Dr. William Fortschen Returns to Discuss EMP Threats and His Book Becoming a Movie!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
THEME SONG (00:04):
Down with the heavy stars, rock and rolling through
the cool guitars. Chuck's gotthe questions digging so sharp,
feeling back layers hitting theheart.

Chuck Shute (00:20):
Yeah. Well, welcome back to the show. So for people
who didn't watch the firstepisode, they should go back and
watch last time I had you onhere, because we went through
your whole background, all that.
So we can, we can skip a lot ofthat. But I remember one of the
questions I asked last time Ihad you on was, hey, is this
book ever going to get made intoa movie? And at the time, you
said there was an issue with thewriter strike, and obviously
that got settled, and now it'sactually happening. It's

(00:43):
exciting.

Dr. William Forstchen (00:45):
Yes, it's very exciting. Okay, you want me
to talk about it for a minute?
Yeah,

absolutely. Well, I mean, I can, I mean, we could
tell them. The gist of it is,obviously, it's the New York
Times bestseller one secondafter and I think I just read
that it's MPI films with ScottRogers is directing, and Michael
strazinski is is writing it, andthat's all I know. You may know
more though,

okay, everything broke open about
three or four months ago. OneMPI is the MPI, you know, I
don't know myself at times, MPIproduction,

MPI films. It says MPI, original films in
association with startling,startling

Dr. William Forst (01:31):
Incorporated.
Yeah, startling Incorporated.
Okay, what happened? Theyacquired it. They have been
trying to raise money to get thething forward. You know that
movies are a fair chunk ofchange that finally came
together, and immediately, youknow, it started forward. It got
green lighted, got the well, theproducer was already involved.

(01:55):
He was the one selling it andand we got the director, and the
director came out here, oh, lateApril, early May, and spent the
day looking things over. Andwhat I really liked about
everybody involved in this isthey're very dedicated to making
a realistic movie about EMP.
That's been their keymotivation. I mean, EMP has been

(02:19):
used in other films in the past.
They always get it wrong, youknow, oh, we're gonna, you know,
it's gonna be emp, and a halfhour later, everything's back
online, or whatever. So they'rededicated to that. Last month,
the producer, the director, andmy agent, went out to Bulgaria.

(02:41):
That's where they're going to befilming, most of it, because
Bulgaria is used a lot for filmsthese days. Scouted out
locations. I just receivedconcept art just a couple of
days back of how the town'sgoing to be set up. It's all
going forward. So right nowthey're talking about starting

(03:02):
filming around September 15.
That's six weeks worth offilming, and then producing it
and everything, and it will beout late in the spring or early
summer of next year. So I'mfreaked. I mean, I've waited 15
years for this to happen, I wentthrough production hell and
option hell. And, you know, infact, I almost had it sold about

(03:25):
five or six years ago. I wasgoing to fly out to Montana to
meet with the producer, and hewas an amateur pilot, and he put
a plane in the side of amountain, and that ended that
deal that was terrible. He was areally good guy, and then it got
picked up by somebody else. Sohere we are today, and I got a

(03:46):
movie coming forward.

Yeah, any idea who is going to star in it? Like,

I can't talk about that, okay, but you

So you do know that there are some people being
considered, or they alreadychose them, or

I already know different people being
considered. There's nondisclosure on my part. I could
talk about the generalities ofproduction and all that, but
okay, all the details, they'llput that out in press releases,
all the usual hoopla andeverything else. You know how
Hollywood is,

sure, sure. So, how big is the budget for this?
Like, is this going to be in thetheaters, or is it going
straight to streaming? Or

it's, I can't talk about budget, but it
is going into theaters again,late spring, early summer, and
then from theaters, it willfinally move over to Netflix,
Amazon Prime, somebody likethat, for TV production, because
you got a lot of movies, theycome out, and then a couple
months later they put them outon internet as well. Sure, all

(04:50):
of it is, you know, like, I'vewaited 15 years. I was for many
years, caught an option. Hell,somebody would option it. And.
Fact, M Night Shi Avalonoptioned me at one point, and,
you know, he had control for ayear, and it didn't go forward
from there.

That's crazy, because he's made some really
bad movies you'd think, like TheLast Airbender That was
terrible. This would have beenway better than what that was.

You know that that was damned if I do,
damned if I don't, type ofthing. Oh, yeah, big name. He's,
of course, famous for the sixthsense. But what has he done
afterwards? So I wasn't tooupset when the option dropped on
that after a year.

Yeah. I've been interesting to see Yeah, because
I think, I feel like a lot ofhis problem now is like, yeah,
he he's out of ideas, but thisis, like, the idea is handed to
him on a plate, and he just hasto direct it, make it happen. So
that's interesting,

you know, um, one of the worries I had was
that somebody would come outwith a similar production and
get things wrong, and that wouldselect steal the thunder. Oh, a
movie's been made on EMP Yeah. Agood example is like the movie
Gladiator, or whatever,completely ruined anybody in

(06:12):
ancient history for the longesttime. Or the really bad one was
when 300 came out because ScottPeterson had written an
incredible book about it calleduh, Gates of Fire, about the
Battle of Thermopylae. Very,very accurate historians. We all

(06:32):
loved it. And then 300 came out,and I walked out. I got about
halfway through, and when theSpartans are marching off to
war, and all they're wearing iscod pieces, I couldn't take it
anymore, you know, all these ripyou know, right? Guys, and
they're, yeah, we are theSpartans. And I finally said,

(06:54):
Guys, this looks like the SanFrancisco brigade. It's just
it's not realistic at all. And Iactually walked out. I was so
angry.

Wow, that's interesting, yeah, because I
would definitely want to get tothat, the history and stuff and
the parallels with today. But interms of movies, yeah, was there
any scenes from one second afterthat were in the book that you
felt like were essential to keepthat in the film? Because I'm
sure they have to cut some ofthose scenes because, you know,
book and a movie is unless it'sgoing to be, like a four hour

(07:25):
movie, yeah, you know,

we went through five versions of the
screenplay, and, you know, thefirst one was pretty good the
set, or the third version, I waslike, oh my god, don't let them
Do it, you know, I'll go out andhang myself. And I shared my
complaints with my producer. Heagreed with me. So did my agent,

(07:48):
and so we went back more to theoriginal. Yeah, there's going to
be scenes are compressed andthings like that. But I'm really
very, very happy on the wholething. The key thing is emp,
when it hits, it's such adevastating blow to an
infrastructure, it just simplydoesn't recover. How do we live

(08:11):
post EMP? That's what the bookis about. How do we live post
EMP? And the movie is reallycapturing that. Well,

yeah, that's definitely an interesting thing,
and it's scary to think aboutthat, whether it's an EMP or
some other thing that takes outthe technology if we just didn't
have electricity, or even just,I feel like Wi Fi, if we didn't
have internet or something, howdo people survive without Wi Fi?
Like there's so many things thatI do and that people do on Wi Fi

(08:42):
and internet. How do you what doyou do if you don't have

it? Well, I kind of lived through it last
year. Helene. I live about 10miles, five miles, actually,
from where Helene hit thehardest, and over 100 people
died there. It's like Texas, abit like what happened in Texas
on steroids. It just is a oneriver. It's every river

(09:06):
overflowed I want withoutelectricity for six weeks and
internet as well. In fact, theguys who finally hooked me back
up after six weeks were fromQuebec, and we had some
interesting conversations, andwhat I remember of French, but

(09:26):
it's that really showed me justhow horrifying it is. I had
nothing. I had no electricity,no internet. I ran out of water
rather quickly, and had toscrounge for water. Toilets
don't work. Nothing works. Itwas six weeks but but the key

(09:49):
thing is, from day one,volunteers were coming in from
all over the country to help outthis bunch of guys, uh.
Organized helicopters. They had75 helicopters, volunteers, all
ferrying supplies in and out.
After five days, I was asked totake a helicopter flight down to

(10:12):
Hickory, about 60 miles fromhere, to watch their operation.
Well, what I saw was horrifying,you know, just devastation
everywhere across a 50, 100 milewide swath and 100, 150 miles
across. For example, I used toown an antique airplane, an

(10:33):
original World War two plane,the war bird. That hangar was
under 15 feet of water. Wow. Mythis precious airplane I owned
for 20 years just gone. So I gota taste of what it would be like
long term. But let me emphasize,I knew help was coming. Imagine

(10:53):
a scenario where we all know nohelp is coming, except for what
we can do on our own. Learned alot, and yes, my town really did
pull together. We even hadcommunity meetings. I remember a
friend was with the I said, thisis like, straight out of the
book, you know, an outdoormeeting. What do we do? How do

(11:15):
we handle this? Where can we getfood, water, things like that.
It was a very chilling time forme. And what's happened in Texas
in this last week, my heart goesout to them, because they're
particularly impacted children.
All those children in that campthat were killed is horrifying.

Yeah, that is really scary. I mean, and that's
with with the movie. I mean,that's a big focus of the book
is The townspeople and thecharacters and how people come
together and how they wouldhelp. But yeah, with something
so big, it's like they can onlydo so much. And then, you know,
and then also you've got peoplethat are that are not looking
out for the best interest. Andif there was a wide scale thing,

(11:57):
you know, are gonna, are theregonna be more people who try to
help, or more people are tryingto steal and pillage and things
like that. So it definitelymakes you wonder. I mean, it's
great to see when a real lifeexample happens and people swoop
in to help. But yeah, if it was,if it was the whole thing went
down, I don't know, be as manypeople helping?

Yeah, it's not just you and part of
that, as well as on 911 Okay,let me ask, Where were you on
911

Oh, it's funny.
It's funny story. Actually, Iwas, I was off break from
college, and I remember sleepingin, and I woke up and I came
down, and my dad was like, nothappy. And, you know, he's a
financial advisor, so I think,you know, he's thinking of his
clients and the market and allthis and how, and he's like,
Yeah, you were out. You'reupstairs sleeping in. He's like,
the world's going to shit rightnow. And I was like, wow. And I

(12:50):
just could I it was just surrealwatching that on TV. I was like,
Wait, I don't understand why.
What happened a plane. It justdidn't make any sense to me,
because I never seen anything

like it.
Yeah, you know, you know I was,I was teaching a class when one
of the first one hit, all right?
Well, no, actually, the secondone hit. And we gathered
together as a college, we're aChristian college. We met in the
chapel. We had a prayer servicefor people and such. But here's

(13:21):
the key thing, and that firsthour, Giuliani was on television
saying, This is what's happeningto us. We're going to pull
together. We're New Yorkers.
Let's all work together. Andthey really did remember, a
million people were just walkinghome, no looting or anything
like that, because a voice thatwe trusted was out there. But
imagine instead that with an EMPit hits, and then all

(13:45):
communication nationwide stops.
You don't know what the hellhappened. Yeah, you know. And
most of us, when we get a powerfailure, we figure, oh, okay,
it'll be back in a couple hours,you know, half a day, and now,
with the flood, was going to beweeks, because everything was

(14:06):
down. But we're used to voicesof authority and trust telling
us this is what's going on, andwe're going to deal with it even
in Texas. Imagine a world whereeverything goes dark. That's
what my book is about.
Everything just simply goesdark.

Yeah. And do you think, I mean, obviously people
have read the book, and youknow, we're I'm doing my part
here by having you on the showto talk about it. But do you
think with the movie, maybe thatwill reach a wider audience in
terms of awareness of thisissue? Because it seems like
there's not a lot of worry aboutthis. A lot of people don't
know. They don't even know whatan EMP is,

yeah, well, in my town, just about
everybody read the book and it,it's kind of amusing. Every time
I it's a village Black Mountain,it's very much as I described. I
go down, drop in, say hello, andthere's some. Customers. Oh,
you're the guy who wrote thebook. But a book is limited.
I've sold well over a millioncopies. So let's say two or 3

(15:08):
million people have read it. Amovie, a halfway decent movie,
3040, 50, million people will beexposed to it, and if 10% of
them start to react to it andstart to do things politically
and for themselves, then it willreally have served its purpose.

Yeah, what did you think about that movie? Now, I
forgot the name of it. It wasthe one on Netflix with Julia
Roberts, and I forget who elsewas in it, but it was a similar
kind of idea where the powergoes out and they're kind of in
the middle of nowhere, and allthe cars stop, and then the one
kid has some sort of issue withhe's like, I think they were,

(15:47):
like, bleeding from the ears andstuff. And it was, they thought
it was some sort of radar thathad made him sick. And, I mean,
that was, that was a similarkind of theme that, like, where
shit goes down and you don'tknow what's going on.

You know, I never saw it. I've heard about
them. I remember, what was it?
Jericho, I was optioned to badeight or 10 years ago when
Jericho came out. And thatkilled me. We were very close to
green lighting, and the studiosaid we don't want to do it. But
I don't think anyone has veryaccurately show there's so like

(16:20):
a science fiction quality tosome of it. And that gets to me,
because EMP is not sciencefiction. EMP is a cold, deadly
fact. I've only seen one moviethat treated it correctly, and
that was 35 years ago, with thefilm day after remember about

(16:42):
nuclear war starting, yeah, andthe doctors trying to get back
to Kansas City, and he's on theinterstate, and then an EMP
pops, and all the cars stop.
That's the only accurateportrayal I've seen of this
issue.

Yeah, usually I just looked it up. I had to it
was going to bug me. Leave theworld behind. That's what it was
called. It was interesting. Itdefinitely, I don't know how
realistic you would obviouslyknow how realistic some of the
stuff was in the movie, but itdefinitely made you think, I'm
just saying, like to raiseawareness of the issue. Because
I think last time I had you on,you said that you had been
talking with the Trumpadministration about doing

(17:23):
something about this, because Ithink we, I think you said it
was about 30 to 50 billion tomake all the Faraday cages and
basically prevent this frombeing an issue. And he they were
looking into it, and they had areport or whatever. And then
Biden won the next election, andthen they scrapped it, and they
were focusing on the greenenergy, but now,

what's that? Throw my hands up in the
air, and if we weren't live, Ithink I might even give a finger
to somebody, because that was sobloody enraging. Trump's first
term about three months beforethe election, he mandated a
study by DOD, DOE, all thedifferent agencies, to do a

(18:10):
report on what is the MP Howdoes it work? How does it impact
us? How do we respond to it?
What needs to be done? Thereport was supposed to come in
around April, three months afterthe election, Biden came in, and
on day one, he killed it, hekilled it. He actually killed
it. And then we spent a trilliondollars on so called green

(18:34):
energy, which was just a giantboom goggle, where if he had
taken 5% of that money and spentit on true Infrastructure
Protection, that would have beendoing something. So we now have
Trump second time around. A keything there is golden dome,
which I'm incredibly happyabout. I'm not sure what they're

(18:58):
doing with EMP protection, but Ido know from the Trump admin,
well, from some people workingthere, that that's going to go
forward as well.

So would the golden dome potentially protect from an
EMP or because, because,couldn't somebody bring an EMP?
How does that? How? How? Like,the logistics of actually
launching one would have to befrom another, like a boat or
something. Could someone bringin a like a suitcase with an
EMP?

No, okay, EMP primer for one minute. EMP
is created by launching on anICBM, a or even medium range
ballistic missile, launching anuclear weapon into space. It
has to be out there about 200miles, because when the weapon
blows the gamma ray burst, andthe gamma ray burst in

(19:51):
particular, starts cascadingdown to the Earth's surface,
setting up electrons, separatinglike a giant electroness.
Machine that when this all hitsthe Earth's surface at speed of
light, the overload feeds intothe electrical grid. What
happens then is the millions ofmiles of wiring we have become

(20:13):
antenna feeds it into the grid,and when it hits into the high
tension lines, that's a realvulnerability, the high tension
lines literally blow off thepylons. I can remember watching
a film with a group of people,it's been 15 years now, where
they did a test on that firingan EMP at a high tension line,

(20:36):
and the thing literally explodedoff the pylon. So all that goes
down. The generating systems godown. One, the Soviets did a
test in 1962 Soviet test 184 itblew out a power station 500
miles away from the point ofimpact, well, from the impact in

(20:58):
space, setting a nuclear weaponoff on the ground won't do it.
It sets out a very small EMP.
But the further out you get,particularly get to space, the
burst becomes far moresignificant. So the days of
mutual assured destruction, offiring hundreds of missiles at
each other, that's the pastusing an EMP you cripple the

(21:21):
civilian infrastructure in thefirst seconds. And no matter
what they do, they can'trecover. It just is not
recoverable. And according totwo congressional studies, it's
estimated that 80 to 90% of thepopulation would die in the year
after such an event.

And then, yeah, I think we talked about it too
last time, how it would takeabout five years to rebuild. And
then, even then, you'd only haveabout 20% of the power,

yeah. But then the population is down 80%
so maybe matter at that, yeah?
But that's pretty grimstatistics.

Yeah, it really is, and most people are not
prepared. And I think we talkedto last time about how, well,
what if you live on a farm andand, but even, like a well, a
lot of those things useelectricity to pump the water
and stuff, and so it's, it's andthen a lot of the rivers and
lakes would be polluted withoutthe electric, electrical pumps
and things and filters and allthat sort of thing. So a lot of

(22:23):
stuff would just go haywire. Itwould be really and then also
you gotta, if you had a farm andyou had food and water, now you
got to protect against all theseother people who are coming in
trying to

survive, yeah. How long is that farm on
its own going to survive? Notlong. Because I think everybody
has in their head this, thisthought, Well, if the crap hits
the fan, I'll just go out to thecountryside. I know there's
plenty of food out there. Youknow you're expecting the
farmers are a bunch of granolaeating. Oh, take my food. Take

(22:58):
all of it. It ain't going to bethat way. And even if you got
out there and you found a farmthat was abandoned, do you know
how to harness a horse? Do youknow how to plow a field? Do you
even know how to milk a cow?
Very few of us do anymore. Idon't live on a farm. What I

(23:18):
lived on a farm for about ninemonths up in Pennsylvania. I
tell you, it was hard ass work,you know, from five or six in
the morning, particularly in thesummer, when you're hanging and
everything. I can't imaginemyself doing that for the rest
of my life. Yeah,

I used to work in education for 17 years. I worked
in schools in Washington Stateand Arizona, and I just it seems
like there's a lot of thingsthat we teach that are kind of
worthless. Like, do you thinkthat that's something that we
should do to prepare forsomething like this, whether
it's an EMP or some other sortof disaster that causes us to
kind of go back to the basics?
Like, should we teach kidssurvival skills, farming, you

(23:59):
know, how to take care ofthemselves, like, you know, some
of these basic survival skills.
Because I feel like, yeah, amajority of us would just not
know what to do.

What did you do in education? I was a
counselor. Oh, okay, all right,you must have seen, you know, so
you're dealing with kids everyday, trying to advise them and
everything else and theirfundamental knowledge just
simply isn't there. So myresponse to you first will be

(24:30):
the Boy Scouts of America. Bythe age of 11, you know, I
become a you know, I'm in theBoy Scouts, Cub Scouts. I became
an Eagle Scout. I learned basicsurvival skills, very basic
things that most people don'tknow, how to purify water, how
to, you know, Camp do thingslike that. The Boy Scouts is a

(24:52):
good place to start. And, yeah,I think some fundamental
education on survival. Sayingthe Boy Scout setting, or
whatever would would be a heckof a boom. You know, I can
remember going camping with somepeople, and they stupidly drank
water straight out of a creek.
And I found out. I said, Whatthe hell are you guys doing? Are

(25:15):
you crazy? Well, the water'srunning. And sure enough, the
following morning, they were allcrapping their guts out. I was
like, now you've learned yourlesson. It's just basic things
like that in a real worldscenario that could kill them.

Yeah, because do you probably follow this even
more than I do, but I've beenreally interested in just other
countries, other governments,other systems, because there's
all this talk of differentthings, like bringing some of
these other systems to America.
So I like to look at othercountries do It does, doesn't,
because doesn't China, don'tthey teach some of those things.
Well, I can't remember if it wasChina or some other country they

(25:53):
were. The kids were like,learning how to shoot guns. Like
in school, like, this was partof their training as a student
was like target practice. Yeah,I'm

not sure if that was China or not. I know
in Mongolia, it's that way. I'vespent four summers in Mongolia.
Well, three summers on oneautumn, and those kids knew how
to survive, yeah, you know, onesummer let out, those kids went
back to their families, out inthe step. And it was amazing.
Everything those kids could doand knew how to do. We're such a

(26:27):
pampered society we don't know.
You know, an analogy I give is,let's say you took a civil war
regiment, which was the basis ofsome of my novels, and you put
it all you know starting afreshon a different planet, they
would know things. They wouldknow how to farm, they would
know how to mine. They wouldknow so many different things

(26:49):
they could survive. Now take aplane load of people, 400
people. They crash land on someremote island. How many of them
would actually know what to do?

Yeah, exactly, that's my point. Yeah, there's a
lot of just basic things thateven me myself. I don't, I don't
know how to do everything. Ilike to camp and things. I know
some basic things, but I don'tknow. I mean, filtering water
and stuff. I'm not sure I'd beable to figure that out just
without the tools and things.

Exactly you know how to dress a deer,
how? You know, I did it once. Inever want to do it again,

right? Yeah. But you if you have to to survive,
you know, it becomes a thingwhere you can't google it. If
there's no electricity, youcan't look it up. You can't ask
chat, GPT, right? You got tohave a paper book,

yeah? You can stare at the dark and
scream. So,

I mean, it really makes you think too, just like,
as, like, as I said, as I was acounselor. I mean, when I
started in the schools, youknow, maybe a handful of kids
had a cell phone, right? Andthen when I left, every kid had
a cell phone. And just thepsychological impact of kids not
have being on their phones somuch, and then having that
completely gone, like they mightpsychologically just completely

(28:08):
disintegrate without having thattechnology they're so used to
forget, like, how, you know,having to survive off, you know,
food and water, like,psychologically, I feel like
they'd almost just go crazy.

Well, you know, each layer that's added to
a technological society. Youknow, 100 years ago, the layer
that was being added waselectrification. You know,
cities were electrified. Thecountryside was not. But once
they became electrified, somebasic knowledge starts to slip
away. 120 years ago, out in thecountryside, everybody had a

(28:44):
horse. You know, they knew howto take care of it. By 1921 out
of 10 Americans had anautomobile in their house, well
with their house. So as theygain new technologies, they
forget the old technologies andso. So it's been, you know, all
the way through today with chat,BD, GBT and internet and all

(29:09):
that. And the kids, therefore,have forgotten how to do things
previously, going back to thefundamentals.

Yeah, do you think in terms of because if you look
at like the IndustrialRevolution, I mean, there's a
lot of things like, oh, youknow, we're going to lose all
these jobs and things, and nowyou got the AI revolution
coming. Do you think we're readyfor this, or are we totally
unprepared? I mean, forget, ifthe electricity goes out, what
if it doesn't? That's almostscarier, like with the AI stuff.

(29:38):
I mean, there's going to be alot of job loss, right?

You know, ultimately not. I can remember,
in the 70s and 80s, toddlersbook, the third wave, which was
almost like a Bible, you knowwhat? Whose older jobs were. Uh,
so some very, incredibly highpercentage of our society today,

(30:08):
their jobs are based on computertechnology, so it created more
jobs than we lost. I'd like tothink the same thing's going to
happen this time, but I rememberdoomsayers back in the 70s, oh,
we're going to become a societywhere we're all slaves to the
computer, and the computer doeseverything, and we just sit

(30:28):
there and consume Well, that'snot been the case.

So, okay, so you're, you're talking about,
okay, from the 70s days. Isthere other parallels in history
to the Times today in terms oftechnology, when technology
changed

just a second. Okay, all right, I love
you too. What's your dog's name?
This is Chloe. She likes tocrash meetings. I start talking
on the computer, and she has tocome out and see who I'm talking
to. Gotcha. Hi, Chloe. Chloe,say, Hi, what

was your question again? Just you know, in terms
of parallels of what we'reseeing now with technology and
the shift from basic computersto AI and robots taking more
jobs, but like you said, maybethere's going to be a creation
of other things. So besides theIndustrial Revolution, was there

(31:24):
other times where there was abig shift in technology in
history?

Well, of course, the big one is the
industrial revolution started inthe 18th century and initially
created a lot of dislocation,because the mills replace much
of the labor, particularly clothweaving and all that. And there

(31:50):
was even a movement called TheLuddites. These were people who
destroyed the mills, saying itwas taking jobs, but ultimately
it creates more jobs. I can'tanswer that question. Well, the
Roman Empire at its peak, andthen they lose a lot of the
technologies they knew about. Ireally can't answer that

(32:11):
question.

What about other similarities? And just in terms
of general, where we're attoday, and with the Roman rev
empire in the fall of the RomanEmpire. Do you think that that's
similar to what we're goingthrough now with the US? Because
I think what is the math? Ithink it's like most empires
only last about 250 years, andwe're getting pretty close to

(32:33):
that time. Do you think there'ssome similarities there? Is that
a stretch? No,

that's something, of course, I worry
about, I mean, my majors in mygraduate program more military
history and the history oftechnology, and I can recall a
really good assignment from oneof my professors where I wrote a
read a book published in 1859and was, actually was report, a

(33:01):
report to parliament aboutAmerican industrialization. This
is a group of guys who came toAmerica in 1857, and spent two
years studying our systems. Andthey wrote the report. It was
read into by Parliament. Iactually got to hold a copy of
the report and read itthoroughly. And they were

(33:22):
basically saying, the Americansare going to beat us. They're
absolutely going to beat usbecause, first of all, their
colleges, all our colleges, areclassical based, all right, for
the elite, only the Americans.
They're opening colleges forworking people. And they're
they're talking about technologyand farming and things like that

(33:44):
in their colleges, the socialstratas in English society
prevented people from movingfrom lower class to middle and
upper so all these thingstogether, they they were saying,
By the year 1900 the Americansare going to swamp us. And we
did. It became the Americancentury with our

(34:05):
industrialization. So the bigquestion now is, will China beat
us in the 21st Century? Yeah, Idon't think so. I'm
fundamentally optimistic aboutAmerica, particularly now. I
mean, so many things havechanged in the last six months.
So it's obvious who I believe isdoing some of this. We have to,

(34:26):
as Abraham Lincoln once said, wemust disenthra ourselves, and
then we will save our country.
As our case is new, we must actanew and think anew again from
Lincoln. So we have to thinkbetter.

Yeah, well, and I think that is interesting in
terms of the technology is onething, but then it goes back to
the basic things and another.
And I don't know if you ever sawthat movie, Blackfish. I had the
director on my show, and shemade another movie called The
grab and it was all about allthese countries coming in and
and grabbing up land for farmingand grabbing up water. And it

(35:09):
was really interesting to seehow much China has come in and
grabbed farmland from the US andgrabbed water. And I think, I
think Russia has done it too.
And maybe Iran, or some MiddleEastern countries have come in
and and grabbed all thesethings. So it's kind of like
there's almost like this, thisrace to get as much farmland and

(35:30):
water. It used to be oil, right?
That was the resource thateveryone was going after. I'm
sure that's still valuable too.
But also now people are seeing,Oh, farmland and food and water
are very valuable commodities.
We want to get as much of thisas possible.

You know, China, I'm I'm in a minority. I
don't worry about China all thatmuch because there's a number of
things about China. The Chineseare only one year's harvest away
from a big disaster, all youneed is one lean year and their

(36:06):
production of food, they can'tfeed their people, right? I

think that's why they're buying a bunch of
farmland here.

But it still is inside America, if need
be, we will buy it back orconfiscate it. I don't think
that's going to be thesituation. 1/3 of China is still
in 19th and 20th Centurytechnology. You get 100 200

(36:34):
miles out the the eastern beltof China, meaning the coast,
inland for a couple 100 miles.
That's, that's 21st Centurystuff. You know, high speed
trains and all that. When youget into the Outback, they got a
population of several 100million that they have to worry
about, that these people can berather rebellious if need be. So

(36:56):
if they lose their food supplyfor one year, they're gone.
Secondly, the male to femaleratio in China for Ardmore, you
know, not my generation anymore.
What the Gen z's? You know, the2030, year olds? Well, they were

(37:16):
children that were born at atime when China had a one child
policy. So 10s of millions offuture parents, when they found
out they were going to have adaughter, they aborted it. They
wanted a male so the male femaleratio is off. That's going to
creep it's called Emptybranches. That can be problems.

(37:38):
So there's a number of problemslurking just below the surface.
So remember, 30 years ago, theprediction was Japan was going
to outrace us. The Japaneseeconomy. In the 1980s it was so
far ahead we would never comecatch up to them. Where's
where's Japan? Today, it's moreblunt, you know, they have their

(38:02):
population. Is actuallyflatlining and going down, and
they're going to have a veryserious problem in a couple of
years of who's going to supportsuch an aging population,
there's not enough workers to doit. That's interesting. So the
same thing with us we couldscrew up over the next five to

(38:23):
10 years. These are very, verycrucial years right now. But
another key thing for me is reindustrializing America right
now. And I think we talked aboutlast time we were together, the
all the electrical componentsthat we have, the big stuff, the
trans right,

70s and stuff, right? Yeah,

it's from the 70s, and it's made in China.
Now you have to bring thatindustrial base back to women.
Yeah, that

is one thing I do.
What you know would love him orhate him about Trump, when he
talks about building more thingshere, it's kind of a prepping
mentality for that, because ifsomething does go wrong, then
China has us by the balls. Theycould just be like, Oh, we're
not going to give you thatstuff, right? Have fun, you
know, right? What do you

do? And Gary, I'm thrilled with the
wall, yeah, obviously I'm proTrump. All right, I'm really pro
Trump, but we have to theanalogy. I think I gave it up
when I was with you last time.
The analogy I give is, it'sDecember 8, 1941 the President
sits down with his Joint Chiefs,you know, his key generals and
admirals. And the chief, AdmiralKing stands up, said, Mr.

(39:34):
Problem, Mr. President. We got aproblem. All our aircraft
carriers are made in Japan, andthen the key army guy, Marshall,
stands up, sir, we got aproblem. All our tanks, all our
airplanes, are made in Germany.
What the hell we going to donow?

Well, they didn't know that. That's really
fascinating. What did they do?

Well, that's what the analogy is.
Because analogy, okay, yeah.
Because starting in 1940 thankGod we did it. In 1940 we
suddenly really kicked loosewith industrialization, because
only about 50% of our industrialcapability was working at that
moment, the rest was quiet. Wellwithin a year, that industrial

(40:17):
base was humming, producing allthe tools of war we would need.
And you know, we don't realizeit from the day the war started
for us until it ended, it wasonly 44 months. 44 months. By
the last year of the war, wewere making over 100,000
airplanes a year before the warstarted. We were making 5000 a

(40:38):
year. Think of that, thatmassive industrialization, you
know, we did it before, and wecan do it again, type mentality.
We should start now on reindustrializing. And I think
that is starting to happen. Wasit Trump said yesterday or the
day before? It was $15 trillionof investments in infrastructure

(40:58):
are coming back into ourcountry. So that's really
important for us. We have toreinvent industrialization in
America to make it work.

Yeah, no, I think that is that is so important.
It's something that doesn't gettalked about. And I know Biden
had the build back better, but Ifeel like that didn't include a
lot of this stuff, theinfrastructure with the grid and
all that, those kinds of things.
And I don't think it was enough,and in some ways it was too
much. It was too much money.
It's, I don't know where themoney went. I haven't seen a lot

(41:32):
of results from that, but itwould, it's a great idea to
build, rebuild theinfrastructure structure,
especially, like you said, theelectricity, especially because
we're going to be so reliant onthat moving forward with AI and
all this electronic stuff, if wedon't have electricity, none of
it works

well, you know, I can remember well, Biden
had been in office some months,and they dedicated something
like 10 or $20 billion we'regoing to make 5000 EV chargers
across America. Oh, yeah. Didthey only make like five or
something? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So that comes out to about abillion dollars or two per

(42:08):
charger. Where the hell the restof the money go? Where did it
go? While private enterpriseTesla now has like five or 6000
charging stations across thecountry, all of it through
private enterprise. So that thatwas even, that was one of the
big ones. Where the hell themoney go for the charging

(42:29):
stations? Oh, all the billionsand billions for, you know, 100
square miles of solarcollectors. They didn't build
any of it. It was one of thegreatest boondoggles in history.
I hope they investigate thatmore.

Yeah, and, well, another thing that I think that
they didn't that worries me isthe we talk about things that
are made in other countriesisn't the chips for a lot of
electronics that we make made inTaiwan, and that's like the only
one of the only countries thatdoes it. Now we started to
build, I think there's a chipfactory. It's in Arizona. It's,
it's a few miles away from me,but it's not ready yet. So I

(43:09):
don't know how soon that willbe, but that'll be key. I think,
moving forward to beindependent.

You know, chip production that that's a
fundamental building block. Nochips, no machines, no machines,
no computers, no AI. So we haveto look at these points of
vulnerability and do it better.
But again, I'm optimistic,unless somebody does a major
move now. But you know whathappened in Iran two weeks ago

(43:37):
was a clear message to theworld, don't screw around with
us. The bunker busters, yes, Donot screw around with us. And
part of that was sending amessage to China and Russia and
also any third world players, wehave the capability, and for the
first time, we're not going tohesitate in using it,

yeah. And the irony of that whole thing was, people
thought, Oh, God, we're startinganother war, yada yada yada. And
then all of a sudden it waslike, boom, we got a peace deal.
Now, how long does it last? Dothey do both sides honor the
peace deal? I don't know, but atleast it's an attempt, and it
came quickly. And I'm reallyhappy about that. There's been a
lot of peace deals Risa theIndia and Pakistan. I think we

(44:25):
had mentioned that in the lastepisode, and that there's a
peace deal there, because theywere potentially going to use,
they're both nuclear, so theycould have used nukes on each
other,

and they were threatening, yeah, and I've
always thought that could be aplace where an EMP might be
used, you know, against India orPakistan. Yeah, it's we have the
potential remarkable growth inthe next several years. And as
long as we can keep the peace, Ithink it's going to happen, you

(44:55):
know, and the same way, the waywe built the. Our industry
starting around 1939 1940 to4243 we became the powerhouse of
the world. You know, we didn'twhat was under a national
emergency, but we did it. Go andsee some of that today.

Well, so besides other countries being an enemy
or a threat to America. Whatabout the threat from within?
Because I don't know if you'veread the book Mao's revolution,
or what is it called, Mao'sAmerica, as I had that author
on. It's really fascinating tolearn. She talks about, you
know, living through the Maorevolution and then to the

(45:39):
latest Chinese Communist Party,and she's worried. She's seen a
lot of those kinds of themes inAmerica. So what about the
threat from within about arevolution and overthrow? I
mean, you talk about theIndustrial Revolution, people
burning down mills. I mean,you're seeing that already,
people are burning the way mostbecause of the technology. I
mean, these are $250,000$250,000 cars that people are

(46:01):
lighting on fire because theybecause they don't want the
technology.

I think we'll be okay, yeah? No, yeah.
But America, America's flirtedin the past with things and the
late 1930s it flirted big timewith fascism. I mean, there was
close to a million Americanswere members of the American

(46:30):
first party, and a hell of a lotof people were dressing up in
brown shirts and marching aroundthe place that history has been

forgotten. Oh, I did not know about that. Who was
the leader of that

America first. And, you know, the Nazis
are okay. And Lindbergh, my God,Lindbergh gets involved in it. A
funny story, my father andmother, and 19 is 1939 or 1940
the guy in my dad's factory, dadworked in a gas making plant,

(47:08):
said, Hey, John, you know we'regonna have a big party on the
lake this weekend. Why don't youjoin us? And, yeah, sure, my
father, you know, I'm German,German descent, and my father
and mother show up, and theydrive in, and they're looking
and all these guys are goingaround, brown shirts and such.

(47:28):
And my mother looked at myfather and said, Well, look,
forget the free beer. Let's getthe hell out of here. You know,
these people are Nazis. And whatdid you know? What? A week
later, my father gets calledinto the front office at the
factory, and it's a couple ofFBI agents. Yeah, you know, we
got your license number, Johnforston, and you were at this

(47:53):
Nazi rally and my and but theguy said, It's okay. It's all
right. You immediately turnedaround and you left. But Who
invited you to this party, andwhat? My father was more than
happy to give the names. Youknow, this wasn't I'm not going
to report it, but I remember himtelling my mother, my mother was
freaked out. So aren't you gladyou didn't stay for the beer?

(48:15):
Because he first said, maybewe'll stay for the beer.

So that's scary.

Very big movement, particularly in the
New York metropolitan area. Youknow, people with German descent
in particular were susceptibleto it. So these things have
happened before, and we alwaysseem to write the pendulum just
at the right moment, you know.

So you mentioned, I mean, you're a fan of Trump. So
then what is that whole becausethere is a lot of things where
people call him a Nazi, andthey're saying, this is
parallels, and America first.
You're saying that was Americafirst back then. So explain the
parallel there. Why do peoplebecause I, when I see Trump, I
don't, I don't see Hitler, like,I'm not seeing him trying to
take he's trying to make peacedeals. He goes to North Korea,

(49:00):
and he's instead, he's like,Hey, he tells him, you know,
instead of, like, worrying aboutthe nukes, he's like, Look, you
should build condos on thesebeaches. These beaches are
beautiful. Build some condos.
Like, he's kind of more of abusinessman mindset. Yes,

it's very, very frustrating. I mean,
I'm a historian, okay? First andforemost, historian, then
author. I know very clearly frommy classes what Nazism is. I
used to have World War Two vetscoming into my class. I had
dozens, about 30 different vetsfrom both sides, German and

(49:38):
American side, and I hadHolocaust survivors. Have you
ever been been to Dachau? No,I'll never forget it. I just
stood there, and it was sooverwhelming that particularly
the Jewish temple that was builton the grounds of. Count for

(50:01):
commemoration after the war, andyou walk into that, and if you
don't start crying, there'ssomething wrong with you. So I
know what Nazism is. I mean, I'mpost war generation, but I know
what Nazism is. I am enragedwhen people are saying Trump is
a fascist. He is the furthestpossible remove. That is simply

(50:25):
rhetoric from the left that isabsolutely obscene. Comparing
Trump to the Holocaust. Talk toa Holocaust survivor, and I've
talked with them. I had themteach my class. You know what
they went through. It is evil.
It is actually evil to say thatconservative Republicans are

(50:46):
Nazis, it's just evil.

Yeah, it's interesting to like, I don't see
I hear a lot of talk of theimmigration and the illegal
immigration and ice, but it'sinteresting if I don't think
I've heard any side explain,because I was so curious, I was
like, Okay, well, what are theactual immigration laws? And if
you look back and you go throughit, and it's actually, I think
your buddy, Newt Gingrich, itwas during his time, they made a

(51:15):
deal. The Democrats and theRepublicans worked together
because there wasn't a legalimmigration issue, and they made
all these rules and laws, and ifyou look at the reasons why they
did it, it's to benefit theworkers and a lot, because a lot
of what happens with the illegalimmigration is the these
corporations take advantage ofthe illegal immigration, and

(51:38):
they get the cheaper labor, andthey exploit these people, and
Then they can, they can takeadvantage of them, because
they're like, well, you're anillegal you can't you don't have
any rights. You can't speak up,and we're not going to pay you
full wages, we're not going togive you benefits, and you can't
do anything about it, because ifyou do, we'll just deport you.
And so if you look at thereasoning behind it, it's like,
and then they, they allow somany visas. I mean, the bills
that they put together, thatNewt and Clinton put together. I

(52:01):
mean, it makes sense if you'relooking at, could you revamp it
and modernize it? Sure, but Imean, the laws on the books, to
me, seem pretty reasonable.

The laws have been there all along, I
mean, throughout, except the dayafter Biden became, uh
president. The gates wereopened. It was almost like, if
we open the gates, they willcome, and they came by the
millions. And it was it wasobscene. It was wrong. They're

(52:35):
being exploited. They're hereillegally. I can away. Not blame
a family for wanting to gethere, but it also involved a
tremendous number of malesalone, you know, hundreds of
1000s military age and militaryage. That's scary to me. I wrote

(52:58):
a book, it's been 10 years now,called day of wrath. It's a
relatively short book, 60,000words. And it postulated, have
you ever heard of the what wasit? Bracelin scenario from 2005
can't remember the exact name.
There was the Russian school thesouth of Russia, 2005 half a

(53:21):
dozen terrorists seized theschool on its opening day. They
murdered 250 children. Theymurdered them in horrific ways,
including dragging them onto theroof of the school, where it
could be seen raping and thenkilling them. 250 children died.

(53:42):
This scenario can apply here. Imean all of our situations and
public schools and all that,they've been lone wolf shooters.
You know, white male teenageyears in almost every single
case, we're not prepared forwhat could be something far

(54:04):
worse, three to five terroristsseizing school, or worse yet, 10
to 15 terrorists, three seizingthree different schools on the
same day and killing everybody.
That would cripple us. We wouldnever really psychologically
recover from it. What willhappen to that? Can you imagine

(54:26):
500 or 1000 children slaughteredin a day? Well that's what my
book was about, and that was thewarning we have to think out
better ways to protect ourschools. And my book's actually
been used as a training manualnow and a number of different
schools have, we have to rethinkhow to defend them, so things

(54:47):
like that can upset the applecart in upset way. And that's
one of our vulnerabilities.

Yeah, that's, that's, that is really a scary
thing with the schools. You'reright because, and I think
someone had point. It out thistoo, that, you know, it's
interesting, when you go to theairport, you got to go through
security. When you go to aconcert, you have to go through
security and metal detector. Andso, I mean, it's sad to say,
because I, again, I used to workin the schools, and I liked
being able to that it was, itfelt like a safe place. But

(55:15):
lately it doesn't. And it almostfeels like you almost need that
metal detector. You know, I did,it's not a future that I wanted
to envision, but unfortunately,I feel like we're almost there
where you kind of need moreprotection around schools,
because they are our children.
And you're right, like the lonewolf thing is scary enough, but
if there was a group of people,then that's really scary.

Yeah, I teach at a Christian college. We
have about 700 students. We'resmall, we're up in the
mountains. We have a terriblesense of security. I say
terrible because the studentdirector for all this and I we
have a lot of conversations, andwe're very, very vulnerable. So

(56:01):
so how do we prepare for it?
Well, either you become afortress or not. Do we want to
be a fortress? You know, metaldetectors everywhere, kids being
patted down and all that. No, wedon't. But on the other side of
the coin, if our school was evertargeted, I'm frightened by it.
Therefore I believe very, veryfirmly in the right to arm

(56:23):
certain teachers, not anyteacher. Let's say you got 20
people volunteer to do it in apublic school. Pick out the ones
that are military, militarytrained law office chain. So
let's say you get five. Part ofit is you keep your damn mouth
shut. You never say if yousuddenly went sitting in the

(56:48):
faculty room going, oh yeah.
Well, you know, I got a gun onme right now. Bullshit. You're
fired on the spot. You veryquietly train these people, and
you just have them hidden. Theymight be able to buy time,
because it becomes a not knownfactor, which teachers are
armed. So that's something Ibelieve strongly in. However, if

(57:12):
I did carry a gun into myschool, I would be fired,

right? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know
the exact solution, but I dofeel like we do need some, some
backup plans for a lot of thesethings, you know, a lot of
these, because it's just, itgoes back to September 11, like
we were caught with our pantsdown. We were not expecting
something like this, and so wegot to start thinking. And I
think, wasn't there a governmentagency that that is their job is

(57:39):
to think up these terriblethings and then the plan for how
we would react to it, right?
Wasn't that a thing?

Yes. I mean, that's any good military
system. Part of it is thinkingup scenarios of what could be
done, because let's go all theway back to EMP. EMP is what
they call an asymmetrical firststrike weapon, meaning you
launch it as a first strike, youput it up over the United

(58:06):
States, you blow it, you wipeout the civilian infrastructure.
In fact, you basically won thewar in the first five minutes,
15 to 20 minutes. We have to dothe same thing with schools and
a lot of other things. We haveto think up scenarios to realize
this might possibly happen. Howdo we prevent it? Imagine if on

(58:28):
September 10, somebody finallysaid, you know, airplanes could
be turned into ballisticmissiles. Most likely people did
say this, but they weren't takenseriously,

yeah. And I think you mentioned that in the last
episode, that your, your dreamis for people to look back in 50
Years and go, Oh, that guy wassuch a cook. He was so wrong.
You don't want to be right. Youdon't want it to be to happen.

Don't want to be right. Yeah,
definitely don't want to beright. Yeah, when I, when I
leave this planet, yeah, thewhole little celebration of me,
yeah, he's the guy I wrote thebook that never came true, but
he had a good time doing it.
Yeah? So that that's what I wantout of life, and that means
being better prepared.

Yeah, absolutely.
Well, the book is out. Now, it'sbeen out, and then the movie
will be coming this it'sstarting September. So you think

about, well, we're starting shooting
around September 15, and we'regoing to wrap at the end of
October, and we're looking atlate spring, early summer, for,
uh, release as a mainstream, youknow, in the theater

movie, okay, I'm excited. I can't wait to

see it.
You're excited? Yeah?

No, I know it's your dream. It's amazing that.
And then maybe sequels too,because there's the books have
sequels, so they can make moviesequels.

Oh, yeah, from your lips to God's ear,
yeah, if the movie goes well,then we've already said, if it
goes well, won't do. A seasonalthing. Next one would be six or
eight episodes on book two. Andif that goes well, and I'm going
to be sitting there talking withmy accountant on how to hide the

(01:00:11):
money and but the message, thekey thing there is the message
will keep getting reinforced andacross. We have to build golden
dome. We definitely have to dothat. We have to upgrade our
infrastructure that it couldsurvive a strike. And that can
be done, maybe not the wholeinfrastructure, but at least

(01:00:34):
what I call lifelines ofsurvival and rebuilding one or
two power lines radiating outfrom Charlotte to up here would
be a way for this communitysurrounded to start to rebuild.
So these are the things I'mhoping for.

Chuck Shute (01:00:52):
Yeah, well, I hope the movie, maybe it'll that'll
be big enough to send thatmessage and people will take it
seriously. Yeah,

Dr. William Forstchen (01:01:01):
it's kind of funny to think that I'm going
to have a movie.

Well, congratulations. I'm excited to
see it, and you'll have to comeback when the movie comes out.
We can promote it again.

You know, I feel very blessed, very, very
blessed that that God put mehere, put me in the small
college where I definitelyneeded to be and wanted to be. I
got to raise my daughter in thiscommunity. I just feel very
blessed. So thank you Lord forthe blessings I have. And man on

(01:01:38):
my family. Yeah, I

love to hear, well, that's great. Sounds like you're
in a great sounds like you're ina great place and good things
are happening. I'm happy foryou. Thank you very much. All
right, we'll stay in touch.
Thank you.

Okay, live long and cross. Oh,

there you go. Live long and cross first. All right,
you too. Okay, goodbye. Bye.

THEME SONG (01:02:00):
From the rockers to the wise men soon and Fauci.

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