Episode 5: Media and Propaganda

Andy and his college buddy, Blair Burke, discuss the challenges of pseudo-events created by the mainstream media which can lead to the dangerous path of brainwashing  and manipulation of the mind through propaganda. "One way of attacking or killing an enemy is to de-humanize them." We also discuss how our society can stand against these lies and not repeat the atrocities of the past.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Chat Up America podcast. Do you think your liberty is being put in shackles? Do you feel that your freedom of speech is being choked out? We are rediscovering the lost art of conversation. I'm Andy Caldwell and Asian-American who leans conservative and embraces a liberal attitude. This is a space for open mindedness and common sense. You're listening to Episode five. Can I speak my calabash while we discuss media and propaganda beneath our chat up America Guns Thrilled and the Cauldwell. Welcome back to Chat Up America. This is Episode five. We are so excited. Our first back porch episode here in the outskirts of Waxhaw without really Wesley Chapel. Wesley Chapel. I'm here with my good friend Blair Burke and we go way back to our college days. We want to where alumni of the famous Harvard of the South Georgia Southern University and Blair, welcome. Thank you. I, Blair and I had classes together back in the day. I remember I tell you this early, Blair, when I came over, is I have really vivid memory of you doing some type of aerobics workout for a video and one of our broadcasting classes. You remember that? I do. I think we that was a class we had for Mr. Murray. Mr. Murray is I don't that was intro to broadcasting or where we actually did production and we all rotated almost like volleyball. We rotated all the different positions of being in front of the camera, back of the camera. And that particular rotation, I was in front of the camera and someone was advertising for some kind of step. And so I step aerobics, step aerobics. I just kept I was channeling maybe Jane Fonda's jazzercise or something like that inside me when I was in front of the camera. So I do remember that. That was those were strange days, weren't they? Yeah, that was that was when you you had a major impact on my life and you had a difference about you. Blair and I were involved with the Christian ministry called Campus Outreach. And we were we even I became a Christian through the Greek ministry, through the fraternity life, believe it or not. And so Blair had an impact and and helped me grow in my faith. I remember you talked me into coming back for your parents house. Yeah. And after dinner and talk to me, you should spend the summer training to become a Christian, a stronger Christian and in your walk and sharing the gospel. And and so I appreciate that man. And here we are, 20 something years later. And and yeah. Exciting times. If I remember that same class you were, you're behind the camera on one and you were the nelsa and you went off script and said that the following program has been brought to you by the letter. Why straight out of the Sesame Street playbook and Mr. Murray got so mad with you. Then he sent you over in the corner and you had to stand time out, man. You got time and you're in college. Or were you a sophomore junior? Did you have to put gum on your nose and turn the corner and put it down on? I remember that. I thought it was funny. It was hilarious. I thought it was it was corny. Comedy gold. Yeah. And Mr. Murray was more of the serious side. Yes. And more the melodica. Bellicose. What was that word he used you bellicose with this. He was serious. And so I got put in time out in college. Does that surprise you? But yeah. Thanks for bringing that up there. Yeah. Good times. And Georgia, Southern Blair also, as we fast forward to this point now, he he got you got me involved in and video production, having a vision to share the story on on screen. And you know, and I know you have a background in broadcasting and and working as a video producer. So it's really cool how we have, you know, walk that same path through the years. And now we have families and here we are recording an episode. Yeah. And to talk about current events. And so thanks for thanks for having us. I do want to jump in and talk about Blair. I know you have a good sense of the culture and the news and the stories that are played out today. And you have wisdom in what to watch, what not to watch. But I think you have a pulse on that. And that's why I wanted to call you on to the show. You know, as you look out and you see the news cycles today are packed with fabricated stories of identity politics, white supremacy, covid restrictions, rumors of corruption. It goes on and on. What kind of things have you noticed as we discuss this from a Christian point of view, and I get that with your background and all, but do you have some things that you've noticed or you like to to raise awareness with your your. Here is your your family. Yeah, probably the biggest thing that we were told about this earlier, just that for the longest time I laughed at people who were conspiracy theorist, you know, that were it was a book. I mean, I'm sorry there was a movie back in the 90s, I think, with Mel Gibson, where he was a conspiracy theorist and he had newspaper articles all over his his apartment. He had the entire inside of his apartment lined with aluminum foil to repel MP. No, that would have been empty, but it was more for something that happened later in the movie. But he was always told about the space shuttle was going out into that atmosphere and causing earthquakes. And every time the president then traveled, earthquake happened somewhere. And so that's kind of laughable. But I think over the last year, a lot of people's eyes have been opened, that there's a lot of truth to the conspiracies and that even calling someone a conspiracy theorist is a mechanism to silence that person's voice. Right. And so just with what we've seen and never before in our lifetime have we seen the First Amendment infringed upon by these big tech conglomerates. And so, like it or not, they've become a way of they become part of media, media's become part of them. And there's been this amalgamation of the two. And yet they come off as their private entities, but yet they're really more utilities. And so for them to be able to silence someone because they don't have their point of view, it draws the blood out of you because you're so at least I was thinking through this. This is so reminiscent of what we've seen in history, both you and our Genex, which means that we practiced when we were elementary kids. We practiced to get on your desk where if there was a nuclear attack. Right, it was not just tornado drills, but we had we had a nuclear attacks and so. And cover. That's right. So I would that said, we knew that that the you know, what the Soviet Union would do to their populace is they control the media. And so we're seeing that happen here is that our our media, our information is being controlled. And it's very scary. It's reminiscent of what we saw the other side happened. That's that's what's been very scary to me, is that voices have been silent. Like just recently, the senator from South Carolina, Tim Tim Scott, spoke and trending on Twitter for 11 or 12 hours afterwards was Uncle Tim. Yeah. Which I think I think was sad, disrespectful, very disrespectful. But I also support Twitter. Shouldn't had to take that down. People are saying it should be taken down, but that cuts both ways. If a lot of things like I believe there was a a great news cycle that was going on, I think it was what was going on in Ukraine as far as pay to play between the US government in the Ukraine and Hunter Biden. But yet that article was not really released or it was taken down repeatedly. And I think that's just the way you combat bad information is flooded with true information. But big tech now has said the way you combat what they perceive as bad information is to take it down. Now they're the arbiters of truth, and that's too much power focused on one person. And if there's one thing as Christians we know is that man is universally sinful. That's one thing that unifies us all, is that we're all fallen and we will tend to do what's in our own best interest. And so when you have power so concentrated in a few individuals, then their value system comes through and it's not balanced out with other value systems. And so you really do. And I know it's almost overused, but you have this Orwellian 1984 kind of thing happening with scrubbing what's going on so that the other side or other sides are not heard, just the side that they believe in. But that's very prideful and that's very that's an overreach of power. So that's a concern as a child of the Cold War that that that kind of overreach or, you know, autocracy is coming to America since it definitely sent some red flags. And as you mentioned. 1984 by George Orwell, and I've heard that so much in a lot of the readings and podcast lists the last few months and is really striking and how reminiscent it is to the stories that during the Cold War and in back in the World War One and World War Two era. The interesting thing is, is I'm remembering to as you read and read about history and and how, you know, it's dangerous if we don't learn history, how we tend to repeat it. I always say that as well. I was doing a podcast with my friend Alan I was telling you about earlier this week with the critical race theory. And I was reminded of the fact that as I was doing a deep dove and studying about critical race theory and just current events and all that, I noticed that I start to ask myself, what is the driving force of what I'm there's this book I'm reading called Image by Daniel Boorstin, and he mentions that how we play out these events called pseudo events, it's basically just creating a narrative just to, you know, push your agenda in a sense. But there's a fine line there, too, because if you push that agenda really far, it becomes propaganda in a sense during wartime. And what's scary is that even Hitler said that the purpose of pseudo events or propaganda, I'm paraphrasing here is not just, you know, trying to persuade a community or a small segment of people, but it's it's the math and influencing and manipulating the masses. And so I'm just thinking, are we seeing these things in today's society as these things play out, just, for instance, like wearing masks? You know, the science is out there that shows that if you wear the mask, you know, probably in a restaurant or school or even outside, it doesn't fit. It doesn't cause any danger of contracting, contracting, covid-19. But we still wear the mask. Right. And it's just like we're walking around like robots wearing these. When I was 10 years old, I was a little rebellious. I went to Lowe's yesterday twice and I didn't put on my mask. I felt really cool about that. No one yelled at me or anything. And so but the wimpy part of me still have a mask in my pockets. Oh yeah. I forgot to put it on, but I still, you know, I was rebellious. You got to back up. Yeah, I had a back up. We appreciate you listening. Get the word out and share the Chat Up America podcast with your friends about the symbols. Escucha Compartmental podcast. Chat Up America continues, amigos. I want to share a clip with you. Blairites want to tee up the movie. If you saw the movie Inglourious Basterds and you say bastards on your podcast. Yeah, with Brad Pitt, we say that you know Brad Pitt or Christopher Waltz. Christopher Waltz plays an incredible villain. Yeah, diabolical, diabolical. And the opening scene has Christopher and his little minions driving up in a car to Frenchman's nice countryside house, kind of like what we're at right now. Where and and so I have this fear that one day we'll have these, you know, state officials coming in and telling us what to do and or we we found out you weren't wearing your mask or you didn't get vaccinated and worry your papers. Yeah. And so am I crazy to think like that, but I want to play this clip real quick. Sure. Check it out. Now, if one were to determine what attributes the German people share with a beast, that would be the Cunningham, the predatory instinct of a hawk. But if one were to determine what attributes the Jews share with the beast, it would be that of the rats, the fuel and governances propaganda have said pretty much the same thing. But where our conclusions differ is I don't consider the comparison an insult. Consider for a moment the world of Ratliff's in the hostile world, indeed, if Iran were to scamper through your front door right now, would you be greeted with hostility? I suppose I would, as a rat, ever done anything to you to create this animosity you feel toward them? Widespread disease to bite people. That's where the cause of the bubonic plague, but that some time ago I proposed to you any disease a rat could spread a squirrel could equally carry. Would you agree? Right. And I assume you don't share the same animosity with squirrels that you do with rats. No, they're both rodents, are they not? And except for the tail, they even rather look alike, don't they? It's an interesting thought. I couldn't. However, interesting as the thought may be, it makes not one bit of difference. I feel if Arafat were to walk in here right now, as I'm talking, would you create it with a source of your delicious milk? Probably not. I didn't think so. You don't like them. You don't really know why you don't like them. All you know is you find them repulsive. Consequently, a German soldier conducts a search of a house suspected of hiding Jews. Where does the hawk look? He looks in the barn. He looks in the attic and looks in a cellar. He looks everywhere and he would hide. There's so many places it would never occur to a hawk to hide. However, the reason the fuel has brought me of my aunts and Austria placemen French cow country today is because it does occur to me because I'm aware of a tremendous feats human beings are capable of once they abandon dignity. May I smoke my pipe aswell? Please make yourself at home. Now. My job dictates. That I must have my men into your home. And conduct a thorough search before I can officially cross your family's name off my list. And if there are any irregularities to be found, rest assured they will be. That is, unless you have something to tell me that makes the conducting of a search unnecessary. I might add also that any information that makes a performance of my duties here will not be met with punishment. Actually, quite the contrary. It will be met with reward and that reward will be your family will cease to be harassed in any way by the German military during the rest of our occupation of your country. You know, sheltering enemies of the state, are you not? Yes, you're sheltering them underneath your floorboards, aren't you? Yes, you know, the thing about that clip, you said that that's a point where the Nazis come into his own house, his own land, and Paul is active interrogations to active theater him pull out the Sherlock Holmes pipe and basically saying, I got you and I'm going to divide you from your value system. You had a value system before this, which was to hold on to how the Jews from the Germans. But now I'm going to slip in between the Jews and you and I. We use motivation, which is your own self-preservation and divide you. And it's interesting. Makes me think of a quote here about Malcolm X. The media is the most powerful entity on Earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent. And that's power because they control the mind of the masses. And so the media comes into our home, not unlike that. The interrogator and big pipe with a big pipe. Yeah. And and throws out statistics. And whether they omit statistics or they add in statistics, who knows? That's the point is that they tend to divide us. I think I think a lot of these issues, a lot of these issues, especially the race issues that are going on in our culture today, it's much more nuanced than binary then. And that's that's kind of the I don't know if that's. What do you mean by that? Yeah. Bonnier, you know, we have either this or that. Right. And so throughout history, our cultures always try to force us into you, whether you're either for or against. Right. And most a lot of times it's more much more nuanced than that. And I think the media does a great job in separating the races. And I believe there's only one race. There's the human race. But separating the black man from the white man and from the Hispanic and from now the Asian there. And Otomi, again, you look at what is the what are the newspapers, what are the TV, what is the social media? Do this. And it's you could say it's click bait. You know, it's it's the drive of profit. You could say it's also value system. Their value system wants to be played out. And if, frankly, if you and I were in charge of of the social media companies, we would want to implement our value system. I get that understand in a sense we're doing a show, but like a pseudo event, which is the definition of what finace definition of Internet. It's an event arranged or brought about merely for the sake of publicity. It generates good or bad for her, especially one designed to appear spontaneous or unplanned. And so that even Brittanica dotcom run that we're back in the day. But I do I do have a dot com behind that. It's a PR tactic. Didn't used to sell Britannica's door to door. I did. Oh, I didn't. But thanks for asking. Yeah, but in a sense it could. You know, pseudo events mainly lack real news value, according to Brittanica Dotcom's definition. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm raising awareness. We're essentially creating some type of event here. I hope people take some value, pull some value from it. Right. But I think that's that's the danger we have today is why I'm bringing up pseudo events. Again, I think the on the other hand, what we talked about in our last episode on critical race theory is that so many different groups are have bought into the the CRT movement and they try to categorize people. And I think, thankfully, people who use their brains are seen through this and seen how dangerous it could be for for our environment that we live in, for our kids and our grandkids. Right. And so you just can't sit there and say if you're white, then you this is your this is your path of life. If you're black, if you're brown, we're going to put you in these stereotypes. And in fact, I mean, it's just you're doing the very thing that you're trying to fight against is racism. You're being racist, in my opinion. What I believe is very destructive. Right. Right. I mean, if you can it sells. It gets eyeballs. If you can create tension. Right. And you know how we're both in broadcasting. We know that if you write a script, it's got to have tension in it. Right. And arc in there. Right. Right. And so whether it's you know, it's the Jew versus Muslim or dog versus the, you know, the postal worker or, you know, you get a black versus white, whatever the tension is, man versus female. Right. And so there's got to be some kind of tension. And those are those are inbred, I think, from from the Garden of Eden until now, really from the. All in the garden, we've had this sense of tension, even even if God said to Eve, your desire will be for your husband. He will rule over you. You see the tension between Adam and Eve. You see the tension between man and woman versus the serpent. You see the tension between God and the serpent and tension entered in when sin entered in. And so that's that's within us. And so the newspapers, the media are going to sell that because it's almost like a tuning fork in our souls. Mm hmm. And so in its art, there's a lot of artificial tension they're selling, which is if you're black, you should subscribe to these values and systems. And if you're white, you should subscribe to this. And if you're white, you are this. If you're black, you are this. And I think it's it's it's not true. You know, it's not true that we have to that is the essence of racism. Right. We have to see the individual and some of the what we're going to be talking about is, is mass the pandemic and kind of stuff like that. But this this has been the bane of our existence over the last year, is these artificial narratives, these binary choices that are given to us. And it's much more nuanced than that. Right. So we're listening to Chat Up America Back Porch Edition with my friend Blasberg, who is a good college buddy, good friend, long time friend. And we're we're talking about pseudo events and current events and and the dangers of taking a an ideology and whether you discover it in the papers of the dark halls of a college university somewhere in the basement. And how if you take that philosophy and try to apply it with life, which a lot of that is unfortunately happening right before us, you get a bunch of you know, you throw up. Yeah, that's my barfy sound effect. I have to put a sound effect of that in post-production later. Jeff. Jeff. Yeah. You call it a Jeff or GIF. Well, see, there's another binary choice there. There it is right there. Keep in touch and send any questions or feedback to team chat up at Chat Up America, dot U.S. s.. Here in this podcast. Let's let's talk about the dangers blare of how pseudo events or what I like to say that how mainstream media is the vehicle that propels the progressive agenda. And now it's not just we're not just going to pick on the far left agenda. There's people on the right. There's people behind the scenes that are whoever's making the decisions, whether they mean to or not. There there's something affecting the way we think in America, the way we tend to be brainwashed. Or you go you think of the whole movie, the whole movie Matrix back in the nineties taken the red pill or the blue pill. And and so what happens to a society if we keep hearing the same lies, the same thing day after day? What are some of the dangers if Al do you think that we are we have to be aware of where. Right. I think you keep supporting a particular, you know, lie over and over and over is perceived as truth. And you don't have to look far into history to see that. And that's only that's propaganda. That's called propaganda. I guess what it's done by the government. But a lot of the media has been co-opted by the the government. And so that there there is these lies are being told. And, you know, just looking, we have a son, one of our sons is from Africa. And I wouldn't say we're a multiracial family. We're a multicultural family. I really believe a good friend of mine, pastor in Maryland, says there's only one race that's the human race. And again, even that called us different races is a way to divide us. That's kind of post hirable thinking. And we need to be really understand. We need to have a Garden of Eden thinking that we're we we all have a common ancestor. We're all part of one race. And so we're multi cultural family. But one thing I see is that that the media is using that Malcolm X quote about it. It's one of the most powerful entities on Earth, is that if you purport someone is like something else over and over and over, the people's feelings and attitudes start to change towards whatever said group of. And so, you know, it was the Nazis, even in that clip you showed regularly referred to the Jews as rats. And just the one of the latest genocides we had was in this world was in 1990, 1994, Rwanda. It was called the most efficient genocide ever because in 100 days, 800000 people were killed, mainly not by masses, you know, not by weapons of mass destruction. They were killed by hatchets and machetes in 100 days. I mean, that that just staggering the numbers of people that had to be killed every second, every day for that to happen. And but it began long before 1994. They a lot of the Rwanda government is between two tribes, the Hutu in the Tutsis that they were. And their tension goes long before 1994. And it was exacerbated by Germans and Belgium colonist. But. They really the Hutu, which ruled at that point, started referring to the Tutsis as Indians, which means cockroaches. Well. And so it originally started because, you know, that they were they were expatriates that were attacking at night. So that's typically when cockroaches are out there in the dark. But then it took on a new label that they're to dehumanize them. And you always have to dehumanize your your enemy in order to kill your enemy. Right. To eliminate them. And so that's what that's what we see Stalin did to the enemies of the state. We see that Hitler did to the Jews, the Poles, the, you know, gypsies, whoever bought Hoffa, you know, anybody who was quote unquote, enemy a state. And that's what a Rwanda government at the time did to the this tribe. And they were able to get common people to take up arms against their sometimes husbands would kill their own wives that were if there was Intertrade marriage. So if there was a Hutu man married to a Tutsi wife, he there was reports that he he would have killed her, which is just amazing, you know, lightless. Yeah, it is. It it is. It's not it it's not different from even our own civil war here in the United States. And so brother took up arms against brothers. And so it's a common theme that we take up arms against the others, but we have to dehumanize them first. And so the we need to be vigilant of that, that history repeats itself and that this is a human thing. It's a fallen human thing to dehumanize you before I'm going to eliminate you. And we're seeing that happen sometimes in our media. And let's just be aware of the labels we use are they're being used against the other your opponent or against being used against you? You know, for us, we're conservatives. But we were we were what we were called and what, two thousand sixteen we were called deplorable. Deplorable. Right. Right. And so there's the names. Go to both sides. But don't don't wherever you are on the political spectrum, be aware that those terms for some few are very intentional. They're to dehumanize you so that you can be defeated in one way or the other and may be eliminated. And that one of the biggest concerns for me is that we're in a culture now that we can't have debate. Even I came on this podcast with a little bit of reticence because what would be some of the the blowback now or in the future against my family or we are working. So but we have a culture that says, I don't want to listen to what you say. I don't want even dialog with you. And I only agree with you if you agree with me. And if you don't agree with me, I'm going to eliminate sort of. Yeah, yeah. And so that's not free speech. That's not good dialog for Republic Democratic Republic. Right. It's it's abide by what I say or else I'm going to silence you. Do you mind if I smoke my pipe smoke. Mr. Burke. Yes. Put in your your calabash. Both of us being a broadcasting know that the written word is very powerful. The visual word, the emotional word is is even more powerful because our culture is so driven by emotion these days. And so the visual can can change and you don't have to go far to look. We also know that we both are editors, right? We both have edited audio. We both have edited video hours on end. And so you can take a clip out and make it look like one thing. And it's you've got to see the context and not much different than in the scriptures. You can take scripture out of context. And so, in fact, was it second? Second, Timothy? Three. Sixteen, I'm sorry. Second Peter three sixteen. We're Peter's right. And he said there's some things in Paul's writings which are hard to understand, in which the ignorant and unstable twisted their own destruction as they do all the scriptures. And so if we can twist the scripture, we can definitely twist the video, we can twist the audio. And so in it's happened recently, right, where you see just a clip and it happens a lot with the police. Interaction with the culture is that you see something completely the film clips come out. But they've been they've they've had sections redacted. So it looks like one thing and it's quite another. And so but usually. You don't hear the redactions until months or years later, but the news cycle going on. Yeah, and so my grandfather used to say believe only half of what you read and see. And I remember in one of our media books that though it may have been one of my journalism books, there was a prime minister of England that came over. And this is this is probably last century or the beginning of the century. In the nineteen hundreds, he came off the boat to America and arrived in New York. And one of the reporters first question ask it was a newspaper reporter said, are you excited about all the New York nightlife that that's here? And he said, there's there's nightlife here. And the next day or that evening ran the headline Prime Minister's first question. He steps off the boat. There's about nightlife. And so it was taken totally out of context. You didn't hear you didn't see the question that was asked of him. He was asking a rhetorical question. He was asking a question of a question. But yet it sounded like he was all about the nightlife in New York and not about the task at hand. And so, again, no, there's nothing new under the sun, but we have to be aware that there's agendas out there by the media people. Even I remember when we were talk about use of words, words are very powerful. And so the use of anti something or pro something, again, going back to hearkening to our broadcasting days in college. The media ballet came about in the late 90s and confessed that during the debate, the huge debate of abortion during the 80s, that they characterized people who wanted to save kids and not their not be abortion, the land, they characterize them as anti-abortion and characterize those who did want abortion as pro-choice. And they said we did this intentionally and it's because anti has a negative connotation, almost rebellious terrorist kind of thing. And so you don't be confused. You'll see labels anti this or pro that anti vaccine. Atavist earlier just to talk about a story. That's right. So we even use ourselves and we realize that we're being co-opted, that we're being we're being used. And so we're anti transgender, you know, and it's like, be careful. There's there's agendas out there. Right. And be circumspect for the days or evil. So if the days are evil, that means the people in them are evil and they have agendas that may be counter to what Christ is doing in this world and what he is building of his kingdom. So we just need to be aware of those those labels that are going on so well. Thanks for sharing that. There is definitely a lack of accountability in today's media, mainstream media, our our history, our way back to the eighteen hundreds in the nineteen hundreds is not doesn't have a good path of history because of just the way they withheld information, whether it was The New York Times that withheld information from the Americans during the World War two from the Jews, mass execution, genocide, the Holocaust and the way they you know, they're the one of the founders of creating pseudo events and just creating narratives or stories. Just that doesn't have much value just just to raise awareness of their agenda. During the 90s, during the Rwanda genocide, it was more perceived as just tribal warfare, kind of infighting, more like a drive by shooting. And I think even Bill Clinton went back and said one of the biggest regrets of his presidency was that he didn't intervene in those days and stop, not intertribal rivalry. It was a genocide. It was a killing intentionally because you were a part of this group. And and even preceding that, they had to have papers to to show which tribe they're part of because sometimes it was indistinguishable, not unlike other autocratic regimes that require us to label. You see the reverse happening in South Africa when there was apartheid people, they did the pencil test, which says, if you're here, if you put a pencil in your hair and it can hold the pencil, then you had enough black in you that you were considered black or mixed, just terrible. Again, dividing people. If there's one thing we learned from the scriptures is that the outpouring of the spirit in acts was the undoing of the division that happened at the Tower of Babel. Right. It's a direct undoing and saying, no, we're all one race. And so, so many people came to Christ and heard the gospel preached in their language that it was undoing of the Tower of Babel, where there was the splitting of peoples and God about unifying. One day there will be all tongues and tribes and nations worshiping Jesus, we can't forget that, but constantly the enemy is about dividing tongues and tribes and nations. And and so going back to Malcolm X quote about the media is that it is very powerful and it wants to make the innocent look guilty and the guilty look innocent. Sometimes it does. Escutcheon Gold podcast that shot up America. Follow team chat up on Instagram and Twitter. You know, I was reading through the Book of Acts and it's staggering to see Blur the similarities of Peter and the apostle Peter and John were walking through the gates to the Temple of prayer. What on healed a crippled man. And the funny thing is this crop of maggots pulled in and all of a sudden they get arrested because everyone's amazed. And the chief priests and Sadducees don't know what to do because all the people are amazed by the gospel being priests in this miracle that they cannot deny. But they still warn the apostle in this poor cripple guy who just been healed. They get pulled along. Right. What's going on? And they they want to put them in jail. Right. But they warned them and sent them off because Peter said, look, I'm going to continue to preach the truth, preach the gospel of the Christ you crucified. So where is the parallel? And I'm not trying to reach in and try to prophesy and all that, but just to see the similarities today over, you can't. Yeah, what you're telling me might be true, but I don't want to listen to you. In fact, I'm going to suppress you. I'm going to cancel you. Right. How far how many more days and years if the Bible considers this to show it's truth and and the book of revelation and rumors of wars or tension and all that. At what point were people come to us and tell us we cannot preach the gospel? Maybe it's happened already, right? I get that. I don't think it's panic mode. You know, we got to go into our our bunkers and hunker down and, you know, wait for the the coming of Christ and all. But I'm just amazed at the similarities of how and can can act in their sinful ways. Sure. Well, even, John, on what it says, that middle of darkness, a man in his natural state does not perceive light. So another way to save is that innocent men and women are naturally sinful and they couldn't see truth if it him in the head or maybe put it this way. They only see truth of hits in the head. And that's what Jesus came, was to hit men and women in the head with truth, the truth that that we're separated from God and we need that, that God is saying no one can be in my presence to be sinful. But you know what? I'm going to there's someone needs to pay for your sins and I'm actually going to pay for it and give you my record about perfect record. And so he's about change going into the enemy camp and being one of us and bringing us out of the enemy camp. And so it's a since man has, as Dodd or God created man, that's that's what it's not something new. Right, that we are even look at pilot who said, what is truth? You know, he kind of scoffed at it. He wasn't asking to really find out what is truth. He was he was very cynical about that. Truth can ever be had. And I don't look at or he was maybe very sarcastic. So what today is is always been happening. It's just maybe happened a larger scale because we have more tools to to broadcast and to get to the masses. It's so really the wars, the rumors of war, that's cyclical. It's always happened. Right? If we were around when, you know, the Roman general or Caesar went into the temple and sacrificed a pig, we would think, oh, my gosh, this is the end of days. Or if we were around in 19, the 19, early 1940s, late 30s, and we saw that that Hitler had convinced a majority of the church leaders in Germany to put a copy of Mein Kampf beside the Bible or in the in the churches. We think this is the end of days. And now it's very simple. I mean, it's very easy and understandable for us to think this is the end of days. And so it's always been. Happening like this, the cycles of this, and it just may be getting more intense with every every new cycle until one day we will every knee will bow and every time we'll confess Jesus Lord. But in order for that to happen, there has to be a breakdown of trust in every other institution. And that is what we're seeing. We're seeing a degrading of belief in human institutions, whether it's politics, media, whatever it is, academia, academia. Yes. It's just what we're seeing is not intellectually honest. It's not being applied as hypocritical. And so people are losing trust in these institutions to the demise of the culture. But in one way, but then another, we're wers believers are to say, but there is one person you can trust in who will never let you down, who is never hypocritical, who's always sacrificial, who is leading the way in this. That is Jesus Christ. And so it really is a call for the church to be the church. Right. If you're waiting for good news, there it is, folks. If you're wondering what do you do in this situation where you have if you live in a sense of fear and discouragement and you're just in a funk spiritually, that that ultimately is the hope right there is in Christ and, you know, the gospel. And and that's what gives me hope when I look at all the discouraging things are things that were being made aware of, but it feels so big that we can't fix it. I want to go fix everything as a guy, but I realize, you know, it's just one step at a time. Walking with the Lord lead in my family, being a good witness to my neighbors and whatnot. I think I think there's the gospel is always about bad news and good news. You know, my wife and I are going through this Bible study called Sonship. There's a couple of things that are taglines for this Bible study, which is cheer up. You're much worse off than you ever thought. Cheer up. God is much more wonderful than you ever hope for. Cheer up. The way to life is through death. So come and die. And so those all are very, almost conflicting words there. But there is true it really is true that that there for us to understand good news, we have to understand the bad news. And right now, there's a lot of bad news in our culture. But the good news always is Jesus is about calling men and women to himself at all times. And I'm hearing of great revival that's happening. All these cities that are rioting, that there's some great revival going on. I forget his name, but there's a guy that's had several in Portland and some some other places that have been wracked by night after night of these riots that he's also had. Some are fiery, but mostly peaceful protests, you mean? That's right. These peaceful protests that are going on that happen to end up and fire and broken windows, those places where there's broken windows, there's also broken people right there. Maybe I say this maybe where there's broken windows, there's people who are most aware of the brokenness and are coming to Christ. And and so in crisis, about one day presenting his bride, which is all the Christians, the church, the body of Christ as without wrinkle and without spot. And so God has sanctified us through this as believers were being made more like him through real. We're having to lose hope in this world and gain hope in him. I think again, it's first Peter 113. He says, Fix your heart completely at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And so we're having to hope in his second coming because it all the things because at that point will be fully saved at that point, will be fully adopted as sons and daughters. At that point, we will see Jesus face to face and there will be no sin. And I think that's why he says he'll have to wipe he'll wipe every tear in heaven because we'll be weeping with joy and we'll have a life without the constraints that we have now. And there will be no laws anymore. There would just be light. And I think part of our limit as Christians is that. This is the closest the hell will ever be, right? I forget who said this is also the closest to heaven non Christians will ever be. And so I think it was Keith Green who also said if God created this world in six days and Jesus said two thousand years ago, I go to prepare a place for you, then we must be living in a trash can. And so we are living in the trash can. So what do we expect other than bad things happening here? But we need to cheer up because this is this is where this is the place that God incarnate it and we must incarnate our culture to. So I think the message to Christians is keep growing and Christ, keep being polite, keep loving your spouse and your kids, keep aware of the times, be circumspect, maybe be like the sons of a car and understand the times and move out as best we can in light of the scriptures. And let's not bring our experiences to the scriptures. Let the expert, the scripture, speak to our experiences and then have common decency that all the one another verses in the scripture to this love one another, a speak to one another. Let's pray for another confessor, since to one another with less employ those if on social media. So one another Christian post that we don't like or that you frustrate you or you go, how could they message them individually or call them individually and say let's get together and let's talk about it and here's what's going to happen. You'll be able to have a conversation with somebody and you may be changed and they may be changed. Or maybe you agree to disagree, but have that or they may unfriend you. I've had that more times. Not though, unfortunately, I've had some people that have said, you disgust me. You're a white evangelical and just broad brush paint of who I am and unfriend me, or I've had other people just not return my calls. But I've also other people I've had some incredible conversations with. And so I would encourage Christians. We can't we've got to one another. One another. Right. All that look, I have a Bible study and all the one of the verses, Matt and Matthew, 18, and all these verses that talk about let's not be passive aggressive, let's go to one another and be involved in each other's lives and and rub up against one of them. Was it the proverbs as one as iron sharpens iron, so shall one man sharpen another. Let's sharpen one another as believers and our dignity should be in Christ, not in our policy. And a figure. I fear that too many of us have put policy as our identity and our pseudo race as our identity or our sexual preference as our identity over that of Christ. When we come to Christ, it trumps all identities. And I don't mean to make a pun our identity in Christ as little Billy as little Christians should be above all else. So that means that we don't fight to the death on policy, but we will come and die for Christ. Right. And so she's sharing that because that's been my push back on conservatives and Christians, especially as they post things more fact checking or we joke about that. It's not a real fact check, but right now they post things to it, almost Devi's versus let's have a conversation, get this, grab a beer together. And so that's been my my push for this podcast. The theme is to find common ground and the challenge conservatives and Christians, if you're a you're a believer in Christ. And that was going to be my question to close out this time. But you want to get out me and put in jeopardy and answer your question for me. What is so and so? What is what is your take on the church and how they should move forward? Blair And you answer that. So I appreciate appreciate it, brother. I hope we get another episode here. If you invite me back, I'm going to invite myself back. I'd love to have another part two and continued on current events and and talk about these things. Any last word? Here's a teaser. I would love to. There's some men that I meet with two or pastors up and one's a Maryland one's in Virginia. Two of them are counselors, one in here in Charlotte, one in Asheville. And currently I'm a ditch digger. So the five of us get together once a year ever since Syria. What is digits here? What did you just digger and what? A ditch digger. A ditch digger. Yeah, one who digs ditches. It didn't sound like that sounds something like a French word or something. All the digger. Ditch digger. All right. Sorry. Yeah, sorry. My South Georgia accent. But we get together. Probably the last 20 something years have been going together once a year and for a long weekend we also over the last. Two years, I think we've been having we have phone calls once a month where all of us get together and speak for an hour or two and and then individually we'll get together. But we were all friends at U.A. Greensborough to the guys or black. Three of us are white. We will get together and talk about our families. Will we have kind of a hot seat with one another and spend two hours on a person where they just tell what's going on in their life and then there are no questions that are off the table. And so it's a safe place where we get together and talk. But then we also talk about a bit outside of our family, politics, finances, the church, the soul of people profess our own profession. And so I would love for the father has come here to your podcast in the future right now to do it. Yeah, I would love that. Yeah, I would definitely welcome that. And so because we speak speak about taboo things and things that are like, oh, you can't say that. It's like we just did and it is from a genuine heart. And I think it is really going to be a challenge to our culture to say, no, we this isn't taboo. We should be able to talk freely with our brother because again, going back to one of the one of my buddies, my friends, Burbidge, there is no there are no multiple races. There's only one race, the human race. Right. Well, I appreciate your time, Blair. And once again, thanks for joining us on this podcast. And you all have a great week. Thank you for listening to Chat Up America. Keep in touch and send any questions or feedback to team chat up at Chat Up America. Dot us.