Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Michael Verry Show.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
All right, so many of us have been following the
Fauci hearings very closely, Dennis, and I'd love to get
your thoughts on this, because I'm sure you, just as
I remember the amount of grief that we were given
when we were talking about the lockdowns and the treatment
of those who have asked any questions about COVID, the
(00:23):
COVID vaccines, the lockdowns and everything. And so here we are.
Doctor Fauci was in front of Congress. He pleaded the
fifth over one hundred times. How do we think about
the time that we're living through right now? It's pretty surreal.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Oh my godness, it's surreal. First of all, what I
always find remarkable about the Left is that they never apologize.
They ruin the lives of so many American children, and
for that matter, businesses of people. They would allow me
(01:00):
teature stores to be open, but the mom and pop
hardware store they had to shut They had to shut down.
The teachers' unions, the most destructive force in American life,
a vile institution. I'll never forget. The Chicago Teachers Association said,
(01:20):
if you open, you cannot open the schools. We will
stop teaching, and then they deny that they were for
schools to be shut down, and yet we at prager
you from so early on. I wrote a column it's
on the Internet in April of twenty twenty, and it
(01:42):
was titled something to the effect dress rehearsal for authoritarianism.
That that's all it was, and that's exactly what it was.
And I'll never forget. You'll love this, Marissa on the internet,
and that I wish I had copied that photo. Some
(02:04):
guy who hated me put up a picture of me
at LAX the Los Angeles International Airport, and I'm six
foot four, so I obviously stood out. I wore no mask,
and I was the only one at the airport or
released in that picture with I don't know fifty other people,
(02:26):
and it looked good, Prigger not the only one not
wearing a mask. Because I knew, I made a logical assumption.
How come I could sit two inches from the guy
next to me on the airplane without a mask when
I ate that was okay. But I couldn't do that
(02:49):
at the airport and I was never that close to anybody. Oh,
it's it's a very difficult time living in.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah, and when you talk about consequences, it is so
hard to forgive, especially that the left shows no remorse
and Prager You was deep platformed, JW Player refused to
host our videos. NewsGuard came after us, gave us a
very low score, and we were identified as purveyors of
(03:21):
lies and misinformation, ad hominem attacks against you, attacks against
prager You. We are never going to get an apology.
Some people still believe that we are some sort of extremists,
even though the truth is now coming out that we were,
in fact in the right. But des do you ever
wonder why did the left do this? Right now that
(03:45):
it seems as if they've been as if it's pretty
clear that Fauci was lying to us. I mean, if
you plead the fifth over one hundred times, you're obviously
hiding something I would think I would presume. But the
question I always wonder is why would they do this
to us? Right, Doctor Fauci lives in America, His allies
(04:07):
are Americans. Why would they want to destroy the United
States of America by pushing this horrific idea on Americans?
The lockdowns in the vaccines, even though he knew that
we didn't need to go through.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
This, all right, So the left is divided between those
who want to take down America, like the Democratic Socialists
of America that they want to completely undo the American Revolution.
They don't want America to be what it is. They
want to abolish the Senate, they want to abolish the Presidency,
(04:44):
they want to abolish the Supreme Court. They want Congress
through on everything. They get a parliamentary democracy instead of
a republic. This country was never designed to be a
pure democracy because the founders understood the dangers of having
(05:05):
just the majority determine everything, because the human condition is
a very complex one, to say the least. So there
were those who wanted to take it down. Then there
was a vast majority of people, I would say about
half the Democrats. They they they don't want to ruin. Well,
(05:28):
they do want to ruin, but they don't want to
destroy the United States of America. They want to destroy conservatism.
That's so that that's animating for them. Then there's another
very important factor that played itself out during twenty twenty
COVID twenty twenty one. The enthralled nature of these people
(05:57):
to experts, I said at the time, experts say or experts.
Tell us is to the educated people, people who went
to college in general, and certainly to the left. What
(06:18):
thus say, if the Lord is through believing Christians and Jews,
we have thus saith the Lord, and they have thus
saith the experts.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
How did you know this? How did you know? Because intuitively,
one would say, well, you should listen to the experts, right,
they're educated, they have experience.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
How did you have the wisdom and the discernment to say, well,
sometimes you listen to experts when you go to the doctor.
Let's say some doctors you listen to, right, But sometimes
you need to say, well, when the experts are telling
you to lock yourself up, then that is an extreme version.
How did you develop that wisdom and discernment to push
(07:03):
against the dust say the experts as you described.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
There are many answers to that. I'll try to be brief.
One is I went to an Ivy League school in
my graduate years to Columbia, and I remember I was
at the School of International Affairs, at the Russian Institute
and at the Middle East Institute, and where I studied Russian,
(07:30):
Arabic and Hebrew, among other things. And I'll never forget
I guess I could even say it. I never liked
to ban mouth people, especially if they're not with us.
But it's big near Zuzhinski, who was the Carter's national
(07:51):
security man. He was my direct supervisor at when I
was at Columbia, he was the head of the Russian Institute,
and there was a very small group of US majoring
in communist affairs that it was called. And I presented
my master's oral thesis to the group, and I mentioned
(08:18):
Soviet totalitarianism, and I, obviously Alan will never forget. I
haven't forgotten many years ago, and he said that, mister Prager,
we're not certain what the definition of totalitarianism is, so
please don't use the term. And I remember thinking, wow,
(08:42):
we don't know the definition of total I was I
was amazed at his reaction. And this is a man
who grew up under Polish communism. By the way, my
answer to him would be, we may not know it
in this seminar, but the Russian people know it. They
(09:07):
certainly know what the deladianism is. And then in my
Middle East institute, I knew they were all wrong. The
entire Middle East conflict, it was then known as Arab
Israeli before the word Palestinian caught on. They taught every
(09:30):
one of the students that the conflict was over land,
and I knew it was over religion. It doesn't matter
how much land the Jews have in the Middle East.
They're not entitled to a square inch of land. It
(09:54):
has nothing to do with land. It's all about the
Islamist hatred of an independent Jewish state in their midst
So I very early learned experts and how many of
the professors were either defenders of the Soviet Union or
(10:19):
just antagonists to the anti communists. Most of them would
not say they were pro Soviet, but they were anti
anti Communists. So I learned at a very early age
the experts are wrong. But there's one other reason, and
this is very important. I don't deny expertise. If you
(10:46):
tell me what the mitochondria do in the cell, and
you're an expert on cells, of course I take you seriously.
There is a very big difference between expert tease and wisdom.
You may be an expert on a given subject in science,
(11:08):
but it doesn't mean that your recommendation will be of
great intelligence. And that's where people got screwed up. When
the experts said, don't send your kids to school, don't
go to church or synagogue, and so on, and wear
(11:29):
a mask that was useless. So that's that's how I knew,
when you knew, and the rest of us.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
It's such an important point that you make about experts
and expertise, because I am also resentful, truly of the
experts that have told us that we need to lock up.
And I am also now very dubious about institutions that
claim that they're experts about things where they have clearly
(12:02):
failed us and very possibly lied to us. The problem
is that we have now a situation in our culture
that reminds me of the Naked Communists the forty five
ways to take America down by infiltrating the American mind.
This is a document that was translated in the nineteen sixties,
and I've had on my desk since I've left pure
(12:24):
education and have studied what has happened in America's education.
One of the things that the Naked Communist outlines is
to create distrust in American institutions. This is something that
communists actually want Americans to do. They don't want us
to trust our own institutions anymore. And my fear now, Dennis,
(12:45):
is that people don't trust any sort of expertise or
any sort of institution. We're we're seeing a backlash, which sadly,
I know you've warned about for so many years, but
the backlash that we're living through now is incredibly dangerous.
One example is when it comes to history, right so
suddenly you have people who claim that they're historians, but
(13:08):
they're actually comedians, or you know, they just read a
couple of things online, and now they're so suddenly better
than actual experts like a Neil Ferguson or a Victor
Davis Hansen who has who have expertise in history. Right now,
nobody believes anything at all anymore, and just the loudest
(13:28):
mouth or the most viral person on social media is
taking the place of what you and I in the
past would. We would give that space to somebody who
has built an expertise, We would listen to them. Now
nobody knows who to listen to anymore, and people are
getting very very confused. It's very chaotic.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
You said it so well, I don't have much to add.
I mean, when Tucker Carlson could have a guy on
and announce he is the greatest post bull or historian
in America today. And the man has not written a book.
And then says that Churchill was the villain in World
(14:10):
War two, and kids, the kids, I mean people under
twenty five, they all of a sudden go, yeah, we
were lied to that Hitler was evil and Churchill was good.
That's just another lie that was purveyed to us. Absolutely not.
(14:34):
And the reason that they could do that is another factor,
which you didn't mention, but I know you're keenly aware of.
Our educational system stinks. It stinks, it is worse than worthless.
It is pernicious, it is noxious. They know nothing about history.
(15:02):
They believe what the New York Times great lie that
America was founded in sixteen nineteen, not in seventeen seventy six.
The only damn thing they know about Washington and Jefferson,
two giants who gave us the freest country in world history.
(15:22):
The only thing they know about them is that they
were slave owners, as if that tells you everything. So
you're right. They don't believe what is true. They don't
believe that there is a true the.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Societal damage from the COVID lockdowns, and this is something
that really occurred to me over the last couple of
years is beyond the people who took the vaccination and
whatever health issues they may have. It's beyond the lockdowns
and the kids who never got a proper education during
those years that they were robbed of when they should
(15:58):
have just been children and get educated. It is beyond
the fact that so many of us didn't say goodbye
to our loved ones because they were locked behind hospital doors.
The societal damage is also on the right, and that
is not being able to trust institutions and having such
(16:18):
a chaotic mind. This is what has happened. We have
a chaotic American mind. You can't trust the education system
because it stinks. You can't touch you can't trust legacy
media because it stinks. And so what so many young
people are hearing is well, all of these other institutions stink.
(16:40):
Now go ahead and believe everything else that somebody else
is saying to you on the internet. As if they
are not going to stink as well.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
If they don't believe truth and history, what will they believe?
Why will they believe Tucker Carlson or can the Owens?
And the answer is that they play into what they
(17:09):
do think nothing is trustworthy, but we are. And for
anybody who's listening who thinks that I haven't any way
exaggerated how awful the educational system is. Here is a
(17:29):
completely non political question. I would like people to ask
their seventh or eighth or even ninth grader what is
a verb? I'm then serious, I was thinking about it.
If perchance they get the answer right, then give them
(17:52):
a really tough one. What is an adjective? That's it?
What a verb was in fourth grade? I knew what
an adjective was in fifth grade. I don't think they're
not learning that. They're learning about preferred pronouns. That's what
(18:15):
they're learning. In Minnesota. Now, little kids are given dolls
with interchangeable genitalia. Now, how's that? And Tim Walls, that
awful human being who ran for Vice President of the
United States, is on board with it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
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