[FULL] Protestants, Communism and the Devil w/ Thomas777

The first one we're talking primarily about fate, about Protestant and the second one doubt kind of light ranging Conda even just as from an abat right, it's kind of interesting to at least for me maybe to hear much better. I've gotten to this anyway on the episode. Thanks all right, Thomas, we're a lot Welcome to the Jay Burton Show.

I've heard a lot of you people talk to you about revisionism, and that's great, that's important, but I'll be perfectly honest, I'm not I'm not knowledgeable to add any more to that discussion, right, at least from my perspective, right Like they're they're more qualified people than I do. Want to talk with you about something that you've mentioned but at least never discussed deliberately. It's kind of your

own faith and your own Protestant faith. So if you could just very briefly, and I'm not looking for a uh not looking for a all biography, but if you could just kind of explain your relationship to faith and where you and how you would, I guess currently describe yourself.

purposes a census to which is interesting. In fact, UH, I don't have an absolute I don't I don't have a complete data set you know of the last you know, two hundred years or something fantas States of America, and it varied a lot by jurisdiction in terms of how these procedures were managed and under what authority, but uh, from what in my own research, it was uh saga more common for confessional uh orientation to be listed than race, which is interesting, but that that makes sense because I

mean old America that that was very very to people, not just in their own lives, but in in political terms. And I've always uh, I mean I I I'm I remain you know, a Presbyterian today. I made the point before uh, and the not like there's some idea original to me or something or not idea. It's not like there's some observation or like take that unique to me. But people really can't escape their confessional heritage anyway. I

like Paul Strader, you know, the filmmaker a lot. You know, like he wrote Taxi Driver, even though sports says he directed it. Trader also made the film Hardcore, which with Georgey Scott, which I think is kind of underrated. It's a disturbing film and it's telling of a it's got a very it's got a very UH strong theological. Trader did the biopic of Buki Mishima lining board chapters. He did a great UH film called The Yakuza, with of which Ridley Scott's Black Rain is just kind of a

spiritual sequel or campaigning team. In any event, Trader was a he was Trader was from Michigan, and and he was raised in a stonily Calvinist's household. Riginally, Calvinism is

a faith in some and some among some people. Okay, uh, kind of categorically as you're all right, at least by kind of modern metrics, but some communities and some families are are are rigid and kind of it's it's uh, the structures in day to day affairs and particularly family and Traders always making the point that you know, he made two points that he uh when he went to Los Angeles, UH to make films is a profound culture shock, more so than it would have been, you know, obviously

for a Catholic or Secondly, UH, he made the point that even people who declare themselves to be atheists or declare themselves to have you know, left their the faith of uh, of their of their family and parentage. You know, you never really escape your confessional heritage. Okay. You know, even these guys, uh, even these guys and and some ladies who you know, will claim that, you know, they're

quote laughed Catholics or former Catholics. You know, when they talk about their ethics like work as their addicts may be their conceptual rise in Army's catholic you know, when you when you find these like Rockefeller Republican types or what he did, I mean they don't really exist for but you know, these these kinds of uh, these kinds of Rockefeller Republicans who oppose Nixon, and you know, we're very much uh, we're very much conservative and name only

you know, in the seventies, you know, they they they were very much they were sell the clari secular humanists, a lot of them, but they they they were very Protestant and orientation. Okay. Similarly on the right, you know, you'll you know, you'll find thinkers like Anthony Woodevich, you know who was a who is it? I mean, he wasn't a he wasn't an atheist and in the way that new atheists are or like uh any and certainly

wasn't a dialectical materialist. But he he was kind of a proto fascist Nischean, but you know he was he had he had this very very kind of Catholic, uh, you know, Romanist like view of of ethicts, of aesthetics,

of of all these things. Okay, I'm at the point before the Soviet Union as well as the you know, as well as the as well as the countries under U under occupation, that that that shared a subcultural traits in common, you know, Uh, the Soviet Union came to be more and more Byzantine and and superficially kind of Orthodox, and it's in it's uh, in its practices, you know from uh you know, the kind of preservation of Lenin's body is a relic to the you know, the kind

of pagentry of the Kremlin mausoleum, the you know, these these elaborate funerals of a state up ratric. So I don't get me wrong, like I'm not saying something bad about the Orthodox faith. And obviously what the Communists were doing was a completely warped, uh counterfeit version of of of of sacral practices, but it owed very much to the kind of Byzantine Orthodox heritage. Okay, it was a return to these familiar forms that however, like warped a capacity.

So it's important to give in mind, Okay, I so to bring it back kind of down to earth, like directly respond to your query. I never really questioned my own faith. I mean, I I've asked a lot of questions on my faith from the time I would do confirmation to you know now with you know, it's about there, forty six years old. But I never want to do a faith or something where like I didn't believe in God, or where like I rejected you know, Calvinism, or I

rejected the Bible or anything like that. So I've always uh throughout my life. I I I've never had a through crisis of faith, and I've never I've never been inclined to abandon the faith of my father's as. But also even if I want to do, I think like a Calvinist, you know, and people have pointed it out to me, but I knew it anyway, you know, So and then that's just you know, I agree with you,

Michael Jones, Okay, with some qualifications. I mean, obviously he's a big Catholic, but and I agree with them in some senses. When he when he when he talks about the kind of intellectual poverty and historically erroneous features of white nationalism, but I think he takes it too far, and in kind of doing race is not particularly significant

because politically it's it's it's got tremendousness, Okay. But at the same time he is right when he talks about how your culture really is your confessional heritage, you know, and especially in America. You know, the way to understand America is at elite levels. I mean, I'm not talking about like on the street pells kind of sociological experience, you know, with what they were in races and things

and and and they're personal. So I'm talking about if you want to understand kind of at the elite level, like what what what what the kind of political intrigues involved, and what what the parties are. You know, America is more like Bosnia than it was South Africa or something. It's it's basically a fight between you know, Catholics, Protestants and Jews, and you know, there's kinds of shifting alliances they're in, and you know, sometimes two gang up against

the other. Sometimes they're all like lowerheads. But that's that's the way to understand it. And uh, that's why it's peculiar when I run into guys you claim that they're like atheists but they have some kind of like a hard view on race, or they or they claim that they're these big political partisans. It's like, you know, if you don't if you don't have a confessional heritage, or you don't take it seriously or I but it's not

like pretty identity. That's really kind of artificial. You know, that's not just uh, I mean, and I mean the historical experience bears that out. That's that's not just some that's not just some uh, And that's not just some conceit of mind. And maybe it's because I I'm a minor. I'm an extreme minority where I live, and I always have mans in Chicago. You know, we used to be called like white ethnic white ethnics, you know, like Catholic people and like old Stock Center prade like I am.

We're very different people. I mean, we're not We're not different in the way like you know white folks and black folks are. We're not different in a way like a Christian a Moslim is. But yes, the idea that this is some super official distinction is not true at all. Man. There's very profound cultural differences, and thankfully, in a lot of ways those have been kind of bridge and I think you like people are great, you know, I I

it's not an issue with that at all. But this idea, this is some sort of insignificant thing kind of people to say that they're rather intellectually very immature or there or they just don't really get not just you know, kind of the nature of deep politics and historical terms and specifically don't really get America and what it's kind of it's kind of a ethno political like uh constellation involves and like who the players are, so to speak,

and like what their values are and what they're trying to do. I realize I want like far and beyond you know, the question which is just like what's my faith? What? How like how do I relate to what that's the property characterizes? But you know, I've got I dedicated in

my life. They're writing about political matters and and like involving myself in these things as much as I can, so I can't really expecate a kind of a kind of historical and political orientation from my own confessional heritage, because that's the way I understand it.

would always go down. And one of the things that they found out was essentially that the Korean language made it incredibly difficult to bring an issue up the chain of command. Right, So, like look orwell is is kind of a goofy guy, but I think the way he describes language and language control and his work is essential. Right. And the point was, and what my grandfather always said was until they taught the pilots English, they couldn't bring

up issues. It was just difficult in the structure of the language itself to bring up to someone over top of you, Hey, this is a problem. We need to fix this, or to say no, we're not going to

do that. We need to fix the plane first. And so I kind of view religion in a similar way where it kind of it's the framework through which you view authority, right, God being the ultimate authority, and so the way that you relate to God, that you relate to your priest class is shaped by your confessional history, and that's an essential part of I guess how you view politics and kind of I guess like the ruling of men, right, No, it's.

a very apropoe analogy. But I'll go back to you in a second, but to your point, Yeah, you're absolutely right that theology is basically the conceptual vocabulary of ah of of of one's perception and their conceptual horizon. I also add when Carl Schmid's great insights, of which there were many, was in political existential terms, is that all

all political paradigms are conceptually theological. You know, you know, if they claim, you know, like to again of both example, the twentieth century, you know, Styalinus Garist states you have the system in question purpose to be quote ethan you know, liter it purports to be you know, eureligious or even like anti religious it politics. Uh, it's exactly what you said. It via the the you know, man's the conceptual horizon

as relates confessional heritage. It identically, politics is the lanis through which man perceives authority, and it is it's always negatively theological, even it's dressed up in secularists or or you know, or modernist trappings, even it's purported to be a science or something. Yeah, go ahead.

like justify it in my system. But that Karl Schmid idea is essential, right, because any system of belief has kind of a core just assertion about the world that it's kind of all built on, you know, that kind of political theology, no matter what it is. You know, if it's if it's you know, kind of Dawkins atheism, it's communism or anything, and you kind of just have to make peace with the fact that you can't not

everything as a syllogism. You know, there is some kind of initial premise on which everything is based.

nasty about it. It was it was just kind of bigoted, you know, towards the towards a you know, towards religion, choa religion, but it's also I mean it was, it was, it's just on its own terms. I mean, like take the example of Dawkins or or or another lightweight kind of uh oh differous uh uh very literally character Chris Hitchins.

Uh the these guys were making more these guys are making they were they were presenting absolute moral postulates, but they weren't providing the the intellectual legs for these things to stand on for really speaking, like you read Chris Hitchins, you talk about how you know, racism is a great evil whatever racism, you know, homophobia, which is an absurd term, but you know, taking it to mean, you know, opposition

to sodomy and things, this is a great evil. But you can't just like why It's like, okay, if you really are an atheist, you know you can't you can't fall back on natural law arguments to prop up your atheism. Like maybe quote homophobia is bad. I don't like to see how you can argue that it's bad. But like, let's say, if you truly are an atheist, there'd be

no moral content to that judgment. You know, It's like maybe it'd be like bad for business to discriminate against people based on you know, these weird habits of theirs, or maybe it's something that you know shouldn't be within the contemplation of uh of of people as regards public morals just generally, but like how how how can I be some real great I'm gonna be a moral evil to oppose something like that, you know. So there's that,

and it's also the uh, the uh. There's a basic misunderstanding, Like if you read last summer, I powered my way through a lot of Marxist Lenist theory. I mean not just am a masochist or I wanted to be mean to myself, as Telvin is often art, including myself, but to a lot of what I was writing. I was kind of deep diving, you know, into the Cold War. I mean I always kind of am, but it was uh,

I was. I was specifically addressing, you know, kind of the proverbial loss of faith and in Marxist Leninism that they came to characterize, uh, the last phase of of of Soviet power. And I was specifically I was kind of deep diving into what replaced it. And to understand one's got to understand that to understand the Russian feeder age of twenty one two. But any event, Marx was

an incredibly destructive person. I'd go as far as even and I'm reluctant to assign these kinds of moral judgments to historical personages because it sounds like moral can't, But I think I even go as far as to say that Marx was an evil person who was intervolving in scott okay and a naked and total capacity. But you know, Marxist letting this atheism, it was fairly well thought out.

It wasn't this kind of dum dum uh histrionic, uh, you know, bigoted, Uh moral can't of Dowkins and Hitchins, you know, kind of like the marks within Marxist Uh, there is a Marxian metaphysics, okay, and within that paradigm, you know, the idea is that you know, uh, religion as its religion as it existed within cycles of historical development,

you know, like everything else within me. It's conceptual horizon, you know, reflected the paradigm of the production productive means, labor and authority they're in because no matter what man does. And then the Marxist paradigm he can't escape that. But if you were to like ask a Marxist, you know, like okay, like you know what what you know? What what what? Like how how can we you know, can we resolve you know, the kind of mystery of you know,

the original life? They probably say like no, something is just beyond man's understanding. But that doesn't matter, because you know, the challenge to us is you know, man's existence here on Earth, and you know how to overcome this these oppressive modalities and you know and advance the end of history so that you know, uh, you know, so that you know, real like true justice can be realized on earth.

You know, like they wouldn't like like no Marxists, you know, in in either in eighteen eighty five or in nineteen eighty five, what is sad to regaled you with some you know, with with with some with some shrieking moral can't you know like dawk and style about how evil it is that you believe in God? You know, like this is not the way they approached it. There's something that's remarked, there's something uniquely infantile and kind of uh and and and characteristic of of the the kind of

post nineteen five you know, secular humanist regime. That that's that's profoundly it's it's as anti intellectual as it is, you know, sort of smugly, uh self assured of its own righteousness, if that makes any sense, you know, I no think the long lives.

kind of obsessed with, right, Yeah. He famously called Satan the first free thinker, you know, and if you read a lot of his poetry too, you get these very odd, the dark descriptions of of you know, Satan and like just essentially murdering truth and kind of like casting down you know, kind of like the hierarchy of heaven. And again like, look, I'm not the greatest Marxist scholar. I've read, you know, I've read the Communist manifesto and a little

bit of lenin. You know, I'm not going to pretend to be some academic on the subject, but in my exposure, right, it does seem like he was very conscious of that motif.

undred pages. It's kind of an introductory Uh. It's kind of an introductory text, you know, just kind of dealing with the post nineteen forty five world. So and that's keep understanding the twentieth century with hobbs Bomb. I mean, while we're on the pific of merks, like I say, Hobbs Bomb and some of his UH and some of his uh, his heterodox uh takes on on on on historical et box, you know, like he here in projected kind of like the linear review of history. So he

was not this traditional Marsi in that regard. But Hobbs was always talking about the quote short century, you know, of the twentieth century with you know, entailing you know, nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighty nine and that entire you know,

conflict cycle, dias in may. The thing I don the twentieth century is that religion had takes this had taken this tremendous hit, okay, and uh people just viewed you know, from the common man to to people in authority, you know, to to you know, the intelligency such that it still could have been said to exist. You know, like people just did there just was a basic absence of faith, and they're this idea that you know, the the world

was explicable, you know, analysis of material quantities. You know that that's one of the things why Marxism developed the kind of momentum it did. And uh became so insinuated in the in the political life, and and this it became there was like this panumbric shadow over all discourse

and and political activity in the twentieth century. You know, when people in the right you know, I made the point before, you know, people they they talk about the German Reich uh and its biological racialism as if this was not as this was both you know, this horrible evil but also this kind of this kind of strange you know, uh, kind of like outlier phenomenon, like it

wasn't at all. I made the point before that every advanced country, you know, whether it was the German Reich, or the British Empire, or the or the Japanese Empire, you know, or France, like everybody viewed. You know, Man is basically a biological machine, and you know culture is derived from these biological principles. And you know, you know, your race or your bloods in those days, obviously you know that there wasn't an understanding the human genome in things.

You know, the idea that you know, blood, you know, kind of not just determined you know people's uh, you know, basic behavioral proclivities, but you know that that somehow, you know, the capacity for culture and everything else was you know, coded into your into your physical make up. You know, this was this touching at this this this this conceptual prejudice like touching concerned everything and one of the things that brought down communism. I mean, it was an apocoal

phenomenon that brought down communism. Okay, it was all constellation of factors and processes of history, but you know, the

kind of the kind of paradigm shift. A major poet of the paradigm shift that brought it down was the fact that people rejected that that people rejected you know, not just dialectical materialism, but that entire you know, uh, that entire materialist worldview that you know, came to view everything is is grounded in physical phenomenon, you know, and there really was a return to to uh, there really was a return to the faith. You know, that's the there.

There really wasn't Islamic awakening and that that directly collided with the Soviet Union, you know, not just in the battle space in Aghanistan, but you know across its entire you know, frontier and within within the all blasts where you know, the the what what what the Kremline called

the nationality who were majority of Islamic resided. But also you know, uh also I mean, you know, the Pope John Paul was uh, the momentum that developed by solidarity and elect balleensa like the you know, the the fact that that was a Catholic social movement was instrumental when it's uh and it's uh and it's in the momentum it develops like orbon Is is you know, Orbon's roots are are in the the the Communists, the anti communists

was movement, you know. And he mad's the point that you know, the uh, that that that the re emergent to faith was instrumental when in Hungary and uh and

undermining uh the credibility of of the regime. And in absolute terms, So these new atheist types, I mean not not only were they not only they were they really uh were they really weak uh in terms of their intellectual foundations, but they you know, they were really kind of this was this was kind of them trying to like return the serve when after after their their legs have been cut off from underneath them, you know, and they were thinking and that that you know, somehow they

could mount uh, they could they could mount some sort of uh, they can mound some sort of comeback in in in intellectual circles in the two thousands, and that's what it was like dog and Dogs was fixated and trying to piggyback, you know, his his his bigoted worldview on you know, on science, you know, and uh and Hitchins was had have what's finesse and a lot or

crass about it. You know, Hitchin's the whole thing, uh like a typical like like a typical Trotskyist and you know, like a typical uh like like a lot of like a lot of Zionists do too. You know, he's suggesting that, you know, this kind of laundry list of a boogeyman of the post Marxist left is is the progeny of

just religion. You know, whether it's you know, whether he was you know, calling for you know, genocidal assaults on Moslem people's uh, without provocation, or whether he was whether he was slandering Christians, you know, white Christians, or whether he was uh, you know, saying horrible things with the Catholic Church. You know, he he was very very cheap and crass way, you know, trying to very direct that that kind of bigoted hostility towards you know, religion, choir religion.

And it's it's very I mean it it's very very grotesque, but also thankfully kind of beamed the failure and again I hade me to ramble on that. But it's an important point.

odd to me because thank you. Yeah, it's it's odd to me because there's this kind of boogeyman in the atheist liberal psychology, right, and it's that this the like classic old stock American Peckerwood is simultaneously this you know, like seventy five IQ inbred moron, and then also this like backwoods ubermench on who's secretly pulling all of the strings in power, you know, and it's just one step away from you know, plunging us into some type of

like you know, absurd you know, seventeenth century Puritan theocracy.

the church? I mean it's I think there's like a I think among the I think when the rank and file, it just kind of like you know, slob like kind of trashy goy types. They really they really don't. There's so there's so impoverised of culture and they were raised with kind of nothing. But but you know, television and and and and like convenienced or snacks. They really don't understand that. You know, there's this whole kind of denominational aspect to Christianity and and and and the effect kind

of treating the modern world. But also, uh, I remember uh, in the entire angle sphere, it's it's it's it's there's that boogy man to your point, then it's it's it's so odds with reality. It's like the most remote possible outcome. Like there's this there's this really in the early few thousands.

I don't know if you remember this or not. I don't know how old you are and I don't know, but uh, there's this really moronic uh like Ellen Moore comic in the movie called V for Vendetta and like all kinds of people like misic construed that movie like it was it's it's it's just like it's it's like

this huge, like Tommy woke movie. But then like these anarchists and like types and these guys who think the right wing we're running around a guy Fox masks imitation of the main character, like apparently didn't understand that the whole movie is it is basically like a commy like

woke movie, but in the movie it's dystopia. Is that there's this like there's this Anglican there's this kind of radical Anglican political party that imposes this kind of like Handmaid's Tale Taliban typeergen on England, like based on Anglicanism. Like that's like Dodds that happening. Are the odds of like sentient dinosaurs re emerging or like dinosaurs re emerging

becoming sentient and taking over the planet tomorrow. Like there's literally, of all possible occurrences, that is the least probable occurrence that Anglicans are going to suddenly become right wing, suddenly become like this kind of like fundamentalist Taliban type. Uh, you know, like like like theological tendency that they're gonna like, you know, conquer England and like their first sort of the day is like be mean to like middle class bougie ladies and like not let them get abortions.

serious people, right. Jonathan Bowden has a collection of essays. He didn't write it obviously it was post it was possimously published, but it's all it's called pulp Fascism, and it's kind of a series of essays and interviews off of different you know, paulp characters. Okay, but uh he has one on it, is it Solomon Kane, the Roberty Howard Puritan witch Hunter.

not like that. You know, they can barely control themselves at a buffet let alone.

it's that same sort of thing. You know, There's been a handful of times when like, you know, somebody it might have made a church for them and I didn't want to be roots like I went. And one of the reasons why I can't cotton that kind of stuff is because, uh, it's I mean, aside from the fact that I think a lot of bad theology, you know, it's not truly you know, it's not truly Bible Protestantism. They're they're fixated on like mirroring popular culture. And I

mean that's really really weird. You know. I guess there're notion is that you know, the way the stay quote you know relevant is is the mirror pop culture. But that's that's really that. I mean, that's not just unsound, uh in terms of uh, in terms of uh you know, what what what God would have of uh the you know, the elect in terms of their behavior and conduct and

manner which they worship. But it's that's also not why people gravitate to a church community, you know, the whole you know, you gravitate towards the congregational community because you know, we're we're mired in uh you know, we're surrounded by

our enemies and we're mired in you know, gomora. You know, like I I I like going at church because it's not it's not basically like you know, the kind of clean version of you know of woke America like outside the Doors or it's not you know, like they even to this day. Like there's there's there's like a whole genre. There's like a whole sub genre like really really corny, crappy kind of like fa like you know, pop country music,

but with quote unquote Christian themes. There's like these like a hokey TV shows aimed at kids, which are just you know, it's it's like he's disengaging megachurchers like stay into Hollywood like oh we got that too, Like it's really really misguided and really really undignified and also just even in practical terms, that's not white people. That's not why people, uh you know, become more become involved in or become more involved in their faith.

sure you're not. I'm sure you know. But what's happened to the churches is as the churches kind of followed like NPR culture, right, and as they've kind of, I guess, just rascinated the kind of you know tradition which was fairly it was a hardcore tradition, right, Like it was a Pietist tradition. You know, there were heard, there were standards, it was very much like, well, you know, the community

watches what you do. When that was gone, it's now that like my my fiance is ninety something year old grandparents are you know telling us that we need to to get our government medication and how important it is that we taken Somali refugees like they have right, you know, in telling us about the true the truth.

mine the other day. He thought it was being flippant, but uh, you're talking about here talking about the church in England and how disgusting it is that it's you know, it's it's basically communists, And I'm like, okay, but that problem is gonna resolve itself because I'm like, you know, and and any church that goes woke, it's to your point, it ends up with a congregation of two and both of those and those two people are you know, ninety

eight year old women. You know. I mean like it's if you're cat of laying the foundation, if you're on an extinction, you know, you know, if you're a quannabot church who decides it's gonna be uh, it's it's gonna be an instrument to the of the regime.

to know something like nobody goes to that church. You know.

I can't deny that. But one of the things that I always give those type of people credit for is that the amount of I guess the amount of support those people sent to you know, this really embattered Chinese house churches is insane because there is a massive underground Christian community there. But it's much more similar to what was going on in you know, Eastern Europe in the seventies and the sixties. You know. And look, I think that Rod Dreer is a goofy guy. He's a nice guy.

I met him in person, but he is kind of a goofy person. But his book Lived Not by Lies, which is in Rod Dreer, you know, form a lot of it's kind of a waste of time, but he goes through and talks to kind of the family of you know, iron Curtain Christian dissonance. And it's interesting what you said about, you know, these the kind of the state churches dying, because all of these areas had state churches.

Oh yeah, they were party informants, right, what you said in confession meant that the check has showed up and you got shot in the back of the head, and so those churches died quickly.

freaks lately? Like they're they're disgusting obese like pathetics said, like figuratively and literally just like said, people with miserable little lives who are basically demanding that the government valid you know, the government is their god, you know, is they're kind of like rabbinic uh, you know, counsel of elders or whatever, and they're they're only moral authority in their empowershal Lie, you know, I use determined moral and you know we and it loves as possible terms, but

just conceptually in their mind, that's what it represents. But these you know, if if evil people are gonna demand the quote right to you know, kill their own children, like what do I care? Like, Yeah, that's horrible and that's depraved and that's sick that people think that way. But if these people want to exterminate themselves, like why why do I care? Like they're they're going to hell and they're they're evil people, and I mean, they're they're

not gonna be missed on earth. I mean, I I don't. I don't wish for anyone to die or want you know, or anything like that. But I the world, this world is certainly a better place without them. I mean, I.

that they're doing evil of themselves and others. But I've tried to make that point of people before again again, Like,

people gotta stop thinking this. You live in this You literally live in the Empire of the Moor, and you're surrounded by You're surrounded by millions of people who are just sick and are like literally like in hell, you know, some such that such that all can exist, uh, and in this plane of existence, you know, you gotta stop thinking that that you you I mean in general cologal terms, like it's helped people like you got to stop thinking about these people was like partisan community that you you

both particle of, Like these aren't your people, you know, they're they're they're an unfortunate kind of obstacle to the resolution of a of a of you know, the of of the the struggle of reason against unreason and and and evil and.

their quote unquote and married. Like but these again, these people are you should look at these people the way you do like some homeless crackhead on the subway who's like screaming at people like do you are are you? Are you really upset that because you'll get that guy's like your brother or something and you know, you've you've got to bring him the reason. No, you're like that

poor man's afflicted. You know, I find it offensive that he's screaming obscenities at me, But you know, the sooner he's kind of put out of his own misery, you know by uh, or the sooner you know, becomes the reason and comes to price that the better, which are either way. But I the last thing I'm gonna do is sit around and and expend emotional energy on him or think about him, or like lament the fact that he's all fucked up because he has nothing to do with Right.

because look, the oppositions they're all morons. But on the other hand, you're like, well, wait a minute, everyone in power is you know, a moron with you know, a laundry list of sexual hang ups, right, and.

we're dealing with today. It's your point, you know, the threat of the Warsaw Pact, if you want to look at it, if you want to look at the war's up packed or the greater of two evils after the war, Okay, I don't want to get into that's a whole other issue. Don't want to get into it. That threat was had Moscow and pay Kitting found some way to sustain their their their strategic military concord, you know, at least the kind of limited interdependence and that kind of absolute cooperation

on military strategic issues. The threat posed by a state like East Germany and the Soviet Union, and you know, the People's Republic at China when it was aligned within that block, was like quite literally this kind of oriental tyranny of Stalinism will conquer the planet and a miracle will basically become this kind of garrison state that you know, this is essentially this kind of like an island like in a planet that has been essentially bolshevi bized, as

to use the kind of antiquated term that was favored in describing this potential future you know, by by people like by people like Hitler and Mussolini. That was the threat. Okay, the like like you know, post nineteen eighty nine, these these like these uh, these people were talking about, uh, you know, the people who were the people who post like BLM signs of the people who merch in fever.

You know, they're in fantaside, right, like you know, the the kind of creepy, sad guy who's like screaming that you know, you accept the fact that he and his like male friend masterbat together. Like these people are not remotely related to the phenomena I just described. What they are is they're this kind of natural slave cast that is the favored constituency of the victors of the Cold War. Okay, I mean that's what they are. They're they're not they're

not some physical threat to us. They're not gonna be mobilized. I mean, I'm obviously being silly, but you know, they're not gonna be mobilized an outfit with clash and the coughs to conquer our cities. They're the kind of they're they're they're the natural slave cast. That is kind of the if, if the if the regime had its way, that would basically be what the majority consisted of. You know, that's kind of really like pathetic human material that's totally mailable.

Let's you know, functioning on kind of an animal level. I mean that you know that that that's not that's not that's not just deracinated and you know, it's just the people that that have a relations of the history and and and have no existence outside of their discrete, isolated individual lives, you know, but that are also incapable of living historically, like that's what they would ideally want to breed. That's kind of the it's kind of the

gray majority, Okay, I mean, so yeah, those people. I don't think it's always the time to sit around cultivating bad feelings about people, even if they're disgusting, and even

if they're you know, entirely deserving a contempt. But that's you know, this idea that you know, like those the people we have to fight, or alternatively, like like those the people we've got to like you know, bring to Christ figuratively you're literally or those against the people when need you know, like see from themselves, Like that's that's nonsense.

They're they're they're speed bump or they're like a pilot dog craft that you've got to step around or dispose of, you know, as you walk to or as you run, you know, to catch your train in the city of your thing. Like I I'm sure people are gonna say mean things about me and say you're gonna leave a snow why you're so great? Look fuck you, I'm not so great. That's not the point, you know. The The point is that, by any metric, these people were talking

about are natural sleeves, like natural slaves do exist. This isn't something aristyle is made up. This isn't something that you know, self styled, you know, like herbs and watch any movies you know, did declare people to be like they? They really do exist. And you don't believe me. I refer you to exhibit a and that is this population

I just described and you just describe. Okay, so they know these people these people feature way too much and and and kind of the contemplation of people on our side. I'm not trying to be some finger wagging jag Offer suggest I'm kind of the conceptual dt or of what people should focus on. What I think this is. I this isn't just my, This isn't just my, you know,

kind of eccentric take on something. It's it's it's it's actually important, like funny and silly as we may be, you know, cracking wise about it.

progressive universalism, whatever, whatever that is the pause. But some people say, like, oh, well, that's that's kind of a Protestant Christian heresy, right, that that kind of took some of the premises of Protestantism and kind of corrupted it. Do you do you agree with that analysis.

I look at luther is more in the in the tradition of meister Eckert and the kind of German mystics than I do a than I do in the tradition of Bible Protestantism. Like people say that they're just that's like a lazy thing that a lot of a lot of people have glombed onto. It's gonna like get half understood part of it. Stead people like e Michael Jones, and I got a lot of respect for Jonason. He's

a great guy and he's doing God's work. But like a lot of like a lot of like a lot of pious Catholics, he's got a prejudice against people like me, not in personal terms, but he's got a prejudice against against UH, against our faith and our dominational heritage. So like people read that and they they they developed this kind of half digested like big get the idea, like, oh, that's them Protestants. They're they're they're like Jews, and they're

doing all this stuff to us. It's it's it's fucking stupid. And you know, it's like if I go, if I go, like I'm a Bible Protestant, that means that the Bible is literally the word of God, and the Bible is from where we you know, derive, Uh, how how we kind of know the mind of God? Like what in the Bible says it's okay to be woke? You know,

like how how does that work? You know It's like walk into some like Methodist concregation and there's some like leady pastor there saying that, like you know, it's you know that like men should calle marry men. It's like, what's more likely that you know this lady, he's like some some creepy free who you know is is is kind of doing the same UH is engaged in the same kind of endeavor as you know, the the Chinese Communist functionaries. You know, passing off MAO with Jesus. Is

it more likely she's doing that? Is it more likely that you know, actually, protimism is about you know, turning people gay under you know, because we're secretly Jewish and you know, even though like you don't see that, it's just like what we do behind closed door or like people the There's this also this idea that quote unquote you know capitalism is a is uh is a Calvinist contrivance, so that capitalism ruins everything, Like that's actually a comedy take.

And this idea, you know, the relationship of Calvinism the you know, the idea is that you know, uh, they're the uh like like work and productive work, uh, you know being what is uh what you know what those who are you know, uh enjoy the grace in favor of God are inclined towards that. It's not some like oppressor idea that's not like jew you know what's Jewish is usury and uh. And there's there's few things, uh, there's there's there's a few things more literally anti Christ

than usery. And what people are talking about when they invoke the man of quote capitalism is they're talking about usury. You know, to your point about the language being important and people not being lazy with it, that's another that that's actual another perfect example, like I'm conzant coming down not just on uh, you know, people that we talked on conversational terms, but academics like Meerscheimer, who damn will

know better. I'm consantly telling people to stop using the term coote democracy except in nineteen eighty nine is literally a meaningless term. It's uh, it's it's a floating signifier that official that uses to mean literally good gualism.

there's not something bad about money? Is that something dirty about wanting to profit from your labor? What the reason why, the reason why usury is uh is a gross affront to God. If you have a usury doesn't anything to do with a labor, you know, it doesn't have to do with you know, where you bring the fruits of labor is not to do with It has nothing to do with profit, which can then be utilized for the common good or uh you know, or for a or for the or for the or or for the benefit

of the labor. You know, like what usery is it's quite literally trying to extract late profit from something sterile, you know, which is money. You know, like essentially you know, conning people to multiply money is is has nothing to do with work, has nothing to do with you know, it has nothing to do with uh, with justice in social terms, you know, it's it has nothing to do with uh. It has nothing to do with you know, actual prosperity, and you know, providing sustenance to uh to

the conreation. You know. So it's this idea, this idea that on you know, that there's something that there's something quote unquote Jewish, that there's something you know, like dirty, you're like un Christian about you know, uh, you know, an emphasis on uh on work ethic and and uh and success. I mean that's that that's a loser mentality among other things. And and like I said, like none of these freaking people who go around claiming that like my heritage is you know, Jewish or woke, like none

them can explain why. And it's like, you know, for better or worse. And you know, like I want to eat yours of Sunday School where and all you as you know, all you do in Calvin is Sunday School is read the Bible. Like I guarantee you that I know more about the Bible. I know more about Scripture than some dude who like converted to Catholicism last year has decided that I'm Jewish and I'm because like I read the Bible instead of you know, wait.

rriage is fine, you know according to the Gospels. That's like saying that, like, oh, actually, you know, you have a right to abortion according to the Fourth Amendment. You know, it's not really about search and seizure and you know privacy that a cruise you know in the in within the in the in the body of the person and there and and their effects. It actually has to do with you know, a woman's you know, pnumbric right, the

privacy which leads to abortions. Like the fact that people are capable of saying things like they have they have no you know, in rationalizing them under a under there's a constitutional legitimacy or scriptual authority, like doesn't somehow mean like intrinsics. The US Constitution is, you know, a right to abortion, so like we need the pope to you know, interpret this force that doesn't happen Like that's ridiculous. I'm not saying most Catolets think that way, because they don't.

But yeah, the kind of the kind of basic bitches who go on claiming that you know, Calvinists or you know, wolf like that, that's that's that's literally like the kind of ship that they're proceeding on.

me all these white nationalists think they've loved Thomas Jefferson. Okay, but it's uh, you know, if you want to know what if if you want to know what these guys were up with, like a lot of these Freemason types, if you want to know like what they were up on. I mean, I'm saying like them in addition to the people I just mentioned, Uh, they had really weird like rosic Crucians. You know, they were big into that kind of stuff. You know, they like Newton into like something Jones,

Michael Jones deep dives into. There's like this really really weird uh Like Newton was like he was fixated on like rebutting a bunch of a bunch of Platonic and and and also Recitilian concepts. That's not just that, that's not just some kind of like weird uh like strausy and conceited about you know, like Exegesus from you know,

Newton or something like that. Like he really wasn't dialogue with with uh with uh with both the you know, the Roman Church scholastics you know as well as uh, you know as well as as well as well as Plato and uh and Aristotle, you know, and trying to and trying to kind of like rebut you know, like the foundations of uh of of the Western cannon that it preceded, uh, you know, the scientific revolution, which he

considered himself to be a stride. You know, they said these guys were not reliant, they weren't like reading scripture and and and trying to tease out these kinds of destructive like radical uh radical premises you know, correctly or not, you know, from the from the letter of of the Bible. Like that's not that was not what their orientation was, you know. I mean, like I said, I think that

kind of stuffs overstated. Anyway, there's apocal forces that uh that that gave rise to these these disruptions of a political and social sociological nature. And uh, the non Jewish partisans of these ideas and values and the kind of revolutionary sentiments they were basically animated by by historical perspectives

that tended to profit them in their class. And some of them were just taken in by Hubrists weren't particularly committed to anything, and you know, they they they they kind of wanted to insane with themselves as a new priestly cast. And it's on common cause, frank me, more often than not with Jews, because Jews were in the odds with the ancient regime. Anyway, that's a better way

to understand it. But even if your orientation is you know, you want to look at kind of what the what, what the get, what the source materials were or what, or kind of guiding velosities work of these people. You know, like I said, you're you're not You're not talking about You're not talking about Bible, progenism, you're not talking about the King James Bible. You're not. That's now they were relying upon. You know, it's it's it's really trimpha. It's

really weird stuff. You know, Like even even those concepts, I mean, speaking again in a language, no concept of the quote enlightenment is strange, you know, like like look at how that's characterized like that, Like like the Middle Age.

I don't like the linear you know, and I don't like the linear paradise history of each of medieval modern But you know, calling the evil period the quote Dark Ages, and then suddenly you know there you know then but then abruptly, like the light of reason, you know, it's cast upon the world, and and you know there's this this this handful of of god like men, you know, where it's words bearers. Like that's that's bizarre, and that's that's ridiculous. I mean, that's that's not that's that's not

a that's not a history develops. That's not an idea is developed, well, right.

to deny that. But the idea that the next thousand years were just horrible, grinding misery for everyone is absurd. Like, don't get me wrong, Like I prefer to live in my comfortable air conditioned department then you know, a mudshack in the middle of Saxony. But that said, like, we are living in a dramatic deviation from the historical norm.

And realistically, for the most of the people living through the Middle Ages, their standard of life was essentially the same, in many cases better because I mean, if you're a barbarian chieftain, you know, we're living under a barbarian chieftain in the woods, you know, Upper Germany. All all of a sudden you have a baron and all not all

of a sudden. You know, I'm being flippant, right, but once you have a baron, your level of you know, civilizational and organizational structure goes up dramatically.

is totally insane to get here. This is part of a common epoch, you know, it's like you're talking about seven hundred a D and thirteen hundred a D like where there's all these common features. You know, it was part of the same kind of like political or historical or sociological epoch like that's that's ridiculous. Like I realized that there was the scientific revolution was a real thing, that that's not some enlightenment myth. And I realized that

there was punctuated there was a punt. There's a punctuatey of equilibrium to technological innovation. Okay that and Trumpeter made that point again and again, and you've got to understand that if you don't understand his entire paradigm of business cycles, among other things. But so I realized that things, you know, uh, living NaN's condition is relationship to his environment, like leap fraud in ways that were not well precedented in the

last two hundred years. Yeah, two to three hundred years, Okay, But at the same time, it's still absurd the claim that you know, an eight hundred year an arbitrarily uh uh kind of corralled like eight hundred year period of time just just represented you know, some kind of like you like to your point, you know, some some kind of some kind of endless phase of grinding misery, you know. And it's like I don't ask people before like what

what incredible thing? Like if you're if you if you live in uh like if you went in Terry Hood, Indiana and you're like some just kind of run of the mill, like a lormo class guy who like works at a Target or a Walmart. You know, he goes someone and plays video games and stuff and like eats bad food. Like what like like what awesome things is he up on?

But like other other than some of these kuys of diseases owing to poor sanitation at the macro level, like what like like what what awesome stuff is? Like? Walmart? Man? Like doing that like peasant man like wasn't doing I Like, I honestly don't. I'm not just being flippant or or maye a plentable point, like I honestly don't get it well.

kind of banded together. We're going to help this guy out, and we helped him move down to the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. And when you go through the middle of nowhere Louisiana, this is not where he lives, but it's a town, you know, within a fifty mile radio so I'm not dosing it. But there's this place called Donaldville, Louisiana, and all of the all of the houses that are old enough to have survived Katrina essentially have been there for

one hundred and fifty years. Right, it's how Louisiana works, you know, if it's if it's if it's sturdy enough to last one hurricane, it's can generally make most of them.

in line to slap my hands in irons. Right. But you do look at it and you're like, well, maybe the idea that what people really need is this kind of like nebulous power to self define, you know, that oh, we we're better now because we can choose our own you know, path through life. Like to me, that seems to be very manifestly alive, you know, And.

cast or anything like that. But you know, the the regime has a credibility to claim to to devoke these myths because it proceeded after the Civil Rights Revolution failed, or after after you know, turning uh, you know, turning turning, you know ethnically you know, breaking up white uh, breaking up uh, you know, ethnically cleansing uh, white parish communities, you know, by using blacks of their proxy warriors. After after blacks no longer useful, the regime locked them all

in prison. I mean, so it's like, like I'm not saying that some conspiracy as blacks, but it's like you can't claim it like blacks are better off in prison than as slatens, you know, Like it's not so, I mean, it's like it's even more punctual. Yeah, your point is absolutely correct too. Like a lot of people in modernity, their lives are not any better and arguably or worse

than that of you know, agreeing slaves. But like the regime literally took these people where the descendants of those slaves, you know, locked them in prison like literally and then says like, yeah, slavery was the greatest human evil ever to occur, and now these people are free, Like that's that's literally at odds with the reality, you know, like it's it's it'd be one thing if uh, if the relations to a blash the regime was not pathologically dysfunctional

or if uh, you know, blacks were basically out of sight and kind of like living like reservation Indians and you know, however, like this functional led me be but you know, but the fact of the matter is it's like literally what I said, and uh, I don't get it's something like big discussion like what the cause of that are And again I'm not I'm not saying as some like conspiracy or quote racism, which is a meaningless

term anyway. But you can't. You can't. You can't. You can't look at the population that you've you've locked in prison and claim that they're now better off because you know, their status as slaves has been abolished by constitutional amendments. And plus it's folksing on slavery is a gross moral evil, that's totally arbitrary. That makes some civilization five years and the few future declaring that, you know, twentieth century France was the most evil country ever. They had abortion on demand.

Like abortion, to me, it is terrible. But that's that's an arbitrary, like singular thing to focus on. It's like why is why is slavery the worst thing ever? Yeah, they're like why, you know, I'm gonna explain.

And the thing I always think about, right is like, look, I'm not a medievalist, but if you look at the amount of protections the medieval peasant had, you know, it's kind of it's kind of absurd, right, the amount of mandatory feast days, the amount of time essentially off they had, you know, and you look at that, and not only the fact that like well, you don't have to worry about a job. You know, no, no lord is going

to kick you off your land. You know when that doesn't mean that your life is perfect by any means, right, Like it was a it was a harsh existence. But this idea that you know, that this is the exact perfect way to run to run a society is just absurd, you know, No.

you know, November nineth, nineteen eighty nine. You know, it's it's constantly trying to confabulate some raison detra for it for it's to continue to exist. But beside all of that, I was, like I was fascinated that, like the kind of the normies. It took that from the realize that it doesn't make any sense from the like send their

kid to public school. It's like, so you're going to force your kid to go to a building for eight hours with these weird you know, like mediocre, kind of troubled people who you find, you know, working as public school teachers like have have like for them to do math problems over and over? Why like what would that accomplish?

Like even I mean even like like even if even if I accept the premise that like, you know, children need some sort of some sort of training to do things, which I don't think makes a lot of sense either frankly, like just in general terms. But it's like, what was that college by the idea that this is like something that like that that's naturally like benefitial the children to force them to sit in a room for eight hours or in a series of rooms, like doing busy work

over and over, Like why what could then possibly accomplish? Well?

entire regime itself is obsolescents. Like that's what's interesting. Like it I if you if you look at a regime like Russia or like China or like Turkey, like those regimes are all screwed up, and those aren't particularly nice places to live, and there's like all kinds of corruption

to those systems. But they're they're they're actually like more kind of they were they more reflect the twenty first century in a lot of ways than America does, like in terms of I'm not talking like culturally or something here in terms of technological development, although America is very much slipping in that regard to But what I mean is it like America America is gonna for America's just forever pretending it's the twentieth century, and and and and

these these institutions that are tailored to fight the Cold War just must exist in perpetuity. Like do you realize that, like America, America's largest quote NATO ally is Turkey, and America is fighting a proxy shooting war against Turkey right now while they say I'm claiming NATO exists.

I do. But even if I did. The point is it's you know, national governments, aren't you know, modern state garments. I'm talking post West failure state garments. They're not. They're not capable of doing much, and they're not tailored to do much. Like what they're there to do is basically to wage war against other regimes that are structured like

they are. You know, it's not it's not this thing that you know, it's tailored to you know, colonized space and you know, make children smarter, and you know, to help men and women get along better and you know, like like we're like solve people's medical problems. And like the fact that people would think it is is really really strange. And as structured the US regime, which is basically, you know that the New Deal regime, because that's that's

when this whole restructuring was was implemented. Okay, it's it's it's everything about it is tailored to wage a major war. And that's it. And after you know, after the after the early fifties, it became structured very much to wage it general nuclear war. And what we're doing right now is on the talking on the internet, we're talking over what was developed as a secondary commanding control mechanism that can survive after a first strike. That's why it exists, okay,

and that they can't be denied. Okay, Like it's not it's not it's not me just you know, kind of uh, but I'm getting old and cantankerous and inflexible in my thought or something, just you know, kind of kind of trying to pigeonhole all phenomenon that is under discussion into this kind of paradigm that I I'm fixated on.

which are great guys, and they're a great brand. You should check out their entire catalog. But the sequel to my first book, steel Storm, is dropping eminently. I behoove you to buy it through Imperium Press because they're dear friends of mine and friends of ours, you know, and they're they're very much alignment our cause. You can find

me on a telegram. Telegram has been blowing up. We've got a really great community there and it's a great place to get you know, real news and and and real kind of takes, not just on what's underway in our circles, but you know, just generally there's this there's if you can find me there at t dot ne E slash the th h E number seven h m A S seven seven seven. You can find me on gap.

I can know that against a gap, But I am not super up on like that, you know, social media and short form blogging, but gab is basically a mirror of what I post on my substick and on Telegram. You can find me there at Real Thomas seven seven seven. You can find me on substack, which is on my podcast. It is where my long form is. It's only five dollars a month to join. You can afford that unless you're a hobo. I behoove, but about half the content

theorist only free. It's real Thomas seven seven seven dot substack dot com and that is how you can find me. And don't odate to reach out on any of these platforms if you want to talk to me direct.

So if you could just give a general introduction to steel Storm and kind of I guess if you could like explain your relationship with science fiction.

mean there was still science fiction written the day. I mean, I am a contemporary science fiction writer, but I I I'm the framing device of of the the universe I created is uh the twentieth century and specifically you know, the uh, the strategic nuclear paradigm of the twentieth century.

And that's really what allowed science fiction to come into its own as a genre, because there was a way in which people could discuss, you know, UH questions of theology, questions of ethics, particularly as related to war and peace questions. You know, topics like artificial intelligence could.

of alibi that they were just writing stories. But also uh, you know, aside from kind of uh you know, of avoiding uh the wrath of the sensors, uh, figuratively and literally,

you know, the way to present ideas. You know, a lot of a lot of a lot of intelligent lay people, you know less so today, but you know, the this tendency remains unfortunately that they're just not exposed, you know, to a lot of a lot of complex theoretical ideas, you know, particularly as relates particularly as relates to you know, the power political questions, but also technology, you know, and and where these where these things intersect, there really is

like a dearth of public discussion on on on these matters. Even when America had a more normal regime. Uh that that that that kind of managed its its public uh theureocracy. This kind of thing just wasn't really addressed and in any more than the most kind of rudimentary and concrete terms. So science fiction was a way of kind of educating you know again like intelligent lay people, you know, people

capable of being educated about these kinds of topics. But it also did so in a way that wasn't dry and that you know was you know, it was presented in narrative form, you know, and it also allowed to write the indulgence of you know, exploring theoretical worlds you know, some completely phantasmagoric and metaphorical, some you know, quite quite literally possible futures, you know, and that came to inform

that came to inform public policy debate. Man in intellectual circles, you know, Jerry Purnell like the sci fi guys, and they are mostly guys a lit. There are some ladies who dig sci fi, but they are definitely the minority.

of nonsense like The Walking Dead and things. Parnell also did he The Mode in God's Eye with I can't remember uh he co authored The Mote in God's Eye with another kind of esteemed uh sci fi author of the era. But any event, the the these books dealt with serious stuff, I mean know somewhere better than others. But uh. Parnell went on to uh participate uh in in these political action committees that uh that worked to their work to win appropriations, you know, for strategic defensing.

This strategic defense initiative known colloquially and somewhat punitively as star Wars. You know, the uh for the youngsters who don't recall and for who might not even know strategic defense initiative was was that proposed uh uh missile shield quite literally, you know, it was under the UH operating on the same principles as things like the Night like the like the terrestrial earth bound nike Zeus anti missile system or probably more familiar to people my agent all younger,

the Patriot missile system. But obviously this would be a space based platform that uh, that would destroy incoming uh strategic nuclear weapons before they were able to reach their target. And uh obviously, you know what if something could of this sort could be implemented, that would be a game changer.

I mean, it wouldn't totally obviate the nuclear threat presented by the worst of uppact, but it would have it would have U it would have all been guaranteed with then extant technolology that you know, the United States could survive a boat on the blue first strike, okay, and and wage and win in nuclear war even after a devastating surprise attack and uh aliens it seems today did this This was the forefront of of of public policy debate really, uh, you know, until the genuine thought set

in between the Moscow reformist regime led by Gorbia show around nineteen eighty eight, you know, and then a year later, obviously the you know, the the entire the entire structure ceased to exist, you know, the Eastern Block structure but

point being Jerry Purnell. Might I I digress quite a bit, but my point is that Jerry Parnell is a prime example of a guy who literally was a science fiction author you know who who who participated in in n G O S and became the public face of h of a proposed uh applied technology that that quite literally had global implications for the strategic landscape. And and and uh the kind of shorthand description of which you know was on the lips of of of every news anchor

in in the eighty four UH presidential election. I mean that's remarkable. So this is not just some you know science fiction was not It was not just some kind of weird like genre where you know of of you know that appeals to guys who you know who kind of enjoy thought experiments that don't impact the real world in any meaningful way. So that's what kind of drew me into it and interrupted me at any time, man if I'm being boring or if I'm going too far

a feel, okay? And what turned me up? What turned me onto science fiction? I never read a lot of fiction. I mean I enjoyed stuff, and I still do, you know, like Shakespeare obviously when I got turned into it turned onto that in high school. You know, I'm a I'm a Bible Protestant, So I mean I was always in remain mood by the language of the King James. Bible did a handful of literary works like Wuthering Heights that

really moved me. I mean I that that might inspire people to make fun of me, because that seem I might not seem that that kind of thing would appeal to me, But I I am at base of romantic person capital R. I mean, I don't mean I fancy myself similar Thurio, obviously, but the you know, other than the kinds of fiction that I read, uh, with the exception of of of of a couple, uh, you know, unorthodox classics like Goustive Hassards, the Short Timers, which became

a very loose adapt which was very loosely adapted into the film Full Metal Jacket, and this this hard boiled crime writer named Shane Stevens who wrote what I consider to be the seminal kind of American crime novel about the mafia called Dead City. It's sort of like the anti Godfather. Like I talked about this in my podcasts with what the kid is that city is. It's truly

it's truly gruesome. I mean it's it's like more of a horror like you know, it was kind of it was released around the same time as The Godfather, and it's very much like an underground book and uh it's it's a kind of book that actually appealed to guys we're kind of like in that lifestyle, like in the era, and it it's more it's more horror story then then kind of a then kind of cheap, uh, paperback opera

like The Godfather was. And but other than that, you know, the fiction I read was was sci fi because you know, it grabbed me for the reasons I just indicated, you know, uh, it it presented it. It presented world events in particularly things relating to war and peace and historical processes in a way that I could grasp, but also in a narrative form that gave it context, you know, like and I always tended towards you asked before we went to uh,

before he went live. Uh, he asked about my influences Frank Herbert for it first and foremost. It goes without saying not just Dune in the entire Dune Universe. But a lot of his other a lot of his other books that are lesser known, like The Santa Roga Barrier is a great book. I highly recommend it, you know.

And Herbert Herbert. Herbert's a very unusual science fiction author because it he's not properly hard science fiction, because he doesn't deal with you know, the concrete theoretical technologies and potentialities that they're in of of of uh, of the imagined future. No, but nor is he soft sci fi. He's not really dealing with fantastical beings and and things like that and just you know, abstract symbolism.

a fantastical setting far far removed from our present. But that's part of the point, is that it's so far removed. There's these familiar forms you know that cannot be escaped from or done away.

invisible car or something like that. Like it's it's there, you know, And it might be a fun enough read. But I feel like the point at which sci fi gets really interesting to me at least, right, is the point at which we've essentially created technology that very much

can destroy us. You know, that full scale extinction of the human race is beyond a theoretical possibility, right, Like, it's something that you know, if the cards fall a certain way, could happen and I think that's what at that moment, kind of sci fi became not realer, but more, I guess, a place where you could really answer real questions of how I guess humans kind of deal and extremists. And it's interesting you bring up Herbert because I don't know if you could call me a sci fi fan,

but I like a lot of sci fi. Right. I think that a lot of it is not particularly good, but the highs are really good. They're really they're they're high. As I guess it's somewhat redundant, but to me that the core question is basically, how does the author view technology?

behind the scenes like European royal drama. Right, there's intrigues, there's royal houses, and so it's a very human story kind of transposed over the starts. And I think that that kind of I guess, like those perennial themes played out to an extreme level, is what makes sci fi interesting to me. Do you see what I'm kind of grasping at there?

that that appeal. That's a very simple minded sort of, uh sort of orientation, I mean, And and the part of the people who write that kind of thing, I mean, the issue with Dune is that it you know, and uh, you know, like I said a minute ago, the reason why science fiction belongs to the twentieth century, like whether people accept kind of the the sociology of of the epoch.

You know, guys like Alvin Toffler and even Herman Khan, you know who I mean, he wrote it was musically on on on game theory and military dimensions of these things. But you know, the uh, like future shock was a very real thing in the twentieth century. And you know in Midwinter Constant is saying, like history reputes itself. Actually it doesn't. And uh, you know there's patterns within Uh, there's there's the certain patterns the human behavior, particularly at scale.

So I mean just predict there's a certain predictability of outcomes, you know when we're talking about state craft and we're talking about political occurrences. But like history appslug does not quote repeat itself, and if you think it does, there's something of an idiots and you know, conceptualize the twentieth century. I mean, you know in night at uh at the turn of the twentieth century, Europe was still ruled by monarchs.

By mid century, there's a burgaining still nuclear standof up between two superpowers, and uh, you know, jet air craft was a common modality of travel. Like think about that, you know, I mean, frankly, like fifty years is not even a blink of an eye in historical time. And for pretty much the last forty thousand years, you know, not much change. For centuries. You know, there was punctuated innovasions,

you know, uh that that definitely changed things. But even that, I mean it was punctuated in relative terms, you know, like over the course of a century, you know, uh, something like field artillery like emerged, you know, or you know, the internal combustion engine you know, over decades kind of became perfected, you know. But this truly, this truly punctuated equilibrium I'm of like a radically game changing technology that that's really alters everybody, not just their daiity life. But

they're not a conceptual horizon. Not not only did that happen in the twentieth century, it happened over and over and over again, you know. And well the.

the only guy who has them. But from kind of a thirty thousand foot view, the difference between an iron sword when a bronze one, you know, that's not that significant, right, No, But I mean you look at and a great example, right is you look at the people who lived who fought in wars in kind of the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties, and the absolute horror at which those people saw, you know, even the First World War, right like the

beginning of truly mechanized warfare. And obviously there's another order of magnitude change just what twenty twenty five years later. And so I agree with your point, right that the doubling and redoubling of technological change, I mean almost it's almost impossible to dispute that that shifted society fundamentally.

of thinking machines. Not only did it, you know, lead to the physical enslavement of mankind ultimately, but even when man had at least you know, nominal dominion over artificial intelligence, it had the effect of just precluding the possibility of culture. You know it, you surfed and sabotaged you know, man's entire concept of value. You know it is aesthetic judgment, his ability to discern beauty any longer. You know, it created a truly like pointless existence. And Herbert owes a lot.

I believed the Heidegger, even though he probably would have denied it because he was very kind of canny and elusive when people try to pin down his own influences.

But you discerned a lot. You just you're decerted, and and and in Herbert, everything from meister Eckert, you know, to to uh you know, the esoteric Islamic thinkers, you know, to to what I believe, or Zen Buddhist influency, although I don't know anything about Zen Buddhism other than the very you know, uh, very kind of cursory understanding of

its its core concepts. But you know, Heidegger's I mean it be in political terms if you know, uh, what what what kind of brings what kind of what kind of draws a Heidegger into the into the political sphere of human activity is his description of what it is to live historically? Okay, And Nolty, Ernst Nolty, who was his accolyte, and you know was was the great historian

and a very controversial revisionist. But I mean Nolty really really kind of uh took uh this kind of Heidigerian paradigm of his of you know, of what it is to live historically to its logical conclusion and conceptual terms.

And you know, the only the only thing that really mitigates the the the the terror of oblivion and death is uh and the only thing that really makes you know, uh, intimacy between people possible in life is you know, the capacity to live historically and uh, you know, new ageas as might sound, the people who aren't really unpacking the meaning of these terms, a people uh who come to share a consciousness in common, you know, wanting to I

share biology, which is only one component of a historically communitarian experience. But over time, you know, a community of people becomes a truly perennial community and a very real way, uh, they they partake of a consciousness that that trans sense the death of individual members, like I mean quite literally in terms of you know, the transmission of common modalities of thought, Okay, in concepts and uh, symbolic psychological features

and things of this nature. I'm not talking about anything aerie or mystical or like about spirits ra aining of that nature, okay. And Herbert was very very uh fixated on this, I mean as am I. That's one of

the things that dream into Herbert. And the converse of that, uh is that if if you remove people individually and collectively from historical existence, you know, by by preventing the development or this maintenance of that you know, linear uh uh consciousness and experience of being held in common over generations, you're you're you're in a real, very real way, like

murdering an entire world of consciousness for all time. And and if you want to understand why people fight so hard to preserve their way of life or their way of being in more properly descriptive terms, that is why. And I'm not saying the common man who is mired in these circumstances and fighting to preserve, you know, his his way of being in existential terms, contemplates it this way or could even articulate this way, but instinctively he recognizes that is what it is, that that is what

is at stake. And this is also why, although it's an uncomfortable topic, if people want to understand what happened in the twentieth century involving the categorical annihilation of entire populations, which was first devised and implemented by the Communists, escalated and and sort of returned in kind as a is a modality of political violence by the German Reich, and then ultimately the normalization of it in uh, the planned

waging of strategic nuclear warfare where the attrition tipping point was, uh, what volume of of of of of mortal attrition would cause it too, the literal death of of the enemy society. I realize, Uh, I just threw a lot at you. Could you excuse me for like two minutes, I've got to go pop a couple of ani inflammatories rank lament a little bit of pain.

we dashed out the brains of their infants. We we left not one stone standing, and none of them were left. And then three years later they're fighting again, right, And then that's to a certain extent a literary device, right like they was certainly a crushing victory, but it should be read as you know, like oh yeah, how the football game go oh pretty rough? We got slaughtered. You know, obviously they didn't actually you know, make a pyramid of skulls a fifty yard line, right, but that that real

capacity for human exter extermination. And look I understand, right, like Caesar Wage to genocide. You know, the Mongolians killed a lot of people. Do you really the ability to really fully scrub you know, an area from you know, from from human habitation is kind of unprecedented. And look again, I understand their historical examples somewhat to the contrary, but that that real not only ability, but kind of normalization of I guess, just full scale and complete genocide is

kind of unprecedented. To Thomas, I was just kind of talking about the difference between wars of annihilation and kind of the pre technological era. You know, like, look like Caesar killed an awful lot of gulls, you know, the Mongols killed an awful lot of everyone. The ability to essentially push a button and wipe a civilization from the earth is kind of unprecedented, right.

conceptual horizon. Okay, it's from the ground up. It's it's it's it's got to literally eradicate everything that came before and any conceptual biases that uh would derive from what preceded it.

to them. And yes there were instances of genocide, but they had had a more I was.

of violence rather than any kind of material cause. But what we're talking about with the twentieth century and velden Jung Greek was something different, Like what communism calls for is literally the categorical extermination of entire populations of people owing to the fact that they simply cannot be assimilated into the new order, and by the fact that they're the standard bearers of uh of ideas or even just

you know, knowledge that of the prior regime. You know, they they they they can't be permitted to exist because the only way to annihilate ideas ideas only exist within the human vessels that you know, uh, that bear them, Okay, And declaring that, you know, you've got to exterminate every man, woman and child who cost it's a counter revolutionary element and do so dispassionately in order to create a talleric utopia. Like that's that's something totally different than anything that's been

seen before. Okay, Okay, I understand, Yeah, and thus that's why the uh I mean, I I don't know. I don't know if people think I'm being flippant about these things, but you know, I don't think. I don't think the annihilation of h of Jewish civilians by the German Reich, and it's l I was particularly remarkable because that was

just something that was underway during the war years. But the internal logic of it also is a way of returning to serve, you know, like I, like I indicated a few weeks ago in an episode I cut, whether Dear Front Pete canone is as NULTI indicated, you know,

the the German Reich was was aiming to exterminate the exterminator. Okay, if you accept and I'm saying from the perspective of the German Reich, Okay, if communism is literally annihilating the European way of life, and the progenitor of communism is the Jewish world of social existence, the only way to annihilate communism is to annihilate the standard bearers and progenitors

of that idea. And if that is European Jewry, you categorically annihilate it, just as that population is the progenitor of an ideology that axiomatically is is exterminating europe In. It's it's biological stock, it's it's its conceptual existence, it's it's ability to its ability to live historically, you know, and and and and perpetuate itself. Like that is the

way to understand it. And if people think the sounds abstract again like I'm not in in in esoteric again, I'm not saying And now there was no dy suggesting, and now there was a height of girl although he was dealing with things in a far less kind of concrete a particular way that when people are mired in these circumstances, that this is what they're consciously thinking or acting out. What he's saying is that at scale or

what these thinkers were saying. What I'm saying is that at scale in uh, in psychological and sociological terms, UH, this is how uh veld In Shawn Kreeg develops and resolves. And it's a unique phenomenon to the twentieth century. That's why interesting, Well, I find myself when, uh, when when people say that, like, you know, the the various genocides

of the Second World War were we're unprecedented. I I disagree with them obviously when they're when they're as when they're aim is to transform these events into an ethnosectarium, the narrative of murdered them. But they are correct, however unintentionally so or inadvertently so. Rather that these things were basically unprecedented, We're not just talking about, you know, the

callous extermination of non combatants. We're not just talking about you know, enmity within within a conflict paradigm, you know, leading the you know, leading the combatant states. Uh, not distinguishing between sould and civilian. That Uh, that, yes, that's something that's always happened to varying degrees, albeit at at at lesser scale. But uh, we're talking about a very different phenomenon, and I'm splitting hers here. So I realized

that was a lot just now. But no, no, that wasn't a topics that we be It's fundamentally important understanding understanding.

the eternal rebel. So where do you think, I guess where do you think the innovation is in Marx that I guess allowed for this this like this, I guess philosophy, extermination.

Marx was an atheist That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that Marx was going to synagogue every week. I'm not saying he said a ringa talmud. I'm not even saying he valued his heritage. Like what I'm saying is that conceptually, we can't really escape our confessional heritage. Okay, there's guys who are you know I made the point of, you know, like Paul Schrader used to comment that when he was at his most debased, you know, and this comes down in a lot of his films, particularly films

like Hardcore and like Taxi Driver. You know, he even even you know, he he he always had kind of a calvin Hist orientation, even when he totally rejected the faith, you know, in terms and and the way the manner wish he abused himself was was was was was it

kind of in verse like self flagellation. You know, like I people who I've read a lot of, like some of these world systems, theorists, you know, who are you know, we're who are people who are raised you know, in the Catholic faith and you know and and uh, throughout their entire adult life, you know, they've rejected a religious belief. But uh, you know, the when when their their discussion of ethics, they're you know, they're invoking you know, Thomas

ethics in the you know, in the Scholastics. You know, they're making like Catholic arguments but trying to remove God from the equation. Okay, So when I talk about Marx being a Jewish thinker, I'm not saying that in conspirale conspiratorial terms are suggesting that you know, you know, people are somehow pre programmed to think certain ways, won't get

their race. I'm saying that this uh, this this this belief and a Tulluric utopia, you know, this belief that you know, uh, this belief that Marx was something of a uh you know, had was with something of the and you know, uh was ordained by God, you know, or you know, by you know, historical dialectical process standing

in for providence. You know, he was ordained you know, to kind of lead a cadre of the anointed, even long after his death, like through his writing and the concepts that he transmitted even from beyond the grave, uh, you know, to to create a Tolleric utopia. In the most apocalyptic terms, I mean that that's that's that's literally uh a Jewish paradigm, Okay, I mean secular as it may be, not particularly self aware, as the author would be of his own intrinsic prejudices like that can't really

be avoided. And anybody who spends a lot of time with uh A a guy who's basically a Jewish thinker culturally, I mean, but probably especially if he's lapsed, he's gonna spend a lot of time thinking about the devil. I mean, not for any purell reason lego Jews worship the douvile. But what I mean is that kind of that uh that that that intractable and the intractable adversary is is a figure, if nothing else, in symbolic psychological terms, that

somebody like Marx is going to identify with. Okay. And also any historical process is going to entail creative destruction. Like Shrumpeter coined that phrase, and I think I Shumpeter wasn't. He gets a lot of credit as being a brilliant heterodox economist, but he's not praise enough as a historian and a political theorist, and that's unfortunate. But you know, if you're talking about when I when I say that there's that megacide. Uh you know ho, categorical homicide at

scale is axiomatically built into Marxist Leninism. I mean again, how, how how do we like, what do we do with these people who who cannot abandon the conceptual prejudice of the ancient regime? You know, like how the only way for communism to be realized is to completely restructure man's conceptual horizon. I mean that entails the destruction of entire

worlds of social existence and the only way. And again, humans are the bearers of ideas, and humans are the standard bearers of of the social existences that that that create these ideas. So if we're talking about whipping the verbial slate clean, we're talking about annihilating human means. I come back to the example of democratic Campuccia a lot, and I've made the point, and this has made a

lot of people upset. People on the rights I think I'm being flippant and engaging in elaborate apologia for oriental savagery. People on the life because they think I'm invoking a horrendous example of of Averan mass homicide and suggesting that

it's normative for Marxist Leninism. Paul Pott was a Pharma orthodox Marxist and ho Chi Mint and Maw and certainly h Kim Il Sung and frankly, uh, virtually all of the UH, all of the UH, all the communist revolutionary figures after nineteen forty nine or so, I really believe that. And uh he had no qualms obviously about the fact that categorical extermination was the only way to facilitate the

revolutionary process. That is not to say that individual men can somehow devise these processes, because obviously that's absurd, and that's a peculiar and ridiculous American conceit. It's kind of an inversion of the great Man theory of history. Uh, it's uh, it's kind of it's not even with this kind of Simpleton's idea that that that these that these villains who insinuate themselves in the role as heads of state, it's all manufacture history and move move apocal events or

like will apocal events into into reality. I mean that that's so absurd. I don't even know how to rebut it. It's because it's it's that fucking stupid. But you know, Paul Pott I he was remarkeadbly candid about the horrific uh things that he presided over. And uh he spoke of these things like sort of dispassionate, uh curiosity almost But he never sought out an alibi, historical or otherwise. And some things are lost in translation. But I I

don't think i'm I don't think i'm i'm. I don't think I'm fishing for, you know, staments to confirm my pre existing biases. When I say that he was very aware of this in a way that probably none of his uh none of his ideological fellows were, uh, save maybe for Lamin himself.

The worst part about it is it's kind of the best part of the book. You know. The rest of the book is fine enough, but to me at least, I've kind of forgotten all about it except for that part. Yeah, I mean calling subject what's interesting, and it kind of dovetails in what you're talking about is that there there's the scene where essentially all of the all of the professors who haven't been executed have essentially been put on like labor gangs, right, essentially to put them in the

same plight as the peasantry, right, right. And there's this extended session where some of the professors who were a cologists are being forced to DeForest vast swaths of China

for essentially no reason. And there's this conversation which and again I'm remembering this through the haze of a couple of years, right, or essentially comes out that like, oh no, they're not doing this for the land, right, They're doing it for you, you know, they're doing it to essentially kind of in like an odd like science version of a black mass, right like, force you to kind of desecrate your life's work and force you to, in order

to survive, kind of remake yourself. And it's interesting because to me, at least, right like, there's something kind of genuinely terrifying about that, right Like it it's outside and again, like what you said about a lot of with you and I write with our our with our like religious tradition, right, we have a pretty dark understanding of human right like, kind of every part of us is to some degree

or another corrupted. But there's also kind of a comfort in that, right that realistically, like humans are kind of a known quantity, you know. And but at the same time, there is something profoundly disturbing at that kind of like new level of I guess like human horror, if that makes sense, right, that it's not just someone robbing a liquor store or someone sacking a city, right there does seem to be this kind of odd and this is

very clear in the Chinese Cultural Revolution and also in Cambodia. Right, but this odd almost joy in it, you know, this like joy in degradation that's kind of frightening at least to me.

sanguinary amorality to uh, these Eastern religions. I mean, I, for one, find it fascinating that you know, these that people, these kind of like these kind of dopey, uh like bougie white people. I think that Tibet is some it's some kind of like land of sublime piece. Tibetan Buddhism is abjectly horrifying. It's it's a pantheon of terror gods that uh like Khaali I guess in the Hindu pantheon like to exists beyond good and evil and are only and are only uh and only placated by by the

most horrendous uh the forms of suffering. And again I don't purport to have any kind of insight into the orient I don't. I don't have any fluency in any of their languages, and I it's it's not something of expertise on. But so there's that that I believe plays into plays into these uh these uh, these darker episodes

and in Chinese political life. But also there's a tendency, I mean, owing to what you mentioned uh about Mark seving genuine sympathy for the double there's something about revolutionary communism that believed very much in in the in the degradation of the person. I don't just mean breaking down to the individual idea of self. I mean in assault kind of in the intimate moral core of the person.

And uh this played out in Romania too. There was these horrible prison experiments, uh, the things that don't even really want our peaks, that rather think about out them and it would be distasteful, these really really grotesque tortures often that took on ah uh a psycho sexual dimension.

Uh that were that that that that Romanians prisoners were subjected to immediately after a cessation of hostilities, when you know, in the Communists were consolidated their satellite regime there and and some of these people had you know, been manustered in the Iron Guard or in the Behrmacht. But some of these people, they've just been denounced, you know, by

personal enemies or something. And you know, there was the there was an effort to destroy these people above and beyond you know, merely punitive measures or or or terror tactic. Sam that you know, guaranteeing the compliance of others might be similarly inclined to resistance. And uh, even though he's overly uh, even though he's overly sighted by kind of midwoods all and sundry like Orwell, George Orwell actually had

quite a bit of insight to that. I don't think nineteen eighty four is a great book overall, but the process by which it describes, uh, what the regimes and ambitions are with respect to their treatment of the individual in order to break down his psychic resistance and eradicate his inner self, to quite literally preclude the possibility of any dissident ideas even formulating because you know, again communism, despite the fact that it places haig aliens UH paradigm

on its head. You know, when UH and and and and brain drags cause and effect and and human motivations and historical occurrences into the into the realm of the purely physical. I mean sort of alleges. I mean anyone who any any any any theoretical construct or UH or ideological structure that suggests that a dialectical process is the prime movement of history. They're talking about ideas, Okay, they did,

that's inescapable. Okay. And if you're talking about ideas, you know you're talking about uh, you're you're talking about uh, the transcendental existence of things beyond the tangible. I'm not even talling, I'm not dennoying some platonist argument or I'm not even saying, you know that things have some spiritual lessons. I'm saying that so long as the idea of something exists within a human mind or minds, that thing exists. Okay.

And that's that's UH. That's what's terrified with nineteen eighty four is that O'Brien, the party Apparatrick and Master Torture. He's a based uh, he's a based as psychiatrists, okay, or a psychic or a psychic or a surgeon of of of the mind, if one will, okay in the most insidious terms. And again that that's intrinsic to communism because it never aimed at mere compliance, never aimed at, you know, simply directing people to behave in certain ways

or mouth certain platitudes or abide certain realities. It required the complete and total restructuring of the human consciousness in accordance with the revolutionary idea.

them or kind of horrifying, and going back to nineteen eighty four, and this is a slight digression, it's actually part of the reason I refuse to kind of use things like like the neo pronouns, disease ms are that kind of ridiculous stuff. It is because there's kind of a psychological mechanism behind it. I don't fully understand the science of but by kind of making yourself complicit with a lie, oh definitely, kind of buying into it, right,

And that's that's that's what happens. And again that's my favorite part of nineteen eighty four. It's awful. It is to say, is when they're breaking him. Not because I enjoy it, you know, some siko who gets off on it.

elements of the story. I mean these were things that these are things that were pressed on it and documented, you know, the and the uh I mean the point of people before too. I mean not just as a revisionist, but just in kind of non adversarial discussions of of of history where people who you know aren't aren't properly students of history, but you know, are a receptive uh to new ideas and want and want to want to educate themselves further on things, particularly but political in nature.

You know, Uh, it's not really reductionists to say that in a very real sense, Uh, the history of the twentieth century and uh is is really the the history of the emergence of revolutionary communism. You know, it's uh, it's it's it's violent, and it's it's the established the megacitl arrival of it in Europe and uh then in Asia and uh you know, the the dialectical and then the military and uh existential revolt against it by the German Reich and and part of Japan and allies, and

then the and then it's ultimate demise and capitulation. You know, it's the dialectical process created uh, you know, a kind of world society, you know, in the image of uh, in the image of ole Trotsky in the free market. I mean that's like history didn't end and the people in both that term generally don't really understand what what what left to galiens meant by the end of history.

But it's uh, you really, the history of the twentieth century is uh is uh is, it's why, it's the history of it's it's the it's the history of it's the history of Marxism and Zionism, and there were bolts uh against it and the the ultimate triumph of of both ideologies, albeit in a dialectically altered form, And that's uh.

shortage creating true savity. I mean, it's a horrifying movie, but it's so bleak and so unrelenting, unrelentingly so it's really like I said, it's it's gratuitous. It's almost it's almost uh. When when I come across things like that, it almost it almost evinces a contempt for the for the reader or the viewer. And that's not to say that I'm averse to exploring disturbing topics of my writing.

I mean, as sometimes I worry I take it too far in the Steel Storm books, because you know, there's the deal is pretty frankly with some some pretty horrific stuff, you know, particularly you know, relating to violence and and and sexual violence and and and and violence at scales perpetuated by you know, by regimes and things like that. But it's UH, it's it's it's apocalyptic fiction with a capital A. I don't just mean because the framing device

is an alternative. UH. Nineteen eighty three, we're in uh, you know, NATO and Warsaw Pact UH collide in a in a general uh thermonuclear war, which as time goes on, it's revealed UH that the orders of this oh not merely the structural features of the strategic landscape, but o to a deliberate UH and conspiratorial web of intrigues. But I don't want to spoil the plot for those who wish to reach Steel Storm, which I hope many people do.

But within that dystopian UH setting, I'm trying to convey something about UH redemption, but not in a corny way. The UH intrinsic to the there's there's there's two basic timelines in Steel Storm. There's a timeline in the late twentieth century into the twenty first century where Billy Wong becomes a messianic figure in history, and Billy Wong begins we're introduced to him is about the most contemptible cre you're imaginable. He's a drug addicts, he's a street person,

he's a sexual sadist, and he's a serial killer. For all practical purposes, you know, if if Billy Wong can be redeemed, uh, and not just redeemed, but you know, can uh it can become a a messianic personage uh lowercase M. Not not messianic in terms of you know,

but yeah, in historical political terms. It uh I I'm I'm trying to convey something about the different lives people live when they're availed to these punctuated historical catastrophees that truly do uh you know, uh sweep up you know, human material, individually and severally into the into their fold, you know, like drift water, seaweed on a tumbling ocean, you know. And uh, Billy Wong is redeemed because circumstances allow him to be redeemed. And that and that's the

cunning of reason and history. And and as to what many men who we view as as uh as these kind of great men of history, you know, who we consider above kind of the you know, their fellow man in terms of their moral moral integrity. Uh. That that's that's girls he misplaced. You know. Obviously you know God uh, God uh softened uh their will to resist, to resist his grace and uh you know allowed them uh to

become capable of salvation. But you know it was the it was, it was it was the hand of providence in history that that allows Billy Wang to be redeemed. So that's first and foremost. And also, I mean, I melodramatics may sound, I mean, and I'm not absolutely proud of it, nor do I dwell on it. Though I do know something the Chicago street that Billy Wong indoors day to day. And I've met Billy Wong himself as

a compositive people. I knew that very well. Okay, everything from his physical features to his to his UH to his his tendencies uh as a polymath, to his his sense of humor, you know, to his uh sociopathy. I I I I I knew people like this, you know, and I Uh, this wasn't something remote. I mean, I I I'm not playing murder, but I I I lived a fairly nightmarish existence for a fairly a long time. So there's that. And uh, in terms of the uh. The framing device of UH of war day, I will

I tried to convey to younger people. I mean I first became aware of, uh, my kind of civic consciousness, my awareness of like the world around me in you know, political terms and structural terms. That first came about right around the time that of the final sort of crisis cycle between the United States and the Worst Uppact. And it was quite terrifying, not just to me as a little kid, because but but to everybody, you know, and people today, they they don't get that what that was like.

It's it seemed that there was a it seemed as if there was nobody really at the helm like here or on the other side, and that at any moment, h armageddon was possible.

terms of my own historical memory. But it's also the the uh the way in which uh the you know, the the way in which catastrophe, catastrophes and apocalyptic events truly do shape human destiny, not just in historical terms, but in theological ones, and and how these things relate to man's ability to create and sustained culture, and how culture deals with As we talked about the ability to live historically and thus overcome the kind of the kind of void of death, that really is kind of what

the the binding uh moral narrative is of steel Storm. You know, it's about people coming to learn to live historically again, and the hebres of those who would set about to simply preserve their own discrete coshness and definitely you know, by transmitting it to infernal machines, or by forcing those enslaved by the regimes they serve to uh

worship them as gods. And ultimately Zartacs, who himself itself is an infernal machine, you know, he becomes he goes from the demonium pejorative, this object of utter terror to whom uh people literally sacrifice youth so that he might spare the lot of them. He goes from the demonium pejorative to the villainous redeemer, and he liberates man from UH from the shackles of the worst tyranny that has ever existed. So I believe it's a very positive UH.

I believe it's a very positive UH story said within yea, I'm really ystopian narrative. I'm sorry if that was too long wounded. No, no, not at all.

feel about sarcasm, right, that it's a tonic. Right, it can't be everything because if it's everything, it just becomes this like gray colorless goo. And look, if everything is that pointless, like why am I reading your story? You know? Because if there is no redemption and I'm not even asking for some type of you know, Hallmark style, you know,

like overly you know SACS redemption story. But it does start to become where nihilism can become almost paralyzing, you know, in a narrative, and the ability to redeem someone in a story who's truly a terrible person, right like on every metric, right, is both interesting to read and it is also oddly hopeful in a way, right because obviously, look, I I deearly hope that neither you or I ever

kind of descends to the levels of Billy Wong, Right. Yeah, I think that that's probably just mathematically improbable, But all the same, there's a little bit of there's a little bit of me and him, you know, probably more than a little bit. But I think seeing yourself in a character who is truly despicable and seeing that I guess that truly despicable man become the historical Messiah is deeply inspiring.

And I think that in much the same way. And look like this this is more serious than something like Conan, but it offers something similar, right, which I guess is a is a technically fictitious but still deeply realistic I guess goal to strive for x, especially for young men.

world is nothing but evil. You know, we we've got to live in the world, and it's it's God's will that we live in the world. But you know, we we've got to be prepared. H We've got to be prepared to negotiate. It's it's horrors and it is it is full of horrors, but it's it's also full of uh. It's also full of beautiful things and the uh the capacity to uh for uh for redemption and you know, and not not just in the eyes of one's fellow man, but also uh you know, through the grace of God

is ever present. And that's that's part of the uh, that's part of the that's part of the point of Steel Storm. And and the third book what it'll get into is it's hinted at, but it's it hasn't been fleshed out yet. You know, the first value more than the second one that I just finished. You know, like

how how civilization is restructured. But I mean after War Day, after the veritable destruction of uh of of civilization on Earth, you know, within a millennia and a half, you know, civilization has returned full bore, and and and and and and there's truly a space during civilization where once there was a an ashen uh irradiated wasteland, you know. And that's uh, that's uh, that's that's constantly hopeful in my opinion.

I mean, I I'm kind of a space geek, but I'm really excited about like the web space telescope because I love exole planets, and uh, I'm like a dilaton when it comes like astronomy and stuff. But when I was a kid at a telescope and even like in even in college at a telescope, but you know, and I always love looking at stars and things, and uh, I was always like really really fascinated by by the concept of exole planets and and now you know they're this kind of thing is going to be brought into

uh into uh into view quite literally. And that if I mean, if you if you can, if you can look at things like that, you know, like uh like the uh like the like the data returned like the visual data returned by the by the web telescope, and not not believe in in in God, you know, the creator like I. You're hopeless. I don't know how one could think that. You know, this is just accidental architecture that's just spontaneously created itself for no Well I do

in a minute, man, I don't mean to cut these. Yeah, but I it's a great conversation man, and I I really appreciate you give me the chance to to plug steel Storm two. I'm happy to We should do this again anytime you wish. Man, it's given me a couple of days. Notice.

I'm hoping, UH it's gonna it's gonna drop by early autumn, you know, uh or September, October, you know, it will be available for purchase, available for purchase, and I'll make sure everybody is aware when it does drop. You can find me. We've got a really active community on Telegram, which I think is a great platform and it's you know, it's devoid of of ah, the kind of censorship regime that is common to some of these other uh other platforms.

You can find this there at T dot M E slash the number seven h M A S seven seven seven. And you can find me uh on substack, where I post UH long form essays and every other week we do a podcast. It's UH real R E A L Thomas seven seven seven dot substack dot com. I am I. I do periodically back up stuff like this video uh an audio that we're doing right now on a gab, but I'm not particularly there and I don't I mean,

God love GAB. I like the people on there, I like the people who maintain it, but I just don't really like the micro blogging platform. But I do back up my own content and that of our friends at real Thomas seven seven seven on gab. That's the best way to get hold of me. You can always hit me up direct through Telegram or by email orion contact me and my substack and I again, I can't, I can't thank enough for hosting me. Man, this was really great and I really hope we can do it against so