Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 111 - Mount Rushmore is a Racist Tourist Trap

Episode Date: July 6, 2020

Blow up Mount Rushmore. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Sources: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/sordid-history-mount-rushmore-180960446/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/03/mount-rushmore-gutzon-borglum-klan-stone-mountain/ https://apnews.com/430aa7f10b344eef891ff733116cf3ae https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/monumental-racism-the-kkk-member-who-carved-mount-rushmore

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today. And now back to the show. The public's trust in government remains historically low, with fewer than three in 10 Americans saying they trust their elected officials. So why have Americans lost faith in the US government? The answer is simple when you consider the fact that both parties have consistently failed to follow through on their promise to blow up Mount Rushmore. The erosion of public trust in government goes back almost 90 years, ever since Franklin Roosevelt made detonating Mount Rushmore the center of his 1932 campaign. The test of our progress is whether we reduce Mount Rushmore once and for all to a pile

of rubble and debris. Roosevelt was the first in a lengthy succession of presidents who failed to deliver on plans to obliterate the monument, no matter how many tons of dynamite or thermonuclear weapons they promised to devote to the project. Americans' trust in government did briefly spike in the 60s, reaching an all-time high of 77% in 1964. That's when Lyndon B. Johnson sent in the National Guard to drill holes into Mount Rushmore's base so it would be easier to line with TNT.

But once Republicans and Congress blocked funding for drilling to continue, all that was left were giant crevices in the bottom of Mount Rushmore for vermin and squatters to nest in. Not even Barack Obama, who wrote a wave of public support to the White House after promising to wipe the sculpture off the face of the earth via a drone strike on his first day in office, could follow up on his promise to the American people. Time and time again, polls show the longer Mount Rushmore stays intact, the more the public's trust in government corrodes. Perhaps the final nail in the coffin came when leaked emails during the 2016 presidential race showed Hillary Clinton's true feelings on the memorial. And I quote, We're never going to blow the damn thing up. But the message from the American people is clear.

Blow the damn thing up! Just kidding. Okay, go. Now? Go. Hello! Welcome to the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. My name is Rich, and with me today is my co-host, Joseph Kasabian.

The guy from every other episode of the show. It only took 100, and I believe 11 episodes for someone other than me to do the intro. I'm Joe. With me today is Rich. I hope that I did it justice. You can't do it any worse than I do it. Because even though I've been doing this show for over two years now and over 100 episodes, I still sound like I have stage fright on a weekly basis.

So Rich, also, before we get started, I feel like we should point out that people in the neighborhood of our studio are setting off fireworks. And when this comes out, it will be post July 4th. But right now it's very, very preuly 4th. We are recording this the Monday before, and they have been setting them off since Saturday. It's literally like five days until July 4th. Actually, six days until July 4th. Settle the fuck down, everybody. We might be attacked by some very terrified dogs

in the middle of the show. That's fine. It's all right. Rich, some very terrified dogs in the middle of the show. That's fine. That's all right. So, Rich, maybe you've noticed in the news, but we have been experiencing what historians have called the cool zone. Wait, wait, wait. What's been happening lately? I don't know anything. Has there been stuff going on?

I mean, hiccups, speed bumps, maybe. Some speed bumps. Okay. But hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people across the world have taken to the street, enraged by generational racial inequality, institutional racism. Institutional racism. That's not a thing. We're too white to say that. Ah, shit.

Actually, we are just the right amount of white to say that with a straight face. We have a white person from Texas and a white person from Michigan. And state-sanctioned violence against our black communities in the guise of the criminal justice system. Now, obviously, we have made our opinions on these protests abundantly clear nick and i have helped in our own community we've donated literally thousands of dollars to bail funds across the country and we stand with our comrades in the street direct action or otherwise and if you are listening to this show and you don't you can fuck right off i i need to make that abundantly clear uh we don't like you and you can fuck off into the sea i really can't imagine that you still

have fans that that don't at least lean in that direction it happens like there's no fucking way there's some conservative fucking trump or asshole out there that's still listening to this show. But you should be worried about our white liberal friends as well. You know, as Dr. King himself said, it's it's quite astounding. Every once in a while, every like 20 episodes or so, someone who has been commenting on Twitter page or the SoundCloud or even the Patreon sometimes is like, I can't believe you'd say that. Like, you must be fucking new here. Welcome,

my name is Joe. But, you know, Black Lives Matter and go fuck yourself. But, you know, branching off from that has been people around the world banding together in solidarity to tear down statues or otherwise vandalized memorials

that depict slave owners, colonizers, racists, and horrible violent monsters that dot most Western cities. I'm going to go on a limb here, Rich. You ready? There's a 99% chance that if there is a statue

of a white European man in your city, he's a bastard. And it should just be taken down. 99%. There's that like fucking 0.1% out there that's like, actually, we have a statue of John Brown. Like, okay, all right, all right, go ahead. I would not be the least bit surprised if that's absolutely true.

Because I mean, like, especially like, even as fucking close like the 1950s if you were a guy that did something that was big enough to get a statue built out of you it's probably bad it probably had a whole lot to do with conquering something and forcing some native person off their land or in most cases enslaving them um now this led to a lot of reactionary people mostly but not all conservatives who started talking about how people have gone too far what's next we're gonna tear down the washington monument first of all they'll require a lot of rope and second of all i don't know yes i don't know if rope would do the fucking trick i I think you might need dynamite.

And that's where we might accidentally have to bleep that out for terrorism. Dynamite's not a terrorist thing. That would be like fucking... I mean, I'm not saying strap the dynamite to yourself. Fertilizer, IEDs. I mean, if you pack enough... Nate, go ahead and bleep me out. If you pack enough dynamite into a shaped container, you got an IED.

Fuck, we're definitely getting investigated now. Welcome to the Department of Homeland Security's podcast where we're all in prison. You know, what else? These Antifa monsters are going to blow up Mount Rushmore? Not Antifa. They're everywhere. Schroding? These Antifa monsters are going to blow up Mount Rushmore? Not Antifa. They're everywhere. Schrodinger's Antifa.

I actually believe that it's pronounced Antifa. Thank you very much, Andy Ngo. Now, this is where a lot of people have personally pissed me off as a broke-ass historian that hosts this show, personally pissed me off as a broke ass historian that hosts this show is that Americans and let's not ignore our friends over the Atlantic Ocean in the UK have a fundamental misunderstanding of what qualifies as historical. This has been the most frustrating. And I know before I feigned that I didn't know what was going on. That was a lie, guys. Just so you know, I'm aware. Big Texas energy.

No, but. Anyway, welcome to the Greg Abbott podcast. I literally have been avoiding my Facebook feed because of all of the fucking posts that are like, they're destroying symbols of our history and our pride. And what the fuck ever they think that is being destroyed right now. Right. And shouldn't we, this is all done by outsiders.

Yeah. Shouldn't we leave this because of history? Like no motherfuckers. We should not leave fucking symbols and monuments of racist fucks up for everybody to fucking like enjoy. That's not something that should happen. And somebody's enjoying them. I really fucking hate.

And the thing that really grinds my gears, Rich, is the people are like, you know what? I agree with the message, but they're doing it all wrong. Now, I hate to be another white man that's waxing poetic about Dr. Martin Luther King, but during the civil rights marches, he was arrested in Birmingham, thrown in the Birmingham City Jail.

From the Birmingham City Jail, he wrote what is now known as Letters from the Birmingham City Jail. Shocker. Where he responded to a group of white ministers who said they disagreed with his methods. Now, it should be noted that these same people, if you took them in a time machine and yeeted them in the year 2020,

they would be fucking lionizing Dr. Martin Luther King for being a paragon of peaceful protesters. No, because even when they peacefully protest, they find a way to fucking, like, talk shit about that. Well, to also quote him again, riots are the fucking language of the unheard what are you not hearing what did you people try to fucking kneel for the anthem you said it wasn't the right time people try to march peacefully in the streets and you said it wasn't enough time

what the fuck do you think comes next please let me know the the video that I love the most and literally almost brought me to tears was a black woman screaming that pretty much. We tried to do this the peaceful way. We tried to do this the right way. And nobody listened and nobody said anything. And you say that we're destroying our own property, our own businesses, but nothing belongs to us. This isn't their history. Yeah. Fuck your Target.

Fuck your fucking corporations. Fuck your businesses. It doesn't fucking matter. We're angry. We're mad. And rightfully so. To quote a man who will not be named on this podcast, we'll probably lose a whole bunch of donations. When it's our turn for the tear,

we will not apologize. But, you know, a lot of the, the main point that I was trying to get at is that there's a very big difference between a historical site and a monument. Now, Rich, you're from San Antonio, Texas. I am. So you grew up, I don't know,

how many hundreds of times did you go by the Alamo? Oh, I mean, that was like every school field trip. Yeah. The Alamo and the IMAX, because the IMAX showed the video of the Alamo, which, guys. That must be the most Texas thing ever. Well, we already went to the Alamo once.

You should go watch a movie on the Alamo. I have to tell you, my experience of watching the video of the Alamo is a lot like my experience of watching, and I'm going to lose a lot of fans. Not that I have fans. Oh, you have fans. If you Google this podcast,

your name is the first one that comes up. And also followed by, is hot? You'll never know. And also probably not. Way to be creepy, guys. No, my experience watching the movie of the Alamo, which I've probably seen three or four times. Wait, is that the one that was made by,

oh, I can't, God, his name's escaping me, but he was on Happy Days. Ron Howard? Yes. I don't know. It was directed by Ron Howard, Yes. I don't know. It was directed by Ron Howard. Yeah. I don't know because it is the same as my experience of watching Lord of the Rings,

which I do not remember a single moment of. I've seen every single one of those movies. Because you compared those two. I'm sorry. I just, they, they literally went into my eye holes and out of my ears or whatever they do. And I don't have any recollection of ever seeing.

So you're saying is Texas gained independence because they destroyed the one ring? Yes. That is exactly what I'm saying. Now, the reason why I bring up the Alamo is because very recently, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas cited intelligence sources. Okay, there was no intelligence sources. It was shit posters on Twitter that said that Antifa was going to convoy to the Alamo and burn it down. One, that'd be incredibly hard. It's brick.

Yeah. I was going to say, can you burn down stone? be incredibly hard it's brick yeah i was gonna say can you burn down stone two we only know this because um a journalist uh asked the uh the dps or the department of public safety in texas which is pretty much the state police of texas uh for their sources and they were like twitter uh posts from like people with like 20 followers with like no like jim bob 656565 because they've been fucking banned so many times they're shit posting trolls and so they like they deployed literally hundreds of police to protect the alamo good use of our resources of course racking up millions of dollars in overtime um defund the police but anyway, so what I mean is nobody wants to burn down

the Alamo. And you know what? If you do and you know what? Actually, I'll rephrase that. If you're a Mexican person who wants to burn down the Alamo, full right. I'm on your side. They stole your country. They stole a part of your country. Second off,

I disagree. Now, I'm a white guy from the north. I'm not going to tell any people of Mexican descent that they're not in the right to want to destroy the Alamo or any other part of Texan history. I'm saying I don't want to do it simply because it is a historical site. It's a site of historical significance. It's like saying you want to bulldoze Gettysburg because Confederates fought there. It's an actual historical site. What is not historical?

Like you going back to the Bambian Buddhists, they've been there for literally hundreds of years carved by hand into a mountainside. And you know, I got to see like the holes in the mountains where the Taliban blew them up and it sucks because they blew them up because they're fucking religious fascists. But memorials are not historical things. Most Confederate memorials were made after the 1900s for the sole fact of being racist tools of oppression.

Anybody who argues other than that can go fuck themselves. I'm not in the business of debating them. But my symbols and pride and history... Throw it all in the sea. I don't care. I don't care. At this point, it's like me as an Armenian person debating

Turks about the Armenian genocide. I'm not going to do it. What's the fucking point? It's pointless. If you are still with... We talked about this in a robert e lee episode nothing we do here is super secret and involves some like fucking archives from some nearby university every bit of research we do is available on the free internet subscription free i don't pay for anything at most I pirate it like you can find this I'm not in the business of debating people

because debate is pointless you go on a debate stage you both have ideas I'm not gonna fucking listen to you you're not gonna fucking listen to me

so why bother I'm not here to debate those people but I do have to tell you that this episode is tentatively titled Mount Rushmore is

racist as hell. Okay. So you might be wondering, how the hell did we get to this point in history, in American history? We're blowing the faces of important dead white guys from our manifest destiny history into the sides of mountains to immortalize them for all time. history into the sides of mountains to immortalize them for all time. Are we wondering, though? We've completely whitewashed our history to where most white people think that none of this ugly shit ever happened. Like, obviously, everybody knows about slavery, but literally.

Ah, but if you go by Texas history books, they're migrant workers. I OK, I don't know about all that. I do know that I grew up learning that slavery existed and then ended and then everything after that was rosy and okay. And obviously that's not the case. But that's what I feel like that's what a lot of people learned and think. And that's what needs to change. I'm not putting you on blast here as much as I am the state of Texas. Right. And that, you know, only a few weeks ago, we celebrated Juneteenth. We celebrated by, you know, going and drinking and talking about Juneteenth.

But you growing up in Texas had no idea that Juneteenth had its roots in Texas. No, I didn't. I knew that Juneteenth was a thing and I I knew why people celebrated it, but I had no idea that the reason was because Texas refused to fucking give up slaves way after slavery was abolished. I did not know that. It's unfortunate that you are mandated to take a Texas history class, but they skirted over that point.

They skirted over a lot of shit. That's my point. Our history is so fucking whitewashed and tries to make everything so pretty and rosy. And America is the greatest. And America, you know, fucking just wins every time. And they do everything so valiantly. Vietnam won that one too. We're the victors and the heroes.

And it's just not the case. And we really need to start teaching history the way that it was actually fucking lived. That would require a lot of critical thinking and what I'll call evaluating historical sources, uh, and people who are involved in that. Like for instance, if we don't have any memorials that I've ever seen in this town,

but say we did say it was a memorial of someone incredible Lewis and Clark. Say it was a, because Lewis and Clark is incredibly important to the history of Washington State. Yeah. We have a whole county named after Lewis. Well, and the whole base is Fort Lewis. And there's the Lewis and Clark Memorial Bridge. Now, if Lewis and Clark, say, owned like a lot of slaves, and that statue happened to be built by a member of the KKK,

probably wouldn't want that statue around, right? No. So let's talk about Mount Rushmore. So to get to that point, the Mount Rush, the four heads on the side of a mountain in the Dakotas. Four heads.

We have to talk to a guy who would end up, we have to talk about a guy who would end up designing Mount Rushmore. And that would be a really weird kid born to Mormon polygamist Danish immigrant parents, We have to talk about a guy who would end up designing Mount Rushmore. And that would be a really weird kid born to Mormon polygamist Danish immigrant parents, Gutzit Borglum. Mormon? Yep. Mormon polygamist.

He had two moms. Mormons haven't been around that long. Oh, yes, they have. I mean, he was born in 1867. They haven't been around since the 1800s? Yes, they have. I mean, like, since like... I mean, he was born in 1867. They've been around since the 1800s? Yes, they have. Let me tell you about this little place called the Utah Territory. Oh, I thought it was like the early 1900s. I didn't realize it was that long.

No, they literally fought a war against the federal government in the 1800s and slaughtered innocent people. But that's a different story for a different episode. I guess I should have listened to that podcast more closely. Now, Borglum was born into... Now, his name was actually John Goodson Borglum, and he dropped the John and went with Goodson Borglum. Cool. I mean, I guess it works if you're going to be a pretentious artist.

I mean, nobody wants to be the same name as four other kids in your classroom in elementary school. Call out John in Roll Call and five other kids raise their hands. So go with Bitsum. I don't know. If I was to pick a name to blend in and have an easy time in America, I wouldn't go with a weird name. And I say that as someone whose last name is Kasabian. It's because everybody's like, so where are you from? Like, Michigan.

But he was born in what was then known as the Idaho Territory in 1867. His dad had two wives. And soon after his birth, his dad left Mormonism, kept the wives though, and he was chased out of Idaho because of his practices to Nebraska where pretty much everybody hated him on the count of the whole bigamy thing. Yeah, bigamy

not super popular and also there was like, most Americans hated Mormons at the time. Like you filmed the two camps. You either were a Mormon or you hated Mormons at the time. Like you filmed the two camps. You either were a Mormon or you hated Mormons. So they got chased from place to place. But small side note here. Those two wives were sisters. Like legit sisters or like sister wives?

They were legit sister wives. That's not cool. No, that's gross. That's real gross. Yeah, I don't like that. Nope. So his dad became a doctor, a hilarious thing to do back then. The kids are legitimate brother cousins.

Now, becoming a doctor back then was very, very fucking easy. And pretty much all that was required was some money and on-the-job training. Now, I point that out because the Borglum family points out like we came from artists and doctors like yeah kinda it's like being a fucking chiropractor today so using his new money because you know he his dad opened a practice and did make a fair amount of money he would every source point out he was a county doctor as like he wouldn't be good enough for the big city uh so i mean and this is fucking nebraska so like the big city of like lincoln at the time or whatever of like four houses smushed together at once you're like no you're not good enough here you gotta go down the road to i don't

know corn city and they need a doctor all right right, I'll go down to Corn City. But his dad got enough money to eventually send Gutzem Borglund to St. Mary's College in Kansas, which was a pretty good and well-known school for artists. Unfortunately, he failed out. Now, I do need to point out that Borglum is a good artist. He just seemed to be not one of those people that just flourished in school. That happens. Because as big of a piece of shit he is, he did make some good art.

But he went back home and became a machine shop apprentice. Though he failed in school, Borglum wanted to be an artist and was very good at sculpting I need to point out that even though I really don't like this guy his sculptures are on point he did a really good realist job I think they call it tonalist art at the time I didn't study art history but yeah he

made it as kind of his own version of tonalism which I guess props to that if you're an art and history nerd I don't know what tonalism is, but sure. Yeah, we're not an art history podcast. I'm willing to bet a lot of what motivated him was not to work

in a machine shop, because this is the 1800s. So an 1800s machine shop sounds like a nightmare driven by a giant mauling steam engine powered threshing machine that is fueled by the blood of child sweatshop workers. It's not a great place to work.

He eventually dropped out. Like a lot of wannabe artists, he ran west to San Francisco and then LA, but California in general. I feel like that's a song. Probably. In a long enough timeline. I mean, it's probably a Red Hot Chili Pepper song

because all of their songs are just about how cool California is. Which, you know, we've been to California. I wouldn't write a song about it. I mean, Nick's from LA. He doesn't say it's great. Nick reps LA every once in a while. I'd like to go to LA. I've only been to like Monterey and like Northern California. I haven't really actually been to California.

Well, I don't know. I rep Detroit. And I think a lot of that is because so many people talk shit about my city. Like, Hey, nobody talks shit about my city except me. I think that has a lot to do with Nick's love for LA. It's like people from Chicago. Everywhere you go, people are talking shit about your city, so you just kind of internalize it. People love Chicago. I would say like New Jersey.

Nobody fucking outside of New Jersey likes New Jersey. There's a reason for that. This is a strict anti-New Jersey podcast. No, like, he was good at sculpting. I've pointed it out before, but he drew the attention of famed American artist William Keith, who took him in under his wing as a student. After a few years,

he ended up marrying one of his instructors, Elizabeth Jane Putnam, who was 19 years older than him. So, like like shout out to Liz there for robbing the cradle isn't that like a what is the scarlet letter I'm unsure of how that connects

I'm pretty sure there's a Putnam in there maybe I don't know I just wish that you wouldn't shame old Liz here for fucking someone 19 years younger oh no do you boo-boo i'm just saying you're canceled rich you don't have to you don't have to wear the scarlet letter i was just saying i think there's a putnam in that book uh all putnams are bastards uh now like once they got together uh liz had more money than

because you know he was she was she was teaching and had sold quite a few pieces. Leveraging that money, they hit the road and began to travel the world. It wasn't really until Borglum got to Europe that he really hit his stride. And he began sculpting. He also went to school at a French art academy. And he did really well. He won acclaim. He got into aristocratic circles.

He got commissions for the royal family of the UK. His sculptures were even accepted into the Paris Salon, which is an art show. But he was one of the first Americans to ever pull that off. And you know how insufferable Parisians are. So that's impressive. an art show, but like one that he was like one of the first Americans ever pull that off. And like, you know how insufferable Parisians are. So like, that's impressive though.

Their marriage would not last as they ran into a, uh, an unfortunate roadblock known as they both liked fucking people other than their spouses. That could be like today. That would be acceptable. I mean, that was acceptable back then as well, depending on your circle. But apparently they were not quite that artistic.

But they remained friends. They just decided to break the binds of law. And he remarried, though it was someone that he never really spoke about. Because what really seemed like the problem for him was she was a better artist than him so he oh that his first elizabeth putnam was a better artist yeah guys don't like it when their wives are better at things than them though he did end up having a much more well-known career obviously because he's a man and it's the early 1900s. Yeah. But also because of the projects we're about to talk about.

He eventually moved back to the US, settling in Connecticut. And this is where shit starts to get real weird about old Borglum. Connecticut. I don't like it. That's how it's spelled. I'm just saying.

So he ended up getting into like various art shows in like new york city uh and he flew into rages uh not because people didn't like his art people loved his art but the fact was it was being shown alongside like artistic avant-garde art which he thought was degenerate and un-american i believe the word he uses, degenerate trash. I would love to know who gets picked to decide what is American and what is un-American. How do you get that status? If you were to ask Borglum, he would definitely say him.

Because of what? Well, the real reason is because he thought this avant-garde art was made by Jews. And he... Oh, Lord. He got some Borglund could not be shown alongside the jewelry. By Jews? I really wish this is the last time he talked about Jews during his life. We'll touch back on that a little bit later.

And during this time when he was accumulating a little bit of wealth, he also wrote letters to his friends and family that were warning of, quote, mongrel hordes overrunning Western civilization. And he worried about his, quote, Nordic purity. Nazi shit. That. Nazi shit. That's Nazi shit. It's not good. Now, the mongrel hordes that he was talking about

is mostly Jewish people, but he also didn't think highly of the Italians either because this is far enough back in time where Italians weren't considered white. Yeah, like Jews, Italians, Irish. Yeah. All white, but not white. Right. It was back in the

day when black people were far enough below him on the totem pole that he only hated other white people. But he also made time to hate black people and natives as well. Borglum hated everybody who wasn't Borglum. Well, that's nice that he made that time.

Yeah, he made time out of his day to diversify his hate. Awesome. It's like Wu-Tang Clan said, you gotta diversify your bonds, but in hate. Now, eventually Borglum got high enough on the food chain of the local art scene where he was commissioned to create a giant marble head of Abraham Lincoln. It was eventually purchased by the government

and placed in the Capitol Rotunda in the middle of Washington, D.C. by none other than President Teddy Roosevelt. That part will become important later. Hey, that's the high school I went to. I have some bad news for you. Speak softly and carry a big stick. I was that mascot. Also be kind of racist.

I wore a giant Teddy Roosevelt head with a little monocle. Yeah, he wore a monocle. Yeah, and everything. Well, I guess there could be worse things you could be dressed up as. At least in the South, you weren't dressed up as a giant Robert E. Lee. That was one of the schools that we played against. Of course it was. We high school.

It's weird that they have a school named after a war criminal and a monster. Whatever. You do you. I mean, don't do you. If that's your thing, you can go fuck yourself. But also, defund Texas. So by all accounts, everybody loved his giant Abraham Lincoln head, which sounds like, I don't know, some kind of end boss in a video game

where you're supposed to be chased by a giant Abraham Lincoln head like in Pac-Man. Or a sex act. Giant Abraham Lincoln head. And then I hit her with the giant Abraham Lincoln head. Hell yeah. Emancipated these nuts. Fuck yeah, you did. I don't like that at

all. I hate myself for saying that. But everybody thought this is like a magnificent piece of art. Even Robert Lincoln said, quote, I never expected to see father again. Which is one creepy, but also two photographs existed. Mostly creepy.

Like, imagine looking at like a room sized giant marble head of your dad and be like, Papa. Like, no, this is a golem. To me, that just speaks daddy issues. Like, I'm sure he meant it as praise because, like, pictures of Abraham Lincoln exist. Yeah, just daddy issues is all I hear. I mean, if you were Robert Lincoln, it must be really hard to exist in a realm where, like, everybody worshipped your father.

Because, like, you know, like, everybody will never think anything I do is worth their shit. So, like, my entire identity exists around Abe. Abe. Old Abe. Old Abe. Old honest Abe, except that part about the habeas corpus. Anyway, now the giant marble head was the talk of the town.

And it led to a particular group to reach out to Borglum to make another sculpture. That was the United Daughters of the Confederate Veterans. Oh no. Now, if the gears are turning in the back of your head, you might remember that that is the same group of people that eventually commissioned a monument to the only person to be hung for war crimes

during the U.S. Civil War, the commandant of the Confederate death camp at Andersonville, Henry Wurtz. Yeah, they paid for that. Now, you might be wondering what exactly their point was when it came to contacting Borglum. I get some bad news.

The daughters, led by a woman named Helen Payne, their lifetime leader, approached him with the idea of creating a 70-foot-tall boss relief of Robert E. Lee blown into the side of Stone Mountain outside of Decatur, Georgia. 70 foot? Got some bad news. Borglum said, 70 foot?

That's like putting a postage stamp on the side of a barn. And he made it two times as big. Oh, good. 140 feet it ended up being a little bit smaller than that because we'll get to that i know math guys in 1915 plane wrote a letter outlining her idea for the monument but her goal was not to just have robert e lee's face blown into the side of a mountain which would would be bad enough, but it gets worse. Plane wrote that she wanted Lee to be flanked by white hooded mounted members of the KKK because, okay, I need to point out,

this is a direct quote. I feel disgusting just saying this. Oh God. Quote, I feel like it's due that the KKK saved us from Negro domination and carpetbagger rule and it should be immortalized in Stone Mountain. I don't like that. She did not say Negro.

Ooh. No. Hard N-word, folks. The soft Negro is used in modern day transcriptions of the letter. Because the original letter is owned by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Stone Mountain's history with the KKK did not start with the dreams of some idiot racist daughter who was also racist as hell. Stone Mountain had been used as something of the KKK holy site ever since it had been reformed.

And in fact, the reformed like, I think they call it like the second iteration of the KKK and then the third iteration of the KKK, I don't even know how many iterations right now, but they formed, they reformed on the top of Stone Mount in 1915 the same exact year

that Plain wrote to Borglum. That same year, they burned a giant fucking cross right on top of it, a yearly activity that would continue every year on Labor Day weekend for 50 years.

Our parents were alive when this was happening. Yeah, this is not... This is not okay. Now, you might be wondering, well, okay, so the KKK's involved. They're involved in a lot in the South.

It's not like they own the mountain. So Sam Venables owned the mountain and he was an active KKK member who happened to divert Klan funds into paying for Borglum's work. Most of the Daughters and Venables fundraising for the construction of Stone Mountain came right out of KKK's wallet. Though the U.S. Mint eventually helped out with a commemorative coin. Because American historical brain is terminally fucking diseased, everybody likes to forget about this. Though it should not be a surprise to anybody that this was approved by President

Kelvin Coolidge, who is a goddamn racist that he literally saved white people from a flood by diverting the path of water into black parts of town. And then he forced those same black people to pick cotton at gunpoint of the National Guard. What? This is in the 1900s. Yep. He also passed the Immigration Act of 1924,

a eugenicist bill that was supported by the Ku Klux Klan. And this led to the Yellow Peril and the, just not letting Asian people into America for very, very long time. Now, Borglum was supported to all of this and he was friends with several KKK members,

including DC Stiffensen, a Imperial grand dragon. Yes. Their ranking system is incredibly fucking stupid and nerdy. Dungeons and dragons. You know what? I didn't want to say that because that is incredibly offensive to people who play Dungeons and Dragons.

I'm sorry if you play Dungeons and Dragons, but the fucking KKK are playing a fucking racist ass long game of Dungeons and Dragons. I've played Dungeons and Dragons when I was younger. I don't remember cosplaying any race wars. I'm just, that's their fucking like like platform they also have like a rank called like the imperial cyclops too but anyway uh dc stevenson would eventually be thrown in prison for rape and murder of a white woman uh and pretty much bring down the KKK for that. But some argument exists if Borglum was ever officially inducted into the KKK.

But multiple people said that he sat on the Concilium, which is spelled with a K, get it? Because they're fucking nerds. I get it. But anyway, the Concilium. That's so fucking nerdy. Goddamn. They're so fucking nerdy. God damn. They're so nerdy.

Everything, they spelt like all of their shit. It's so stupid. Like why? Just call it like Billy Bob's Hoedown or something. Not even that. Like the fucking Grand Wizard. Imperial Cyclops. Like why are you so fucking nerdy? Like did you just not have any fucking friends and Like, why are you so fucking nerd?

Like, did you just not have any fucking friends and that's why you're so fucking hateful? Well, they don't have any friends, so they get to blame it on the black people. But the Concilium was the direct, was like the direct governing body of the KKK at the time. And there's like multiple eyewitnesses that witnessed Borglum sitting on this council and then like

Borglum did denounce it much later on but like his friends were like that was just for public consumption so like I'm gonna say there's a 90% I don't know how like how like legigious that his fucking estate is I'm gonna say there's a very likely chance he was in the KKK. I can't say he was in the KKK, but I will say there's a lot of evidence saying Gustav Borglund was in the KKK. We'll say he's a friend of the KKK. I don't think that's strong enough. He certainly had friends that were in the KKK

and openly got paid by them for years and years and years. Very well, may I add. Though things were not fun and games with the clan bros of Stone Mountain. Fundraising and work was incredibly slow because just as work began, the U.S. fought itself in the middle of World War I. That's going to be a drain on resources.

Sorry. Wars cost money? Yeah. And back when we fought wars that were worth a shit, they did cost a lot. fuck yep though borglum had started his plan of jackhammers and chisels he met someone eventually uh who taught him how to use explosives to go faster so like which despite borglum being a horrible racist improbable kkk member and blowing and carving a giant racist monument to a mountain making art by blowing stuff up

is pretty fucking cool like I think we can yeah I mean we can all accept that's fine I just don't know how like sorry to sound like impressed but I'm impressed how do you fucking control that to make it into actual like shapes that you want it to be in that's that's really so he perfected

his work with Mount Rushmore, but what he would do would be like bore giant holes. I mean, deep holes. In very strategic spots. That's what she said. Nice. And like strategic spots using like the measurements and math and shit that he would detonate it

and then it would blow a giant chunk off, which allowed to be carved out a little bit easier. He was much better at stone mountain, which I hate to say, uh, than Mount Rushmore. Cause he did it himself at stone mountain. Um,

so, but we'll, we'll get to why it didn't work out so great at Mount Rushmore, which is why if you pull up a picture of stone mountain, it sucks and it should be ethered into the sun, but it does look much better than Mount Rushmore. It's because Borglum did it himself, and Borglum is a good

fucking artist, even if he's a giant pile of human garbage. But finally, by 1924, Borglum had finished the head of Robert E. Lee. Yay! And it brought the gathered horde of racists and KKK members

and their shitty southern bros to tears when they saw it. So, like, cool, I guess. And there's, like, they said there's, like, actual Civil War veterans that were there when it was uncorrected. I don't really believe that. They'd be old as hell by then. But whatever. Like the Confederate ones?

Yeah. Yeah. So, like, the fucking traitorous ones? Yeah. Yeah. So like the fucking traitorous ones? Yeah, the ones that are not American veterans, no matter how many times people share that meme saying that the Department of Veterans Affairs recognized them as veterans. They did not.

Yeah, they fucking, they were traitors. They were traitors, guys. They were traitors. They literally killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda ever wished they could. But, you know, we should probably fly the flag in history. And fought against America. Yeah.

Yeah. That little hang-up. Now, I don't want to hand it to the racist sculpture guy, but Borglum was a very good artist, and the head of Robert E. Lee does look very lifelike. Now, this would be the peak of Borglum was a very good artist, and the head of Robert E. Lee does look very lifelike. Now, this would be the peak of Borglum's stone mountain activity. One of the problems with

getting involved with the KKK, which also happens to be paying you, besides everything I just said in that sentence, because all that's bad, is that you rise and fall with KKK politics. Borglum got caught up in the middle of Klan infighting and got fired. Now, some of that had to do with the fact that the guy who wanted the Mount Rushmore sculpture from the North, mind you, contacted him during that time. And Borglum, who wanted money and jobs,

was talking to him. So that, like, offended him. But also, I think a lot of it was his friendship with D.C. Stevenson, but I digress. He was fired. On his way out, Helen Plain, the woman who originally hired him, wouldn't even shake his hand

because she considered him a Yankee. I mean, at least she's consistent for being a giant piece of shit. Borglum flew into a rage at being fired and destroyed all of his models so they couldn't use his work. This pissed off the directors of the project so much the state of Georgia put a warrant out for his

arrest because we're reaching new levels of racist inception that the KKK is leveraging its power with the state, which is also ran by members of the KKK, to put out warrants for other people in the KKK. What? Yep. First of all,

leveraging its power within the state. How the fuck does the KKK have power? I get some bad news for early 1900s southern states. Or current? No, I wouldn't say the KKK has state power in the south now. I'll just say that their spirit lives on. Now, Stone mountain directors then hired a guy named henry augustus lukeman to finish the job which pissed borglum off even more because

lukeman was jewish oh no i don't want to like hand one to the disgusting people the state of georgia at the time but like i really hope they hired a jewish person just to spite him because that would be fucking hilarious uh but borglum fled the state vowing he would get his revenge he didn't i mean it depends on how you measure revenge i suppose now so while all of this is going on like i pointed out borglum was contacted by a guy named Doan Robinson. Doan? Doan. Yeah, it's a last name at best. It was the early 1900s. Names were weird. People could be named like Gustav Borglund. And people were like, yep, that's fine.

Yes. Yeah, he didn't go by that, though. If your name is that, I don't hate you unless you're this guy. You're fine. Now, he was the state historian for South Dakota, a job that sounds incredibly boring. Robinson, because he was in South Dakota, looked around and decided his boring-ass state

needed a tourist attraction. Like, quite specifically, that was his whole point. And he heard about Borglum's mountain sculpting abilities down in Stone Mountain and wanted him to do something like it in South Dakota. I assume to bring South Dakota's tourist numbers from zero to six.

Seven, maybe. So in this podcast, we're assuming that the Dakotas actually exist. Maybe. We're just teaching the controversy. You're Dakota truthers i i don't know if i can be a part of this look i'm just saying that we cannot prove that the dakotas did

not go into the twin towers uh now robinson wanted borglum to carve figures of the american west like buffalo bill c, red cloud, George Armstrong, cross Custer, people like that into a range of mountains known as the needles, which was a sacred site of the Sioux nation. Unfortunately for Robinson, the needles end up being made of like not the right rock to facilitate blowing people's faces into it.

I don't know. I'm assuming it was like not solid, whatever. I don't know. I'm assuming it was like not solid, whatever. I don't know. So construction was moved over to Mount Rushmore. So now let's talk about Mount Rushmore. At that point, it had only been known by that name

for about 40 years. It was a sacred Lakota Sioux site originally known as the Six Grandfathers. So the Black... It's in the Black Hills region. The Black Hills region was once designated, quote, unfit for civilization by U.S. government authorities

and, quote, permanent Indian country. This meant that the government deemed it so worthless for like materials and resources and things like that, they didn't even want to commit ethnic cleansing in order to steal it from the natives. And they like literally codified this in the treaty of Fort Laramie saying like,

you can have it. There's nothing here. We want all that changed. How nice when the government found gold in it, which is pretty much yield oil leading settlers to flood into the land, which was, there was a rumor spread that it was uninhabited, uh,

because white people didn't live on it. Just in case you were wondering how much people valued native life back then. So settlers flooded the land and forced the natives off of it through force of arms. Now, in case you're wondering, because like there was a part of the treaty of Fort Laramie, which stipulated that the U S government would not allow settlers to move into it.

And would use the U.S. Army to protect natives. So, folks, with no pleasantries, I have to admit that once upon a time, I did gush a bit over President Ulysses S. Grant. Ulysses S. Grant is a bit of a fucking bastard. Oh, no. He ordered the U.S. Army not to protect the native people from rampaging violent settlers who ethically cleanse the Sioux from the area. He ordered them to stand down. So, yikes.

Do we have a single president in history that isn't a fucking dick bag? Name one. I'll give you a reason. I'm not in the business of naming presidents, y'all. Everyone that's been a president since you've been alive, all should be in the fucking Hague. Since I've been alive? I mean, that's like three presidents. I'm talking about all of history.

Well, you got Trump, who's a fascist. You had Obama, who drone-striked people until they were afraid of clear skies. You had George W. Bush, who's a war criminal. You had Clinton, who's a fucking pedophile, allegedly. I don't want to get visited by anybody. Oh, shit, you're about to be obscene. You have George H.W. Bush, who's head of the fucking CIA. Whoa, H.W. was the president while I was alive?

When were you born? You were born in 88, right? Yes. Yeah. Yep, right when you were born. And then Reagan. No, then Clinton. Reagan was before H.W.

I thought Reagan was the president in 88. No, we weren't alive for Reagan. But Reagan was also a giant piece of shit who had dementia. And, you know and is terrible. Before him, I could go on and on. They're all bad. Every single one was bad. The only good one's William Henry Harrison because he died in 30 fucking days.

He died before anything bad happened. I mean, he also fought in the Mexican-American War, which means he's a giant piece of shit. Reagan was the president when we were born, Joe. When did he leave office? 89. Okay, so we were one. All right. So we were alive just long enough to hate Reagan.

That's cool. I don't think we were alive that long. I hated him anyway. One. Yeah. Okay. I was all about pooping in diapers, drinking milk, hating Reagan. When Reagan was governor of California, he specifically passed what everybody knows now as sweeping California gun control laws because the Black Panthers were open carrying weapons. Oh, no.

Also, all the union busting and fascism and laughing at HIV patients. They're all terrible. Yeah. Fuck Reagan. Yeah. Oh, fuck Reagan. I'm not saying he's great. I'm just saying he was the president when we were born. Yeah, they're all terrible. Yeah. Fuck Reagan. Yeah. Oh, fuck Reagan. I'm not saying he's great. I'm just saying he was the president

when we were born. Yeah, he's terrible. All of them have been bad. There's not a single good president. Not a single one. Period. And we wonder why this country has gone to complete shit.

Because of presidents. I'm just saying. Because there just hasn't been a fucking good one because they're... By definition, there could be no such thing as a good president. Because you have to be so insane and so fucking narcissistic that you think, yeah, this country of a half a billion people, I can lead this shit.

Oh, I completely agree with that. But it also has so much to do with the fucking way that we the way that our democracy is actually instated like the way that we vote and the way that actually works like but we don't live in a democracy we live in a republic republic right right right i finally got to say it no but that's that's just it like that's why this country is fucked because our country it like the way that we do anything just doesn't fucking work for anybody except for billionaires it's i mean that's that's that is our history though i mean we were a revolution fought by slave owners and plantation owners because they didn't want to fucking pay a tax

and we fought a civil war because people didn't want to pay for labor and they want to own people as channel slaves and then we rolled right into the Gilded Age where people really churned to death in the fucking goddamn Industrial Revolution of America. We're terrible.

We're an awful country built within a fucking puddle of blood on stilts so we can just fit more blood underneath of it. But we digress. Let's talk about Mount Rushmore.

Terrible. It's all bad. Anyway. 1884, a New York lawyer named charles rushmore traveled to the black hills region to check on some properties when he saw the six grandfathers he asked the local government property clerk what the name of that mountain was that guy's name was bill chalice who just kind of shrugged and said quote nobody ever named for it before but i guess we'll call mount rushmore now and now it's Mount Rushmore. Cool.

Yep. It must be the most fucking white goddamn American thing ever. It's like, hey, that thing that native people have been at fucking hundreds of years. What do you want to call that? What's your name? Steve? It's Steve now. Put your fucking face on it, Steve.

Let's just call everything Steve. I hate it. I think it would be cooler. All Steves are bastards. I don't think I've ever met a bad Steve. The only good Steve is Steve Irwin. Martin? No.

Steve Martin is actually not great. Although, the jerk is pretty good. I'll give him that. I'll give him that. Anyway, moving on. Now, obviously, the US government is something of the grand champion of violating treaties with native people. Like, this happens all the time. But the screwdrop that they pulled on the Black Hills is kind of legendary.

So much so that the U.S. Supreme Court actually agreed. And the government straight up, they agreed that the government straight up stole the land in a court case in 1980. that the government straight up stole the land in a court case in 1980 and offered the Lakota Sioux a giant pile of cash, which they refused because you stole their fucking land. The money doesn't make up for that. Yeah, some people value more than money.

Some people value more than money. There are people in the world that have values that are more than money. Rich, how much money can i give you in order to abandon those values i don't know you'll have to capitalism baby now anyway that sucks we're gonna move back to borglum now borglum saw robinson's plan for the mountain immediately fucking hated it just like no this is. Not because he had anything against Custer, Lewis, or Clark, or most of those people. But Borglum fucking hated Native Americans. He thought putting them alongside white people was akin to an abomination, and even wrote about

the hatred in a letter saying, quote, and I don't like saying this. It's a quote, guys. I'm sorry. I would not trust an Indian offhand nine times out of 10, or I would not trust a white man one time out of 10. He's a racist. Thank you. That's how I feel about that. I really don't like saying the word Indian either because it's gross.

It's not right. But yeah, he was incredibly racist against Native Americans. Shock. He then wrote a letter to the president saying not to worry about this whole building on sacred land thing because he had in fact talked to black bear the holy man of the area and cleared it with him and he said it was all fine small problem with that the real guy's name was not black bear it was black elk and there was absolutely zero witnesses of this whole totally real conversation

that super for real happened. This shit never happened. Never fucking happened. One Black Elk would have been incredibly elderly at the time, if not damn near dead. His exact date of death is not known. There's a good chance he was on death's door.

Furthermore, natives then approached Borglum's like, yo, what the fuck? This is our mountain. You can't put a goddamn sculpture on it. So he's like, listen, listen, I'll put Susan B. Anthony on the back of it. And they're like, we don't give a fuck about Susan B. Anthony.

He's like, okay, listen. Okay, fine. I'll build a whole bunch of natives on a different mountain. They're like no he's like yeah i'm gonna do that anyway he never fucking did it it's all bad guys none of it's good none of that even sounds like something that like would placate them yeah like the the lakota suits like stop blowing holes in our mountain like You're against me fucking blowing up your shit. Okay, let me blow up your shit some more.

What if I blow up your neighbor's shit? This is what's known as America. You could put Borglim as a general in Iraq and he'd fit right in. I see you're unhappy. What if I blow up your neighbor's house? Anyway. Oh, speaking of blowing up.

Yeah, they're setting off fireworks outside. Fucking assholes. Anyway, Borglum came up with a new native free plan. There'd be four people that we know for being on Mount Rushmore. Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. A lot of those are obvious. Washington for being a revolutionary general and our first president. Jefferson for the Louisiana Purchase.

Lincoln for preserving the Union, though I should point out that Borglund never pointed out the fact that he also freed the slaves. And then Teddy Roosevelt. Okay, you're probably all asking, why the fuck is Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore? There's a lot of possibilities, none of which Borglund named. Those are the Panama Canal canal which we stole uh whoops turns out that was like a whole country uh and he also um helped establish national parks things like that he was all for nature conservation mostly because he really just wanted to kill wild animals but you know take the good the bad but borglum never notes any of that the more realistic notion is borglum and teddy were actually just friends uh teddy had been the one to show off his sweet ape head in the middle of

rotunda like we talked about that sweet sweet ape head another reason was uh using explosives to blow the faces of dead white guys into native mountains was actually incredibly expensive so they had to do like fundraisers in fact most of the time that like the project of Mount Rushmore was actually spent just trying to raise money to do Mount Rushmore

the project spanned from 1927 to 1941 but in reality construction only lasts about six of those years Rushmore. The project spanned from 1927 to 1941. But, in reality, construction only lasted about six of those years. They just needed money all the other times. Because whenever Borglum would get started, they'd just run out of money. That money was

probably the main reason Teddy got thrown onto the mountain, rather than dozens of other people that were more formative to the creation of what we now know as the United States. Literally any other of the founding that were more formative to the creation of what we now known as the United States. Like literally any other of the founding fathers were better than Franklin. He would be much more deserving. Fucking anybody.

Teddy had only been out of office for about 17 years at that point. And he just recently died. So like there's a ton of people who were alive long enough to vote for Teddy Roosevelt and really, really like him. And then someone's like, what if we put Teddy Roosevelt's face on a mountain? Like, we'll give money to that. I mean, think, like, 17 years ago. That'd be like put, like, put Bill Clinton on a mountain. It's just, it's so completely different than how we are today because, like, I don't give money to shit.

We give money to plenty of things. None of them involve blowing giant faces no like actual charities and shit like that but like when they ask for like money for for just menial shit like that like no i'm good a lot of this i do like the mint uh making commemorative coins people and collect and your fucking weird grandpa probably has a couple of them. It's an old person thing. Yeah, my granddad was like a huge stamp and coin and like all that shit. Yeah, that's an old person thing. Yeah.

But yeah, that's how a lot of that money was made. But like imagine someone saying that we need to put like Bill Clinton's face on a mountain. Nah, bro. No, man. I mean, granted, Bill Clinton's face on a mountain. Nah, bro. No, man. I mean, granted, Bill Clinton was a shitty president. But, I mean, like, Teddy Roosevelt was, I guess, if you're comparing Bill Clinton, he was a good president, I guess. But, like, that's low fucking bar, guys.

We're going to move on. So if you're keeping track at home, that means a full 50% of the people we blew into the side of a mountain enshrined as the greatest men in American history own slaves. Not a good look. But don't get too cocky because that number is 100% that were racist as fuck. Good job, America. We literally stole land from someone to enshrine dead people on a mountain.

And we picked the worst fucking people in our history. To be fair, the dude that fucking made the mountain was racist as fuck. He was also real, real bad, yeah. Like, I don't know what you were expecting. Well, it's probably just, like, before this, did you know that George Washington owned, like, a lot of slaves?

No. Or Thomas Jefferson, like, most likely raped a lot of his slaves. These are all things that we leave out of our history. I mean, like it's not something it's okay. So it's not something that I had like forefront knowledge of, like not something that I can recall from my memory,

but it's also not something that shocks me because in those days, most people own slaves. So I would just assume not own slaves. Okay. In those days, people own slaves. So it's not surprising to me that somebody in not own slaves. Okay. In those days, people owned slaves. So it's not surprising to me that somebody in history owned slaves. It's just not.

And I'm not saying that obviously I'm not okay with this. I'm just saying it doesn't surprise me when you're like, oh, this historical figure owned slaves. I'm like, okay, then we probably shouldn't memorialize them the way that we did. They're fucking awful. Well, it's just like they tell us stories to divert away from the- Let's move on to the next one.

Yeah, it's like they tell us stories to divert away from all the slave talk too, like George Washington had wooden teeth. His dentures are made out of fucking slaves' teeth. Right. Yeah, look. Right. Jesus Christ.

He's a mouthful of goddamn re-fucking stolen slave teeth. Yeah, and that's what I would say. Like, we need to stop telling these fucking whitewash stories. What about the cherry tree, Rich? We need to start telling real history. We need to start fucking teaching real history. Like, the ugly, ugly, horrible, real fucking history. And, like, okay, my grandma fucking posted some bullshit. I couldn't even read the whole post. And like okay my grandma fucking posted some bullshit

I couldn't even read the whole post and I love my grandma and she's she's actually been way more oh I think I know what the one you're

talking about is she's been way more progressive lately in her posts she's about as progressive as you'd hope a 90 year old

woman would be like 80 close enough 5 probably tilted towards 90 but I think How progressive do you hope a 90 year old woman would be? Like 80. Close enough. Five, probably. Tilted towards 90. But I think that most of the reason why she's been so progressive lately is because she legitimately fucking hates Trump. But that's that's kind of what happens whenever you see someone who starts becoming, quote unquote, progressive.

Like my mom's in the same boat. Yeah. becoming quote unquote progressive. Like my mom's in the same boat. Yeah. And she just sees Trump as like, I'm not going to ask for your comment on it because you're not allowed to. But like they see them as like the gene seed of evil rather than like a symptom to cancer.

Yeah. And I know you're saying, yeah. Actually, just Nate, just go ahead and edit that out. Don't agree with me. But like, you know what I mean? Like Orange Man bad. Everything else is still good. That's fine.

Yeah, exactly. No, exactly. Like Trump is the fucking problem in this country and everything else just needs to go back to the way it was. But like, no, it was never it was never fucking the way that you think it was. Right, and that's like, make America great again. Well, when was it great? It was never great. For people that look like me and you, it was always great. Yeah.

Maybe. It's like Atlas holding up the earth. Our greatness is held up by the oppression of dozens of fucking marginalized people. Right. This country's built upon slavery. Our president lives in a fucking building built by slaves. Like, the military, which absorbs fast amounts of fucking tax money,

is used to oppress and marginalize others. We fucking kill people with robots. You know, people haven't had their money or haven't had their fucking salaries raised upon, like, a living level since our fucking parents were kids. But yeah, let's make America great again. When was it great? I'm fucking waiting.

Like I'm waiting for someone to tell me it was the 1950s when I couldn't share a water fountain with a black comrade. Right. Or was it when like the 1960s when we're being drafted to kill Vietnamese people

because reasons. Or the fucking 80s. Or fucking 2000s 2010s 2020s where literally we're fucking mass incarcerating people of color and murdering them by the hands of the police in legal ways where nobody's getting fucking charged for it like this is when when is this country great and when has it been or or was it the 1800s when we first established police that were solely fucking made to chase down runaway slaves yeah like never you know to quote rage against the machine those who burn crosses motherfuckers like there's the the foundation is rotten like if if america was a house we'd be fucking condemned

yeah straight up like there's not, there's nothing to be great about. And even if we're not condemned, we're fucking falling down. Like the, the foundation is not stable and the fucking studs are crushed or crushing to the ground. Like it's just,

it's happening. Well, you, you would not be approved for a VA loan in the America house. Um, so, uh, there, there, there, yeah, there's mountains where you in the America House. So, yeah, those mountains were just racist as hell.

But Borglum wouldn't even be the one carving them out. Instead, he'd make a few mock-ups, which look much different than what ended up becoming Mount Rushmore. As an original design, each president was supposed to be shown from the waist up, not just their head, as well as being flanked by giant stone copies

of the Louisiana Purchase, a gilded copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and a few other things. There's going to be an outline of Alaska and a couple other things that we stole. At least we bought Alaska, but Russia stole it from the natives. There's also going to be a secret chamber

within the mountains that they were going to house the actual Declaration of independence and constitution in but like it should be pointed out that was like more of like a borglum fever dream like the government never agreed to that it's like i'm gonna make a secret chamber in the heads and you're gonna put all your fucking cool paperwork in the heads and they're like no just make the heads, homie. But funding was a bitch and he had to scratch all those. So Borglum, being a insufferable artist, didn't want to cut anything until he was finally threatened by Congress all the way in 1939. That like, God damn it, stop making your secret head chamber and just finish the heads. And so he did.

Also, since Borglum wasn't carving these things by hand, they did not turn out great. Have you ever seen Mount Rushmore, like, up close? No, I've never been. I've been there once. I was a kid. I don't remember it. But, like, I've seen pictures.

It's not his best work. Instead of carving holes, or instead of carving and, like, chipping away with, like, jackhammers and chisels and things, they would drill holes into the mountain and they'd put explosives in them. Now, this is kind of what he did with stone mountain on a much larger scale like this is all he did in mount rushmore which did work 60 of the time let's say by doing this a large team of workers rather than a single guy could work very fast and that's why he got mount rushmore done very very quickly in comparison to like the years it took him to make one head in Stone Mountain.

But in doing so, they occasionally fucked it up. Like Jefferson was supposed to be on the right side of Washington, but someone messed up, put too much charge like explosive charge in a hole and blew it a huge chunk of the mountain. Borglum blamed it on the rock not being of sufficient quality, which is exactly what I would say if I accidentally cratered out a giant piece of mountain that the government was paying me to work on. Also, this meant finer details, like, let's say, ears. Couldn't be done. None of the presidents have ears.

None of them. They all have hair, or their heads are just sunken into the rock. None of them have ears. Also, Thomas Jefferson looks high as fuck. Washington looks like he's pensively biting his lip, like you're nibbling on his neck or something. And Teddy Roosevelt is staring intently at the nose of Lincoln like he wants to fight it.

It makes no sense. Now, Borglum finally dropped dead of an embolism in 1941, rest in piss, before he could finish the job. This left the job to his son, Lincoln Borglum. Now, someone who I can tell is actually the least amount of bastard in this entire story. He wasn't the KKK. I can't find any evidence that he was racist. He just finished daddy's job.

So, like, I guess Lincoln's the good guy here, I suppose. I don't know. But Lincoln didn't do much other than finish what his dad left. He didn't attempt to finish any of the grander plans, like finishing from the neck down or anything like that. But he just kind of finished what his dad started and called it a day. But technically, if you visit Mount Rushmore today, it's still unfinished. The base of the mountain is intended

to house those giant monuments. We talked about Alaska, the Louisiana Parish, all those things. Instead, they ran out of money, so they just kind of left it the way it is, which is littered with literally half a billion tons of rocks that had been blown away from the heads,

which means it's literally surrounded by garbage. But in 1941, the government decided it was good enough and declared it complete, which might just be the most American thing about all of this. We won! It's done! Mount Rushmore's complete! Literally good enough for government work. Yeah. So there it is, Mount Rushmore, a mountain we stole from the natives, hired a probable member of the KKK to blow holes in it in order to shape it to be slave owners and racists. Now let's talk a little bit about the Sioux. The Sioux won that Supreme Court case that we talked

about, and they awarded about $100 million, which is not a small amount, I guess, from a government who admitted to doing ethnic cleansing against them. But the Sioux refused to take it. committed to doing ethnic cleansing against them. But the Sioux refused to take it. As had been placed. So since then, that amount of money has been placed in an account where it's allowed to build up interest until they claim it.

Today, it has around a billion dollars in it. The Sioux still refuse to take the money because the principle of the matter, that's our fucking land. This is normally where I say, and where I've said before, that we should turn this monument into an artillery range

and ether these giant stone heads into dust. But instead, I believe it should be given back to the Sioux, and they should be allowed to do with it as they please, and it is still their land. But I want to be completely clear. If you're the Lakota Sioux, and you want to blow up these mountains, and you need, like, a tank loader,

I volunteer. And that is Mount Rushmore. Like I said, to be completely clear, I don't think it's our place to dictate what happens to these mountains. I don't think it's our place to dictate what happens to these mountains when they were turned into Mount Rushmore. The Black Hills

and all of America should still be in the hands of the native people. But in order to right this wrong and to fix this scarred mountainside adorned with the faces of goddamn racist and slave owners, we should be giving back to Lakota. That's the

only way to right the situation. I agree. I think... And we supplied them with an endless amount of seaport this this is what like i mean i need to be incredibly clear here when i point out i do not see mount rushmore as a historical site oh no it's not it's a monument yeah it's a monument it's a monuments are things to be deified yeah and look that's what that's why i say tear down every confederate statue tear down every slave owner statue. Because the difference between a historical site

and a monument. A monument is to be deified. A historical site is to be learned upon. But that's what I mean. Even with the historical sites, even with the Alamo, we don't need to burn down the Alamo.

We need to teach the actual correct, not whitewashed history of the Alamo and need to teach the actual like correct not whitewashed history of the Alamo and maybe celebrate Mexican heritage alongside the Alamo and things like that like we need to stop whitewashing everything and fucking teach actual history with our historical fucking monuments and historical sites and all of those things and and fucking like just teach people what actually happens so that as my grandmother said on facebook history doesn't repeat itself because if you don't teach actual history history will repeat itself so we need to teach all of the ugly sides of everything and fucking like let people know what really happened so that we don't keep fucking being the assholes here.

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, the only way to right colonization and imperialism is to admit that you're wrong and then allow the native people space to reclaim their agency. Yes. I mean, and that is going, I don't think that we have many people that listen to the show

that probably disagree with us on this but like if you're out there you're wrong and you need to abandon the fucking flawed concepts

of nationalism that make you proud to do things that do nothing but oppress others and take credit for shit from your dead grandparents

shut the fuck up done man the sun has set on your shitty empire so Rich we do thing on the show we do thing empire. So Rich we do thing on this show we do thing. We do a thing We do thing. On this show

called Questions from the Legion. Now if you would like to ask a question from the Legion you can donate a dollar to the Patreon and you can ask us to a Discord, DMs, emails or otherwise. So I will start off this by saying we did have someone of native descent say the desecration of the six grandfathers is a sore spot.

The Black Hills is still ours. We never ceded it to any treaty. I hope the fact gets conveyed. Mount Rushmore is vandalism and theft. I completely agree. But our question from today is, what is the most anti-racist thing that ever happened while you were enlisted?

Nothing. I literally can't think of a single goddamn thing um god the most anti-racist thing so we literally um because of recent events because of protests because of everything that's going on right now. My unit recently had a, uh, they call it a safety stand down, um, in the army where they basically just make everybody that's in the unit come in. And, uh, they usually have like, it's called three 50 dash one training, but some type of training for the day and, and make everybody just come in and talk about things. My unit is really, really small.

So we fit in a small auditorium. And our version of this for this quote unquote safety stand down was for everybody to come in and to the intent was to give the people of color in our unit a platform to stand up and say ways that they have been discriminated against since they've been in the military, either within our ranks or on the civilian side, just ways that they have been discriminated against. But wait, I thought there was no race in the army. Everybody was green. That's not true. They could talk about experiences that they had.

They could talk about the thing was, like I said, we're in a small unit. We're in this tiny auditorium. Our sergeant major is a Chinese man who has a very thick accent and his presentation of everything was you know i want to make you feel comfortable i want you to talk about this i want you to like i don't know whatever whatever his intent was the going to guess from the tone of your voice it did not end that way. It didn't go well because people in the Army just don't trust. They just don't trust things like that. Nobody that's been in the Army for a minute or two

trusts that you're saying to me that I can speak my mind without repercussions and that's actually what's going to happen. And there were some people who stood up and told some really powerful stories about their experiences in the army, about being discriminated against, about things that happened just within the last year or two, which is. I know you've told me some disgusting stories. Yeah, incredibly disheartening, incredibly sad and terrible. And then there are some people who stood up and said, I don't think that this people who stood up and said i don't think that this is going to change anything i don't think this is going to fix anything and i don't

feel like you deserve to hear my experiences which is also absolutely one sad but also absolutely they're you know it may be absolutely the right to say that yeah and it may be even more powerful than actually telling their story the fact that they they feel that we don't even deserve to hear it um and then and then uh we work with a few civilians we had an old fucking white karen stand up and do a what about ism where um after all of these soldiers and people of color stood up and shared their experiences with discrimination in the army she stood up and said but what about me and my you know disabled mother or something like it just it just was exactly how you would expect a a moment like that to be in the army um and and i think that the intention was there and it was good and but i think that on

our level like as small as it was it just it was never gonna go anywhere and all the people who stood up and said like this is it's not worth me sharing my experiences and you guys hearing my experiences because it's not going to change anything. I think that they were right. And I think that, I don't know, it just, it needs to be so much bigger than this. I think that it's good that we're opening the platform for these conversations and that we're cognizant of these conversations and that it exists, but it just, it needs to be so much bigger. Yeah. I don't want to speak for anybody in the military, but I would have no complaints and nobody should have any complaints against anybody not willing to share their story with an organization that still has bases named after Confederate generals and stuff like that.

Like, you clearly don't care about me because you have shrines to people who literally enslaved my ancestors. Like, no, man, it doesn't fucking work, though. And I still don't understand. will never understand how confederate fucking excuse me leaders have any sort of fucking like clout in this country like they were traitors they were literally going against this country how is how are their bases named after them and fucking statues and memorials and all of those things that's why like it blows my mind that we have a military that's so reactionary, but historically has not been. People, especially in the military,

I know we're going off on a tangent here, but I really don't care. Historically, especially now, look in anybody we know even, that is like, the military isn't your testing ground for your social programs. But it fucking is.

It always has been. Always. The military was the fucking first place in the United States that allowed black people and white people to serve side by side making the same amount of money. It was the first place that allowed black and white people to be hypothetically equal. I mean, it's always been that way. And even today, there are many, many soldiers that I've met that come from very small towns that say that when they join the military, it's the first time that they ever saw a person of color because the town that they grew up

in just didn't have any people of color it was all white people and it is something that even though sometimes it's misguided and sometimes it doesn't quite work the way that it's supposed to does do a lot to get rid of like it does do a lot to say that yes there's no race in the military we're all fucking green or we all be green and yeah gag me whatever doesn't work but it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't but i have seen so many people that come from small towns and come from that small-minded ideology um come into the military and serve with people that they never expected to be around and never expected to like or respect as human beings

and actually do it. And it is that to an extent. And I know that it fails in a lot of ways, but it does try to be that. I'm caught in the juxtaposition between an organization that attempts to be the great equalizer in our incredibly diverse nation while also championing people who own them as slaves. Yeah. No, I completely agree. And until that's fixed, I don't see that connection and until that's fixed and until every memorial

that memorializes and deifies people who fought a slaver's rebellion and kidnapped free americans and threw them into slavery i i'll never uh uh disagree with the people in your unit said y'all motherfuckers don't want to listen to me. Why the fuck should I talk? Yeah. Oh, and I didn't disagree with that. Absolutely not. If you feel like you can't trust to tell your story, then

there's obviously a reason for that. That's something that needs to be addressed and changed. That's something that you're looking at. And you shouldn't even have a fucking story to tell. In our fucking army, you should not have a fucking story of discrimination until you are serving alongside

your fucking fellow Americans. You are giving the same, you're writing the same check for your fucking life or whatever motivational shit the fucking recruiter feeds to you. Jesus Christ. You sweet, sweet summer child. No, I mean, I know that that's not.

That's some pie in the sky shit. I know. It's just, it's such a fucking disappointment. To harken back a couple episodes, I interviewed Dr. Bakalian. We talked about a show that you've never watched called Rurouni Kenshin. But they said, you know, I like it better when like someone's talking about learning how to use a sword. And someone says, you know, the sword is to protect people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And someone's like, no, no, the sword is to kill people. But I like her

way better. We constantly talk about how racism and imperialism is the foundation of America on this show, but I like your way better. It's rough, and especially because it's the bittersweet moment of people that have given a long chunk of their life to the military. It's like, why don't you care? How many black people have died serving in this country? Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. I don't know. A lot. Even back when they weren't allowed

to share the same drinking funnels. They weren't allowed to fucking vote. They weren't allowed to be citizens. They still signed up. In the Civil War, they volunteered. And they got paid half the fucking money, and people thought they were subhuman, but they still lined up and died for the Union. But we can't

tear down the fucking statues of the people who think they're subhuman and own them as slaves. It's disgusting. It's an indictment of everything this country stands for. Until we fucking nut up and realize that our history is disgusting, we're never going to cure that. That bridge

is never going to be mended. It's impossible. It would be like me and a Turkish person talking. Yeah, we want to be friends, but, like, also, like, the genocide never happened. It doesn't fucking work that way. I literally think that that's the only way that this country is going to change is we have to actually teach, like, start teaching fucking history. Like, real history. What actually fucking happened.

We're not going to be able to teach history until we start teaching fucking empathy. Well, but the thing is, like, that's what's happening with the next generation and it's not that we're teaching history it's not that we're teaching the real shit it's that the next generation has for their entire lives had everything the entire history of the world actual history of the world at their fingertips and so even if they didn didn't learn it in their high schools or whatever, they know what actually happened. They can look it up on the fucking internet on their smartphones. I wish you were right.

What do you mean you wish? I've seen so many cases of the next generation that actually keep themselves informed of what happened and what's going on. And they're so much more progressive than the past generations. True, for the most part. But not everybody has access to those tools. And a lot of people are still dependent. I mean, I'm not saying this is bad. I mean, I'm saying this is a socioeconomic, sociopolitical thing. A lot of people depend on their education. They're only going to take a history education until they need

it, and then they're done. And that's going to be senior year of high school. In those years, they're going to learn things that are incredibly institutionally and oppressively wrong, which include what you learned in Texas history. That's what include what other people are going to learn about the history of Mount Rushmore. So other people are going to learn about the history of George Washington and the French Indian War and whatever. The very arteries of the establishment of this country. And once you get those wrong, it's just a lasagna of bullshit and wrong information that's stacked on top of it that they're going to get for years and years and years until they finally get confronted by it by some shitty goddamn podcast on Twitter in 2020 when they get found out that Robert E. Lee actually did own slaves and he tortured them and he didn't want to get rid of them. And then they're like, they're lying. It's liberal bullshit.

And that's where we find ourselves because 2020 isn't new. And he didn't want to get rid of them. And then they're like, they're lying. It's liberal bullshit. And that's where we find ourselves. Because 2020 isn't new. We were both raised with the internet. Like I've pointed out before, nothing I do on this show, none of the research here, with the exception of a few in-depth series that we did, required spending any money to get any of these resources. They're freely available. And when people are confronted by them, they refuse to believe them. That's because people are no longer taught history.

They're taught deification of some of the worst fucking bastards in American history. I completely agree with what people are being taught, and I completely agree that that's wrong. And as I've said five times already during this episode i think that we need to seriously revise the education and make sure people are being taught what actually happened and what's real even no matter how fucking dirty and gross and disgusting we look afterwards but i disagree with you in that I have so much more hope because...

That's where we differ. I'm deeply blackpilled. Yeah, you are a pessimist at heart. I look at what I know and what I've seen, and I know that I'm just one person in a great big world, in a great big country. But what I know and what I've seen is that my older generation that I see, they're the ones that are resistant to change, resistant to learning something that they. Terminal boomer brain.

Right. They do. They don't want to know the dirty history. They terminal boomer brain. Right. They do. They don't want to know the dirty history. They don't want to know the dirty truth and the uncomfortable because this all is so fucking uncomfortable. And you do.

You have to get uncomfortable with your own history to accept that, you know, there have been some egregious acts and everything. But what I've seen with the next generation is they want to know, they want to learn, they want to see all of the things and they and they have it all at their fingertips and they want to look it up. And I know that in probably some of the like more conservative and southern rural areas, they're, you know, probably not as eager, but just what I've seen is my younger generation and the next generation, pretty much anybody younger than us, they are learning and they're wanting for something better. I deeply hope you're right. I do too. I guess that's how we can end our show today, is on Rich's heartfelt message of hope,

which is nothing that we've ever had before. Rich, thanks for joining me. Everybody, thanks for listening. And until next time, kids, kill your heroes. They're all bad. Just learn about your heroes. History is full of bastards. Tear down your nearest monument,

and we'll see you next week. Bye.