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Aug. 19, 2022 - Dinesh D'Souza
49:17
COLLABORATION Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep396
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That's friendofdinesh.com. Coming up, I'm going to talk about the fact that we're still living with censorship, and now there is some documented proof of a collaboration between the Biden administration and the U.S. government.
And social media platforms.
Brian Stelter is out at CNN. That's good news.
I'll talk about where he might go next and whether the network is shifting course.
Activist and coach Felicia Killings is going to join me.
We're going to talk about black history and the future of the black community.
And I'll begin my discussion of the last, the 24th book of the Iliad.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Show.
The times are crazy and a time of confusion, division, and lies.
We need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
Distressing, though, it is to say censorship continues to be a normal feature of life in America and especially on social media.
Most recently, Debbie showed me this.
She spotted this Facebook and Instagram, Remove Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Nonprofit for Misinformation.
It's called the Children's Health Defense.
That's the name of the group.
And it's kind of a vaccine skeptic Now, there's a key distinction that's being made here between medical information, pure and simple.
Something like, what are the results of studies that show that vaccines work or work very well or work somewhat well?
They don't prevent transmission, but they do restrict the severity of a disease.
That's the medical side of it.
But then there's the policy side of it.
We're going to have vaccine mandates, or we're going to have a mandatory shutdown, or we're going to allow parlors to stay open, but not churches.
These are policy decisions.
And I think what Kennedy is saying is that Facebook doesn't distinguish.
If the government's against it, it's misinformation, and you're going to be shot down.
Now, I've had on this podcast Alex Berenson, by the way, a very well-respected journalist.
He's worked both for the New York Times and the Denver Post, and he's a COVID vaccine skeptic.
Now, Twitter banned him in August of 2021 and Alex sued.
Alex sued Twitter and one of the benefits of a lawsuit, lawsuits are expensive, all kinds of reasons not to do them, but Alex evidently has the means and so he sues and forces Twitter to release discovery of internal communications that are going on at Twitter about Alex and about why he should be banned.
And evidently the banning of Alex was not due to Twitter.
In fact, there were Twitter employees who thought that Alex had not violated any of their policies.
But the pressure to ban Alex came from the Biden administration.
And... Here's a Twitter employee, and Alex has the goods on all this and has been writing about it.
The Twitter employee is saying to another Twitter employee, they really wanted to know about Alex Berenson.
Who's they? It's the Biden administration, the Biden health establishment.
And they say, quote, he was the epicenter of disinfo that radiated outwards to the persuadable public.
So the Biden administration saw Alex as a threat.
And they're like, Alex is giving plausibility and credibility to critiques.
We can't have that.
And so this guy, this is a fellow, by the way, named Andrew Slavitt.
He's the senior advisor to President Biden's COVID response team.
He admitted that he's working in close concert with Ron Klain, Biden's chief of staff, Biden himself, and it was the government that pressured Twitter, that Twitter needs to do more to attack misinformation.
They need to do more to get rid of Alex.
Now, in July of 2021...
July of 2021.
This is just weeks before Alex was banned.
Joe Biden says that misinformation is, quote, killing people.
And it looks like that was the precipitating cause of Twitter banning Alex.
So Biden comes out and goes, this is killing people.
And Twitter suspends Berenson for the first time right after that.
So... So, Alex even has communications from Twitter.
Here's a Twitter employee, quote, I've taken a pretty close look at his account and I don't think any of it is violative.
So, Twitter was not going to do this by itself.
The key point here is that what we are seeing is a certain type of fascism, right?
What does Meta know about health?
Nothing. What does YouTube know about health?
What does Google know? Nothing.
So they are mouthpieces of the government.
But when we say mouthpieces of the government, we need to be a little careful.
They're not mouthpieces of any government.
If Trump wins re-election in 2024, Trump is now the government.
It doesn't mean Facebook and YouTube are going to be taking cues from the Trump administration.
No, they'll continue to take their cues from the left.
So it's only because this is a left-wing government.
But, the simple truth of it is, and this is where Alex is on strong ground, this is why they gave Alex Berenson back his account.
Twitter basically apologized and said they did the wrong thing.
Why? Because the direct collaboration of the federal government with a private sector institution To censor people violates the First Amendment.
You can take it to court and you can take it all the way to the Supreme Court.
And it's a little bit of a slam-down case.
The difficulty is improving the direct collaboration between the government and Twitter.
Alex Berenson, it seems, has come very close to doing that.
We need a lot more of this in order to bring this regime of social media censorship down so that we can all breathe and speak more freely again.
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I have a piece of good news.
Brian Stelter.
Yes, that Brian Stelter is out.
Fired. At CNN. CNN made the announcement, Stelter, his show Reliable Sources is going to be cancelled, the staff has been let go, and the final episode of the show is this Sunday.
And look, one doesn't normally take relish in somebody else's firing, but this guy Stelter is one of the Most mean-spirited guys.
Now, it's hard to call him mean-spirited because he's got this little bipsqueak of a boy.
But the point is, his content is unbelievably one-sided, partial, dogmatic, mean-spirited.
And he seems to have no awareness of this either.
So here you have a guy of...
Well, you'd have to say of gargantuan stupidity and Himalayan pomposity.
And although this is not rare at CNN, you've got lots of pompous people like Jake Tapper.
You've got unbelievably stupid people like Alison Camerata and Joy Reid.
But the combination of pomposity and stupidity, I think, is unique to Stelter.
He brings the two together.
So he's been like the house buffoon at CNN. And I admit that when I watch him, which is not that much, but he's kind of entertaining because you rarely meet people who have no self-consciousness at all.
So, in a way, I'm going to miss Stelter because, well, I mean, I have one less guy to laugh at and ridicule.
So, Stelter is going to be gone.
Where is he going to go is really an interesting question.
There's been some amusing commentary to that effect.
Since Stelter's been the reigning title holder of the dumbest guy at CNN, I think the title now passes to Alison Camerata.
And it's fierce competition, but it's Camerata by a nose.
I think we've said congratulations on order for Camerata.
And what's next for Brian Stelter?
Well, if Brian Stelter were Liz Cheney, then here's what would be next for him.
He would basically declare that losing is winning.
Being fired is actually a good thing, and now he wants to put his name in contention for the presidency of CNN. In other words...
When I say that, I'm saying it ironically because wouldn't that be unbelievably stupid?
A guy who just got let go is like, I think I'm going to be president of the network.
Well, that's Liz Cheney.
Liz Cheney is like, in my own party, I'm running in my own primary, in my own state, where I've got a family dynasty that's been going for 50 years.
I lost by like almost 40 points, 35 points.
So... Far be it from me to be demoralized or even take it as a loss, I'm now giving some serious thought to running for the presidency of the United States.
I mean, this is delusional.
Debbie and I were talking about this. Debbie's like, I don't think it's delusional.
That's not necessarily the right way to think about it.
Debbie and I are going to be on the podcast together Monday.
We might pick up this theme.
But back to CNN here for a minute.
Chris Licht, the president of CNN, is apparently trying to bring the CNN ship, you may say, back to the middle course.
Not so much to the ideological center, but more toward the idea of doing journalism.
And, you know, if you are a dogmatist like Stelter...
But remember, Stelter's not the only guy.
I mean, is Jake Tapper less dogmatic?
Is Joy Reid...
Can Joy Reid really be fair-minded?
It's nonsensical.
These are people who just don't even see the other side.
Now, I'm quite...
Consciously on the right.
But if you ask me in a podcast, spend the whole podcast and lay out the liberal philosophy from the liberal point of view as they see it, not just making derogatory attacks on it, but describing what they claim to be achieving.
With, let's say, for example, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I can do it. I have long passages of my book, The End of Racism, pages and pages that go on, summarizing and stating what the other side believes.
In fact, so much so that there are people who've read that book, they go, Dinesh, you're making the liberals' arguments for them.
Even if you watched my film, America, same thing.
There were people who walked out of that film because in the first few minutes, first 20 minutes, You have progressives laying out a progressive critique of America that the film then turns around and answers.
But my point is, you get none of this at CNN, and I'm saying they're incapable of it.
So Stelter is only the beginning.
Yeah, Tubin's gone.
Stelter's gone.
But really, everybody needs to be gone.
The right way for Chris Licht to move here is to give everyone a pink slip.
Fire them all.
Clean them out. Actually move them out of the building.
And then begin an interview process in which there's going to be kind of a rigorous interior.
I mean, CNN in a way has an amazing opportunity because with Fox News faltering and MSNBC kind of dug in, there's room for a network that genuinely entertained not just both but all sides, was devoted to open debate.
I mean, the promise of this, the possibilities for CNN are huge.
I'm sure Licht is not totally unaware of this.
But he's moving in such a plodding, you know, Durham-style, circumspect manner that at this rate, CNN should be completely fixed, kind of around the year 2100.
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Not sure if you're familiar with the writer Sam Harris.
I first encountered Sam Harris in the early 2000s.
Well, no, we should say around 2007, 2008.
Why? Because he was one of the trio of prominent new atheists.
The group included Christopher Hitchens, whom I knew well going back to the 1980s and 90s.
Richard Dawkins, whom I don't know, but whom I know of.
And I was familiar with Dawkins' work, now having read almost, well, most of it.
And Sam Harris was the third of this group.
At that time, a student of neuroscience.
Now he's completed his neuroscience degrees.
And he has kind of wandered into politics over the past decade or so and presents himself as this kind of progressive skeptic who is willing to take on some aspects of the left and woke culture, but at the same time firmly on the left.
And Sam Harris, I noticed, was trending yesterday on Twitter and people were talking about it.
And I see a little clip of Sam Harris.
And I'm not going to play the clip, but this is basically what Sam Harris says.
He goes, listen. In the 2020 election, the supreme goal was to get rid of Trump.
And he goes, I really don't care if Hunter Biden was a crook.
I really don't care if they suppressed the story and censored it.
I really don't care if all of it was true.
I really don't care if, in fact, if there were dead children lying all around the floor.
I'm using actually Sam Harris' words here.
He goes, it was worth it.
And the thrust of this argument, which by the way is not, I'm mentioning it in part because it's not Sam Harris alone who thinks this.
This is a widespread way of thinking on the left.
It's the, I call it by any means necessary way of thinking.
And it's still operative now, right?
Because even now, there are many on the left who want to get Trump one way or the other.
We'll get the Trump Organization on taxes.
We'll get him for storing classified documents.
We'll get him on Russia.
We'll get him on January 6th.
It is... It is a mentality that is willing to trample over fair play.
It's willing to trample over free speech.
It's clearly willing to trample over democracy.
And that was the point. The guy interviewing Sam Harris, who didn't seem all that political, but he was a little shocked at this idea that he was hearing from Sam Harris that he didn't believe in the democratic process.
It was perfectly okay.
Sam was basically saying, look, If the Democrats, if the Biden family is corrupt, if they're taking money left and right, we don't want people to know about it.
At least not until the election is over.
And second of all, free speech doesn't really matter.
Twitter was right to block the New York Post from reporting on this.
Maybe Sam doesn't believe the New York Post should even have done any reporting on it.
And Sam clearly wanted to say, you know what?
If we rigged the election, if we cheated, so what?
We got rid of Trump.
Now, he didn't say that explicitly, but that's the...
I mean, if you're willing to have dead children all over the floor, you're willing to put up with murder from the Biden crime family in order to get rid of Trump, why would you stop at election fraud?
Now, Sam's remarks were a little bit too much of the letting the progressive cat out of the bag.
And so the left began to get nervous.
And then Sam Harris, I noticed this morning, has a backpedaling statement where he basically goes, Well, I wasn't really saying that.
And, you know, when I saw this, I thought, Sam, you're such an intellectual coward.
Look, your old position, by any means necessary, had a certain kind of intellectual consistency.
Yeah, it's horrifying. It's repulsive.
You're probably a repulsive individual.
But nevertheless, it is thought out.
There's a kind of consistency to it.
It follows a certain logic.
The logic is we're trying to get rid of Hitler.
Trump is Hitler. And, of course, the premise is absurd.
But if that's your premise, then you're like, I'll do whatever I can.
And if I have to rig an election, I'll rig an election.
But then when you're called upon it, you pretend like that's not what you said.
That's not what you meant.
What you actually meant is something far more narrow, far more benign.
Well, yeah, we should report on Hunter Biden, but let's just wait.
We don't have to do it right now.
So... What you're dealing with Sam Harris is somebody who likes to present himself as a bold, willing to tell it like it is.
You know, I'm even going to give God the middle finger.
And so I predict that when Sam Harris dies and shows up before the Supreme Being and is there for his final judgment, what we're going to see is not a brave atheist, but a sniveling coward.
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Feel the difference. Guys, I'm really thrilled to welcome to the podcast, well, a new face, Felicia Killings.
She's an award-winning coach, best-selling author, CEO of the Felicia Killings Foundation.
She's also the CEO of something called the Conscious Conservative Movement, a kind of national outreach group that bridges the gap between black voters and conservative politics.
I've been following Felicia on social media, and I think that behind what she's saying is a very Interesting and important philosophy, and I wanted to bring her on the podcast to talk a little bit about it.
Felicia, it's great to meet you virtually through the studio.
Tell people a little bit about who you are and talk a little bit about how you developed the philosophy that you're putting forward in your motivational speaking, your writing, and your coaching.
Well, first, thank you so much for having me on your show.
It's such an honor to be here.
Blessings to you and your following.
I am Coach Felicia Killings, like you said, the founder of the Foundation as well as the Conscious Conservative Movement.
And to answer your question, my philosophy was developed really from my father's upbringing.
All we know is Black conservatism.
I've only known my father to vote Republican.
And back home, this was kind of an anomaly, which is pretty much typical of today's Black Republicans.
But he was very much so adamant about conservatism, using conservative politics as the best solution for solving our problems.
But he never taught me to disassociate from being Black.
We love and appreciate the culture, the history, We can see conservatism fully represented in all the things that we do.
And so for that reason, I've continued to bring that same message to my platform, The Conservative Bank.
Felicia, you're saying two important things that jump out just from what you just said.
Number one is that what you're saying is that although we generally speak about the colorblind philosophy, and I'm assuming that you don't have any problem with colorblindness as a matter of law, But what you're saying is that this idea that we should somehow forget who we are.
To put it in a slightly different context, Teddy Roosevelt once said about immigrants, there's no such thing as a hyphenated American.
And quite honestly, I don't have a problem with a hyphenated American.
I mean, I'm predominantly an American.
That's my citizenship.
But I'm also an Indian American in the sense that that's my heritage.
I'm not going to repudiate that or pretend like I need to somehow forget about that.
Isn't that exactly what you're saying in the context of the African American or just the American black community?
Exactly. What we're saying is you cannot tell us to ignore our culture, our history, and our lineage because we're just not going to do it.
We have a very rich culture and within that history you can find conservatism Oozing out of it.
So we're not going to disassociate ourselves from that.
But like you said, I understand the concept of being colorblind when it comes to the law.
Yes, the law should be applicable to everybody, regardless of race and gender, okay?
But that does not translate into what we are seeing on the conservative side, which, unfortunately, when we're talking about issues that are important to Black voters, too often, conservatives will say, we'll just be American.
Well, no, in our predominantly Black communities, we are experiencing some things that are pertinent to you know our communities and therefore we're going to have to present solutions in a message in a way that's going to minister to this particular group which may not be applicable to white Americans in a different area or Hispanics in a different area.
We have to be appreciative of what we have before us and just present conservatism in a way that's going to appeal to this particular demographic.
Debbie and I have a friend.
His name is Abdul.
He's originally from Senegal.
He's a great guy. And he's an up-and-coming guy.
He's not very political.
But we finally decided that we'd invite him to one of the Republican events, like the Reagan dinner that I was speaking at, in admittedly rural Texas.
And he came there.
He really enjoyed it. And he enjoyed, you know, he heard me speak for the first time.
But Debbie and I were talking afterward, and we said, you know, would Abdul, an immigrant from Senegal, ever join this local GOP? And we concluded he probably would not.
And so right there, there's a problem, because here's a guy who's potentially a great recruit for our side.
So talk a little bit about what the Republican Party sort of needs to do.
Are you saying it needs to create multiple tents inside the so-called big tent?
That's one strategy.
I think the most important thing it can do right now is begin investing into the already established organizations like the Conscious Conservative Movement out here in Atlanta, Georgia, and throw backing behind those of us who have these actual conversations with Black voters, such as in College Park.
I went there, I door knocked by myself with me and another time with my daughter, And I had some of the most engaging, wonderful conversations.
And it was unfortunate that when I told them the RNC was just a block away from their house, they had no clue.
That the Republican Party was present there.
So for me, I'm like, well, if the GOP is very serious about expanding and winning, why not make investments in organizations that are already doing the work?
They don't have to create anything because obviously what they created is not working, but they can work with the local activists like myself.
And in other areas like Chicago, we have a really great team out there They can use these resources to do the door knocking and the marketing.
And I'm telling you, black voters are willing to listen, especially in this political climate where there's such distrust and animosity with Democrats right now.
This is a prime opportunity to make that investment.
Let's take a pause. We'll be right back with Phylicia Killings.
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Guys, I'm back with Felicia Killings.
By the way, you can follow her at FeliciaKillings.org.
And also on Twitter at AtCoachFelicia.
F-E-L-E-C-I-A. And CEO of the Felicia Killings Foundation.
Felicia, you were saying at the end of the last segment that you've been having these kind of door-to-door conversations in Atlanta and also elsewhere.
With black voters.
Now, the Democratic Party, I mean, blacks are the, you may almost say, the foundation today of the Democratic Party, and it seems like a remarkable achievement, given that this is a party with a history of enslaving, segregating, and oppressing blacks, almost a miraculous achievement on the part of the Democrats, and And Democrats count, as you know, on the black vote.
So talk about, is there a genuine opportunity to make inroads for Republicans?
And what is the message that would really resonate and convince a black voter who has been habitually Democratic in their lifetime to go, eh, maybe I'll go the other way.
Yeah. Well, great question.
If we're talking about Black history, we have to also include what the Republicans did and did not do during a time period called Jim Crow.
So we see this in the very beginning with Republican history, 90 to 100% of those who are Black were going to vote Republican.
But there's something that took place between that period and the next 100 years.
We have Jim Crow. We see Republicans who have pushed out Black voters.
And not wanting to be associated with the Negro problem.
So that's something that Republicans have to own and accept.
What we saw in 2016, however, was this shift where former President Donald Trump He began to just make a little bit more inroads, and it's really because of the connection he originally had with hip-hop culture, with Black culture, being able to have that presence where he talks a lot about economics, which I argue is a political love language for Black men.
So these are the messages that need to come forth from the Republican Party.
They have to talk about economics.
They have to prove how conservative politics Protects what Black men and Black women are building.
And then when it comes to Black women, we're very much so concerned about the family structure, about our children going to really great schools.
That's what we have to start to preach.
And the best way to do that is to talk about homeschooling.
And right now, Black homeschool parents are on the rise.
So these are prime opportunities for conservatives, for the Republican Party to say, look, we are the ones who advocate for these conservative politics.
We're the ones that are doing it.
The Democrat Party wants to stifle it.
So let's consider this kind of partnership that we can make right now in order for this victory to happen on behalf of all of us.
Felicia, it would seem like one of the natural figures to do this in the black community would be the black pastor, the black preacher.
Because the black church has been such a powerful force in the history of the black community.
But it seems like the Democrats and the left have done a pretty good job of kind of corralling in the black clergy.
Maybe this happened in the 60s and 70s by sort of linking them into the civil rights movement so that they began to see a kind of benefit for them to be that way.
And so now it seems like it's up to outsiders like you to create this message and put it forward in a way that will resonate with blacks.
Talk a little bit about the clergy, but also talk about the fact that doesn't this message have to come...
I mean, it came from Trump to a degree, but doesn't it ultimately have to come from blacks?
Because blacks are going to trust someone who has gone through that experience, who says, hey, I lived it.
This works for me. It doesn't work for you.
Well, great questions.
To deal with the clergy, you were right.
When we're talking about the civil rights movement, we have this ushering of progressivism which began much earlier on.
It infiltrated our churches.
At first it was this huge antagonism towards it, but nevertheless it leaked in.
What happens is because our communities see our spiritual leaders as the ones who are going to give us the kind of guidance we need so we can move forward, There's that trust factor.
So you had individuals like Dr.
King Jr., who was a part of that as well.
That type of influence is still prevalent today, which is why you see so many Black pastors who are advocating for Democrat policy.
What I have done is I've just taken it to the people, and I've used Twitter to make that happen.
I just talk to the people themselves, and I say, this is actually what's taking place, and here's evidence to prove it.
So if there are more voices like myself who go to social media and have these conversations, that is where we're going to see the most change.
We're not really concerned about the gatekeepers, like the preachers, who are going to align with the Democrat Party because they have some kind of partnership.
Rather, we would much rather talk to the people, like the single mothers I minister to.
I share with them, like, this is why you're going through this current situation.
Let me show you a better way.
And that is working.
To answer your other question, yes, it can come from other Black voices like myself as far as this message.
But the thing about seeing it come from an individual like former President Donald Trump is that it's proving how much white conservatives on this side are willing to embrace a message that is going to be tailored to different ethnic groups, even though we are preaching the same principles.
So it It works much better when it's coming from white conservatives or when it's coming from black conservative voices who love the people, who aren't going to degrade the people.
It's going to be much more empowering because we're talking about building this alliance and now we can prove it on this more mainstream platform.
Let's take a pause. We'll come back with Felicia Killings for our final segment.
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I'm back with author and coach and CEO of the Felicia Killings Foundation, Felicia Killings.
Her website, F-E-L-E-C-I-A FeliciaKillings.org.
Felicia is, you know, we've been seeing shifts in the Hispanic community.
And I obviously would like to see one with Asian Americans.
Asian Americans are, it seems to me, natural allies of the Republican Party.
And yet, remarkably, Republicans get, what, 45-40% of the Asian vote when they should be getting 90%.
I think what you're saying is that...
That all these groups can be seen as, and I don't mean this term in a derogatory way at all, as tribes.
And by tribes we mean, we're not talking just about skin color, we're talking about people who have had to some degree a common history, a common experience, and a common identification that is important to them.
And so the Republican Party doesn't have to say, leave all that at the door.
Rather, we need a multiracial GOP that embraces many tribes.
Would that be an accurate summary of what you're saying?
I think that's a perfect explanation.
It's just an appreciation of people's different cultures.
And we would never say to an Italian group, you know, stop being Italian, you know, get rid of your history, get rid of your culture.
We would never do that.
But we can't come together and say, you know what, we don't like progressivism.
We see that these policies are choking all of us.
So let's figure out the best way for us to unite on conservative principles and the politics.
So, I agree.
I think that's a pretty good analysis.
You said earlier, Felicia, in an earlier segment that there are certain problems that are not unique to the black community, but they may fall specifically or disproportionately on black America.
We're all aware, for example, that family breakdown now is a national problem.
You have High levels of illegitimacy among whites, even higher among Hispanics.
So we're a long way from the Moynihan Report of the 1960s, which identified this as some sort of a black problem, if you will, in America.
You have entertained some, I think, bold, very old-school ideas.
Of which I will mention two.
One, the possibility of some form of arranged marriage.
And two, a council of elders.
Kind of like in the old African village where you have a problem.
Your husband's cheating on you or whatever.
You know what? You go to the elders and you say, this is the problem.
And both parties come in and talk about it.
I want you to go into this because...
At first glance, people will go, this is ridiculous.
Are we talking about Sierra Leone, 1830?
But oddly, sometimes old school ideas become very timely and applicable today.
So spell out what you mean.
How would these ideas play out here and now?
Well, I'm so glad you asked.
I've been playing with this idea of arranged marriages in Black communities.
And firstly, this is not something we even talk about at all.
The reason I brought it up is because right now we see that a lot of our children are born into single motherhood households.
And I'm a single mother now, I'm divorced, so I understand that sometimes things happen, tragedies happen in a marriage or in a relationship where there has to be a split.
But I'm arguing that if we can get to a place where we have more structure as it relates to our social empires, then we will see more success rates.
We'll see a happier, healthier Families because not only are we being partnered with or matched with are suitable, but we also have leaders within our communities who can help us if we're having troubles in the marriage.
That's what I call the Council of Elders.
These can be individuals who are part of the clergy.
They can be the parents as well.
They can be uncles and aunts.
But it's just taking a more structured approach as opposed to just leaving the social empires to chance and to luck.
I argue that we don't do that when it comes to business.
We don't do it when it comes to education.
We take this seriously.
We build a system around it.
But when it comes to relationships, we're just like, well, let's cross our fingers and hope this works.
But that's not how we see successful unions happening.
I mean, we can look at it even in the scriptures.
When Abraham wanted his son Isaac to have a wife, he said, you are not to pick any woman from this area.
I want you to go back home, find a woman who was Rebecca, and then bring her.
That is the kind of arranged marriage that can be implemented in our communities.
And this doesn't take away from a child or an adult child, however you want to frame it.
It doesn't take away from their choice.
It just allows this kind of structure and control in the sense that we're presenting our children with better folks, with more suitable folks, so that our children's children can be birthed into healthier family structures.
Felicia, I want to thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
You've clearly been thinking hard about some real problems, not just at the political level, but also at the personal level.
And I want to encourage you to develop these ideas and put them out there, because I think they need to be heard and they need to be discussed.
Guys, feliciakillings.org is the website.
She's also on Twitter, at Coach Felicia.
Felicia, F-E-L-E-C-I-A. Felicia Killings, thanks for joining me on the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
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We are now in book 24, the very last book of the Iliad.
By the way, the Iliad and the Odyssey have the same number of books, 24 books.
And if you read these works out loud, as they were done in the old days in the Bardic tradition, it's about an hour per book.
So it would take you 24 hours to hear the Iliad, 24 hours to hear the Odyssey.
And it might seem like, hey Dinesh, today or maybe today and tomorrow you can finish up the Iliad and then kind of wrap it up.
But this last book, Book 24, is very rich and very deep.
And I want to pay closer attention to some of the passages in the book as we close out our discussion of the Iliad.
And then I'll talk a little bit about why we read books like this.
What is their relevance to us today?
Are we reading them because we want to find out about people who are different, remote, strange?
Or are we reading it for the opposite reason?
Because their ideas are timely, applicable, relevant.
Which is it? Well, really, it's kind of both.
So we read for difference and we read for similarity.
And we can learn a lot both ways.
Now, where we left off, Achilles is dragging the body of Hector around Troy and then dragging Hector's body back to the Greek ships.
And the desecration of Hector is really what Achilles is all about, almost as if that is going to give him some solace, some satisfaction, some recompense for the death of Patroclus.
But the gods start becoming annoyed.
And what happens is Apollo, who has been on the Trojan side for the whole Iliad, but who did withdraw and allow Hector to be killed, stopped helping Hector once Zeus had the two scales and Hector's scale went down.
But now Apollo convenes a council of the gods.
And he launches a kind of diatribe against Achilles.
He goes, what he's getting at here is Hector has always been pious in offering sacrifices to the gods.
Of course he has.
But now you cannot bring yourself to save even his bare corpse for his wife to look upon, and his mother, and child, and Priam, and his people, who would burn him in fire and perform his funeral rites.
And then turning to Achilles, he goes, his twisted mind is set on what he wants.
Achilles has lost all pity, has no shame left.
And then Apollo, in a sense, appeals to the normalcy of the human condition, which is an important theme in the Iliad.
And here's Apollo."'A man may lose someone dearer than Achilles has, a brother from the same womb or a son.
But when he has wept and mourned, he lets go.
The fates have given men an enduring heart.'" Very important passage here.
Apollo is basically saying, listen, human beings are constituted in such a way that even when they face grievous loss, loss that seems unbearable, unendurable, and it is unbearable for a time.
But nevertheless, time is also a kind of solvent or healer.
And over time, human beings do push on.
Why? Well, kind of because they have to.
They don't really have an alternative.
And so what happens is sorrow is then converted, you may say, into memory.
And what Apollo is saying is that, yeah, Achilles lost a friend, but there are people who've lost people closer, and they move on.
They go on with life.
So this nonsense has got to stop.
That's really what Apollo is saying.
Now, Hera... The wife of Zeus comes to Achilles' defense and basically says, Achilles is a greater hero than Hector.
And Zeus stops her.
He intervenes and he goes, calm down Hera, don't be so indignant.
Their honor will not be the same.
In other words, Achilles is indeed greater than Hector as a warrior.
And he goes, So, in other words, in Ilion, which is in Troy, Hector was the favorite of the gods.
And then Zeus decrees two important things.
One... He decrees that the gods will intervene and protect Hector's body.
So that even though Achilles is dragging it, defiling it, threatening to give it to the dogs, that's not going to happen.
The gods are going to infuse the body with ambrosia and nectar, which is the food of the gods.
Keep Hector's body protected.
And number two, quote...
Achilles must agree to let Priam ransom Hector.
So Zeus decrees, and he's going to send a messenger god to talk to Priam and to talk to Achilles.
And the idea is, Achilles, enough is enough.
You need to give Hector's body back to his dad.
And so the gods are now in agreement.
And the messenger god, Hermes, is dispatched to now go and talk to Priam and ask Priam to do something that Priam is going to be a little reluctant to do and his wife, Hecabe, even more reluctant to allow Priam to do, which is to go into the enemy camp.
Think of it. Achilles has just killed Hector.
What's he going to do to an old man like Priam?
Priam would seem to be in extreme danger.
But nevertheless, what Priam is being asked to do is to go, present yourself to Achilles, appeal to Achilles in the name of his own father, Apelius, and ask for the body of Hector back.
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