December 10, 2025 • 46 mins
A listener asked a blunt question we couldn’t ignore: what happens if Congress lets the enhanced ACA subsidies expire—and how likely is it they’ll do nothing? We walk through what those subsidies actually did for real families, what vanishes when they lapse, and why “gridlock” isn’t a neutral accident but a choice with a body count. Expect straight talk about premium shocks, ballooning deductibles, and the knock-on costs that hit hospitals, states, and anyone one medical bill away from disaster.
From there, we widen the lens. The same political habits that stall basic health protections also shape how we talk about violence. We unpack how “war” becomes respectable killing with a budget, how “terrorism” is reserved for those without a flag, and how “law” can launder cruelty behind official language. When words become costumes for power, the public becomes easier to pacify. So we interrogate the vocabulary: who profits, who pays, and who gets shielded when these terms are deployed. You’ll hear archival insights from Gore Vidal on perpetual war and from Noam Chomsky on how to reduce terror by addressing real grievances instead of feeding the cycle.
This isn’t policy wonkery for its own sake. It’s about the human consequences of delay and the moral clarity to call things by their true names. We make the case for a clean extension of ACA subsidies now, then challenge listeners to keep their loyalties in order—conscience before slogans, people before spectacle. If you found value in this conversation, subscribe, share it with a friend who cares about health justice, and leave a review to help more people find the show.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (01:32):
Good evening, good people.
Welcome to the Darrow McClainShow.
Independent media that won'treinforce tribalism.
We have one planet, nobody isleaving.
So let us reason together.
We don't tiptoe around the truthon the show.
We talk right into it like a manstepping into coal, ocean,
water, bracing, shocking, butcleansing.
(01:53):
And so tonight's show opens upwith a question that landed in
my inbox like a breakthrough awindow.
A question so real, so groundedin the daily struggle of working
people that it deserves to beonce again read out loud.
Durrell, so many people can'tafford health care.
If politicians let theaffordable care benefits lap,
(02:14):
how likely is Congress to letthis happen without an
extension?
Woo! That is not just aquestion.
That's a drumbeat of a countryon the edge of a health care
cliff.
And here's the truth, family.
Told plain and told straight,only like I could deliver.
Millions of Americans, peopleworking two jobs, people raising
(02:36):
grandchildren, people fightingchronic illnesses, people doing
everything right could see theirhealth care ripped right out
from under them just becauseCongress can't get its act
together.
Now, this isn't hypothetical,this isn't academic, this is
real-world kitchen table, bloodpressure rising reality.
If the affordable care subsidiesexpire, premiums will jump like
(03:00):
a startled deer, deductibleswill skyrocket, four million
people fall out of coverage, andthe hospitals brace for another
wave of uninsured Americansshowing up late, sicker, and
desperate.
And all of this, all of it is ofcourse preventable.
But Congress has turnedsomething simple into some kind
of gladiator match.
(03:21):
They have actually known thedeadline was coming for years.
But like kids who wait until thenight before the project's to
do, they are suddenly on toargue over crayons at poster
board.
So when someone asks me howlikely is Congress to let this
happen with an extension, myanswer is heartbreaking and it's
honest.
More likely than it should be.
More likely than any moralnation should tolerate.
(03:43):
More likely than anyone whocares about the American people
should ever allow.
Why?
Because gridlock is easier thancourage, because cruelty is
cheaper than compassion.
Because some folks in Washingtontalk about fiscal responsibility
while ignoring the human cost,the bodies, the pain, the
families left scrambling.
So tonight we're gonna peel backthis onion all the way back.
(04:07):
What is Congress doing?
Why are they refusing to do so?
What millions of Americans arein danger and why, and what it
says about the moral backbone ofour political system.
Because a country that canfunnel wars at the speed of
light but can't keep insulinaffordable, a country that can
bail out banks but notgrandmothers, a country that can
(04:27):
send tax cuts to billionairesbut shrugs of cancer patients,
that country needs a mirror anda moment of repentance.
So welcome to the Daron McLeanShow.
Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_03 (04:38):
The peace that God has given to us is not a fragile
truce, where the next time Islip up, he's gonna start
rattling the sword at me again.
(05:15):
Which means what?
That's where my songs come from.
SPEAKER_00 (05:31):
You've been listening to Ultimately with RC
Sprung.
If you enjoyed the show, pleasesubscribe or leave a review in
your favorite podcast app.
For more information, visitultimatelypodcast.com.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
Welcome back to the show where we talk about the
things that politicians pretendare complicated, but the
American people live everysingle day.
So tonight we're gonna bebreaking open a topic that
should not even be controversialin a civilized nation.
But because uh America is theland of a$14 aspirin, here we
(06:15):
are.
And the question I keep hearing,the one the listeners sent in
and loud and clear is the onesitting like an anvil inside of
my conscience, and is this.
I'm gonna say it one more time.
Darrell, so many people can'tafford health care.
If politicians let theaffordable care benefits lapse,
(06:38):
how likely is Congress to letthis happen without an
extension?
So let me approach this um withjust as much heart and fire as I
can because this topic doesreally get my goat.
It does really grind my gears.
So let's get something straight.
(06:58):
The Affordable Care Act isn'tperfect.
We all know that.
Premiums are still too high,deductible is still absurd, and
insurance companies still verypowerful, still very hungry.
But the enhanced subsidies, thepandemic era affordability
boosts, the tax credits thattook premiums from rent level
(07:22):
down to manageable.
They kept millions of peopleafloat, not thriving, afloat.
And that means I can go to thedoctor without having to sell a
kidney.
Now these subsidies are set toexpire at the end of 2025.
And they're gonna expire.
You heard that right, like themilk on the counter expires.
(07:46):
And if Congress doesn't act,we're talking about premiums
doubling for millions,deductibles jumping from
annoying to catastrophic, andfamilies being forced to choose
between rent, food, or stayingassured.
So roughly, roughly four millionpeople will be losing coverage
completely.
This is not a drill, this is notpartisan theater.
(08:07):
This is a looming policydisaster with real-world human
consequences.
And this is all because of thepolitical dysfunction in
Washington.
Congress knew, Congress hadyears, Congress did nothing.
These lawmakers are the sameones who get government-funded
health insurance with nodeductibles, mind you, let this
(08:29):
deadline crep up while they werebusy performing culture war
theater, fundraising, and flyinghome for recess and pretending
that the market would magicallysort itself out.
Now the cruelty here isn't whatCongress is doing, it is what
Congress is not doing.
This is failure by negligence.
And when failure becomespredictable, it is no longer
(08:52):
failure, it is a policy design.
And there's a moral dimension tothis as well.
And let me put it to you likethis.
In the wealthiest nation in thehistory of the world, the idea
that millions of people couldlose health care because
Congress refuses to act isoutrageous, it is immoral, and
(09:14):
it is absolutely unacceptable.
We spend trillions and trillionsof dollars on wars.
We spend billions and billionsof dollars on subsidies
subsidizing corporations thatpay their workers starvation
wages.
We lower and shower tax breakson the richest one to five
(09:34):
percent.
But we keep working class singlemothers insured.
Nope.
Oh no, that when it comes tothat, suddenly the government is
broke.
This is the absolute core of theAmerican contradiction.
We have money for everythingexcept the things that actually
(09:54):
save human lives.
We treat healthcare like aluxury product, not a human
right in a free society.
Now, when these subsidies lapse,when everyday people suddenly
get hit with a$700 premium or$8,000 deductibles, politicians
will shrug and say somethinglike, Thoughts and prayers.
And let me tell you one thing.
(10:16):
Thoughts do not reduce premiums,and prayers does not cover your
chemotherapy.
Hope doesn't refill your insulinvial.
Every other developed nationguarantees health care to its
people, every single one exceptthe United States of America.
Now let me put it to you likethe veteran I am and the
(10:40):
counselor that I am, then Iwould say to the friend to the
hurting, because policy isn'tabstract.
Policy has a pulse.
I've sat with people, they hadto ration their medication.
I've watched working men ignorechest pain because they were
afraid of a bill.
I have had the displeasure ofcounseling mothers who cried
(11:03):
because their children neededspecialties that they could not
afford.
Insurance companies don't seethe tears.
Congress don't hear the tremblein those voices, but I have and
I do, and you do as well.
We all do.
So when people say, Darrell,what are the odds Congress will
let these benefits expire?
Here's the heartbreaking truth.
(11:24):
The odds are far higher thanthey should be.
Why?
Because Congress has masteredthe art of doing nothing while
pretending they're doingsomething.
They create panels, they createhearings, they issue statements
full of passive verbs withabsolutely no commitment and no
action.
And meanwhile, real people die,real people bleed.
(11:49):
And a nation that can designdrones that can hit a target
from 8,000 miles away can'tfigure out how to keep a
diabetic person insured.
That makes no damn sense to me.
This isn't just a moral crisis,this is an economic earthquake.
Because when people loseinsurance, hospitals take on
more unpaid care.
(12:10):
Emergency rooms fill up, statespay more, families go break from
productivity fail, lifeexpectancy dips.
We treat healthcare like it'soptional, but the economy knows
it isn't.
America is already one medicalbill away from a collapse for
millions.
If these subsidies vanish, we'renot talking about inconvenience.
(12:31):
We're talking about devastation.
And some Republicans oppose thesubsidies because they call them
too generous.
Too generous?
A$20,000 deductible is generous.
A$1,200 premium is generous.
Families choosing between healthcare and heat is generous.
Meanwhile, some Democrats, let'sbe honest, waited too long.
(12:52):
They assumed they get anextension passed.
They assumed the votes wouldmaterialize.
They assume the political windswould shift.
The political winds did notshift.
Leadership failed on both sides,and they failed everyday
American people.
Now what should happen?
Congress passes a cleanextension immediately.
(13:13):
No games, no hostage taking, nopoison pills.
What will probably happen?
Last minute negotiations, apartial extension, a
watered-down version, or totalinnocuation until it's
completely too late.
Because dysfunction is the newnormal.
Congress actually seems to waituntil the House is fully
(13:35):
engulfed in flames, then arguesabout who had the gasoline
sitting there, who lit thematches, and who also left the
stove on.
So let me say this in a voicethat I can summon the most fury
(15:44):
with.
If Congress lets millions ofpeople lose health care, it
wasn't an accident, it was achoice.
And if it becomes a choice, thenit becomes a moral stain.
The nation is long overdue for areckoning with its healthcare
system.
Not a tinkering, not paperwork,a full reimagining of what it
(16:05):
means for a society to care forpeople who sustain it.
And it's not a radical idea tosay that people shouldn't die
because they're poor.
It is not a radical idea to lookat the incentives, follow the
money to see who benefits fromthis type of inaction.
And if you want to judge thecharacter of a nation, look at
(16:25):
who suffers when a budget getstight.
Right now, the suffering isaimed at the working class and
at the poor.
So let me close with this.
We are standing at a moralcrossroads.
One road says health care is aprivilege for the lucky, and the
other says health care is aright for the living.
One road protects corporations,the other road protects
(16:49):
families.
One road leads to suffering, theother leads to dignity.
Congress gets to choose theroad, but we live with the
consequences that our Congresshas picked.
And if they choose the wrongroad, if they let these ACA
benefits die, then everydayAmericans will once again pay
the price for politicalcowardice.
And I'm telling you right now,this time, the people won't stay
(17:13):
quiet about it.
SPEAKER_02 (17:41):
We don't have to keep living like this.
SPEAKER_01 (17:49):
War, terror, the law, and the vocabulary that
shapes our violence.
War, terror, and the law.
The vocabulary that shapes ourviolence.
Hello, family.
Let's sit a minute with threeugly, overused, and badly abused
words.
(18:09):
War, terrorism, and law.
And these aren't just vocabularywords.
These are spellcasting wordswhen powerful people say them
out loud.
Money moves, people die, and thenews cycle starts singing in
harmony.
So if we're going to live awakein a world we just hear these
(18:33):
words, we have to interrogatethem.
We just can't hear them.
War is when murder puts on auniform.
War is what we call killing whena flag approves it.
If I shoot you in the street,that's murder.
If I shoot you in a desertwearing a uniform under orders,
(18:55):
that's service.
Same bullet, same body,different label.
War is what nations declare whenthey want to do openly and
proudly what would be illegallyor immoral for any individual to
do privately.
We dress it up defending ourinterests, projecting stability,
(19:16):
maintaining order.
Behind the slogans is somethingsimple and ancient.
We are willing to kill to keepwhat we have and to get what we
want.
War is the moment when thegovernment says we will now
suspend the rules we taught toyou were sacred at scale.
And here's the twist.
(19:38):
War always pretends is temporartemporary.
Just for now, just this crisis,justice threat.
But the mist of war seeps backhome.
When you normalize overseas,you'll eventually tolerate it in
your own streets.
Number two, terrorism.
(19:59):
Violence without a flag.
Now let's talk terrorism.
Terrorism is what power callsviolence when it doesn't control
the person holding the gun orthe bomb.
If a small group blows up abuilding, we call it terrorism.
If a large well-fundedgovernment flattens a city block
with a missile, we call it airsupport.
(20:21):
Same fear, same screaming, samebodies buried under rubble.
But only one of those is foldedby the press conference with a
flag at a podium.
Terrorism, as defined by thepowerful, is not really about.
(20:43):
Innocent lives, those are takenin every war.
Civilians, they are always themajority of casualties anyway.
Terrorism is about who isallowed to use terror and get
away with it.
If a non state group kills fiftypeople, they are barbaric
monsters who must be haunted tothe ends of the earth.
(21:04):
If a state kills five hundred byaccident, we call it collateral
damage and issue a statement.
We deeply regret the loss oflife and will review our
procedures.
Terror is not just bombs andbullets.
It is also quiet fear of a droneyou can't see, of sanctions you
(21:25):
can't feel until the medicinedisappears, of the occupation
that becomes the wallpaper ofyour life.
The difference between war andterrorism is often nothing but a
logo, a budget line, and a PRdepartment.
three Law The Cost of Violence.
(21:46):
Now law, we like to imagine lawas neutral, clean, blindfolded
with a scale.
In reality, law is often theofficial script that tells us
which violence is permitted andwhich violence is punished and
which violence is ignored.
Law says this bomb is legal,that homemade one is terrorism.
(22:10):
Law says this invasion isauthorized.
That renaissance of resistanceis criminal.
Law says this killing is anunfortunate accident.
That killing is an act of war.
Law is a powerful I know that assomeone who was a uniform,
(22:32):
enforced rules, and swore oaths.
Law can protect the weak.
Law can restrain the strong.
Law can expose corruption, butlaw can also launder cruelty.
We have had laws that said youcan own other human beings.
(22:53):
We have had laws that said youcan segregate them, you can r
redline them, you can deny themeducation, and you can deny them
housing.
You can bomb a smaller country,and you can even bomb places in
your own country and call itpreemptive self defense.
(23:16):
If law was always righteous, wewouldn't need prophets.
If law was always correct, wewouldn't need We wouldn't need
people willing to say, I knowit's legal, but that doesn't
make it right.
Law tells you what is allowed.
(23:37):
Conscience tells you what isacceptable before God and
history.
Confusing those two is how goodpeople help evil systems run on
God.
Number four, the deadlytriangle.
Now put the three together andyou get the machinery of a
modern empire.
(23:58):
War gives you the stage.
Law gives you the script.
Terrorism gives you the villain.
Once you've labeled someone aterrorist, whole categories of
law and morality go out thewindow.
You can detain them withouttrial.
You can bomb them without adeclaration.
(24:22):
You can surveil them without awarrant.
And you can censor them withoutshame.
Why?
Because the magic word has beenspoken.
Terrorism.
Then war becomes permanent.
But we stop calling it war.
It becomes operations,campaigns, strikes, threats,
(24:46):
theater.
And law follows along, liftingbehind rewriting itself to keep
yesterday's illegal act safefrom tomorrow's court cases.
Number five.
So what do we do with that?
This is not just theory.
(25:07):
This is discipleship of themind.
This is spiritual warfare forthe vocabulary.
First, refuse lazy language.
When you hear war, ask whodeclared it?
On whom?
Who profits?
Who pays in blood?
When you hear terrorism, ask,who's a terror account?
(25:31):
Does the word apply to the bobor just a person who dropped it
without a uniform?
When you hear the word law, askwho wrote said law.
Who is shielded by it?
Who is crushed under it?
Would this law look righteous ifyou were the one on the other
end of it?
(25:52):
Second, remember that legalityand morality are not twin.
Slavery was legal.
Segregation was legal.
The Holocaust was legal.
Many invasions, occupations, anddrone strikes were given legal
cover.
(26:13):
Lawful and jest are not alwaysthe same thing.
Third, keep your loyalty inorder.
For me, as a Christian and as aformer law enforcement and
military guy, the order isclear.
God first is shaped by truth incountries and its laws.
(26:39):
Anything that reverses thatorder will ask you one day to
call darkness and light andlight and darkness.
And they will also ask you tosalute while doing so.
So the bottom line today is waris what we call large-scale
killing with a budget.
(26:59):
Terrorism is what we callunsanctioned violence that
scares us.
Law is what the costume we puton power so its violence looks
respectable.
Your job is to see through thecostume.
(27:20):
Because at the end of the day,when the cameras are off and the
speeches are done, there isstill a human body on the
ground, a grieving family, and agod who is not impressed by how
neat your paperwork looks.
Drink your coffee.
Wake up your mind.
Don't let anybody weaponize yourvocabulary.
(27:43):
Silence every bar or rewriteevery law.
But we can refuse to let liesride on the back of freaking
words.
That's where the resistancestarts.
With the courage to call thingsby their true name.
This substack was written byDarrell McLean yesterday.
(28:04):
It is called War, Terror, andthe Law.
The vocabulary that shapes ourviolence.
Let's get to our blast from theintellectual past, and we will
see you on the next episode.
SPEAKER_04 (28:23):
Authored more than 20 novels, five plays.
His recent books includeDreaming War, Perpetual War for
Perpetual Peace, and ImperialAmerica Reflections on the
United States of Amnesia.
His latest is a memoir.
It's called Point to PointNavigation.
Last week at the Los AngelesTimes Festival of Books, I heard
Gore Vidal would be there, andafterwards went to his home in
(28:46):
Hollywood Hills.
We sat down in his living room,and I asked him for his thoughts
on this election year and on thelast eight years of George W.
Bush in the White House.
SPEAKER_05 (28:58):
Well, it isn't over yet.
You know, he can still blow upthe world.
There's every indication thathe's still thinking about
attacking Iran.
The generals are now reportingthat the Iran are in great
danger and their weapons arebeing used to kill Americans.
(29:19):
I think quite rightly the wisdommight think that uh the American
people are idiots.
They don't get the point toanything.
There are two good reasons forthis.
It's the public educationalsystem for people, kids without
money, let's say.
(29:39):
To put it tactfully, uh it's oneof the worst in the first world.
It's just terrible.
And they end by knowing nohistory, certainly no American
history.
I didn't mean to spend my lifewriting American history, which
should have been taught in theschools.
But I saw no alternative but totaking it on myself.
(30:00):
I can think of a lot of cheerierthings I'd rather be doing than
uh analyzing George Washingtonand Aaron Burr.
But it came to pass that thatwasn't my job, so I just I did
it.
SPEAKER_04 (30:14):
You wrote United States of Amnesia.
Why?
unknown (30:19):
That's a good title.
SPEAKER_05 (30:24):
You must remember this is a people that has no
culture.
SPEAKER_04 (30:30):
You wrote two books um during the Bush
administration.
Uh two of the books you'vewritten are Perpetual War for
Perpetual Peace and DraighteningWar.
Why these two?
SPEAKER_05 (30:42):
Well, perpetual war for perpetual peace.
That's my main book during thatperiod.
That was the foreign policy ofthe Bush administration.
Perpetual war.
This is also Harry Truman'sdream.
He started the Cold War.
If any history had been impartedto our people, they'd know
they'd know all this.
(31:02):
You think I enjoy being the oneto tell them about it?
I don't.
SPEAKER_04 (31:07):
What about dreaming war?
No same thing.
SPEAKER_05 (31:11):
They were dreaming war.
Well, you can see little Bushall along is just dreaming of
war.
And uh and Cheney dreaming aboutoil wells and how you knock
knock apart a country like Iraq,and of course, their oil will
pay for the damage you do.
But that alone, he should havebeen put in front of a firing
(31:33):
squad.
Do you believe in the deathpenalty?
SPEAKER_04 (31:37):
No.
SPEAKER_05 (31:38):
But in their case, yes.
SPEAKER_04 (31:42):
And so here we are moved into the sixth year of the
war with Iraq, longer than theU.S.
was involved in World War II.
Yes.
SPEAKER_05 (31:50):
Incredible.
That was such a huge operationon two great continents against
two modern enemies, and we'refighting little jungle wars for
no reason.
Because we have a president whoknows nothing about anything.
He's just blank.
(32:11):
But he won't show up.
I'm war-time president, I'm awar-time president.
And he goes, yep, yep, yep.
It's like a crazed terrier.
And look where he got us.
I didn't realize, I think I'vealways had a good idea about my
native land.
I didn't think thatinstitutionally we were so easy
(32:31):
to overthrow.
Because it was a coup d'etat of9-11.
The whole went crashing.
And when we got rid of, whenthey got rid of Magna Carta, I
thought, well, really, thiswasn't much of a republic to
begin with.
SPEAKER_04 (32:45):
What do you mean, Magna Carta?
SPEAKER_05 (32:47):
Well, you know what Magna Carta means?
Yep.
Explain it.
Yes.
It's the basis of our law.
And there comes the whole uhtheory, practice, on which our
certain judicial system is basedto process some law.
(33:07):
You cannot deprive somebody oflife, liberty, sort of
happiness.
Because that is uh that is aright, a constitutional right.
And uh that is I mean, everyproper American that's graved on
his psyche.
Certainly was on mine.
It wasn't a day pass.
(33:28):
I was brought up by mygrandfather in Washington.
Only a day pass that he didn'twant to talk about due process.
SPEAKER_04 (33:35):
What do you mean, Gorvedal, when you say you think
what happened after 9-11 was acouple?
SPEAKER_05 (33:41):
Well, it was.
The first move they made at thetime when Timothy McVeigh
decided to blow up uh thefederal building in Oklahoma
City.
He started to write me letters,and I wrote him back, and he's a
(34:04):
very brilliant kid.
Very interested in law, wouldhave been made a good
constitutional lawyer.
And a patriot.
He's a professional soldier.
But he has to be depicted as amonster because who else would
blow up little children?
He didn't know he was blowing upany little children.
(34:24):
He was acting on a fit of rageat what had happened at Waco.
That whole religious communitywas set fire to by the army.
And as a soldier, he thought tohimself, you see, the one thing
that divides our country frombeing another military, a
(34:47):
militarized republic, it is notonly due process of law, but it
is also uh the Posse ComitatusAct of 1875, which the Army may
not be used in any actionagainst the citizens of the
United States.
And they just wondered thatviolently burned down more
(35:11):
children and mothers and so on,uh, than ever Mr.
McFay did.
So at that time, it happenedduring the um, must I know
what's her name, Janet Reno, shewas attorney general, it was
during Clinton's watch, whichwas a sloppy one, and they got
(35:37):
some panicky legislation becausethey thought, and with some
reason, that uh there was agroup of people, many of them
ex-soldiers, uh, who were readyto overthrow the government.
And they were anti-Semites, theywere, I meant anything you can
think of, they were that.
They were in rebellion againstthis country.
(36:01):
And I wrote about it in warningterms.
I went so far as to write Mr.
Mueller, who was the newdirector of the FBI.
And I saw he was never gonnafollow up.
They did all these interviewswith various guys living in the
woods around Fort Hood.
I said they're gonna be troubleone day.
(36:22):
And you don't even follow up onthem.
Yet you go on inventing stuffabout McVeigh, which isn't true.
They tried to pretend he was acrazy and this and that really.
He got the superstar, I think itwas.
So the coup d'etat comes out ofthis out of this.
(36:46):
They saw their chance.
They, Janey, Bush.
They wanted a war.
They're oil men.
They want a war unless they'llget more oil.
I mean, they're alsoextraordinarily stupid.
These people don't know anythingabout anything.
(37:06):
But they have this.
There's a thick piece of uhsheet of thick series of actions
to be taken.
Among others, I think one ofthem was to lock up every person
of color in the United States inorder to protect us from the
enemy within.
(37:27):
It was evil stuff.
So they latched on to that.
I guess Mr.
Gonzalez was already in place bythen.
And that was the coup d'etat.
They seized the state.
And from that moment on, theywere appointing all the judges.
They were doing this, they weredoing that.
(37:48):
They got rid of Magna Carta.
I will not explain why that is asecond time.
And uh they broke the republic.
SPEAKER_06 (37:58):
First of all, when we use the term terror, we have
to recognize that, like mostterms of political discourse, it
has two meanings.
There's a literal meaning, andthere's the doctrinal meaning.
Uh, in the literal meaning, uh,terror is what's described in
U.S.
code of laws.
It's the uh threat or use ofviolence uh to intimidate uh uh
(38:24):
typically against civilians, uh,to intimidate populations for
political, ideological, andother ends.
Well, nobody can use thatdefinition.
If we use that definition, itfollows instantly that the
United States is a leadingterrorist state, that Britain is
another leading terrorist state,and so on.
So the literal definition, theone that's in the U.S.
(38:46):
Code of Laws, is unusable.
Uh the then we go to thedoctrinal definition, the one
that's used in the media andscholarship and so on.
Uh that's the same as theofficial definition, but with a
condition qualification.
It only applies to what they doto us, not what we do to them.
Okay, that's the doctrinalmeaning.
I'll now use it in the doctrinalsense, though that's totally
(39:08):
dishonest, of course.
Uh, as to what to do about thethreat of terror in the
doctrinal sense, meaning theterror by them against us.
Uh there are a lot of things todo.
Uh one thing is to uh notincrease the threat.
That's a simple step.
Don't act in order to increasethe threat.
Now the U.S.
consistently and Britain act inorder to contrive increase the
(39:31):
threat of terror.
Not because they want terror,but just because it's not high
priority.
So take the invasion of Iraq.
As I mentioned, that wasundertaken with the expectation
since amply confirmed that itwould increase the threat of
terror.
They expected it, it happened.
Well, one of the ways not toincrease the threat of terror is
(39:53):
not to take steps like thatthat'll increase it.
Uh another, and never just asthis had unanimity on this in
the uh among specialists andintelligence agencies.
Uh second uh step is to try toask what its reasons are, what
are the causes of it?
And where the causes aregrievances that are legitimate
(40:14):
grievances, something should bedone about those grievances,
quite apart from the threat ofterror.
It's another way to reduce it.
Uh we have uh buttons.
Well, there's let me get let meget to Canada.
First of all, in the case ofCanada, it may turn out that the
motivation for the terror was uhCanadian troops in uh
(40:34):
Afghanistan.
You might look into that.
Uh but uh whatever it is, ifthere are grievances, then
something should be done.
Beyond that, terror is a policeproblem.
So if you find a terrorist sale,if it's legitimate in Canada,
yeah, then you should arrest theperpetrators and they should be
uh subjected to trial, just asthe leading terrorists should
(40:55):
be, like the ones in the WhiteHouse.
Uh but of course we're doing itonly keeping to the doctrinal
sense, so it's only them againstus.
But there's more to do.
What should the United States doabout this?
Well, actually, there is advicegiven, uh recommendations in the
9-11 Commission report.
As you recall, there was anofficial government commission
(41:15):
set up over the strongobjections of the Bush
administration, but they finallyhad to agree.
There was a commission set upthat made recommendations on uh
how to decrease the threat ofterror in the United States.
Well, one of them had to do withCanada.
Uh they concluded that uh the amajor threat of terror in the
United States is uh uh theCanadian border.
(41:38):
It's a very long border,practically unprotected, very
easy to cross.
Uh, and they recommended thatthere be a sharp increase in
border patrols on the Canadianborder.
That's their recommendation.
Well, how the Bushadministration respond.
It responded by reducing thegrowth of the Border Patrol
(41:59):
altogether after 9-11 increasein the Border Patrol reduced,
and shifting it from theCanadian border overwhelmingly
to the Mexican border.
Okay, so I don't remember thenumbers, but I think it's about
10 to 1 by now, you know, permile of uh surveillance of the
Mexican border and the Canadianborder.
Well, that's so they're uhreducing the effort to uh uh
(42:22):
defend the United States fromthe potential threat of terror
from Canada, reducing thatagain, another illustration of
the fact that uh protection ofthe population from terror is
just not a high priority.
Okay, so for the United States,something else that could be
done would be to say follow therecommendations of the 9-11
Commission.
And there's a lot more.
Uh terror is not coming fromnowhere.
(42:44):
Uh and what you want to do is Imean, it's easy to stand up on a
pedestal and scream Islam offascism and so on and so forth.
Maybe that makes you feel good.
Uh but if you want to deal withthe threat of terror, you'll ask
what its sources are and ask howthose sources can be dealt with.
I mean, terror the what we callterrorists are see themselves as
kind of a vanguard who aretrying to organize a
(43:06):
constituency to support theirlong term demands.
Now, their long term demands, inthe case of, say, al Qaihadi
styled terror, are pretty clear,and again, there's pretty near
unanimity about this in the youknow specialist community.
Uh there, as they put it, theirgoals are to defend Muslim lands
(43:27):
from attack.
And they list specificgrievances.
And the grievances are real.
They're trying to mobilize aconstituency to join them.
Well the way to deal there's twoways of dealing with it.
One is to ally yourself withOsama bin Laden.
That's the way Bush picked.
That's why the leading terroristspecialist in the United States
(43:50):
like Michael Scheuer describedBush as Osama bin Laden's
leading ally.
Because what he's done as if isto do exactly what Osama wants
to help the vanguard mobilizethe constituency in support of
the terrorist act.
What is recommended across theboard is pay some attention to
(44:13):
those reasons, which are real.
You can read that in the DefenseScience Board recommendations in
academic scholarship andintelligence reports, pay
attention to the grievances.
And many of them are real andthey should be dealt with quite
apart from the threat of terror.
That can reduce the threat ofterror.
And we know that it works.
I mean take say NorthernIreland.
(44:33):
Okay for a long time the Britishreaction to terror in Northern
Ireland, which was prettyserious, practically blew up the
British cabinet, all sorts ofthings, their reaction was just
to increase the violence.
Okay, that's the Bush line.
You join with the terrorists andyou're their ally.
It's exactly what the moremilitant sectors of the IRA
(44:54):
wanted.
So you get an escalating terrorand repression cycle.
Finally the British got intotheir heads that they should pay
some attention to the grievancesthat are the source of it.
And in fact they began to do sobecause the grievances were
real.
The constituency was beingmobilized around real
(45:14):
grievances.
When they began to do that thethreat of terror declined.
Belfast is not utopia but it's avery different place when say
when my wife and I visited in1993, which was a pretty scary
place.
It's not that anymore it's muchimproved and in fact the threat
of IRA terror has now been verymuch marginalized by doing the
(45:38):
sensible thing paying attentionto the source out of which it
grows
Good evening, good people.
Welcome to the Darrow McClainShow.
Independent media that won'treinforce tribalism.
We have one planet, nobody isleaving.
So let us reason together.
We don't tiptoe around the truthon the show.
We talk right into it like a manstepping into coal, ocean,
water, bracing, shocking, butcleansing.
(01:53):
And so tonight's show opens upwith a question that landed in
my inbox like a breakthrough awindow.
A question so real, so groundedin the daily struggle of working
people that it deserves to beonce again read out loud.
Durrell, so many people can'tafford health care.
If politicians let theaffordable care benefits lap,
(02:14):
how likely is Congress to letthis happen without an
extension?
Woo! That is not just aquestion.
That's a drumbeat of a countryon the edge of a health care
cliff.
And here's the truth, family.
Told plain and told straight,only like I could deliver.
Millions of Americans, peopleworking two jobs, people raising
(02:36):
grandchildren, people fightingchronic illnesses, people doing
everything right could see theirhealth care ripped right out
from under them just becauseCongress can't get its act
together.
Now, this isn't hypothetical,this isn't academic, this is
real-world kitchen table, bloodpressure rising reality.
If the affordable care subsidiesexpire, premiums will jump like
(03:00):
a startled deer, deductibleswill skyrocket, four million
people fall out of coverage, andthe hospitals brace for another
wave of uninsured Americansshowing up late, sicker, and
desperate.
And all of this, all of it is ofcourse preventable.
But Congress has turnedsomething simple into some kind
of gladiator match.
(03:21):
They have actually known thedeadline was coming for years.
But like kids who wait until thenight before the project's to
do, they are suddenly on toargue over crayons at poster
board.
So when someone asks me howlikely is Congress to let this
happen with an extension, myanswer is heartbreaking and it's
honest.
More likely than it should be.
More likely than any moralnation should tolerate.
(03:43):
More likely than anyone whocares about the American people
should ever allow.
Why?
Because gridlock is easier thancourage, because cruelty is
cheaper than compassion.
Because some folks in Washingtontalk about fiscal responsibility
while ignoring the human cost,the bodies, the pain, the
families left scrambling.
So tonight we're gonna peel backthis onion all the way back.
(04:07):
What is Congress doing?
Why are they refusing to do so?
What millions of Americans arein danger and why, and what it
says about the moral backbone ofour political system.
Because a country that canfunnel wars at the speed of
light but can't keep insulinaffordable, a country that can
bail out banks but notgrandmothers, a country that can
(04:27):
send tax cuts to billionairesbut shrugs of cancer patients,
that country needs a mirror anda moment of repentance.
So welcome to the Daron McLeanShow.
Let's get into it.
SPEAKER_03 (04:38):
The peace that God has given to us is not a fragile
truce, where the next time Islip up, he's gonna start
rattling the sword at me again.
(05:15):
Which means what?
That's where my songs come from.
SPEAKER_00 (05:31):
You've been listening to Ultimately with RC
Sprung.
If you enjoyed the show, pleasesubscribe or leave a review in
your favorite podcast app.
For more information, visitultimatelypodcast.com.
SPEAKER_01 (05:49):
Welcome back to the show where we talk about the
things that politicians pretendare complicated, but the
American people live everysingle day.
So tonight we're gonna bebreaking open a topic that
should not even be controversialin a civilized nation.
But because uh America is theland of a$14 aspirin, here we
(06:15):
are.
And the question I keep hearing,the one the listeners sent in
and loud and clear is the onesitting like an anvil inside of
my conscience, and is this.
I'm gonna say it one more time.
Darrell, so many people can'tafford health care.
If politicians let theaffordable care benefits lapse,
(06:38):
how likely is Congress to letthis happen without an
extension?
So let me approach this um withjust as much heart and fire as I
can because this topic doesreally get my goat.
It does really grind my gears.
So let's get something straight.
(06:58):
The Affordable Care Act isn'tperfect.
We all know that.
Premiums are still too high,deductible is still absurd, and
insurance companies still verypowerful, still very hungry.
But the enhanced subsidies, thepandemic era affordability
boosts, the tax credits thattook premiums from rent level
(07:22):
down to manageable.
They kept millions of peopleafloat, not thriving, afloat.
And that means I can go to thedoctor without having to sell a
kidney.
Now these subsidies are set toexpire at the end of 2025.
And they're gonna expire.
You heard that right, like themilk on the counter expires.
(07:46):
And if Congress doesn't act,we're talking about premiums
doubling for millions,deductibles jumping from
annoying to catastrophic, andfamilies being forced to choose
between rent, food, or stayingassured.
So roughly, roughly four millionpeople will be losing coverage
completely.
This is not a drill, this is notpartisan theater.
(08:07):
This is a looming policydisaster with real-world human
consequences.
And this is all because of thepolitical dysfunction in
Washington.
Congress knew, Congress hadyears, Congress did nothing.
These lawmakers are the sameones who get government-funded
health insurance with nodeductibles, mind you, let this
(08:29):
deadline crep up while they werebusy performing culture war
theater, fundraising, and flyinghome for recess and pretending
that the market would magicallysort itself out.
Now the cruelty here isn't whatCongress is doing, it is what
Congress is not doing.
This is failure by negligence.
And when failure becomespredictable, it is no longer
(08:52):
failure, it is a policy design.
And there's a moral dimension tothis as well.
And let me put it to you likethis.
In the wealthiest nation in thehistory of the world, the idea
that millions of people couldlose health care because
Congress refuses to act isoutrageous, it is immoral, and
(09:14):
it is absolutely unacceptable.
We spend trillions and trillionsof dollars on wars.
We spend billions and billionsof dollars on subsidies
subsidizing corporations thatpay their workers starvation
wages.
We lower and shower tax breakson the richest one to five
(09:34):
percent.
But we keep working class singlemothers insured.
Nope.
Oh no, that when it comes tothat, suddenly the government is
broke.
This is the absolute core of theAmerican contradiction.
We have money for everythingexcept the things that actually
(09:54):
save human lives.
We treat healthcare like aluxury product, not a human
right in a free society.
Now, when these subsidies lapse,when everyday people suddenly
get hit with a$700 premium or$8,000 deductibles, politicians
will shrug and say somethinglike, Thoughts and prayers.
And let me tell you one thing.
(10:16):
Thoughts do not reduce premiums,and prayers does not cover your
chemotherapy.
Hope doesn't refill your insulinvial.
Every other developed nationguarantees health care to its
people, every single one exceptthe United States of America.
Now let me put it to you likethe veteran I am and the
(10:40):
counselor that I am, then Iwould say to the friend to the
hurting, because policy isn'tabstract.
Policy has a pulse.
I've sat with people, they hadto ration their medication.
I've watched working men ignorechest pain because they were
afraid of a bill.
I have had the displeasure ofcounseling mothers who cried
(11:03):
because their children neededspecialties that they could not
afford.
Insurance companies don't seethe tears.
Congress don't hear the tremblein those voices, but I have and
I do, and you do as well.
We all do.
So when people say, Darrell,what are the odds Congress will
let these benefits expire?
Here's the heartbreaking truth.
(11:24):
The odds are far higher thanthey should be.
Why?
Because Congress has masteredthe art of doing nothing while
pretending they're doingsomething.
They create panels, they createhearings, they issue statements
full of passive verbs withabsolutely no commitment and no
action.
And meanwhile, real people die,real people bleed.
(11:49):
And a nation that can designdrones that can hit a target
from 8,000 miles away can'tfigure out how to keep a
diabetic person insured.
That makes no damn sense to me.
This isn't just a moral crisis,this is an economic earthquake.
Because when people loseinsurance, hospitals take on
more unpaid care.
(12:10):
Emergency rooms fill up, statespay more, families go break from
productivity fail, lifeexpectancy dips.
We treat healthcare like it'soptional, but the economy knows
it isn't.
America is already one medicalbill away from a collapse for
millions.
If these subsidies vanish, we'renot talking about inconvenience.
(12:31):
We're talking about devastation.
And some Republicans oppose thesubsidies because they call them
too generous.
Too generous?
A$20,000 deductible is generous.
A$1,200 premium is generous.
Families choosing between healthcare and heat is generous.
Meanwhile, some Democrats, let'sbe honest, waited too long.
(12:52):
They assumed they get anextension passed.
They assumed the votes wouldmaterialize.
They assume the political windswould shift.
The political winds did notshift.
Leadership failed on both sides,and they failed everyday
American people.
Now what should happen?
Congress passes a cleanextension immediately.
(13:13):
No games, no hostage taking, nopoison pills.
What will probably happen?
Last minute negotiations, apartial extension, a
watered-down version, or totalinnocuation until it's
completely too late.
Because dysfunction is the newnormal.
Congress actually seems to waituntil the House is fully
(13:35):
engulfed in flames, then arguesabout who had the gasoline
sitting there, who lit thematches, and who also left the
stove on.
So let me say this in a voicethat I can summon the most fury
(15:44):
with.
If Congress lets millions ofpeople lose health care, it
wasn't an accident, it was achoice.
And if it becomes a choice, thenit becomes a moral stain.
The nation is long overdue for areckoning with its healthcare
system.
Not a tinkering, not paperwork,a full reimagining of what it
(16:05):
means for a society to care forpeople who sustain it.
And it's not a radical idea tosay that people shouldn't die
because they're poor.
It is not a radical idea to lookat the incentives, follow the
money to see who benefits fromthis type of inaction.
And if you want to judge thecharacter of a nation, look at
(16:25):
who suffers when a budget getstight.
Right now, the suffering isaimed at the working class and
at the poor.
So let me close with this.
We are standing at a moralcrossroads.
One road says health care is aprivilege for the lucky, and the
other says health care is aright for the living.
One road protects corporations,the other road protects
(16:49):
families.
One road leads to suffering, theother leads to dignity.
Congress gets to choose theroad, but we live with the
consequences that our Congresshas picked.
And if they choose the wrongroad, if they let these ACA
benefits die, then everydayAmericans will once again pay
the price for politicalcowardice.
And I'm telling you right now,this time, the people won't stay
(17:13):
quiet about it.
SPEAKER_02 (17:41):
We don't have to keep living like this.
SPEAKER_01 (17:49):
War, terror, the law, and the vocabulary that
shapes our violence.
War, terror, and the law.
The vocabulary that shapes ourviolence.
Hello, family.
Let's sit a minute with threeugly, overused, and badly abused
words.
(18:09):
War, terrorism, and law.
And these aren't just vocabularywords.
These are spellcasting wordswhen powerful people say them
out loud.
Money moves, people die, and thenews cycle starts singing in
harmony.
So if we're going to live awakein a world we just hear these
(18:33):
words, we have to interrogatethem.
We just can't hear them.
War is when murder puts on auniform.
War is what we call killing whena flag approves it.
If I shoot you in the street,that's murder.
If I shoot you in a desertwearing a uniform under orders,
(18:55):
that's service.
Same bullet, same body,different label.
War is what nations declare whenthey want to do openly and
proudly what would be illegallyor immoral for any individual to
do privately.
We dress it up defending ourinterests, projecting stability,
(19:16):
maintaining order.
Behind the slogans is somethingsimple and ancient.
We are willing to kill to keepwhat we have and to get what we
want.
War is the moment when thegovernment says we will now
suspend the rules we taught toyou were sacred at scale.
And here's the twist.
(19:38):
War always pretends is temporartemporary.
Just for now, just this crisis,justice threat.
But the mist of war seeps backhome.
When you normalize overseas,you'll eventually tolerate it in
your own streets.
Number two, terrorism.
(19:59):
Violence without a flag.
Now let's talk terrorism.
Terrorism is what power callsviolence when it doesn't control
the person holding the gun orthe bomb.
If a small group blows up abuilding, we call it terrorism.
If a large well-fundedgovernment flattens a city block
with a missile, we call it airsupport.
(20:21):
Same fear, same screaming, samebodies buried under rubble.
But only one of those is foldedby the press conference with a
flag at a podium.
Terrorism, as defined by thepowerful, is not really about.
(20:43):
Innocent lives, those are takenin every war.
Civilians, they are always themajority of casualties anyway.
Terrorism is about who isallowed to use terror and get
away with it.
If a non state group kills fiftypeople, they are barbaric
monsters who must be haunted tothe ends of the earth.
(21:04):
If a state kills five hundred byaccident, we call it collateral
damage and issue a statement.
We deeply regret the loss oflife and will review our
procedures.
Terror is not just bombs andbullets.
It is also quiet fear of a droneyou can't see, of sanctions you
(21:25):
can't feel until the medicinedisappears, of the occupation
that becomes the wallpaper ofyour life.
The difference between war andterrorism is often nothing but a
logo, a budget line, and a PRdepartment.
three Law The Cost of Violence.
(21:46):
Now law, we like to imagine lawas neutral, clean, blindfolded
with a scale.
In reality, law is often theofficial script that tells us
which violence is permitted andwhich violence is punished and
which violence is ignored.
Law says this bomb is legal,that homemade one is terrorism.
(22:10):
Law says this invasion isauthorized.
That renaissance of resistanceis criminal.
Law says this killing is anunfortunate accident.
That killing is an act of war.
Law is a powerful I know that assomeone who was a uniform,
(22:32):
enforced rules, and swore oaths.
Law can protect the weak.
Law can restrain the strong.
Law can expose corruption, butlaw can also launder cruelty.
We have had laws that said youcan own other human beings.
(22:53):
We have had laws that said youcan segregate them, you can r
redline them, you can deny themeducation, and you can deny them
housing.
You can bomb a smaller country,and you can even bomb places in
your own country and call itpreemptive self defense.
(23:16):
If law was always righteous, wewouldn't need prophets.
If law was always correct, wewouldn't need We wouldn't need
people willing to say, I knowit's legal, but that doesn't
make it right.
Law tells you what is allowed.
(23:37):
Conscience tells you what isacceptable before God and
history.
Confusing those two is how goodpeople help evil systems run on
God.
Number four, the deadlytriangle.
Now put the three together andyou get the machinery of a
modern empire.
(23:58):
War gives you the stage.
Law gives you the script.
Terrorism gives you the villain.
Once you've labeled someone aterrorist, whole categories of
law and morality go out thewindow.
You can detain them withouttrial.
You can bomb them without adeclaration.
(24:22):
You can surveil them without awarrant.
And you can censor them withoutshame.
Why?
Because the magic word has beenspoken.
Terrorism.
Then war becomes permanent.
But we stop calling it war.
It becomes operations,campaigns, strikes, threats,
(24:46):
theater.
And law follows along, liftingbehind rewriting itself to keep
yesterday's illegal act safefrom tomorrow's court cases.
Number five.
So what do we do with that?
This is not just theory.
(25:07):
This is discipleship of themind.
This is spiritual warfare forthe vocabulary.
First, refuse lazy language.
When you hear war, ask whodeclared it?
On whom?
Who profits?
Who pays in blood?
When you hear terrorism, ask,who's a terror account?
(25:31):
Does the word apply to the bobor just a person who dropped it
without a uniform?
When you hear the word law, askwho wrote said law.
Who is shielded by it?
Who is crushed under it?
Would this law look righteous ifyou were the one on the other
end of it?
(25:52):
Second, remember that legalityand morality are not twin.
Slavery was legal.
Segregation was legal.
The Holocaust was legal.
Many invasions, occupations, anddrone strikes were given legal
cover.
(26:13):
Lawful and jest are not alwaysthe same thing.
Third, keep your loyalty inorder.
For me, as a Christian and as aformer law enforcement and
military guy, the order isclear.
God first is shaped by truth incountries and its laws.
(26:39):
Anything that reverses thatorder will ask you one day to
call darkness and light andlight and darkness.
And they will also ask you tosalute while doing so.
So the bottom line today is waris what we call large-scale
killing with a budget.
(26:59):
Terrorism is what we callunsanctioned violence that
scares us.
Law is what the costume we puton power so its violence looks
respectable.
Your job is to see through thecostume.
(27:20):
Because at the end of the day,when the cameras are off and the
speeches are done, there isstill a human body on the
ground, a grieving family, and agod who is not impressed by how
neat your paperwork looks.
Drink your coffee.
Wake up your mind.
Don't let anybody weaponize yourvocabulary.
(27:43):
Silence every bar or rewriteevery law.
But we can refuse to let liesride on the back of freaking
words.
That's where the resistancestarts.
With the courage to call thingsby their true name.
This substack was written byDarrell McLean yesterday.
(28:04):
It is called War, Terror, andthe Law.
The vocabulary that shapes ourviolence.
Let's get to our blast from theintellectual past, and we will
see you on the next episode.
SPEAKER_04 (28:23):
Authored more than 20 novels, five plays.
His recent books includeDreaming War, Perpetual War for
Perpetual Peace, and ImperialAmerica Reflections on the
United States of Amnesia.
His latest is a memoir.
It's called Point to PointNavigation.
Last week at the Los AngelesTimes Festival of Books, I heard
Gore Vidal would be there, andafterwards went to his home in
(28:46):
Hollywood Hills.
We sat down in his living room,and I asked him for his thoughts
on this election year and on thelast eight years of George W.
Bush in the White House.
SPEAKER_05 (28:58):
Well, it isn't over yet.
You know, he can still blow upthe world.
There's every indication thathe's still thinking about
attacking Iran.
The generals are now reportingthat the Iran are in great
danger and their weapons arebeing used to kill Americans.
(29:19):
I think quite rightly the wisdommight think that uh the American
people are idiots.
They don't get the point toanything.
There are two good reasons forthis.
It's the public educationalsystem for people, kids without
money, let's say.
(29:39):
To put it tactfully, uh it's oneof the worst in the first world.
It's just terrible.
And they end by knowing nohistory, certainly no American
history.
I didn't mean to spend my lifewriting American history, which
should have been taught in theschools.
But I saw no alternative but totaking it on myself.
(30:00):
I can think of a lot of cheerierthings I'd rather be doing than
uh analyzing George Washingtonand Aaron Burr.
But it came to pass that thatwasn't my job, so I just I did
it.
SPEAKER_04 (30:14):
You wrote United States of Amnesia.
Why?
unknown (30:19):
That's a good title.
SPEAKER_05 (30:24):
You must remember this is a people that has no
culture.
SPEAKER_04 (30:30):
You wrote two books um during the Bush
administration.
Uh two of the books you'vewritten are Perpetual War for
Perpetual Peace and DraighteningWar.
Why these two?
SPEAKER_05 (30:42):
Well, perpetual war for perpetual peace.
That's my main book during thatperiod.
That was the foreign policy ofthe Bush administration.
Perpetual war.
This is also Harry Truman'sdream.
He started the Cold War.
If any history had been impartedto our people, they'd know
they'd know all this.
(31:02):
You think I enjoy being the oneto tell them about it?
I don't.
SPEAKER_04 (31:07):
What about dreaming war?
No same thing.
SPEAKER_05 (31:11):
They were dreaming war.
Well, you can see little Bushall along is just dreaming of
war.
And uh and Cheney dreaming aboutoil wells and how you knock
knock apart a country like Iraq,and of course, their oil will
pay for the damage you do.
But that alone, he should havebeen put in front of a firing
(31:33):
squad.
Do you believe in the deathpenalty?
SPEAKER_04 (31:37):
No.
SPEAKER_05 (31:38):
But in their case, yes.
SPEAKER_04 (31:42):
And so here we are moved into the sixth year of the
war with Iraq, longer than theU.S.
was involved in World War II.
Yes.
SPEAKER_05 (31:50):
Incredible.
That was such a huge operationon two great continents against
two modern enemies, and we'refighting little jungle wars for
no reason.
Because we have a president whoknows nothing about anything.
He's just blank.
(32:11):
But he won't show up.
I'm war-time president, I'm awar-time president.
And he goes, yep, yep, yep.
It's like a crazed terrier.
And look where he got us.
I didn't realize, I think I'vealways had a good idea about my
native land.
I didn't think thatinstitutionally we were so easy
(32:31):
to overthrow.
Because it was a coup d'etat of9-11.
The whole went crashing.
And when we got rid of, whenthey got rid of Magna Carta, I
thought, well, really, thiswasn't much of a republic to
begin with.
SPEAKER_04 (32:45):
What do you mean, Magna Carta?
SPEAKER_05 (32:47):
Well, you know what Magna Carta means?
Yep.
Explain it.
Yes.
It's the basis of our law.
And there comes the whole uhtheory, practice, on which our
certain judicial system is basedto process some law.
(33:07):
You cannot deprive somebody oflife, liberty, sort of
happiness.
Because that is uh that is aright, a constitutional right.
And uh that is I mean, everyproper American that's graved on
his psyche.
Certainly was on mine.
It wasn't a day pass.
(33:28):
I was brought up by mygrandfather in Washington.
Only a day pass that he didn'twant to talk about due process.
SPEAKER_04 (33:35):
What do you mean, Gorvedal, when you say you think
what happened after 9-11 was acouple?
SPEAKER_05 (33:41):
Well, it was.
The first move they made at thetime when Timothy McVeigh
decided to blow up uh thefederal building in Oklahoma
City.
He started to write me letters,and I wrote him back, and he's a
(34:04):
very brilliant kid.
Very interested in law, wouldhave been made a good
constitutional lawyer.
And a patriot.
He's a professional soldier.
But he has to be depicted as amonster because who else would
blow up little children?
He didn't know he was blowing upany little children.
(34:24):
He was acting on a fit of rageat what had happened at Waco.
That whole religious communitywas set fire to by the army.
And as a soldier, he thought tohimself, you see, the one thing
that divides our country frombeing another military, a
(34:47):
militarized republic, it is notonly due process of law, but it
is also uh the Posse ComitatusAct of 1875, which the Army may
not be used in any actionagainst the citizens of the
United States.
And they just wondered thatviolently burned down more
(35:11):
children and mothers and so on,uh, than ever Mr.
McFay did.
So at that time, it happenedduring the um, must I know
what's her name, Janet Reno, shewas attorney general, it was
during Clinton's watch, whichwas a sloppy one, and they got
(35:37):
some panicky legislation becausethey thought, and with some
reason, that uh there was agroup of people, many of them
ex-soldiers, uh, who were readyto overthrow the government.
And they were anti-Semites, theywere, I meant anything you can
think of, they were that.
They were in rebellion againstthis country.
(36:01):
And I wrote about it in warningterms.
I went so far as to write Mr.
Mueller, who was the newdirector of the FBI.
And I saw he was never gonnafollow up.
They did all these interviewswith various guys living in the
woods around Fort Hood.
I said they're gonna be troubleone day.
(36:22):
And you don't even follow up onthem.
Yet you go on inventing stuffabout McVeigh, which isn't true.
They tried to pretend he was acrazy and this and that really.
He got the superstar, I think itwas.
So the coup d'etat comes out ofthis out of this.
(36:46):
They saw their chance.
They, Janey, Bush.
They wanted a war.
They're oil men.
They want a war unless they'llget more oil.
I mean, they're alsoextraordinarily stupid.
These people don't know anythingabout anything.
(37:06):
But they have this.
There's a thick piece of uhsheet of thick series of actions
to be taken.
Among others, I think one ofthem was to lock up every person
of color in the United States inorder to protect us from the
enemy within.
(37:27):
It was evil stuff.
So they latched on to that.
I guess Mr.
Gonzalez was already in place bythen.
And that was the coup d'etat.
They seized the state.
And from that moment on, theywere appointing all the judges.
They were doing this, they weredoing that.
(37:48):
They got rid of Magna Carta.
I will not explain why that is asecond time.
And uh they broke the republic.
SPEAKER_06 (37:58):
First of all, when we use the term terror, we have
to recognize that, like mostterms of political discourse, it
has two meanings.
There's a literal meaning, andthere's the doctrinal meaning.
Uh, in the literal meaning, uh,terror is what's described in
U.S.
code of laws.
It's the uh threat or use ofviolence uh to intimidate uh uh
(38:24):
typically against civilians, uh,to intimidate populations for
political, ideological, andother ends.
Well, nobody can use thatdefinition.
If we use that definition, itfollows instantly that the
United States is a leadingterrorist state, that Britain is
another leading terrorist state,and so on.
So the literal definition, theone that's in the U.S.
(38:46):
Code of Laws, is unusable.
Uh the then we go to thedoctrinal definition, the one
that's used in the media andscholarship and so on.
Uh that's the same as theofficial definition, but with a
condition qualification.
It only applies to what they doto us, not what we do to them.
Okay, that's the doctrinalmeaning.
I'll now use it in the doctrinalsense, though that's totally
(39:08):
dishonest, of course.
Uh, as to what to do about thethreat of terror in the
doctrinal sense, meaning theterror by them against us.
Uh there are a lot of things todo.
Uh one thing is to uh notincrease the threat.
That's a simple step.
Don't act in order to increasethe threat.
Now the U.S.
consistently and Britain act inorder to contrive increase the
(39:31):
threat of terror.
Not because they want terror,but just because it's not high
priority.
So take the invasion of Iraq.
As I mentioned, that wasundertaken with the expectation
since amply confirmed that itwould increase the threat of
terror.
They expected it, it happened.
Well, one of the ways not toincrease the threat of terror is
(39:53):
not to take steps like thatthat'll increase it.
Uh another, and never just asthis had unanimity on this in
the uh among specialists andintelligence agencies.
Uh second uh step is to try toask what its reasons are, what
are the causes of it?
And where the causes aregrievances that are legitimate
(40:14):
grievances, something should bedone about those grievances,
quite apart from the threat ofterror.
It's another way to reduce it.
Uh we have uh buttons.
Well, there's let me get let meget to Canada.
First of all, in the case ofCanada, it may turn out that the
motivation for the terror was uhCanadian troops in uh
(40:34):
Afghanistan.
You might look into that.
Uh but uh whatever it is, ifthere are grievances, then
something should be done.
Beyond that, terror is a policeproblem.
So if you find a terrorist sale,if it's legitimate in Canada,
yeah, then you should arrest theperpetrators and they should be
uh subjected to trial, just asthe leading terrorists should
(40:55):
be, like the ones in the WhiteHouse.
Uh but of course we're doing itonly keeping to the doctrinal
sense, so it's only them againstus.
But there's more to do.
What should the United States doabout this?
Well, actually, there is advicegiven, uh recommendations in the
9-11 Commission report.
As you recall, there was anofficial government commission
(41:15):
set up over the strongobjections of the Bush
administration, but they finallyhad to agree.
There was a commission set upthat made recommendations on uh
how to decrease the threat ofterror in the United States.
Well, one of them had to do withCanada.
Uh they concluded that uh the amajor threat of terror in the
United States is uh uh theCanadian border.
(41:38):
It's a very long border,practically unprotected, very
easy to cross.
Uh, and they recommended thatthere be a sharp increase in
border patrols on the Canadianborder.
That's their recommendation.
Well, how the Bushadministration respond.
It responded by reducing thegrowth of the Border Patrol
(41:59):
altogether after 9-11 increasein the Border Patrol reduced,
and shifting it from theCanadian border overwhelmingly
to the Mexican border.
Okay, so I don't remember thenumbers, but I think it's about
10 to 1 by now, you know, permile of uh surveillance of the
Mexican border and the Canadianborder.
Well, that's so they're uhreducing the effort to uh uh
(42:22):
defend the United States fromthe potential threat of terror
from Canada, reducing thatagain, another illustration of
the fact that uh protection ofthe population from terror is
just not a high priority.
Okay, so for the United States,something else that could be
done would be to say follow therecommendations of the 9-11
Commission.
And there's a lot more.
Uh terror is not coming fromnowhere.
(42:44):
Uh and what you want to do is Imean, it's easy to stand up on a
pedestal and scream Islam offascism and so on and so forth.
Maybe that makes you feel good.
Uh but if you want to deal withthe threat of terror, you'll ask
what its sources are and ask howthose sources can be dealt with.
I mean, terror the what we callterrorists are see themselves as
kind of a vanguard who aretrying to organize a
(43:06):
constituency to support theirlong term demands.
Now, their long term demands, inthe case of, say, al Qaihadi
styled terror, are pretty clear,and again, there's pretty near
unanimity about this in the youknow specialist community.
Uh there, as they put it, theirgoals are to defend Muslim lands
(43:27):
from attack.
And they list specificgrievances.
And the grievances are real.
They're trying to mobilize aconstituency to join them.
Well the way to deal there's twoways of dealing with it.
One is to ally yourself withOsama bin Laden.
That's the way Bush picked.
That's why the leading terroristspecialist in the United States
(43:50):
like Michael Scheuer describedBush as Osama bin Laden's
leading ally.
Because what he's done as if isto do exactly what Osama wants
to help the vanguard mobilizethe constituency in support of
the terrorist act.
What is recommended across theboard is pay some attention to
(44:13):
those reasons, which are real.
You can read that in the DefenseScience Board recommendations in
academic scholarship andintelligence reports, pay
attention to the grievances.
And many of them are real andthey should be dealt with quite
apart from the threat of terror.
That can reduce the threat ofterror.
And we know that it works.
I mean take say NorthernIreland.
(44:33):
Okay for a long time the Britishreaction to terror in Northern
Ireland, which was prettyserious, practically blew up the
British cabinet, all sorts ofthings, their reaction was just
to increase the violence.
Okay, that's the Bush line.
You join with the terrorists andyou're their ally.
It's exactly what the moremilitant sectors of the IRA
(44:54):
wanted.
So you get an escalating terrorand repression cycle.
Finally the British got intotheir heads that they should pay
some attention to the grievancesthat are the source of it.
And in fact they began to do sobecause the grievances were
real.
The constituency was beingmobilized around real
(45:14):
grievances.
When they began to do that thethreat of terror declined.
Belfast is not utopia but it's avery different place when say
when my wife and I visited in1993, which was a pretty scary
place.
It's not that anymore it's muchimproved and in fact the threat
of IRA terror has now been verymuch marginalized by doing the
(45:38):
sensible thing paying attentionto the source out of which it
grows
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