Episode #112: The Politically Incorrect Guide To The Sixties W/Jonathan Leaf

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I firmly believe that what our
nation is facing right now is

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all due to a plan that was
enacted almost 100 years ago.

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The Progressive sought to help
society quote, progress past the

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Constitution.
Now, these people were patient.

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However, every so often during
that 100 years, there would be

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moments that that plan would be
accelerated.

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I believe that the 1960s were
one of those times.

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Now.
While certainly the most people

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in America during that time,
we're still pretty conservative.

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It would be a time when we could
start to see the fabric of

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society begin to fray.
Now we find ourselves in a place

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where the Haight, Ashbury type
hippies of that decade are now

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in control of the government.
To understand the problem fully

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and come up with a solution, we
must look back at the origin of

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the problem.
On this episode, I'm joined by

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author Jonathan Lee.
Jonathan has written a book

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entitled The Politically
Incorrect Guide to the 60s.

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During our conversation, we
break down some of the ideas and

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political policies that have
changed our country and society

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forever.
That and more on this episode of

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the Mormon Renegade podcast.
Look, it's no secret that our

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society has become much more
crude and coarse.

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To become and raise men and
women of virtue and character is

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a Herculean task.
To help with this, I've recently

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wrote and published a book.
Now, back in the 1700s,

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Washington had a book called
Rules of Civility and Decent

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Behavior and Company and
Conversation.

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It was a book with 110 rules
that talked about how to conduct

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yourself like a civilized person
in society, something that

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today's society is sorely
lacking.

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What I did is I went back
through the book and I

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reinterpreted his original
sayings for the 21st century.

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So the book is laid out in a way
in which you see Washington's

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original rule.
Right below that is my

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explanation for the 21st
century, and below that you'll

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find two or three examples of
where to use this in the real

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world.
Now, to go along with this,

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there's a workbook that helps
parents teach these principles

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and practices to their kids.
To find the book, go to

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mormonrenegade.com, go to the
bottom of the page, search out

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the blog post, and order your
copy.

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Today I can bear personal
testimony from personal

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experience that this is an
invaluable tool to help you

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raise men and women of virtue
and character.

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You're listening to the Mormon
Renegade podcast.

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Jonathan, it's good that you're
here, man.

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Thank you so much for being
here.

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Thank you.
And I apologize that you know I

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had to cancel a prior
opportunity to go on the show.

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It sounds sounds very exciting.
And is it?

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Did you get it?
You don't have a white Christmas

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in your tire or you do?
Well, the mountains have snow,

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but here in the valleys we
don't.

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But there is the the weatherman
is calling for some snow

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Christmas Eve.
So we got our fingers crossed.

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So hope hopefully we get that
done.

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How about you you guys?
You guys inundated with snow out

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there?
No, no.

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It's been bitter cold, but no
snow.

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Now you're in New York, right?
In New York, yeah.

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I spent some time on the Eastern
Shore of Maryland and would get

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up to to both New York City and
Upstate New York from time to

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time.
It's beautiful.

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It's beautiful.
And during the fall, for sure.

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So, well, man, I gotta tell you,
when my buddy Shout out to Nate

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Richardson reached out to me
about this book, I was super

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excited.
I'm a guy who was born in 77, so

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I don't remember the 60s or
anything like that.

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My mom, she was a hippie.
But I was.

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I was a weird kid, right?
I I would definitely party.

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But I was the kind of kid that
would listen listen to Rush

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Limbaugh why I party.
So I was a little different as a

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kid growing up.
Fast forward a number of years,

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I became became religious and
one of the things that I noticed

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was the 60s tend to be a turning
point in our society a little

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bit And and while I think
there's inflection points all

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along our our history as a as a
as a people and as a country,

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the 60s seems to be a pretty
prominent 1.

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And so when when I'd heard about
your book, The Political

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Incorrect Guide to the 60s, is
that the correct title of the

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book, Sir?
Where can people find that, by

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the way, real quick?
They can just order it.

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It's it's from Regner.
He's a publisher in Washington.

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But you know, you can find an
Amazon or Barnes and Noble or

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whatever, and there's an audio
version and there's paperback

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and there's hardcover and you
know, there are multiple

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editions.
Very cool.

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There's a, there's a, there's a,
there's a, there's a Kindle

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version, etcetera.
Nice.

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Nice.
Very good.

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Well, in in in kind of reading
the breakdown here of the book,

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I haven't had a chance.
I ordered it.

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I haven't received my copy yet,
but I've managed to go through

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just some excerpts and some
notes and stuff.

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I'm finding this very
fascinating because it's it it,

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it kind of lends credence to
something I thought for years

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that that this was a major
inflection point in history and

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this really kind of set the
agenda for everything we're

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seeing now.
What What inspired you to write

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this book?
Well, actually got asked, but in

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fact it was a little bit to give
a little fuller story, a friend

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who's a really fine guy,
terrific guy, in fact, one of

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the best people in a guy named
John's Mirac, who's very

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divided, Catholic, and he writes
for, among other publications,

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for something called the Stream
for people interested in reading

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him.
And he was asked by Regner, he

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write a book about the 60s.
And he said, you know, I don't

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have time to do this, but I have
a friend who has written a

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novel, an unpublished novel
about the 60s that really

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captures a lot of what the 60s
about.

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Why don't you talk to him?
He's he's someone known as a

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playwright.
And that was me.

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And so regularly asked me if I
was interested in doing the

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book.
And I said yes.

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And I gave him a proposal.
And then I wrote the book and

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they cut it some and made some
changes.

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And, you know, we're pretty
happy with the result.

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The thrust of the book is that
the 60s was actually a pretty

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conservative decade for most
people who lived through it.

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And as you say, especially like
right around 1968, there's a

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dramatic change in what the 60s
represents.

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But the image of the people have
the 60s and what the 60s was for

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people who lived through it were
clearly very different.

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And why?
Why do you think that history

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has kind of been retconned back
to this thing, right?

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Because as you watch
documentaries about the 60s, I I

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feel like they do a good job in
the early 60s up to about 63

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actually right around the time
of the Kennedy assassination.

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They do show it as a very
conservative time in our in our

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country's history.
But then it seems like about

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1965, they they kind of say now
everything's going off the rails

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right now.
Now you have the counterculture

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that has has come along you, you
know, it's it's all the

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experimentation with with drugs.
It is, you know, don't trust

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anybody over 30.
The whole the free love

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movement.
The Haines, Ashbury, all of it.

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Right.
And and so in in diving into

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your book here a little bit,
what I've noticed is like you're

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saying that's not necessarily
the case.

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It's not to the very late 60s
that those things come in to be.

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Why, in your opinion, why was
history kind of retconned to fit

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this narrative of once you hit
about 63, you start seeing all

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this stuff?
Well, it clearly a large part of

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the media wants to promote the
things that they think are

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important in the 60s.
So for instance, I have a

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chapter about popular music.
Well, you know, a lot of the

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people that that they have
focused on really weren't very

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popular.
You know, Buffalo Springfield

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never had a number one hit the
60s.

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Bob Dylan didn't have a number
one hit.

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Mitch Miller sold over 20
million records.

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Bobby Vinton had repeated number
one hits when Vladimir Horowitz,

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the pianist, went on CBS
television to do a return

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engagement.
Carnegie Hall performing

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classical music, hiding in
Mozart.

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It was one of the most watched
events of the 1960s.

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You don't get any sense of that.
Imantavani was hugely popular.

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You know, kind of like the
string orchestra arrangements of

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popular songs.
You don't really get any sense

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that these this was actually
what the dominant culture was

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and that's I think about terms
of music.

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But it extends in many different
ways.

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So in 1960, two 1963 the most
popular speaker on college

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campuses across the country was
Barry Goldwater and more

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students through most of the 60s
self identified as conservative

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college students than as
liberal.

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So people have this false idea.
And and when you look at

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pictures of of student protests,
protests of the War of Vietnam,

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except for the ones on in San
Francisco and Haight Ashbury,

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the ones that involve students
at Harvard, Columbia, these are

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radical students.
You see that they're wearing

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button down shirts, ties, penny
loafers.

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They're dressed as, you know,
they're dressed as conservative

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kids.
Now they weren't actually

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conservative.
They're actually quite radical.

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But the culture as a whole was
still very conservative in a way

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that I think people for the most
part don't appreciate.

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And again, as, as I think you
were implying, there's sort of a

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story of the 60s that we've been
presented with that fits in with

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what people who are mostly
radical or or very liberal want

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us to believe.
And and that's that's always,

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that's always somewhat
troublesome.

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So just a little bit about how I
can really kind of identify and

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and that really reverberates
with me as as a young man going

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to college, I was always big
into history, but it was more

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western sieve, right?
It wasn't so much U.S. history.

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And I remember I took a trip
back to Philadelphia for a

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football game of all things.
And while I was there I just, I

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was overwhelmed with the history
in in essence, right.

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And so I went back and I started
reading the founders and

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actually reading their words and
not commentary.

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And what I discovered is, is
that the history that's taught

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doesn't necessarily correlate
with the history we have from

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original sources.
And I always find it somewhat

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troubling, troubling sometimes
when when there seems to be a

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narrative that is more prevalent
about history than the history

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itself.
And so that that really is

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fascinating to me that as we
look back into the 60s, it was

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predominantly way more
conservative for the

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run-of-the-mill person than what
is presented to us now.

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You know, it's not in the book,
but after the book came out, I

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did a lot of radio interviews,
including that's when Laura

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Ingraham, we had a radio show
and and Mark Leman and so forth.

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It was a really wonderful
experience.

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One of the interviewers who who
show went on, I actually forget

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the guy's name.
He did a radio show in Texas and

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he told me a story that I found
fascinating.

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And it just it kind of it's not
in the book.

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It wasn't in the research I did
for the book, but it just

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captured the point of the book
so perfectly.

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He said that he was in high
school in Texas in the in the

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late 60s.
And one day they were in class

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and they looked out the window
and they saw some hippies and

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the teacher was a shop class.
The teacher said, do you want to

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leave class?
You want to let you want to just

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go outside and see them?
And they did.

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They actually just left the
class.

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They they walked out the door
because they'd heard on the news

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there were these people, the
hippies.

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This is like 19681969.
Nobody had ever seen them.

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I mean, it was, it was something
that was talked about.

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And you know, to actually see a
hippie was such an amazing thing

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that they just stopped the class
and they just went out and they

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tried to talk to these people.
But, you know, so it was

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something that was if you picked
up Life magazine, you probably

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could see pictures of them.
But the average college student,

227
00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:38,120
not just in Texas but in a major
city, you know, in New York or

228
00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:41,480
Los Angeles or Chicago.
Portland, even in Portland,

229
00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:47,120
probably had never met a hippie.
That's funny, a hippie being

230
00:12:47,120 --> 00:12:49,440
like the Loch Ness Monster
Sasquatch.

231
00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:51,680
You hear about it, but you never
actually see one.

232
00:12:52,160 --> 00:12:53,640
So.
Yeah, I mean, Haight Ashbury is

233
00:12:53,640 --> 00:12:55,000
a real thing.
You know, in the late 60s there

234
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:57,440
already was the scene in Haight
Ashbury, you know, tie dye

235
00:12:57,440 --> 00:12:59,520
shirts, you know, people
dropping out and doing it.

236
00:12:59,520 --> 00:13:03,800
I said, but most of the country
really, they just heard about

237
00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:05,320
it.
I mean it was, you know, it was

238
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:12,400
like, it was like see, you know,
it's like we hear about, you

239
00:13:12,400 --> 00:13:17,400
know, I don't know what, what
kind of esoteric phenomenon of

240
00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:23,840
the present moment, you know,
like a huge rap entourage or

241
00:13:23,840 --> 00:13:26,080
something, but you don't, you
know, when do you actually see,

242
00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:28,800
you know, a bunch of Cadillac
Escalades with a rapper you

243
00:13:28,800 --> 00:13:30,360
don't really see to hear about
it.

244
00:13:30,960 --> 00:13:34,240
Right.
Yeah, that's it.

245
00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:38,560
It's it's fascinating because
again just just the the

246
00:13:38,560 --> 00:13:44,840
difference between the narrative
and the fact facts are always

247
00:13:45,760 --> 00:13:47,760
it's always fascinating to see
the differences there.

248
00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:52,120
As I went through your through
some of the book here, I loved

249
00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:54,720
how you had the book laid out.
You started with kind of the

250
00:13:54,720 --> 00:13:57,960
student radicals the sexual
revolution civil rights movies

251
00:13:57,960 --> 00:14:02,200
and TV and and on a little bit
and so I thought I'd like I just

252
00:14:02,200 --> 00:14:05,560
took a little bit out of each of
those and I thought maybe I

253
00:14:05,560 --> 00:14:09,520
would just ask you a little bit
about about each of them without

254
00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:12,200
giving away your book.
I'm I'm a capitalist at heart,

255
00:14:12,200 --> 00:14:13,600
so I.
Mean you can you can you can

256
00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:17,920
give away as much as you want.
All right, so it starts out kind

257
00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:21,720
of with student radicals.
And it You You entitled that

258
00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:29,640
leftist Marx instructors, the
New Left and Berkeley, for those

259
00:14:29,640 --> 00:14:32,000
who aren't familiar, explain
what the Berkeley student

260
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:34,320
protests were.
To the audience, Well, that's

261
00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:36,320
the other thing.
So much of the history of of

262
00:14:36,320 --> 00:14:40,280
student radicalism and many
other things like the Black

263
00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:45,040
Panthers has been just wildly,
wildly misrepresented.

264
00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:49,400
So in the early 60s at Berkeley,
there were at that time they

265
00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:51,040
still had what were called
parietals.

266
00:14:51,160 --> 00:14:53,760
Remember, it wasn't until the
early 70s that they passed.

267
00:14:54,080 --> 00:14:57,480
Was it the 26th Amendment that
that reduced the voting age to

268
00:14:57,480 --> 00:14:59,360
18?
I guess the 26th.

269
00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:05,800
So you know it was still the
case that if you were, you could

270
00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:10,360
be on most of the years you were
on college campus, you probably

271
00:15:10,360 --> 00:15:14,240
couldn't drink and you actually
weren't a full citizen.

272
00:15:14,240 --> 00:15:17,800
You weren't, you weren't voting.
And many colleges, they, they

273
00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,240
disallowed certain people to say
certain things or do certain

274
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:24,120
things on campuses and they had
these parietals, they had people

275
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:25,960
who were supposed to be
responsible for what you're

276
00:15:25,960 --> 00:15:28,560
saying.
So when various communists at

277
00:15:28,560 --> 00:15:32,560
Berkeley like Bettina Aptecker,
whose father Herbert Aptecker

278
00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:36,000
was a well known communist, and
Mario Savio and various other

279
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:39,440
people who were in fact bona
fide communists wanted to

280
00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:42,760
express their opinions, they
they really weren't permitted to

281
00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:44,440
do so.
So they started this thing

282
00:15:44,440 --> 00:15:46,440
called the Berkeley Free Speech
Movement and supposedly they

283
00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:50,360
wanted to talk about Vietnam.
They want to talk about Vietnam

284
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:53,640
because they were pro, pro North
Vietnam, they're pro Viet Cong

285
00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:55,520
and North Vietnam, the National
Liberation Front.

286
00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:58,880
And they presented as though
they were for free speech for

287
00:15:58,880 --> 00:16:01,040
undergraduates, but they really
weren't for free speech.

288
00:16:01,040 --> 00:16:04,280
They were for expressing
communist and Marxist ideas.

289
00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:08,000
And a number of these people,
like Jackie Goldberg and Tina

290
00:16:08,000 --> 00:16:10,920
Affleck, they later became
prominent communists.

291
00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:15,960
So they they really were trying
to mislead people about what

292
00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:19,680
their intentions were.
In the same way, there's been a

293
00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:23,120
kind of sentimentalization or
romanticization of the Black

294
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:26,200
Panthers.
You know, one of the founders of

295
00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:28,640
the Black Panther, Huey Newton,
was basically a common criminal.

296
00:16:28,640 --> 00:16:30,480
He used to rob people.
This is by his own admission.

297
00:16:30,920 --> 00:16:35,520
He robbed people when they went
to emergency rooms in Oakland.

298
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:39,160
They were involved in all sorts
of very dangerous activities.

299
00:16:39,160 --> 00:16:40,880
They killed people.
I mean, they killed David

300
00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:43,000
Horowitz's secretary, for
instance, because they were

301
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:45,520
upset with her.
They killed members of the Black

302
00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:46,680
Panthers.
They tortured people.

303
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:48,960
As the Bobby Seale case
revealed.

304
00:16:49,680 --> 00:16:51,240
They were planning the famous
case.

305
00:16:51,240 --> 00:16:53,560
They called the Panther 21 case
to New York City.

306
00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:55,720
They were planning to bomb two
police stations in the

307
00:16:55,720 --> 00:16:59,200
Department of Education.
They got off in that case

308
00:16:59,200 --> 00:17:01,880
because it turned out there was
an FBI agent who was sort of an

309
00:17:01,880 --> 00:17:05,440
Unjal Prabhakateur was was
encouraging some of these acts.

310
00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:09,160
They were a lot of what they
were doing was very sinister.

311
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:11,160
These were.
These were not, you know, this

312
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:16,040
there's there's, there's this
presentation left and also the

313
00:17:16,160 --> 00:17:20,560
of the riots in Chicago in 1968,
as though they were these

314
00:17:20,560 --> 00:17:24,359
innocent, idealistic young
people who were confronted by

315
00:17:24,680 --> 00:17:28,280
oppressive fascist authorities.
And this is not what happened.

316
00:17:28,280 --> 00:17:30,800
And, you know, the reason I got
interested in the story

317
00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:34,560
originally was that I knew two
people who had been involved in

318
00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:39,160
student radicalism in the 60s.
One was a relative by marriage

319
00:17:39,520 --> 00:17:42,960
and one was a close friend,
somebody I met when I was in

320
00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:47,920
college who lived in the town in
Connecticut where I went to

321
00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:50,040
college.
And they both revealed to me

322
00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:52,480
that there, you know, what was
actually going on.

323
00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:57,600
It was completely different than
this idea of innocent, saintly

324
00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:01,560
young people confronted by Jack
booted police thugs.

325
00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:03,240
This is not an accurate
depiction at all.

326
00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:08,480
No, no.
One of the things about the 60s

327
00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:12,840
that I found fascinating was how
under reported acts of violence

328
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:18,160
were or under shouldn't say
under reported but but under not

329
00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:20,320
really talked about after the
fact.

330
00:18:20,320 --> 00:18:22,680
Right.
And and some of the connections

331
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:27,280
that some of those figures had
to certain administrations in

332
00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:30,560
the office of president was
absolutely bone chilling.

333
00:18:30,560 --> 00:18:32,760
I'm go back to the Weather
Underground.

334
00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:36,800
Right.
And you have not Cass Sunstein

335
00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:40,640
what's his name?
Oh, I'm drawing a blank.

336
00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:42,680
He was part of the weather.
John Jacobs.

337
00:18:43,480 --> 00:18:45,280
No, he was part of the Weather
Underground.

338
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:49,160
And then he was It was at his
home where Obama want.

339
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:51,160
Oh, Bill Ayers.
Yeah, Bill Ayers.

340
00:18:51,160 --> 00:18:52,680
Bill Ayers, thank you.
I was.

341
00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:53,880
I was.
Yeah, I was married to Catherine

342
00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:55,560
Boudin.
What's that?

343
00:18:55,560 --> 00:18:57,440
Who?
Was married to Catherine Boudin.

344
00:18:57,760 --> 00:18:58,760
Yes.
Yep.

345
00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:01,360
Yeah.
You have Bill Ayers, who's part

346
00:19:01,360 --> 00:19:04,400
of the Weather Underground.
And they actually did bombings,

347
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:05,840
right?
I mean, they weren't just like,

348
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:08,560
that's right, talking about it.
They went out and they did it.

349
00:19:08,720 --> 00:19:11,600
Bank robbery.
They killed a police officer,

350
00:19:11,600 --> 00:19:12,760
yeah, etcetera.
Yeah.

351
00:19:12,760 --> 00:19:18,760
And then all of the sudden you
have Barack Obama announcing his

352
00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:21,600
candidacy for presidency.
If I'm not mistaken, the first

353
00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:24,760
time he has a fundraiser is at
Bill Ayer's house.

354
00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:26,800
And they.
Were close friends.

355
00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:28,560
They babysit.
They babysat each other.

356
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,080
It's that I know I don't.
I don't know more than that, but

357
00:19:31,760 --> 00:19:33,280
they were close friends.
Yeah.

358
00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:38,720
And and if I'm not mistaken, the
Weather Underground was a

359
00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:43,680
leftist organization.
They they wanted to to kind of

360
00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:46,400
take out the underpinnings a
little bit but.

361
00:19:46,800 --> 00:19:49,360
No, that's a little bit.
They were completely crazy

362
00:19:49,360 --> 00:19:51,240
group.
I mean they, you know this is,

363
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:53,840
this is another aspect that most
people don't understand.

364
00:19:54,240 --> 00:19:57,480
The the one of the pivotal
groups in the in the 1960s was a

365
00:19:57,480 --> 00:20:00,160
group called the Stands for
Democratic Society which the

366
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:02,200
Weatherman Weather Underground
came out of.

367
00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:05,880
And part of the reason people
don't understand 60s radicalism

368
00:20:05,880 --> 00:20:07,600
is that it changed very
dramatically.

369
00:20:07,600 --> 00:20:12,160
So the SDS stands for Democratic
society was originally set up by

370
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,800
a group of people who were.
Kind of democratic socialist

371
00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:23,040
pacifists and many people later
wrote about the STS had been

372
00:20:23,120 --> 00:20:24,800
involved with the group in the
early 60s.

373
00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:27,160
There was a famous thing that
they put forward or famous at

374
00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:30,920
the time called the part Huron
statement because it was

375
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:33,360
produced at a conference in Port
Huron, MI.

376
00:20:34,880 --> 00:20:38,120
And they were, they were kind
of, they were anti war but they

377
00:20:38,120 --> 00:20:42,280
were kind of, they were kind of
they were kind of a blah

378
00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:45,400
democratic socialist group.
The group became increasingly

379
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:47,880
radical and eventually split
between two groups.

380
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:50,200
One was called Progressive Labor
and they were real admirers of

381
00:20:50,200 --> 00:20:52,120
Chairman Mao and the Cultural
Revolution.

382
00:20:52,680 --> 00:20:57,360
And then there was a second
group called Revolutionary Youth

383
00:20:57,360 --> 00:21:00,560
Movement, Revolutionary Youth
Movement, Worker Student

384
00:21:00,560 --> 00:21:03,000
Alliance that that that's just a
group that eventually became the

385
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:09,240
Weatherman and it included
people like Bel Airs, Catherine

386
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:12,120
Boudin, etcetera, etcetera.
And they were not actually

387
00:21:12,120 --> 00:21:15,160
Maoists.
They were actually crazier.

388
00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:18,960
And you can almost argue they
were in favor of, they said,

389
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:21,680
they openly said that they
admired the vandals, the people

390
00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:24,200
destroyed the Roman Empire.
They were in favor of kind of

391
00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:28,400
anarchic violence.
And they were really into, you

392
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:33,280
know, they they they wanted to
link up with the Black Panthers.

393
00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:37,240
Some of some of the group
eventually escaped.

394
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:40,120
They're very into drugs.
Some of the group eventually

395
00:21:40,120 --> 00:21:44,080
escaped to North Africa.
Some of them went into hiding

396
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:47,680
and they got money for American
celebrities like Jane Fonda,

397
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:51,240
whose husband, of course, had
been associated with the group.

398
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:58,960
They were, these people were
not, these people were not, you

399
00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:03,400
know, moderate liberals.
They were, they were not or, you

400
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:05,880
know, left of center or they
were not even democratic

401
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:06,960
socialists.
They were violent.

402
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,000
They were very interested in
violent revolution.

403
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:11,640
They really were excited by
violence.

404
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:15,280
They thought violence was good
and was, you know, a healthy and

405
00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:20,040
desirable thing.
They were really crackpot,

406
00:22:20,040 --> 00:22:23,200
dangerous crackpots.
I mean, they were really, really

407
00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:26,040
second twisted people.
So.

408
00:22:26,360 --> 00:22:28,600
They were also very into
everything they were into was

409
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,680
the whole idea that that
monogamy was very bad.

410
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:34,040
And you know, they would have,
they would have slogans like

411
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:36,440
smash monogamy.
You know, like we have to stop

412
00:22:36,840 --> 00:22:41,240
people from having monogamy.
Troublesome.

413
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:45,160
Let let me and this is coming
from from a guy who thinks

414
00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:49,480
polygamy is OK.
But I, I, you know here, here's

415
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:53,280
the thing, right?
There's two kinds of this thing,

416
00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:55,120
right?
One is the kind of the free love

417
00:22:55,120 --> 00:22:58,040
kind of thing and then the
other's my Mormon flavor of it,

418
00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:00,760
if you will.
But let let me ask you this

419
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,840
about the violence.
Where is this coming from?

420
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,760
Now, if you read Marx, you get
the feeling that that Marxism is

421
00:23:07,760 --> 00:23:13,320
is highly reliant upon conflict,
right?

422
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:17,720
There's got to be a tension and
and a conflict, an oppressor

423
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,960
class and an oppressee class
sort of sort of a thing.

424
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:24,520
Is this where those ideas for
the for for some of these more

425
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:28,000
violent groups are coming from?
Is it a direct result of Marxism

426
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,680
or is it something else?
And if it is something else,

427
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:32,400
what is it?
These these people were these

428
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,400
people were all Marxists of one
kind or another.

429
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:40,840
They were, but they had other
influences as well and many,

430
00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:43,000
many of them came from leftist
backgrounds.

431
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:47,200
Others were just convinced that
America with three KS was this

432
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,320
racist, evil society and had to
be destroyed.

433
00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:54,040
You know, there were a variety
of influences there also.

434
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:56,400
Certainly we talked about the
weatherman of the revolutionary

435
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,360
youth movement.
They were very interested in

436
00:23:58,360 --> 00:24:03,560
drugs, kind of unabashedly, and
they saw drugs as a

437
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:05,240
transformative thing.
They thought it something would

438
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:09,040
be really positive in destroying
bourgeois culture and

439
00:24:10,360 --> 00:24:13,240
traditional ideas of matrimony
and things like that.

440
00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:18,040
The the Maoist group,
progressive labor was actually

441
00:24:18,040 --> 00:24:20,080
they they tried very hard to be.
You know, for instance they had

442
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:22,400
been supporters of Eugene
McCarthy and a lot of them had

443
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:26,240
actually cut their hair short so
that they could go and try to

444
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,720
promote Eugene McCarthy's
candidacy and the expression was

445
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,880
clean for Jean.
And they were they were

446
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:36,480
considered a lot straighter, but
they wanted to bring Mao's.

447
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:39,280
I just another thing I think
it's pretty hard to understand

448
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:45,400
at this point is, I mean is
propaganda in the 1960s,

449
00:24:45,400 --> 00:24:50,800
particularly from China, there
was no filter on it and it was

450
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,520
partly because the the
cyanologists, the experts on

451
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:58,520
China didn't have any idea where
any interest in learning what

452
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:01,360
was really going on in China.
I mean there really was a sense

453
00:25:01,360 --> 00:25:03,960
and remember a lot of people
were very considered very

454
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,120
reputable figures.
John King Fairbanks was like one

455
00:25:06,120 --> 00:25:08,920
of the leading experts in China
and the United States was

456
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:11,440
basically was professor at
Harvard, was basically an

457
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:13,000
admirer male.
I mean, he's basically

458
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:16,880
supportive of Noam Chomsky was
giving speeches where he's

459
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:18,800
talking about how wonderful the
Cultural Revolution was.

460
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:21,960
It was a closed society.
People had very little idea what

461
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:25,880
terrible stuff was on.
They didn't know that, you know,

462
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:28,720
hundreds of thousands of people
were dying or they didn't know

463
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:31,160
what a catastrophe the Great
Lake Forward had been.

464
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,080
And I think they were willfully
in it, willfully keeping

465
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:37,360
themselves ignorant about.
But students across the country

466
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,360
who were interested in communist
politics, interested in Cuba,

467
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:45,000
interested in China, in many
cases actually believe these

468
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:48,040
places were wonderful places to
go and that they were, you know,

469
00:25:48,040 --> 00:25:52,120
advancing societies and not
societies characterized by or

470
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:59,600
characterized by oppression,
poverty, humiliation, cruelty,

471
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:01,960
terrorism.
It was a form of statecraft,

472
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:04,680
etcetera.
Holy cow.

473
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,840
So where, where are these
students getting their ideas?

474
00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:11,000
Right.
Because again, for the most of

475
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:13,680
the 60s, it's a fairly
conservative time, even on

476
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:17,320
campuses.
Society as a whole is very

477
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,360
conservative, right?
This is the this is the baby

478
00:26:20,360 --> 00:26:22,960
boomers, if I'm not mistaken,
they're coming out of their

479
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:27,240
parents having fought
essentially saving the world,

480
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:28,480
right.
They went and fought in World

481
00:26:28,480 --> 00:26:31,160
War 2 and then they came home
and then they were like, well,

482
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:34,720
now we got a an economic
disaster and and they managed to

483
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:38,400
turn all that around.
So where, where are these kids

484
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:41,440
getting indoctrinated from on
this on this idea?

485
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,920
Where is it from the university?
And if so, how are Marxist

486
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:49,800
professors making it onto
campuses during the 1960s?

487
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:54,080
Well, I think there were already
were lots of Marcus professors,

488
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:57,320
you know, like Herbert Marcusa
and so forth, who had influence.

489
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:01,520
So I think that's that's a big
part of it.

490
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,320
But again, I don't think there
was any real reporting about

491
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,640
what was going on, what was
really going on in Cuba and

492
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:09,680
China.
I think most people were pretty

493
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:14,520
ignorant about the extent of the
cruelty of their governments.

494
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:17,440
But also students, really, you
know, a lot of the, a lot of the

495
00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:22,200
radical students, they were
interested in saying stuff that

496
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:25,720
made them appear cool.
And it was basically men went

497
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:27,760
here cool with women.
I think that was a big part of

498
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:29,680
it too.
And there was also a feeling

499
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:32,920
that, you know what, that
America was very racist and

500
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:35,440
therefore whatever you did to
destroy America was good.

501
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:39,200
And I think you're seeing,
you're seeing a return of some

502
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:43,440
of those in a sense you know 50
years later you're seeing all

503
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,880
this coming back.
That's what I was afraid of.

504
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,280
That was actually a question I
was going to ask at the end

505
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:51,840
because I see a few patterns
here.

506
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:54,040
And again, I'm not a trained
historian.

507
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:58,560
I don't wanna ever present that.
I read some and I try to wrap my

508
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:03,000
mind around it, but I'm seeing
some patterns re emerge that I

509
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:08,280
thought we were past, that that
we're done now, that you brought

510
00:28:08,280 --> 00:28:12,720
up the racism in the in the 60s,
I I wanna talk about that.

511
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:17,840
I wanna talk about the the
racism that existed in the 1960s

512
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:23,480
versus what racism exists today.
And I I want to compare and

513
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,880
maybe contrast, if you're up for
it, Martin Luther King versus

514
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,800
Malcolm X, 'cause I find those
two two characters extremely

515
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:33,840
fascinating.
They seem to be at the polar

516
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:36,280
ends of the spectrum on some
things.

517
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:41,960
So what?
What was the the average life

518
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:45,240
like for African Americans
during the 60s?

519
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,280
I mean, are they experiencing a
lot more racism than they were

520
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,400
today, say?
Yeah, I think so.

521
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,120
I mean, I I think there's no
question about it.

522
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,720
But the interesting thing is if
you look at the progress in

523
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:01,720
terms of economic improvement
that blacks made, they actually

524
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,960
made much more in the 40s and
50s than they made in the 60s

525
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:09,240
and thereafter.
And I think some of that has to

526
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:11,640
do with the fact that, you know,
starting the late 60s, you have

527
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:16,080
this War on poverty, which
encouraged, yeah, encouraged to

528
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:17,520
breakdown the black family.
Now we're seeing it's

529
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:19,640
encouraging in some ways, the
breakdown of the white family.

530
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:26,640
So, you know, the IA lot, there
were two parts of my book that

531
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:29,360
were much longer in draft than
we actually published.

532
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:34,920
One was about the Great Society
or the War on Poverty.

533
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:40,040
The other was about feminism.
And the publisher cut both of

534
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,720
these and, you know, made a much
more readable book because I had

535
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,280
written a lot.
They probably cut 10 or 15,000

536
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:48,560
words of the book in those two
chapters.

537
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:51,840
But you know, they made it.
They made it much more readable

538
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:53,200
and much more fun read.
It's a fun read.

539
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:55,360
And my editor Jack Langer is
that.

540
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:58,960
And Reg, Randy Moore is actually
working as a congressional aide.

541
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:03,800
He did a great job punching it
up and making like little clever

542
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:05,480
sides.
And so I should, I should

543
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:07,360
mention Jack, because he's also
a wonderful guy.

544
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:12,160
But yeah, it seems clear that
the economic effects of the War

545
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:16,520
on Poverty were very negative
for ordinary black people.

546
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:18,000
And that was something that was
known at the time.

547
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,760
I mean, there was that notorious
series of attacks on Senator,

548
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,720
eventually Senator Moynihan,
because he wrote this report

549
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:27,720
saying we're seeing a collapse
of the black family.

550
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,400
And this was really starting
with the fact that that in those

551
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:35,040
days you couldn't qualify for
welfare if you were married.

552
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:40,200
So it really encouraged for
people to be unmarried and on

553
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,400
warfare.
And and I that's where I was

554
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:44,800
gonna go.
And the benefits were high, too.

555
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:46,880
The benefits were much higher
than they are now, relatively

556
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,120
speaking.
Yeah that's where I wanted to go

557
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:54,440
to because you're right through
the 40s and 50s as I as I looked

558
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:58,960
at a few charts and graphs I
mean they they they were they

559
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:03,160
were for the most part not as
high earning as whites but it

560
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:09,520
was much closer than what it was
after the 60s And and explain

561
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:13,840
explain how the the Great
Society and the war on Poverty

562
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:18,880
actually what were the
mechanisms there that really

563
00:31:20,000 --> 00:31:24,520
caused the collapse of the
family, especially black

564
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,080
families.
And explain to me how it is that

565
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,520
this War on Poverty actually
made poverty worse for people of

566
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:35,880
color in America.
By the way, you know the famous

567
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:37,880
joke, Ronald Reagan said we had
a war on poverty and poverty

568
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:45,320
won.
You know, there was a long

569
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:48,240
period, the boys and 50s, when
the percentage of population of

570
00:31:48,240 --> 00:31:51,040
poverty declined dramatically
and basically stops declining.

571
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:55,720
When they started the war on
poverty, you know, Jesus of

572
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,360
course said that the poor will
always be with us.

573
00:31:58,720 --> 00:31:59,800
Is it Jesus or it's Jesus,
right?

574
00:31:59,800 --> 00:32:00,480
Yes.
That was.

575
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:04,920
Jesus, yeah, you can't eliminate
poverty.

576
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:07,960
Let's be real.
But what they did, which is they

577
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,280
thought, you know we're going to
give people lots of money to not

578
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:14,440
work.
This will will allow people to

579
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:16,720
focus on you know getting an
education, getting head in the

580
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:18,600
world.
This did not work.

581
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:20,360
You know, this was not a
solution to problem.

582
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:24,880
In fact, it it exacerbated a lot
of people's problems, which is

583
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:28,240
one reason that eventually, you
know the the the Great Society

584
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:32,200
programs were cut.
And and it was a big social

585
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:36,520
program that just sought to
basically try to equalize as

586
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:40,080
much as it could.
And shocker, it didn't work out

587
00:32:40,080 --> 00:32:41,560
in Russia and it didn't work in
China.

588
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:44,720
I didn't don't think we could
expect to see why it would work

589
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:46,640
here.
But we wanted to try that code

590
00:32:46,640 --> 00:32:52,600
on how, how did, how did those
programs contribute to the

591
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,960
collapse of the family, not just
economically, but the the

592
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:57,280
family?
Well, as I was saying you know

593
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:01,840
you couldn't qualify for welfare
in many states if you were

594
00:33:01,840 --> 00:33:06,800
married.
So it made sense for and and

595
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:11,480
there were significant benefits.
So and the more children you

596
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:16,080
have the more benefits you got.
So it made sense for women to

597
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:21,280
not be married and have kids and
maybe you have a boyfriend and

598
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:24,920
you know this really increased
the IT.

599
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,040
It certainly seems that it may
have increased rates of

600
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:31,680
illegitimacy and lack.
And it's interesting if you look

601
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,320
at today, if you look at the
black families that are two

602
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,560
parent families, they don't have
high rates of of poverty.

603
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:40,000
They have low rates of poverty.
They have low rates of poverty

604
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,360
than whites.
You know, just having two

605
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:45,640
parents makes an enormous
difference in your life, is what

606
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:47,920
most of the data shows.
Yeah, yeah.

607
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:53,840
No, absolutely.
I think that has been, boy, what

608
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:55,720
I'm saying now could get me in
trouble, but I'm going to say

609
00:33:55,720 --> 00:34:01,640
it.
I think we damaged people not

610
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:04,840
only the first time around with
slavery but we we damaged them

611
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:11,679
again trying to to fix problems
rather than stick to principles

612
00:34:11,679 --> 00:34:16,679
that have been tried and true of
you know kind of encourage

613
00:34:16,679 --> 00:34:21,280
family values and courage the
value of work and and and

614
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:25,320
entrepreneurship.
We went another direction and

615
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:29,040
and we again damaged a set of
people and it's it's it's pretty

616
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:33,880
disheartening to see at times.
The other thing that I found

617
00:34:33,880 --> 00:34:38,159
fascinating is before, before
the Great Society, the vast

618
00:34:38,159 --> 00:34:44,239
majority of African Americans
identified with the Republican

619
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:47,800
Party a lot more than the
Democratic Party.

620
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:50,920
And that was kind.
Of I think I think the switch

621
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:53,679
was really with the was really
in the 30s with the the New

622
00:34:53,679 --> 00:34:55,760
Deal.
But yeah, up until the New Deal,

623
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,760
most, most Republicans, most
blacks in the United States were

624
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:01,880
Republicans.
For understandable reasons,

625
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:07,680
because I remember was the
Republican Party, which had led

626
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:14,600
the abolition campaign.
Yeah, if if I'm not mistaken and

627
00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:17,080
and you would know better than
me, I believe it was.

628
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:21,640
Was it Woodrow Wilson that ended
up re segregating the army?

629
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:24,560
He re segregated the federal
workforce and the and the Army.

630
00:35:24,600 --> 00:35:26,920
Yeah.
So he was a classic kind of he

631
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,000
was from New Jersey, but he's
originally from Virginia.

632
00:35:29,720 --> 00:35:31,640
He's kind of classic Southern
Democrat.

633
00:35:31,720 --> 00:35:36,320
So he was, you know,
segregationist and he, yes, he

634
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:38,640
re segregated the federal
workforce and the Army.

635
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:43,800
Yeah, if I'm not mistaken, he
showed the movie Birth of a

636
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:44,920
Nation.
Birth of a Nation.

637
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:47,720
Glorified the Ku Klux Klan in
the White House.

638
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,080
Also, you know, one of the
saddest stories along those

639
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:53,680
lines is that, you know, he was
president of Princeton

640
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,320
University before he became
president and before he was

641
00:35:56,320 --> 00:36:00,520
governor of New Jersey.
Princeton is a town actually

642
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:06,120
close to where I grew up and it
has an old African American

643
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,240
community in it.
So it's very, very expensive

644
00:36:09,240 --> 00:36:11,800
town.
And one of the people who grew

645
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:16,560
up there was Paul Ropeson, the
actor, later communist actress,

646
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,720
singer, and he wanted to attend
Princeton University.

647
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:21,000
He was a very good football
player.

648
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,640
He's later an All American
Football player for Rutgers, But

649
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,160
as president of Princeton and as
someone who's originally from

650
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:32,560
the South, Wilson prohibited
black students from attending.

651
00:36:33,280 --> 00:36:35,320
Wow, so.
That's kind of typical of the

652
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:37,440
kind of Southern Democrat
tradition.

653
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:40,520
Right, that's that's
fascinating.

654
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:45,560
Let's talk about Malcolm X and
and Martin Luther King for a

655
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:47,600
minute.
Let's start with Malcolm X and

656
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:50,520
then let's talk about Martin
Luther King, because I'm always

657
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:54,960
fascinated with the dichotomy of
those two men where it seemed it

658
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,720
seemed on the surface they
wanted the same things.

659
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,200
But when you dive into what they
talked about and and I want to

660
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,680
give Malcolm X the benefit of
the doubt, 'cause I think later

661
00:37:03,680 --> 00:37:07,600
in his life he did have a change
of heart on some things.

662
00:37:08,240 --> 00:37:11,720
Yeah, yeah.
But what, during their heyday,

663
00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:15,200
so to speak, describe to me who
Malcolm X was.

664
00:37:17,000 --> 00:37:19,720
Well, you know, he he was, he
was kind of a petty criminal.

665
00:37:19,720 --> 00:37:25,280
He went to prison and had this
kind of awakening and he got

666
00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:29,680
exposed to the Nation of Islam,
which is not something totally

667
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:34,520
accepted by most Muslims because
it it has as it's basic premises

668
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,040
that all white people are evil,
all white people are devils.

669
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:42,560
That this there was this guy
Doctor Yakoob who invented the

670
00:37:42,560 --> 00:37:47,640
whites about 6000 years ago.
We didn't exist before that and

671
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,160
we were originally like these
evil dolls and then we became

672
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:52,840
people and we're all evil.
So it's a very it's it's it's

673
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:56,040
not really what a standard
version of Islam.

674
00:37:56,440 --> 00:37:58,120
But anyway, he got converted
with this.

675
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:00,840
I guess he had a lot of hate and
he and he got converted to this,

676
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,200
this sect and he went out and
preached and he was, if you've

677
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:06,880
ever seen, cliffs of him, He was
a charming guy.

678
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:12,480
He was also 6 foot 6 and he was
a tremendous, tremendous

679
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,040
proselytizer.
He founded the Manhattan

680
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:21,040
congregation, which was their
most profitable creation of the

681
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:24,760
Manhattan Temple, a mosque, I
think they call it Temple.

682
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:28,800
And you know, he went out and he
was this dynamic personality,

683
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,040
went around college campuses
talking about his ideas.

684
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:34,600
And then he found out that the
head of the Nation of Islam,

685
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:39,240
Elijah Muhammad was not this
pure person that he claimed to

686
00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:42,160
be.
That in fact he had children at

687
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:46,000
wedlock and you know, and and
and he was really appalled.

688
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:50,720
And he also went on Hajj, went
to Mecca and he saw that there

689
00:38:50,720 --> 00:38:52,240
were all these people who are
not black.

690
00:38:52,240 --> 00:38:56,160
There were lots of white people
and Asian people participating

691
00:38:56,160 --> 00:39:01,280
in the the Hajj.
And he still kind of had some

692
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,120
national black nationalist
attitudes.

693
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:07,560
But he he opened up and he
realized that this hatred of

694
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:15,120
whites was was not part of Islam
and was not moral.

695
00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:20,280
And he wanted to split the
Manhattan congregation off from

696
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:22,760
the Nation of Islam, and that
was their biggest source of

697
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,560
money.
And you know, we don't know

698
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:27,800
definitively that the Nation of
Islam killed him, but I think

699
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,880
that's what most people believe.
Right, right.

700
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:33,560
What And he did, and he was
beginning to denounce Elijah

701
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:34,720
Muhammad.
Right.

702
00:39:35,240 --> 00:39:37,720
Explain to me what Black
Nationalism was, because I think

703
00:39:37,720 --> 00:39:43,880
this is at the heart of of
Malcolm XS early teachings, if

704
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:46,360
you will.
Or it's his early political

705
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:48,920
manifesto.
Well, it's maybe I have a little

706
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,560
this hand, a little bit, a
little bit of super threat.

707
00:39:53,080 --> 00:39:54,320
You know, it's a separatist
vision.

708
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:56,120
It's not a new idea.
I mean it goes back to people

709
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:59,640
like Marcus Garvey with the
back-to-back to Africa movement.

710
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,280
There's a whole idea that.
You know, blacks can succeed and

711
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:07,800
will succeed if they part ways
with whites.

712
00:40:08,120 --> 00:40:13,000
And in a sense, it's not
inconsistent with the ideas of

713
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:19,520
white segregationists, right?
So it's the idea of, you know,

714
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:23,640
blacks have nothing to gain from
associating with whites, should

715
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,760
not associate with whites,
etcetera.

716
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:31,640
And and how did the Black
Panthers fit into that?

717
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:34,400
Were they affiliated with the
Nation of Islam at all?

718
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,560
Was there a cross pollination of
ideas?

719
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:37,400
Anything like that?
Not.

720
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:43,000
Really.
I I wouldn't say so.

721
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:48,920
No, I mean, they, you know, it
was founded by Huey Newton and

722
00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:55,720
other people in Oakland, and
they were nationalist, but they

723
00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:57,200
weren't.
And we're in a religious group.

724
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,000
In fact, they're very interested
in many cases.

725
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:00,480
They're interested in Marx's
politics.

726
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:03,040
Gotcha.
OK, All right.

727
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:06,200
Now let's talk about Martin
Luther King here for a second

728
00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:11,200
because he seems to be, and I'm
just talking about Malcolm X's

729
00:41:11,240 --> 00:41:16,600
early early years here before he
has his experience at the Hodge.

730
00:41:18,240 --> 00:41:22,440
He Martin Luther King seems to
be completely different than

731
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:26,400
Malcolm X of that time.
How was how was Martin Luther

732
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,320
King different?
Can't get enough of the Mormon

733
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:32,200
Renegade podcast?
Well, good news, we're on

734
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:34,640
Patreon and there's three
packages that you can choose

735
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:36,840
from.
The first one, the Slightly

736
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:40,080
Rowdy package, allows you to
hear the podcast without all

737
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:42,040
those pesky commercials getting
in the way.

738
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,160
For those who want a slightly
more in depth experience,

739
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:48,080
there's the Stirring It Up
package where you can hear ad

740
00:41:48,080 --> 00:41:51,080
free audio, ad free video and
transcripts.

741
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:54,960
Finally, for those who want to
go full Renegade, that package

742
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,600
is available too, where you can
get everything in the previous

743
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:01,680
two packages, plus an extra show
where myself and Ben Winfield

744
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:04,800
break down the news of the day
from a very Mormon point of

745
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:06,880
view.
You will also get exclusive

746
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:10,640
access to Renegade chat, and on
there you'll be able to talk to

747
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,120
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748
00:42:13,120 --> 00:42:16,000
mind.
Go to Patreon today and get your

749
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:20,680
exclusive content.
Well, he's a Christian preacher.

750
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:23,760
I mean, just right there.
But it should be said that they

751
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:30,200
both had an idea of advancing
black economic interests and

752
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:32,880
they weren't necessarily
personally antagonistic.

753
00:42:33,720 --> 00:42:36,680
In fact, you know, King of Times
kind of thought, well, it's good

754
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,360
that Malcolm X is is, you know,
is out there saying crazy, you

755
00:42:39,360 --> 00:42:42,440
know, ballot or the bullet and
you're saying kind of incendiary

756
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:43,960
stuff.
Maybe that makes people more

757
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,120
receptive to me and to what I'm
saying.

758
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:51,320
But you know Martin Luther King
Junior was a was a creature he

759
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:53,360
had he's we call him Doctor
because he had a doctorate.

760
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:56,440
He'd he'd studied the works of
the press theologian Paul

761
00:42:56,440 --> 00:43:01,960
Tillich who was an enemy of the
Nazis who left Germany in the

762
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:06,840
1930s because he was he was, you
know he took Christian ideas

763
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:13,480
seriously and was a pacifist and
and you know was against

764
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,400
violence.
And Martin Luther King Junior

765
00:43:16,400 --> 00:43:19,800
was, this is a big influence on
him and obviously the Bible.

766
00:43:21,080 --> 00:43:25,400
And you know, he wanted to
preach message on one hand of

767
00:43:26,400 --> 00:43:29,160
greater opportunity for blacks
opposition to segregation.

768
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:33,240
At the same time, he was also
saying, you know, let's do this

769
00:43:33,240 --> 00:43:35,920
peacefully.
And of course also the other big

770
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,800
influence on him was, you know,
Gandhi.

771
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:43,680
You know, he looked the example
of Tulsa and Gandhi and it's

772
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,800
this whole idea that civil
disobedience, the row civil

773
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:49,440
disobedience is actually not,
it's not passive.

774
00:43:49,440 --> 00:43:54,000
It's an active process by which
you but without engaging in

775
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:59,040
violence yourself.
So it's a whole lot incorporates

776
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:02,760
Christian ideas, but also the
example of other people like

777
00:44:02,920 --> 00:44:07,600
Tolstoy and Gandhi and so forth.
The the thing I always found

778
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:15,120
interesting as as I read about
Martin Luther King Junior was he

779
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:20,120
he was so centered in in this
idea of non violence and he was

780
00:44:20,760 --> 00:44:25,160
he was dogged in in what he
would require of anyone who

781
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:29,200
wanted to March with him.
Anywhere you will get up you

782
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:33,080
will say a prayer you will study
the words of Jesus especially

783
00:44:33,080 --> 00:44:35,440
the sermon on the mount.
I mean he made you sign a

784
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:40,280
contract to March with him And
what I find interesting is that

785
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:46,080
in the end and and it's
fascinating and and pretty much

786
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:52,080
true with a few exceptions, that
this nonviolent route is the one

787
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:55,000
that always seems to win.
Gandhi talks about it.

788
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:58,920
Gandhi.
Gandhi was was big into this and

789
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:02,480
in fact he he talked about how
he used the New Testament at

790
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,440
times to pattern his movement.
Martin Luther King, obviously

791
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:12,720
he's a preacher and so this idea
of nonviolence does win in the

792
00:45:12,720 --> 00:45:17,520
end.
And and it's ultimately, and I'm

793
00:45:17,520 --> 00:45:20,040
not trying to take anything away
from Malcolm X, he was an

794
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:23,160
important figure.
But those early teachings we

795
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:27,080
find didn't seem to grab the
same kind of traction Martin

796
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:30,640
Luther King did.
And I think it it has a lot to

797
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:33,240
do with.
Go ahead.

798
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:35,520
Let me disagree with you a
little bit.

799
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:41,720
I mean civil disobedience.
Nonviolent resistance can work

800
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,000
if you're if you're opposed to
if you're if you're fighting

801
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:49,560
people who are humane and
somewhat Democrat.

802
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:54,440
You know, obviously the the
segregation of South was not

803
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:58,680
democratic and says that black
people couldn't vote, but it had

804
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:00,840
some system representative
government.

805
00:46:01,600 --> 00:46:05,040
But if you were to try and use
nonviolent tactics, as people

806
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:09,080
are, for instance, today in
Russia or China, they won't

807
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,400
necessarily work because the
government controls the media,

808
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:14,360
they control what's reported,
and they can punish you in any

809
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:16,640
way they want.
Right, right.

810
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,560
And that's why I said with the
with some exceptions, right.

811
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:21,240
I look at the American
Revolution.

812
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:23,040
We couldn't get that.
Those are big.

813
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:26,360
Those are big exceptions.
I mean even point of Gandhi, you

814
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:28,160
know, I have a a old friend, I
won't mention his name.

815
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:33,080
He was a well known political
commentator and he says, you

816
00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:35,320
know, look, Gandhi's tactics
work with the British.

817
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:36,600
They wouldn't have worked with
the Nazis.

818
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,320
Right.
No, that's that's true there.

819
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,280
There are times, I think, when
force needs to be met with force

820
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:46,720
and and obviously political
climate and political tradition,

821
00:46:46,720 --> 00:46:51,360
I think have to weigh in heavily
on that because I agree with

822
00:46:51,360 --> 00:46:53,280
you.
I don't think his message works

823
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:57,080
or gets the same result in
Communist Russia, in Communist

824
00:46:57,080 --> 00:46:59,520
China, North Korea, any place
like.

825
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:02,240
That well Russia Today, you
know, I mean it's kind of only

826
00:47:02,240 --> 00:47:06,280
sounds like a very, a very
admirable person, but I don't

827
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:10,600
think it's making any progress.
No, no, I don't think so either.

828
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,280
I think I'm not.
I'm not someone who says peace

829
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:18,520
at all cost either, right.
Again, you have to know what

830
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:21,600
political tradition you're
operating in to have a good idea

831
00:47:21,600 --> 00:47:25,840
if it's going to work or not.
But I I think in terms of

832
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:29,400
America, which is where where
we're talking about today, I

833
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:33,880
think it was really effective
just because it was nonviolent.

834
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:39,080
And as as I read back and I
remember I talked to my

835
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:43,520
grandfather about this once I
said, who who lived in

836
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:46,160
Washington state, I was like,
what did you think during that

837
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:47,320
time?
He said I thought it was

838
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:49,160
horrible.
He's like and I grew up from an

839
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,760
extremely racist household.
But when you saw the images of

840
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,960
King's people being just tossed
around and had dogs sick on him,

841
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:02,440
he said that was the winning.
Looking back, that's what won it

842
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:06,840
for me personally was seeing
they just wanted their rights

843
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:09,160
right.
And and so that's.

844
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:12,320
But they saw the images on the
news of, you know, the fire

845
00:48:12,320 --> 00:48:14,040
hoses and stuff.
They were like, forget it.

846
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:15,360
Yeah.
Yep.

847
00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:17,560
And so I.
Just a lot of people were, as

848
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:20,160
you say, people who were
actually quite racist or even

849
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:22,560
like, you know, I can't, I
can't, I can't abide this.

850
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:26,120
Yeah, exactly.
And and that's what I find

851
00:48:26,120 --> 00:48:28,840
interesting, is that King's
message was the one that won out

852
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:31,240
here.
I'm I'm not pretending to say it

853
00:48:31,240 --> 00:48:34,240
could ever have won out in a
different country with a

854
00:48:34,240 --> 00:48:36,680
different political tradition
than the ones we have.

855
00:48:37,240 --> 00:48:40,800
But that's that's what seemed to
to have won out here.

856
00:48:41,760 --> 00:48:45,720
So let's move on to to the
feminist movement during the

857
00:48:45,720 --> 00:48:49,400
60s.
So so again by and large it's

858
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:55,080
still a very traditional time in
America.

859
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:57,320
Mom stays at home.
Dad goes to work.

860
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:03,040
But we we see the beginnings of
of the feminist movement and

861
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:08,440
look I'll be honest I'm.
I'm somewhat torn on on feminism

862
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:10,760
a little bit, right?
I could definitely see where

863
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:13,800
certainly I want my daughters
and everybody's daughters to

864
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:18,800
have an opportunity to to become
educated to those things.

865
00:49:18,800 --> 00:49:21,440
But there were some things that
came along with it that were

866
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:23,480
kind of destabilizing forces,
right?

867
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:29,280
Well, you know, it's just I I
learned work as writing the book

868
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:30,880
about feminism than anything
else.

869
00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:33,560
That was the one subject where,
you know, I started writing the

870
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:35,320
book and I thought, you know, a
lot of times with you.

871
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:37,760
If I don't, I don't know if
you've ever written good book,

872
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,320
but if you research a non
fiction book in the process of

873
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:42,400
writing it you'll inevitably
learn a lot of stuff that you

874
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,760
did not know and you thought you
knew.

875
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:47,920
So I thought I understood
feminism and I came to

876
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:49,920
understand that I did not
understand feminism.

877
00:49:50,440 --> 00:49:53,360
So the feminists this what's
often called second wave

878
00:49:53,360 --> 00:49:58,280
feminism because they usually
think of the the movement for

879
00:49:58,280 --> 00:50:00,520
women suffrage movement for
women to get the right to vote

880
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:02,480
as the first wave or even before
that.

881
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:06,920
So second wave really starts in
the mid 60s with the publication

882
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:08,880
Betty Friedan's The Feminine
Mystique.

883
00:50:09,480 --> 00:50:13,280
But there was a split in the
feminist movement that wasn't

884
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:15,760
really apparent in the 60s, but
had had emerged certainly by the

885
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:19,360
early 70s, and most people don't
really understand this.

886
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,360
So Betty Friedan represented one
vision of feminism.

887
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:26,000
She was a housewife, she had
three kids, one of whom has

888
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:27,520
since actually become quite
eminent.

889
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:29,600
He's a scientist.
He won at one of these MacArthur

890
00:50:29,600 --> 00:50:33,160
prizes, you know, for so-called
genius prizes.

891
00:50:34,720 --> 00:50:39,000
And she was a proud mom.
She really thought motherhood

892
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:41,480
was important.
She thought she had a very

893
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:47,600
unhappy marriage to her husband,
Carl Friedanne, and their

894
00:50:47,600 --> 00:50:49,360
instances of their assaulting
each other.

895
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:53,720
But she also thought marriage
was very important.

896
00:50:53,720 --> 00:50:56,000
And she thought that if women
had the opportunity to get

897
00:50:56,000 --> 00:50:57,880
married and to have children,
they should do that.

898
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:03,160
But she felt that she believes
strongly that to achieve self

899
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:07,040
actualization she'd studied
psychology at Berkeley in the in

900
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:12,520
the 30s and 40s.
That you know, the whole kinds

901
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,280
of self actualization to to
realize happiness.

902
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:19,520
Many women needed something
outside of being moms.

903
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,400
And she had worked as a
reporter, She'd been a writer.

904
00:51:23,800 --> 00:51:25,120
She'd written for women's
magazine.

905
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,040
She wrote a variety of different
magazines, and she felt that

906
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:31,800
that this was very important.
And she felt women were being

907
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:34,640
denied opportunities, which of
course they were.

908
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:37,240
I remember in the 60s, you know,
for instance, you couldn't be a

909
00:51:37,240 --> 00:51:40,760
stewardess if you were married.
You couldn't open a bank account

910
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:44,400
as a married woman alone.
But in most places.

911
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:48,120
So she felt they were being
denied opportunities and that to

912
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:50,640
be happy that they might need
the opportunity to work at

913
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:52,560
different jobs that weren't
necessarily open to them.

914
00:51:53,480 --> 00:51:55,320
So what she was saying was
something that I think a lot of

915
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:58,840
people today would regard as
kind of obvious.

916
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,760
The feminist movement then
split.

917
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:05,120
So she represented one part of
the feminist movement, another

918
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:07,520
part of the, and she started
National Organization for Women,

919
00:52:07,520 --> 00:52:10,720
among other things.
There was a second part of the

920
00:52:10,720 --> 00:52:15,320
feminist movement, which was led
by people like Gloria Steinem,

921
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:20,440
which was really hostile to
marriage and to the family and

922
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:25,720
even to having children.
And this, the feminist movement

923
00:52:25,720 --> 00:52:28,680
really exists today and it's
never really been healed.

924
00:52:28,720 --> 00:52:31,400
And there was an intense
hostility between those two

925
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:33,640
women.
And I I think I mentioned a

926
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:37,040
playwright had many plays
produced and I can shamelessly

927
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:39,800
promote myself.
One of them was picked, this is

928
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:41,360
quite recently.
It was picked by the Wall Street

929
00:52:41,360 --> 00:52:42,920
Journal's one of the four best
plays of the year.

930
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:48,520
It was in 2018 in the world.
So.

931
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:50,600
But one of my plays that I'm
proud of, it was actually

932
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:52,720
certainly I think the best
production ever had a play was a

933
00:52:52,720 --> 00:52:55,920
play about this conflict and
this movement and about it's a

934
00:52:55,920 --> 00:52:59,080
fictionalized account of the
conflict between Friedan and

935
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,080
Steinem.
And if people want to find it

936
00:53:01,080 --> 00:53:02,480
online you can you can purchase
it.

937
00:53:02,480 --> 00:53:05,400
It's called the fight.
But this is how people use the

938
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:09,200
term feminist.
But it's sort of like saying

939
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,720
somebody's an economist.
Well what kind of economist are

940
00:53:11,720 --> 00:53:14,560
you, You know.
You know there are totally

941
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:17,560
different kinds of economics and
and economic theories.

942
00:53:18,120 --> 00:53:22,760
Feminism is could be represent
very different things and and

943
00:53:23,200 --> 00:53:25,680
Friedan was sort of eventually
sort of thrown out to some

944
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:29,080
extent out of mainstream
feminist movement because she

945
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:35,160
she strongly felt that marriage
and family were important and

946
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:37,800
having children was a really
worthwhile aspiration.

947
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,600
And even though she had actually
taken steps to promote legal

948
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,680
abortion, she also said look
they're they're they're

949
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:47,160
regarding this as like as a
positive good to have an

950
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:49,080
abortion.
They're treating it very, in a

951
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:51,960
very cavalier way.
And this is this is ugly and

952
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:55,560
unhealthy.
Wow, wow.

953
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:01,240
So at what point if, if if this
is introduced in the in the

954
00:54:01,240 --> 00:54:05,800
early to mid 60s, at what point
does it really take hold this

955
00:54:05,800 --> 00:54:10,400
this new feminist?
It's really the early 70s that

956
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:13,120
the split in the movement
started to emerge, right?

957
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:15,240
So that's not really a 60s
phenomenon.

958
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:21,720
But yet it's painted in the 60s.
No, I don't.

959
00:54:21,720 --> 00:54:24,120
No, I think people talk about
the feminism more more as a

960
00:54:24,120 --> 00:54:25,600
movement of the 70s.
OK.

961
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:29,600
All right.
But yeah, Feminine Mystique I

962
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:31,800
think came out in 65.
OK all.

963
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:33,480
Right.
And what's the big best seller?

964
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:43,240
So let let me ask you this with
with that there there always

965
00:54:43,240 --> 00:54:47,240
seems to be kind of a pop
culture movement that goes along

966
00:54:47,240 --> 00:54:49,680
with this.
What was entertainment like both

967
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:56,720
movies and TV during the 60s?
Very, very conventional.

968
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,400
Not radical at all.
I mean, the most popular movie

969
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:03,760
of the decade by far.
In fact, it's still one of the

970
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:06,200
10 most successful movies ever
made, if you adjust for

971
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:11,520
inflation, was what's the one,
What's the 1?

972
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:14,400
Julie Andrews.
Where she's in, She's in

973
00:55:14,400 --> 00:55:16,040
Austria.
Sound of Music?

974
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:18,840
Sound of Music, Yeah.
Sound of Music was the most

975
00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:21,440
popular movie of the decade.
And then you know, other really

976
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,520
popular movies.
Doctor Zhivago, you know, Doctor

977
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:26,080
Zhivago was an anti communist
movie.

978
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:31,600
You know, My Fair Lady, I mean
this was it was, you know, they

979
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:33,600
were offering popular Fiddler on
the Roof.

980
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:38,000
They were offering popular and
TV, you know, Gilligan's Island

981
00:55:38,000 --> 00:55:40,640
and you know they're offering
popular entertainment that was

982
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:43,840
very chased and was widely
popular.

983
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:51,040
Do do we see and and forgive me
for going back to this cause,

984
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:53,960
'cause I always see as kind of
there there's an infiltration

985
00:55:53,960 --> 00:56:00,800
that happens both in the in in
academia as well as as maybe

986
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:02,640
some of the civil rights stuff
as well.

987
00:56:03,200 --> 00:56:09,120
Do we see in the 60s any sort of
influx of, like communist

988
00:56:10,240 --> 00:56:13,960
propaganda, kind of movies or
communist propaganda into

989
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:18,680
entertainment?
You do see again this shift in

990
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:23,200
the decade towards the end 1968.
So, you know, you have release

991
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:28,440
of Bonnie Clyde, which is
celebrating bank robbers, The

992
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:33,280
Graduate, which, you know, I
guess you could call it

993
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:35,440
subversive in some ways.
It's not that subversive a

994
00:56:35,440 --> 00:56:36,800
movie.
And actually, Mike Nichols, the

995
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:40,320
director, later said he just
assumed that the, the essential

996
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:43,080
characters would probably live
conventional bourgeois lives.

997
00:56:43,720 --> 00:56:46,320
You know, they go off together
and they're, you know, it's kind

998
00:56:46,320 --> 00:56:49,560
of shocking, but that he, you
know, he didn't really see them

999
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:51,360
as as genuinely subversive
people.

1000
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:56,360
But these movies, there were
certainly movies that that that

1001
00:56:56,600 --> 00:57:00,960
you know are very, very, very
different than, you know, the

1002
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:03,640
movies of the early 60s, you
know, like the Julie Andrews

1003
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,160
movies.
Interesting.

1004
00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:09,000
And there's more violence.
You know, The Wild Bunch is a

1005
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:12,160
very violent movie and the
central characters are basically

1006
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:15,040
criminals.
Right, right.

1007
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:20,040
It's, it's fascinating that this
much change takes place in

1008
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:21,960
really a short amount of time,
right?

1009
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:26,480
You go from 60 to 68 and it's
just night and day and it

1010
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:32,800
happens at a breathtaking pace.
Let me ask you this.

1011
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:36,680
In studying the book, as you
look at at some of these changes

1012
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:40,880
that are happening, did you ever
get a chance to read back to

1013
00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:44,360
anybody's personal account about
how they felt about all these

1014
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:49,080
changes happening so, so
drastically fast?

1015
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,280
Did you have any idea of what
the as I?

1016
00:57:52,280 --> 00:57:54,560
Said what?
You know, the thing that thing

1017
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:57,200
that really got me interested in
the 60s, the 1st place, was that

1018
00:57:57,200 --> 00:57:59,480
I knew two different people
who've been student radicals and

1019
00:57:59,480 --> 00:58:01,800
they told me their stories about
their mom and student radicalism

1020
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:04,080
and the stories were a little
bit shocking.

1021
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:08,680
But yeah, no, no.
In in writing the book I did,

1022
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:13,960
you know, I talked to a lot of
people, but I would say it's not

1023
00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:17,120
even a shift from 60 to 68.
It's it's a sudden, a sudden

1024
00:58:17,120 --> 00:58:19,880
beginning of change really,
really around 6768.

1025
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:22,760
Most of the decade was, for most
people, a very conservative

1026
00:58:22,760 --> 00:58:26,200
decade.
What was that like for people

1027
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:30,480
living in that time who are
experiencing this shift first

1028
00:58:30,480 --> 00:58:32,960
hand?
Well, I think I don't know that

1029
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:36,080
it had much for many people.
I don't know they had any real

1030
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:40,640
influence on them.
You know, if you're if you're if

1031
00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:45,080
you're if you're married and
you're working as a married

1032
00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:48,040
woman or married woman would
work as a nurse or married man,

1033
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:51,400
you know, working as a
instruction format or something.

1034
00:58:51,720 --> 00:58:54,240
You're seeing these changes
going on, but you're just going

1035
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:55,960
on with your life.
And I don't know that it's

1036
00:58:55,960 --> 00:59:00,960
really that meaningful.
You know, after 68, when Nixon

1037
00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:04,440
came in, they switched the
policy of the Vietnam War

1038
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:06,400
towards what they call
Vietnamization, which is

1039
00:59:06,400 --> 00:59:09,360
basically getting American
troops out of combat.

1040
00:59:10,000 --> 00:59:13,640
And obviously that was very
meaningful to young people.

1041
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:19,120
But I think for a lot of people
average people's lives, you

1042
00:59:19,120 --> 00:59:22,920
know, they were they were still
living very, you know, very

1043
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:25,360
regular lives and making money
and trying to get ahead.

1044
00:59:25,360 --> 00:59:27,600
And and I think in a sense you
can say things may be more of a

1045
00:59:27,640 --> 00:59:30,920
more of a big deal for ordinary
people was the economic problems

1046
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:33,240
in the 1970s that was that was
that was something that really

1047
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,120
upended a lot of people's lives
where suddenly you have

1048
00:59:36,120 --> 00:59:38,760
unemployment, inflation, you
know, all these other problems,

1049
00:59:39,000 --> 00:59:41,800
60s, you know, it's a pretty
healthy period economically as

1050
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:44,720
the 50s had been.
And you know, for most people

1051
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:46,840
they just go on with their
lives, you know, buy houses out

1052
00:59:46,840 --> 00:59:49,840
in the suburbs, you know, start
a family, etcetera, etcetera.

1053
00:59:50,360 --> 00:59:52,960
Gotcha.
Let's talk about Kennedy real

1054
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:57,800
quick.
Often times when when I see

1055
00:59:57,800 --> 01:00:04,520
documentaries on Kennedy, he's
painted almost, I don't want to

1056
01:00:04,520 --> 01:00:09,440
say as a radical, but as at the
very least, a massive reformer.

1057
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:15,160
However, when you look at
Kennedy's record today, he looks

1058
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:18,880
downright Republican, almost
downright conservative.

1059
01:00:20,920 --> 01:00:22,560
Could you elaborate on that a
little bit?

1060
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:27,040
Yeah, I mean he was, you know, I
have to point out that that it's

1061
01:00:27,160 --> 01:00:29,640
often unmentioned.
He did, he did make one decision

1062
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:32,560
that had profound effects that
it's it's usually not, as I say,

1063
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:35,560
not mentioned, which is that he
permitted the unionization of

1064
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:37,720
the federal workforce.
It's actually a very big deal.

1065
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:42,240
But by and large you know, he
was anti communist.

1066
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:47,400
You know, he was, he was
strongly anti communist and he's

1067
01:00:47,400 --> 01:00:49,680
the one who put an entire
division of American troops in

1068
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,520
Vietnam.
Supposedly they were advisers,

1069
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:54,720
but we had a whole division
that's like 18,000 men in

1070
01:00:54,720 --> 01:01:00,600
Vietnam under Kennedy.
You know he he blockaded Cuba.

1071
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:05,200
Yeah.
By and large he was, he was a

1072
01:01:05,200 --> 01:01:09,320
pretty unlike his his younger
brother Teddy, he was a pretty

1073
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:13,040
conservative guy and of course
he cut taxes dramatically during

1074
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:15,480
the the Second World War.
They had increased the top

1075
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:19,760
marginal tax rate to over 90%.
And one of the first things he

1076
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:24,480
did when he got into office was
he he got a large reduction in

1077
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:27,160
the top marginal tax rate.
They reduced it to 70%.

1078
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:29,000
And then of course, it went down
even more under Reagan.

1079
01:01:29,520 --> 01:01:32,440
But yeah, he called for large
tax cuts.

1080
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:37,480
This was, this was not like this
was not a this was not a radical

1081
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:38,800
guy.
No.

1082
01:01:39,040 --> 01:01:40,920
What?
Why do you think he gets painted

1083
01:01:41,160 --> 01:01:45,680
that way?
I don't know, and maybe people

1084
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:48,480
don't, that I actually don't.
I don't understand.

1085
01:01:48,480 --> 01:01:52,480
I, you know, you could say,
well, it's it's it reflects the

1086
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:54,760
interests of people who think
that he's popular, therefore

1087
01:01:54,760 --> 01:01:56,840
they want to make him out to be
someone like themselves.

1088
01:01:56,840 --> 01:01:59,880
But I'm not sure that's it.
I think maybe they just don't

1089
01:01:59,880 --> 01:02:02,520
understand his presidency.
Yeah, yeah.

1090
01:02:02,520 --> 01:02:06,160
No, I as you look back his
presidency and look, I I

1091
01:02:06,160 --> 01:02:10,000
certainly have issues with some
of Kennedy's personal life,

1092
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:12,560
right, His affairs.
I can't get behind that.

1093
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:19,560
But just just from a pure
political standpoint, I'm like

1094
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:21,080
him.
And Reagan could have hung out,

1095
01:02:21,120 --> 01:02:22,320
right?
I mean, they were.

1096
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:23,600
They.
Weren't that far.

1097
01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:28,600
They weren't that far apart and
and I find it fascinating that

1098
01:02:28,600 --> 01:02:30,040
he gets just lumped in with
this.

1099
01:02:30,040 --> 01:02:34,040
And and again, the reality, as
you point out in the book, is in

1100
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:40,960
stark contrast to kind of how
he's been again retconned and

1101
01:02:40,960 --> 01:02:44,280
how he looks to us today.
I apologize.

1102
01:02:44,280 --> 01:02:46,120
Can I can I take a break for
just a minute?

1103
01:02:46,320 --> 01:02:47,280
Absolutely.
Sorry.

1104
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:49,040
We'll come right back.
Yeah, absolutely.

1105
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:50,680
OK, I'll pause.
This just just give me a minute.

1106
01:02:50,680 --> 01:02:58,440
I'll be right back, OK.
So now that we've kind of

1107
01:02:58,440 --> 01:03:02,360
covered Kennedy, who he was, a
lot of other things, I want to

1108
01:03:02,360 --> 01:03:05,600
go back to something that kind
of ties in with, I think kind of

1109
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:10,520
ties in with feminism, or or at
least feminism as as it's

1110
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:13,120
portrayed today, and that is the
sexual revolution.

1111
01:03:13,600 --> 01:03:16,720
What was that all about?
What what were the ideas behind

1112
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:17,360
it?
What?

1113
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:19,200
What was going on there with
that?

1114
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:23,360
Well, sorry, Sam, that that
reflects, you know, changes in,

1115
01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:27,320
in American culture that were
not promoted by the

1116
01:03:27,320 --> 01:03:29,480
intelligentsia.
They were just reflective of

1117
01:03:29,680 --> 01:03:33,800
technology and patterns of
living and so forth.

1118
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:35,960
So yeah, the introduction of the
introduction of the birth

1119
01:03:35,960 --> 01:03:38,360
control pill, yeah, the American
population is much more

1120
01:03:38,360 --> 01:03:40,960
urbanized.
And then of course, going back

1121
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:42,800
to 20s, you have the
introduction of the automobile.

1122
01:03:43,640 --> 01:03:45,720
And one of the points I actually
made in the book is if you look

1123
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:51,560
at surveys of American adults,
it seems that actually sexual

1124
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,520
promiscuity increased more in
the 20s and the 40s and the 60s.

1125
01:03:56,480 --> 01:03:59,400
So there's this general trend
towards premarital sex.

1126
01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:02,920
But it actually was, it was
actually more rapid in the 20s

1127
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:06,960
and 40s than it was in the 60s.
And in fact, as as recent as as

1128
01:04:07,000 --> 01:04:10,840
as late as the late 70s Reader's
Digest, which is a conservative

1129
01:04:10,840 --> 01:04:12,720
publication, it was a
conservative publication.

1130
01:04:13,360 --> 01:04:17,240
They did a a a reader's poll,
and they found the overwhelming

1131
01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:21,280
majority of the readers, young
readers, said that they were not

1132
01:04:21,280 --> 01:04:26,480
practicing premarital sex.
This is like 1977 or 78 or

1133
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:29,320
something.
So there certainly was a large

1134
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:31,480
part of the population right
until the 1970s that didn't

1135
01:04:31,480 --> 01:04:37,960
believe in sex before marriage
as in much of the country today.

1136
01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:43,160
So you know, the image that
people have in the 60s and you

1137
01:04:43,160 --> 01:04:45,400
know, free love, etcetera,
etcetera, like this thing about

1138
01:04:45,400 --> 01:04:47,960
the hippies.
There's a minority of people in

1139
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:52,400
Haight, Ashburn and other
places, certain college campuses

1140
01:04:52,400 --> 01:04:54,400
where this was going on.
But there were a lot of places

1141
01:04:54,400 --> 01:04:56,640
where people, you know, and they
went steady and they wanted to

1142
01:04:56,840 --> 01:05:02,360
have sex after they got married.
Interesting 'cause that really

1143
01:05:02,360 --> 01:05:05,320
is kind of what you see painted
on all the documentaries, right?

1144
01:05:05,320 --> 01:05:10,440
Is that it was just kind of this
free for all of of sex and

1145
01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:14,840
drugs, but for the majority of
Americans, it wasn't that way.

1146
01:05:15,680 --> 01:05:20,120
No, no.
Fascinating, fascinating.

1147
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:25,520
And so at at what point you, you
said something here that that

1148
01:05:25,520 --> 01:05:29,000
surprised me.
You said when you were talking

1149
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:32,040
about the amount of people who
were engaging in premarital sex,

1150
01:05:32,360 --> 01:05:35,000
you said it really hasn't
changed all that much today.

1151
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:37,080
Is that what I heard?
Did I hear you correctly it?

1152
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:41,160
Depends where you live.
I mean, you know, I don't, I

1153
01:05:41,160 --> 01:05:45,600
don't live as you do in Utah,
but I assume in Utah that, you

1154
01:05:45,600 --> 01:05:47,520
know, there are a lot of young
people who are like, you know, I

1155
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:49,000
don't want to have sex before
marriage.

1156
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:55,080
And that was certainly the case
in the 60s and in the 70s.

1157
01:05:56,480 --> 01:06:01,360
Interesting, interesting.
So yeah, I, I here in Utah, I

1158
01:06:01,360 --> 01:06:05,080
will say the demographics are
changing pretty quickly and

1159
01:06:05,080 --> 01:06:07,760
that's both a good thing and a
bad thing as well.

1160
01:06:07,760 --> 01:06:10,040
I I will.
I will say that sometimes

1161
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:13,800
outside ideas can be helpful,
but there's other things that

1162
01:06:13,800 --> 01:06:17,800
that we're seeing where some of
those traditionally Mormon

1163
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:21,760
things aren't, aren't so widely
practiced anymore.

1164
01:06:22,760 --> 01:06:27,880
And so I I, I guess maybe just
living here in Utah and

1165
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:31,400
predominantly the West most of
my life, very conservative

1166
01:06:31,400 --> 01:06:33,240
regions.
I just took for granted that

1167
01:06:33,960 --> 01:06:36,280
everywhere else it was kind of
the opposite.

1168
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:42,960
So maybe that's not it.
Do we, do we see any sort of of

1169
01:06:42,960 --> 01:06:47,800
patterns of people starting to
live together more before, you

1170
01:06:47,800 --> 01:06:49,480
know, during the 60s?
Probably the 70s.

1171
01:06:49,520 --> 01:06:53,240
I mean, that's another example.
Now, this image of people in the

1172
01:06:53,240 --> 01:06:56,160
60s, you know, it was hard to
get, couldn't get a hotel room,

1173
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:59,440
you couldn't get a, you know,
there was a, there was a sitcom

1174
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:01,120
that was popular in the late
70s.

1175
01:07:01,120 --> 01:07:02,560
You may have heard it called 3's
Company.

1176
01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:07,800
And the premise of the show was
that apartments are expensive in

1177
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:10,760
Santa Monica.
These three young people want to

1178
01:07:10,760 --> 01:07:13,520
get an apartment.
So these two attractive young

1179
01:07:13,520 --> 01:07:16,480
women, they take on, they have a
male roommate played by John

1180
01:07:16,480 --> 01:07:18,960
Ritter.
Now, their landlord, Norman

1181
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:23,680
Fell, would never allow a young
heterosexual man to have two

1182
01:07:23,680 --> 01:07:27,920
female roommates, so they
pretend that the guy is gay.

1183
01:07:30,680 --> 01:07:35,760
It's a little late 70s, I mean
in the late 70s was still the

1184
01:07:35,760 --> 01:07:36,480
case.
You know you couldn't

1185
01:07:36,480 --> 01:07:43,320
necessarily rent an apartment in
Santa Monica no less, you know

1186
01:07:43,320 --> 01:07:46,360
with cohabiting, cohabiting men
and women.

1187
01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:50,240
So you know.
But again showing how the the

1188
01:07:50,720 --> 01:07:52,960
the elites treat this
differently.

1189
01:07:52,960 --> 01:07:56,360
There was a movie they made
called the Harad Experiment in

1190
01:07:56,360 --> 01:07:58,280
the late 60s.
Nobody went to see was a flop.

1191
01:07:58,720 --> 01:08:03,200
But it was about the idea of men
and women at a college campus is

1192
01:08:03,200 --> 01:08:05,000
supposed to be Harvard, but they
called a hair ad.

1193
01:08:06,040 --> 01:08:09,960
They're sharing the dorm room.
And you know, this was, this was

1194
01:08:09,960 --> 01:08:13,440
like, Can you imagine that
nobody was actually doing this?

1195
01:08:17,680 --> 01:08:21,080
Something that I've seen a few
times here in our conversation

1196
01:08:21,600 --> 01:08:25,200
is that the stuff that really
happens in the 70s seems to get

1197
01:08:25,200 --> 01:08:28,920
pinned on the 60s a lot, right?
Absolutely, absolutely.

1198
01:08:29,120 --> 01:08:32,560
It makes me feel bad for the 60s
as a decade, right?

1199
01:08:32,880 --> 01:08:35,359
They get, they get all the crap
thrown on them for for no

1200
01:08:35,359 --> 01:08:39,520
apparent reason.
There's got to be something

1201
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:47,120
there that that causes people to
to attribute it to the 60s.

1202
01:08:47,120 --> 01:08:51,000
Our our seeds planted in the 60s
that kind of germinate and then

1203
01:08:51,479 --> 01:08:54,720
in the 70s you start to see the
outcomes of that is that why we.

1204
01:08:54,720 --> 01:08:56,800
Deal with it.
I think that's a lot of it.

1205
01:08:56,840 --> 01:08:58,000
I think that's definitely a lot
of it.

1206
01:08:58,359 --> 01:09:01,880
But you know this example, you
know the whole idea of shaking

1207
01:09:01,880 --> 01:09:04,240
up or living together.
No, for the most part people

1208
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:06,040
were not doing the 60s.
You weren't even, you weren't

1209
01:09:06,040 --> 01:09:07,840
even permitted to.
If you gone, you know, landlord,

1210
01:09:07,840 --> 01:09:09,720
you'd said, you know, we want
it.

1211
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:11,479
We we're not married, but we
want it.

1212
01:09:11,479 --> 01:09:14,439
We want to share this apartment.
While landlords, you just said

1213
01:09:14,439 --> 01:09:18,120
no, you know, you can't do that.
By the late 70s, this has become

1214
01:09:18,120 --> 01:09:21,600
increasingly common.
That's interesting.

1215
01:09:23,000 --> 01:09:27,240
All right.
You can't really talk about the

1216
01:09:27,240 --> 01:09:29,960
60s without talking about
Vietnam.

1217
01:09:30,800 --> 01:09:32,840
Right.
What?

1218
01:09:32,880 --> 01:09:36,600
What was it that initially drew
the United States into Vietnam?

1219
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:39,399
And when did we first go in?
When did we first put boots on

1220
01:09:39,399 --> 01:09:40,920
the ground?
You said it was under Kennedy.

1221
01:09:41,120 --> 01:09:44,160
Well, I obviously the so-called
domino theory, this idea that

1222
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:47,680
you know because totalitarian
states that they can control the

1223
01:09:47,680 --> 01:09:52,399
population away that's very
difficult to reverse that once

1224
01:09:52,399 --> 01:09:55,280
they gain hold in one country
they can use that as and also

1225
01:09:55,280 --> 01:09:59,800
they can use that as as a you
know as a mechanism to get power

1226
01:09:59,800 --> 01:10:03,640
in other countries.
So that had a big effect.

1227
01:10:03,640 --> 01:10:06,120
So, but we first we provided
Norris and people, we provided

1228
01:10:06,120 --> 01:10:11,560
Norris for the French when they
were fighting the the North

1229
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:16,280
Vietnamese in Ho Chi Minh.
We provided over a billion

1230
01:10:16,280 --> 01:10:20,040
dollars in aid before DNBN Foo.
Now that's a billion dollars in

1231
01:10:20,040 --> 01:10:23,280
1950s dollars.
So that's, you know, it's got to

1232
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:25,160
be comparable to what we've
provided to Ukraine for

1233
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:27,400
instance.
It's an enormous amount of

1234
01:10:27,400 --> 01:10:29,720
money.
We were really financing

1235
01:10:29,720 --> 01:10:35,280
France's war effort.
And when DNBN Foo fell, you

1236
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:39,200
know, we were very upset and you
know we were backing DM and

1237
01:10:39,200 --> 01:10:43,720
others and we wanted them to
succeed.

1238
01:10:43,720 --> 01:10:47,200
So you know, we had military
advisors there under Eisenhower,

1239
01:10:47,880 --> 01:10:51,200
we're providing economic
assistance and then under

1240
01:10:51,200 --> 01:10:53,840
Kennedy we actually sent an
entire division of so-called

1241
01:10:53,840 --> 01:10:56,600
combat advisors or or military
advisors.

1242
01:10:57,240 --> 01:11:02,240
And then you know after Tonkin
golf, Johnson sends him a huge

1243
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:03,600
force.
You know, eventually we could

1244
01:11:03,600 --> 01:11:08,160
have 500,000 troops.
You you titled that chapter of

1245
01:11:08,160 --> 01:11:11,880
your book, if I'm not mistaken,
snatching defeat from the jaws

1246
01:11:11,880 --> 01:11:15,120
of victory.
Can you explain that premise

1247
01:11:15,120 --> 01:11:18,000
real, real quick?
Did did it ever look like we

1248
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:24,080
were winning that that war?
Well, I mean, you know, from a

1249
01:11:24,080 --> 01:11:26,240
practical standpoint, getting
into Vietnam in the way that we

1250
01:11:26,240 --> 01:11:28,520
did and and finding the war that
we did under Johnson was

1251
01:11:28,520 --> 01:11:33,240
actually a terrible mistake.
But here's the other side.

1252
01:11:34,480 --> 01:11:40,640
By the time we left, the Viet
Cong had basically been

1253
01:11:40,640 --> 01:11:43,800
defeated.
And the reason South Vietnam

1254
01:11:43,800 --> 01:11:47,240
fell was that the North
Vietnamese regular army,

1255
01:11:47,240 --> 01:11:49,240
including tank brigades, invaded
the country.

1256
01:11:49,720 --> 01:11:51,160
The Viet Cong had largely
disappeared.

1257
01:11:53,360 --> 01:11:56,560
So if the aim was to defeat the
Viet Cong, we succeeded.

1258
01:11:56,680 --> 01:12:02,880
But we left and you know, North
Vietnam as a regular, you know,

1259
01:12:02,880 --> 01:12:08,400
regular old fashioned, you know,
kind of 1940s style blitzkrieg

1260
01:12:08,400 --> 01:12:09,960
invaded the country and
conquered it.

1261
01:12:11,800 --> 01:12:14,240
And by the way for you know,
people dismissed the domino

1262
01:12:14,240 --> 01:12:17,080
theory.
But most of Southeast Asia then

1263
01:12:17,480 --> 01:12:19,000
fell into the control of
communists.

1264
01:12:19,720 --> 01:12:23,480
You know, Laos, Cambodia with
with devastating effects.

1265
01:12:24,480 --> 01:12:28,400
Yeah, Pete, that domino theory
that that's not something

1266
01:12:28,400 --> 01:12:32,760
America or the West just
invented out of nothing.

1267
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:38,720
Marx tells you in in the
Manifesto that this really has

1268
01:12:38,720 --> 01:12:42,120
to be a global movement in order
for it to succeed.

1269
01:12:42,120 --> 01:12:45,600
So it it's not.
It's not like we just invented

1270
01:12:45,600 --> 01:12:47,960
that so we could couldn't meddle
in Vietnam.

1271
01:12:47,960 --> 01:12:51,120
Now, were there shady stuff that
happened as far as, you know,

1272
01:12:51,600 --> 01:12:53,760
the military industrial complex?
Sure.

1273
01:12:53,800 --> 01:12:56,840
I mean, look, there's no doubt
there was some money that was

1274
01:12:56,840 --> 01:13:00,040
made there.
However, I I don't think that we

1275
01:13:00,040 --> 01:13:02,840
should completely dismiss out of
hand.

1276
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:05,200
There were some very real
concerns that had to be

1277
01:13:05,200 --> 01:13:09,400
addressed with with the domino
theory, so to speak.

1278
01:13:11,160 --> 01:13:12,920
And Indonesia could have fallen
too.

1279
01:13:13,040 --> 01:13:15,840
By the way, people forget that.
What could have fallen?

1280
01:13:16,360 --> 01:13:17,520
Indonesia.
Yeah.

1281
01:13:18,000 --> 01:13:19,200
Yep.
Yep.

1282
01:13:20,200 --> 01:13:24,960
Absolutely.
So we, we have, we have this

1283
01:13:24,960 --> 01:13:30,480
decade, the 60s, that by and
large the conditions on the

1284
01:13:30,480 --> 01:13:34,040
ground for the vast majority of
Americans is still a very

1285
01:13:34,040 --> 01:13:39,320
conservative decade, right.
And at the end of your book you

1286
01:13:39,320 --> 01:13:42,880
you have the last chapter, which
is Birth of the Counterculture.

1287
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:45,840
And the names I found under
there weren't very

1288
01:13:45,840 --> 01:13:48,640
countercultural names, right.
You didn't.

1289
01:13:48,800 --> 01:13:52,280
You had Barry Goldwater.
You had Milton Friedman.

1290
01:13:52,840 --> 01:13:59,480
Goldwater's say a a conservative
giant of an intellectual, so to

1291
01:13:59,480 --> 01:14:04,560
speak.
Milton Friedman is Reagan gets a

1292
01:14:04,560 --> 01:14:07,200
lot of his economic policy from
from Friedman.

1293
01:14:08,520 --> 01:14:10,880
What did you mean there by birth
of a counterculture?

1294
01:14:10,880 --> 01:14:14,200
And then to include those names.
I think it was actually

1295
01:14:14,200 --> 01:14:16,840
suggested by the publisher, but
the point was that this was a,

1296
01:14:16,960 --> 01:14:19,240
you know, a counter to the
counterculture in effect.

1297
01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:22,360
But they had, you know, they
began to have an enormous

1298
01:14:22,360 --> 01:14:25,240
impact, you know, so Freeman's
impact, for instance, extends

1299
01:14:25,240 --> 01:14:27,960
far beyond the United States to
many foreign countries that

1300
01:14:27,960 --> 01:14:30,560
adopted his ideas.
You know, Britain, Chile, you

1301
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:34,600
know, you can make a long list.
You know, monetarism is

1302
01:14:34,600 --> 01:14:39,800
increasingly respected set of
economic tenets.

1303
01:14:40,920 --> 01:14:43,920
You know, Keynesian, Keynesian
thoughts still is influential.

1304
01:14:43,920 --> 01:14:46,480
But you know, if you even if you
look at a college textbook these

1305
01:14:46,480 --> 01:14:49,960
days, monitors ideas like
crowding out have been accepted

1306
01:14:49,960 --> 01:14:54,160
more and more, you know, So he's
an example.

1307
01:14:54,680 --> 01:14:57,880
You know, you have the
beginnings of these more laissez

1308
01:14:57,880 --> 01:15:00,600
faire approaches to government
that are going to coalesce,

1309
01:15:00,640 --> 01:15:04,440
leading to ratings, Reagan's
election and they've had

1310
01:15:04,440 --> 01:15:07,040
influence around the world.
Seems like we're going to have

1311
01:15:07,040 --> 01:15:09,840
to fight this, this fight again,
but they've had influence around

1312
01:15:09,840 --> 01:15:12,960
the world.
What do you mean by that?

1313
01:15:12,960 --> 01:15:14,480
We're going to have to fight
this again.

1314
01:15:16,000 --> 01:15:20,440
Well, I mean, you know, there's
this enormous increase in the

1315
01:15:20,440 --> 01:15:22,840
number of people who self
identified by socialists.

1316
01:15:22,840 --> 01:15:24,520
There's this huge number of
people who are subscribers to

1317
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:26,960
Jacobin magazine.
Jacobin magazine.

1318
01:15:26,960 --> 01:15:28,440
Yeah, like Ralph Spier was a
great guy.

1319
01:15:28,480 --> 01:15:31,960
We've got to emulate that.
You know, Marxism has made a

1320
01:15:31,960 --> 01:15:35,600
return.
And you know, stupid ideas don't

1321
01:15:35,600 --> 01:15:38,920
just disappear, they reappear.
So, you know, we've got to

1322
01:15:38,920 --> 01:15:40,600
continue to fight these these
things.

1323
01:15:41,320 --> 01:15:47,360
Perfect.
So if you were to sum up the 60s

1324
01:15:47,360 --> 01:15:53,720
in terms of the influence it had
on the United States today, how

1325
01:15:53,720 --> 01:15:57,000
would you do that?
Well, in terms of these, these

1326
01:15:57,000 --> 01:16:01,840
ideas that that appeared at the
end of the decade, you know,

1327
01:16:01,840 --> 01:16:07,400
clearly bad, you know, the rise
of a drug culture and increasing

1328
01:16:07,400 --> 01:16:11,880
acceptance of drugs, yeah, I
think there are a lot of really

1329
01:16:11,880 --> 01:16:13,320
bad things that came out of the
60s.

1330
01:16:15,000 --> 01:16:19,200
And then as as you you
mentioned, there seems to be a

1331
01:16:19,200 --> 01:16:20,960
rebirth of this.
And I would agree with you.

1332
01:16:20,960 --> 01:16:25,320
I mean when And again I'm gonna
get in trouble for this, but I'm

1333
01:16:25,320 --> 01:16:31,000
kind of used to it by now.
If we look at Black Lives Matter

1334
01:16:31,000 --> 01:16:34,400
Inc, not not your
run-of-the-mill people on the

1335
01:16:34,400 --> 01:16:37,760
ground, but the people running
the organization, the woman who

1336
01:16:37,760 --> 01:16:41,320
started it says she's a
classically trained Marxist.

1337
01:16:41,800 --> 01:16:46,320
If you read what they have on
their website about the the

1338
01:16:46,320 --> 01:16:50,600
thing that jumped out to me was
the the stuff they'd said about

1339
01:16:50,600 --> 01:16:54,240
the family that you know you're
it's a it's a family friendly

1340
01:16:54,240 --> 01:16:58,960
environment that we have here.
We just seek to essentially

1341
01:16:58,960 --> 01:17:02,920
destroy the nuclear family and
kind of back to that Quinton

1342
01:17:02,920 --> 01:17:04,840
Esque.
It takes a village to raise a

1343
01:17:04,920 --> 01:17:10,240
child sort of a thing.
These are making a return again,

1344
01:17:12,560 --> 01:17:14,560
right?
Last time we had champions on

1345
01:17:14,560 --> 01:17:17,640
the right that kind of kept it
in check.

1346
01:17:17,800 --> 01:17:19,600
Right Now they did some bad
stuff too.

1347
01:17:19,600 --> 01:17:24,800
I'm not here to paint paint the
right as the all virtuous white

1348
01:17:24,800 --> 01:17:28,600
knight.
But by and large there was

1349
01:17:28,600 --> 01:17:31,560
pushback, right?
You had Reagan in the in again

1350
01:17:31,680 --> 01:17:34,280
60s and 70s who's governor in
California.

1351
01:17:34,720 --> 01:17:37,520
He pushes back against some of
the stuff happening in Berkeley

1352
01:17:37,520 --> 01:17:40,200
and the Haight Ashbury.
You have Barry Goldwater, You

1353
01:17:40,200 --> 01:17:42,120
have Milton Friedman.
Do you see?

1354
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:43,920
He fired.
People forget this.

1355
01:17:44,280 --> 01:17:46,760
He fired in his capacity as
governor.

1356
01:17:47,040 --> 01:17:50,840
He had, he had Angela Davis
fired and then she was I guess

1357
01:17:50,840 --> 01:17:52,960
reappointed.
But no, that was really

1358
01:17:52,960 --> 01:17:54,720
commendable decision.
I mean I was you know that was

1359
01:17:54,760 --> 01:17:56,240
that was that was destroying
guts.

1360
01:17:57,160 --> 01:18:01,120
Do you see anybody like that
again rising up to kind of push

1361
01:18:01,120 --> 01:18:03,600
back against this with the same
kind of?

1362
01:18:05,520 --> 01:18:06,680
Fervor.
Yeah.

1363
01:18:08,560 --> 01:18:12,920
Yeah, I do.
I mean, you know, we're going to

1364
01:18:12,920 --> 01:18:15,760
see other people.
I mean, you you're a little bit

1365
01:18:15,760 --> 01:18:18,120
younger than I am, but you know,
we're going to see people in

1366
01:18:18,120 --> 01:18:20,640
their 20s and 30s are going to
emerge for the next few years.

1367
01:18:21,280 --> 01:18:23,920
We're going to be leaders, but
yeah, absolutely.

1368
01:18:24,320 --> 01:18:27,960
And would you say that this is a
that that what we're seeing now

1369
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:31,400
follows just kind of a general
pattern that happens within

1370
01:18:31,400 --> 01:18:34,920
society where these?
It's unfortunate.

1371
01:18:35,000 --> 01:18:38,200
I mean, it's unfortunate.
You would think that the

1372
01:18:38,200 --> 01:18:43,360
incredible failure of Marxism,
communism around the world would

1373
01:18:43,360 --> 01:18:47,320
have categorically proven to
anyone sensible that we're

1374
01:18:47,320 --> 01:18:52,240
saying that they should never be
contemplated in any serious

1375
01:18:52,240 --> 01:18:54,280
weighing in.
But of course, many people

1376
01:18:54,280 --> 01:18:55,240
aren't.
That's what we're saying,

1377
01:18:55,800 --> 01:18:59,120
especially many young people.
So, you know, it's a constant

1378
01:18:59,120 --> 01:19:00,880
fight.
Very good.

1379
01:19:01,000 --> 01:19:03,120
But yeah, it seems to.
It seems to every every so often

1380
01:19:03,120 --> 01:19:05,880
these ideas seem to re reappear
and get taken seriously.

1381
01:19:06,880 --> 01:19:11,240
Right, right.
Well, I I got to tell you,

1382
01:19:11,240 --> 01:19:14,320
Jonathan, I, I really enjoyed
this, this conversation.

1383
01:19:14,320 --> 01:19:16,360
Is there anything you wanted to
bring up that we didn't maybe

1384
01:19:16,360 --> 01:19:18,720
cover that you wanted to go
over?

1385
01:19:20,440 --> 01:19:24,600
Well, I no, actually, no.
Thanks so much for having me on.

1386
01:19:25,000 --> 01:19:27,720
And I want to encourage people
to buy this book.

1387
01:19:28,040 --> 01:19:32,000
And I also want to mention that
I have a novel that came out in

1388
01:19:32,000 --> 01:19:35,040
March called City of Angles.
It's a mystery novel set in Los

1389
01:19:35,040 --> 01:19:37,440
Angeles.
And Kirkus Reviews, which is

1390
01:19:37,440 --> 01:19:39,600
famously the most difficult
review where they won't even

1391
01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:42,280
tell you who they assigned to do
the review, called it light

1392
01:19:42,280 --> 01:19:44,080
literary entertainment at its
best.

1393
01:19:44,080 --> 01:19:46,240
So people are looking for an
entertaining mystery novel.

1394
01:19:46,560 --> 01:19:49,960
Fun read, They should get it.
You can get it through Amazon,

1395
01:19:49,960 --> 01:19:52,240
Barnes and Noble, you name it.
It's from Simon Schuster.

1396
01:19:53,800 --> 01:19:55,240
And thank you so much for having
me on.

1397
01:19:55,760 --> 01:19:57,280
Perfect.
Actually, I did want to say one

1398
01:19:57,400 --> 01:20:00,440
more thing.
I know you're a Mormon, and the

1399
01:20:00,440 --> 01:20:03,560
Mormon people I've known in my
life, they've been so polite and

1400
01:20:03,560 --> 01:20:05,680
industrious, and I I am a great
admirer.

1401
01:20:06,200 --> 01:20:08,960
Well thank you.
We, we we certainly try.

1402
01:20:08,960 --> 01:20:11,600
We have our faults like any
other groups of people and we

1403
01:20:11,600 --> 01:20:14,200
got to we got to deal with those
and we got to take care of them.

1404
01:20:14,200 --> 01:20:17,720
But yeah, I I definitely love my
audience.

1405
01:20:17,720 --> 01:20:20,960
They're they're definitely a
great group and I'm sure you'll

1406
01:20:20,960 --> 01:20:24,960
see a a little bit of a tick up
in the in the Mormon section

1407
01:20:25,000 --> 01:20:27,360
buying your book so.
Thank you.

1408
01:20:27,880 --> 01:20:29,560
Perfect.
Stick around for just a few

1409
01:20:29,560 --> 01:20:30,880
minutes.
Bye everybody.

1410
01:21:02,000 --> 01:21:04,720
You're listening to the Mormon
Renegade podcast.