Ep. 171: gaza pt. 3: oil, anticommunism, & the rapture

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello. If this is your first time listening to the award winning podcast Jack of All Graves, a quick note before we get into the main topic, the topic that is the title of the episode, we always tell an unrelated story, shoot the breeze, and talk about horror movies we've watched this week. If you came here for the meat of the episode, our discussion of Palestine, there's a timestamp in the description, and you can just skip right to that part. Otherwise, go ahead and hang with us on the journey. Either way, thanks for being here. [00:00:35] Speaker B: I can't be the only one, right? But why does an unsolved crime, in particular an unsolved murder, why does it hold such fucking intrigue and fascination and mystery? Every time I read up and study and watch docs on unsolved murderers, I ask myself the same fucking questions. Is the killer still alive? Why did they stop? How did they evade capture? Might they fucking start up again? Who are they? Do they have a fucking job, a family, a normal life? Are there other people in their circle who know? I think these are the universal things that grip so much about unsolved, unresolved, unended, fucking ongoing murder cases. Does that make sense? Do you know what I'm saying? [00:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I get you. I think you like an unsolved case a lot more than I do. I do find them just mostly intensely frustrating, largely because in all of those questions that you're asking, I have all those questions which bothers me, but also that deep knowledge that a good reason most unsolved cases are unsolved is because the cops are very bad at their jobs. And I'll talk a little bit later, not right now, but about watching documentaries, like true crime documentaries, and how you always see that in these kinds of things. But there's always this part of me that's so annoyed because, you know, if someone just followed up a tip from someone that they didn't take seriously or any number of. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Or if the victim wasn't a minority. [00:02:21] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. If they weren't a minority or a sex worker or something like that, we would have solved this ages ago. So I tend to be more frustrated by cold cases than excited by them. But I do get what you mean about what is enticing about it. [00:02:38] Speaker B: Exactly. And it's this fucking idea of someone walking around with that, with that fucking knowledge, that secret. Because you don't put that on a job application. You don't put that on your fucking Tinder profile, right? But you've got it in you. You're carrying that around. Just are you always waiting for the knock. Do you dread getting a parking ticket? You know what I mean? [00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:10] Speaker B: It'S captivating to me. And so with that in mind, travel with me, won't you, to Rochester in New York in the early 1970s. Now, Rochester, from what I can gather about Rochester in the 70s, it's a city of some industry. Big companies there, big chemical and petrochemical and Kodak were there. Xerox were there. Baushen Lom were a culture of learning and education. You've got the University of Rochester, Rochester Institute of Technology, cultural, Vibrant, cultural scene. You got the Eastman School of Music there in Rochester, founded by one of the Kodak founders, George Eastman. It's, yes, a city of conflict, but a city of some cultural fucking vibrancy. That said, on November the 16th, we're in 1971, all right, it's around 04:20 p.m.. A ten year old puerto rican child by the name of Carmen Cologne was out running an errand and disappeared. She was running an errand to a pharmacy which her grandmother asked her to visit, but was turned away because the prescription that she'd been asked to collect hadn't been processed. She was sent away and was observed. She was witnessed. There are witnesses all along here. And it's fucking disgusting how no one intervened. She was witnessed entering a car parked close to the pharmacy. Some hours later that evening at around ten to 08:00 p.m. She was reported missing. And less than an hour after she left the pharmacy, lots of people, lots of motorists witnessed her naked from the fucking waist down. [00:05:02] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Running. Yeah, running away from a reversing vehicle. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Stop. [00:05:07] Speaker B: Frantically fucking right. Shouting. Waving her arms. Shouting. An attempt to flag down passersby. And at least one of these witnesses also then went on to report that they'd observed cologne being led back to the vehicle submissively by what would have been her abductor. [00:05:25] Speaker A: Wow. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Fucking wild. [00:05:30] Speaker A: It's incredible to me like this. Just as a know, the big doc that everybody's been watching lately is the Natalia Grace. The curious case from Natalia Grace. And there's know a point in this. This is a young girl that her parents saw the movie orphan and decided that's her. Oh, this is actually a 20 something year old who is pretending to be eight or whatever. And so they dropped her at a place, gave her an apartment of her own, and were like, have fun when she was eight years old. And she was like, going into people's houses and asking for food and all this kind of stuff. And one of the things that drove me crazy in the interviews they did with the people both before and after they found out she was a kid, is that they were all very midwest nice and polite and stuff like that, but then very much never followed up and never were like, something. Even if they thought something seemed off, they never were like, okay, tell me about your family situation, what's going on here? All this kind of stuff, and how much people can see, like, an obvious situation where something horrific is happening to someone and be like, not my business. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Look away. [00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to get home late if I deal with that or whatever. [00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't want to get involved. Fucking hell. Yeah, of course. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Maybe that's a defiant kid running down the street away from their parent or something like that. Like, okay, I'm a check. Are you serious? [00:07:06] Speaker B: But no one did. No one did. And she was found dead two days later, some 12 miles away from that scene. Autopsy revealed the worst fucking outcome. Raped, fractured skull, broken vertebra, body extensively covered in fucking scratches from fingernails. You know what I mean? She'd fucking fought, man. She'd fought. And that reluctance of anyone to get involved, I don't know whether it was an attempt to asseage public guilt, but there was a reward offered. Two New York newspapers stamped up, two and a half grand reward. There were billboards erected to try and find leads, but no ground was broken. No leads were found. And just over a month later, right, by the end of December, the case had already started to wind down. There were fucking three detectives on the case by the end of December. [00:08:05] Speaker A: And people saw this person. Right, because you said she was led back to the car. [00:08:09] Speaker B: Absolutely. She was witnessed being fucking led back. [00:08:13] Speaker A: They saw the person. They saw her. [00:08:18] Speaker B: Nothing. There was DNA. She was fucking covered in DNA. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Well, it was the 70s, though, right? [00:08:22] Speaker B: Well, we didn't have it yet, but that's another thing. That fucking. How many times have we spoken on this award winning podcast about fucking science catching up to these motherfuckers, right? [00:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:08:35] Speaker B: Who knows? Who knows? But anyway, let's fast forward. Carmen Colon was by no means alone, because April 2, 1973, around about 05:00 an eleven year old girl by the name of Wanda Vakovich vanished from the same city, the east side of Rochester, while she was heading home, similar circumstances, on an errand to the grocery store. Around about 05:15 p.m. She left the grocery store, walked home alone, and she was reported again missing by her mother, Joyce, at 08:00 that evening. [00:09:11] Speaker A: This guy must have felt so emboldened at this point, like, I can have all of these witnesses and nobody's going to do anything. [00:09:19] Speaker B: How could you not? 50 fucking detectives combing the area around her house where she often. Where she would hang out, where she would play. Again, witnesses recalled fucking seeing her struggling with a grocery bag. Friends of hers saw her walking, clutch in the grocery bag. [00:09:40] Speaker A: This is even another like this. You see a child struggling with a grocery bag. Obviously you can't be like, hey, kid, get in my car and come home or whatever. But I feel like there are solutions to this, even if it's just, yeah, right. You're right. Drive next to them or something like that. Don't freak them out, but just make sure they get where they're going. And I know at this point, again, it was like the 80s, really, where stranger danger picked up and people started to really be like, hey, kids might get kidnapped by a stranger. [00:10:23] Speaker B: It's fucking 10:00. Do you know where your children are? What's that all about? I've heard that line often. [00:10:27] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it was like a PSA thing or whatever. I've only really heard it as like a meme or whatever as well. But I think it was like sort of a PSA. Once you get into the everything, you have John Walsh hosting America's most wanted and where I think his son was kidnapped and murdered and you have stuff like that that picks up and people start really worrying about strangers in the. But there's still a degree where it just feels like. Come on, like common sense here. How were we letting this happen and people weren't concerned? [00:11:08] Speaker B: Well, people were not concerned and letting it happen was exactly what they were doing in Rochester. Because she was found dead the next day. The next morning, in fact. At 10:15 a.m. She was found fully clothed, some 7 miles away from the city. And, fuck, the details are so grim. The forensics looked as though she'd been thrown from a moving vehicle. Oh, God. Again, sexually assaulted, strangled, covered in defensive wounds. The investigation suggests that she had been reclothed after death. Again, DNA all over the place. Hair, bodily fluids, and strangely, cat hair. Talk about fucking leads, man. [00:11:54] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, exactly. Like, everything's here. Everything is here. This is what I'm talking about. About why this is so frustrating, because there is zero reason why no one would have been able to solve this. Everything is there witnesses? I'm sure fingerprints on things on top of all of that stuff. Because, okay, we don't have DNA, but you've got all the pieces put together. [00:12:19] Speaker B: All of them? All of them. Plus eyewitnesses. Before she vanished, people saw her talking with a guy in a vehicle which matched the fucking descriptions of the vehicle that Carmen disappeared in. [00:12:33] Speaker A: Like, there can only be so many of them. [00:12:36] Speaker B: Insane. Absolutely fucking nuts. Another hotline. The reward goes up to ten grand. But at this point, the police are denying any connection between these two killings. Right, even though. Yeah, of course, denying any connection between the two murders. Even though we've got a fucking very unusual thread emerging here. Carmen Cologne, Wanda Volkovich. So the police performed a reconstruction, right? A radio station, w o kr. They planned a televised reconstruction of Volkovich's abduction. Over 200 people call in. Over 200 fucking people ring this hotline, reporting similar leads, but nothing stuck. Nothing bore fruit. Another seven months pass. Okay, so we are now in 1973. November. End of November, 1973. And the pattern repeats. An eleven year old girl, Michelle Mayenza, vanished, completely vanished. After school, her classmates saw her alone go into a nearby shopping center. She was picking up a purse that her mother had left behind. And again, the eyewitnesses repeat the same fucking pattern. A driver saw a man with a flat tire, and he believed that he saw the man holding Michelle against her will. Oh, yeah. And this guy actually offered help. This guy tried to intervene. And the man reportedly hid Michelle behind him, hiding his license plate. And the driver claimed to fear for his safety and drove off. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Come on. You were close. [00:14:21] Speaker B: Fucking close. [00:14:22] Speaker A: You're an adult. [00:14:24] Speaker B: Well, exactly. [00:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I feared for my safety, so I let him murder a child. [00:14:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:31] Speaker A: And he didn't go straight to the police department either. Yeah, he didn't like. [00:14:36] Speaker B: Indeed. No, this was later on. This was later after the disappearance had been reported. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Oh, well, if you fear for your safety, go straight to the police department. [00:14:49] Speaker B: Despite the billboards, despite the reconstructions, despite the rewards, despite the news, the pattern repeats. Michelle's body found later in a ditch some 15 miles away. Same pattern. Assault, rape, strangulation. Again, white fucking cat hair all over her clothing. What the fuck? [00:15:11] Speaker A: Ridiculous. Ridiculous. [00:15:13] Speaker B: What the fuck? So what we got here is we got an MO. We've got three victims killed in an almost identical fashion, all with that same pattern of alliterative. [00:15:28] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yep. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Hence the dubbing the Alphabet killer. We've got Michelle Mayenza, Wanda Wakovich, Carmen Cologne. Very, very fucking strange pattern. [00:15:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it has to be a coincidence, right? [00:15:46] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:15:47] Speaker A: It's a weird pattern, but also the implications of that. Here's my thought process on that. Like a. That's just like an insane coincidence. Because, like, they were all walking by themselves. Things like that, you know, like, so how would he have known this? If he did know this, then like that, to me would implicate, obviously, like someone like a teacher or something like that, that would know who these kids were. Like someone who has, or a cop for that matter, who has some sort of information on this. But that takes the randomness element out of it and should really close in the search for this person if they somehow who these kids are, because you can't just know that by watching. You would have to have information. [00:16:41] Speaker B: The third kind of instance makes me lean more towards it not being coincidental. Two with alliterative surnames is a coincidence. I think three is pushing it, right? [00:16:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it is. It's not impossible, but certainly the ods are very. I mean, I don't know what the incidences in Rochester, New York, of people naming their kids alliterative things is. Maybe that was really common in 1970s New York. [00:17:07] Speaker B: Much to consider. I'm actually going to fucking look into that. But that's where it stops, right? That's where it ends. [00:17:15] Speaker A: So three and then never happens. [00:17:17] Speaker B: Three and done. Three and done. Lots of suspects were investigated over the years, right? There's loads of crossover between other serial killers in the area as well. I mean, some of the suspects, Miguel Cologne, that was Carmen's uncle. A little bit of time after a murder, he fled to Puerto Rico and took his own life. But obviously suspicion would fall on him. But DNA ruled him out. Then you've got a guy called Dennis Termini. He was a firefighter from Rochester and also a serial rapist in the area. Lots of similarities between his MO and the Alphabet killings, but DNA ruled him right out. He also took his own life sometime later on, which, know that's a win. [00:18:03] Speaker A: Coincidence is all over the place. [00:18:05] Speaker B: Indeed. But. Right, another fucking serial killer. Guy by the name of Kenneth Bianchi. He was dubbed the hillside strangler. No evidence. No connection to the crimes. No evidence at all. Got ruled out. But there's another guy, right? A guy by the name of Joseph Nassau. He was another kind of double initial killer. Targeted women with matching initials. He had the exact same MO. He would strangle his victims. He also would photograph his victims. Geographical overlap. He lived in Rochester in the early 70s, but DNA ruled him out. It was nothing to fucking do with the guy. Interesting, isn't it? Isn't it? [00:18:50] Speaker A: I mean, at that point, you kind of have to wonder if it's a DNA issue. Was it in some way. [00:19:00] Speaker B: Two of the victims, right. Two of the girls. The DNA was destroyed before modern genetic profiling came matured. [00:19:08] Speaker A: Yeah, they just would have no reason. [00:19:10] Speaker B: To keep that stuff on file. Exactly. But the second victim, Wanda, the DNA that they found on her still exists and is still being reexamined, so. Fuck. This may be one of those where. [00:19:26] Speaker A: Science catches up to the motherfucker cut up to it. I'm surprised it hasn't already because DNA is one of the ways in which they use it. Right. Like, when it comes to people like the east area rapist. [00:19:45] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:19:48] Speaker A: The thing about that is they don't necessarily find his DNA, but you find, like, relative familial DNA, things like that. Familial DNA. And so to me, it's like, how have they not come across that yet? [00:20:02] Speaker B: Not only do you have to stay fucking squeaky clean for your entire life, you've got to pray your family has to. [00:20:07] Speaker A: And not just stay squeaky clean, but not be interested in your family history. Like, my shit's in 23. Me, I wanted to see my genetic ancestry and all that kind of stuff. So if someone related to me commits a crime outside of the ones that they are constantly in jail for already, then they've got a straight line straight to me from me that way. So, yeah, that's kind of like. This is exactly what I'm talking about. They had everything. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Everything I witnessed. [00:20:41] Speaker A: Reason. [00:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah, there was a fucking kind of a portrait done of the guy, a photo fit, an efit of the fella, because so many people fucking saw him. [00:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the thing. Everyone saw him. And that's the other thing is it's like, if all these people saw, obviously he must have been coming from out of town or something like that. Because otherwise people would have been like, oh, yeah, that's Joe Schmo from down the street. [00:21:07] Speaker B: Creepy. [00:21:09] Speaker A: Like, clearly it wasn't someone that people recognize, knew, or whatever. This makes my theory just with no other evidence except what you've told me. So this is my TikTok sleuthing right now, is it's a cop from the next town over. That's my thought on it. [00:21:28] Speaker B: All right, so if anyone in the Rochester PD is listening, we've gone and solved it for you, mate. But look, this one has all of the fucking hallmarks. It's a very definite mo, a very clear link between the victims eyewitnesses. And then poof, the guy just stops. [00:21:53] Speaker A: Yeah, which is the. [00:21:54] Speaker B: Out there still. [00:21:55] Speaker A: Yeah, like, when someone just stops, it's like, did they die? Did they get arrested? [00:22:01] Speaker B: Did they find Jesus? [00:22:02] Speaker A: Did they find Jesus? Did they get a new mo? Did they move? There's various things that could result in that, but it's just deeply frustrating when, like, deeply. That's not a hard case. This is not one of those things where, like, God, it's so complicated. [00:22:21] Speaker B: The guy just vanished into thin air. No, he left fucking cat hair and dna all over these fucking girls and witnesses. [00:22:28] Speaker A: Witnesses, yeah. That's what really gets me. People saw. Come on. [00:22:35] Speaker B: And I think the real fucking fascination, I guess, for me, in an unsolved murder like this, an unsolved series of murders like this is. Have you ever walked past one? Have you ever shared a fucking lift? Or have you ever fucking shared a bus? [00:22:54] Speaker A: Relatives in the fridge. Like, how often? [00:22:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:57] Speaker A: Casually passed by something, bodies in a suitcase. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Yes, man. It fucking makes one ponder. [00:23:06] Speaker A: Sure does. [00:23:08] Speaker B: Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Yes, please do. [00:23:12] Speaker B: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, misel sen. [00:23:15] Speaker A: I don't think anyone has ever said misel Sen in such a horny way before. [00:23:19] Speaker B: The way I whispered the word sex. Cannibal received. [00:23:22] Speaker A: Worst comes to worst. Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:23:25] Speaker B: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm going to leg it. [00:23:32] Speaker A: You know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:23:34] Speaker B: I think you feel great about it. So listen, Jack, of all graves, if you have one ear to the ground, listening out for the fucking weird and the unusual and the disquieting, then that's where you will hear us. If you have one eye on the unusual, on the disturbing, the uncanny, that is where you will find us. If you enjoy watching the sick and the unusual and the interesting, that is where you will find us. Those are the tunes we sing. Those are the fucking dreams we dream. And you're warmly welcome to join us or not, because we'd be doing this anyway. Isn't that right? [00:24:19] Speaker A: It's a very good point. We are very happy to simply talk to ourselves, but we are so happy that you've decided to join us and come along for this journey. Anyway. Hi, Mark. How are you doing? [00:24:30] Speaker B: Yeah, really good, thanks. Half of me is tempted to kind of say, look, we're not a Sunday podcast anymore. We're a Sunday and Monday podcast. And the other half of me is tempted to say, you know what? Fuck you. Fuck yours, man. Fuck all of y'all. You get weekly episodes, right? They may not be on the same day. Who cares? [00:24:51] Speaker A: This is where my neurodivergence kicks in, where I'm like, listen, for some people it's routine. You got to have your thing that every morning, every Monday morning, you get up and you listen to your joag or whatever. [00:25:09] Speaker B: Life is difficult and life is unpredictable. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Exactly that. I have empathy for those and empathy for us, because life, that's the thing. [00:25:18] Speaker B: With empathy, isn't it? It's difficult to pick a side sometimes. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Exactly that. Maybe there aren't sides. I'm wearing a dog right now. Life is weird. [00:25:27] Speaker B: It's what it is. She really is literally. On your feet. Yes, on your feet. [00:25:34] Speaker A: On my feet. [00:25:35] Speaker B: Where is. You keep saying you're wearing a dog. I can't see him. [00:25:38] Speaker A: This bag that is around me right now, this strap is not part of my jacket. That's a little satchel thing that my dog is in. [00:25:50] Speaker B: Fuck off. I don't believe you. [00:25:52] Speaker A: He is, yeah, he is. Well, you can't see him, but he's asleep in. [00:25:56] Speaker B: Well, well, listeners, you can't see the zoom, but Corrigan is like some kind know fucking. What's that? Island of Dr. Moreau esque fucking marsupial. She's produced a dog from a. [00:26:11] Speaker A: Is my. I am a kangaroo right now with my little Joey in my, you know, it's what I have to do to be able to record this podcast without the dog walking into walls behind me. He does this now, our professional term for it within this household is bonking, where he just walks around and around. He can't see, can't hear, his back legs don't work super well, and so he just explores the world by eventually walking into shit. And so you'll be sitting watching tv and just suddenly hear like Bong, and he's just slammed headfirst into the trash can. [00:26:48] Speaker B: Does he still have powers of vocalization? Because at 17, he is the oldest fucking dog I've ever known, I've ever heard of. [00:26:54] Speaker A: He never really vocalized. He's very quiet. Famously once, because of this, it was like if we left him somewhere, we wouldn't know he was there. So one day we were like running all over the neighborhood trying to find the dog. We were like, the dog got out. Oh my God, he's lost all this kind of stuff. And like 4 hours later, I opened up the garage and he was just quietly sitting at the garage door waiting for us to come get him. But he never barked or anything like that. He just sat there like, they'll come back. So, no, he is also perfectly silent on top of blind and deaf and. [00:27:31] Speaker B: Not great at walking and bed shitting and bedshitting. [00:27:39] Speaker A: He peed on my butt in bed the other day, which was Christ, which was not great. It was my own fault. He was getting your fault? Well, he was getting antsy and that's usually his hey, you got to take me out or whatever. But I was very sleepy, so I tried to convince him not to and tucked him close to me or whatever, which sometimes works. But on that occasion, after a few minutes, suddenly I was like, my butt is hot and wet. [00:28:06] Speaker B: And I realized that sounds like victim blaming. He is the only one at fault. He pissed on you. [00:28:12] Speaker A: He is old. This dog is older than God. He can piss wherever he wants to if I don't get him up. [00:28:22] Speaker B: And if you think about it, dog backwards is God, isn't it? [00:28:25] Speaker A: Well, there you. You know, much to consider, something to think. [00:28:33] Speaker B: You know, I used to be able to do that entire song. [00:28:37] Speaker A: What song? [00:28:38] Speaker B: Things that make you go home by CNC music factory. Got you. I used to have all the lyrics in my mind. Let's see, here's how it started. Yes. An example of how another brother can trample, ruin your life, sleep with your wife, watch your behind. There was a friend of mine and it tails off there. But I can still do maybe 40% of it. [00:28:57] Speaker A: Nice. I know most of the periodic table of elements not as good. I was about to start like wrapping the periodic table to your beat there. [00:29:12] Speaker B: Maybe we'll do that as a snack. One month. [00:29:15] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. I was really going to entertain them. [00:29:18] Speaker B: I hate beatboxers, mind. Is that something you know about meatboxers? [00:29:21] Speaker A: Don't like beatbox. [00:29:24] Speaker B: Don't like them. I think they all sound the same. [00:29:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the idea. They're not trying to be like unique. It's like they're trying to sound like percussion instruments and whatnot. [00:29:37] Speaker B: I'm never impressed. The best beatboxer in the world is unimpressive to me. [00:29:41] Speaker A: Well, can you do it? [00:29:43] Speaker B: No. I could, but I don't want to. Yeah, sure. I could become bollocks. With a couple of weeks practice I could become as good as the best beatboxer around. [00:29:56] Speaker A: Well, then do it. [00:29:57] Speaker B: I believe. No, I don't want to because I don't like them. [00:29:59] Speaker A: Well then I don't believe you. [00:30:01] Speaker B: I don't like beatboxers in the same way that I don't like magicians, as you know, I don't like ventriloquists. [00:30:08] Speaker A: Okay? [00:30:09] Speaker B: But I think beatboxes, it's the same it's something that anybody could do if they were bored enough. [00:30:18] Speaker A: Well, fine, if you say so anyways. Mark? [00:30:25] Speaker B: Yeah? [00:30:25] Speaker A: We have a watch along coming up. [00:30:27] Speaker B: This right shit. Yeah, we do this fucking Saturday. And my dive into the Alphabet murders day has led me to nominate the theme for this month's watch along, which is this Saturday, the 20. [00:30:44] Speaker A: I wrote it down. Now I can't. [00:30:50] Speaker B: It is the 24th. Hey, go me. [00:30:52] Speaker A: Hey, nicely done. [00:30:54] Speaker B: 24 February. Yes, it is. And the theme is just fucking straight up human murderers, right? [00:31:03] Speaker A: Yes. [00:31:04] Speaker B: No ghosts, no fucking zombies, no monsters, no fucking lovecraftian evils, none of that. Just straight up good old fucking human murderers. Now that could be a crime procedural, it could be a slasher, it could be anything. But it's got to be just humans killing humans. [00:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel great about that. That's a genre I'm into. [00:31:29] Speaker B: Yeah. So think on. Do you have a favorite human fucking humans killing humans movie? Yes. If it's gory, fantastic. If it's shit, even better, just suggest it. Just come at me. [00:31:43] Speaker A: You are baiting canadian boy Ryan right now. [00:31:45] Speaker B: But CBR and I'll give you the illusion of democracy a bit later on next week and we'll fucking get together what would have to be in place for you guys to be able to have tins while doing these watch alongs because they're in the middle of the day for you guys, aren't they? [00:32:05] Speaker A: Well, it's Saturday. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Okay, fine, yeah. Okay. [00:32:08] Speaker A: People can day drink on Saturday, should they choose. [00:32:12] Speaker B: Good. And I think you should, but yes, that's the theme, right? So get your fucking thinking caps on and let's do this. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Mark will post in the group asking for suggestions and then a poll towards the end of the week to lock it in. I'm excited about this. I think this has a lot of potential. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Good. I feel like we're kind of jo ag 101 this week, aren't we? This episode feels geared towards noobs to noobs. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe a little bit. I do know that there are people who have come specifically for our Palestine episodes, so as a result, might as well give them little entries into who we are. [00:32:53] Speaker B: You got to give the people what they want. [00:32:55] Speaker A: Indeed. Or what they need for that matter. Also want to shout out to the book club this week we talked about behind her eyes by Sarah Pinbrough, and it was a very good time. We ended up going for like an hour and a half this know, we usually go for about an hour talking, but we had lots to say about this book. It's a real divisive one, because really, the twist ending is what it's known for. It's what it was marketed off of. And it is one of those twist endings that either makes you go like, oh, bro, that's brilliant. Or like, fuck you. Absolutely not. So it was a very fun book to discuss on that end. But yeah, if you're interested in joining the book club, just such a wonderful group of people who always have amazing conversations and lots of fun books to read, even when they're bad, it makes good conversation. And yeah. Jackovallgraves.com book club for the calendar of all the books that we're reading this year, and the link to the discord, the link to the shoppable list from Gibson's bookstore, where you would get a 20% off on any of those books with the code joag. Join us. It's a grand old time. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Wonderful. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Yes, beautiful. We're about to get into what we watch, but I have a little bit of a rant before we get. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Please, if you don't mind, a Corey's video rant. [00:34:23] Speaker A: Corey's video rant right here. It may end up something of that nature, because I've said recently that one of the things that I like to do when, like, just not in the zone to watch movies and things like that is to watch documentaries and docuseries and things like that. And my constant complaint is sort of the netflixification of docuseries, how they're always way too long and they should really be like a 45 minutes episode of Dateline or whatever. There's not seven episodes of story here. And I feel like this past week, I have been running up against that constantly. I watched Butchers of the Bayou, which I believe was from an e. I watched lover stalker Killer on Netflix. That's like the big one on Netflix this week. It's like every week Netflix releases some sort of true crime docu series that everyone talks about. And this week it was lover stalker killer. [00:35:18] Speaker B: Last week, you know, just super quick. I frequently have sat down in front of Netflix wanting to watch a documentary. It's often after chatting with you, I'm like, yeah, I'll catch up, do a few of these. And I always fucking back out because I see, fuck. Limited series, seven episodes, fuck off. And I know exactly what I'm going to get. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. You're committing to spending three, four, or 5 hours on something that you're like. It's the information that I could have gotten from reading an article or something like that. Reenactments and dramatic music and all this stuff that's unnecessary. See, I watched those two. I watched part of the truth about Jim. And I watched, they called him mostly harmless, which is actually a documentary, not a docuseries, but in that hour and 20 minutes manages to be way too long. And I was just thinking, when I finished, they called him mostly harmless. I wrote a summary of it in my letterbox review that was like, literally one sentence. And I was like, that's the picture. And watching lover, stalker, killer. Someone had said one of the most popular reviews, which has made men very angry. But they were like, if there was one woman working on this case, they would have cracked it in a day. And it's true. The whole thing was like, I was 18 minutes into it and I wasn't even paying full attention. I was, like, scrolling through Instagram and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, oh, that's what happened. I'm like, this is a 90 minutes documentary. And at 18 minutes, I figured out what it took the police four years to gather. Four years, like, come the fuck on. And I feel like I don't know if I want to do this as a kofi thing or maybe on our TikTok or something like that, but you know how there's, like, saved you a click type things? Or there's people who, when there's clickbait on Instagram, the first comment is always someone who's like, here's what the article says. I just want to make videos after I watch these stupid ass documentaries. [00:37:33] Speaker B: I'll do it, please. [00:37:34] Speaker A: Where it's just, like, watching. And regardless, here's what the story is that you're going to get, and I can probably summarize it for you in 90 seconds. [00:37:46] Speaker B: I'm certain I said this whole thing before when we spoke about this last, but it's something which I think by now is overdue to be satirized. I think a really fucking sharp, nicely honed satire of that stupid, fucking drawn out format with the identical credit sequences and the same kind of cadence to the doc as it unfolds. I think that's overdue. And I don't mean, like a scary movie type of satire. I mean something really nicely observed. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:38:19] Speaker B: It needs taking down. [00:38:21] Speaker A: It frustrates the shit out of me. They called him mostly harmless. I'm going to spoil this because it's like, there's nothing you don't need to spend an hour and 20 minutes watching this. So if you don't want this spoiled for some reason, you want to waste your time. Give me a minute and skip that. Hit the thing twice or whatever to get your 60 seconds forward. They called him mostly harmless. It's a documentary about a guy whose dead body was found on the appalachian trail, and they could not identify him. And he was found. He was, like, 85 pounds when they found him. And they're, like, trying to figure out the identity of this guy, but the cops kind of did not give it much effort. For whatever reason, they just kind of, like, let it go. And so these Facebook sleuths start groups trying to identify this guy, and over the course of this, these Facebook group moderators start bullying each other because they want the clout of being the person who identifies this guy. And so they're, like, telling each other to kill themselves and having all these falling outs. It's basically about middle aged women bullying each other most of this documentary while they try to figure out who this guy is, and they talk to various people, because appalachian trail hikers are usually pretty close knit. And over the course of this, they eventually manage to find someone who recognized who he was. And it turns out that he was, like, a heinous, abusive dude who had multiple women who said that he terrorized them throughout his life. So they'd spent all this time trying to track down who this guy was, and he turned out to be terrible. And that he had basically wandered off into the woods and left his entire life behind. He paid for, like, nine months of his apartment, left all of his stuff, passport, wallet, everything there. Wandered off into the woods, basically to die. It seems like he realized he was a shit dude, kind of spent the last few months of his life on the appalachian trail being a cool dude to people, and then died. Seems like he starved himself to death. But it's like, that's the story. It's mostly just these Facebook sleuths fighting with each other, picking over it. Yeah, exactly. And each taking sort of responsibility for having found this guy, when really it came down to, like, DNA. [00:41:01] Speaker B: And does the documentary spend a load of time focusing on twat bickering about it? [00:41:05] Speaker A: Yes, 100%. That's, like, probably 75% of this documentary is just watching these ladies who have no. [00:41:14] Speaker B: Which, based on what you've said, is tangentially related to the actual topic. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Right, exactly that. And it's like, okay, then if you marketed this as something about Internet sleuths. Right. And the problems with Internet sleuthing, that would be one thing. But if you're marketing this as, like, a mystery of, like, oh, who is this guy on the trail? All this kind of stuff. Then it's like, you could have told me this in ten minutes. This could be a YouTube video. There's no reason for this to be an entire documentary, and that drives me insane. [00:41:52] Speaker B: I love your concept time with this of just grabbing your osmo after you watch one of these documentaries and just sum it up in 90 seconds exactly. [00:42:02] Speaker A: Just tell people what happens. Bam. I love that saved you 90 minutes or 4 hours or whatever, like, with butchers of the bayou or lover stalker killer things that took a long time. Getting to the point where you're like, okay, you could have told me that really quick. So that's my rant for this week. And maybe that's a thing. I don't know. Let me know if you think that's a thing that you would watch. If I put that on the TikTok or whatever. My recap of documentaries, freshly. As soon as I watch them, I'd watch that. Oh, good. Okay, well, if I have one audience member, then there we go. I watch all your fitness talks. You can watch my documentary summaries. [00:42:46] Speaker B: Deal. [00:42:48] Speaker A: What else did you watch this week, mark? [00:42:50] Speaker B: All right, so some good, some great. Where do we want to start? Let me see. I finally got around to dream scenario. [00:43:02] Speaker A: Oh, I watched that this week as well. [00:43:04] Speaker B: Did you enjoy it? Please tell me you enjoyed it. I did. Oh, fucking hell. [00:43:08] Speaker A: Here's the thing. This is. I am not the target audience thing. You know that I don't like movies about people making problems for themselves, and I don't like, like, dramas, and I don't, like, basically, this is one of those ones where I was like, this is a good movie. I'm sure. I get why people like it. It was just for me, I was sitting there, and I was like, oh, if this guy's guy's got a lot of life problems, he should fix those. And then that would, like, most of the time when I watch things, that's my thought processes. [00:43:41] Speaker B: That was not probably changes at all. So dream scenario, for those of you who it's passed by, Nicolas Cage is a wholly unremarkable and kind of yellow belly, kind of spineless kind of non entity of a guy. He works as a professor in a university, and a phenomenon erupts where, for fucking no reason, no apparent reason at all, thousands of people all across the world start to simultaneously dream about him every single night. I know I've talked about this before, right? But this is just one more chapter in the incredible fucking career trajectory of Nicolas Cage. [00:44:25] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, the fucking. [00:44:28] Speaker B: That guy, man. He's gone from kooky kind of heartthrob to action leading man to family fucking family friendly adventure, kind of Disney Amblin kind of star, and then absolute fucking stalwart of the horror genre. Just really interesting horror picks. And he can now just decide what to do. And the fact that he's picking projects like dream scenario. I fucking love Nicolas Cage. I love him. I fucking love him. I hope he's not. Is he problematic? I hope he isn't. He probably is a bit, isn't he? [00:45:09] Speaker A: Because, you know, my general thing is, like, don't defend men accused of shit or whatever, but he's, like, one of the few that I make, like, a mild exception for. And I accept other people's things because the thing that he was in trouble for or whatever was like, a thing with his ex wife where a cop was like, they were drunk in public, being a nuisance or whatever, and the cop arrested him or something like that for assault or something. But it was because he grabbed her arm and pulled her to go. And it was like, oh, he assaulted her by grabbing her. And then he had, like, an ex who claimed various things about him, but in the same time also made a whole bunch of unhinged claims about, oh, his wife is jealous of me and all these kinds of things. So it's like kind of a grain of salt sort of thing. That said, I understand if people are like, no, that's it. I fucking cut him out or whatever. I just think the particular things lobbed at him are not really a thing. [00:46:20] Speaker B: Not worth a canceling. [00:46:21] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, not in my opinion. But I understand if other people do. [00:46:25] Speaker B: Well, look, dream scenario, firstly, it's a very, very funny film. It does beautiful things with. It is. It's funny as fuck. All of these weird dreams that he's just present in as a bystander just doing nothing. You see kind of shots there are some very funny, very funny. And he'll just wander into the scene doing nothing, just watching, very self effacing. He's a very brave performer in that he's never shy about coming across in very weird and kind of unsavory kind of ways. Yes. The nature of people's dreams changes as his life changes. He tries to wrest some control back from the. Of the situation that he's found himself in on social media. Employs a marketing team, which is hilarious. Did you not find it a funny film? I found it a very funny film. [00:47:23] Speaker A: In ways, I think so, yeah. I don't know if I would be like, it's a really funny film, but it had some very funny moments in it. I think my thing with it is that. I don't know. Continue on your. No, I felt like it was a bit muddled in the. It was trying to do too much. It was doing like. It had a lot of things to say, and I didn't necessarily think it followed through in a lot of ways with those things. [00:47:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it has a kind of a sour undercurrent. Kids are stupid. [00:48:00] Speaker A: There's a lot of cancel culture under various things like that. That, for me, I was like, okay. I don't totally think it nailed its messaging in it. I think the performances are really good. Like you said, it's brave and bold, and not just from him, but from that one girl in it who kind of becomes his. I don't know how to describe that, but who really kind of becomes a catalyst for a lot of the issues that he faces. [00:48:35] Speaker B: The last kind of 20 minutes feel tacked on. [00:48:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:38] Speaker B: When fucking dickhead online influencers work out how to insert themselves into dreams, and obviously they use it as marketing. They obviously use it to fucking push products. [00:48:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that was a bit heavy. Exactly. I was like, it's funny and everything, but I don't necessarily think it tonally fit the rest of what this movie was. But I also don't know how else they would have sort of wrapped this up or anything like that. So for me, I think it was just like, I didn't totally feel like it stuck the landing on a lot of those things. And on top of, like I said, I commend Nicolas Cage for playing characters like this and stuff like that. But that doesn't mean I want to watch, like, just watching this sad sack throughout this whole thing by the public. Yeah. And it's kind of like, you know how you tend to have a mindset of mind over matter willpower. You can make choices or whatever, and I always push back on that, but there is a degree to which I know that that internally is a thing for me as well. And when I see someone, just like, I don't want to watch someone who just always makes the wrong decisions and who can't control anything in their life, I get frustrated with them more than I empathize with them. [00:50:01] Speaker B: Yes. And the film deals with that. I think for the first 3rd, it shows us in no uncertain terms that he's a passive participant in his own life. He just lets things happen, and that is reflected in the dreams people are having about him, no matter what fucking fucked up shit is happening in their dream. He's just there, passive, looking on. And as he attempts to kind of assert this agency in his life his presence in these dreams changes. It deals with that, I think. It does. Not by accident. [00:50:32] Speaker A: That's not a criticism. That's me saying why I'm not the target audience is because I don't want to watch that. That's not saying it's a bad movie for doing that. It's me going, this is why I. [00:50:43] Speaker B: Didn'T enjoy the movie. [00:50:46] Speaker A: It's good, but I don't like it part. [00:50:48] Speaker B: Well. I did a nice, easy four stars. No problem. [00:50:53] Speaker A: I think I still gave it like a three and a half or something on there, though. [00:50:57] Speaker B: You can't. Not whether you enjoy it or not, you can't deny that it's a good old piece of film. I watched mosquito. [00:51:02] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Good times. [00:51:03] Speaker B: I watched mosquito. Wasn't that really good times? Yes, it was. Do you know what I got from it? I got big, bad taste vibes. [00:51:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. [00:51:12] Speaker B: Homemade. Kind of feel just nice bit of fucking schlock. I felt bad for Gunnar Hansen, man. I think they did him dirty. Gunnar Hansen was in know the once mighty leatherface. I don't know. It felt like he was slumming it, I think. Gunnar Hansen. [00:51:31] Speaker A: I said when we were watching it that I was like, I don't know if I've ever seen Gunnar Hansen outside of TCM. And so I did not realize it was him until I was scrolling through IMDb and I was like, oh, as. [00:51:44] Speaker B: Soon as I saw him, I sat up. Bolt, right? Yeah. I feel as though towards the end of his life as this film was, I believe he was worth more. [00:51:55] Speaker A: Fair enough. But it is a fun movie. [00:51:57] Speaker B: It is a fun movie. And yes, a rubber mosquito does in fact, stab a girl with its proboccus in the ass. [00:52:04] Speaker A: Right in the ass. And that scientist talks about that proboscis the entire time, doesn't she? [00:52:09] Speaker B: Yeah, she really does. She really does. So three stars there. Nice. No problem at all. The fucking departed, right? Yeah, boy, I got off my ass. Look, more and more I am being led by my inner voice when it comes to movies. I am simply letting my fucking. Whatever's driving me, I'm letting it take the wheel. And I am watching what I am compelled to watch and not thinking too hard about it. I'd never seen the departed, which is. [00:52:38] Speaker A: Wild to me because you're such a fan of the gangster genre and stuff like that. [00:52:43] Speaker B: I enjoy crime thriller. [00:52:44] Speaker A: All this time that you had one of my favorite movies of all time. I have seen it God knows how. [00:52:50] Speaker B: Many times and I didn't know this. I was delighted when you told me this after I'd seen it. But fuck me, what a great time. What a great fucking time. Martin Scorsese go 15 minutes without playing gimme shelter challenge. Can't do it. He can't fucking do it. He cannot go for an entire movie without playing gimme shelter. He played it twice in this fucking film. Gimme shelter twice. Two fucking times. Being charitable, I kind of tried to give him a little leeway because it's Martin Scorsese, it's Marty Mari. He plays it once when DiCaprio is in prison, and he plays it again when DiCaprio is mired in the mob and in the corruption. So is he trying to thematically say he's trapped again? I don't know, but what a fun film with all the fun voices. La fucking depart. [00:53:40] Speaker A: Can I just quickly make a note on that, like what you just said? Because I was thinking about this during killers of the flower moon. I would like a documentary that is just about Martin Scorsese and music because clearly that is a huge part of the tableau of his films. And it's, know, that's the thing that you don't necessarily think of as like a huge directorial know. There's people who come up with scores for films and all this kind of stuff and certainly it's a thing they sign off on. But he clearly has a vision. [00:54:15] Speaker B: Didn't he direct a Stones concert video? He directed like a Rolling Stones live. [00:54:18] Speaker A: Video, I believe that sounds correct. Yes. I'm not entirely positive, but that does. [00:54:23] Speaker B: So I don't know if music is as big a deal for him as just the Rolling Stones. [00:54:27] Speaker A: Well, that too, but there's no rolling stones in killers of the Flower moon. [00:54:30] Speaker B: But if he could have fucking done it, he would have. [00:54:33] Speaker A: He probably would have. But the music is so intentional in that. And I think about that in the departed and stuff. Like, it's clearly. It's in the way that he thinks about his movies. And so I would love to watch that. But anyway, go on. [00:54:47] Speaker B: Oh, mate, I've said all I've got to say. It's fucking great. I mean, fantastic to see Jack Nicholson literally playing fucking a mobster, a murdering fucking asshole racist fuck head of a mobster, but playing it in exactly the same way as he played Jack Napier in Batman. It's the same. He does the same fucking performance in Batman as he did in killers of Flower Moon. It was fucking great. And the voices, the accents are a lot of fun, aren't they? Fucking cocksucker. [00:55:17] Speaker A: Fucking. [00:55:18] Speaker B: Fucking selling microprocessors to the fucking Chinese. So much fun. It is. DiCaprio is a fucking God. He's amazing in this movie. He's amazing in this movie. As is every fucker in it. Right? [00:55:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:33] Speaker B: Everybody knows what they're doing. Everybody knows they're in a Mari Scorsese movie and they're all doing. [00:55:37] Speaker A: You even have my boy badge in there, which is always a plus. [00:55:40] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. And everybody shoots each other at the end. Everybody's a mole. [00:55:47] Speaker A: Don't spoil the departed. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm going to spoil that palate. Everybody's a mole. Right. [00:55:54] Speaker A: The character who didn't. [00:55:58] Speaker B: That's true. [00:55:58] Speaker A: Let people have this because I was telling you about this after you watched it. But when I was coming back from South Africa, there was someone watching the departed a few rows in front of me. And I got to the sort of twisty end part of the movie and just watched as this person reacted to each thing that happened with an. Oh, shit. [00:56:21] Speaker B: Oh, shit. [00:56:22] Speaker A: And it was glorious. Everyone should have that moment. Watch the departed and get that moment. It's beautiful. [00:56:30] Speaker B: I'm not saying who the moles are, but it's basically, everyone. [00:56:34] Speaker A: Stop trying to spoil the departed. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Everyone is a mole. Yeah. Fucking, what a great laugh. What a great movie. [00:56:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:44] Speaker B: Fucking backsucker. Let me see what else. Again, I'm giving up control to the inner voice. And because beautiful, pretty faced Christopher Nolan was up for BAFTAs this week for Oppenheimer. I only saw Tenet the once, right? I saw Tenet the once in the cinema. And whether it was PTSD or what, I'd completely blanked it from my. I didn't form much like the guy in memento. I didn't form any long term memories associated with Tenet. So I thought, right, I've got fucking 5 hours spare. I'll watch Tenet. And I'm so glad I watched tenet. What a fucking stylish movie, man. [00:57:28] Speaker A: Stylish, I'll give it. Yes. [00:57:30] Speaker B: Right? Tenet is what happens when you just take fucking mad laddery and you take the reins off. It is grand scale mad ladism, right? When Christopher Nolan just decides, right, I'm going to be a fucking absolute mad lad for three and a half hours or however fucking long it is that film, man. And I don't care that it doesn't make any fucking sense. [00:57:55] Speaker A: Not make any sense. [00:57:56] Speaker B: In fact, I think it probably does make sense. But to minds beyond my own, right? Yeah, I guess it is beyond my Ken and my wit to piece together the events of Tenet. And I don't give a shit because what the fuck happens on that screen is just sex. It is the dirtiest, sexiest fucking imagery in that film, man. Different fucking times going on in the same frame. Things are happening backwards, but they're also happening forwards. There's a guy in a fucking sharp suit and there's surprises. And fuck me, man. Tenet just injected into my fucking fucking glands, man. Stick a proboscis in my head and just pump it into me. Tenet was great. I didn't understand a fucking minute of it, but God damn, was it fun to look at. [00:58:54] Speaker A: I think I just don't like Christopher Nolan. I think the only Christopher Nolan movie that I've liked outside, I do. I liked the first Batman when it came out, and then when I watched it again, like, ten years later, I was like, oh, this is so shitty. [00:59:08] Speaker B: Made back up. Well, Batman begins is shitty. That's what you're saying to musically shitty. [00:59:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:59:15] Speaker B: Batman begins. Batman begins movie is fuck me. [00:59:23] Speaker A: The only Christopher Nolan movie that I like and have consistently liked is inception. Other than that, it's like when I rewatch them again or the first time, I'm just like, this is a waste. [00:59:36] Speaker B: There you go, folks. Batman begins is a shitty movie. [00:59:39] Speaker A: Now, listen, this has become a more common thought than you think. In fact, this was a whole thing on blue sky a couple months ago when one of the users wrote, like, a long letterboxed review and posted it on there. And then it was like, basically the whole thread of everyone thinking that it had been an unpopular position. But it turns out it's actually very common to hate. [01:00:04] Speaker B: I find that unbelievable. I find that fucking absolutely unbelievable. Obviously, I have never and will never forgive him for dark Knight rises. That is a shitty movie. That is fucking dog egg. But both Batman begins in the Dark Knight are superb. What, do we fool Master Wayne? You know what I'm saying? Rub your chest. Your arms will take care of themselves. That has no basis in medicine. It has no basis in medicine at all. It simply isn't true. Warm your arms. [01:00:39] Speaker A: No, but I think about it constantly. Every time I see someone wearing, like, one of those vests that doesn't have sleeves on it, I just think of Rosalgol. [01:00:52] Speaker B: Amazing. Let me see what else? [01:00:54] Speaker A: I think that was pilot, from what I recall. [01:00:57] Speaker B: I can't see him on the camera. Sending the microprocessors. [01:01:03] Speaker A: We watched for you for a lifetime of watching that movie over and over again and enjoy. [01:01:07] Speaker B: Oh, I'm going back to it. I'm going to go back to it. Yes. We watched a lovely, lovely, lovely fucking horror movie called you won't be alone. [01:01:15] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, this is another one that. Again, it wasn't really for me, but it was a good movie. [01:01:19] Speaker B: I think you suggested that as a gift to me, didn't you? Because you knew that I would love it, and love it I did. Where are we? We're in Macedonia, is that correct? [01:01:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Macedonia. [01:01:30] Speaker B: Macedonia. Rural farmland. Kind of olden days. Macedonia, yeah. [01:01:37] Speaker A: I have no idea what time period this is. [01:01:39] Speaker B: Nope. Nor have I. But think carrying pails of milk on the back. Think goats. [01:01:46] Speaker A: Belief in witchcraft. [01:01:47] Speaker B: Witchcraft. Straw bedding. And a witch kidnaps a young girl, I believe. [01:01:57] Speaker A: Well, she doesn't so much kidnap her. Yeah, she marks her. Basically. The mom is like, take her when she's 16. Not now. [01:02:06] Speaker B: Exactly. Makes a deal with a witch, and when you make a deal with a witch, that's only going to go one way. You got to pay up. And the girl kind of adopts the Persona of people who she kills throughout her life. And on the surface, that sounds all right. Fair enough. That's a ropey old horror trope. It might be fun, it might not be. But that framing is used as a means to explore the fucking human condition, man. [01:02:35] Speaker A: It's not framed in a horror way. [01:02:38] Speaker B: No. [01:02:39] Speaker A: Somehow it becomes beautiful the way she. [01:02:41] Speaker B: Takes, and it is thought provoking, and it makes you kind of the fucking. The taste of water, the kiss of a man. Just what it is to be a fucking human in Macedonia. At some point in the past, we experience every life that this girl inhabits or takes on the fucking skin of. We experience it anew through fresh eyes, and it's more. I don't know, man, what to fucking compare it to. [01:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah. It has the witch vibes in certain ways. [01:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:17] Speaker A: But, yeah, I don't know. It kind of stands in sort of a league of its own. [01:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:22] Speaker A: I don't know what it reminds me of. [01:03:24] Speaker B: Great to see Numi rapese. Great to see her. Always great to see her. [01:03:29] Speaker A: Numi rape is such, like, an interesting actress. I was thinking about this when I looked this up, but it's like, numi rape. Being in a movie does not tell you at all what language it's going to be in, where it's going to be set. It's like she just pops up everywhere. [01:03:46] Speaker B: Last time I saw her, it was lamb. [01:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say like Lamb before that she shows up everywhere and she has a type of movie, clearly, that she drifts towards as well. For sure. She's not one of those, like, I want to be in a blockbuster kind of people. She loves, like a meditative, slow, thoughtful kind of movie. Like, you won't be alone. Yeah, it was one that I didn't. I don't even want to say I didn't enjoy this one. I think I enjoyed it. I definitely, towards the end, started to zone out, and that's like a function of it having subtitles and being very quiet and things like that. It's not a heavy dialogue movie or anything like that. My brain just kind of turned off. [01:04:36] Speaker B: If you're someone who doesn't necessarily like subtitles, and I know you don't, not a problem. It's a visual movie. It conveys its story visually. [01:04:46] Speaker A: The subtitles are very bad. This movie, I don't know if it was just the copy we watched or what, but it was, like, near unintelligible at times. And sometimes I thought like, oh, is it just because she hasn't learned, like, it's the way her inner monologue is, because she hasn't learned to talk, and then other people would talk that way. And I was like, okay, no, it's just badly translated, but it doesn't super matter. It's not really the point. [01:05:11] Speaker B: I kind of think that I could have turned the subtitles off and still. Yeah, you got what's going on. It tells everything visually. It's a very visual movie, and I deeply enjoyed it. It's right up my street. It's my jam. [01:05:24] Speaker A: Definitely. That was what I said. I was like, I think you're going to love this. I might hate it, but you're going to love this. [01:05:30] Speaker B: And you were right. [01:05:31] Speaker A: Yeah. You won't be alone. I think we both recommend it, though. [01:05:34] Speaker B: You won't be alone. You won't be disappointed. [01:05:37] Speaker A: You should be in marketing. [01:05:39] Speaker B: I've said many times that if just one time we could get quoted on a movie poster. [01:05:47] Speaker A: Right. [01:05:48] Speaker B: But I guess then we'd need to promote ourselves first, wouldn't we? [01:05:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the first step. We're three and a half years in, and we have not started doing that. So will it happen one day? Probably not, but. Oh, boy. Everyone look out. If we ever decide to make one solitary effort to promote this podcast, we're. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Kind of waiting for you guys to do it. [01:06:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Will you guys just go ahead and start a campaign for us? That'd be super awesome. [01:06:18] Speaker B: That'd be wicked. Maybe then we'd release episodes on the same day. [01:06:23] Speaker A: Right? Well, this week I had a couple of good ones. I watched dreamsnaire. Like I said, I watched the holdovers. Waste of time. Don't understand what the hype is about on that one. I don't see any reason you would like it either. [01:06:39] Speaker B: I'm going to watch it. I'm going to watch it. But only because you're the only person who said that. [01:06:45] Speaker A: Interestingly, this is one of those things where I think people, they went and saw it in theaters and they loved it. Like four or five star reviews of this. And then in the past couple of days, I've noticed more people watching it at home who have said exactly the same thing that I have about it. So it feels like it's your. Who are the early adopters of a movie like that versus then when everybody else gets a hold of. It's a little more like. I don't see it as one that has a lot in there for you. It's low plot, slice of life, sentimental, extremely sentimental kind of movie where it's basically white men doing white men things with, like, a black lady to move them along in their emotional growth. [01:07:31] Speaker B: I like little Miss Sunshine. I like sideways. [01:07:33] Speaker A: It's not like that. Those have plots? [01:07:35] Speaker B: No. Okay. [01:07:36] Speaker A: It doesn't really have that. Yeah. And it's 2 hours and 20 minutes long with like 30 minutes of things happening. It's such like a white dude movie. It's like a point in it where they meet. The teenager at the center of this meets like a girl his own age. And even though he's like, sleeves and all this kind of stuff, she catches him looking down her shirt and all this kind of stuff, she's like attracted to him and kisses him, and it's like such male fantasy bullshit. [01:08:12] Speaker B: That does not happen. I know. [01:08:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:16] Speaker B: Let me tell you. [01:08:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a waste of time. The performances are good. It's just not worth your time, in my opinion. With Scream and chat, we watched a movie called the Oracle, which is also kind of a waste of time except practical effects that are great at this point. When we watch scream and chat movies, there's always a degree to which we're not paying attention to it. But it was definitely confusing when it ended. Everyone was like, what happened? But what sticks with you is that there are some really good gory moments in it. So the Oracle is one that you don't need to watch. But if it were like, you turned on shutter and it was the automatic thing that came up on shutter tv, and you had nothing else to do. You're going to get some good effects out of that. [01:09:03] Speaker B: Okay. [01:09:04] Speaker A: But the thing I really liked that I watched this week was House of Wax, the original, which I had never seen before. Have you seen it? [01:09:13] Speaker B: No, I have not. [01:09:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's from 19. [01:09:16] Speaker B: Vincent Price. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Vincent Price? Yeah. Early 50s. This came out and it was three D. I did not know this. And then a couple of sort of tricks happened in there that I was like, this feels like a 3d movie. And then it turned out it is. [01:09:29] Speaker B: Kind of blue and green. [01:09:30] Speaker A: Three D. No, I mean, it probably was at the time, but the print isn't like that. Right? [01:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. [01:09:39] Speaker A: I don't think you could put on 3d glasses and just watch the version that was on TCM. You'd have to get. [01:09:43] Speaker B: The back of my mind is telling me that's called anaglyph three z. [01:09:47] Speaker A: Sure. I know there's a name for it, but I don't remember. I think that's anaglyph three, but yeah, the house of wax is, like, super fun and creepy. Basically, Vincent Price plays this guy who makes figures out of wax, but he has, like, an unscrupulous landlord who's like, hey, if we burn this whole place, like, we'll get insurance money for it. You can rebuild somewhere else. And Vincent Price is like, these wax figures are my friends. I don't want to do that. And so the landlord's like, fine. He just burns the place down with Vincent Price in it trying to kill him. But he survives. And there is basically this sort of murder storyline going on where you're like, okay, there's some guy slinking around murdering all these people who are connected to this. Why? And meanwhile, Vincent Price has started up a new wax museum. Interesting of figures that look alarmingly familiar to people who have been murdered. [01:10:52] Speaker B: Scratch his head. [01:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's a lot of fun. Sort of just very creepy. I mean, the wax figures are so horrifying throughout this. And, yeah, it's a fun little, like trying to figure out how he's doing it, what's going on. There's sort of these stalkery elements of it, home invasion elements of it, lots of things that I really like. And Vincent Price and 3d tricks. [01:11:22] Speaker B: Got to be about five years back now. We took the boys to madame two swords. Yeah. Owen was just about walking. Owen was still on reins. Peter would have been like five or six. Reins? Yeah, like reins that you have a toddler on so they don't run off like a kid leash, if you will. [01:11:43] Speaker A: Okay. I can picture it now. [01:11:45] Speaker B: There you go. And Peter wouldn't go fucking near any. [01:11:50] Speaker A: Of the models like I am with. [01:11:53] Speaker B: You know, they had waxworks of one direction there, right? And he fucking loved one direction at the time. Wouldn't go near them. He spent the entire time hiding between mine or Laura's legs. He wouldn't stand next to Michael Jackson. There are photos of him, in fact, just looking super uneasy the entire day. I was having a great time in the Star wars exhibit. [01:12:12] Speaker A: Yes. [01:12:12] Speaker B: Fucking yes. And Pete wouldn't fucking peep out from behind either me or Laura. It was hilarious. [01:12:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I always had, like, a skepticism of things like that as a child. I mean, I still do. It's like walking down Hollywood Boulevard. If I see the people dressed in costumes as things, I'd like immediately back away. I just don't like it. I don't trust things trying to trick me into thinking they're somebody or something else. I don't like it at all. [01:12:41] Speaker B: Are you not a fan of immersive theater, then? [01:12:43] Speaker A: Kind of like, what do you mean? [01:12:46] Speaker B: Well, like immersive carnivals. No, absolutely not. [01:12:57] Speaker A: If anything interacts with me, I'm out. I do not want to be a part of the show in any way. [01:13:04] Speaker B: That fucking fourth wall in place. Thank you. Yeah. [01:13:06] Speaker A: I remember going to the circus with my brother Zach as a kid and a clown, like, coming somewhere near me and me just crawling over. This is. That's not happening. Do not perceive me, please. [01:13:23] Speaker B: That's not your brother who's gone insane. [01:13:25] Speaker A: Oh, that's the one. Yeah, that's my terrible, insane brother. I mean, they're all insane. He's. [01:13:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I get that. [01:13:31] Speaker A: The bad insane one. But he did once take me to the circus, which I hated. [01:13:40] Speaker B: Damn. Not good. [01:13:43] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's everything for me. Shall we get into the nitty gritty? [01:13:47] Speaker B: Yes, let's do it. So let me just replay my takeaways from last week. So, week one of our journey was all about just the colonialist playbook of our respective nations. Yes. And last week, a closer look at. See, the question I asked last week was, why the fuck? Why has antisemitism been so rife throughout all of fucking history? Ever since the kind of the expulsion of the Jews in the fucking prehistoric times bc the fucking diaspora, jews have settled everywhere across the fucking globe, pretty much. And anti semitism everywhere. Followed, everyone has hated them, followed them. And that remains insane to me. That remains something I just cannot square away. I can't fucking work out why and where and how and how it continues to bubble up. As you'd expect, this question has been asked on radio four quite often of late. There was an interview with, I forget the guy's name, but a Holocaust historian who gives kind of educational talks and runs kind of a Holocaust education foundation. And I'm paraphrasing, but his line was along the lines of, we've made the mistake of thinking that we can simply tell the story of the Holocaust and trust that people will learn from it. [01:15:26] Speaker A: Right? Exactly. [01:15:27] Speaker B: But apparently not right. [01:15:30] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. And that's obviously what we've been going through here, is how complicated this is. And it speaks to how, when we were sort of recapping or whatever, before we even started today, that you're like, I'm still like, no matter how much we talk and we have this and one more to talk about it that will hopefully add more clarity to that. But there is a degree to which one of the fundamental problems here is exactly that. And what I talked about last week with Naomi Klein's book, with the way that we talk about the Holocaust, tends to be a retraumatizing instead of a remembering, and something that keeps a wound open without really teaching us about what are the lessons that we can get from this, and how do we move on as a society from the kind of hatred that breeds something like this? How do we say, never again? Well, we can't simply look at it as then something that is this continuous, open wound that we pull up and use to put violence onto other people and things like that. We have to figure out a way to remember the trauma of the Holocaust and then apply it. Why did this happen? What were other people doing as a result? What were the policies that were in place that caused them to be able to do this? And we've talked about Hitler himself saying that the Brits and the US taught him how to do this stuff. And to a degree, that was rhetorical, right? He's pushing off responsibility, like, hey, I'm not a monster. I'm just doing what you all do. But at the same time, he was also right. He was following colonialist playbooks from other places. He was following the anti semitism that had been around since antiquity. He is using all of these things that we have done elsewhere, the dehumanization of people, thinking about a group of people as invasive, cockroaches, as non human, in order to justify getting rid of them. Like, all of this stuff, he didn't come up with, he didn't invent it, just turned it into something on a scale that is unimaginable. [01:17:41] Speaker B: What was that book of no. McClein's called again, please? [01:17:43] Speaker A: Doppelganger. And it's great. I think you'd love it. You should definitely read doppelganger. But all of this to say that what we're looking at here is the conditions, all the stuff that makes it so that we get to the point where we discussed about the Holocaust and how Jews learn about it and what we learn about it and all of that kind of stuff last week. And now we're looking at how we didn't learn those lessons that needed to be learned. And for a lot of political reasons, a lot of the reasons that we continue to repeat these sins of the past is political. It's ideological, it's religious, it's all kinds of things. But it's a matter of us sort of prioritizing things outside of the humanity of people. When it comes down to it, we have a lot of interests and humanity is very low on our list of priorities. And I think that's one of the things I want to sort of people to take out of this is that idea of prioritizing humanity and thinking about things as not existing in a vacuum. The Holocaust didn't exist in a vacuum, of course. [01:19:00] Speaker B: They didn't start with concentration camps, of course. [01:19:02] Speaker A: Right, exactly. And a lot of that involves people much like where we are now, accepting that certain things are allowable as a means to an end, that we might look at something and go, oof, that is ugly business. But the Jews need their homeland, or we need our oil, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The things that we will allow and not get involved with because we see it as a means to an end. And we don't want to know. We don't want to involve ourselves by knowing. But dear listener, you're going to know. And then you have to make decisions about which kind of person you want to be. When you have that knowledge. Are you going to be the person who sat there and was like, oh, that's ugly, but it is what it is. Or the kind of person who later on they look back and you go, man, they fought that with every part of their being. So you know where I want you to land. But let's get into why the US justifies this and why we have this support for Israel. [01:20:16] Speaker B: So let me get that kind of crystal. In fact, you know what? Fucking hell. Bernie Sanders himself was on radio four this very morning touching on this. So the US financially and ideologically supports. Yes, yes. Okay. [01:20:34] Speaker A: And we are going to get into. That's a. As a log line for this. That's exactly it. We financially and ideologically support Israel for a variety of reasons. So I want to talk to you today about the multifaceted reasons why the US maintains such a vested interest in Israel, while our attitude towards the rest of the Middle east is largely kill it with fire. And to be clear, I'm only going to scratch the surface of any of this because the books that I've been reading about this are like literally 650 pages long each. So I can't possibly really get all the way deep into everything. All of these episodes are a survey, and hopefully they cause you the listener, and you mark, of course, to want to look into it further for yourselves. As I mentioned last week, bookseller Ryan put together a shoppable list of the books I've been referencing. So the link is in the description of the episode or on the blog if you want to buy them and read them yourself. And of course, the blog has all the other links as it does the description to other stuff that I read as well, along with the books. And because this is relevant to what we were just talking about, before I really get started on this, I want to point out the big elephant in the room of why we were so gung ho about the creation of Israel and perpetual support of it, and that is anti Semitism. We knew that the Jews had been victims of horrors and atrocities beyond our wildest imaginations in Europe and that they needed to be safe from that. But we also did not want Jews in the United States. We set up quota systems during the war, basically, like, we can accept a certain amount, but beyond that, you're on your own. And we didn't want more than what we sort of allowed at the time, even though there were obviously a lot more who were trying to escape and to rebuild their lives after the war and all of that kind of stuff. We didn't want them. And so this was a way we could support them without actually bringing them here to our country. So I just kind of want to get that out of the way right from the jump that the US, like much of the world, has always been anti semitic. And bolstering Israel came in part out of that anti Semitism. It was not out of the goodness of our hearts and our care for the Jews. It was like, we recognize a terrible thing has happened to them, but also we don't want them here. Let's make that somebody else's problem just super quickly. [01:23:05] Speaker B: Worth pointing out. It was widely reported this week that just in London. Just in London, anti semitic hate crimes since October has risen 1350%. [01:23:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting, I think, the statistics around that, because Islamophobia has leapt as well, but it's a smaller leap. And one of the things I find fascinating about that is the reason the Islamophobia leap is smaller is because there was so much more outright Islamophobia before. And so part of that is antisemitism, catching up to how much Muslims were already victims of hate crimes all the time. But there's a surge. I think it's worth pointing out about that. And I don't want to excuse anti semitism by any stretch of the imagination, because it's abhorrent, but also that when it comes to the islamophobic hate crimes that have been happening, lots more Muslims have been killed or paralyzed or things like that. Like, in America, three muslim teenagers were shot, one of them paralyzed. A muslim child who was like six years old was murdered. There's been multiple other murders of Muslims since October 7 in America where there have not been murders or shootings of Jews in the United States. And so there is a degree to which the response, like what kind of hate crimes are being committed are very different depending on who that group is. At the same time. We had here in Tennessee the other day, like a full on neo nazi March where these guys know, doing little hiles and all that kind of like, they were just walking. The police weren't harassing them or anything like that. So you can see how, like, this was Tennessee just a few days ago. And so you can see how much anti Semitism is so rampant that they don't even have to fear someone's going to interfere with it. They can just parade through the streets doing nazi shit, and no one gives them any trouble. So, yeah, it's a huge issue. And one thing that I always think it's important to frame around this, too, is that Zionism and Judaism are two different things. And yes, of course, there are zionist Jews, but they are not the same. And no one should be victims of hate crimes, even if they are Zionists. But the equating of those two things is dangerous. And that's one of these big problems, is that people respond to being anti israeli government by then being hateful towards Jews. And that's doing it wrong. Absolutely doing it wrong. So I don't think anyone who listens to jack, of all graves is the kind of person who would make that kind of leap. But just FYI, taking out what Netanyahu's government is doing on regular, everyday Jews is like deeply misguided. So yeah, there is that. We certainly will not be contributing to that. But let's start here. Even though chronologically, I'm going to jump around. So this is not going to be like a linear journey. It's going to kind of circle around to these points over and over. But what do you know about the Cold War? [01:26:52] Speaker B: Well, you might be astounded to learn scant. [01:26:57] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. I don't know. This could have gone either way, really. [01:27:00] Speaker B: Cuba? Yes. Cuba, no, no. Russia. Yeah, us and Russia. [01:27:06] Speaker A: I'm thinking of Cuba. Well, I mean, like, Cuba is certainly a part of this whole thing, but certainly not what people think is the central element of the Cold War. Yeah, we're talking about basically the Soviet Union and the spread of communism globally, right. And particularly the United States doing everything in their power to prevent the spread of communism. And meanwhile, of course, there's developing of nuclear capabilities between both countries and the fear of what that's going to do. The space race, there's like all kinds of stuff wrapped up in the cold war. All of this being like a fight for either the supremacy of capitalism or the supremacy of communism, and there can only be one. We cannot have these things coexist with each other as global systems. The idea being like, as a capitalist nation who we are now decades into our sort of imperialist mandate, we're trying to take over the world when it comes to the financial system. And so the idea of communism spreading inherently breaks up our interests and threatens our interests as capitalists throughout the world. So it's really important to understand how much us foreign policy has been shaped by our attempts at keeping communism at bay. Around the world, we've staged coups, supported dictators, and engaged in disastrous proxy wars trying to stop the spread of communism, the most famous, obviously, being Vietnam, which we lost horribly and really destabilized that entire region, all for the purpose of trying to stop the spread of communism in Asia. And as far back as the 1910s, communism in the Middle east was a concern for the US, becoming one of the complications that both made us unsure of whether we should support the partition of Palestine as well as ultimately the reason we became gung ho supporters of Israel. European Jews actually brought communism with them to Israel. I mentioned last week know, as Naomi Klein writes in her, like, a lot of Jews are actually socialists and communists, especially sort of the foundational thinkers, including Marx himself, because having been persecuted pretty much throughout history, they were very much for a political ideology that did not pit people against each other over things like your religion and your ethnic background and things like that. That basically said there's no war but class war. The only thing we have to worry about know who owns the money, who owns the means of production, things like that. So there were a lot of jewish communists and they brought communism to Israel with them. So they first formed the Palestine Communist Party in 1919. So remember, of course, there is no Israel yet at that point, which is why it's. [01:30:06] Speaker B: Where was this. Where was this party formed? [01:30:09] Speaker A: Palestine. [01:30:10] Speaker B: Okay. [01:30:11] Speaker A: Palestine Communist Party in Palestine, 1919. [01:30:14] Speaker B: Okay. [01:30:16] Speaker A: And that's now become the Communist Party of Israel. And they're actually at this .1 of the loudest bodies in Israel that advocates for palestinian rights. So they've maintained that pretty much this whole time. But it was very complicated in the early to mid 20th century, particularly because the Soviets actually recognized the state of Israel. And thus that kind of left the arab communist parties to fall in line with that. Despite much of the rest of the arab world's pushback against colonialism, which was such a central part of this, obviously the concern for the US was that the Soviet Union was not only trying to spread communism in the arab world, but that they were also going to fuck with our oil interests. And I'm going to get into that. But as George Kennon said at the time, the basic motive of recent soviet action in northern Iran is probably not need for oil itself, but apprehension of potential foreign penetration in that area, coupled with the concern for prestige. The oil in northern Iran is important not as something Russia needs, but as something that might be dangerous for everyone else to exploit. In other words, Russians didn't need the oil, but they knew we wanted. You know, they were probably going to come in and fuck with it. That was our concern. As with everything this week, I'm oversimplifying, but suffice to say that while communism was for a time a so called threat in the arab world, it never got a foothold. But this is why it's important. According to author Irene L. Genzier, quote, the United States was replacing british economic and strategic power in the Middle east. It was preparing for a radically more costly approach to foreign economic policy. It was moving toward the resurrection and final reintegration of german and japanese power in an antisoviet alliance as well as an american led world economy. It was transforming its intervention against left revolution into a standard policy and response, which is a lot, but basically the gist is we were forging this whole anticommunist, anti left alliance in order to get a stronghold on the global economy and thus squashing any left revolution anywhere in the world, became not just a significant part of our foreign policy, but the standard, see leftists squash leftists, period. [01:32:49] Speaker B: Yes, that I get. [01:32:51] Speaker A: Yeah. As zionist supporters put it at the time, quote, the Jews have been a great progressive force in Palestine. They can serve the whole Middle east as a progressive, westernizing influence in the development of modern industry, scientific agriculture, education and political democracy. They can be an outpost of western culture without being an outpost of western imperialism. The only problem is convincing those darn Arabs to go along with it. Truman's chief of the division of Near east affairs, Gordon Merriam, labeled the Middle East a highly dangerous trouble spot in 1945, explaining, according to Genzier, that the USSR was threatening Turkey and Iran, France had failed to put down Syria and Lebanon's independence movements, and Israel and Palestine were a powdered keg ready to explode into violence and disorder between Jews and Arabs. And in the tradition of McKinley and his ilk, trying to make it seem like America isn't actually imperialist, Miriam thought of us simply as a protector, helping out people who were, for the most part, ignorant, poverty stricken and diseased. So by implementing plans for the development of the region, we were actually just like being a good big brother to Palestine. We're going to help them out. They're like starving and diseased and uneducated. We're going to go in there and we're going to develop it and everything's going to be cool. And on top of all that, they have the thing that's at the root of pretty much all of our intervention in the Middle east. Oil. As Genzier puts it, Middle east policy was oil policy as far back as the early to mid 20th century. And this oil policy was in the hands of a small elite group, essentially a bunch of white guys who went to elite universities and just had disproportionate access to the secretary of state and president compared to the average Joe. It's a lot like what we talked about with Hawaii. Like it was overthrown by a bunch of people who stole and shit. Like the people who were developing Middle east foreign policy weren't politicians or anyone who really had any reason to be a part of that. They were just rich people with stakes and oil who could get into the room with the president and things like that. As Marion put it, when it came to our relationship with Saudi Arabia, it was important that it stayed in the hands of those following the paths of democratic civilization rather than those of eastern dictatorships. And this Genzier rights basically became the unexamined but firm basis of U. S. Middle east policy. According to Merriam, in Saudi Arabia, where the oil resources constitute a stupendous resource of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history, a concession covering this oil is nominally in american control. As such, the US would hand over about $10 million a year to Saudi Arabia for the purpose of ensuring a reasonable security to american interest in the vast arabian oil fields. [01:35:53] Speaker B: You have a question? Was this ever explicitly stated? [01:35:57] Speaker A: To who? [01:35:58] Speaker B: By the US. By the US? [01:36:00] Speaker A: I mean, these are all quotes from us political figures, Miriam. Was our connection to the east, like, these are government people who are saying this stuff. So, yeah, this is all said out loud. This isn't uncovered some sort of thing later on? Like, no, we knew this was what we were doing. I mean, the degree to which the american public knew or cared is a whole other. [01:36:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's kind of what I'm asking because it seems quite nakedly, the agenda seems quite upfront. It is the anti communist agenda and the resource hungry kind of way that they've conducted business. Was it positioned to the american people in more kind of easier terms? I guess? Was it positioned in a kind of a. Was there, was there a kind of. Not with the. Was the american interest, was the, the avarice of it all? Was that. Was there. I don't know. Was it, was it kind of phrased differently to the public then when they were asking questions about what our involvement in Israel was? [01:37:20] Speaker A: Well, I'll put it to you this way. Let's think about this in modern terms, right? What do you know about what BP is doing around the world? [01:37:28] Speaker B: Oh, jack shit. [01:37:30] Speaker A: Are they hiding it from. [01:37:32] Speaker B: Okay, fine. [01:37:34] Speaker A: That's kind of what it comes down to, right? Is that I will get to sort of why average Americans care about this. Because it's not these reasons, right? Sure. And it's the same thing, say when we go to war, if you ask Americans, what did we go to Iraq for? What did we go to Afghanistan for? Americans would be like to fight for freedom, right? How did we do that? What did going to Afghanistan do for our freedoms? Right? Like, what was threatened here? That's an idea. That's not a real thing. You can't fight for freedom. So government interests, when it comes to foreign policy is always very different than the people's interests. That's the same thing with things in World War II and stuff like that. Have you seen Casablanca? [01:38:28] Speaker B: No. [01:38:29] Speaker A: You've got to see Casablanca. This is let your heart, which is leading you towards so many classics, let it lead you to Casablanca, which is definitely one of my favorite movies of all time. I used to watch it four times a semester teaching it, and it still never gets old. But that movie was propaganda. The point of that movie was to, by using this love story sort of romantically, make people understand why we should interfere in a war in to why are we going to interfere with what's going on in Germany and stuff like that. That has nothing to do with us. Well, let's have this romantic story that gives you this reason. So when you say, like, did people know? Did they try to cover it up? The government didn't really have to cover. I see this stuff up and there's no 24 hours news cycle or anything like that. But the government's interests in any conflict are not the same thing that the people are taught, is the point. Okay, but that's a really good question. So yeah, this is all stuff on the record. This is our government, this is their policies towards this stuff. So I won't get into it at length, but we established various relationships with other middle eastern countries like Iraq, Iran, Bahrain and Kuwait based around preserving our oil interests. If we had to give them some money here and there or stage a coup or make certain concessions to these countries, so be it. The most important thing was the oil. This also meant that the US encouraged and supported missionaries from the US to head over to the Middle east and do medical and educational work for those of us who came from evangelical backgrounds and have reckoned with what the fuck we were doing. As missionaries, we know that missionary work is actually extremely political. Missionaries don't just read the Bible to people and be like, now you know, sweet, you're saved. I'm going to go home now. [01:40:31] Speaker B: Someone's funding them, right? [01:40:33] Speaker A: They're funded, absolutely. And they then tend to try to civilize the people that they encounter. They change their whole way of life. They cut their hair, they change what they wear, they teach them the ways of capitalism. It's a great way to get people from different cultures to be totally on board with american imperialism. Send some missionaries first to tell them that this is actually God's will. Missionary influence aside, the introduction of us and british interests into Palestine reshaped the economic landscape of the region. Quote, the largest employer of urban wage labor in Palestine until World War II was the Palestine railways. Its arab jewish workforce peaked at 7800 in 1943. Consolidated refineries and Haifa began production in 1940 and employed over 2000 arab, jewish and british manual and clerical workers. By 1944, there were 100,000 arab nonagricultural wage workers, about 35,000 of whom were employed at british military bases, along with 15,000 jewish workers. So the end of the war saw total destabilization of middle eastern economies as these services were no longer lucrative anymore or even necessary in a lot of cases, leading to labor strikes and communist and socialist sentiments. In fact, communists led the labor movements in Iraq, unionizing the oil workers and fomenting pushback against the low wages that they were being paid. And similar uprisings happened in various middle eastern countries being exploited for oil to varying degrees of success. So all of this is happening in the 1940s, right? Immediately post war, you've already got all these middle eastern nations being exploited for oil and trying to push back against largely Britain, but the United States, France, anyone who had sort of a controlling stake there. But what concerned the US government was not the rights of the workers, but how pissing off Arabs might threaten their oil interests. Opponents of partitions said us support for the creation of a jewish state in Palestine could undermine relations with the arab world, provide an opening for the Soviet Union to extend its power and influence, and lead to loss of access to Middle east oil at a time when they needed it for european and japanese reconstruction, to which the Brits were basically like, yeah, okay, fuck off. We don't care what that's going to do to your relationships with the Arabs. And the US was like, okay, fine, but if we're going to do this, Jews and Arabs need to both have a say in this process that'll keep things more stable in this region. We didn't really actually follow through on that. It sounded good politically, but the US didn't really give a shit about arab self determination or Arabs in general. And Truan went ahead and endorsed partition. And it soon became clear that the goal was to eliminate Arabs from Palestine entirely. In 1941, the director of the Jewish National Fund, Joseph fights, wrote, except perhaps for Bethlehem, Nazareth and old Jerusalem. We must not leave a single village, not a single tribe. [01:43:44] Speaker B: Christ. Yeah, Christ. [01:43:46] Speaker A: Not great. How are you going to do that? Ask them nicely to go, I think. According to Genzier, just two weeks after the Declaration of israeli independence, a committee was formed to implement the plan that led to the actual destruction of palestinian villages. The CIA, for their part, was like, hey, the Zionists are definitely not going to be satisfied with what they've been given in the partition and are going to want to take over everything. [01:44:15] Speaker B: Talk to me about how the partition was split. Talk to me about what? The division of land person. [01:44:22] Speaker A: Okay, this is going to be difficult for me. I think what the book said was something like 40% went to Arabs and 60 to Jews. I'm not positive, though. But keeping in mind that the Jews are a huge minority in this area, they were given a lot, just not as much as they. Yeah. The CIA said that the Zionists wanting more land was going to lead to massive arab resistance. And when the Jews inevitably started taking over arab land forcibly, the Arabs are going to be framed as the aggressors, even if they're just trying to defend their land and fight back against poverty and famine. This is not me saying this. This is the CIA saying what's going to happen, and this is potentially going to be a shit show for America. As Genzier wrote, quote, in February of 1948, the CIA once again reviewed the situation in Palestine, predicting a permanent conflict resulting from the incompatible aims of Zionists and palestinian and arab nationalists. Go figure. It's rare that you'll hear me give props to the CIA, but they got that one in one. They nailed exactly what was going to happen. But despite waffling back and forth on whether or not we'd support the partition and trying to mastermind other plans that would keep us from screwing up our relationships with arab nations we relied on for oil. The partition happened anyway, and we had to figure out how to work with that, because oil, even as the government watched in horror as Arabs were forcibly expelled from the land, and worse, massacred by the hundreds. So again, very similar to what's happening now. It was like, okay, we're trying to figure out how to keep things stable here. Meanwhile, the Israelis are just wholesale murdering and displacing the Arabs, but we can't say anything. So what do we do now? This is a problem. What began here in the late 1940s was the US practice of publicly denouncing the violence on both sides while doing nothing practical about the problem that was causing. [01:46:28] Speaker B: Yeah, classic. [01:46:29] Speaker A: Yeah, our hands just tied because of our political and economic interests there, but our commitment to Israel as more than just a place that's advantageous to us because of oil intensifies. As I said at the start with the cold war, when in 1967, Israel defeated several arab states pretty much single handedly, and began occupying a swath of new territory that included Gaza and the West bank. The US had been worried that this would expand into a cold war proxy battle, which is like, again, if you don't know a ton about the cold war. The thing about that is that we didn't fight Russia directly. We fought proxy wars which were like, know things in which we fought a war somewhere else to stop the influence of the Soviet Union instead of directly firing a nuke at the Soviet Union. And so they were concerned like we were going to have proxy wars pop up in the Middle east as a result of this. But then Israel managing to nip this in the bud without any help made us go, now, hold on. They're an even better ally than we gave them credit for because we were using all of our resources at this point to fuck up Vietnam. We had no energy to also fight a war in the Middle east at this moment. So now we realize we have someone there who will fight this battle for us in the Middle east that is really advantageous for us. So this is when we really ratcheted up our aid to Israel and more importantly, our supply of arms to them. Some of them we sold to them, but mostly we just gave them weapons by the skipped apart. Sorry. We gave them bank loans at super low rates to develop further weaponry. And by the 80s, we were teaming up for r and D on war toys with them. And it was in 1999 that Bill Clinton signed the first of 310 year memorandums committing to provide billions in military aid annually. Adjusted for inflation, Israel has received about $300 billion in economic and military assistance from the United States since its founding, making it the largest recipient of our aid by almost $150,000,000,000, which is insane. A place that's only been around for 75 years. [01:48:53] Speaker B: All of which, and this is making sense, all of which is a way of furthering american interests without actually. Without any kind of loss of american life. [01:49:05] Speaker A: Exactly. They're our proxy. That's exactly. It's our little Middle east proxy that we send our money to and things like that. But yeah, we don't have to have our soldiers there. We don't have to know a direct. Which, as we're trying not to be imperialist, looks great. We are not in the Middle east. We don't have a colony in the Middle east. We have an independent state that we just give money to and research. Yes, exactly right. So there's a lot more to this because I've only just explained to you the foundations of our investment in oil and weapons in the region, and it's been going on ever since. The book from which I've largely pulled all this is called dying to forget. Oil power, Palestine and the foundation of US policy in the Middle east. Just a long title, but by Irene El Genzier. And it's on the book list, in the description, or on our blog. So if you're curious as to how this continued to unfold, pick that up. My purpose here is not to give you every detail, but just to explain why our government gives Israel unconditional support, no matter how clearly horrible their government is. Like Netanyahu is an extreme right wing fascist and everyone knows it, but we still can't tell him to fuck off, no matter how much dark Brandon calls him a bad man behind his back because of all of this stuff. But on top of all this, I want to just explain one more weird part of the reason that so many in the US are pulling for Israel, and it's somehow even more sinister than being willing to genocide people for oil and military supremacy. That reason is Christian Zionism, the belief that war in the Middle east is a prerequisite for the return of Jesus. And once Jesus does return, all those Jews are going to be fucked. Obviously, most Americans don't give a shit about our oil interests in Palestine. So you might wonder why so many non Jews are still somehow deeply team Israel. This will help explain. It's not going to make sense, but it will explain. According to a poll of evangelical Christians conducted by the christian organization Lifeways, two thirds of the respondents said that the promise of Israel to the Jews was an eternal and unchanging promise from God. 80% believed the creation of Israel was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ's return. And this isn't just limited to evangelicals. When Pew conducted similar research. So pew is secular. Obviously. They do a lot of the polling throughout the United States. A third of Americans said that Israel was the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. A third of Americans aren't evangelicals. [01:51:57] Speaker B: Yeah. What's the sample size here? Do we know? [01:52:00] Speaker A: I mean, I'm not sure exactly what this was. You'd have to look at the actual survey on there. A chunk? Yeah, a chunk. Pew is generally considered to be pretty representative of. [01:52:10] Speaker B: Okay. [01:52:13] Speaker A: With a small margin of error. And this is recent as well. This is within the past couple of years. In the lifeways poll, according to the Washington Post, more than six in ten cited God's pledge to Abraham. And the third most cited reason was the existence of Israel was necessary for fulfilling prophecy. More than half of evangelicals said that was a reason that they supported Israel's existence. So that's a shit ton of Americans who think Israel has the right to take over the whole region by any means necessary, literally, because God says so. That's really hard to argue with. John Hagey, evangelical superstar, pastor and founder of Christians United for Israel, said in 2021, during a volley of rockets between Israel and Palestine, quote, when I tell you the rapture of the church is imminent, imminent means it can happen at any time. That is not an overstatement. It's an understatement. If you're not ready, get ready, because we're getting ready to leave this world. Hage even said in a 2005 sermon that God actually sent Hitler to push european Jews to Israel. [01:53:17] Speaker B: Shut up. [01:53:18] Speaker A: I kid you not. This is what I mean when I say, like, support for Israel is not about jews. People who support Israel are often extremely anti semitic. And Hage is one of those people very firmly behind Israel, called Hitler a half breed jew and said that God sent him to push the Jews to Israel, thus ushering in the second coming. And you learned in the second episode of this podcast exactly what he's talking about when he says, we're about to leave this world, the second coming of Christ, to come and take away all the evangelicals and leave everyone else to suffer horribly through the end times. Similarly, Greg Laurie of harvest christian fellowship in Riverside, California, a church that is unavoidable if you live in southern California, said, the Bible tells us in the end times that Israel will be scattered and regathered. The Bible predicted hundreds of thousands of years ago that a large force from the north of Israel will attack her after she was regathered. And one of the allies with modern Russia or Magog will be Iran or Persia. If you get up in the morning and read this headline, Russia attacks Israel, fasten your seatbelt because you're seeing Bible prophecy fulfilled in your. That's like, what's crazy about both of these is the excitement behind them, right? [01:54:39] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. It's palpable. Killing each other, rubbing their hands, rapture time. [01:54:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of horrifying. And to be clear, while Jews in Israel are central to this prophecy, they don't get to reach the finish line with the christians. According to this theology, known as premillennial dispensationalism, 144,000 Jews will convert to Christianity, and the rest will suffer with all the rest of the unrepentant sinners. So we're not talking about a theology that actually has any reverence for Jews, but one that sees them as a means to an end. They're just as demonic as the rest of us heathens. But God's going to convert some of them. And the rest, well, they made their choice, Hage explained. What will come soon is the Antichrist and his seven year empire that will be destroyed in the battle of Armageddon. Then Jesus Christ will set up his throne in the city of Jerusalem. He will establish a kingdom that will never end. According to religion news, Christians send hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel each year, in part to fund their illegal settlements. And they consistently back, politically and monetarily, politicians who support US relations with Israel. Most american evangelicals have no idea that there's such thing as palestinian Christians. I remember one spoke during chapel at my university, and people were livid about it. And having not grown up steeped in Zionism, I was confused about the whole thing. I did not understand why people were mad. But Christians are deeply invested in not knowing anything about the Palestinians because their worldview depends on Israel having the God. [01:56:15] Speaker B: Given rights, of course. [01:56:17] Speaker A: Yeah. That's why when Trump moved the american embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he said, that's for the evangelicals. So he is trying to help with that biblical prophecy. Moving along for the evangelicals. When Hamas attacked on October 7, Christians united for Israel tweeted to the terrorists who have chosen this fight, hear this. What you do to Israel, God will do to you. Despite today's weeping, joy will come, because he who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. And on top of all this just being a batshet set of reasons to allow for the murder of nearly 12,000 children, it's also a fairly recent interpretation of scripture, and one that doesn't have a lot of biblical backing. It's only been a thing since the 18 hundreds, and it's not a belief held by mainline Protestants or Catholics around the world, but is largely an american fixation, and unfortunately, one that's spreading in places like South America now. So a large chunk of the United States politics is being led by people who believe 200 year old biblical fan fiction that says you can slaughter as many brown folks as necessary to give Jews Israel so that evangelicals can be raptured and the Jews and everyone else left to perish. Very solid foreign policy background there. [01:57:35] Speaker B: And if I'm reading this right, very literal interpretations of scripture. [01:57:42] Speaker A: Well, no, that's the thing. It's not literal at all. [01:57:44] Speaker B: That's why this is only like a. [01:57:46] Speaker A: 200 year old theology. It's really taking a lot of liberties with what the text actually says. And it's very much an interpretation of the scripture, not what it actually says in the book. [01:58:02] Speaker B: But not, as I'd love to think, a fringe right. [01:58:10] Speaker A: Exactly. It is on a global scale, like, I said, mainline Protestants and Catholics don't believe this. This is very much an american sort of theology. And there's obviously, like I said, it's catching on. South America. There's british evangelicals as well, all your hillsong types and things like that over there that have kind of sprung up, but largely globally, this is not a thing. But it matters because in the US, that's not an entirely fringe belief. And further, because evangelicals have disproportionate influence on. [01:58:51] Speaker B: Okay, okay. [01:58:52] Speaker A: So whether or not the vast majority of us believe this, that voice is guiding a lot of the politicians of this country because they're getting so much money from people who believe this, along with organizations like APAC, which is like a specific Israel lobby here. But there's a lot of just regular people who are like, listen, if the rapture is going to come, we need to be putting our money behind Israel. And so politicians are following that line. [01:59:23] Speaker B: What are some of the names then, of american politicians? Any gop of power? All of them who have this in their ear? [01:59:32] Speaker A: Yeah, all of them, absolutely. And non GOP as well. But definitely pretty much every republican politician is going to be following this for sure. Whether they believe it personally or not. Their constituents absolutely believe this. [01:59:51] Speaker B: Either explanation is as bad as the other. They either believe it or are pretending to because of the money and influence that comes with it. [01:59:59] Speaker A: Right, exactly. On the other hand, like, Biden's a Catholic, this wouldn't be part of his ideology. But the other elements of this, the more political reasons, are the reasons why he insists on being behind this, even though privately he keeps on badmouthing Netanyahu and things like that. He keeps supporting this because politically it's what he believes, not religiously what he believes. So, yeah, that's my survey of why the US is deeply deranged in its support for Israel. Like zionist, Jews in the US have their own reasons, and I recommend the documentary Israelism to understand how such a deep connection to Israel is formed in many american Jews. That's a whole other thing separately. But for the non Jewish in the US, it's largely always been about anti semitism, oil, anti communism, military supremacy, and biblical prophecy. [02:00:56] Speaker B: This is landing, you'll be delighted to hear. Beautiful. Yeah. I mean, while I wouldn't fucking pretend for a second to have the kind of the depth of the grasp that you do on this, the headlines are certainly landing. [02:01:12] Speaker A: Love that. And that's what I'm aiming for. Bit by bit, unraveling this the first week, obviously, is more of a just get to know how we got here sort of situation the second week, experiencing what happened and how the British were involved with it. And now we're getting into kind of the meat of like, why the fuck is it like this and why are we supporting this? And next week, I'm going to close out our series here by bringing this into modern times, talking about sort of the wars that have happened over the past 20 years there. And the other big fat elephant in the room, Hamas. We got to talk about what that is because you can't have a conversation about this without people sort of bringing up Hamas. And what does it mean? Like, are they to blame? Can we really blame Israel for what's going on there when Hamas is operating in Palestine? So we're going to talk about how that came to be, what they do there, the idea of resistance, and sort of the things that have been happening in recent times that have led us to Gaza today. [02:02:23] Speaker B: Well, fuck. [02:02:26] Speaker A: Indeed. [02:02:28] Speaker B: Look, from the beginning, from the fucking right to the start of Jack of all graves, it's always been about looking at the uncomfortable truths of the fucking world around us, the world we live in. That's what always been the statement, hasn't it? Exactly. Try and find something to hold onto. Try and find something to grasp onto in a world that's going to shit. And there's never been a more relevant and timely example of the world going to shit than this. Absolutely. So, yes, this is what we do, and we're doing it. [02:03:08] Speaker A: Indeed. So hopefully you'll join us as we finish this out next week, and then we'll sort of get back to normal. Joe, Aggie, things. But we had to say our piece. And like you just said, mark, this is the central mandate of this podcast, is to address the horrors of being human head on and how the world is falling apart around us. So I'm happy that we're talking about it and happy to get this out here. And hopefully it's hitting for other people. And people are realizing that a now, you know, more than already in three episodes, you know, more than a lot of people do about what's going on over there. But realizing that you don't need to know everything, you don't have to have understood every single thing that I have said here and memorized every fact about what the governments were doing and all of this kinds of stuff to understand that what's going on is wrong, that none of it is an excuse for killing children and for displacement of human beings and things like that, that we live in a world full of antisemitism and a world full of islamophobia and a world that in which I like to think we don't want this for anybody. Of course, the idea is never again for anyone. [02:04:28] Speaker B: At some point the question needs to be asked what the fuck to do, right, exactly. [02:04:37] Speaker A: And I think maybe we'll talk a little bit about that next week and what people are doing, but that's the place we find ourselves in. That's so tough and why one of the things that I have sort of taken on is being able to educate people the best I can because I'm not a politician, I'm not a doctor. I can't go and patch people up over there. I have no power in a lot of ways, but what I do have power to do is to tell people what's going on. And I think that we've seen since October how powerful simply spreading that knowledge is. And from there it's about how do we impact our governments and things like that. And I don't know that we've completely figured that out yet. They're right now very willing to just steamroll right over, you know, this is the. [02:05:35] Speaker B: Aye. [02:05:38] Speaker A: Yes. You want to close this out, Mark Lewis? [02:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah, look, it's stay spooky. Sounds trite, but fucking hell. You gotta, you gotta. [02:05:47] Speaker A: What else are you gonna do?