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An October Surprise (in February)!
23 Plays4 years ago
In another episode recorded whilst M was drunk, Josh and M discuss recent news about the whole October Surprise theory...
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
You can also contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
You can learn more about M’s academic work at: http://mrxdentith.com
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
I
Josh's Coma and Recovery
00:00:02
Speaker
think he's waking up. Josh! Josh! Josh, can you hear me?
00:00:13
Speaker
What's happening? Oh, he's awake. He's finally awake, Josh. It's so good to see you conscious again. What happened? The last thing I remember... What is the last thing I remember? Oh, I forget. Okay, Josh. It's going to come as a bit of surprise, but you've been in a coma. You were doing your legendary impression of Alex Jones. Gay frogs. Buy my dietary supplements. That's the one.
00:00:41
Speaker
and the veins in your forehead, they were throbbing and well, you kind of passed out or at least we thought you passed out. You actually burst an aortic valve and had to be put into a medically induced coma.
00:00:56
Speaker
So how long was I out for? Oh, about eight months. Eight months? Well, maybe nine. It's October. Surprise! October? What about my job? My wife? Your civil union partner. My kids?
00:01:11
Speaker
Oh, don't worry about them. I've taken care of them. I've really taken care of them. That sounds a little sinister. Oh, it is. But more importantly, things have happened.
Surreal World Changes During Coma
00:01:26
Speaker
Scotland appeared independent
00:01:28
Speaker
Did you know they were secretly developing nuclear weapons? Anyway, Bristol doesn't exist anymore. President Trump got impeached twice and also got acquitted again. So he then dissolved the Senate and declared himself Darth Trump. That sounds bad. Actually, he worked out for the best. Darth Punk sued him for trademark violation, which they won in the EU. The discovery process, however, ruined Trump and he said to quit.
00:01:56
Speaker
Anyway, long story short, he took the US government down with him and the Queen of England as once again the monarch of the Americas. Which is good for the royal family, I guess, especially since London launched itself into geostationary orbit above Brussels, avoiding Micah Johnson and the thing that was once dominant Cummings.
00:02:16
Speaker
Okay, that's a lot to take in. Hey, if it's October, what happened in our election in September? Please tell me Simon Bridges isn't PM. Oh, no. Simon Bridges is not the PM of New Zealand. That's a relief. So is it three more years of Jacinda? Hmm, I'd rather not talk about that. Frankly, if I told you the full story of what happened, you'd probably go back into your coma. Is the result that bad?
00:02:42
Speaker
Well, let's just say they moved the nation's capital to Epsom. Ah. No, he's not going to be happy to find out who God is. Well, who God is now?
00:03:08
Speaker
The Podcastor's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Dentith. Hello and welcome to The Podcastor's Guide to the Conspiracy. I am Josh Addison. Sitting next to me is always Dr. M. R. X. Dentith. Who is especially drunk? I think you might be putting that on slightly, but not much.
00:03:33
Speaker
You've been at the sauce again, haven't you? I blame our good friend, Nick. He's been taking me out to the bars and the tasting platters and the getting drunk. Frankly, Nick, it's entirely your fault. No, I would believe that. Unfortunately, we did the opening sketch in only two takes, as opposed to last time's 14,000.
00:04:02
Speaker
So you're obviously fairly compass-mentous or whatever the expression is, but we won't let that stop us from having a dashed good time. Surprise! Yeah, we're talking about surprises. Surprises
Understanding October Surprises
00:04:16
Speaker
of the October variety. In February. Which is what is the most surprising time to have.
00:04:23
Speaker
your October surprise. Exactly. I mean, frankly, no one is going to suspect an October surprise in February. Oh, also April sun in Cuba. Hey, yes, that's that's the brand of of Rick Skelly and drunkenness we've come to expect.
00:04:42
Speaker
Also, that's a New Zealand song. It is a New Zealand song. That's for those of us back home. Also, for those of us not back home, the reference to the nation's capital being Epsom as a bad thing probably doesn't bear explaining. Oh, yeah. For those of you who don't live in the nation's... Or for those of you who don't live. That's true. For those of you who don't live, Epsom being the capital of the country,
00:05:10
Speaker
Not a worry those of you do live but those who live within our nation's boundaries That's a big worry indeed for those of you who don't live inside of our nation nation's boundaries You have no idea what epsom is no and thus you don't care and that is why you are bad bad people who deserve to be Killed is that right Joshua? I wouldn't quite go that far. I
00:05:38
Speaker
oh maybe just just just you know permanently injured or mildly inconvenienced josh thinks she's going to be permanently injured with say a broken leg or a lung that doesn't work i think you should die right well let's uh
00:05:55
Speaker
Take a break from wishing death upon our listeners. Do you think we'll get more patrons with my wishing death upon people who are listening to this podcast? I don't know, it could be, could be courting the masochist vote there, could be courting the secretly self-loathing vote. That's true. People out there who know that death is too good for them. I mean, there are people out there who are going, hmm, we should give money to this podcast if only they wished death upon us. Yep. We're saying what you're all thinking.
00:06:22
Speaker
Enough beating about the Bush. Let us beat about the Reagan. Instead, did you see I made a presidential pun there. Hilarious, hilarious October surprise. Oh, locks of mercy. But seriously, let's talk about Bush and Reagan and Nixon and stuff. Do we have to? Yes. That's the topic. OK. Let's talk about Bush, Reagan, Nixon, Carter. Bit of Clinton, bit of Trump, even maybe. McCain.
00:06:50
Speaker
You'll see. I'm spoiling things here. Let's just get into it. He's forcing me to do it. I don't want to do it. He's forcing me to do it!
00:07:03
Speaker
So Josh, it's February, surprise me. I'm going to surprise you by saying we're talking about October and not just any October, October 1980. Is it the April sun in October? No, also October 1972 and a few other October's in between. All right, talk to me first about October surprises because they are
00:07:27
Speaker
They're a bit of a bon-mot in American political discussion. They're almost a bit of a cliche now, yeah. So I mean, this isn't something we've talked about before. The October surprise, if you're not aware, American elections always take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
00:07:46
Speaker
if I recall, in November anyway, and which means that it's sort of become a bit of a thing that some surprising event will come up in October just in time to sort of grab all the headlines, shake up the voter base and maybe help sway the election one way or another.
Historical October Surprises
00:08:05
Speaker
So the phrase October surprise was first used in connection with the 1972 presidential election, which was McGovern versus Nixon.
00:08:13
Speaker
And so I'm sure we've mentioned this before, but in the lead- We have indeed. In the lead up to the 72 election, Henry Kissinger basically announced that peace in Vietnam was imminent, which is what the people had been- And for all time, which is my externally good Nixon impressionist. I thought he was- Peace in my time. Is that my Churchill impression? Peace in my time. It's also your DeForest Kelly impression, I think.
00:08:40
Speaker
God damn it. I'm a DeForest Kelly impersonator, not a Nixon impersonator, or a Churchill impersonator. Kirk. Could do a Christopher Lloyd and Back to the Future as well, I think, if you really. Marty, we're going to get back to the future. Yes, no. So basically Kissinger, right close to the election, came up with this announcement that hooray, peace is imminent, which was great for Nixon. Marty, we've got to check what your children are doing.
00:09:09
Speaker
And the government went Nixon's way. I actually forgot to write down who first used the phrase October Surprise, but it came in fairly- What's it called? It could have been Christopher. It could have been DeForest Kelly in an episode of Star Trek. God damn it, Kirk. This is an October Surprise. Not a... ...fringy insertion of a penis into my rectum.
00:09:36
Speaker
Pretty sure they didn't have Ferengi in the original series, this is a continuity nightmare. You're a continuity nightmare, so is your mother. That's true.
00:09:46
Speaker
So anyway, this sort of became the thing. I assume 1972 wasn't the first time there'd been a shocking thing to shake up the election just beforehand, but it was the first time... Can we make sense? Because if you had your elections at the same time every year, then it's going to turn out that if there's going to be the big shocking revelation, which is meant to make the public be on your side, what's going to happen then? An October surprise.
00:10:14
Speaker
But yeah, so at any rate, the 72nd was where the actual phrase October surprise popped up and then it kept popping up every major election after that. So in the lead up to the Clinton Bush election, there was a release of information about the Iran-Contra affair and how much Bush had known about that beforehand.
00:10:30
Speaker
In the lead-up to the Bush Jr. Al Gore election, there was revelations about George Bush's youthful drink-driving convictions. Didn't do anything to save the election, though, didn't it? Didn't do anything. He apparently got in front of it straight. The instant the thing came out, he immediately had a press conference and said, yep, no, it's true. I was a bad little boy.
00:10:53
Speaker
in those exact words I assume. And I once was with Tiny Blair and I killed some people but you know with Tony Blair it's all fine. His mother did kill someone didn't she? Yes. Killed someone with a car. It's actually quite disturbing. American politics is really really disturbing the more you look into it.
00:11:17
Speaker
Then moving towards the McCain Obama election, in October of that year, there was the announcement that Obama's half-aunt was an illegal immigrant, which was
00:11:29
Speaker
Perhaps a bit of a stretch didn't seem to do much there. And then, of course, we had in the most recent election, the start of October is when the whole Access Hollywood tape, painting Trump in a bad light, came out. Right near the end of October, there was, of course, the announcement from James Comey that said basically nothing more than, hey, remember Hillary Clinton and her emails? Didn't actually have anything of substance. What about Trump?
00:11:51
Speaker
Well, yes, that was the Axios Hollywood thing I was alluding to. Now, of course, as you can see already, sometimes the October surprise worked and sometimes it didn't. It worked well.
00:12:09
Speaker
I don't know how to, I've completely forgotten how to phrase this. Basically, sometimes it went and sometimes it didn't. Sometimes the elections went the way of the October surprise, sometimes it didn't. So it's kind of hard to say whether or not- Sometimes Republicans grab the Democrats by the pussy. That's true. And sometimes- Much molesting of house cats. No, see, I watched, I watched Knives Out the other day and I'm absolutely stuck with Daniel Craig, with his- With his Southern-ish accent.
00:12:38
Speaker
Yeah, I guess you could say it's a selfish accent. It's just supposed to be Dan or Greg being allowed to say whatever he likes with a long draw.
00:12:49
Speaker
but I quite enjoyed listening to it and also playing the piano. Bing! Anytime I don't like. Also can you light me up a cigar because I'm Daniel Craig and I'm allowed to do whatever I like. Because I'm James Bond. I'm James Bond and you're James Bond too.
00:13:16
Speaker
I haven't seen Logan Lucky, but apparently he has a lot of fun in that as well with an entirely different American accent. I'm sure he does, because that's the way that Daniel Craig is trying to divorce himself from the role of James Bond. A role which he is stuck with, but doesn't want to play. It really seems, why are we talking about Daniel Craig? Just because.
00:13:43
Speaker
Basically, because it's a surprise, baby. It's a surprise. Well, I'm fine with that. So those are numerous October surprises, but the particular October surprise that we really want to talk about today is the 1980 October surprise. 1980 was the year of the presidential election between Jimmy Carter and Walt Reagan. It's classic, classic October surprise. Classic Carter. Classic Carter. He had a peanut farm that he had to sell.
00:14:13
Speaker
Was that Jimmy Caro? I mean, that wasn't where I was going. But fine. You go with the peanut farm. That's you, do you? Yep.
00:14:22
Speaker
Right, so in the lead up to the 1980 presidential election, possibly the biggest deal at the time was the Iran hostage crisis. Now tell me, what was going on Iran at the time? Well, all sorts, but in particular, all the way back in November of 1979, the US Embassy in Tehran was seized, a bunch of people, a bunch of military and civilian
00:14:48
Speaker
Individuals were held hostage, basically. They moved to the ambassador's residence, 52 American diplomats and citizens, where they stayed for 444 days in the end. That's more than a year. That's a long time. So this is something that had been dragging out for a long, long time. If you've seen the movie Argo, Ben Affleck's thing about a
00:15:14
Speaker
Science fiction movie they were trying to make in Iran and failed from memory. Something like that, yes. That's what Argo was about. Did that win him like a best screenplay or something?
00:15:27
Speaker
What did you get us? You got screenplay for Good Will Hunting, didn't I? God damn, I actually think he even may have won best director for... A-ha, a-ha, a-ha, yo, which... Strange times we live in. Yeah, so the Bat Flak kills not even the Bat Flak anymore. Not even the Bat Flak anymore. Anymore. I reckon Robert Pattinson can do Batman.
00:15:47
Speaker
I actually think he can actually be really real because let's face it both the lead actors from the Twilight films have turned out to be really really good in the same respect that actually truth be told Daniel Redcliffe from Harry Potter it's also turned out to be really really good good good post Potter. The moral of the story is if you're a child actor who's been cast in a young adult or child film
00:16:16
Speaker
by Warner Brothers at any particular point in the past.
00:16:21
Speaker
You're going to do good. You're going to do really, really good. And you don't need the support of this podcast who's listened to by at most 800 people. So anyway, anyway, anyway, Argo Iran hostage crisis. That's what was going on. This was Jimmy Carter was the the incumbent president. And so for the last year, he'd been doing his darndest to get the American citizens back. And the fact that he had failed to do so was a bit of a black mark on his presidency.
00:16:49
Speaker
which was occurring at the same time of a presidential election. So October 1980, the presidential election is looming. Carter is being challenged by Republican Ronald Reagan.
00:17:05
Speaker
Now he was in the pictures, wasn't he? He was, he was a movie type actor. He was also a unionist back in the day, wasn't he? I have no idea, but those Hollywood types generally are. Oh no, he was a prominent unionist with the screen actors girls.
00:17:21
Speaker
probably sounds about right, but then I assume once he became a Republican, not so fond of the unions. Yeah, a little bit like about say Orson Welles, but I don't actually mean Orson Welles. I mean, the other guy who was in
00:17:38
Speaker
in the mouth of madness. Sam Neill. No, Charlton Heston. Right. Who used to be a quite explicit liberal and then turned out to be not so liberal after all. And he's dead, you know. He's dead, that's where, well, that's where that gets you. That's true. Being alive. I mean, there's a whole bunch of other people who were in the NRA who were dead as well, but I'm not going to say anything about them. No, no, that's just one conspiracy, one conspiracy at a time. Thank you.
00:18:08
Speaker
So, as it turned out, the hostages were not released before the election, which remained a bad look for Carter, Reagan won the election, and the hostages were released quite soon after, suspiciously soon after. To the point where people were... This is a little bit too suspicious, in that Carter was negotiating their release.
00:18:36
Speaker
and they were released before he was deposed and yet Reagan gets elected and the hostages are released
00:18:49
Speaker
Within hours, basically. Well, not within hours of the election result, but he was inaugurated on January the 20th, apparently January the 19th, a deal was signed, and so literally 20 minutes after his inauguration, he was on the year announcing the return of these hostages. So less than an hour, trust be told. Yes, yes, if we're talking about official... And which one of you went, that's a little bit weird, in that...
00:19:19
Speaker
Surely if the American administration is doing this much work, Carter would have got the... Critters? That word, Tom. Yes. And he didn't. And that's just a little bit weird. That's a little bit weird.
00:19:39
Speaker
So the official theory, of course, in this case, is that that's just how things came out. Yes, it worked out very nicely for Reagan, but that was just the way that particular cookie happened to crumble. It's an argument that when, actually, diplomacy works in a particular way. It's unfortunate that Reagan got the benefit of American diplomacy long term. At the same time, that was how the cookie was going to crumble that way anywhere.
00:20:08
Speaker
If Carter had won the election, he would have got the credit. So Reagan got the credit. But, you know, that's how these things work. But so the actual conspiracy theory, though, is that the hostages could have been released earlier, but the Reagan elements of the Reagan campaign worked with Iran to ensure that they would keep the hostages until after the election.
Reagan's Alleged Collusion with Iran
00:20:31
Speaker
So in effect it wasn't actually an October surprise, it was that they wanted to stop the possibility of an October surprise that would have benefited Carter. Now this was a position put forward by people like Christopher Hitchens and Linda
00:20:47
Speaker
Good old Lyndon LaRouche. Yes, I believe the last time we were talking about these October surprises was when we devoted an entire episode to Lyndon LaRouche because it was his people, the first people I believe to actually come up to actually sort of present this conspiracy theory were, where are we? I had it written down and now it's gone. Have you changed the notes when I wasn't looking?
00:21:07
Speaker
Nope, I have not changed. That's entirely your fault. You have no idea what's going on. So yeah, that wasn't the same. And then that's moved. There we go. Robert Dreyfus, December 2, 1980, issue of Executive Intelligence Review, which is a periodical published. Executive Intelligence Review, Linda LaRouche Special. Yep, published by the followers of Linda LaRouche. So they were the first ones to actually come up. There had been, there was another thing, another scandal coming around at the same time, which was debate gate.
00:21:37
Speaker
Which I'm not a fan of the whole sticking gate on the end. Now was it debate gate or was it debate gate gate? No, I'm afraid it was just debate gate. Which has the benefit of rhyming. They sit here being very disappointed. Debate gate was the fact that apparently
00:21:57
Speaker
During the presidential debates leading up to the election, it seemed that Reagan's team somehow managed to get President Carter's briefing papers before the debate so that they were able to sort of counter his points more effectively. These briefing papers were supposedly top secret and people outside of
00:22:16
Speaker
Carter's circle shouldn't have been able to get their hands on him, so there was an investigation into that, and so that was debate gate. Apparently, during those investigations, they turned up documents from Reagan's campaign team that basically showed they were very much aware that if these hostages were released before the election, that's going to be a very good look for Carter. We really hope that doesn't happen, but that was as far as it was. There was no evidence there that they'd actually done anything to physically try and make this happen.
00:22:46
Speaker
But then along came LaRouche and his fellows, who said, you know, that it's too much of a coincidence, some sort of a deal must have been done. They must have said to around, look, if our guy Reagan gets in, he's going to give you guys a good deal on something. So how about you hold off releasing those hostages, which will make it more likely that our mate Reagan will get in and then give you this good deal we're after. That was the suggestion.
00:23:11
Speaker
Now people didn't really pay a lot of attention. Did people pay a lot of attention to LaRouche and his folks? He was a bit fringe. LaRouche writes did, but what he actually did not. Although people like kitchen. So the thing was, it wasn't just LaRouche who put forward the notion that there was something suspicious about what went on here. People like beloved Christopher Hitchens also went,
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah, there's something a bit suspicious about what went on here. I think, Christopher Hitchens, then maybe the Reagan campaign did something untoward to get these particular results. Yeah, so there was a lot of supposition. It was a lot of raising of eyebrows and just looking at the timing of it all. Because the timing was quite convenient for the opposition. But
00:24:07
Speaker
But like we say, the public at large wasn't that interested. Until along came around Contra, which we've also talked about before. That was the whole selling of weapons to people they shouldn't have been selling weapons to and so on. Like the Contras.
00:24:23
Speaker
And once that came out into the open and was a big sort of conspiracy that had been laid bare in public, people started to pay a little bit more attention to other conspiracy theories that had been going around at the time. And people started looking into this October surprise conspiracy theory a bit more.
00:24:39
Speaker
So, throughout the early 90s, a bunch of various publications, journalistic publications investigated. And, you know, it was a theory that was batted around, it was entertained, but no one ever actually came up with any proof that the theory might have been true. Having a quick read through it, the whole LaRouche factor did seem to count against it in some cases. It was sort of like,
00:25:04
Speaker
It's the kind of thing that we talk about. It was, well, Lyndon LaRouche has been going on about this and he's one of those conspiracy theorists types. He's obviously mad. So we have to pay attention to anything he's got to say. But they weren't just journalistic investigations. They were governmental ones. There were two investigations that I could see, both of which
00:25:26
Speaker
didn't 100% say this conspiracy never happened, but they did very definitively say there is no evidence that this conspiracy theory is true. One of them, the House October Surprise Task Force.
00:25:37
Speaker
I assume had their own cartoon series in the 1980s and joined together to form a giant robot. I mean, I remember owning action figures from that figure. Of the House October Surprise Task Force, yeah. I mean, the William Barr figure came with a desk and a pen. And a robot lion, as I recall.
00:25:58
Speaker
It's a good thing actually because originally it was task force of the Committee on Foreign Affairs to investigate certain allegations concerning the holding of Americans as hostages by Iran in 1980. Wouldn't have made a good TV title. But the car they came with was astounding because they even had a little person who does the notes from the judge with the stenographic machine. Fantastic. Yes, so I think rebranding House October Surprise Task Force. Excellent marketing move. Excellent.
00:26:28
Speaker
Anyway, so this theory, it came up, it was battered around a bit, nobody really, you know, it was just one of those things that was always suspected, but nothing ever came of it. Now the reason why we're talking about it today, here and now, in 2020, which is not 1980, it's not 1980 at all.
Evidence of Reagan's October Surprise
00:26:43
Speaker
God damn it! I thought it was in 1980. It is quite literally 40 years since 1980. If I was wearing a lapel, I'd be striking it out right now. If I were wearing a monocle, it would have just popped out.
00:26:57
Speaker
If that's the 1880s, that's just inappropriate. You do not understand how time works. Well, only marginally, that's true.
00:27:07
Speaker
But no, just at the end of last year, there was an article in the New York Times which some people have sort of seized upon to say, hang on a second, that was an October surprise and hang on, what? So the article itself was based on documents donated to Yale University, I assume not the lock making company, that wouldn't make any sense at all.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, I have to assume it is Yale, the university. From the offices of David Rockefeller, of the Rockefellers. Which we'll get back to in just a moment. We'll get back to Rockefeller. This particular Rockefeller was foreman of Chase Manhattan Corporation, the bank.
00:27:44
Speaker
and also very very old but we'll get back to it again. So a whole bunch of his documents had been released basically. His Chief of Staff, Joseph Reed Jr, had made sure that these documents would stay sealed until Rockefeller's death but he died in 2017. These documents were released to end in 2019. The New York Times ran this article which is
00:28:05
Speaker
It was generally around US foreign affairs stuff around the 1980s and how Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan tried to steer events to their benefit. It was about the Shah in Iran and about the Reagan election and all sorts of stuff. But in the middle of it,
00:28:27
Speaker
They talk about how Rockefeller and Chase Manhattan Corporation collaborated with the Reagan campaign to quote pre-empt and discourage any sort of an October surprise that would benefit Jimmy Carter. Now, Carter, the campaign, they weren't working towards. That's entirely true, yes. They weren't always very much working with Reagan.
00:28:53
Speaker
So there was a particular segment in the article which reads thusly. The Chase team helped the Reagan campaign gather and spread rumours about possible payoffs to win the release, a propaganda effort that the Carter administration officials have said impeded talks to free the captives.
00:29:12
Speaker
I had given my all to thwarting any effort by the Carter officials to pull off the long-suspected October surprise Mr Reid wrote in a letter to his family after the election, apparently referring to the chase effort to track and discourage a hostage release deal." So that was just sort of one thing in a long list of various ways they tried to influence affairs in this region at this time. But people said, hang on a second.
00:29:37
Speaker
Originally, we had documentary proof around the whole debate gate thing that the Reagan campaign was aware of the possibility of an October surprise of this nature and obviously didn't want it to happen. Now we see the talk of them actually working to discourage it. Now, there were articles that then referred to this article saying, oh, ha ha, done, done, done, case closed.
00:30:04
Speaker
I have to say they oversold it a little bit, really. I mean, there is no suggestion that there is no proof of an actual deal being done with Iran. Certainly nothing about some of the suggestions that say that arms sales to Iran and stuff like that.
00:30:18
Speaker
There was none of that, but it showed that the Reagan campaign and the allies were proactively working to try and thwart this idea of an October surprise by some certain means. The best theory we have, given the available evidence, is the Reagan campaign being aware that the Carter campaign is going
00:30:44
Speaker
we don't want there to be any deal before the elections. Ray can come in going, we can preempt that in any way shape or form to show favoritism. Can it be really useful when and if we get into power?
00:31:01
Speaker
So it's not it's not quite the LaRouche theory. I mean, it's not it's not as it's not as strong as the original claims that the the Rogan campaign had dirty dealings specifically made a deal with Iran to delay the delay the release of the hostages. This sort of says well, they
00:31:19
Speaker
They certainly wanted to delay the release of the hostages, and they did what they could to try and get in the way of this. I mean, again, a Carter administration official said it did impede talks to free the captives, but to actually say that they
00:31:36
Speaker
sold out America to get Reagan the campaign, to get Reagan the presidency, might be a little bit strong still. Well yes, which is where it comes down to the big claim of conspiracy here, because if you believe people like, say, Christopher Hitchens, who is a big proponent of the October Surprise Theory, Lyndon LaRouche, who's also a big proponent of the Lyndon
00:32:01
Speaker
I'm about to say the Linden Surprise Theory. Linden Surprise Theory. That's the best kind of surprise. And Robert Perry, who is also a big proponent of the Linden LaRouche October Surprise Theory. The Variety Special. These people are all dead. Then you end up going, were they right? Were they actually right?
00:32:25
Speaker
Or were they right, but only in the most interesting of ways? I mean, it's a little bit one of those... What's the surprise? What are the exceptions to the justified true belief things, la someone? Well, I mean, luck plays a big role in the justified true belief calculus. But who's the guy? Gettier?
00:32:52
Speaker
Yep, that's the guy who did the big thing. I won't get into the philosophical technicalities right now, but the idea that... Let's say, Josh holds in his pocket a watch which may or may not resemble
00:33:10
Speaker
the timepiece you have in your pocket, let alone he also holds two coins in his pocket, which may or may not resemble the coin tasked by the person who's deciding who gets to live or die in the business that just belongs to.
00:33:25
Speaker
There's also a trolley at some point, I think, running people over. I can't remember. That's Judith Butler. Fine. The point is, there's a phenomenon in epistemology of the idea of people, they sort of believe something, they have a reason to believe something, it turns out that thing's true, and yet the connection is in some way a little bit spurious. So it seems like, I don't know if there's a real example of that or not, but this does seem to be a case where they
00:33:53
Speaker
They had reason to suspect this thing was true. Maybe it turns out they were partially, at least partially, maybe even mostly right. But they didn't actually have any evidence. They were basically just working off the fact that there was this suspicious timing. And was LaRouche a bit of a... Was he the sort of a commie lefty at the time who would have been naturally opposed to the Republicans? So the thing is, LaRouche is... He's kind of everywhere. Yeah, that's the impression I got. It's a little bit hard to work out.
00:34:23
Speaker
whose side is on, because LaRouche is on everybody's side and nobody's side. Yeah, so it seems to be a case of suspicions, possibly... Well, I don't want to say groundless suspicions. The timing really was quite odd, but suspicions without any real... So there's an interesting question here. So both LaRouche and...
00:34:47
Speaker
Hitchens are both suspicious of the standard story of the October surprise, and both of them point out that there is something untoward about the amount of information known by the Reagan campaign compared to the Carter campaign, which suggests that one of the campaigns, the Reagan campaign, is doing something untoward to make the other campaign look bad.
00:35:15
Speaker
Now the question is were they paranoid so were they simply going there's something wrong here I don't know what it is but it's paranoia or did they have actual evidence and the bigger question then becomes did they have access to a good amount of decent evidence
00:35:38
Speaker
or were they simply acting in a paranoid fashion because people they didn't like wearing control at the time. Because if you end up going, they heard something, but they misinterpreted it, then they misinterpreted the evidence and they kind of overstated what the evidence was. If they simply went, yeah, I simply don't believe X could do Y, then you might go, well,
00:36:09
Speaker
I mean, it's true. X couldn't do Y. The reasons for them that are pretty bad. So we'll disregard that. Yes, so there you go. The October surprise conspiracy theory. Possibly there was more to it than the official theory. Possibly there was less to it than the more prominent conspiracy theories. But it turns out that actually it seems that maybe the Reagan administration
00:36:35
Speaker
did slightly more to undermine the Carter administration than we have been led to believe. We originally thought, yes. Exactly. So there you go. Interesting bit of, interesting bit of electoral history for you there. So I don't know about you. I'm starting to sweat. I think it's time to stop recording and turn off some of these lights. But having done that, we can then go and record this week's bonus episode. See, I'm so drunk, I'm not sweating at all. Is that how it works? Yeah, basically. I didn't know that.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, the thing is, you've never been drunk, Josh, so you have absolutely no idea that once you get into a zone, you just don't care. You just don't sweat. Your body temperature regulation just gives up the ghost. Which is why people die of alcohol poisoning. I am dying of alcohol poisoning at the very moment in time.
00:37:26
Speaker
Yep, and you're doing it for them, the listeners to whom you are eternally grateful. Which is why you have to pay for my in-time insurance. Yep, there we go. And you can do that by becoming a patron.
00:37:38
Speaker
probably wouldn't actually cover all your insurance, but that's okay. So yes, if you want to become a patron, then do go to Patrion and search for the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy or go to conspiracism.podbean.com and sign up to Podbean's native campaign. Well, yes, eventually we all are, but we all watch the end of the good place. So it's okay now. Apparently.
00:38:05
Speaker
Do you feel better after watching the end of the good of the good play? I actually do. So do I actually. I really like the ending of that show. Yeah. Anyway. But I'm still going to die. It's all your fault. And speaking of endings, this is the end of this episode. It has been prepared for. Yes. Because we're going to push the button and stop it. And then that's what we do every week. Is it? Yeah. Do you want to do that now? Shaz butt. Yep.
00:38:36
Speaker
Goodbye!
00:38:45
Speaker
You've been listening to the podcaster's guide to the conspiracy, starring Josh Addison and Dr. M.R.Xdenter, which is written, researched, recorded and produced by Josh and Em. You can support the podcast by becoming a patron, via its Podbean or Patreon campaigns. And if you need to get in contact with either Josh or Em, you can email them at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com or check their Twitter accounts, Mikey fluids and Conspiracism.
00:39:47
Speaker
And remember, remember, oh, December was a night.