard to say, where do we want to stop the history of it? Because a lot of the history is like, too detailed to really go into. But it's just, I don't know.

I guess what I wanted to express this episode was like, it's not the boogie man that the media or the people, maybe the politicians you might listen to or follow up. I think we do maybe have a few conservative listeners You know and I would love to you know I'm glad that you listen to us and like and still you know this is these liberals that you know say crazy But like you know, I'm just trying to educate people not in a political way

I don't want to get political I've said it many times but like listen to any episode we've done This is get the most political will probably get on this episode it many times but like listen to any episode we've done this is get the most political We'll probably get on this episode obviously. Yeah, but like I just feel like I'm just I want the worker You know, I want people the average everyday Joe to have a good life anyways That was the history of socialism Yeah, no, I absolutely man I agree with that and we want everyone to be able to enjoy us on whatever platform you choose.

You can find us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Give us a rate in review. Yeah, just whatever streaming service or podcasts provide you a listen to, just leave us a review on it and help new listeners find us. So like we really appreciate that. Just yeah, you don't even need to write out anything.

Just give us the stars or whatever the rating system is to iron your podcast provider, but it'd be cool to write out some stuff because you know, I want to hear what people think. I would love to hear what people think. One of you, Kyle. We'll read it on the show. Give us a review and we will read it on the show.

Definitely. Let us know what you think of anything you want us to cover. We are taking a break from this episode. We will return with episode 41 in early December. We love you all. Thank you all for your support. And you can find us on Patreon

where you can get early access to these episodes. And we return. Let us know if you would also want to hear those uncensored and we could try to chime that and make a little more bang for your buck if you're interested. For Brad, I am Kyle and we will see you again here soon. See ya. Blime to Blime. Brain soda.