Best of Brian Thomas - Christmas Eve

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brian Thomas, so's to think about care see morning, you're

(00:01):
happy to welcome good Welcome to the program. A really
good friend of my mom. So, her name's Jenny Zimmer,
and she, like my mom, experienced the horror that is Alzheimer's.
Her husband was diagnosed and therefore she ultimately became his caregiver.
She's written a book, The Man in the Mirror and
Other Strangers Looking at Alzheimer's Disease through the life and
experiences of a caregiver. Jenny, Welcome to the program. It's

(00:22):
a real pleasure having you on the show.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thanks, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
I obviously I wish the subject matter was a better one.
But having lived through this and I just lost my
father in December, as you well know, in the eighth
finally succumbed to the evil that is Alzheimer's. It is
you know. I've said before, I'll say it again. I
even said it this morning talking about you coming on
the program. It's worse than cancer. With cancer, many times
you at least have some measure of hope. There are
treatments that are coming out cutting edge and otherwise longer

(00:51):
and longer lives after cancer diagnosis, when you get on
Alzheimer's diagnosis, and I'm praying every day that they come
up with a cure. It's just it's a finite amount
of time you're staring at. You can't look back and
reflect on someone's life and og if they just didn't
smoke three packs of cigarettes, I wouldn't be dealing with this.
This is the ultimate cosmic crap shoot. Who gets it

(01:14):
and who doesn't. That's one of the worst things about it, Jennifer,
It sure is.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
And I'll tell you what. Unfortunately, we all know there
is no good outcome when somebody has that diagnosis. There's
only one way out there not going to get better
and come home. And I too am praying that someday
that has changed. But you know, it's just everybody can
get it. And like I said in the book, Alzheimer's

(01:42):
is non discriminatory when it takes a victim, you know,
and I call them victims because they actually are victims
of a terrible disease that robs them of everything.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
It does. What was so frustrating for me. Now you
remember Dad really well, and I always you know, we've
been grieving since he was diagnosed it's you know, it
was a long grief process. As you pointed out, once
the diagnosis is there, it's going to happen. It's just
sometime down the road. Could be ten years, could be three,

(02:14):
but they're ultimately going to succumb to the disease. But
knowing he was always the sharpest knife in the drawer,
you know, the quickest wit in the room, and to
have and to be to communicate when he was still
able to communicate on some level and struggling with you know,
who is that person like my mom? For example? There
were some days when he just thought she was some

(02:35):
nurse that was looming around and that you can't apply
logic and you can't apply reason to sort of try
to remind him. You think, well, all I need to
do is break out some of the wedding pictures and
show it to him. No, that doesn't.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Work, No, it doesn't. And actually it is hard because
nobody knows what's going on in their mind. I ask
about that once when I don't recall what the incident was,
but I said to one of the professionals out at artists,
does he know what's going on? And she said, no,

(03:10):
they only know what's in that minute, they just they're
only in that moment. But then I think back, and
I think nobody knows what they're experiencing. We don't know.
We know that they're very fearful, that they feel threatened
by a lot of things. Simple things like just sitting
down can be very frightening to an Alzheimer's victim because

(03:34):
they fear they're falling. And a lot of people that
find themselves in a caregiver position don't understand or they
maybe I guess they just don't know that that person
is very frightened and they're not withdrawing or they're not
on purpose not remembering. It's just that they don't know,

(03:56):
and we don't know what's going on in their mind
at that So it's just such a terrible thing because
you don't know how to deal with it, and you
just have to be patient and try to muddle through
the things like not remembering photos and not remembering faces.

(04:17):
I know your mother was a saint. I don't know
how she held up through all this. Your mother's an
awesome woman, by the way, I think the world of her,
and your dad was a great guy. He was fun
and oh my gosh, we've had so many laughs, and
I just can't say too often how what a great

(04:37):
couple they were, you know, And it was such a shame.
And your mom came and talked to me when I
think you and your sister had first mentioned to her
you had some concerns about your dad about maybe not
knowing directions to someplace, or maybe some of his driving
habits and his judgment was getting a little poor. Yes,

(04:57):
And she told me and asked because at that point
my husband was already into the process. He was My
husband was diagnosed in twenty sixteen, and at the time
of his diagnosis, he was already more than halfway through
the middle stages, as best we could figure. So we

(05:20):
don't know, well, one thing with Alzheimer's, you don't know
exactly when it starts, because the symptoms could be just
a lapse of memory, for you know, like you forgot
where you put your keys, you stuck the bread and
the refrigerator instead of the cabinet or whatever, so you
don't think about those things, and all at once it's

(05:42):
kind of full blown. So, you know, your mom and
I talked a lot about it, and thankfully, because I
had gone through this first, I was able to give
her some things which I think helped her maybe navigate
through some of the hurdles that you have to go
through with taking care of someone with Alzheimer's.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
But it is a difficult task, and you know that's
I guess that's the reason you wrote the book, is
to help people understand what is in front of them
when they do find out that there's been a diagnosis.
The we were so worried, and we were very very
thankful that my mom was able to find a memory
care facila to put them in. You mentioned artists. We
were really, quite honestly, more worried about my mom there

(06:25):
at that time than we were about my dad. We
knew the writing was on the wall for Dad, but
Mom was just at the point of exhaustion. You could
see it in her face. This is I mean, you
know it, Jenny. It's a twenty four to seven reality
when your spouse of sixty years as Alzheimer's. You're up
at all hours of the night, cleaning them up, changing
their clothes, showering them, helping them up and down. It's

(06:48):
just that the work never ends, no, And you.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Know that is why I wrote the book, Brian, because
at the I don't know earlier on in that I
was experiencing such intense feelings. A lot of days, you
feel really inadequate to handle this all at once. You're
doing everything, and you don't feel competent to do some
of those things, and I think you feel lonely and

(07:14):
you feel really alone. I made the comment of my
book that I believe i'd put it in there where
I felt like I was living alone sometimes and you
feel frustrated and you can't help but get aggravated at
some of the things, but you can't show any of that.
So being a caregiver is extremely stressful. And one of

(07:36):
the things when I realized that I had all those
raw feelings, I thought, other people are just coming into this,
and they, like me, I did not know this is
what they could expect. And I thought, if I could
just tell people, you're going to feel all these things,
You're going to feel hurt and angry and lost and fearful,

(08:00):
and it's normal to feel that way and you can't
help it, So don't feel don't feel guilty because you're
feeling these things. It doesn't change your love for the
person you're caring for. If it's a spouse or a
parent or someone close to you. It doesn't change that relationship.
It just means that you're overwhelmed. And I thought, if

(08:22):
I could just tell other people, you're going to feel
all these things and you don't.

Speaker 3 (08:27):
You shouldn't feel.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Guilty about feeling it, and you need to deal with
those feelings in some way because it is such a stressful,
debilitating thing for the caregiver. So your mom, Yeah, I
was worried about your mom because she just had so
much and she had she unfortunately was having to go

(08:50):
over there three times a day to feed your dad,
you know. But then on the other hand, you stop
and think, well, she loved wanted to take care of him,
he loved her. Because one thing we have to remember
is that even though they're broken, they're still somewhere inside

(09:13):
of that person that we knew and loved and that
we have been with all those years. So that person
is still there. They just can't come out well.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
And one of the things my mom was just so
good about and this is one of those do they
know what's going on? Are they aware? Moments? But she
was always even if he was in communicado, and quite
often many days we'd visit him, and he wouldn't say
a word. His eyes were sort of half open or
just laying there in the bed. She was always able
to get him to say I love you when she

(09:43):
would leave. I mean, I couldn't get it to get
him to do it quite often my sister. But when
it came to my mom, she would just are you
going to say I love you? You're going to tell
me you love me? And he would be able to
whisper it out, which sort of gives you that little
glimmer of hope that, well, maybe he is aware to
some degree.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
They are, you know, a few days before my husband actually,
I think it might have even been the day his
last day on earth. When I went in to see
him that afternoon at my regular time, I kissed him
and he pursed his lips, and I said. The hospice
nurse was in the room, and I said to her, Oh,
he pursed his lips when I kissed him. She said, oh,

(10:22):
he wants to kiss you back, He's just too weak
and doesn't have the strength to do it. So I
think they are in there. They do know, and they
do respond to love. And sometimes if you know people
that have Alzheimer's any other forms of dementia too, are
often agitated, they're calm, and when that happened, the best

(10:46):
thing you can do is just to sit with them.
My husband loved to have his head massaged, and I
would almost every day. I would massage his head for it,
and he was it was so content. And if they're
agitated or irritated and difficult, sometimes you can just put
lotion on their legs or their arms, or just hold

(11:08):
their hand or rub their head or something and they
feel that love that you're conveying through that. So it's
just you learn those things, I think by being with
the people you love and caring for them, because it
hurts to see that happening to them. It hurts still.
My husband's been gone almost four years, and there's not

(11:32):
a day goes by that I don't miss him and
that I don't think of him, and I don't wish
I could have done more for him.

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Well, And as you point out, the disease is so insidious,
there's only so much anybody is capable of doing. And
sometimes you know the caring for the Alzheimer's patient victim
as you like to refer to them, and I agree
with you caring for that Alzheimer's victim. Sometimes the caregiver
does not survive the life of the Alzheimer's victim. The
care and the stress and the emotion, and where's a

(12:01):
person out so so much that they pass on before
the Alzheimer's afflicted person.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Yes, I mentioned that in the book, and I said
the way I put it in the book because that
number is pretty high. I said, over fifty percent of
caregivers die before the person they're caring for. That number
is actually more like sixty five percent. But I didn't
want to say that because that's almost unbelievable. But you know,

(12:29):
I've had I spoke to a group earlier this week.
It was a support group. And by the way, anybody
that's dealing with somebody that has Alzheimer's that caregivers should
get into a support group somewhere. It's so helpful just
to be able to talk about your feelings and experiences
with others who know what you're talking about, because you

(12:51):
have to live it to really understand it. But I
spoke to this group the other day and one of
the questions that I had, and I hear this often,
people say, how do you know when it's time to
put that person into a facility, and I always tell them,
you know, that's different for everybody, and all you can do.

(13:13):
I think the biggest measurement for knowing when to do
that is whether you are maxed out. When you get
to the point where you are so totally physically, emotionally
and just totally you're all used uff, you just can't
go any further. There's a time. I think my breaking

(13:36):
point was one night when we had a particular incident
and it was like two or three in the morning,
and I literally did not know what to do. There
is no you can't call somebody at two or three
in the morning and say help me, because there's nothing
they can do. And I went into our kitchen and
actually beat my fist on the counter and wailed. I

(14:00):
just was that. That was my, I think my breaking moment,
and I knew at that moment that I could not
go any further, and I didn't want to put him
in a facility, but I knew that I couldn't take
care of him. And you need to be able to
feel that you can keep that person safe and that
you can just navigate through the day with them and

(14:23):
one person can't do that alone. You need more people
like the facility can offer. So Artists was wonderful everyone there.
And I volunteer at Artists on Friday afternoons most weeks,
and so many of those people just want somebody to
sit with them. I sat two weeks ago. I sat there.

(14:46):
One lady took my hand and she said, oh, your
hand is cold, and I said yes, and she wrapped
my hand in the corner of her robe, which she
was wearing at the time. And the lady on the
other side and me took my the hand. So I
sat for a hour between these two little ladies. Both
are pretty far along with their Alzheimer's. One doesn't even

(15:09):
speak much English, so you can't talk with her a
whole lot. But I sat there, one with my hand
wrapped in her robe, patting my hand occasionally, the other
one just holding my hand and stroking it. And they
were content, and I was content.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
That's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
You just you give them what they need, and sometimes
it's what you need to amen to that.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Jenny Zimmer, the name of the book, The Man in
the Mirror and other strangers looking at Alzheimer's disease through
the life and experiences of a caregiver. Fantastic information here
for anybody who's struggling with this or who is getting
ready to deal with it, but also for folks that
are dealing with other forms of disease and they are
the caregiver in their lives. Get a copy of the book.
It'll be a fifty five care sea dot com on
my blog page. Joe put it off there. Easily get

(15:51):
a copy of it and get to Amazon and get
a copy as well, if you don't want to wait. Jenny,
it's a pleasure. Thank you for being such a dear
friend to my mom and helping her through these very
difficult times. Donald Barclay, I've got a book to talk about.
By way of background, he's a deputy University librarian at
the University of California Universities, author of numerous articles and
books over the course of his career on topics ranging
from the literature of the American West to children's literature

(16:13):
and library and information science. Most recent book, Fake News,
Propaganda and Plain Old Lives, How to Find Trustworthy Information
in the Digital Age, talked about that previously. Got a
new book to talk about disinformation, the nature of facts
and lies in the post truth era. Donald Barkley, it's
a pleasure to have you back in the fifty five
KREC Morning Show. Welcome sir, and Happy President's Day.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Thank you, Happy President City to thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Brian, Well, you dressed it previously. In how to find
trustworthy information the Digital Age, I'm not so sure that
most American people are willing to engage in the expenditure
of time and critical thinking to find out inferret information.
So they tend to listen to the ten second SoundBite
they get maybe from the local or evening news, if
they even take time to follow the look or evening news.

(16:57):
I'm convinced that the vast majority of Americans get their
power politics through memes these days. Is this obviously is
a as a legitimate trend going on, isn't it?

Speaker 4 (17:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (17:06):
I think it is, and you know it's it is
it's hard to to take the time to really get
at the truth of something, because you know, the more
you you really think about the nature of what is truth?
What is factual? Who should I trust? What influence does
at work? You know, money, of course is a huge influence.

(17:28):
Why do you know somebody has a has a money
interest in telling me something.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
It's it becomes really difficult.

Speaker 5 (17:36):
And one of the points I've made in my writing
is you have to, I think, think about what what
do you really use information for?

Speaker 4 (17:46):
What do we really use it for in the most
important way?

Speaker 5 (17:49):
And I think the most important thing we use information
for when we really think about it, is decision making,
and whether it's a private decision like should I invest
my money in crypto or more of a public decision,
you know, what should we do about firearms or abortion
or you know, name your topic. We make decisions based

(18:11):
we should make decisions based on information. And I think
the thing we have to as people only have so
much time, is to think about what is how important
is this decision? And obviously the more important a decision is,
and the more potentially devastating the content that the consequences are,

(18:32):
then those are the things we really need to spend
more time on.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
The example I've given in the.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
Past is if somebody offered you a piece of a
candy bar you've never tried before. I use example of
the Idaho spud, which is a candy bar that's mostly
we only found an Idaho and probably don't see it
in Cincinnati very much. If I came up and offered
you an Idaho spud bar and it's in the wrapper
and everything, and maybe you know me, but you know,
maybe I'm not your best friend anything, but you kind

(18:58):
of know I'm an okay guy, you'd probably be okay
just eating it without really researching it, right, I mean,
it's not a huge risk.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Either you like it or you don't.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
But if I came up and said, I found these
mushrooms today, why don't you try them for dinner, that's
something you'd want to research a little more, right, Yeah,
and make sure that you're not eating something that's going
to kill you. And I think those that's the kind
of analysis we have to put into what's what's the
one of the potential consequences of this decision, whether it's
a personal consequence, you know, in California, should I put

(19:26):
solar on my house or or not?

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Well, hasn't the this this internet agent which we live
made that more difficult? And I think of all the
pluses and minuses I and I think probably the powers
that be when the Internet first came online, were you know,
this massive information. Oh my god, the general public is
going to know exactly what bills are. They'll be able
to read the language of any bill that we propose.
They don't have to go to the Library of Congress

(19:49):
or find some you know, sort of written legislative outlet service,
and you can go across the board on any subject
matter and going back to your mushroom thing. I mean,
there's so much information online, I presume about mushrooms and
whether it poison or not. We can be confused on that.
It's like information overload. So it's the problem. It's better
because we've got access to the key information, but it's

(20:09):
worse because we have access to not only the key information,
but every you know, sphincter in the world. We all
know what they're everybody's.

Speaker 5 (20:16):
Got one, right right, Yes, it's very In my book
this information in one of the chapters, I talk about
how in the early days of the Internet there was
this incredible optimism and I was actually part of this.
I'm not an engineer anything, but I was there very
early on using the Internet before there was a web,

(20:36):
and the the optimism about what it was going to
be because there wouldn't be gatekeepers anymore, there wouldn't be
people filtering our information, whether it's the library who only
buy certain books, or Walter Curnkaive or or whatever. You know,
we're going to be able to get all this information.
But it's also interesting there were two early on, two

(20:57):
really different ideas about the Internet that conflicting, which I
think speak to the fact that we still have conflict
on information going on. And there was one idea that
was kind of the cyber liberal idea, which was sort
of like, I don't mean to be too flip about it,
but we're all going to hold hands and dance around
the peace tree with all this information because we're all
going to be better people and we'll all get along

(21:20):
and we'll all.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
See the truth. We'll see the light, right right.

Speaker 5 (21:25):
And then the other one was the Internet is this
place where there's not going to be any government or
any rules. It's going to be a perfect libertarian experiment,
because people really believed once they even though the Internet
was created by the government governments, mostly the US government,
but other governments were involved. It was created by the
government as an experiment, as a scientific experiment.

Speaker 4 (21:45):
For twenty thirty years before it was really unleashed. People
believe that.

Speaker 5 (21:49):
The government was going to be able to control it well,
we certainly discovered that governments sure can control the Internet,
and you know, just look at China, look at Iran,
look at Cuba. You know they could throw it quite effectively,
mir and mar So yes, there it didn't play out
to us.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
Just great optimism. And I think what we're dealing with
is that.

Speaker 5 (22:12):
So much information and so many different ways of accessing
it in so many voices.

Speaker 4 (22:17):
It is really changing.

Speaker 5 (22:20):
The way we think in much the same way something
we haven't experienced really for about five hundred years since
printing form movable type really came on and changed just
from a mostly oral culture to a written culture, and
that we're now moving into what's been.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
Called a post lyric culture, which is still has writing.

Speaker 5 (22:39):
Writing is still going to be important, but it's a
different way of sharing and processing and thinking about information.
And we as a people are still struggling with that
because it's it came so fast and it's so powerful.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
It did. And I'm glad you brought up the printing
press because that was viewed as a threat, most largely
to religion and people everybody can read, they can read
for themselves, interpret themselves. And I have to listen to
the man in front of the room, just one illustration
of the concern that the powers that be had about
the printing printing press. Same thing goes for the Internet.
Oh my god, we're not going to be ab to
control the narrative. Walter Kronkite is not going to be
the guy with nine hundred different articles to read and

(23:12):
he picks three of them for whatever political bias he
might have. That's what we used to rely on. So
now the problem seems to be that, in an effort
to sort of reign in conspiracy theories and misinformation and
all that kind of thing, what we find out is
the powers that be, the facebooks, the twitters and those
who control them, their lords and masters, perhaps through the government,

(23:34):
are trying to change the narrative to what they want
us to read. Now, the problem with that component is
we now aren't even trusting anything we read on the Internet.
Everything becomes this conspiracy theory. We don't trust the factfinders anymore.

Speaker 5 (23:50):
Yeah, that's I mean, that's a challenge, sure, because there
are of any voices, and it really is hard, you know,
who really knows what, Who do we trust?

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Who can we really listen to? And part of that
I think has to do with and I don't really
see it as a conspiracy.

Speaker 5 (24:11):
I think it as just the way society and people
work is the you know, we lived in the Industrial age,
and industry hasn't gone away, just like we lived in
an agricultural age. Well, agriculture hasn't gone away either. We
had agriculture and then we had agriculture and industry, and
now we have the information age, and information has become

(24:36):
more valuable than it ever was. And you know, there
was industry before the Industrial Age. It was smaller and
less important. But starting around in the eighteenth century and
the seventeen hundreds in Europe mostly industry became much more
important and it continued to be important for a long time.
And now information is kind of stepping in and part

(24:57):
of what we're seeing in because information is so valuable
really dollars and cents, and with digital technology and the
newness of all of this TikTok and all these other things,
it's kind of like a gold rush for information. Yeah,
in that you've got all these people out there and

(25:19):
if you can hit the sweet spot.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
If you can find this pocket of gold, you can
become rich and famous. And I think part.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
Of the allure is that the desire to become rich
and famous, which has always been around. I mean, in
nineteen thirty eight, you could go to Hollywood and sit
around looking cute and maybe you'll.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
Get discovered and become rich and famous. Right, Well, now
you can do it from your bedroom.

Speaker 6 (25:42):
And you're design and app Oh and if I want, yeah, right,
and or get on TikTok, and if I say the
right magic combination of things and act in the right
magic way, I can become rich and famous and suddenly
whether what I say is truthful or not doesn't really
matter very much.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Listen to the recent South Park episode on that you
know you're oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
I just see it, But I can certainly believe those
guys would would catch on to that.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Of course, in an effort to become famous on TikTok,
then you have this sort of you know, uh image
that you create. It may not be you, but it's
appealing to the broader masses. So in an effort to
appeal to the broader masses, you become something you're not
to dupe the broader masses into liking you. That to
me suggests some level of narcissism. Honestly, Donald Barclay, author
of Disinformation, Nature, Facts and Lies and post through the

(26:31):
Era that I don't get you think that I'd be
somewhat narcissistic being a radio program host. That's the worst
part of my job. It's being a public figure. I
hate social media. But I'm not interested in a bunch
of people liking me. I'm just interested in looking for
the truth, logic and reason. There are what I live by.
So is it part of the Is it our psychology

(26:51):
that's a problem here, that this Internet has created a
vehicle for us to appeal to our our lesser traits.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
Yeah, well, every.

Speaker 5 (27:00):
One of us, and I'm including myself. I'm not better
than anybody else. Believe me, I question myself all the time.
We all have cognitive biases, and there are ways of thinking.
They may be genetic, they may be formed by our
families growing up.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
They may be phoned by.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
Financial pressures, what have you. But there are ways of
seeing the world.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
And we we feel good.

Speaker 5 (27:29):
It's almost like a drug. When something feeds our cognitive
bias and and makes us feel like we're right and
it speaks to what we think. It makes us feel
really good, and it makes us very hard for us
to question whether what we're hearing.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
Is true or not.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
The old echo chamber kind yeah, kind.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
Of like that echo chamber is part of it. And
and of course.

Speaker 5 (27:53):
In the digital age, it becomes really easy to surround
yourself with.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
People who who say things that you like to hear.

Speaker 5 (28:01):
You know, well, I listened to a British podcaster named
Tim har Harmon Harford, and he's a British economist and
he's he's kind of I would say he's kind of the.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
Middle of the road. Some people might say he's a
little liberal. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
And he talks about not so much about economics, but
he talks about mistakes that people have made and how
these Mistaic Scott made and stuff, and he's a really
interesting guy. But I know that he speaks to my
cognitive biases and that's why I like it. And somebody
else with a different set of cognitiases probably listened to
Tim Harford and go, oh, I can poke holes in
what he's saying you.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, that's where debate comes in, though Donald doesn't it.
If you think you can poke holes in a guy's
theory and you can have a sit down discussion and
walk through what you believe and contrasted with what they believe,
you can come to some conclusion whether which side is
right or at least part company saying, okay, we're going
to have to gree to disagree. That's not what the
internet does, you know. The flip side of what you said.

(28:59):
People want to be haress, they want to be liked,
They want to you know, yes, hurrah hurrah, that's one thing.
But the flip side is also true. They don't want
to hear negative criticism, and they get all freaked out
and anxious when someone has the audacity to criticize them
on social media. You know, well that's gonna come with
a territory.

Speaker 5 (29:15):
Right right, And you know, and I do, even though
like I like Tim Harford and I really recommend him.
Actually he's a really interesting guy. I try to think
very carefully about, Okay, what what's missing here? You know,
because whenever we tell a story, we can only tell.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
Certain parts of it. You know.

Speaker 5 (29:30):
Indeed, and I don't know if you've ever written a book,
but no, but there's two things that happen when you
write a book.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
You know, unless you're a raging egoist, and then you're
just dancing around the room, and believe me, I don't
dance around the room when my book comes out. But
there's two things that happened. The first part is you
go through the book and you go, oh, crap, I
wish I hadn't said that.

Speaker 5 (29:47):
And then the second part is, oh, there, I should
have said this. And often there's a lot more I
should have said this than oh I shouldn't have said that,
because there's always more to the story, and there's always
more I think. And I would encourage anybody who reads
my book, and you know, oh, please read my book.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
I get a couple of sheckls. You know I'm in
the game too.

Speaker 5 (30:05):
I'm not talking to you on this this conversation because
I want to sell less copies of my book.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Right right right, Well, it's described every day when the
microphone turns off for me, gosh, I wish I'd have
phrased that differently, or I wish I could unring that bell,
or I wish I had elaborated on it before we
part company. David, It's fascinating conversation. Great book, Disinformation in
the Nature of Facts Lies in the post truth era.
My listeners can get it online at fifty five care
se dot com. We've also been to hear this conversation.

(30:30):
Who do you recommend read the book?

Speaker 5 (30:33):
I think anybody who who's interested in in this particular book.

Speaker 4 (30:40):
The first book I wrote.

Speaker 5 (30:41):
Fake News, was kind of a how to about how
do you recognize when somebody's yank in your chain?

Speaker 1 (30:45):
That right?

Speaker 4 (30:45):
Basically what that was about.

Speaker 5 (30:47):
This book is more about more of philosophy, philosophical about
why do we.

Speaker 4 (30:52):
Why do we get tricked?

Speaker 5 (30:53):
Why do we Why does our mind let us fall
for things? You know, and we all have fallen for things,
and and we all we all have the capability to
change our minds too about things, you know.

Speaker 1 (31:06):
Helping us with introspection maybe right, yeah, there you gout,
you know, and just think about things we take for granted.

Speaker 5 (31:13):
You know, we often all of us talk about something logical,
that's just logical.

Speaker 4 (31:16):
But oftentimes when you start picking it apart, you go, well, actually,
there's more to it than that, you know, indeed.

Speaker 5 (31:21):
Quite as cut and dried. And oftentimes when people say
that's just common sense, maybe not, Maybe there's another way
to look at it. Indeed, I think that's an important
it's important to be curious and it's you know what,
it's important to have your principles too.

Speaker 4 (31:34):
Everybody can have lines they don't cross.

Speaker 5 (31:36):
That's fine, but understand that you've drawn those lines, and
understand those lines are not the same for everybody.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
And I think that's really important.

Speaker 1 (31:43):
Hey man, I'll tell you what. It's been real fun
talking with your Donald Barclay, author of and please get
a copy fifty five carecy dot Com Disinformation The Nature
of Facts Lies in the post truth era. Thanks again
for coming on the program. Keep going the great work. Donald.
It's been a pleasure having you on the program.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
You probably read his books before. He is a best
selling author's name is John crib He's written about subjects
ranging from history to education. His prior novel Old Abe
hailed for its vivid portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, and his
previous work includes co authoring The American Patriots Almanac and
The Educated Child, both New York Times bestseller, co editing
The Human Odyssey three volume World History Techs, and developing

(32:21):
online history courses. He's appeared on numerous TV radio and
podcast shows, such as c SPAN, Washington Journal, Fox, News
and Fox and Friends, and his writing has been published
in my favorite paper of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today,
Fox News. Welcome to the program, John crib We're here
to talk about his new book, which is called The
Rail Splitter. It's it's let's see here, I've lost my

(32:44):
subtitle there, John, Welcome to the program. It's good to
have you on the fifty five KRC Morning Show.

Speaker 7 (32:49):
Hey Brian, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (32:51):
No, my pleasure. I had to ask you about this
because it's described as a work of historical fiction. So
what you, I guess, have done, and please explain to
my listener. You have Abraham Lincoln's solid history, which you
could turn into, you know, a history book which would
not take liberties with facts, but you tell a story
while relying on real history in your book, The Rail Splitter.

Speaker 7 (33:13):
Correct, Yes, exactly, it's it is historical fiction, but it
very closely tracks his life. As a matter of fact,
there's a date at the top of each chapter saying
we need to know when these things were happening. But
it starts him off as a teenager on the Indiana
Frontier and then you're just at a side as he
makes his way from the Indiana Woods to the Illinois
Prairies and then up through the Lincoln Douglas Debates eighteen
fifty eight right to the threshold of the White House.

(33:35):
So it's an amazing story, and it's an important story
in a lot of ways. It's the story of the
American dream.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Well, can I ask you, you're obviously a wildly successful
author when you're writing a work versus a work of
just true history, which doesn't create a story of a
fiction story. Is it easier to write a work of
historical fiction? Because you know, I'm challenged. I couldn't write
a novel or a work of of nonfiction, but I

(34:02):
guess it probably lends itself to your creative process. But
having to stick with the historical facts about Abraham Lincoln,
I imagine that represents some challenge itself. Which is it
easier to write a historical fiction book or is it harder?

Speaker 7 (34:16):
You know, I would I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 (34:18):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (34:18):
I would say it's easier or harder. The nonfiction is
harder because you know, you really want to stick to
the facts and get it, you know, make sure it's
absolutely right. So there's a kind of higher standard there.
Fiction is harder and that you got, you know, you're
exercising your creativity and your imagination more so. That's there's
challenges about and this had both of it. This is
kind of challenging on both fronts because I really wanted

(34:41):
this to be right. You know, He's not chasing vampires
or killing zombies that kind of stuff, And this is
the real, real Lincoln. And I've got about, I think
probably about three hundred books about Abraham Lincoln his times
just on my bookshelves here at home. And I've spent
many years, you know, researching his life and in him,
and so, uh, you know, I really wanted to, as

(35:03):
I say, stick to the to the story. But what
I've done here is I've filled in the gaps and
details with my imagination, and that's kind of what moves
it into the realm of historical fiction. Occasionally unvent a
minor character to keep the story moving along, but almost
all the characters walking on and off the pages are
real people like Lincoln and his stepmother and his dad,

(35:23):
and you know, his friends he meets along the way,
and Stephen Douglas and then an Old Day you know
my other novel, you know, people like unless he says
Grant and Frederick Douglass. So the characters are real of
a dialogue is drawn as most much as I could
get it from. I'm drawing on the words that Lincoln
and others spoke or wrote. I've used a lot of old,
you know, old primary source documents, letters, memoirs, journals, that

(35:47):
kind of thing, people's memories of their counters and descriptions
of Lincoln to really try to bring the real Lincoln alive.
And that's my that's my main goal here is to
is to bring him alive for readers, because he has
been an inspiration for generations of Americans, and I don't
I don't want to still lose that.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Well, I would imagine works of historical fiction, at least
in my experience, they're much better page turners, and they
glue you and rivet you to the book more so
than a work of nonfiction. So what drew you to
I'm clearly based upon your library collection and the fact
you've written on Abraham Lincoln for so many times? What
drew you to Abraham Lincoln? Considering the multitude of prominent

(36:24):
historical figures in the United States history, you chose Lincoln
why is that, John?

Speaker 7 (36:29):
Yeah, you know, I've been a Lincoln fan since I
was a boy, and it's you know, this is as
often happens when you're you know, when you're younger, you
get interested in something and then either you stick with
it or later on in life. But when I was young,
my mom, you know, did what parents are supposed to do.
She read aloud to me and my brothers and sisters,
and we Uh. One of the books she read to
us was an old book called Abe Lincoln Frontier Boy,

(36:51):
and uh, that just you know, those stories of him
growing up on the frontier and living in a log
cabin and you know, splitting firewood and building split ral
fin just grab my imagination. So I've always loved Lincoln
and decided it was back in two thousand and six, though,
that I decided to try to tackle his life in
historical fiction because surprisingly, I realized that nobody had ever

(37:13):
really told his life the a full blown historical fiction,
from his youth on the frontier all the way through
the end of his life. And that's what these two books,
The Rail Splitter and then All Day That's that's what
they do. They take you through his whole life.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
Well, and as you pointed out, the new book, the
rail Splitter we're talking about today leads you up to
the presidency, and Old Abe is a story of the
last five years of Abraham's Lincoln. So I suppose somewhere
in there, maybe there's another work that you'll do. I
don't know, we were there. Go ahead, make up more
stories and incorporate more more work about more real history

(37:49):
about Abraham Lincoln, so we can learn something and have
a good time reading at the same time. Have you
ever been to his birthplace? I was on a motorcycle
trip with my uncle. And I think I only bring
that up because I think people really lose sight of
how primitive the world was during those times when you
see that log cabinet's like, oh my god, we're so spoiled,

(38:10):
And I think we we tend to project that, Oh,
you know, there were paved roads back then, and there
was running water back then, And no, I mean this
was like permanent camping out in the wilderness time.

Speaker 7 (38:21):
Yeah, it really was. I mean they, I mean they
were living close to the way people lived in medieval ages.
Nine and I went to a lecture last last night
at Clemson University. Got a great Lincoln historian Alan Gelzo,
and he was kind of talking about this and he
said something, I'd really never realized that the kerosene lantern
had not even been invented by when Lincoln was born.

(38:43):
I mean, that's how primitive the world was allowed to them.
Was just a placed in a cup of hot greas
the only way I could make life. So he just,
you know, he's born into a time when things are
very he grows up in a very very frontier environment,
when life where life was very very hard and people

(39:03):
didn't have much. But one thing that he did have.
In that time and place where he was born and
grew up out on that part of the frontier, most
people were free to make their way in life as
best they could. And this is one reason he cherishes
freedom so much, because you know, it allows him to
make a better life for himself and he and why
he wants it for other people. And one reason he
hates slavery so.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
Much indeed, and what drew him to education. Clearly he
was an educated man. But when you think of that,
you know, subsistence, subsistence in world you're spending your whole day,
like you say, splitting rails and chopping wood and farming
and trying to It's a hunter gatherer kind of reality.
When did he have time to work in education? Why?
What drew him to educating himself?

Speaker 7 (39:46):
Well, it's a great question, because he was a self educated.
He used to say his father, Tom Lincoln sent him
to school by littles. He said, a little here and
a little there, and those littles added up to less
than one year of school. His whole life less than
a year, and that took place in a lock having,
you know, school houses on the frontier. But he loved
to read. He was a voracious reader. He would literally
walk miles from the Indiana Woods to get hold of

(40:07):
a book he could if he could, I mean he
would walk twenty miles to get a book. And he
just he devoured books. So he just had that burning
desire to learn. And his whole life, you know, he
you know, he turned himself to he's an attorney by profession.
There's no law school for him to go to. He
got a hold of a book called Blackstone's Commentaries on

(40:28):
the Laws of England and other books, and he was
living in a little frontier village called New Sale of Illinois.
Years later, people remembered seeing him sitting around on you know,
tree stumps and fences, just reading away at this book
until he turns himself into an attorney, and eventually a
very good one.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
That's wonderful, you know. I just proving the point that
I make regularly on the fifty five Caressey Morning Show.
I give my parents a lot of credit for a
whole lot of things. I was blessed to have both
of them, But the greatest gift they ever gave me
was insisting that I got a good education, because that
is truly what liberates you in this world.

Speaker 8 (41:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (41:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (41:00):
The very first time he ever ran for office, in
eighteen thirty two, Lincoln ran for the people about little
village of New Salem, had about a hundred people living
in it. They came to him and said, we think
he'd be good at representing us. So he runs for
office in eighteen thirty two. He loses, but he runs
again two years later, wins and spends four terms in
the Illinois State House. That's how he gets into politics.
But at first time he runs, he writes, he says,

(41:22):
upon the subject of education, I can say I can
only say it's the most important subject, which we as
American people can concern ourselves with. So even though he's
got less than a year of schooling, he knows how
absolutely vital education is.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Well, when you think about that and you think of
modern education, the failures that we see in schools across
this country, it just makes me want to cry.

Speaker 9 (41:43):
Me too.

Speaker 7 (41:43):
Yeah, I think Lincoln would not be happy.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
No, he would not. Gentlemen, Today we're talking with John
Cribb of wildly successful best selling author of the book
The Rail Splitter. As always, your book is going to
be on my blog and podcast page. The podcast will
be on there, and the blog page will have the
link to get people can get your book, and I'll
recommend they go ahead and get both of them the
same time, because old Abe is well worth reading. It'd
be a nice one to two great read on Abraham

(42:08):
Lincoln before we part company. I have to ask you this,
since you know so much about him other than you
know his liberating the slaves and the Civil War related
is there some like interesting thing that just sort of
jumps out of you that you learned about Abraham Lincoln
throughout your years of studies that a lot of people
don't know that just really is worth bringing out, like
did you know that Abraham Lincoln fill in the blank
kind of fact?

Speaker 7 (42:29):
Oh yeah, there are lots of them, and you'll learn
them in these books. For example, Lincoln twice when he
was young, built flatboats with with buddies and out of
you know, cut down trees, built flatboats, loaded them with
frontier produce, produce like live hogs and corner whiskey, and
float to them all the way down the Mississippi River,
like Huck fend in New Orleans to sell them. The
first first trip, he's attacked by river pirates on the way. Now,

(42:49):
so his life is full of adventure, and they just
real quick.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
You know.

Speaker 7 (42:53):
One thing that I didn't realize until going into this
as when he's president, just what a man of deep
faith he become while he's president. That really was one
of the surprising things to me. As the war drags on,
it becomes worse and worse, he more and more turns
to the Bible and become I think a man of
deep faith.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Well faith can get you through the toughest times, you know.
And I reacted when you said, Huck Finn, I literally
wrote down as I was reading about the book, I
wrote down huck Finn Adventures, and that's basically what you've got,
a historical work of Lincoln's younger years on this Huckleberry
Finn style adventure that he experienced throughout his life. A
fascinating book. I'm so happy to be able to talk

(43:34):
to you about it and spread the word to my listeners.
Got to fifty five care Sea dot com. Folks get
a copy of The Rail Splitter by my guest today,
John John John Crib. I will look forward to talking
to you again because I have a feeling there'll be
another book coming down the pike soon.

Speaker 7 (43:46):
I hope. So I really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Brian, my pleasure. John, keep doing the good work and
thanks again for the comments today and spending time with
my listeners and me. Raynards gentleman, Welcome to the fifty
five Cars Morning Show. By way of background, he has
quite a back. He was the Central He was at
the Central Ursude for Social Science Research and at the
Free University in Berlin. He became editor in chief of
the third largest book publishing group in Germany. Also has

(44:12):
written numerous books, twenty six of them. Twenty six of
them including the one We're Gonna Be Talking about today
in defense of capitalism. He was awarded his second doctor
degree in sociology with his thesis on the psychology of
the super Rich. Welcome to the program, Rainer's Gettlement. It's
pleasure to have you on today.

Speaker 9 (44:30):
Hello, good morning.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
I have to ask you the one thing I keep
hearing about capitalism, and I'm very pro capitalism. I just
need to look at my history of my country here
in the United States, and know that we are the
wealthiest nation of the world, and that we have done
tremendous things on behalf of the world's population. We've solved
as eve, We've helped with starvation issues, brilliant inventions. Because
capitalism is motivated by a profit margin. If I got

(44:54):
that wrong, is not the goal of inventors to make
a profit off their inventions as well as to help humanity.

Speaker 8 (45:01):
Doctor, I think the most important thing that I would
mention is this, look before capitalism. Two hundred years ago,
ninety percent of the worldwide population lives in extractre in poverty.
Ninety percent. Today it's less than ten percent. I think
this is amazing. This was because of capitalism. And of
course you are correct, the United States, America, the createst

(45:24):
country ever. Why is that because of capitalism? Because you
had capitalism. If you would have in social system, you
would have enough. You never would have been so successful.
And I have doubts whether people forget it. I have
here a new book I started to read it by
Bernie Sanders, and the titles It's okay to be angry
about capitalism. No, I think it's not okay to be

(45:45):
angry about capitalism because we thank all our success, especially
in the United States, to capitalism.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Well, capitalism leads to extra money. I've noted. When I
grew up, you know, they started worrying about pollution and
the envince. Here in our country. Circle laws were passed,
clean up laws were passed. You know, things were improved
from an environmental standpoint. You can't do that unless you
have an abundance of wealth. You're busy. It's almost like
you go from a hunter gatherer into a point where

(46:14):
you develop society. People have jobs and extra income, and
that's when you can start taking care of the broader
problems in society. But you need a lot of capital
to do that.

Speaker 8 (46:23):
Yes, but this is what a lot of people don't know.
If we speak about environments, anti capitalists tell us capitalism
is responsible for environmental destruction and for climate change, but
the opposite is true.

Speaker 7 (46:35):
I g.

Speaker 8 (46:35):
If you're an example, I live here in Germany as
you're here with my accent, and I have some numbers
in my book. If you compare East and West termly,
you know East Termany was socialist, West term capitalists. The
COO two emissions in East Germany were three times higher
than in West Termany, and the environmental standards were so bad.
And what a lot of people don't know. If you look,

(46:57):
for example, quality of the air or quality of the water,
it's much better than it's well thirty years ago. You
can read some facts in my book. You can also
read it. Maybe you know Stephen Pinker his book Enlightened
Now it's a great book, but a lot of people
don't know it. Of course, there is this topic of
climate change. But I remember, for one thing, planned economy

(47:21):
didn't solve any problem in the world in the last
time hundred years. It fails time and again. And why
should the problem of climate change the first problem that
will be solved by planned economy. I'm absolutely convinced that
the country is correct. Only with capitalists it can also
solve these problems of enviro mental destruction, not with another system.

Speaker 1 (47:43):
Well, I'm old enough to remember that our population was
going to explode to the point where it was going
to be a mass starvation, the Malthusian idea that the
world could not sustain the population. Well, we're over six
billion people now and we seem to really manage food production.
Find they didn't anticipate technology led by capitalism solving the
global problems that they perceive to exist back then. We've

(48:07):
proven them wrong. So why do we keep hearing about
population control and reduced consumption in the name of saving
the planet if it didn't work out and according to
their predictions previously, and capitalism solve those problems absolutely.

Speaker 8 (48:22):
Maybe you remember this book from Clap of Rome, because
fifty years ago they predicted that we are out of
out of oil, out of most commodities. Everything was wrong.
But today they tell us the same story again, and
it's wrong because the SEO two emissions, they decop it
from GDP proth in the meantime, Look, I give you

(48:42):
a concrete example that it's not for abstras. For example,
I think you have a smartphone, or most of the
people have a smartphone before the smartphone was invented. In
this is a typical capitalist invention. You needed early different
devices for the same a calculator, telephone, and a camera,
and the nerdy devices that you have now in one

(49:05):
in smartphones. So it's a capitalist innovation, and we need
less results from the smartphone that we needed to be
tall or other examples. When I was young, I had
a lot of records, a LPs, the old fashions. Later
I bought the CDs. Today my girlfriend was much younger
than me. She laughed at me because she downloaded to

(49:26):
Spotify or whatever. So economic growth doesn't mean always that
you need more resources, it's lost or time to go,
but it's not now.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Well address the argument made by anti capitalists that capitalism
just results in rising inequality, that whole class warfare argument
that they've been making since Karl Marx had had a
thought in his head. That also isn't true. I mean
what you tell, I mean the points you addressed capital
and least the hunger and poverty wrong, rising inequality, wrong,

(49:57):
unnecessary consumption, environmental destruction, climate change. All of these are
the regular mantras that they scream at us in the
face of the evidence you present in your book in
defense of capitalism. Let me ask you this straightforward question
Rainer's settlement. What is it that they want? If capitalism
is successful and all ships can rise with the benefits
of capitalism, why do they want to destroy it so much?

Speaker 8 (50:21):
It's ideology and you can't explain it. It's irrational. I'll
tell you something that maybe you don't know. I live
here in Germany and there's one book now it's so
successful and the author is in every talk show. Unfortunately
fought my book, but it's also a book about capitalism.
It is written by anti capitalist number one year in
my country. And do you know what she writes in

(50:42):
her book? First, we should forbid to try the car,
we should forbid to fly. We should know new buildings,
but redistribute everything because we have enough buildings. And then
you shouldn't eat more than two thousand five onders carries
today and to control it you need rating car. So
and there is not a strange outsider, but she's very

(51:04):
popular here. People buy her books, She's in every talk show.
It's irrational. It's ideological ideology. You can explain it, and
the problem is if you come with facts like I
do with my book. They won't read the book the
Anti Capitalist, So I will tell you something I didn't read.
I didn't wrote the book to convince anti capitalists because

(51:27):
I'm sure they will not buy the book. They prefer
to buy the new book from Bernie Sanders or the
new book of the French economist Thomas Pictetti, and they
prefer to buy book number thirty four that explains to
them why capitalists is evil, then only to touch one
book like this. Now, I wrote my book for people
like you, hopefully some people who listen to us now,

(51:51):
people who are pro capitalism, pro free market, antisocialism, but
they need more facts for this book. I used to
see the biplography, three hundred and fifty scientific books and papers,
and I did a lot of research for this book.
Not everyone is able or want to read three hundred
and fifty books or doing this research. But I give

(52:12):
it a very short form that everyone can understand it.
If you are tech tax text so that you can
win every discussion. Whenever you have a discussion with anti capitalists,
you have the better peck. They have the ideology, but
you have to.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Text the facts the information. It's all in Reiners Getleman's
new book in Defensive Capitalism, Debunking the Myths before we
part company. The one thing I wanted to I want
to ask you about is this idea that capitalism creates
unnecessary consumption. I can see the arguments. I've heard the arguments.
I know you have. The world can sustain like the
United States level of consumption. Not everybody's going to build

(52:48):
a three thousand square foot house. The world's resources can't
handle it. There's too many. I mean, you can see
where that goes, and you know on a ten thousand
foot level, that kind of is appealing. From an argument,
how do you respond to that one that is made regularly.

Speaker 8 (53:04):
I spoke about it before a little bit that troths
doesn't mean that you need always more resources. I gave
it the example from the from the CDs, from the
from the iPhone and other things. So it was though
before that if we have more crows, that we need
more resources. But I have pats also in my book

(53:25):
that there was a sea tackling from spending resources and
crows of GDP. This is one thing. The other thing
is if they speak about unnecessary consumption, I think I
will tell them please go to Africa. Please go to
China and tell people we have enough. We have here
good standard of living in the United States, but you

(53:46):
should live like you did before because there's not enough.
Don't tell it people in the United States. Go to Africa,
go to Asia. Tell people I'm very often in Asia,
and it's amazing what's happened there. Look, for example, I've
been in Vietnam, and Vietnam was in ninety ninety one
of the poorest, maybe the poorest country in the world,
poorer than epicent countries. And then they started with economic reforms,

(54:10):
pro market reforms, they introduced private property. They call themselves socialists,
but I guarantee you one thing. It's easier to tie
the Marxist in the United States or European to find
in Vietnam. So and now stand the flitting increased. And
I'll go to them. Tell them it's called the mistake.
It goes wrong. Please go back to the nineties, first

(54:31):
because you were more equal, and second because you spent
my results.

Speaker 9 (54:35):
Go to them.

Speaker 8 (54:35):
Discuss with them, don't discuss with me.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
That's great. Rady's element is a pleasure having on the
program that I'm glad we're able to talk and your
book is on my blog page of fifty five cares
dot com, so my listeners can easily get a cap
copy of it, and I recommend they share it with
their friends. Keep up the great work, sir. It's been
a real pleasure having you on my program. Right, Tim
as here, happy to welcome to the firty five CARC
Morning Show author Bob Delaney. The name of the book

(54:58):
Heroes are human Lessons and Resilience, courage and wisdom from
the COVID front lines. I guess that means he's a
doctor or someone in the medical profession, but no, he's not.
Bob Dainey. Welcome to the fifty five CARC Morning Show.
It's a pleasure to have you on today, sir, morning Brian,
how are you. I'm doing well. You've written some other books.
I would love someday to talk to you about Covert
my years infiltrating the Mob, which sounds fascinating. But you

(55:20):
also wrote Surviving the Shadows, A Journey of Hope into
post traumatic stress, and that work in post traumatic stress
and stress and your experiences, and I suppose, and tell
me if I'm right, does that serve as a springboard
for your writing this book? About the COVID frontlines and
the medical profession.

Speaker 9 (55:36):
Exactly.

Speaker 10 (55:37):
Yeah, as you mentioned, covert my years infiltrating the mob.
I was a young New Jersey State trooper when I
was tapped to go on to cover and piltrate the
Genevie's and Vernal crime family. He's back in the seventies
and I became a president of a trucking company that
served as our base of operations. But after three years

(55:58):
of living another life, I surface from doing that undercover
work and started dealing with post traumatic stress and became
a student of it, became immersed into understanding what I
was going through, the emotional violence inside of me that
resulted and catapulted into the work that I've been doing

(56:19):
for the past words decades with those who serve our
military frontline first responders.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
So you experienced post traumatic stress as a consequence of
the concern what over getting killed by the crime family
because you were an inside operative? Is I can understand
how that might happen, But is that the connection?

Speaker 9 (56:38):
Exactly? That's what some of the other basis. We're in
a wire and if you get cault aware and a
wire in that world, you're gonna die and so there's
nothing on you when you work deep covered that says
you are law enforcement. And so that was a constant concern.
And yet I had to play as if none of
this bothered me. Right, And even after I surface, everybody's

(57:00):
telling me I'm a tough guy and I'm brave and
heroic in the work that I did, But they didn't
see me walking around my house two o'clock in the
morning pushing shower curtains back with my gun out because
I'm paranoid They're coming to get me.

Speaker 10 (57:13):
Wow.

Speaker 9 (57:13):
And so this journey that I went on.

Speaker 10 (57:17):
Really helped me understand that while that job was about
putting away bad guys, it really was about having the
experience to help a lot of good people understand the
emotions that they're dealing with well.

Speaker 1 (57:28):
And as you describe that and anybody who's living that
sort of stress, and I think about the men who
serve on the front lines in the various conflicts, kicking
indoors every single day, to be faced by evil guys
with machine guns trying to kill them, and then you
got to go out and do it again tomorrow, and
then you got to do it and get the next day.
Your life is constantly on ad you have that adrenaline

(57:49):
that's constantly going through you run as high state of
alert constantly, and then when you come back home, you
can't just lay down in your bed and pretend life
is normal. Your brain is wired to to stay that way, right.

Speaker 10 (58:02):
Yeah, it's you know, they compartmentalize. Whether it's a homicide detective,
law enforcementalves or firefighter first responder, are military on foreign soil,
they compartmentalize their experiences. And what drove me to heroes
are human. Every hospital I drove by it said heroes
work here, and so it underlined to me that those

(58:23):
who serve in the healthcare community are at war with
an invisible enemy. And so I drew the parallels between
the work that I've been doing with Iraq, Afghanistan, and
Vietnam bets for the last four decades to find out
what was going on inside the health community healthcare community.
And while I found that they are very good at
taking care of us, they're not very good at taking
care of themselves. And I wanted to underline to them

(58:46):
that self care does not mean selfish, that they have
to take care of them them as well.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Well. As you were talking to these various healthcare providers
and dealing with the COVID and their post traumatic stress
or the stress that they experience. And I guess it
depends on how much that person is committed to human
life and loves their patients even though they're not their
own loved ones. I guess I'm kind of framing it
that way because I see, you know, I know nurses.

(59:14):
I've mactified. My wife was a nurse for ten years
before I met her in law school. But I imagine
the stress isn't connected maybe with the loss of life
they might see. But is it the workload? Is it
the fear of contracting COVID? Is it the ridiculous rules
that were put in place that separated family members with
glass and elderly couldn't meet and commiserate with their loved ones.

(59:36):
I mean, all of these draconian rules that rolled out
to me that would be an extraordinarily stressful part of
the job. Just the anguish that the patients and their
loved ones are feeling.

Speaker 10 (59:47):
Yeah, everything that you just described are stories that I heard.
I doesn't give you the story that ICU nurse who
was working in the area COVID for so long, she
just wanted to get out with her husband and go
out on the lake, going on a boat and just relax.
And they had a great day on the lake. And
as they came in, she went to the front of
the boat to tie it off and she started crying uncontrollably.

(01:00:09):
And what had happened, Brian. She saw a small boat
on land that had a tarp over it that was
the same color of the body bag she had been
putting patients into, and it triggered her to remember every
one of their names and see every one of their faces.
These are very similar stories to what I heard from
our troops coming home from Iraq in Afghanistan, and I
would hear Sarah, I can't go over a bridge without

(01:00:30):
checking for an ID. I'm late everywhere I go, Sara.
You know, I wanted to bob with my kids and
went for a walk and my son kicked a can
and I went ballistic, yelling the screamer because where I
came from to kick something, you don't come home. These
are real stories of what these experiences are causing. Also
in our healthcare community, folks are never afraid of home

(01:00:50):
bringing home cancer. Now they had to be concerned about
bringing home a disease to their loved ones. And as
you said, they were holding hands of people who were dying,
or setting up FaceTime zoom calls for a final device.
These were not the kind of thing that they were
doing on a daily basis prior to COVID, So this impacted.
But I would underline that this is not just about COVID.

(01:01:14):
This is about the burnout and stress that our healthcare
community is under. And I think, just like with our troops,
we have to honor, thank and support them because they're
doing the work that we were asked to sit in
a driveway six feet away from each other to have
a happy hour while they're on the front lines.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Indeed, here is a human the name of the book
Lessons and Resilience, Courage and Wisdom from the COVID front lines.
I understand you, President of Barack Obama, you got the
Volunteer Service Board for your work with post traumatic stress.
So knowing so much about it and all of your
work over the years, how does somebody even know if
they have post traumatic stress?

Speaker 10 (01:01:52):
Well, first, it's going through a traumatic event, right. So
the awareness that Brian, I believe that we can do
the same same thing with post traumaunt stress that we've
done in so many other areas. We became knowledgeable with
educational awareness about hiva's alcohol drugs. To back up, we
need a trauma awareness program in our country. PTSD is

(01:02:14):
the most loosely used term because I would underline to
you in your audience, we do not get PTSD if
Starbucks gets our order wrong. Yet people throw that term around.

Speaker 9 (01:02:26):
As if it's just like PTSD for everything that's a diagnosis.
This is a human condition. It's not a mental illness,
and it's been around forever. Sophocles wrote two plays about
the warrior not knowing how to act after coming home
from battle. After the Civil War, we called it soldier's heart.
We called it shell shock after World War One, battle
fatigue after World War Two, and flashbacks after the Korean

(01:02:47):
and Vietnam wars. Today we call it post traumatic stress
disorder is a diagnosis, but you have to have post
traumatic stress before you get to the disorder. So my
hope and my attention is building bridges to allow a
conversation to be normalized about this post trauma. After someone
goes through a.

Speaker 10 (01:03:05):
Traumatic event, and the most common clause is an audible
they'll accident, but.

Speaker 9 (01:03:09):
It can happen after natural disasters, It can happen after
very serious situations and families that these are real events
that take place, and emotions are meant to be felt,
yet we as human beings do everything we can to
hide our emotions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
True. Now, the way you have presented the materials, you
let the frontline workers tell their stories rather than reward
them or summarize them or otherwise rework them. It is
the point of that to help individuals out here reading
the book and who may be dealing with these issues,
whether it's because they're a frontline worker or because they
were in the military or experience stress to some level
to cause this problem. Is that for a relatable so

(01:03:48):
they can say, oh, yeah, I'm not alone, this is
exactly what I'm feeling right now. Because that's where you
get the connection where it's like a support group. You
can take some comfort knowing you're not the only one
of the world experiencing this.

Speaker 9 (01:04:01):
Yeah, thanks Brian for making that point. Right.

Speaker 10 (01:04:04):
Validation and permission is taking place when someone else here
is if you tell me your story, you validate and
give me permission to tell me tell you my story.
And when I tell you. We each share our stories.
There's a validation of our feelings that's taking place, so
we don't feel like we're on an island. I like
to use this analogy when I present, I asked the

(01:04:25):
audience to imagine that I'm holding a big balloon.

Speaker 9 (01:04:28):
Over my head full of air. How do I get
the air out? I can take a pin and poppet
I get the air out, but I don't have a balloon.

Speaker 10 (01:04:32):
I can let it go.

Speaker 9 (01:04:33):
It flies all over the room, it goes out the door.
We don't know what happened to the balloon. But if
we're patient and willing to listen to sounds we do
not want to hear, and it may hurt our ears
that sound as we turn it upside down and let
it alone, the air out of time screeching noise, but
eventually get all the air out, it can have a
full balloon we can use again one day. That's us
with trauma. We need to get the ear out of

(01:04:54):
our balloons and share what we're experiencing. I don't mean
that we get up in front of our moons in
front of a hundred people. Have one or two people
in your life that you're able to have a conversation
that you trust them to allow you to get the
air out of zero belonging.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
So this book is written for anyone who's maybe experiencing it,
but also for loved one so they can help their
loved one who has post traumatic stress cope. Correct.

Speaker 9 (01:05:21):
Yes, the post amount of trust does not only come
to the individual that's experiencing it. Emotional shrapnel comes to
friends and family. And so having a working knowledge, having
an understanding, and hearing other stories to understand because I've
had nurses say my family says to me, well you
should be able to handle it. You've been a nurse
for twenty years. Well that's not the way it works.

(01:05:43):
And I think that normalizing this conversation, allowing folks to
have the conversation doing what we're doing right here by
folks in the media putting it out more and more,
because think about this blind we have moved the bar
in a lot of ways. Think of the Simon bio situation.
Had some own Biles two or three Olympics ago made

(01:06:05):
that decision, she would have been vilified for being unpatriotic.
And yet we became have become more knowledgeable and understand
that a young woman doing twirls at twelve to fifteen
feet in the year. She has to have everything going
exactly right. And if she is saying it cannot work

(01:06:26):
because I'm having an emotional or a psychological episode, that
this twisties that we all came to learn, that's a
moving of the bar. We're becoming more knowledgeable about what
takes place in our society well.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Bob Delaney, authors author of Heroes Are Human. I can
only imagine that folks with post traumatic stress probably pretty
high on the spectrum in terms of substance abuse. You know,
it's a coping mechanism, sometimes self medication to make the
old pain go away. Have you found that in your
work with post traumatic stress victims.

Speaker 9 (01:06:59):
Yeah, the behaviors right, just as you said, drinking, drugs
or sex addictions. You can go on and on with
a variety of addictions that draw people to be trying
to push away and forget what they're experiencing, and that
hurt people, hurt people, and so the more that we're
able to understand what's taking place, I think the better

(01:07:21):
we will with interacting with it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Bob Blaney, It's been a genuine pleasure talking with you.
I'll recommend my listeners get over to my blog page
fifty five carec dot com get a copy of Heroes
or Human Lessons and Resilience, Courage, Wisdom from the COVID Frontlines.
Kimberly Ellis, We're going to talk about her new book.
She's a researcher and runnerund family issues and has worked
as a policy advisor for the past nine years. She's
written for great outlets The Federalists, town Hall, Life Site, News,

(01:07:46):
EPOC Times, Daily Signal, as well as others. She was
featured on the Tucker Carlson Program Tucker Carlson Today last year.
Also spoken at the United Nations and other venues all
around the country. Graduate from Brighamam University with a degree
in English. Welcome to the program, Kimberly Ellis, who's here
to talk about her new book, The Invincible Family. Why
the global campaign to crush motherhood and fatherhood can't win. Kimberly,

(01:08:07):
It's great to have you on the fifty five Carcene
Morning Show.

Speaker 11 (01:08:11):
Thank you, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
And I mentioned Joe Mobley with good reason. I just
got off the phone with him and I mentioned he
is a black man and very conservative, and we talked
about education, and I gave my parents, as I have
many times over the years and I have my entire life,
the just the utmost thanks for my education. I said,
it's the second greatest guess they gave me after life.
It allows me the freedom to, you know, defend for myself,

(01:08:35):
provide for my family. And it was, but I said,
it wouldn't have happened. I don't believe without my mom
and dad both taking a keen interest in my success
in education. The destruction of the family, of the of
the Nuclear family is obvious. And Joe agreed with me that, yeah,
the leftists are all out to tear down the Nuclear family.

(01:08:55):
Is that why you wrote the book?

Speaker 11 (01:08:59):
Yes, exactly why I wrote the book. And I became
involved with an organization that was working at the global level,
actually at the United Nations level, and I quickly came
to see that there is an all out attack on
the family. It's not just something that has naturally happened
over time. I mean, there's been some of that, but
there are people and forces at work globally that want

(01:09:21):
to disband the family. They see it as an evil
institution and one that threatens their power, and so they're
working actively to tear it down.

Speaker 1 (01:09:30):
Well, it's evil because it does threaten their power. And
we evil parents get to influence the hearts and minds
of our young people, and gee, maybe we want to
raise them in a way that's inconsistent with their leftist,
government controlled ideology. I have to ask you this the
name of the book, The Invincible Family. Why the global
campaign to crush motherhood and fatherhood can't win? Is is

(01:09:50):
that a plea, oh my god, it can't win, or
is it a conclusion that no, it can't win.

Speaker 11 (01:09:59):
It's a declar that it can't win. And I'll tell
you why. Because the family predates the state. The family
is based in our very anatomy, as designed I believe
by God. And so children are born into families.

Speaker 12 (01:10:14):
They're not born into the state.

Speaker 11 (01:10:16):
They don't belong to the state. They inherently belong to
their families. And that is unchangeable. And so we can
damage the family, we can reject the family, but in
the end, the family is the thing that will always
rise again.

Speaker 13 (01:10:30):
And ultimately the family.

Speaker 11 (01:10:32):
Is the thing that has the most power on an
individual level, which then radiates out through society. So really,
in a long term, it's a hopeful message that the
family is already designed to triumph.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Well, we've seen that. That was one of the great
things that came out of COVID Kimberly, is that parents
started paying attention to what their children were being taught,
and they started showing up at school board meetings, and
they started demanding some change along the lines of, you know,
additional educational methodologies like, for example, let's teach our kids
phonics so they learn how to read now, or let's

(01:11:07):
get a critical get rid of critical race theory because
you know, it demonizes white people and tells this our
entire society is worthless and irredeemable. That was a beautiful
thing to see. And that is an illustration of exactly
what you wrote about in the book, isn't it.

Speaker 9 (01:11:23):
It is?

Speaker 11 (01:11:23):
And I think once parents realize the power that they have,
I mean, that's one of the reasons why I wrote
the book. I wanted to cut the legs out from
under the global efforts to undercut the family. I don't
want to do that by arming parents with the knowledge
about their power that they already have. It Like, there's
not a lot of other laws that need to be
in place or whatever, like we as parents already inherently

(01:11:44):
have the power to direct the world and our families
the way that we need to. And yeah, it's a
beautiful thing to see people kind of realizing that and
just standing.

Speaker 12 (01:11:54):
Up, because most parents don't.

Speaker 11 (01:11:55):
They don't send their kids to school to learn about
how to be an activist, you know. They send their
kids to school to learn about history and the world
and to learn skills that are going to take them
forward and to understand history so that they don't repeat
its mistakes. And we've gone so far from that, and
it's time to reclaim our kids' education.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
The name of the book, The Invincible Family, Why the
Global campaign to Crushed Motherhood and Fatherhood Camp win by
my guest today, Kimberly Ellis. I am sure I know
that you, like so many people, view this whole gender
pronoun and discussions of gender ideology and the trans movement,
and in invading our classrooms, our libraries, almost every aspect

(01:12:35):
of our society, sports included in order to discuss those concepts,
and this always frightens me. Very young people must also
learn about specific sexual proclivities that any one underlying group has.
This isn't just other people in the world exist. We
don't want to have a conversation about sexual acts. But

(01:12:56):
when you start diving down to any individual letter, quite
often that letter is a reflection of something nothing other
than their sexual proclivities. We don't need that in our
children's education, particularly young people. This is it's some people
call it grooming.

Speaker 11 (01:13:11):
Your take on that, right, well, it's very disturbing. And
this is one of the things that brought me to
the agenda, that brought me to the table to address
these things publicly, is that I found some information about
the children's sexual rights movement, which I didn't know that
even existed, And when I found out that it did,
and that it was highly funded and very organized, and

(01:13:31):
that it was being pushed through our schools, mainly through
comprehensive sexuality education programs, I just thought parents have got
to understand this. And a lot of people, I think
some of us, were so good hearted. We don't want
to believe, perhaps that other people would foist these kind
of things upon children, But the fact is it's happening,

(01:13:52):
and as you said, in the past couple of years,
it's become quite obvious that it's happening. And just as
one example of the philosoph This is one of the
original statements that I found that disturbed me. This is
from a publication by International Planned Parent Confederation. It says,
sexuality and sexual pleasure important parts of being human for everyone,
no matter what age, no matter if you're married or not,

(01:14:14):
no matter if you want to have children or not.
Governments and leaders have a duty to respect and fulfill
all sexual rights for everyone. That's the philosophy. That's the
philosophy behind these sexuality programs, and to me, that's insidious.
That's teaching our children that sex is just one a
fun activity to have. It has nothing to do with

(01:14:35):
creating life, has nothing to do with family formation, and
that is that erodes our children at the soul of
their character and what they should be seeking for in life.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Well, I know you're right about this in your book
The Invisible Family. What your parents know about the quote
unquote teaching sexual consent curriculum Kimberly, Well.

Speaker 11 (01:14:55):
Oftentimes that's presented is, oh, this is a wonderful curriculum.
It teaches about consent. Parents what they think when they
hear that is, oh, good, they're going to teach my
daughter refusal skills. Of how to say no to sexual
advances that she does not want, which would be a
beautiful thing. But more often than not, what is being

(01:15:15):
taught is the concept of consent, both positive and negative,
with an emphasis on positive.

Speaker 13 (01:15:20):
In other words, teaching kids.

Speaker 11 (01:15:21):
How to say yes to sex, how to let their
partners know that yes, they want this to continue. And
you know, like one good example that I thought in
curriculum was it proposed to kids that they should use
the clear statements like can I take your shirt off?
That's not that's not what parents are looking for when

(01:15:42):
they're told that the programs are going to teach their
kids consent. And there's a lot of other really horrid
examples of you know, kids in their parents' basement discussing
whether or not they're going to go ahead with sexual activity.
That's Those are the kind of scenarios that are in
a lot of these comprehensive sexual education program So you
have to be really careful and listen to the language

(01:16:03):
and then investigate what that actually means. Consent sounds good,
but it can also.

Speaker 12 (01:16:07):
Be very bad.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
It can, and the whole idea these discussions involve what
I would argue are adult activity. Now granted, will have
a lot of high school kids experimenting with sex. Been
a problem since the Donna mankind. But when you're talking
about pre you know, K through three, third grade, fourth grade,
fifth grade, sixth grade, totally unnecessary to have discussions about this.
But when you do, and when you talk about all

(01:16:28):
the sexual activity, this is something adults do, I mean
everything is the minute you tell a child they're not
supposed to do it, this is an area that they
shouldn't be dabbling in, that's exactly what they want to do,
which opens the door for some creepy pedophile to say, hey,
you know, this is what adults do. You interested in
growing up quickly? And that's often an incentive for children,
sort of an active rebellion.

Speaker 7 (01:16:49):
Rights.

Speaker 11 (01:16:50):
It's the stage for that. And as adults, as grown
ups and parents, our role is and has always been
to protect the innocence of our children, lead them down
the path of adult behaviors and things that they will
inevitably come in contact with later. Our job is to
guard their innocence and let them grow up and have
a normal and beautiful childhood before they're bombarded with all

(01:17:12):
these things.

Speaker 14 (01:17:13):
We shouldn't be the.

Speaker 11 (01:17:13):
Ones and our schools should definitely not be the ones
who are bombarding our children with sexual content.

Speaker 1 (01:17:18):
Well, I think I'm on safe grounds concluding that you
are an advocate for school choice and allowing parents to
get their children into any form of education that might
allow them to escape this type of indoctrination.

Speaker 11 (01:17:32):
Well, I am in favor of parents taking control of
their education and directing where their children go to school
or if they're homeschools. I see some global connections to
some of the school choice efforts that concern me, which
I address that in the book. Some of the global
education entities in ESCO and people connected to that are
pushing certain school choice efforts, which makes me concerned about

(01:17:55):
what their intentions might be. So again, that's something you
have to be really careful about. However, parents deciding hey
I'm not okay with this school, I'm going to make
a change, of course, I'm all in favor of that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Kimberly, Well, I know you offer a lot of suggestions
for the readers of your book The Invincible Family and
how they can fight back against the woke curriculum. I'll
just use that as a term to sum up everything
we're talking about here. But what are the essential actions
parents and policymakers can take to deal with this, most
notably fighting children So they're fighting this children's sexual rights movement,

(01:18:26):
or perhaps fighting against this anti americanism that's being taught
in schools.

Speaker 11 (01:18:33):
Well, I think we need to take responsibility for teaching
our kids. The first and foremost and most important thing
that we need to do is we need to consistently
teach in our families and to our children about what
we believe about marriage, family, gender and sex and the
value of human life like these are discussions that we
need to have. I think for too long we've assumed

(01:18:54):
that the school is going to teach our kids that
they need to know.

Speaker 8 (01:18:57):
It has to be us.

Speaker 11 (01:18:58):
It has to be us teaching what we believe is right,
not what is politically correct, what we believe is correct,
and you know what, our children will will believe us
for the most part. And so we have to take
the rings on that we need to have a regular
conversations with our kids about these really foundational issues and
to not be afraid of doing that. And then, of course,

(01:19:19):
second secondarily, we need to do everything within our power
to keep children's sexual rights advocates out of our schools.
Planned parenthood for sure should never be in a school.
You know, we've got to take action politically and locally
to keep those kind of influences out of our schools.

Speaker 1 (01:19:38):
Well, the fifty five CARC Morning Show audience right now
screaming at the radius, going hell yeah, you tell them, Kimberly,
pre K is one more thing for we part company.
And I will let you know that your book, The
Invincible Family, White Global Campaign to Crushed Motherhood and Fatherhood
Can't Win, will be on my blog page fifty five
cars dot com so people can easily get a copy.
I will encourage everyone to get a copy and share
it with anybody out there who is in a bos

(01:20:00):
to guide their children's education. But this push and Biden
brought it up in the State of the Union push
for pre K. They want, I mean suffer the little
children to come unto me, they want to indoctrinate them
from an earlier and earlier age, taking away parents' ability
to full mold and form their children's lives in the
manner in which they see appropriate. That is that's scary
to me. That is really scary to me that people

(01:20:22):
embrace this like well, I'll be able to go to work.
My kids are going to be basic in babysitting class. No,
they're going to be an indoctrination camp.

Speaker 4 (01:20:29):
Right.

Speaker 11 (01:20:29):
This is one of the things that I've seen just
in the last month that alarms me the most is
the Biden Administration's new plan. What they call it, it's
the US Global Plan for Women's Economic Security. What it
is at its core is getting little children away from
their mothers and into state care or other care as
early as possible. That concerns me. I understand we all

(01:20:51):
have different circumstances. We need to utilize childcare at some
point in their lives. But if the core of the
objective is to get little children away from their mother
that's wrong. That's wrong because little children need their mothers
and fathers when they are young the most. Because the
person who teaches a child when they're little is the
one who has the greatest influence upon them for the

(01:21:11):
rest of their life. We need to never give that up,
especially not to the state.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Amen, kimberly Ls, you're speaking my language, the invisible family.
Why the global campaign crushed motherhood and fatherhood can't win
definitive statement. I can't thank you enough for writing the book.
I can't thank you enough for the time you spoke
my listeners and me, and again, I'll encourage my listeners
to get a copy of the book and share the
love with friends. Kimberly a real pleasure. Keep doing the
great work. Box Station a thirty one fifty five KRCD

(01:21:38):
talk station. Happy for Friday. They've got some good plans
for the weekend. Looks like the weather's going to cooperate
for a change. No thunderstorms predictive over the weekend. And
in an effort to fight back against what the National
Teachers This Are Education Association wants your children to look
at in grades K through six, I suppose I am
happy to welcome to the fifty five KRC Morning Show.

(01:21:59):
Michelle Hout's local author and a speaker as well. You're
still award winning. She's the author of a dozen or
so books for young readers, and they go from picture
books to middle grade novels. Michelle, Welcome to the fifty
five KRC Morning Show. It's great to have you on today.

Speaker 12 (01:22:13):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (01:22:14):
I don't see any title in here like Heather has
Two Mommies or anything like that. See looks like light
fair for children that will maybe inspire them to be readers.
And I got to be honest with you, Michelle, I
just was amazed my son and daughter. We both read
to them a lot when they were little, and their
ability to pick up and learn to read at a

(01:22:35):
very young age was just sort of mind blowing. It's
children are just like sponges, and if you sit down
with them on your lap and you go through a
picture book and you read it, it's in virtually no time,
they're picking it up themselves. And I just and both
of my children have been voracious readers and reading it
levels way beyond their years. I think because of that

(01:22:55):
really early involvement with reading.

Speaker 12 (01:22:59):
Oh definitely. I mean, studies have shown that children who
are read to are definitely better readers, especially in the
early ages, in early elementary grades. They just pick up
on words and sounds and putting that together into sentences
so much easier if they've been exposed to literature at home.
But I do think it's really important for all kids

(01:23:19):
to read diversely, to read about cultures other than our
own than what we see around us, too. And that's
one thing that I'm really happy that the books I've
written have been able to show and rural Ohio kid,
you know, maybe what it's like to hike the Appalation
Trail because the Appalation Trail doesn't even.

Speaker 11 (01:23:39):
Go through Ohio.

Speaker 1 (01:23:40):
So true.

Speaker 4 (01:23:41):
How would we know what it's.

Speaker 12 (01:23:42):
Like in Georgia or Maine if we didn't see it
in picture books and read other people's amazing stories.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
Well, that's the beauty of reading itself. I mean, I've
been a voracious reader my whole life too, and you
do learn so much about the world and of course
different cultures, different periods of history as well. Huge fan like,
for example, the works of Dostoievsky, and you really have
to immerse yourself and what it was like to be
in Russia in those times when they had such, you know,
sort of weird social rules and protocols. And I don't know,

(01:24:11):
I just find it absolutely fascinating. And getting kids reading
early about these different topics is of course a wonderful thing,
and it's a great opportunity to spend some bonding time
with your children. Let's talk about your it looks like
your newest book, give my listeners an illustration of what
you write. And speaking of illustrators, the illustrator you work
with regularly, you need to mention her as well. Hopefully
the scarecrow tell us about that.

Speaker 12 (01:24:34):
Well, hopefully the scarecrow is so important to me because
in children's books, especially picture books, we kind of have
a rule that your main character has to be active
and solve his own problems and have agency. And you know,
you can't have a parent swoop in and solve the
problem for the child, because that's how young children learn

(01:24:55):
to navigate the world around us. And so hopefully the
scarecrow has a scarecrow, and who is more helpless than
a scarecrow. He's stuck arms out in the weather, he
can't move, he can't speak, And so there was a
purpose for having such an inactive main character, and that

(01:25:16):
is that. I've been working with children in schools for
over twenty years, and the biggest change from when I
started to when I left the schools to rite full
time with a number of children being raised by somebody
other than one of their two parents. So lots of
grandparents raising kids, lots of children who have had adults

(01:25:37):
in their lives who've let them down. Kids they're only
six or seven years old. So I wanted to you
can't write heavy stuff like that in a picture book.
You can in a middle grade novel, and we don't
shy away from those tough subjects that kids, excuse me,
go through in a middle grade novel. But in a
picture book you have to kind of make an animal

(01:25:59):
or an inanimate object be the child. And so that's
what I did with Hopefully. The scarecrow. He's in the
garden and he's exposed to the elements, and when he
loses hope, all he really has is his own thoughts,
so you know, those thoughts of bravery, of sticking it out,
of perseverance. So I hope that young children who are

(01:26:20):
going through tough times see it themselves in Hopefully and
know that hope is a strong and powerful emotion that
can get you through when even the people you count
on in life have let you down.

Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
Isn't that true? And that book is on pre order
right now. It's going to be released apparently August eighth.
Demonstrably popular your books are. The ratings on Amazon are
just mind blowing. For example, SeaGlass Summer, which was came
out in twenty nineteen ninety seven five star reviews. I mean,
that's that's very impressive. The shell. Give my listeners a

(01:26:54):
little dose of a sea Glass Summer, which is I
believe recommend what is the recommended age for that one?
Because these are all young people.

Speaker 12 (01:27:04):
Sure, most picture books are targeted for the four to
seven year old audience. And what people don't often realize
is that picture books aren't really meant to be read
by children. They're meant to be read by adult teachers, parents,
grandparents with children on their laps and in front of them.
So picture books are a shared, multi generational experience. And
SeaGlass Summer is a fiction picture book. And you mentioned

(01:27:26):
illustrators a minute ago, and I think something the public
often doesn't know is that when you're traditionally published. So
when I say traditionally published, I mean published by Random House,
the New York publishers, or even smaller publishers, like three
of my books are with Ohio University Press right here
in Ohio. But that's still traditional publishing. When you traditionally

(01:27:47):
publish versus self published, an author of a picture book
does not get to choose the illustrator. And so that's
because a picture book is a marriage of art and words,
and there was no illustrator telling me what words to use,
so I cannot dictate how the visual aspect of the
story is told. That's the illustrator's job. So Sea Glass

(01:28:09):
Summer is published by Kendlewick Press in Boston. And when
they told me that a man named Bagram Batarine from Russia,
a Russian American, he's been in America for ten years.
But fine art illustrations, somebody I could never first of
all reach nor afford as if I were hiring my

(01:28:31):
own illustrators. The pictures in SeaGlass Summer are like museum worthy. Yeh,
fine arts illustration, and they are just I'm looking.

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
At them right now because you can look inside on Amazon.
As everybody knows, you click on the link and look inside. Yeah,
absolutely beautiful works in there. There is no question about
it looks like water color. They're they're just they're just fantastic.

Speaker 12 (01:28:53):
It is watercolor. Yeah, And so people often ask, you know,
so when you get the illustration, so you ever disappointed?
And I've been so lucky, so lucky and blessed to
have been paired with amazing illustrators from all over the US.
And I've only met maybe one or two of them.
They usually keep those two creators separate, especially during the

(01:29:17):
creative process.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Yeah, it's just so weird to me that you're the
author of the words and the vision for the book,
that you don't have any control over who does the illustration.
It just seems like a foreign concept. But this is
how life works, and it certainly worked out really well
with you and these books. Let's pivot over because in
addition to children's book, you wrote Count the Wings, the
Life and Art of Charlie Harper. Now, if people don't

(01:29:38):
immediately remember who Charlie Harper is, go to Google and
type in Charlie Harper and then click images. Everybody knows
this artist work. And honestly, Michelle, I think we have
probably six or eight Charlie Harper puzzles in our house.
I mean, these things are fantastic illustrations.

Speaker 12 (01:29:55):
Yes, so I was so lucky. This is Charlie Harp
for book and Camy on first. I don't know if
we'll have time to talk about Dotti Kimichick, but both
of those are actually still children's books. They're part of
the Biographies for Young Readers series from Ohio University Press,
and that series set out to tell the story of

(01:30:15):
amazing Ohioans that maybe kids don't know their stories. And
when I say kids were talking the eight to fourteen
year old readers here. And so, you know, Ohio has
all these great astronauts and presidents, former presidents, and their
stories are told over and over again.

Speaker 4 (01:30:32):
But we went on the.

Speaker 12 (01:30:32):
Search at Ohio University Press for some really amazing stories
and we found Charlie Harper. Never had a biography written
about him for the young reader. His art, his love
of nature. He was way ahead of his time as
far as protecting the environment.

Speaker 11 (01:30:52):
He was just and his so almost all of his
art is nature art. But what makes it so special?

Speaker 12 (01:30:58):
And you know, if you think of that Harper cardinal,
that red cardinal that he's so famous for, iconics really
a teardrop and some triangles, and so he reduced everything
into its most basic shapes and lines and colors, and
even the youngest child can look at the most simple
shape and say, oh that's a polar bear, Oh that's

(01:31:20):
a cardinal. And it was so fun telling his story.
I worked with his son, Brett Harper, right there in Cincinnati,
and his work is some of it on public display.
He has murals at the Duke Energy Center. He has
the zoo barn with the animals.

Speaker 1 (01:31:38):
All over it.

Speaker 12 (01:31:39):
There's a big mural of two hummingbirds on the side
of a building, and I can't remember where that's located
in Cincinnati, but there's a lot of public display.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
Of his work really is all over the place, And
of course you go through the museum library, there are
going to be a lot of opportunities to buy puzzles
with his work on it. Those things are fantastic and
real quick. Here we'll just a real quick moment. I'll
take you over, just an extra thirty forty seconds. Here
Cammi on first base. Another baseball's Dottie camon Check.

Speaker 12 (01:32:06):
Yes, so we all know the movie A League of
their own and the main character, Dottie Hinson was played
by Gina Davis. And although the director Penny Marshall stated
many times that no character was portrayed exactly as a
living character that really played for the All American Girls
Professional Baseball League, everyone believes that Cincinnati's Dottie Cameron Check

(01:32:28):
was Dottie Hinson in her leadership skills, in her playing skills.
Stephen looks a lot like her, so it was really
fun to tell her story. Dottie grew up in the
Norwood area of Cincinnati, an only child of Romanian immigrants,
and she just became the star of the Rockford Peaches,

(01:32:50):
which was one of the All American girls baseball teams
that played during the time that Major League Baseball was
facing a hiatus or at least a slow down during
World War Two.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
Well, I tell you what fascinating books. Wonderful opportunity for
you to develop your children's learning skills and enjoy and
learn yourself and exchange thoughts and ideas. Michelle Houtse, appreciate
what you do, and I know you do a lot
of speaking engagements as well. I'll turn my listeners to
my blog page and podcast paget fifty five care Sea
dot com. Joe's going to put a link to your
work so they can easily get doctor Patrick Moore. And

(01:33:24):
given the subject matter of his book we're talking about today,
fake invisible catastrophes and threats to doom, you may be surprised,
as I was, to find out he's a lifelong independent
scientist and environmentalist, co founder of Greenpeace back in nineteen
seventy one. He was a director for fifteen years, a
leader of a whole lot of their campaigns, including ending
nuclear weapons testing, saving the whales, and ending toxic dumping.

(01:33:44):
In the mid nineteen eighties, apparently became disenchanted with the
positions as fellow Greenpeace directors were adopting using misinformation, sensation,
and fear for fundraising rather than using valid science, and
therefore he struck out on his own trying to find
a more sensible environmentalists and basing policies on sound science.
Hence the book And welcome to the program, doctor Moore,

(01:34:05):
Fake invisible catastrophes and threats to do And it's great
to have you on the program.

Speaker 9 (01:34:10):
Thanks for having me on. Brian's pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:34:12):
Well, it's my pleasure. Normally we have you know, sort
of conservative, right leaning or flying in the face of
the green philosophy, the regret of Thunbergs of the road,
but they don't have the background you have. You spring
from a tremendous amount of credibility because you were entrenched
with the green peace movement and the good work, the
arguably very legitimate work they were doing. Somewhere it took

(01:34:34):
an off road and I guess is it all about
the Benjamins? If I can put the term that way,
is that the reason Greenpeace went off the rails just
the huge amounts of money they were bringing in.

Speaker 9 (01:34:47):
Well, yes, we were basically hijacked by the political left
when they realized how much fundraising there was possible in
the environmental movement. I was on all four of the
Save the Whales campaigns out into the Pacific Ocean, getting
in front of the Russian harpoons and working really hard
to get people aware of the fact that thirty thousand

(01:35:09):
whales were being slaughtered every year over the horizon where
no one could see it, and we stopped that back then.
And now I find myself in a situation today where
Greenpeace is siding with fifteen hundred giant wind turbines against
the whales off the Atlantic coast of the United States.

(01:35:29):
That's what I'm embroiled in right now. But I have
written this book Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom,
the premise of which is nearly all the scare stories today,
whether it's about CO two or radiation or GMOs, and
even the polar bears and coral reefs, are about things

(01:35:50):
that are either invisible or so remote that no one
can observe it. For themselves. No one can see carbon
dioxide or radiation in GMOs that's bad is non existent
because it doesn't even have a name. They just say monsanto,
as if that's a reason for being against this important
new way of modifying the genetics of our foods to

(01:36:15):
get rid of bad chemicals to put better chemicals in.
Like with the Golden rice, we can actually create rice
that would prevent a million or more children from dying
every year. And these guys are against it because it's genetic,
and everything is genetic, and all of us are modified.
None of us are exactly the same as our parents.

(01:36:36):
We are genetically modified, and they're using this term as
if it's something evil, when in fact it's the basis
of evolution. So I have had a hard time with
this over the years because I left Green Peace thirty
years ago when they went bad, and they went bad
when they started saying that humans are the enemies of

(01:36:57):
the earth at a philosophical level, that's just too much
like original sin for me. And also when the sharp
end of the stick they my fellow directors, none of
who had any science education, decided that we should ban
chlorine worldwide and make a campaign out of it, and
they nicknamed chlorine the devil's element, when in fact, chlorine

(01:37:20):
is the most important element of all the elements for
public health and medicine.

Speaker 1 (01:37:25):
It's a lifesaver. I mean, how many have you done
any research on how many people would die from infections
or otherwise if it weren't for chlorine, for example, in
our water system to kill bacteria in the like.

Speaker 9 (01:37:37):
Yes, and that's just the beginning of it. Sodium chloride
table salt is an essential nutrient. I mean, you don't
want to take too much of it. It could kill
you if you did it. Would you know, dehydrate the
insides of your body if you drank a half a
cup of it. But the truth is chlorine is the
main element in many of our medicines. Eighty five percent

(01:38:01):
of all our pharmaceuticals are made with chlorine chemistry, and
twenty five percent have chlorine in them. If you look
at the flu and cold remedies you might take, you'll
see a little cl at the end of many of
the ingredients. So they just went completely off the rails there,
and that is when I had to quit. I quit
in nineteen eighty six because they decided to have a

(01:38:24):
campaign to ban chlorine, and they called TVC otherwise known
as vinyl, the poison plastic when it is about the
least poisonous thing in the world, they're making everybody believe
that plastic is poisonous. That's that's why we wrap our
food in it, because it's poisonous. No, because that's how

(01:38:44):
we keep the food from being contaminated is by packaging
it and wrapping it in plastic foil and putting it
in containers. And when plastic goes in the ocean, it
isn't actually negati it's like driftwood. Lots of species grow
on it, and then other species eat the species that

(01:39:06):
are growing on the plastic. And birds actually purposely give
bits of hard plastic to their chicks in the same
way that land birds give pebbles to their chicks when
they're in the nest and then continue to ingest pebbles
for the rest of their lives. There's no pebbles on
the ocean islands where albatross and other seabirds roost, so

(01:39:27):
they have to work really hard to get hard bits
of material for the gizzard of the chick, and they
use pummus, which is under sea volcanoes floating to the surface,
little bits of it. They use bits of hard wood,
they use big nuts from trees. When they see the

(01:39:47):
squid to their chick, the squid goes into the gizzard,
and the gizzard retains the beak of the squid as
a hard object to help grind the food. Because you see,
birds don't have teas. All the mammals have teeth pretty well,
but birds don't, and so they have two stomachs, and
one of them has to have hard objects in it.
And birds purposely use plastic bits of the right size

(01:40:11):
and shape to act as a digestive aid in the gizzard.
And that's this is what people aren't being told. And
even the Smithsonian Institute is publishing these pictures that are
fake of a baby albatross sliced open, dead with like
about two pounds of plastic in it.

Speaker 4 (01:40:31):
That never happens.

Speaker 9 (01:40:32):
They have staged these things. Go on the internet and
look and if you want to find the Pacific garbage patch,
which everybody thinks is twice the size of Texas, it
does not exist. It is a phony thing. Just because
people can't see it over the horizon. They can they
put this they're all photoshop globs hainted on a picture

(01:40:54):
this of the Pacific Ocean. There is no Pacific garbage
patch choice to side as a textas and growing sixteen
times faster than anybody imagine. That's what CNN has to
say about it. Yeah, and they don't show the Pacific
garbage batch. Why because it's fake. And so this is
what I'm up against, and with the media of course

(01:41:16):
very much on site with the scare stories.

Speaker 1 (01:41:19):
Clearly well, doctor Moore, I guess let us analyze. We
have mentioning energy obviously the green alarmists or after any
form of fossil fuel in the name of reducing carbon output. Fine,
let's move away from that. They hate nuclear. Nuclear provides
carbon free, abundant power, and they hate that as well.
We can look at the XO pipeline's cancelation in the

(01:41:40):
name of environmentalism. The oil is still coming out of
the ground. It's going across the road in railcars, as
opposed through a pipeline, which are far more dangerous. It
does nothing to help the environment. In fact, it's worse
for the environment because the trucks are belching out diesel
or the rank or the railcars are to ship it
where it needs to go to ultimately be consumed, which
it will. They're going after fertile because well, fertilizers require

(01:42:03):
natural gas reproduction, so that's bad, which will threaten the
food security of the world. They're going after our energy security,
They're going after our food security. They're going after human beings,
aren't they. Is this not just a whole big ruse
to reduce the population, because that's the final reality of
what they're trying.

Speaker 9 (01:42:21):
Yeah, and if they can't figure that out, they're pretty
stupid that this is the problem. As I said earlier,
they basically believe that humans are the enemies of nature,
the enemies of the earth. And so you know, this
is way too much like original stin for me, most
people are good. There are lots of bad people, and
these are some of them that are preaching this idea

(01:42:43):
that we should take away the energy that runs our
machines and the energy that runs our bodies, which is food.
There's no way you can have life without energy. And
the great irony of this is that carbon dioxide is
the basis of all life, right, life is life is
carbon based. Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon, and

(01:43:06):
all organic matters have carbon in them, and we are organic.
We humans were made out of carbon dioxide being taken
in by plants first, and then we eat the plants,
or we eat the animals that eat the plants, and
that's how we get our energy and the building blocks

(01:43:27):
for our proteins and everything else. Practically in our body
except for our bones. All of flesh on an animal
is made with carbon. And the other irony is that
carbon dioxide is at one of the lowest levels it
ever has been in the history of the Earth in
the atmosphere. In fact, during the most recent glacial advance,

(01:43:51):
which peaked about twenty thousand years ago, one of about
forty that have happened in the place to see ice
age CO two, saying, so the lowest it's ever been
in the history of the Earth one hundred and eighty
parts per million. At one hundred and fifty parts per million,
plants start to die because they don't just need CO two,

(01:44:12):
They need a certain level of it, just like we
need a certain level of oxygen to survive. When we
breathe out. We are breathing out between forty and fifty
thousand parts per million CO two. The atmosphere has four
hundred and twenty parts per million in it, which is
way lower than plants would prefer. They would light eight

(01:44:34):
hundred twelve hundred, two thousand parts per million. That's why
all commercial greenhouse growers put extra CO two in their
greenhouses get thirty to sixty percent higher growth of food.
CO two is at a low level now in the
global atmosphere, not at a high level. It used to

(01:44:55):
be five thousand parts per million. When dinosaurs roam the earth,
it was up to three to five thousand ppm. Is
not correlated. It is not correlated with temperature in the
long term record. These people are taking the last two
hundred years and saying, well, it's getting a little bit
warmer now and CO two is going up, so therefore

(01:45:16):
CO two must cause the warming. If you go back
in history, you will see that the correlation between CO
two and temperature is almost nonexistent. There was a period
of two hundred thousand years two hundred million years in
between the last Ice Age and this one when CO
two and temperature were at complete opposite odds to each other.

(01:45:38):
CO two was going up while temperature was going down,
and conversely CO two was going down while temperature was
going up. It is there for anyone to see. It's
all in my book. There's one hundred graphs and plates
and charts which show the history of CO two and
temperature of the Earth, among many other things. And yet

(01:46:01):
even though it's sold very well on Amazon, it has
more than two seven hundred reviews, ninety five percent are
four and five star reviews. It's been in the top
ten bestsellers in environment and other categories since it came
out two years ago, and it has sold well.

Speaker 1 (01:46:19):
But the media just ignores it, ignores it much in
the way the green movement ignores the points that you
make that I've made million times before. Ohio is flat
because we were once covered by a giant glacier and
I'm glad it melted. We have great farmland now here
in the state of Ohio. Doctor Patrick Moore, author of Fake,
Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom, get a copy of

(01:46:41):
fifty five cares dot com. We got a link there, doctor,
where my listeners can get it. I hope they get it.
I hope they read it. I hope they share it
with their friends and spread truth and speaking of truth,
Doctor Moore, thank you for speaking truth to power. This
is very refreshing and particularly given your credibility having grown
up in the green movement, it's a real pleasure having
you on the show, and I wish you the best

(01:47:02):
of luck and continue to fight the good fight. My friend,
I don't know how he ended up a Hillsdale College.
I'm going to ask him out of the gate. Mark Moyer,
Welcome to the program. You got to ba summa, come
loudly from Harvard University, after year before your PhD at
university at Cambridge, and yet you're at Hillsdale College. Good
to have you on the program, sir.

Speaker 13 (01:47:19):
Now, thanks for having me, Brian.

Speaker 1 (01:47:20):
Survive the woke reality of Harvard and your new book
which we're talking about today, Triumph Regain, the Vietnam War
nineteen sixty five, the nineteen sixty eight, nineteen sixty five,
the year of my birth. What makes these three years
so important or at least maybe distinct that you carved
them out of the broader full length of the conflict? Mark?

Speaker 13 (01:47:41):
Yeah, so, I had previously written a book called Triumph Forsaken,
which covered the war up to nineteen sixty five, which
is basically, how did the US get into the Vietnam
War and it ends with the Lennon Johnson making a
decision on putting US troops in. So this book picks
up with the actual arrival of American troops, and it's

(01:48:05):
in many ways a decisive period of the war. Goes
through the end of nineteen sixty eight, when Lyndon Johnson
leaves office and is replaced by Richard Nixon, but the
war rapidly turns around in nineteen sixty five and then
enters a period of stalemate leading up to the tet
offense of nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 1 (01:48:24):
Well, we had quote unquote advisors there, right, I mean,
didn't that start what was the Eisenhower administration or Kennedy administration,
We started sending folks over there. This was a this
whole conflict was being addressed by wasn't it the French
prior to our taking over?

Speaker 13 (01:48:41):
Yes, the Eisenhower administration sent relatively small number, less than
one thousand, and then when Kennedy comes in in nineteen
sixty one, he decides he's going to up that number
quite significantly, so it's up to about sixteen thousand by
the time he's assassinated. And then when Johnson will increase

(01:49:01):
that further hoping not to put In America tooths. But
the South Vietnamese government goes into a tailspin after a
coup of nineteen sixty three, and then that will necessitate
the US put in ground forces in order to avert
total defeat.

Speaker 1 (01:49:16):
Well, okay, there's the fundamental question, why did we care?
Why do we go to war in Vietnam? And what
were we hoping to achieve? I mean, I've always been
led to believe since I grew up in this period
of time again, I was born in sixty five, we
were going to stop the red wave of communism wherever
it existed across the globe. Is that really the sole basis?

Speaker 9 (01:49:36):
Essentially?

Speaker 13 (01:49:37):
Yes, it's focused particularly on Asia. And there was the
idea of the dominant theory that if you allowed South
Vietnam to fall, that all these other countries around it
would fall, and that would then later get ridiculed by
the left, including places like Harvard and so. But I've

(01:49:59):
gone back and looked and said, well, why, what's the
basis for dismissing this, And they said, well, in nineteen
seventy five South eat on fall of the dominoes didn't
all fall, And there's a logical flaw there because we
go in in nineteen sixty five, it's a very different environment.
And so I look at how the American intervention actually

(01:50:21):
changed the dynamics in Asia and allowed those Domino countries
to survive. And it is particularly important because a lot
of those countries that we saved by going into Vietnam
are now our key allies in creating our main adversary
in China.

Speaker 1 (01:50:36):
I know, that's kind of one of the points I
wanted to get to. It didn't work out so badly,
this whole Domino effect of falling. And it turns out
that you know, their manufacturers, their trading partners, and we
have a reasonable relationship with them. But there's always this
question of could we have won the war. I've been
told repeatedly much in the same way this was an
exercise of utility throughout my life, repeatedly that it was

(01:50:59):
the invention of politicians in Washington, d c. Not generals
who understand the layout of land, the battlefield, what the
needs were. It was you know, folks like Lyndon Johnson
and others sort of hamstringing the generals and getting the
job done right. Is that what you have concluded as well,
in your research on Vietnam War.

Speaker 13 (01:51:18):
Yes, and it's Lynda Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara are the two big players in all of this.
And the generals are within South Vietnam. There they're allowed
to mostly do what they want. But the problem is
that the war is coming from North Vietnam and if

(01:51:38):
you just played defense the whole time, you're never going
to put an end to the problem. And the generals
recognized early on, so they called for this intensive bombing
of the North. But Johnson and McNamara pushed for this
idea of gradual escalation based on some sort of fraudulent
academic series and which turned out to be a disaster
because it just encourage the enemy to escalate and gave

(01:52:01):
them time to build up. And then the other big
thing that the mcnamaron Johnson shot down was the proposals
to go into Laos to cut the Hochi Min trail
where the North Vietamese logistics were coming.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
I have a good friend of mine who actually was
in Laoos doing the CIA type work when he wasn't
supposed to be there. He's got some interesting stories about that.
What was the big deal on that? I mean, I
look at US. We go and we throw rockets in Syria,
we launched missile strikes against countries with whom we have
no conflict because we're looking for one bad guy. I mean,
what was the whole concern over actually saying out loud, Yeah,

(01:52:35):
we're gonna bomb the ho Chi Mintrail. We're going into
doing this because if we don't stop the flow of
soldiers and military armaments for the North of Vietnamese, we're
never going to end this.

Speaker 13 (01:52:47):
Yeah, there's this huge fight between the Defense Department and
State Department and the Ambassador William Sullivan is the ambassador
US in massador in Laos to later go on and
help wreck the Iranian regime in nineteen seventy nine. But
he's claiming that, oh well, we can't violate the neutrality
of Laos, even though the enemy's doing that. And then

(01:53:09):
he comes up with some fantastic schemes to try to
prevent this, in which they try to create artificial rain
and mud so that they can gum up the supply
lines of the North Emis with. This never actually works,
and so you know there's bombing as well. But the
North Vietnames are able to find ways around the bombing,

(01:53:30):
and you know they've themselves have come out later and said, well, yeah,
the one thing we really feared was that you would
put ground troops there because you can't just sneak around,
you know, two divisions of American troops.

Speaker 1 (01:53:43):
Well, is there something the farious that you've uncovered, Mark
Moyer in doing all this research on Vietnam, even more
fundamentally for Triumph regained the book we're talking about, there
something nefarious about their unwillingness to fully commit because it
just sounds like a total half ass approach. And that's
been my perception and of the Hindsight's twenty twenty review
of the Vietnam War, all these impediments as to what

(01:54:05):
would be effective. Was there really was? Was it just
pure diplomacy or is there something more behind the scenes
that some people want to get I have no Vietnam
North Vietnam successful. I mean, I'm just kind of wondering
because it sounds like one mistake after another.

Speaker 13 (01:54:19):
Well, I think it was more a case of there's
a lot of wishful thinking that goes on and misplaced fears.
So Johnson and McNamara have this fear that if they
step things up that Sylvie Union and China will intervene,
and even the intelligence community saying that's not true. And
now we again know that from post war revelations that

(01:54:41):
Chinese and Suvie's did not plan to intervene. They didn't
want to fight against the Americans in Vietnam. So that
was a huge mistake. And then you also have in
terms of one of Johnson's biggest mistakes, as he sort
of admits towards the end of the war, is that
he did not try to get public opinion behind the

(01:55:01):
war because he was a concern that it would disrupt
his great society domestic programs, which you know, as you
mayor Paul, he expected that he was going to eliminate
poverty from the entire United States in a few years,
which of course didn't happen, but that was part of
his thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:55:21):
Wow, well, that's that's the shame that you have the
loss of life and a raging war that has impacted
because he wants some social welfare program here, I mean
take out social welfare program, put anything else. They came
to be seen to be completely independent issues deserving of
equal amounts of detention. This can we learn anything given

(01:55:43):
that we're engaged in a proxy war right now with Russia.
This is kind of the flip side in Ukraine. We're
providing the Ukrainians with weapons and supplies and training, and
insofar as North North Vietnam's concern, I mean, my understanding is,
and please correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm operating
under the assumption that China and or the Soviet Union
we're providing weapons and supplies and resources for the North

(01:56:05):
Vietnamese and the NVA. So they were waging a bit
of a proxy war, weren't they right.

Speaker 13 (01:56:10):
That's right, they were providing lots and lots of material
were Vietnam would not have been able to do much
without the aid of those of those two partners, which
something else does matters to be and we did not
fully comprehend, but you know, in terms of what we
can learn that might be relevant to Ukraine, and we

(01:56:33):
don't know exactly what's going on internally within the government,
but in general, the military leadership usually has a better
grasp on a lot of these realities than the political leadership,
especially you know, one of our big problems is that
we don't have political leaders oftentimes who know anything about

(01:56:54):
the military. Now there's exceptions like an Eisenhower who was
Supreme Commander, but people like Joe Biden and you know,
Barack Obama don't have much of a clue and.

Speaker 4 (01:57:08):
So they either know.

Speaker 13 (01:57:10):
Now, military is obviously not perfect, and you know, we've
got some problems, you know, new problems with the rise
of wokeness in the military, but there needs to be
in general, you know, the civilians need to be paying
close attention to what the military has to say and
not not looking down on them as they don't want

(01:57:30):
to do.

Speaker 1 (01:57:31):
I agree with that. I agree with that assumption or
that that conclusion. Public opinion here in the United States
and the Vietnam War gradually changed over time. You know,
you start with the year of the book, nineteen sixty
five to nineteen sixty eight. I mean, the anti war
protests were full on by nineteen sixty eight, were they not.

Speaker 13 (01:57:51):
Yeah, they really got going in nineteen sixty.

Speaker 1 (01:57:53):
Seven with Summer of Love draft rules.

Speaker 13 (01:57:57):
Yes, the you know, interestingly, college campuses were pretty supportive
of the war until the middle of sixty seven when
the draft rules change and they get rid of draft
exemptions for graduate school, and all of a sudden, you
see this surge. It's certainly not everywhere. It's mainly on
elite campuses in northeast northwest of the country.

Speaker 1 (01:58:18):
Mario Savio out in Berkeley, Yes, and so, but you know,
it's a bit.

Speaker 13 (01:58:25):
Like today where you see people saying, well, there's all
this you know, chatter on Twitter about an issue and
show that people ring this way. Well, it's actually just
a pretty small minority who is very loud and vocal.

Speaker 9 (01:58:37):
So that's what you have.

Speaker 13 (01:58:38):
And so public opinion polls in nineteen sixty eighth showed
the country as a whole is actually pretty still pretty
solidly behind the war, and they recognize what's at stake
and and that you don't just go into a war
with half a million Americans and then just pull right out.
And but this, you know, this small anti war minority,

(01:58:59):
and then they go on, of course to positions in
academia and the media and then try to make it
seem like, oh, everybody agreed with them, but they were,
you know, pretty small and unpopular minority at the time.

Speaker 1 (01:59:12):
Did this the public opinion relative to the Vietnam War?
Did that impact Johnson's decision? I do choose not to run.
I mean, was that impactful in his decision.

Speaker 13 (01:59:23):
It had, it did have some effect, and he was
a little bit vague about why he chose not to run.
But that episode in March of sixty eight is also
a bit misconstrued. Sometimes people think, well, this was when
us decided to get out of Vietnam. But Johnson actually
does not get rid of or does not remove American

(01:59:44):
troops at all during the rest of his term. In fact,
one of the good things he does is he finally
gets sick of Robert McNamara and realizes he's been selling
them a lot of snake oil, and so replaces McNamara
and actually takes a tougher position during the last months
of his administration.

Speaker 1 (02:00:03):
We'll tell you what. Considering again going back to Ukraine
as an illustration of certain parallels, what lessons do we
learn from the Vietnam War that should inform the folks
that are making the decisions in Ukraine and other military exercises.

Speaker 13 (02:00:20):
Another thing that I think is relevant, though it's a
bit late now for Ukraine. But one of the problems,
one of the big mistakes Linda Johnson made was he
did not convey American resolve at the beginning. In facted
the opposite when he is reaction to the Tonkin Gulf,
and since the nineteen sixty four and then he made
some very famous statements in the presidential campaign, but I'm

(02:00:44):
not going to send American boys to Vietnam, and this
of course encourages the North Vietnamese to invade in force
in the beginning of nineteen sixty five. And we've seen
some of the same things with this administration early on
in Ukraine and setting mixed messages about what America is

(02:01:04):
going to do. And so the United States has a
pretty long history in fact of conveying the wrong impression
about American resolve and encouraging our enemy.

Speaker 4 (02:01:17):
So the.

Speaker 13 (02:01:20):
US going forward needs to be very assertive and not
mince words and make clear that it's not to be
trifled with, because we oftentimes when we try to act
like we don't want war, that's the time where most
likely to actually get into a war, isn't that true?

Speaker 1 (02:01:35):
Wow, And have your game plan laid out, like what
your goals are in achieving any given objective laid out
and understood in advance, so we all have a clear
understanding of the objective, which is quite often not the
case Afghanistan Mark Moyer. It's a fantastic discussion, and I
will let my listeners know this is a comprehensive book
in terms of the years covered sixty five to sixty eight.

(02:01:59):
I think you have like one hundred pages of footnotes
of being a lawyer. That's really important because you can
go to the source information and know exactly where you
got the information that summed up in the book Triumph
Regained and Real Quick for you part company, Mark your
first book that you alluded to earlier, the Trump Trump
for a Sake in the Vietnam War fifty four to
sixty five. I understand you got a little bit of
academic lip on that one. What was real quick? What

(02:02:21):
was the story on that a stir was created in academia?

Speaker 13 (02:02:26):
Yes, well, the people who were protesting against the war
in the sixties, a lot of them became professors. And
if you look at American history departments, there's very few
Vietnam veterans and a huge number of Vietnam War protesters.
And so you know, when you're kind of fundamentally questioning
their one of their defining moments and saying, well, you know,

(02:02:49):
you were actually mistaken about all of this, they don't
take kindly to it. So yeah, I was not welcome
in a lot of college campus.

Speaker 1 (02:02:58):
From Hillsdale College. Mark Moyer get a copy of the
book on my blog page fifty five cars dot Com.
Triumphrey Gain Vietnam from nineteen sixty five to nineteen sixty eight.
Thanks for what you're doing. Market's fascinating stuff. And I
really enjoyed the conversation today, and I know my listener
is going to thoroughly enjoy the book. I've been looking
forward to this conversation all morning. I saw Richard Hurwitz
was going to be on the program at this time,

(02:03:18):
and he is. Richard is I'll just give you a
little background on He's writer and entrepreneur, founder and publisher
of The Octavian Report. Writings appeared in multiple sources including
The New York Times, Financial Times, My Favorite, The Wall
Street Journal, Times, The Love in Los Angeles Times, History Today,
and The Jerusalem Post Graduate Yale University where he studied history,
Columbia Law School. And he has written a wonderful book

(02:03:42):
called Excuse Me in the Garden of the Righteous. The
heroes who risk their lives to save Jews during the
Holigas Holocaust Richard, Welcome to the fifty five KRSE Morning Shows.
A real pleasure to have you on.

Speaker 9 (02:03:53):
It's pleasure to be on. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (02:03:56):
I was staring at the statistics on this and every
I think there's not a human being alive, at least
I hope so that doesn't know who Oscar Schindler was
because of the of course the very famous movie Schindler's
List helped the Jews escape Nazi persecution. Apparently he was
very much not alone in this, And in your book
in the Garden of Righteous, you've identified a smaller subset

(02:04:17):
of that larger group who helped the Jews to tell
the amazing story about this. How did you go about
whittling away all of the stories of the twenty seven
thousand folks who did risk their lives and arrive at
the ten that you focus on in the book, Richard, Yeah,
it's a really good question.

Speaker 15 (02:04:34):
I mean, it's interesting that you know there were a lot.
It's twenty seven thousand people out of five hundred million, So.

Speaker 1 (02:04:41):
Okay, Phil, it was a pretty rare occurrence, fair enough.

Speaker 15 (02:04:45):
Yeah, But I tried to try to select and I
talked in the introductions a little bit about us some
other stories of people that everyone from kind of Herbert
Hubert to Frank Sinatra that actually was pretty pretty.

Speaker 9 (02:04:56):
Heroic in their own way.

Speaker 15 (02:04:57):
But I tried to pick story that we're kind of
a cross section of why people did this. Places people
did this, countries people did it. So you have everybody
from the ring master of a circus in Germany to
a Italian Tour de France winner to Prince Harry's great
grandmother who was a princess and save the family of

(02:05:19):
Jews in Greece. So part of it was to try
to kind of give up a broad sex sub section.
Of part of it is because these are just really
interesting stories that to.

Speaker 1 (02:05:27):
Me, at least before we dive into some of the illustrations,
from where did you get all of this information to
be able to tell a detailed story about any one
of these individuals.

Speaker 9 (02:05:39):
Yeah, So it was a lot of archival research.

Speaker 15 (02:05:42):
I went into archives all over the world in over
a dozen languages. There's some very good testimony in Yad Vashem,
the Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, there's online testimony, and then
I was actually able to interview quite a number of
people who were either rescued as children, because at this

(02:06:03):
point that's who's left. And also I interviewed quite a
number of the children of rescuers, which was interesting because
they were while they were all very heroic, they weren't
all saints and they were real regular people like everyone,
who had flaws and as well as good points.

Speaker 10 (02:06:19):
Well.

Speaker 1 (02:06:19):
One of the stories, and I saw your piece in
the Wall Street Journal from January nineteenth in advance of
the International Holocaust Rememberance Day, the story of Lucas Karan.
I think you alluded to it earlier about the Greek
island is it was it Zachenthos. Yes, give my listeners
just a little taste of Lucas Karen's bravery.

Speaker 4 (02:06:43):
Sure.

Speaker 15 (02:06:43):
Yeah, So the Greeks, the Jews in Greece actually had
the worst survival rate in Europe. It was almost ninety
five percent of them were wiped out, but most of
those were in the north and in the south around
Athens and in the islands. It was quite different. And
so Zasninitos is is a small, very beautiful island in
the Ionian Sea. When the Venetians controlled that, they called

(02:07:06):
it the Jewel of the Levant because it's so beautiful,
and there were only two hundred Jews who lived there,
and yet the Nazis, you know, pathologically would would would
go to Eddie where they thought they were Jews. So
they actually showed up and they asked Lucas Carr, who
was the local mayor, for a list of Jews so
that they could support them, and he he uh, and

(02:07:28):
they left for it within twenty four hours. He went
and confided to a friend of his who was the
local metropolitan, The priest Chrystoskimos, and the head of the
Greek Church de Mosquinos in Athens is the only head
of a church in Europe who formerly protested the Holocaust,
and he had told all of his priests and other
members of the clergy to do whatever they could to

(02:07:50):
help the Jews, and and and so did a lot
of the mayors and people in the city, and just
people help their neighbors and so so Carr and the
metropolitan went back the next day to the to the
Nazi and they handed him a piece of paper and
they said, here's the list of Jews that you require,
and on the list they'd written two names their own.

(02:08:12):
And interestingly, you know, that was a you know, they
could have been shot on the spot right would have been,
but the Nazi just backed down. And then what happened was,
over the next period of time, the entire island sent
all their Jews off into the hills and hid them,
and they all survived the war. So they've both been honored.

(02:08:34):
But it was pretty remarkable.

Speaker 1 (02:08:35):
But yeah, extraordinarily brave, extremely brave, because yet Nazis were
known to indiscriminately gun people down for whatever reason they
crossed their heads or just a terrible, terrible regime in
the Garden of the Righteous the name of the book,
the heroes a risk their lives to save Jews during
the Holocaust. I guess I'm always just baffled by the
idea that the German army, or throwing the s s

(02:08:58):
and anybody else who collaborate with the German army, was
sympathetic to the whole idea of exterminating Jews, still a
smaller subject of the much larger population. I mean, I
think of America's military if it descended on the greater
Cincinnati area, how long it would take for them to
go door to door and search and search and search
to find anybody you're trying to hide. But they were
so successful in finding the Jews and exterminating them. Was

(02:09:22):
it really that much the will of the people. You
had to have informants within the population that would ferret
out those who'd be willing to try to save these
folks lives. Is that a big part of the problem
that the Jews faced throughout the entire war?

Speaker 4 (02:09:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 15 (02:09:38):
Absolutely, I mean the hardcore cadre of Nazis could not
have done this without a huge amount of people collaborating.
And people were talking about the numbers earlier. I mean,
the vast majority of people either stood by and did
nothing or actively collaborated. There were people who turned their
neighbors in for small rewards, there were people who did
it just out of.

Speaker 3 (02:09:57):
Spite and what.

Speaker 15 (02:10:00):
But by contrast, when you had certain places like Zakinthos
or Denmark and there are a few, you know, there
were a few others, that's where you ended up having
having a higher survival rate, and there was a rescuer
in Holland, you know where Anne Frank was, who was
quoted as saying that people like him, the you know,
the extreme rare examples were the tip of the spear.
But they could not have done what they did. Was

(02:10:21):
it not for people looking the other way. But unfortunately
in most of Europe that wasn't the case. And in fact,
in a lot of countries like Poland and Lithuania, the
local population did a huge part of the dirty work.
I mean they literally were the people who we were
shooting the Jews or rounding them up and sent to
the to the camps. But it's an important lesson because

(02:10:42):
you know, people without without the vast majority of the
population aiding in a betting, that they never could have
killed six million Jews and millions.

Speaker 9 (02:10:50):
Of other people.

Speaker 1 (02:10:51):
Well, that's illustrated, is it not, by King Christian the
tenth in Denmark, And they're sort of collective mentality as
it related to the treatment of Jews. They, I guess
forbade discrimination against the Jews. The the citizenry there was
not willing to cooperate with the Jews. So in spite
of the fact that the Danes probably couldn't offended off
the Nazis or in a military invasion, they weren't willing

(02:11:13):
to cooperate with them and turn them in.

Speaker 15 (02:11:16):
Yeah, and what you found that from the beginning that
was part of the stipulation. And Denmark was an interesting
story because the local the military and the other local
occupying forces. I mean, the Danes did not like them.
The Fascist party there got less than two percent of
the vote. But the Nazis realized, you know, to go
round up the Jews would be more trouble than it

(02:11:38):
was worth. It finally went up to Hitler and he
personally said, you're going to round up the Jews. And
when they went to go do it, the government actually,
who were tipped off by a German in the government
who was sympathetic to the Jews and a member of
the Nazi Party like shinlern Incently, the entire population then
did the exact opposite of what we've been talking about.

(02:11:59):
They went door to door. They as almost as one,
brought the Jews across the Straits to Sweden. There were
everyone from medical students to taxi drivers. I talked about
in my book a Rower from the Olympic Rower who
brought twelve people. It's what you went back and forth
twelve times to Sweden. And as a consequence of ninety

(02:12:20):
nine percent of the seventy two hundred Jews in Denmark survived.
So they were for a while able to actually hold
the Nazis off. But when when the you know, the
when Hitler himself ordered the round up. The Danes were
almost unique.

Speaker 10 (02:12:37):
In doing this.

Speaker 15 (02:12:38):
They actually the entire country and when people came back,
the story is told that their plants had been watered,
their dogs had been fed, their homes had been cared for,
and because there had been no history of religious discrimination
in Denmark, the Jews had been there for a long
time and they were viewed as Danes first and jew second,
and they were the people's friends and neighbors, and they

(02:12:58):
fought for Denmark and the Danes, as you point out,
from the king down from the first day the Nazis arrived,
and one of the stipulations if you don't want trouble
is you're not going to touch our Jews.

Speaker 1 (02:13:09):
That is, there's so many lessons that we learned just
from that one story, but it's just one of many
in the book in the Garden of the Righteous, the
heroes who risk their lives to say the Jews during
the Holocaust. By my guest today, Richard Hurrowitz, with fantastic
Richard talking with you. I really appreciate you putting this
down and explaining a little bit higher dose to reality,
but also showing the humanity that can exist in spite

(02:13:32):
of the challenges their books on my blog page at
fifty five cars dot com. People will click on it easily.
They can get a copy of it, and I'll just
recommend that they share it with friends once they've read
it themselves. Richard, thanks for what you've done and again
for the time you spent with my listeners of me today.
Welcome back to the fifty five Cars Morning Show. Robert Spencer,
best selling author. Last time he was on the program,
we talked about this book, The History of Jihad, The

(02:13:53):
Palestinian Delusion, also Did Muhammad Exist? Another book and the
Critical Qur'an. Multiple books He's read, seminars for the FBI,
the US Central Command, US Army Command, the General Staff College,
and the Asymmetric Warfare Group and the Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Welcome back to the fifty five Carosee Morning Show, Robert Spencer.
It's great heaven. You want to talk about your brand

(02:14:15):
new book, The Sumpter Gambit. How the Left is trying
to foment a civil war, frightening tie of Robert. Welcome
to the show.

Speaker 14 (02:14:22):
Great to talk to you, Brian.

Speaker 9 (02:14:24):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (02:14:25):
My distinct pleasure, and I'm staring hopeful. I mean, I
want to say I'm in disbelief over the subject matter,
but I can't be. I mean, I talk about this
kind of thing every single day. The Left is fomenting
division across our country and on every subject matter available
what used to be traditional norms. There's an X and
a Y, there's an XC and X. You can tell

(02:14:45):
a boy from a girl chromosomeile. It's definitive. Nope, not anymore.
Depends on what you feel like at megiven Day. That's
just one of a multitude of topics. You're suggesting in
this book that that is in fact a concerted effort
to foment a civil war.

Speaker 14 (02:15:00):
Robert absolutely, absolutely, Brian, no doubt about it. You can look,
for example, at Biden's speech from September one, twenty twenty two,
where he said Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans are
a threat to the very life of the Republic. You
can look back in American history at forty five previous presidents,
and you will never find a president of the United

(02:15:21):
States saying that his principal opponent and half of the
electorate were threats to the republic. There has always been
a mutual respect that was the basis of our political system.
But now Biden and the people running in are trying
to actually silence dissent and allow only their point of
view to be heard, and to make it actually a

(02:15:43):
criminal act to oppose his regime. And that's not how
a free society works. And that's going to either destroy
our freedoms and make the United States radically transform the
United States as he himself and Obama put it, or
else there will be a civil war.

Speaker 1 (02:16:03):
Well, you know, I always, and I got to be
honest with you, Maybe perhaps because I'm smarter than them,
I always kind of laugh at statements like that. It's
just absolutely absurd that conservatives side of the ledger folks
like me. I consider myself a libertarian, but I'm a
profound constitutionalist. I believe in the freedoms and liberties that
are guaranteed by it. I believe in the protections against
the abuses by government that are enshrined in the Bill

(02:16:26):
of Rights in the Constitution. I appreciate the fact that
the left is trying to undermine them at every turn,
but the idea that someone like me who believes in
freedom and liberty and fair elections and the constitutional of
the republic in which we stand that I'm a threat
to the very document that I support ten times, one
hundred times, one thousandfold more than they ever would. It

(02:16:47):
just sounds stupid when they say it.

Speaker 14 (02:16:50):
It is stupid, and it's an absurd inversion of reality.
The problem is they've got the guns, they've got the military,
they've got the police, they've got peopleople who are willing
to do.

Speaker 9 (02:17:02):
What they say.

Speaker 14 (02:17:03):
And what they say is that people who call for
those things, people who believe in the things you just enumerated,
are insurrectionists who have to be watched, who have to
be silenced, and so on.

Speaker 1 (02:17:15):
But so many of us, me included, are proud firearms
plural owners, and we know how to use them and
go to the range quite often. We're engaged in shooting
sports as I am, rifles at the rifle range, pistols
of the pistol range, shooting steels, and I love shooting skiet.
So I'd put myself up against any leftist out there
in the world. How is it sure? How is it

(02:17:36):
they think they're going to overcome the overwhelming number of
firearms owners in this country. If it really did hit
the fan along these lines, Robert.

Speaker 14 (02:17:43):
Well, in the first place, I do want to say
that I'm hoping it won't. I'm hoping that we can
head this offf but if it does, I think that
we would be naive to think it's just going to
be a bunch of patriots with guns against toy boys
who think guns are bad and that they're really winmen
at heart. It's going to be patriots versus people in

(02:18:03):
the military and the police who think that following orders
and keeping their jobs is more important than actually standing
for principle. And there are unfortunately a lot of people
like that in the United States today, and this is
why it could be very difficult if it comes to that,
and once again, I hope it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (02:18:23):
Well, I guess I'm kind of curious if any research
surveys have been done among folks within the military, within
law enforcement, because I know every time some looney leftist
comes up with a new law banning guns or otherwise
criminalizing previously non criminal behavior, that there are sheriffs out
in the world, many of them that auld stand up
and say, you think I'm the head law enforcement in

(02:18:45):
the county, I am not going to enforce this. I
refuse to arrest people who violate this ridiculous rule you
put in place because it's unconstitutional. There are I always
like to gravitate toward that because the men and women
in the military that I know, and the people that
I I know that serve in our military, they're the
true patriots. That's why they're serving. And I can't imagine

(02:19:05):
them turning a firearm on and otherwise, you know, strong
constitutionally sound conservative like myself, just because they're told to.

Speaker 14 (02:19:17):
Well, I hate to sound a pessimistic note, and I
certainly agree with you. The military the the sault of
the earth. These people are patriotic and the rank and
file are people that we can count on to uphold
the principles of the country, and they're not going to
go to war against their own citizens. A problem is

(02:19:38):
that we also have seen that there are people on
the other side, like, for example, when Roger Stone was arrested,
seventy year old political activists and out threat to anybody,
but they could get twenty cops out there to put
the cuffs on him and humiliate him in public. When
the pro life activists were arrested and they got a
swat team and they were willingly going and arresting these

(02:20:01):
pro life activists and making a big show of it
as if they were dangerous, see when they're just ordinary
people who were standing for life and no threat to anybody.
And so if that kind of thing is what I'm
talking about, that if you have people who are willing
to staff a swat team to take down an ordinary

(02:20:22):
American citizen or seventy year old political activist, then we
got a problem.

Speaker 4 (02:20:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:20:27):
No, And there's no argument there, and I never would
argue with you on that very very valid point that
happened though, on what I guess I can say is
a micro level. If you're going after one guy, of
course you can gather up enough people who are willing
to carry out an otherwise ridiculous order to kick in
somebody's door in the middle of the night when it
was totally unnecessary. But when you're unleashing this on a

(02:20:49):
broad national scale, I always like to look at the numbers.
The American military has what two million members or something.
We had three hundred and fifty million civilians in this country.
I look at the map, and I move your Google
map from your house and zoom out a little bit more,
a little bit more. Taking an entire neighborhood would require
you know, a lot thousands of troops in any given

(02:21:10):
geographic area. Do they have the numbers to pull something
like this off. It seems that we would have to
start with a declaration of martial law for it to
even have a chance of surviving.

Speaker 14 (02:21:22):
Well, sure, we're talking about though, the coming to arms,
coming to a hot war, which, like I said, I
hope it doesn't happen right now. What they're trying to
do is rhetorically portray their opponents as being outside the
bounds of acceptable political discourse in the United States, and
not only just to say that, not only was there

(02:21:43):
just Biden's speech in September, but to act upon that.
And that's what we see was, for example, the Twitter files,
where we see people in the administration getting people banned
from Twitter and from other social media platforms just for
disagreeing with the government's line. And the longer use that
goes on and the less it is resisted, then the

(02:22:06):
more it will be become a matter of that is
taken for granted among an increasing number of the populations
that yeah, these people are unacceptable, and yes we must
not say things like that, and so we either get
into line or will come to conflict.

Speaker 1 (02:22:20):
Well, we see with Black Lives Matter in the sixteen
nineteen in critical race theory. We see it with the
green movement, the green energy. If you don't abide, then
you just want to kill the earth or whatever. Again,
you can't come to a subject matter that exist in
traditional norms in our country that they haven't really really
gone to hard work undermining. How you can't even look

(02:22:42):
at the American flag as a symbol of unity anymore.
We don't even have our own national anthem. One of
my listeners just pointed out, does mister Spencer think the
singing of the black national anthem is part of this
as well?

Speaker 8 (02:22:54):
No doubt about it.

Speaker 14 (02:22:55):
Yes, they're trying to sew division, trying to make people
loose people's allegiance to the country, makes people not think
that they are Americans the way that other people are Americans.
And all of that is just laying the groundwork for
either taking total control, establishing an authoritarian state, or provoking

(02:23:17):
an incident of resistance that they can use to buttress
their ridiculous insurrection claims and crack down upon descent even
more than they do already.

Speaker 1 (02:23:26):
My guest today Robert Spencer, he's the author of the
book we're talking about the Sumpter Gamuit, how the left
is trying to foam in a civil war. The name
of the book, the Sumter Gambit. Can you describe that
for my listeners how you arrived at the title?

Speaker 14 (02:23:40):
Yeah, that comes from, of course, Fort Sumter, the beginning
of the Civil War in eighteen sixty one, and it
was the flashpoint when the South, the Confederates in Charleston,
South Carolina, fired upon Fort Sumter. That was the beginning
of the war. And now the left is trying to
provoke another hint thant of that kind that actually came

(02:24:02):
about when the North decided that it wasn't going to
accept the reality of secession and assume that it was
still their fort even though the South claimed it and
reinforced the soldiers there rather than just evacuating them. And
so it's the same kind of thing now that the
left is trying to push patriots into doing something like

(02:24:25):
I just said that they can use to support their
insurrection nonsense or else just we sit back and take
it and take it and take it until the country
is unrecognizable.

Speaker 1 (02:24:36):
Well, I'm immediately really reminded of January sixth and the
overreaction the left had to that one, talking about how
a bunch of like it looks like a drunken fraternity riot.
As far as I was concerned, and I was, as
I mentioned millions of times my listeners, I was screaming
as I was watching that the optics don't do this.
Where in the he what the hell is going on?
You guys have no idea how bad this is going

(02:24:57):
to look and how much they're going to run with
this in the media. And they sure did. But going
back to the to the Republican baseball practice where the
guy opened fire on Steve Scalise and others, he was
he had a hit list. He could have literally turned
the tide by killing any a significant number of Republicans there,
and that's what his motive was, That's what his goal was.

(02:25:18):
And they called it suicide by cop. He didn't know
there were police there when he showed up, and not
a word about it. They they've ignored it, and in
fact Congress and Winstroup has asked for documents and information
relating to it, and they've stonewalled him.

Speaker 14 (02:25:32):
Yep, we'll see this kind of thing doesn't fit the narrative, right,
and so it doesn't exist. The news media is not
about telling us what happened. The news media is about
pushing their narrative. And since the shooting of Scalise did not.

Speaker 9 (02:25:46):
Fit that, it does not exist.

Speaker 14 (02:25:47):
There's just no news about it. And yet any inquiry
will be stonewalled.

Speaker 1 (02:25:52):
All right, before we part company, and I know my
listener are going to get your book, The Sumpter Gamut.
They can do it at fifty five cars dot com
on the blog page, Get a copy of it, share
it with your friends, give us some positive is there
What can we do? Is there helpful information in your
book that'll steer us in the right direction?

Speaker 14 (02:26:06):
Robert, Oh, absolutely, yeah. And there's what we have to
do is understand that now is the time that we
all have to become activists, that when nobody's going to
do this for us, and we cannot sit back and
wait for the soldiers to come and save us or
anybody else. And so, for example, the parents standing up
at school board meetings, the ones who the FBI opened

(02:26:26):
up terrorism investigations against just for speaking out, that's an
example of what I'm talking to that but also it's
a sign of hope that these parents didn't just sit
back and say, gee, it's terrible what they're doing in
the schools. They stood up and they made it stop.
And that's what we can and must do at this
point all across the board.

Speaker 1 (02:26:43):
True patriots they are and continue to be. And my
listening audience is right in your wheelhouse, Sir Robert Spencer.
It's been great having you on the program again. Keep
writing these wonderful books. Explain to the American people where
we are and what we can do about it. Get
a copy of Sumpter Gamut at fifty five caresy dot
com have left just trying to foam at a civil war.
Thanks for your time and your service, Robert, it's been

(02:27:04):
a real pleasure. By Thomas Hosti the Fintybob cac Morning
Show always pleased to talk to authors, but notably when
we're dealing with the topic of COVID nineteen. Welcome to
the fifty five KRC Morning Show author Brent Hamicheck. He's
written a book called Zolenko. How Did Decapitate This Serpent?
Is by way of background. In addition to authoring this book,
he's owned his own business consulting practice since two thousand.
He's a co founder of common Ground Campus, member of

(02:27:26):
Human Events media group parent company Human Events, and the
Post Millennial. Got a BS in Finance and Economics from
Lake Superior State University, post a graduate degree from the
Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin, and
Masters and Studies in theology at Loyola University. Welcome to
the program, Brett. It's a real pleasure to have you
on today.

Speaker 3 (02:27:46):
Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
I always love an opportunity to talk about the book
and Jebb's work.

Speaker 1 (02:27:52):
Well, let us talk about before we get to the
man who is doctor Zolenka Vladimir Zelenko. How did you
get interest in writing an entire book on his life
and his work in COVID nineteen and alternatives to the
narrative that we get from the mainstream media and the
World Health Organization and CDC.

Speaker 3 (02:28:10):
Well, I got interested in it by way of getting
interested first in him, and I had an opportunity to
first get acquainted with zev as his friends called him.
Back in late twenty twenty when a dear friend of mine,
tamer Lee, who knew him and had met him, introduced
us and from there developed a friendship, and that friendship

(02:28:34):
led to constant communication during the later stages of the pandemic,
but usually not about the virus. Usually we would talk
about political theory or theology. He was a very brilliant man,
and that friendship, those conversations ultimately led to the idea
that a book ought to be written. And Zev had

(02:28:56):
a terminal cancer diagnosis given to him way back twenty
eighteen before the pandemic ever started, and once it was
decided that he wanted to write a book, then we
tried to do so with all deliberate speed, and sadly,
the book was completed just after his passing in June
of last year. But fortunately it's based on over sixty

(02:29:20):
hours of recorded interviews and countless conversations that weren't recorded.
So it is his input into the book that was
ultimately written.

Speaker 1 (02:29:29):
Okay, and he became a bit of a lightning rod
my understanding. As he posted back in twenty twenty video
on YouTube regarding hydroxy chloro queen, I guess his protocol
for dealing with COVID the hydroxy chlor queen you have
zinc sulfate a xethramiasin, and he suggested that he had
cured or treated hundreds of patients successfully with that. Donald

(02:29:51):
Trump mentioned zev in comments about hydroxy chloro queen, and
it's almost at that moment in time that he became
this lightning r I guess because Trump embraced the concept,
it became their boten. Did you reach that conclusion? I
know it's a broad brush statement, but is that the
conclusion you reached.

Speaker 3 (02:30:10):
Oh, your broad brush statement could have been painted with
an artist narrow brush for detail, because you have it
exactly right. And that's exactly what happened. And it was
zev who first discovered the effective treatment protocol for treated
and virus. And if you moved the clock forward to

(02:30:31):
the end of his life, by the time he had
passed away, he had overseen the treatment for approximately seventy
five hundred patients with three deaths, and the three deaths
which we talked about in the book, we're probably destined
to happen no matter what. And it was him who
had given the information to the White House with regard

(02:30:53):
to the efficacy of the treatment protocol you just mentioned.
And there can be no question at all that the
very fact that Donald Trump mentioned it, because of the
meet media's vitriolic hatred of him, that once he said
hydroxychloric when could be part of the solution, they had
to make sure that never happened. That was very political.

(02:31:17):
And the idea that you know, a million plus people
died unnecessarily simply over politics and of course over money
is well. Zev called it a crime against humanity. I
think it was exactly that.

Speaker 1 (02:31:34):
I guess I'm appalled. I mean, it's hard for me,
and I trust me, I do not doubt for a
moment that is how it all wind up. Trump says
something and everybody on the left hand side of the
ledge of those that hate him immediately call that a lie,
and we'll do the exact opposite. And we saw that
with a border, Trump successfully stopped the influx of immigration.
As soon as Biden comes in, he reverses everything Trump

(02:31:54):
did just because Trump did it, and we're left with
this disgusting aftermath. I guess I'm just appalled at the
notion that for political reasons, legitimate scientists, I mean medical
community folks, folks that are supposed to be, you know,
diagnosticians and are interested in finding the truth would simply
disregard this. Did they ever subject his protocol to a

(02:32:16):
peer reviewed study? I mean, did they bother even looking
into it? It just became this if Trump said it,
it doesn't work, you're crazy to use it. This is
a horse medication or something.

Speaker 3 (02:32:28):
Yes. Subsequently, yes the protocol has been tested, and yes,
the protocol has been proven to be effective. We in
the book we show that research, and we also show
the research that was deliberately designed to produce what we
could call a false negative. And without going too far

(02:32:50):
into weaves, first of all, if your audience picks up
a copy of Zelenko through zelenkobook dot com, they can
read about this in detail. But the judgen that studies
were conducted that used either hydroxychloroicline or ivermectin in a
way that was never suggested or prescribed by the physicians

(02:33:13):
using it. So, in other words, they said, oh, there's
a claim that these drugs can be effective against the virus.
Let's test it only when we test it. Let's test
it in a way that nobody's using it. And so
they would do so, and they would produce studies and
they would basically say, see it doesn't work. The problem

(02:33:34):
was nobody claimed that it worked in the manner in
which they were producing the study, In the studies that
had been done that use Zelenko protocol the way it
was intended to be used the way it was used.
The facts are clear, and Zev's work was fully vindicated
prior to his death, which he knew, in which brought

(02:33:56):
him a good deal of joy in his final months.

Speaker 1 (02:34:00):
If I can draw a parallel that I think applies
here in police, feel free to correct me if I'm
way off base. I recall back in the seventies as
a young child, remember the sacrin scare that was all
going to give us liver cancer or something. It was carcinogenic.
But the studies they used subjected the mice in the
study to like eight hundred gallons worth of the stuff
a day, on a level at which no one would

(02:34:20):
ever take it. So is that an analogy that for
the protocol. If they had only used the amounts he
called for in his protocol, as you pointed out, it
would have proven it a good protocol and a worthy one.
They just didn't do it that way.

Speaker 3 (02:34:36):
You're exactly right, Only it's worse, So think of it
this way in the Sacram studies, that was just sort
of even to any lay person, that was sloppy research, right.
I mean, of course, if you inject enough of anything
into anything, it'll do it harm. In this case, it
is different because they had an actual proto call that

(02:35:00):
was being used, and instead of testing the protocol in
many of these studies, they altered the protocol intentionally to
distort the message that the public would get. And so
that's far worse. One is sloppy and perhaps ill conceived
in the case of the Sacram, and the other is
intentional with purpose and malice. The forethought, in the case

(02:35:24):
of the studies on hydroxy cleric when in ivermectin.

Speaker 1 (02:35:27):
Did doctor Zelenko survive to analyze those studies that were
done that suggested his protocol was worthless? I mean, did
he have a reaction to that given all the hours
you spent with him, Oh.

Speaker 3 (02:35:39):
He absolutely did. And let me just share briefly with
your audience that Vladimir Zelenko traveled what we call an
America and what we love in America, the hero's journey, right,
And so the hero's journey. You know, he was born
in Kiev and came here with his family at the
age of four, grew up and lived a modesty life,

(02:36:00):
became a regular family medical practitioner in upstate New York,
you know, kind of the life of his community. Used
to say he was a family member to all of
his patients. And then one day patients started to get
really sick and they started to die. And instead of
sitting around and waiting to find out from government or

(02:36:22):
the health industry what he should do, he started to
do some research and he figured out what's come to
be known as the Zelenko protocol. For that he should
have been given parades and treated as a hero. Instead,
like the hero's journey often encounters, he was faced with
scorn and ridicule, and then ultimately, by the end of

(02:36:42):
his life, the research, the results of treatment around the
world fully vindicated what he had claimed along the way.
So this is the story the Americans love, and it's
the story that we try to tell in the book.
And yes, he did survive long enough to reach both
the bad research and then the vindicating research.

Speaker 1 (02:37:03):
Well, given if there is vindicating research out there, and
that the proving that these protocols actually work, why don't
we hear about them? Brett I mean, it's still get
a vaccine, get the Pfizer back, get the booster shot,
get ten booster shots, get one every year. I mean,
I haven't heard anybody talk about it. Well, you know,
I'll tell you what you get COVID not a big deal.
Just use the protocol and you're gonna be fine.

Speaker 4 (02:37:23):
Right.

Speaker 3 (02:37:24):
Well, let's let's let's get really really dark and really
really cynical about human nature. Please, so so, because because
that's where we should stay all the time.

Speaker 1 (02:37:34):
Anyway, And amen, brother, amen, I tell everyone be jaded
and cynical about everything. Do your own research and make
sure you're smart about the research you're doing. Sorry I
had to interject that, but you are talking my talk,
my friend.

Speaker 3 (02:37:47):
Yeah, no, no, no problem at all. Somebody want to
interject on me and stop me everyone a while. So, So,
what your audience perhaps has learned by now, and if
they haven't, they'll read and understanding the book is that
you can't get emergency use authorization for a vaccine if
there is a known, aspective and widely available treatment for

(02:38:09):
the disease against which you're vaccinating. Said differently, the FIZA
of the Maderna vaccines and others never could have been
brought to market as fast as they were if there
was an accepted effective way to treat people. Well, there was,
So what do you do? You suppress it.

Speaker 9 (02:38:29):
And that's exactly what happened. So the treatment was suppressed
so that emergency use authorizations could be received, so that
the pharmaceutical companies could make a lot of money, and
so that politicians involved in promoting the vaccine could.

Speaker 3 (02:38:43):
Look like heroes. Now, if that's not bad enough, let's
make it a little bit worse. Let's answer your question.
So that's where it started. Why aren't we hearing all
about it everywhere today? Why doesn't the New York Times
run a story every morning? Well here's the reason. How
can they? Because for an extended period of time, First

(02:39:06):
they lied to people about the efficacy of treatment, Then
they lied to people about the need for a vaccine.
What are they going to do now? Are they going
to suddenly come clean? Are they going to admit to
their mistakes? Are they going to do honest reporting? All
those things would be a form of self lynching. And
of course we know that people aren't into that. It's

(02:39:28):
a general habit. So they didn't do it on purpose.
At the start, whether it was because of Trump or
whether it was because of money and politics. And they
won't do it now because they won't atone for their
past sins. They won't admit their culpability.

Speaker 1 (02:39:43):
Well, you know, there's nothing wrong with admitting you were wrong. Listen,
I got caught up in the flurry as well. I
listened to what they were telling us. I took them
at their word. I was lied to. I mean that
to me, it establishes or re establishes I might argue
their credibility by admitting them were wrong at one point.

Speaker 3 (02:40:02):
Well, of course that's true, right, we all like to
admit we're wrong. There's a couple of different things here.
Admitting you're wrong usually comes when you sincerely and genuinely
were mistaken and you feel some form of contrition. They
were deliberately complicit and oh, by the way, it's hard

(02:40:26):
to say to the public, gosh, I was wrong when
you being wrong if you were resulted in over a
million deaths. So whether some of them want to say it,
they might, they're afraid to because they know what they did.
And for most of them, they aren't contrite in the
first place. They're not sorry about anything. They did it

(02:40:47):
on purpose, and a million human beings in the United
States were an acceptable loss.

Speaker 1 (02:40:53):
I could talk to you for literally hours of Bret Hamichak,
author of the book we're referring to you today, are
talking about Day's LINKA, how did decapitate the servant? Are
you of the mind that this committee, this sub committee
that has been established to look into COVID, the origins
the lies by the Republicans in Congress? Now, are you
have any hope whatsoever that this is going to reveal

(02:41:14):
something along the lines of what you have revealed in
this book.

Speaker 3 (02:41:19):
I have every reason to hope that it will reveal
much of what's in the book, and even more right,
I mean, while we knew about vaccine injuries and things
when this by the time this manuscript was completed, which
for time reference, was the middle of August of this
past year, so the book gets sent to the publisher.
Then what we've learned a lot more since then about

(02:41:41):
vaccine injuries and the side effects. We knew plenty, and
we know more. So yes, I'm hopeful that more will
come out. Here's what I'm not hopeful about that anybody
will pay attention to it. Who isn't already paying attention
to it. So it's not about folks like yourself, myself,
for others in your audience who have been tuned into

(02:42:04):
this and they get it right. It is about the
millions who have either been tuned down or misled. And
will they look at this when the information gets as
it comes out of this committee, and I believe it will,
Are they going to look at it and say, oh
my god, what have they done? Or will they look
at it and simply find a way to swipe left

(02:42:25):
on it. It's a republican committee, they're just trying to
get even. It's more propaganda. It's easier to dismiss an
inconvenient truth than it is to confront it and contemplate it.
And so my fear is that most people will again
simply swipe left on the inconvenient truth.

Speaker 1 (02:42:44):
Well, we'll see, brilliantly stated, and I certainly appreciate your
analysis along those lines, and I tend to agree along
what you have concluded. They have so successfully polluted the
well because of the political bias that you're right, swiping
one direct or another seems inevitable. This has been a
fantastic conversation. I can't thank you enough on behalf of

(02:43:04):
my listeners for writing the book. Zelenko, how did he
capitate the serpent? You mentioned your website. I'll also tell
you we're going to put it up on fifty five
KRC dot com so people can easily have the link
there and get a copy of the book, which I
certainly will encourage them to get and share it with
your friends and might I offer, hey, Brett, send the
books to everybody on that committee so they have a

(02:43:24):
copy of it conveniently and they can look into it
while they're looking into the COVID.

Speaker 3 (02:43:29):
I think you just increased my ups billing for the day.
It's a splendid idea.

Speaker 1 (02:43:34):
Take care of my friend. It's been great talking to you.
Thanks again for writing the book and spending time with
us this morning on the Morning Show.