EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,012 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- JRJoe Rogan
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
- DCDarryl Cooper
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) The guys today, I think they're the highest level fighters of all time. We running? Hey, Darryl, what's going on, man?
- DCDarryl Cooper
How's it going?
- JRJoe Rogan
And we were just talking UFC. Yeah. I think this is the, the h- we were talking about how exciting the Ankalaev and Pereira fight was, even though people didn't, they didn't like it 'cause it wasn't like some crazy result and a giant knockout like you get in most Pereira fights. But, it was so technical and Per- Ankalaev just did a fantastic job of shutting down the scariest guy in the division.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah. I just... And the psychological aspect of it, of just, he made him back up and second guess himself.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
And you know, that's... You can't just do that by being aggressive. You can't, you know, you really gotta get in there and you gotta hurt him a little bit and you just have to put that on him. And it was, it was amazing to watch. I thought it was a great fight.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it was so interesting because the consequences of exchanging with Pereira are so high, but also Ankalaev. Ankalaev has knocked a lot of people out. We always look at Pereira's knockouts, but Ankalaev has knocked out some of the best guys in the division and he only lost one time, and that was... Paul Craig has the nastiest fucking triangle. It's so sneaky-
- DCDarryl Cooper
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
... and so quick and you don't expect it. He's so high level off his back and he caught him, I think, with like one second to go in the third round-
- DCDarryl Cooper
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... a fight that he was losing.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah. He, he broke Jamal's arm or-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... dislocated his elbow too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
He's one of those guys like, uh, that... You know, like Ryan Hall.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DCDarryl Cooper
It's like, you know, they're on the feet dancing around. It's like, you know, "What are we really watching here?" kind of, but man, as soon as they hit the ground it's next level.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. He's, there's a giant disparity between his standup, which is good, his good standup, you know, and the, the Bo Nickal fight was entirely standup. It was a good fight, you know, he was... He looked good on the feet, but you would never say, you know, this is like an Israel Adesanya type character.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
He doesn't have that level of proficiency with striking, but God, when he gets on his back, you're in such danger like nobody else in the division. It's weird 'cause most guys you're on their back, you're not really worried about it. With Paul Craig, it's like everything has to be tight.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Especially guys that size-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... you don't get to see it as often.
- JRJoe Rogan
No, you don't.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Especially in an era when, you know, the off your back jujitsu is kind of, I don't wanna say like, you know, they figured out the game on that yet, but you know, it's not quite to that level. You still have your Craigs and Oliveiras, people like that who, who, uh, really are dangerous off their back, but it's, it's not as common anymore, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's really hard to do.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Right. …
- DCDarryl Cooper
terms, you know? And again, it doesn't... When I did that in the, in the Tucker interview with regard to the Germans and the Second World War and the series that I'm working on right now, which is the Second World War from the perspective of the Germans, you know, it's people, people who... It's, it's not just people who are purposely misinterpreting things or anything. You know, a lot of people who are in good faith, they see something like that and they think you're trying to justify or rationalize what happened. You know? Um, because there is this, there is this thing where, I mean I, the Jonestown story, this really did kind of happen to me, where you know, when you get, when, when you get past a certain threshold of understanding people, it's, you're butting right up against empathizing with them. I mean, it's like-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... that's the very, you know, that's like the next step. You got to take one more step and you're empathizing with those people. And so people see that, you know, and you're empathizing with evil people, you know, who- whoever it is. But I really believe that it's, it's really good for us, like individually, you know, and, and as a society too, to, I think it has a, uh, positive effect on us to like, when we force ourselves to understand, you know, people we don't like, um, as human beings, and just understand that their motivations are really no different than ours. They're-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well this is one of the reasons why your, your podcast is so important, because you talk about things in this way, and this is one of the reasons why I knew you were misconstrued, or, or w- you would be misconstrued if something like that came up. Um, that's, doing that is fine with Jonestown, you know? With Jonestown everybody's like, "Well, how could these people have convinced these people to drink the Kool-Aid? Who, why would the people do it? Who, what kind of a monster turns into this genocidal maniac and brings people to the jungle and does this?" But when you do it with any other subject, you can kind of get away with that until it gets to Nazis, until it gets to World War II, and then there, people have these red flags that pop up that just completely block out any obj- objectivity. They, they, they lu- remove all nuance, you, you lose all objectivity. You, you just, anything you're saying, imagine being a young man drafted into Hitler's army at 17 years old and not knowing what you're doing and then becoming this monster. That's a Nazi apologist. Right? This is, we've, we've had this reductionist perspective on anything that has to do with that horrific moment in history, that if you even attempt to do this very comprehensive process that you do with all other subjects, where you look at the, the human angle, you look at these people, the conflict, how did this get started? It's not there's good people on one side and there's evil people on the other side. No, there's genuinely just human beings, and there's horrible circumstances and then there's evil people who lead these people in horrible circumstances to do evil, terrible things. And people are tribal and they can buy into all kinds of crazy ideas and go forth and do horrific atrocities and believe that God is on their side. This is a part of being a human being that has existed fucking forever. But in our culture, in our media environment where everybody is rightly so, so terrified of anti-Semitism, because there's real anti-Semitism out there.... and real antisemitism is horrible, just like real racism is horrible. The problem with calling everything racist and everything antisemitic when it's clearly not is that you diminish what that word means. You're- you're essentially crying wolf. You're doing it in ways where r- rational, logical people who know your work have a very good argument against it. Like, this doesn't make any sense in the context of which it was said. If you look at the body of his work, if you look at how he talks about things, this is how he approaches stuff. This whole being provocative is part of what you do. It's part of what makes the- the- the audio come to life in these podcasts when you're talking about these moments in history. This- this subject is just so sore with people. And particularly right now after October 7th, where, you know, I just- I remember all the sudden going on X and seeing antisemitism just like white- right out in the open, blaming Jews for everything, going, "Whoa," like, "Has this been hiding?" Like, what- and then you start thinking the way your paranoid Jewish friends think that everybody's antisemitic, and you go, "Well, now I kind of understand why they think that way." So I kind of understand the overreaction, but it is still an overreaction, and I think what you do is very valuable. It's very valuable to me and it's very valuable to human beings that want to hear this nuanced, uh, uh, uh, comprehensive perspective on these conflicts, and from a person who obviously cares deeply about them and cares deeply about the human cost of these. And one of the things you do so well, and I was just talking to Dave Smith about this yesterday, the w- the gravity of war, the gr- the- the- the toll it takes on the people that are engaged in it and the people that are, uh, just outside of it and what is left of their civilization, it's fucking horrific and it should be avoided at all costs. But we don't- you don't avoid it by exaggerating. You- you don't avoi- avoid it by distorting someone's perspective and turning everybody into a monster so that everyone's scared to talk at all, because this is the main objective. Any- uh, most overreactions like that that are public and s- hyper-aggressive and constant and continuous, it's not just you. It's to stop anybody from ever doing anything like that in the future to let them know there's consequences. There's gonna be financial consequences. There's gonna be- your- your- your- your status online, your- whatever you're, you know, however you're viewed by people will be now marred forever with this ugly stain of being not just an antisemite, but a Nazi apologist. That's what I read, Nazi apologist. Like, y- you can't say that unless you listen to his stuff. You can't. Unless they listen to your work, they sh- they can't say that, because they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. It's- it's like someone trying to opine upon a culture that they've never read about or don't- have never visited. You don't know what you're saying.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah, I've been told by people who should know, uh, that there are a few European countries I shouldn't try to visit because they probably won't let me off the plane.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, I wouldn't go.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Because of- because of that podcast, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Bro, I'd stay in Texas if I was you. I'd hold up. (laughs)
- DCDarryl Cooper
(laughs) I'm up in- I'm up in North Idaho, so I'm far, far away.
- JRJoe Rogan
You should have told people that. (laughs) Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Oh, they- they don't wanna- they don't wanna try North Idaho. Man, it's, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
It's- yeah, it's a wild place. You got wolves and bears. Um, it's just, uh- this is just part of what people do, and-
- DCDarryl Cooper
I was- I was gonna say too, um, you know, that overreaction is really counterproductive, too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
You know, and- because to go back to what I said a second ago, like, understanding brings you right up to the brink of empathy, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DCDarryl Cooper
That- uh, you know, more understanding to these issues, and I've found this 100 times, you know, because, like, look, antisemitism's a weird thing, and we can talk about some of the history of that if you want. But, you know, it's- uh, it's this thing that people get obsessed with. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like part of their ideology. I've watched this happen to, like, good, clear-thinking regular people. They start listening to a few podcasts that, you know, uh- uh, they can't repost under their real name on Twitter because they're funny or interesting, and then pretty soon you can't bring that dude to a party anymore, because he just can't go 10 minutes without- in neutral company, like, bringing up the Jews. And it's like, that happens. You see that happen. I mean, the- uh, you know, like- like, so what you see on social media a lot. I mean, it's like a- there's no doubt there's been, like, a big explosion of that kind of rhetoric, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
And I think a lot of it is online trolling and it's, uh, you know, the fact that people are so sensitive about it that, like, it's just the easiest way to get a huge reaction, you know, from- from people. Um, and I think a lot of it has to do with that, but I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that so many of these- of these questions have really been made, you know, it's not like they're off limits, like they're illegal and you're gonna go to jail if you talk about them. I'm still sitting here. Uh, I mean, I'm on your podcast and I've- so that's a big platform to talk about these things. It's not like that, but the attempt is to make it so that you can't be in any kind of respectable society, respectable company.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, the- the attempt is to make you radioactive.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah, and- and that, again, I think is just completely counterproductive, because, you know, people look at something... I think Theo was talking about this in one of his recent interviews. He was saying, you know, you- somebody sees what's happening in Gaza right now and they just see kids getting pulled out of rubble and it's shocking and horrifying and they see that and they find out that the US is sending money and weapons and they're like, "Well, why is that happening?" And they start looking into it, and they go to the websites that are gonna tell them the truth about it, and pretty soon one link leads to another. And when they go ask one of their, you know, h- history professors at school or something, like, "Hey, you know, Uncle Adolf 1488 in the comments section, like, told me X, Y, Z."
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DCDarryl Cooper
Like, you know, um...... that you go and ask about it, he gets like shouted down and attacked for like asking the question. And then he, you know, what- that doesn't have the effect of him saying, "Wow, like I guess that really is terrible and I should never ask that again." They think, "Hmm, that's weird. Like why are people responding this way? I was asking that question in good faith," you know? And so it really has like the opposite effect of- of the one that is at least, uh, ostensibly intended, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
I think there's a bunch of things going on simultaneously. I think some of this is coordinated and I think, um, because I think that with everything now online, I think there's, um, public momentum opinions that aren't necessarily organically shaped. And, um, there's- there's groups that will mass tweet about something, and now we know that there's AI programs that will devise, uh, various different tweets and people running them through hundreds of computers, if not thousands of computers, all with multiple accounts, and they're- they're posting things constantly. They're- and they're doing this... There was a call to make it illegal for any employee of the government to post on social media, and this- the- I was like, "That sounds outrageous. That sounds like something that would stifle political discourse." I want congressional people to be able to be, excuse me, to be whistleblowers and to talk about what's really going on and this is why this bill can't get passed, this is why they added this to this, this is bullshit. But then someone explained to me, uh, that what they're trying to stop is astroturfing, is that if you're working for the government or for, now this is with USAID, the concept of the non-government organization comes into play. So people realize that NGOs are actually funded by taxes, so it's a non-government organization doing the bidding of the government and some of that may or may not include social media campaigns about specific issues. And, um, I think this happens with everything. I think this happens probably on the Free Palestine sign, I think they probably do it. I think it happens on the Protect Israel side, they do it. I think everybody does it and it's- it- it can- it's confusing because, uh, you'd like to know how do normal human beings actually think, uh, the actual world thinks versus massive amounts of people that are being financially incentivized to post these things. They're being paid, they're part of an organization that gets paid, they get funded, they have a directive, they go out and they- they pursue this campaign and they do it relentlessly. And they do it through organic ways like people who are, um, aligned with their cause, whether it's Free Palestine or Israel First or whatever it is, you- you get people to post about it, they'll do it real- just th- they'll do it willingly because they want to show everybody they're on the right side and they also want to proclaim on- on Twitter that they are, you know, their- this is their political perspective and "I'm aligned with you people, I'm one of the good guys." And so there's that, that happens too, and this is this chaos of social media and people looking for likes and audience capture and all that stuff that goes on. But at the end of the day, we rely upon people that we trust. We re- rely upon people that are supposedly objective and rational and reasonable and considerate and- and charitable, people who look at things and go, "Okay, what is- what's really going on here?" Like what is- like before I cast judgment, maybe I should pay attention to some of the things this guy's done. Maybe I should pay attention to his work. Maybe I should look into this instead of just repeating "Nazi apologist" because someone wanted to take a- a- just an overall comprehensive look at what happened, which is- we should all want to know what happened from a bunch of different perspectives so we could prevent any of this shit from happening in the future.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yes. I mean, the interesting thing about the World War II question is something I found through talking to people who, you know, disagreed with my- with my Tucker interviews, like if you put the question to them, and maybe if you put it directly like this, they would give you a different answer, but you kind of get the im- you know, you- you- you get to understand that this is how they feel about it, which is if there was two options, one of them is that the Second World War doesn't happen, at least in Europe, 40 million people don't get killed, uh, but, you know, the National Socialists stay in power and, you know, maybe Hitler dies 10 years later, like the Soviet Union, Stalin dies and things move on. People really kind of feel like, and maybe this is because they're not involved in it, like 40 million dead people is- that was a- that was a cost worth paying. And I think that is completely insane, man. Like it's- it's like if there was a sliver of a- of an opportunity to de-escalate that situation and bring it back down, like, you know, if I'm the emperor of America or Britain or whatever, I'm- I'm taking that chance. And if it turns out that Hitler was full of shit and, uh, you know, he stabs us in the back first chance he gets, all right, then we'll have our war, but...
- JRJoe Rogan
But is this pre- or post-concentration camps? Is this pre- or post-the beginnings of the Holocaust?
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
This is where it-
- 30:00 – 45:00
... gets into that,…
- DCDarryl Cooper
- JRJoe Rogan
... gets into that, like should we decide to stop something in its tracks at whatever cost of life because ultimately that is the right thing to do because we're witnessing the genocide of a people and then we're also witnessing a group that will remain in power that has not just committed genocide but is committed to genocide?
- DCDarryl Cooper
Right. So what we were talking about and all of the points I was bringing up on Tucker were all from before that. In fact, they were from a- a full year before the s- uh, German invasion of the Soviet Union, that was June 1941 and that's where most of the Jews lived there in... So if he, you know, if Hitler never invaded the Soviet Union, he never even would have had access to those people. Now, Hitler didn't like the Soviet Union, you know, all the way back in Mein Kampf and everywhere else, I mean, it was central to his ideology that communism, socialism were the enemy and everything. He may have invaded the Soviet Union someday and gone and...... gone after all the Jews when he did.
- JRJoe Rogan
When did Hitler start going after the Jews?
- DCDarryl Cooper
You mean in terms of, um, in terms of-
- JRJoe Rogan
R-rhetoric?
- DCDarryl Cooper
... the war? Oh. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DCDarryl Cooper
So, yeah, like, if you take him at his word in Mein Kampf, which is, you know, it's a piece of political propaganda, you know, that he wrote as a sort of a, a politician in Germany in 1924-
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DCDarryl Cooper
... and so you have to take it with s-sort of a grain of salt, but it's also one of the few sources we have. Like, and he, i-i- given his audience at the time, he probably didn't have a lot of reason to, to make this part up, um, is that, you know, he had been from, like, small town Germany, right? And he was from a middle class family. Um, his father was a civil servant, respectable people, and nationalism back then was very much like a middle class ideology. And the, the middle class people, nationalists, would complain about the workers and, you know, the proletariat, how they all wanna be socialists and none of them have any national feeling and everything. And Hitler really didn't grow up with any really even knowledge of the Jews. He says his father, he never heard him say the word, and, you know, if they had any in the small town that he lived in, like, they were apparently well assimilated 'cause he, he didn't know about them. And so then he moves to Vienna when he's a young adult and there's a lotta Jews in Vienna and he starts to, you know, he's, he's, he's at the bottom of society now, you know, he's literally living in shelters, he's, um, hungry all the time. He's, like, down with the underclass after having grown up in the, in the middle class. And so he's starting to get a look at, uh, what the German people, the German masses, you know, that he's, like, sort of as a, as a child and a young man has, like, worked up this deep sense of, like, nationalistic fervor. He's actually getting an up close look at the underclass in Vienna and what he sees is not particularly impressive, you know, which is often the case when, you know, you can, you can have sympathy for and, um, want to lift up, you know, the underclass in any society, but the, the reason you wanna do that is because they're often living degraded lives in degraded circumstances. And so he gets an up close look at this and he doesn't like what he sees and it, he says in Mein Kampf that it really caused him, like, a moral crisis, you know, an ideological crisis. He's like, "Are these the German people? Like, really? This is what we're talking about?" And then he says in, you know, this is the way he relates it, he says it was actually the key that unlocked everything else for him is that, you know, he would say he realized, we could say he came to believe that, yes, the, these German masses, they are in a sorry state right now, but the reason for that is that they're being manipulated by the Jews, by the Jewish press, by the, you know, the, the, the Jews who own the, the theaters and put out the, you know, the films and whatever else, all of it. They're being manipulated and corrupted by these people. And so for him it became, like, and I, I think, you know, he has the, he had a lot of the same explanations and reasons you would hear from any anti-Semite then or now, you know, banking and whatever. Like, all those things were, like, in there, but I think the thing that gave it emotional valence for him is that his anti-Semitism was what allowed him to love the German people, you know? Like, it was, like, the only way for him that he could get around the revulsion he was feeling and actually being up close with the German underclass is he, you know, he, he excused their faults by blaming-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... by blaming Jews. And so it, his, his sense of love for his people, and I mean, look, it, Hitler's one of those guys, I, I noticed this when I was reading all the Jim Jones books and stuff, which I think I read all, pro- probably all of, um, they're, they're not very good, you know? Some of them are interesting, (laughs) like, they're good reads, but you can't help but, uh, but notice, especially after you've read several of the books, that the authors just cannot help but, uh, be, like, cynical and turn it into a polemic on every page. Like, even the thing Jim Jones or Hitler did as a child, they have, like, negative-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... editorializing to it and everything. And it's like, you know, it, it really kind of, it's, it's, a lot of them are still good books, you know, you read, like, the, the most recent sort of great Hitler biography by Ian Kershaw is a great book. He's a good historian, an excellent writer, and, you know, you have to learn to kinda see through that polemic, uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... a little bit and then you have, you know, a good history on your hands, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's almost like it's an obligation if you're gonna cover a horrific figure, you have to look at things-
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... that way.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah, exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
And, um, you know, it's a, uh... And so I think that, like, people who knew Hitler pre- before World War I, uh, and we have, like, memoirs and interviews with people who did know him pretty, pretty well, they say pretty much unanimously, like, "We never heard him mention the Jews back then." And this is the period in Vienna when Hitler says his anti-Semitism was developing and he was figuring these things out, um, and what I think was probably going on, like, my read of it at least up to this point, is that his anti-Semitism, just like a lotta people in, in Europe at the time, uh, was, it was theoretical and abstract, you know what I mean? Like, um, the Jews had never... You gotta remember, like, the Russian Revolution, all of the things that people like Hitler would associate with, with the Jews, like, none of that stuff had happened yet. Like, he might not like them, you know, he might think that, um, whatever, all the stereotypes that go along with him, but it was just sort of an abstract thing that it wasn't dangerous, right? But then the First World War happens and, you know, it's, it's really impossible for us today to understand the level of just trauma and devastation that that war had on, I mean, the European countries that were in, or all the country- countries that were involved. I mean, it was, you know, you're talking about a war where, you know, for, for several, uh, Olympics, Olympic Games afterwards, there were whole sports that, like, France and Germany just didn't participate any- in anymore because they didn't have the people for it. I mean, it was, you're talking about massive chunks of-... the young male population being killed out there. Right? And you take a guy like Hitler, who volunteered early, like right away-
- JRJoe Rogan
(sniffs)
- DCDarryl Cooper
... and he survived the whole four years of the war, and you think about him as just an example of this generation of people who use- who spent, like, their most formative young adult years in the trenches. I mean, in constant terror of doing things that, uh... I mean, forget about just like the, the p- the physical discomfort of living there. I mean, you're in the mud, you're covered with lice and fleas all the time, so is everybody else. You're... Especially later in the war, you're, like, living off of starvation rations if you're a German or an Austrian. And you're watching... I mean, you know, uh, Dan, his, uh... Dan Carlin's series on World War I is, like, probably my favorite piece of audio.
- JRJoe Rogan
Incredible.
- DCDarryl Cooper
It's so good. And, like, um, you know, one of the things he's so good at, way better than me at, is, um, kind of capturing the scale of events, you know? And so when he talks-
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... about, like, the Battle of the Somme, when the British lost 60,000 guys on the first day, you're like, "I don't even know what that..." Like, what that even means. Like, it's, it's just so overwhelming, you know? And so you have this generation that spent their formative years in all of these countries under those just circumstances that we really don't have any context for us to relate to, you know? I mean, think about, like, you, you, you see these stories of, like, people sleeping in trenches, and over there in the corner is their dead friend who's been sitting there decomposing and being eaten by rats for three or four days, because you can't go up top to bury him because you'll get shot. And you can't bury him in the trench, uh, in the dirt under the trench anymore, because there's already bodies just completely wall-to-wall down there. You've already taken up all the space, right? Just that kind of... I mean, if you think about somebody today, if you walk outside your door on the way to work, your average person today, and there's a dead body on your, on your, you know, steps, your average person today is gonna be in therapy for years (laughs) over that, you know? I mean, that is a traumatic experience, very difficult. And so you have these young men who go through this, uh, who go through this just unbelievable experience, and from Germany eastward after, you know, if you, if you go back and think about what the map of Europe looked like in the year 1900, it didn't, it didn't look anything like it looks now. (laughs) It was basically like just a few big chunks, you know? You had France, you had Germany, the, the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and then you had the Russian Empire, and there were a few, like Spain and the Balkans and stuff, little things going on, but really it was just a few giant empires controlled everything from the Pacific Ocean, uh, in East Russia all the way over to the coast of France, right? And everything east of Germany in 1917 and 1918, those governments literally evaporated. They, they went away. And so, you know, you get to, uh, the immediate postwar period after these guys have just gone through this unbelievably harrowing experience, you know, their, their lives have been defined by violence, uh, for years, you know, at this point. And all of a sudden there's just state collapse everywhere from Germany to Siberia, and you literally have, uh, you know, private militias, groups of veterans, communist militias, like they're running cities, they're running the streets, like having running gun battles in the streets of, you know, of, of Berlin and, and Munich. And this is, this goes on for a few years, you know, just total social and economic chaos. And so, so you're talking about like the four-year war, but then a few more years after that. So you're 18 when you get in in 1914, now it's 1923 when things kinda start to stabilize and, you know, you've been, you've been at this for n-... Like, the, the, the first nine years of your young adulthood, right, this is the world that you live in. And it's, it's a... When, when, when you try to think of, you know, I talked about like, like Uday Hussein being brought to watch torture sessions or something. I mean, this is not, this is not exactly that, but it's, it's a, it's an experience that, like, we really have no way to relate to. And if you grow up in that world, especially when... You know, if you look at like what happened in Russia, 1917, the Russian Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, and they won. You know, they actually took over the Russian state and created the Soviet Union. You know, it lasted past the, long past the lives of anybody who had fought in World War I, for the most part. Um, and so people saw that and they took the lesson, both from World War I itself, but also from the aftermath and the revolutions that happened. The, the lesson they took is that violence w- can accomplish our goals, you know? And whatever we do to accomplish those goals, uh, as long as we survive, people accept it eventually. You know, Roosevelt normalized, uh, relations with the Soviet Union in 1933 when Stalin was literally still clearing bodies from the millions of people he starved in the Ukrainian Holodomor and in Kazakhstan, another million people. And like, at that time is when... And we knew, we knew it was going on, obviously, uh, and yet, you know, Roosevelt normalized relations with Stalin and people got over it. Just like with Turkey, Turkey does the Armenian genocide, and it's condemned at the time, you know, they were on the other side of the war and everything. But a couple years later, like, "Look, Turkey's an important, uh, strategically placed country, like, in the world, and we kinda need them on our side." And so, you know, "Sorry Armenians, but, you know, get over it." That's... And so people took that lesson, is that violence will accomplish our goals, and as long as we accomplish them and survive, people will get over it, you know?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.I, I'm, but again, I think this is what's really important about your work is that you do take into consideration all these aspects, which again, with Jim Jones, that's fine.
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
There's also general suspicion…
- DCDarryl Cooper
and then go back to being the nice normal Germans that we know now. Like, these things happen the same way every other, uh, historical event, you know, ends up happening, which, which very often is not, you know... What you find is it's not, um, it's not, uh, s- so much is not really, like, the, the result of a, of a plot or a plan or anything. People are often just reacting, and when you, you see this with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, you see it with the Israel-Palestine situation, right? In those two situations, like, the means that the Bolsheviks and the Zionists used to establish themselves and create their state and, like, sort of get their foothold, the means that they used were so violent and so over the top that it came to define, in a lot of ways, the subsequent history of those countries, you know? If you look at, like, Stalin's purges in the '30s and a lot of the stuff that was going on during his reign, it was really that, like, they had pissed so many people off and done so many terrible things to take power, and that was really, like, that was Lenin's philosophy is, again, just, you know, take it up to 11 and go, and as long as we win, people get over it. But all of a sudden, when you've killed all these people and done all these terrible things, you look around the country, and you see a lot of dangerous people who probably don't like you, even if they're not saying it right now, and you start to get a little paranoid. It becomes kind of a definition of how your state works, you know? I mean, Israel, o- one of the things I really tried to get into in, in the early part of that series especially is that the Zionist project, um... A- an- the more I think about it, this is kind of a theme in so many of my podcasts. Uh, you know, it started out as an idealistic venture. You know, it started out as something, you know, you have these people who are in really, like, kind of a unique situation, maybe the, like, the Roma or the Gypsies are, like, the only other group of people you can really point to of, like, a widespread transnational group of people who do have a sort of cohesive identity, but they don't have a homeland. They're just living in other people's countries, and you know, I think the, the lesson from World War II and much of the 20th century probably, uh, is kind of (laughs) , it's kind of the opposite of the one that people have taken from World War II, which is nationalism is bad and it's dangerous, and bad things happen when people start to think that way. I think the, the real lesson from World War II is, or from, you know, what happened to the Jews specifically is everybody needs a country, you know? You need to have a country that is looking after you and looking after your interests, because living in other people's countries, it can go well for a long time, but, you know, it's not just the Jews. Like, minorities in general, like, you know, bad things happen over time. You know, minorities are just easily scapegoated, you know? They're easily made, uh, the sort of, the, the outlet for the frustration and resentment of people that are, you know, uh, upset over unrelated things, and it's an uncomfortable position to be in.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's also general suspicion when cultures move into areas and don't assimilate and then try to-
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... bring with them the rules of their land, uh, which we, you know, we're particularly scared of in America. We, we hear the concept of Sharia law, and like, people start to freak out. Well, there's people that move here that want that.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? And they don't want to assimilate, and they don't want to be a part of this homogeneous culture. They want to change it. So that scares people too.
- DCDarryl Cooper
And America's very, you know, this is one of the... You know, America's a very unique country in a lot of different ways, but one of the ways that we're so different from the European countries, I mean, you can, I guess you could point to a lot of things, you know, the, the lack of a feudal history that we were emerging out of. We kind of just started out as a liberal republic, um, you know, the fact that we, we have, like, the frontier experience, which is just, you know, no Europeans can really relate to what was going on out there. I don't know if you've seen that new Netflix series, uh, American Primeval.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's amazing.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Dude, and I-
- JRJoe Rogan
I had Peter Berg on here the other day.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Oh, that's right. That's right, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
And all I kept thinking as I'm watching this is like, "Man, this is not like the US Army that's out there like on the frontier confronting these situations. These are like..."... the regular people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- DCDarryl Cooper
... who, like, went out there and lived, and this is an experience. So, you have those things, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's very accurate, too.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah. It was fascinating. I loved that they had Jim Bridger in there. That was a... I've always been a fan of his, so, um...
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. That was amazing, too. And i- and how about, uh, the Mormon guy?
- DCDarryl Cooper
Dude, people-
- JRJoe Rogan
Bradon Young.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah. People don't realize today, unless they really know the history, the Mormons were off the hook back in the day. (laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
They were gangsters.
- DCDarryl Cooper
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
They were fucking dangerous foes.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You couldn't fuck with the Mormons back then. They were-
- DCDarryl Cooper
Well, they were, they were-
- JRJoe Rogan
They had been fucked with.
- DCDarryl Cooper
They were ultra-cohesive, and they were serious about what they were doing. These people were not playing games. This was not, like, a thing to do for fun. They were dead serious about it even.
- JRJoe Rogan
And they had already been ran out of several states.
- 1:00:00 – 1:15:00
Right. …
- DCDarryl Cooper
that." You know, I- People think of diversity as, like, every place on the planet should look like Jackson Heights in New York and, like, then we're diverse. But that's, to me, that's not diversity at all. Diversity is I go to Ireland, and it's Irish. I go to China, and it's Chinese. I go... You know what I mean? Like...
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- DCDarryl Cooper
And, uh, turning it all into sort of a homogenized, like, mixed, you know, soup, I, I, I think when you, when you put it in those terms, nobody really wants that. And, you know, people, uh, but people get very uncomfortable, you know? And in America, with immigration specifically, it's really hard to, like, you know, the, the fact that it's not like we're a Christian country in the sense of it being worked into our political culture so much or anything anymore, but still, like, the values that most people, even atheists and everybody else, kind of, that inform their moral outlook are, uh, derived from that legacy of Christianity, you know? And it can be very hard for, um, somebody who, who is working from that moral base-... to, to come up with a, a reason that... I mean, look, imagine you're in, uh, a room and you're sitting at a table. And across from the table is a man, his wife, and their two kids, and they're from some poor part of the world, and they want to come, you know, y- they want to be a part of your country. Y- you're not gonna be able to come up with a reason that justifies keeping them out. I mean, the only one that you could come up with is that when you open the door to that room, there's 65 million people standing in line outside, and you can't, you know, you can't do that. But, like, on an individual level, like, people really have a lot of trouble. And I think this is a credit to Americans in a lot of ways, even if it, if it causes us a lot of confusion, that, um, it, you know, it is hard for us to, to turn people away like that, you know? And, um, yeah. It's a... I think, to go back to, like, what you were originally talking about, I think the World War II story is a huge part of that, you know? It's a huge part of why people... I think that some of the lessons we drew from that war were kind of not the- maybe not the right ones to take, and that they have led us to the point where these, you know, culture like Ireland, who was not involved in the second World War, never colonized anybody, feels like they don't have the moral right to say, "This is a country for the Irish pe- this is a little island where the Irish people get to live together and work out our destiny and our history."
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, here's the question. Uh, i- is it coordinated immigration? Are they going there because there's job opportunities? Are they going there for a better way of life? Are they being told to go there? Like, what, what's causing the mass immigration to Ireland?
- DCDarryl Cooper
It depends on the country. I mean, it's like, um, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
But like to Ireland in specific.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah. Ireland. There's a lot of, like, um, Polish folks in Ireland, people from Eastern Europe who go there for work.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- DCDarryl Cooper
You know? Um, that's, that's the, the, the primary, like, source of migrants. But there's a lot of, um... you know, there are a lot of third world migrants or global south migrants there now, but, uh, y-... a lot of Eastern Europeans coming there for work. Yeah. It kind of varies from country to country. Um...
- JRJoe Rogan
It's interesting because I do agree that it's cool that you go to places and they're uniquely... Like, I love Scotland. You go to Scotland, it's uniquely Scottish, you know? You, you go to places, you, you get to take part in their way of life. Like, to see the world in- through their culture and the way they view things, it's interesting. But I also love the melting pot of America. I, I love it. And I come from immigrants. My grandparents came here during the early parts of the 1900s. And so, I'm thankful that they were courageous enough, or their parents were courageous enough, to get on a fucking boat before YouTube, no idea what was going on over here, it was just promises and, and hopes, and try to carve out a life. And that's where I came from. So, it would be insanely hypocritical of me to deny someone who came from another country an opportunity to partake in this place.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Um, but I also think that there's- it's coordinated. And I think that, um, they're, they're doing it in America for a lot of bizarre reasons that you could attribute to trying to stack states and trying to overwhelm, um, Democratic voter registration in swing states and allow people to vote and give them a pathway to citizenship and allow them t- to vote and, you know, get them on the dole, get them on... Whether it's social security. We've talked about this before, where people were encouraged to say that they had bad backs or headaches so that they could be permanently disabled on social s- social security and just then you have a customer, you have a client. And then that, that client is gonna- you're gonna call upon them to vote for you. And if you only need 10,000 votes here or 20,000 votes there and they're objectively shipping in 10 times that much to some of these swing states, you gotta wonder. Like, this is not just... This is kind of taking advantage of the charitable aspect of Americans, how we view people wanting to come here for opportunity, which most of 'em are just doing that. Most of 'em are people that unfortunately were born in a place with no possibilities and a lot of crime and a lot of danger, and they have a family and they want to do better, and they came here, and I love it. I love that they do that. I love that they make it. I love that this is a place for that. But that can be taken advantage of. That can be taken advantage of in order to control the political parties, in order to tighten down on the laws, tighten down on the surveillance state, get everybody to use an app, put everybody on central bank digital currency 'cause it's more stable, have a social credit score system to make sure that everything goes well. And then the next thing you know, everyone's self-centered. Everyone is, uh, Twitter before Elon bought it. Ev- it's just- it's a dangerous place for freedom. And that's ultimately what America has to say that we stand for above all. Th- this is the place. If there's a place on earth where you can be free, this has gotta be that place. This is what we came here for. It's where the founding fathers, what this- what they were trying to do, with all the flaws and all the terrible things that took place here. Yes. Absolutely. Land acknowledgements, hallelujah. But at the end of the day, this place is supposed to represent freedom. But freedom can be manipulated. And you can, you can use your, your empathy and they, they can use it against you. And unfortunately, you have to be aware that there's nefarious forces that are involved in all areas of society where enormous amounts of money can be transferred. And that's how you have to look at it. This is ultimately about money, and, uh, whether it's about money bringing in people for cheap labor, which I think is fucked, um, because I think if you're in America, if you're here, if you're here, we're gonna call you an American. You should get paid what a fucking American gets paid. You should get health coverage, you should get everything. Shouldn't be able to, like, get people just 'cause they walked over here and you get 'em to work as- for slave wages. That's ridiculous. That's insane. That's anti-American. Uh, you know, but there's this giant-
- DCDarryl Cooper
I mean, I'll, I'll hold you up there. It might be, like, anti-American ideals, but that's the history of America right there.
- JRJoe Rogan
It is. It is.
- DCDarryl Cooper
I mean, that's the whole history of America.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's true. It's true. And that's the dirty little secret-
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... of construction sites.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? I mean-
- DCDarryl Cooper
You, you go back to, like, um, you know, the 1850s, 1860s, and...You know, Irish dock workers on the East Coast, immigrant Irish dock workers, their life expectancy was 14 years from the time they stepped off the boat. And these weren't 60-year-olds coming over and working on the docks. You're talking about young guys who came over to do that, 14 years, you know. And when you-
- JRJoe Rogan
Horrible, brutal jobs.
- DCDarryl Cooper
With un- I mean, completely expendable, uh, human resource, you know.
- JRJoe Rogan
We all remember the photos of people working on the Empire State Building, walking on the beams.
- DCDarryl Cooper
(laughs) Yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Just no safety, nothing, leather shoes.
- DCDarryl Cooper
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Fuck off.
- DCDarryl Cooper
I'm a hu- like, there's a lot of... You know they have those, um, those political tests online, kind of tells you, like, what you are if you answer some questions?
- JRJoe Rogan
What are you?
- 1:15:00 – 1:15:47
(laughs) …
- DCDarryl Cooper
I get there and I call him up, 'cause he's not home, and I say, uh, "You know, Richard, um, I'm here, like, what's up?" He's like, "Ah, the doctors are being slow, whatever, so, um, I'm gonna be a little while." Well, I got a big 20-ounce venti, you know, Starbucks black coffee, and so I pound that thing in my car as I'm reading a book, and pretty soon I start to feel that pressure in my gut, like, I gotta take a shit. Like, I have to take a shit.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- DCDarryl Cooper
It's like that caffeine shit, right? And, um, I call up my friend like, "Where are you?" Like, this ... "I need, I need you to get home now." He's like, "I ... The doctor's haven't even brought him to me, I don't know what's going on." He's like, um, "Go see if a door or a window is open or something." And so now I'm getting up and moving, and so that's making things worse, you know? And I check all the doors, I check all the windows, nothing's open. And I'm in the backyard and I'm, like, this close to just digging a hole-
Episode duration: 2:38:41
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