Let's start with the Trump defenders in the hearings they were some of the most interesting parts of the day we got a renewed sense of of the of the intellectual abilities of Devon newness and. We got a 1st look at the senator in shirtsleeves Jim Jordan he's the Republican hit man from Ohio brought in because of the intellectual abilities of Devon in this what did you think of Devon newness and Jim Jordan yesterday. Here's the deal John. If you ever get in real trouble and I'm talking about big trouble you know it's kind of soul your country out corrupted elections high crimes and misdemeanors kind of trouble yes just pray that you don't end up with Devin Nunes and Jim Joyce. Well they try I mean how do you know. They're different they have very different approaches Yeah I mean. Yeah as if you call throwing you know whatever you've got at the wall on this side of the room versus the wall on that side of the room but the fact is it was some very well I've got a friend in pretty good analyst of this stuff and he said he said yeah I kind of summed up. We got nothing. And I sort of like that that was about it the truth of the matter is that. Nunez came in and of course his appointment despite the fact that they brought you know Jordan right because too many people were wearing jackets on the committee. Bring Jordan who by the way I object your adoption of is never going to be a u.s. Senator so pardon me did I say senator I meant representative My apologies to all just clarifying the case and thank you for thinking there was literally people were tuning out of the show to make the nations to other countries. But but you know this is a point he's the guy he is the response to Adam Schiff he is the 1st questioner of the congressional crisis enters from the minority side I mean you know he's he's important I guess and and it's sort of it's down to. What he revealed in his questioning because and as well as in his opening statement and that is that he gets pretty much all of his information. By reading like the Twitter trolls that respond to Adam Schiff. I mean it's just like conspiracy theories delusional rants crude condemnations dismissive distinguished witnesses if it was shocking. But it's boiled it all down and you and you you know got rid of all the bluster and the absurdity that you end up with a. Guy Who says I'm not here to defend Donald Trump. I'm here to try and die this process in any way I can because I think this is the real translation of it I know that what's happening today is the beginning of something that's going to get a lot worse for Donald Trump Yeah and then Jordan came in right similarly you know every cause and the attacked are but the fact is if you notice the people he was attacking were sort of smiling everything. They weren't laughing at him but they were sort of like Ok that's where you want to go with this yeah we can talk about that. It was a. This was a quote unquote defense of Donald Trump It was effectively defenseless it didn't have it didn't have the tools that were needed why there is important John is because of what we really were seeing yesterday yesterday was not an explosive moment in this process yesterday it was really just opening arguments and. Laying the groundwork for what is likely to be an explosive moment and it's important to kind of listen to what the witnesses and the witnesses said that Donald Trump is accused of doing things that are not in the national interest but instead of his own personal political interest and doing those in an official capacity using the power of his office abusing the power of his office to advance his own self-interest that's classic impeachable offense so they they laid it down and the Republican response is Well yeah but you didn't hear Trump explicitly say I'm going to violate the Constitution you know I'm going to like contradict the contra to Constitution and commit high crimes in the stimulus trunk didn't officially say that to you so we don't have to take you seriously. But in fact fascinatingly enough Taylor with the information he brought in as regards investor someone suggesting that there really was a conversation between Trump and someone where Trump said. You know actually it was communicated that trump cared more about the Biden investigation than he did about u.s. Policy toward Ukraine he kind of sums the whole thing up that there was a witness to this I mean what happened there was apart from all the bluster everything else that was said you set up the Simon testimony for next week as essentially and then realizing that history is different things change but that in many senses the John Dean moment if someone says what I guess he's expected to say and what would extend from the testimony that it's been given and that will be given in the next day or so. He's going to be saying that the president noted States chose his personal political ambitions over. The good Aton tree and abused his office to advance those ambitions you know and in fact I would like to interject here it's hardly surprising that Trump was more interested in getting dirt on the Biden's than in American policy towards Ukraine and really care about Ukraine you know except as a player maybe in the Putin world but you know he really cares about himself I've heard and this is compulsory consistent with everything else we know about him so seems to me you know the Republicans had some really bad arguments. One of my what might be the worst Republican argument is that because Ukraine in the end that got the money for the anti-tank missiles with out their part of the quid pro quo they didn't open and announce they were on c.n.n. They were opening an investigation of the Bidens therefore no crime was committed and there's no case for impeachment they don't seem to understand the attempted bribery is is a crime. There is a better Republican argument but we don't hear very much of it which is that I think Nikki Haley said this not as a part of the hearings of course but over the weekend basically she said it's all true but it's not big enough to remove a president from office now you don't hear the Republicans saying what's really their best argument why do you think they don't know all that great it's not that great an argument that there's that too but it's sort of like it's sort of like I went to college version. First are you know you know it's not really that great you know it's still you know somebody learned to kind of game the language rather than than a real answer and here's the complexity for the Republicans they they. Have a president who wants to say he did nothing wrong right right who's giving them nothing to work with it was a perfect phone call but phone call was perfect he was even kind of mad at Haley for said parent leaders some of these are mad at people who are putting that argument that you just mentioned out. Because because he wants people to say no no it was perfect it was absolutely everything that was done was exactly right and that the problem with this is that I think that Trump and perhaps some of those Republicans are you're expecting more of the committee which is very sweet of you Jen but some of those Her publicans of the committee I think like Trump actually do believe that the you know the biggest issue of the 2010s was Hillary Clinton's e-mails and the biggest issue of the 2020 is will apparently be 100 by you know I mean they're they're they're living in their troll world and they're not be able to see beyond it they think that this I'm not I'm giving them a lot of credit I'm actually saying that they some of them genuinely believe this because it's been you know fed to them so often the the trouble with it is is that it's not real it's not realistic it's not something that we should take seriously and and one time that Lee in this context where you're dealing with adults right you know when you've got Adam Schiff and other people there and I'm not a big fan of ship but he's an adult right you're putting this stuff out it just doesn't it doesn't attach it doesn't make sense and it's not to say by the way. That. You couldn't have a good discussion about whether Hunter Biden did the laundry on that board it's totally legitimate to ask about I don't have problem with that it's just that doesn't have anything to do with this Yeah right yeah because if this was a big deal right and remembering of course that there's been a lot of investigation which suggests that it wasn't a big deal right and that the wrongdoing that's being accused wasn't there but you know if that's what you want to say Ok go there do that that's fine but don't don't foster the fantasy. That when the president out of state wants something to do just done to harm a political right that he can you use tax dollars allocated tax dollars and in fact use the the position of the United States in the world to make that happen because and this is where we get beyond Donald Trump and why I wish the Democrats you talk about the Republicans not doing a very good job this is one thing the Democrats need to do a better job is to say explicitly interested in shifted kind of hinted at it some in his opening statement so as other kind of there needs to be explicitly said if Donald Trump can do this right if he gets away with this then the future of the presidency has been completely altered because a president of the United States has the go ahead the him for my tour if you will to use his or her position to be sure that they get a 2nd term. And this is something very new in the zone of impeachment our previous impeachment have all been at a point where a president was not seeking reelection or was in his 2nd term here we have a president in his 1st term who's been revealed almost in real time to be using his position to secure a 2nd term if Congress can't intervene at that point and say stop this can't happen and if that you cannot continue in office because of what you have done and because of what you claim is perfect and great and seem to suggest you will continue to do. Then the whole project goes out the window because then the presidents are given the go ahead to perpetuate their presidency using us tax dollars the position their power their position the whole thing so what we're talking about here is a really really really big deal and frankly underbite just isn't the issue neither is anything else that these Republicans brought up Mansi Pelosi today said that the evidence yesterday showed the Trump could be charged with bribery that is offering Ukraine money for weapons in exchange for digging up dirt on the by the Bidens that's a term that we haven't heard used very much by the Democratic leadership until today what do you think about charging Trump with bribery I don't think that you should do it casually. I think that what is happening is some evidence is coming out that seems to get into that film our Democratic friends have gotten very excited by the word bribery and I'm ship is used to proceed now uses it why are they excited because it's actually in the Constitution. And our Democratic friends are frankly afraid of the term high crimes and misdemeanors they don't know how to define it and they are afraid that it gives too much turf so that they would love to impeach Donald Trump for bribery However bribery is an incredibly hard crime remember Peter not being a criminal procedure but a political one but still if we look at that it's a hard one to prove you have to have intent you have to have you know some kind of clarity there. I I happen to believe that the abuse of office which to my mind falls very clearly under the high crimes and misdemeanors I mean the definition of what the founders talked about when you're talking about high crimes and misdemeanors is really the heart of the thing the violations of the a monument clause making a 2nd article the obstruction making a 3rd article. I'd be careful about the bribery fight. And and again if you've got it nailed if you're if you've got every constitutional scholar you can find saying yep this meets the standard fits in fine go there but don't go there casually opening up new terminology going to new territory. Is something that that. I think speaks again to the the fear of impeachment on the part of many the Democrats they're always afraid of it I don't think they need to be afraid I think that the president committed high crimes taking a corrupt election process and misdemeanors you know literally you know this sort of gaming of the thing through the you know these bizarre phone calls and pressuring people stuck like that you know you've got your standard met don't don't get too freaked out on other terms let me my I hate to sound mild and responsible and even legal listed here but I do think that. This is a doable thing without without opening the bribery charge I'm not against the bribery charges at all I think it's great if you've got it but make sure you've got it because we're now talking about a situation where the present United States is facing serious charges of wrongdoing . How you define them how you advance your efforts to hold them to account really matters because we're on the cusp of an election John Nichols read a map the Nation dot com and you can listen to him the next left pod cast John always great to have you on the show thanks for talking with us today honor to be with you. And John Wiener live in l.a. On 90.7 k. P. F. K. With Trump watching the Trump watch podcast tune in to k p f k tomorrow for live coverage of the impeachment proceedings will be starting at 6 am on k p f k the 1st 45 minutes is scheduled for chef and newness of the whole thing will take until will be on the air with impeachment proceedings here until 1130 or noon and testimony will be heard from 8 witnesses over 3 days next week live on 90.7 k p f k next stop deporting people called undesirable 100 years ago and today that's in a minute on k.p. F k when Trump watch continues a l.a. This is Stephanie Miller join me for a news update snappy political satire and commentary and all the crazy start your day with the Stephanie Miller Show at 6 am on 90.7 k. P. F. K. And k. P.s.k. Dot or I tell Marvin here live here on k.p. F k 90.7 every morning weekdays at 9 am tune in Monday through Friday right here on k.p. F.-k. I'll be talking about the hottest is of the day and the stories the mainstream media would really rather not cover because they conflict with their business interests we'll cover that live here on Cape e.f.c.a. 90.7 every morning we gaze at 9 am Monday through Friday right here on k.p. F.-k. 90.7 f.m. Tag your it. It's the same old story this is Trump watch on John Wiener live in l.a. On k p s k streaming and k p f k that org and on line any time you want to trump watch Pod Cast dot com Later in the show in the show the true story of Jules Verne critic of British imperialism and man very much moved by the Sea Point mutiny in India. But 1st there's an unhappy anniversary coming up the 100th anniversary of the Palmer raids that was the round up and arrest of 10000 people followed by mass deportations of immigrants people the government deemed undesirable in 1000 $900.00 it's the sort of thing Trump would love to do if he could for that history we turn to and I'm hope she held He's an award winning writer and social justice his many books include bury the chains about the 1st movement to mobilize people against slavery succeeded at abolishing the slave trade in England in 1807 and I also love his book To End All Wars It's about the anti-war movements of the World War one era and I'm teaches journalism at Berkeley and he's also a contributor to The New Yorker and I'm hopeful to welcome back good to be with you again John well return with us now to Ellis Island in New York Harbor in December 1019 what happened there it was kind of an amazing scene because this country. Exactly 100 years ago was in the grip of a mania for deportation frenzy about deporting people. In this case it was also ethnic in that the people who were being deported were mainly Italians and Jews but it was also political. This was $919.00 was 2 years after the Bolsheviks taken over in Russia there was a tremendous red scare going on in the United States and the powers that be. Felt that. Not only was communism extremely dangerous and there was a risk that the you know the Russian revolution could spread to the United States but the people who seemed most in the thick of it and most propagating these doctrines were likely to be Jewish Similarly they were very worried about anarchism because anarchists had in fact planted some bombs blown up part of the house of the attorney general of the United States in the middle of 1900 and then a kiss were largely Italians so the deportation frenzy you know that today is focused mainly on people from Latin America at that time was focused largely against Italians and Jews. And especially those who the government considered communists or anarchists there was this remarkable scene at Ellis Island. That happened just before Christmas 1900. There were roughly 250 prisoners on the island this place that had been you know the gateway of hope for millions of in immigrants coming to the United States you know your ancestors and mine and millions of other people's ancestors was now an immigration prison where people were being held before they were to be deported and the chief orchestrator of this deportation was a 24 year old guy who was a relatively junior position at the Justice Department named j. Edgar Hoover who would go on to the position of enormous power as head of the f.b.i. And. He had been pushing for this along with many other people in the Justice Department and the administration they have these roughly 250 prisoners on the island and this this was the 1st batch of what they hoped would be thousands and thousands of radical immigrants who would be deported these mass expulsions of $119.00. You see had been preceded by an anti immigrant campaign how similar was that to what we have seen in the last couple of years I think there are there are quite a few similarities basically you know Freule the clock back a 100 years look at the United States then here was a country which. Previously since the beginning since colonial days had basically been run by an Anglo-Saxon a leet and then starting around 890 years ago. There started to be a large wave of immigrants coming to the u.s. From Eastern. In Europe from the Russian empire and from Italy especially southern Italy and the Anglo Saxons who had run the country up until that time you know from George Washington to Theodore Roosevelt to Woodrow Wilson were people who were very upset by this there were a lot of ideas about eugenics in the air that they seized on a feeling that the country's stock which was a word that used to like to use a lot was being corrupted and debased by all these Jews and Italians who were pouring in and of course you know the immigrants who were coming in were usually quite poor in coming here because they hoped they could make a better life for themselves. And I think there are some similarities to that today where you know those in power get. Menaced by the fact that the people who look slightly different from white Americans are coming here in large numbers from Latin America and you know Trump comes right out and says it you know well if the immigrants were coming from Norway that wouldn't be a problem well these were the same kinds of ideas that were were in the air back then and then it was connected to the fact that so many of the radicals who were active in the u.s. At that time socialist communist anarchists were in fact foreign enemy immigrants or plenty of native grown radicals as well but but many of the most active were foreign born and if they were foreign born and had never gotten fully naturalized as American citizens and that gave the government the opportunity to deport them the one big difference between that campaign and what Trump has been doing I learned from your article in The New Yorker is that in 1900 the proposals being made were not just. To send back immigrants who were deemed undesirable there was other people who were citizens who are considered undesirable by some people in the country and some people in the government the radicals the leftists the anarchists that you've mentioned Tell us about the argument about deporting them well you know the. People were in such a frenzy about the radicals and in such fear that the Russian Revolution might spread to the United States that they came up with ideas such as where could you deport people well you could deport them to Guam you know if somebody was any native born American you know there wasn't some place in Europe that you could send him or her back to but we had taken Guam from Spain in the Spanish-American War and that seemed a very distant place safely distant and there was a senator actually who talked about. Sending people to sending people to Guam. But there was also there were also calls as there have been today for doing away with birth right citizenship which has been something that we've long had in this country where somebody was born here automatically becomes an American citizen but this issue was raised in racial terms you know that maybe that should just be be restricted to white Americans they would have that right but Asians who they were also very worried about would not so these were some of the ideas 'd that were floating around in the air and the one dramatic expression of them was what happened at Ellis Island on that day paint the scene for us at Ellis Island in December 1900. So here we are. A couple of days before Christmas in the year 119 and Ellis Island has been turned into an. The Gratian prison. The 249 people there. Among whom the most notable are the anarchist and feminist firebrand Emma Goldman and her longtime collaborator and sometime lover Alexander Berkman. Emma Goldman had. Actually been naturalized as an American citizen by virtue of marrying somebody at one point many years earlier who was an American but then he lost his citizenship because he'd falsified something on his application so therefore her citizenship was legally declared nonexistent as well so that gave the government the opportunity to deport this wonderfully colorful troublemaker who'd been in this country for 34 years most of her life found to have political voice here found a huge audience here an audience that carried to other countries as well but here she was on Ellis Island. In the middle of the night with 248 other people and this deportation this mass deportation was considered so important by the government that j. Edgar Hoover led a delegation including the head of the Bureau of Investigation the predecessor of the f.b.i. And several members of Congress to Ellis Island in the middle of the night so that they could see these prisoners being loaded onto a barge pushed by a tugboat that was going to take them from Ellis Island to Brooklyn where the ship on which they were to be deported was docked and in the and Congress Hoover and the congressman rode came along for that ride that short ride. Would that Hoover had been deported as well it. Might have been different but unfortunately that didn't happen. And happily one of the congressman. Kept of quite detailed record of what happened and at about 4 o'clock in the morning Hoover and Emma Goldman and killed each other inside the the galley or kitchen of the tugboat and had a conversation. In which I think Emma Goldman got it a good jab at Hoover it went like this and I'm reading from this the record that the congressman made it he said to her Haven't I given you a square deal Miss Goldman and she said back to him Oh I suppose you've given me as clear a deal as you could we shouldn't expect from any person something beyond his capacity so here is this strange conversation happening between one of the most colorful and influential American radicals ever and the man who would go on to become the 20th century's most. Extreme red hunter in the United States happening in the kitchen of a tugboat in the middle of the night steaming across New York Harbor very strange So there were 10000 people were arrested in the Palmer raids more than 6000 deportation cases were prepared by j. Edgar Hoover's forces but only a few 100 people were ever deported Why was the number so low what happened well there was a remarkable and sadly very unknown hero involved here's what happened the the Palmer raids as they're known happened in. Several waves the 2 biggest of which were on November 7th 1900 this pointedly the 2nd anniversary of the peoples of exposure of power in Russia. And then again in early January of $120.00 and these raids not not had netted an estimated total of $10000.00 people the government was deliberately targeting radicals whom they believed not to be u.s. Citizens and who could therefore be deported and so they prepared deportation warrants and cases against the great majority of these folks but there was a curious legal wrinkle which was that although it was the Justice Department that had the power to mobilize its squads of agents to go out and arrest large numbers of people and often rough them up quite badly in the process. Immigration deportations fell under the authority of the immigration bureau which was part of the Department of Labor. At this time and we're now talking early 1920 the secretary of labor was on sick leave of the 2nd in command of the Labor Department who would normally take over in his absence resigned suddenly to run for Congress and that meant the 3rd ranking person in the Labor Department the assistant secretary of labor was now acting secretary of labor with the authority over deportations and this was a guy then 70 years old named Louis Post and he was a very good guy a long time progressive journalist who was one of many sort of progressive idealists who had joined the Wilson administration when Woodrow Wilson had 1st been elected. President in 112 and post was outraged at the prospect of these mass deportations he was somebody who was a staunch anti racist. From his early days he'd actually worked as a court reporter. And right after the Civil War during Reconstruction in South Carolina and had been appalled at the racism he'd seen there and at the way. President Ulysses s. Grant a pardon Ku Klux Klan members who'd been convicted of murdering black people and Palmer had known many of the prominent American radicals and progressives Emma Goldman and once had dinner at his home and he did everything he could to stop these deportations and he'd also before becoming a journalist he'd worked as a lawyer so he knew the ins and outs of the law and he invalidated the rest for its He reduced or eliminated bail and he basically stopped Janvier Hoover and his boss the attorney general. A Mitchell Palmer from deporting all but about 5 or 10 percent of the people that they'd hoped to deport they were furious at him and post became one of the 1st although by no means the last victim of an attempted smear campaign by j. Edgar Hoover. But Hoover failed Hoover tried to get him impeached by Congress that didn't work he mobilized the American Legion to try to get post fired that didn't work and the post remained in office. Until the end of the Wilson administration so let's connect this history with our current situation it sounds like once again there's some similarities here this man Lewis f. Post is someone who Trump would call part of the deep state is that right absolutely right absolutely right and just as today we've had some deep state people like those State Department diplomats speaking up quite boldly in the impeachment hearings at the time. Of post was somebody who was you know a previously unnoticed government bureaucrat but who took the law very seriously and didn't want to see it abused and didn't want to see these mass deportations happening for no other reason than a combination of political and racial prejudice and I think Louis eftpos can be an example to people today. When it comes time to testify before the impeachment inquiry and wherever that leads people in government like him should speak out and speak out loudly and I'm hoax field wrote a terrific piece about the world of the Palmer raids in The New Yorker thank you Adam great to have you on the show Ok Well thank you John. I'm John Wiener live in l.a. On 90.7 k p f k in this is Trump watch next stop Captain Nemo meets Captain Ahab that's in a minute on k p f k when Trump watch continues the ported by the square ball cultural center presenting Guatemala's that's going to Tivo will perform songs from his debut album and it's certain that my own identity and a call for social justice for Guatemala's majority on Sunday November 17th at the Skirball Cultural kind of information it fair ball that o r g. 7 old cars is taking up space in your driveway donated to Katie uptake we accept all vehicles right cars trucks and R.V.'s motorcycles and even fun here's how it works call us at 877 K.B.'s Keanu that's 877573528 or visit our Web site at k.p. F. K. Dot will tell your vehicle at no cost to you you'll get a donation receipt and help keep came alive and well it's that easy to meet your vehicle to K.B.'s case today the sun. It's the same old story this is Trump watch on John Wiener live in l.a. On k p f k streaming at k p f k that organ on line any time you want it it trump watch podcast dot com Coming up at 4 tonight on k p f k rising up with so not only now it's time to talk about the Great Eastern it's a fascinating new novel written by Howard Rodman he's past president of the Writers Guild of America West and professor at U.S.C.'s school. Of Cinematic Arts He's also an accomplished green writer I love this film Savage grey starring Julianne Moore and his film Joe Gould secret with Stanley Tucci Howard Rudman Welcome back thanks it's great to be here John while your protagonist in the Great Eastern has a truly wonderful name Kingdom Brudenell How did you come up with that I was going down one of those rabbit holes of research and came across the name is I'm barred Kingdom Brunello and I knew nothing more than the name I just thought that's the most glorious name in fact or fiction and it turns out in fact isn't Bard Kingdom Bruno was the preeminent civil engineer of the Victorian era he built a Great Western Railway he built Paddington station he built the Avon suspension bridge he built the 1st tunnel underneath a river ever he built the 1st viable ocean going steamships he built the ship of the Great Eastern from which the book takes its title which was at the time 6 times larger than any ship ever built a couple years ago the b.b.c. Ran a poll of who are the 100 most important Britons and isn't barge Kingdom Brunello came in 2nd after Winston Churchill So the more I found out about him the more I found I thought This guy belongs at the center of a narrative Well the plot in a nutshell is that Brune else ship the Great Eastern is given the task of laying the 1st transit plan to cable Why was that such a big deal Cyrus field the Telegraph magnate had a dream of a cable underneath the North Atlantic from Nova Scotia to Ireland from for a Hummer m 2 heart's content and made 34 attempts to lay the cable and all of them failed either because the weather wouldn't cooperate or because they laid the cable and it was. Severed either by rocks or perhaps even malevolent sea creatures who knows so in this book we follow history with the Great Eastern laying the final attempt at a transatlantic telegraphic cable and fictionally we assume that the attacks on the cable were not by jagged rocks or previously unknown to man sea creatures but rather Captain Nemo and his submarine Nautilus Let's talk about Captain Nemo I 1st met him Alas in the Disney film 20000 Leagues Under the sea it was 10 years old it was 1954 this was a Technicolor film a Cinema Scope film it was personally produced I learned from Wiki Pedia by Walt Disney starred Kirk Douglas and Captain email was played by a sinister James Mason the film was the most expensive in Hollywood to that date apparently it won 2 Academy Awards what I remember most is Kirk Douglas singing I've got a whale of a tale to tell it also involved a fight with a giant squid you're younger than I am but I'm sure you must have seen this film too I saw this film too and I remember Kirk Douglas singing you know I swear by my harpoon and I particularly remember James Mason saying how even a kid. But the more I read the real Do we want the more I found out that Captain NEEMO was not James Mason Captain emo was in Jules Verne and Indian prince Prince that car of boodle Khan who sided with his people against the British during the support rebellion of 857 in retaliation the British killed his family and with a broken revolution and a blackened heart he decided to have no more truck with humanity ever again. And to build a submarine and spend the rest of his life underneath the sea except every once in a while when he would encounter a British ship he would sink it the sea Poyet rebellion as it was called a revolt in India against the British an 857 just for those who never learned about this or were forgotten it was North India's 1st war of independence from the British India was the richest colony in the history of the world the c.p.i. Rebellion was a titanic of events in the history of anti-colonial movement Malcolm x. Wrote about it in his autobiography How did you discover that Jules Verne was also interested in the c.p.a. Rebellion Well the American translations of the Jules Verne book were based on the English translations and all of the politics were lighted and bowdlerized and rendered out by the English translations who didn't like Captain NEEMO saying awful things about the British So it really wasn't until I started reading the French versions and then there's now an onion a bridge on expurgated new American translation that I understood that Captain NEEMO wasn't just that kind of bearded James Mason but was actually a profound and he colonialist and somebody who was continuing to fight the battles of 857 in different times in different geographies so I'd like to ask you to read a little bit of figure 8 Eastern this section in chapter 4. Where we are in the Great Eastern is Captain NEEMO who need someone to perfect his submarine has just kidnapped ism Bard Kingdom Bruno the greatest living civil engineer of his time and then to explain the why of that we turn the clock back from 85928572 the time of the support mutiny. And what was the singular event the spark which the prairie fire did light occurred in Barrick pour the spark was struck by a supporter mangle Pandy whose name may be known to you mangle Pandy whose visage now graces postage stamps but who in March of 857 was a soldier in the Bengal Native Infantry a loyal supporter taking orders from the British East India Company until one morning when he awoke otherwise and with a vengeance in his heart mangled pennies revolt was less a demand for redress than something more in Co it and it might be ventured that not even Mangal Pandey himself fully understood his motivations Mangal Pandy did not want he needed and what he needed was a world utterly unlike the one in which he found himself that newer world could not be attained by dint of labor nor even by dint of dream to get there if to get there were even possible he would have to rend the fabric of the every day do it so dramatically and thoroughly that the real world might be glimpsed beyond the scrim he was nothing and needed to be everything but that was not the thought in his uppermost mind rather it expressed to him as an impulse one that could not be denied he awoke knowing with calm certainty that he was going to kill the next white man he encountered. Howard Rodman reading from his novel The Great Eastern so the trance Atlantic cable meanwhile seems to have been sabotaged and Captain Ahab is hired to investigate now I know that at the end of Moby Dick Captain Ahab dies and you write in the Great Eastern No one would be faulted for believing Captain Ahab to be dead but in the Great Eastern we learned today have survived the destruction of the p. Quad How did that happen well it starts with Jules Verne because Captain NEEMO does die at the end of $20000.00 Leagues Under the sea but when it's convenient for him to be alive again in its sequel mysterious island there he is and there he dies again and I just took the fictional liberty of assuming the 2nd death to be as provisional as the 1st and once I was going down the road of seeing deaths as provisional rather than final I decided well if we're bringing NEEMO back there's no reason we can't bring back I kept thinking of that slide that pops up in the middle of go towards 2 or 3 things that says human labor resurrects things from the dead and so the human labor of writing a novel I thought was sufficient to resurrect a habit as well as an emo as well as a number of other dead people who rise up here in fictional form. You've made us very sympathetic to Captain NEEMO Captain Ahab we know well he's been driven insane Moby Dick by his nemesis the white whale he's certainly not a sympathetic character is a terrifying obsessed insane man who in dangers in his entire crew so the obvious move in bringing him back would be to make him more sympathetic to bring us along with him the way the way you have done with Captain emo but that's not what you did when they had well you know terrifying obsessed bringing down everyone who sides with him I mean which is to say in a word American but there's a line in Moby Dick where at the end they have refers to the whale as the old destroying yet on conquering beast and that's how I see a have and that's how I see America in this book but I think it's a mistake to say that we cannot as readers empathize with this and have the real villain of the piece is Cyrus field the man who would ignore all national boundaries to make the entire world available to each other at the single instant to enable the flow of capital by wire rather than merely by ships and rails and to make of the world one world in a way that works best for those who own it and worse for those who don't and they have been this like is embarking on Brunello is kind of caught in the middle on the one hand he obsessively hates everything beneath the waves and if he is hired to combat whatever is attacking the cable he will on the other hand without giving away too much of the plot his allegiance is far more to his fellow sailors than it is to those who hire them and at the end of the day I think despite all of his blind vengeful Americanness he makes choices which put him in a different place. In Moby Dick they have a speaks make Nif ascent kind of King James Old Testament English Brian Evenson wrote in the l.a. Review of Books about the Great Eastern quote the Ahab sections of the Great Eastern read like chapters from a lost sequel to Moby Dick that have just been found brick behind a wall at Arrowhead airheads Millville house in the Berkshires where he wrote the book how did you do that well of all the voices his was the last to come to me I think I'd been reading enough Jules Verne from childhood to be able to kind of inhabit and ventral acquires that voice when I had to voice an Indian prince who had gone to Oxford somehow that too was a voice that was already in my head but where they had I was kind of stumped and I started with a kind of King James Biblical version but that felt a little stilted and it felt a little cut and paste and it really wasn't until I realized that the voices I should use for were much more American voices than the King James version and I was channeling a couple of people William s. Burroughs and before. You know on the street walking son of a nuclear Abe Iggy Pop and the William Burroughs of rancid them and the drunks if they on some time the trapdoor fall and there go Johnny. For John Della under in the hope that he is still alive and so I think between those 2 take no prisoners at a vis thick utterly old conquering all destroying American you op forces I found I am. If that's. So I understand the Great Eastern is on its way to becoming a movie course James Mason as we've said played Captain Nemo in 20000 Leagues Under the Sea Gregory Peck played Ahab in the 1956 Moby Dick screenplay by Ray Bradbury and John Hughes then Orson Welles cast himself as Captain Ahab on stage big shoes to fill. Well the good news is that I don't have to fill them and also if you think that someone who is adapting his own novel as a screenwriter has any say whatsoever in the casting of an eventual movie I want to give you the optimist of the Year award and sell you a bridge or 2. Seems to me this is going to be an expensive movie of God giant ships underwater shooting it how we how do you imagine this going well there's a kind of interesting paradox here which is when you're writing a novel to print the sentence Times Square New Year's Eve 1909 cost the exact same amount of money as to print the sentence badly furnished apartment in Bushwick Brooklyn but when you're making a movie those 2 sentences are not of equal financial import in writing the book I didn't give a tinker's damn about how much it would cost to read but in writing a screenplay because screenplays are not movies you know an unpublished novel is a novel a screenplay is not a film and in order to make it one somebody has to pour a lot of money into that container and shake it up really well to make it a film so I am being attended to questions of scale and location but I have been told by those who have hired me that due to the advances in c.g.i. And the ability to sort of conjure whole worlds from nothing digitally that I really shouldn't worry about that that that's their lookout not mine and I appreciated that and if need be you know better to raise the budget than to shoot a version of this that can be done in one room as a kind of historical footnote my dad who wrote in the days of live t.v. Was commissioned by Alcoa Goodyear playhouse to adapt Moby Dick top and he asked them if he could use stock footage and they said no. Oh and he asked them if they could use a whale model and they said no so he basically shot it you know in a set designed to look like the peak watt and at the end what there was going to be was water slowly bubbling up the screen rising rising as Ishmael's voice was heard in voice over to say and I only am left alone to tell the when it actually was broadcast on live television you did hear the voice of the actor saying and I only am left alive to tell the but you also saw a pitcher of water entering French pouring in exiting live t.v. No take to it went out that way. The book is The Great Eastern by Howard Rodman the great Ricky Jay called it a splendid and notable achievement Howard thanks for coming in today John thanks so much it's always a pleasure to be here. But that's it for today's Trump watch I want to thank my other guest John Nichols talking about day one of the impeachment hearings he's not so sure that bribery should be an article of impeachment we also spoke with Adam he talked about the Palmer raids and the deportations of 1919 of people immigrants considered undesirable any trace the parallels to today thanks to our engineer Gary thanks to our producer Rene Reynolds thanks as always to for our theme music Mambo sinew window state to next for rising up with so not only drop watch returns next week at the same time on the same station with more talk about what Trump is actually doing not just what he's tweeting I'm John Wiener Thanks for listening. And. Peace and blessings this is Michael but not exactly welcome to the sound of transformation where what we are about is waking up to the deep potential that's within every being on this planet so that we can become a strong and beneficial presence on the planet at this time in human history in other words we're not here just to become enlightened we're here to become in lightened to fulfill. All our dynamic purpose at this time in our Life Week after week we will have wonderful guests that are making a mighty difference on the planet individuals who have in body and activated the potential of their own soul and are going forward to inspire uplift and transform the planet according to their unique pattern and their unique gifts wake up to the sound of transformation wake up the sound of transformation with Michael Bernard back with Friday's 1 pm here on caveat. I'm as the chancellor co-host of Middle Eastern focus join Negra Abraham and me back at our original time Sundays at 1 pm for in-depth conversations journalists writers filmmakers activists and artists get a more complete understanding about what's really happening in the Middle East and the role our government plays in it a little light goes a long way on Middle Eastern focus back at 1 pm Sundays here on k.p. F.k. This is k p f k 90.7 f.m. Los Angeles. Firm keep e.f.t. Pacifica Radio in Los Angeles This is rising up with so not only on your host Sonali Kolhatkar we're online rising up with Sonali dot com In today's news headlines House committees conducting the impeachment inquiry against President dong Trump. Are scheduled to hear testimony on Friday from David Holmes a political counselor at the u.s. Embassy in here have Mr Holmes is apparently the person that the u.s. Is top diplomat to Ukraine William Taylor referenced during his public hearing on Wednesday as having heard a conversation that Gordon Sandland had on the phone with Trump the gist of that phone call according to Taylor's testimony confirmed that President Trump was enjoying u.s. Military aid to Ukraine on political investigations of his rival now a.p. Is reporting that 2nd u.s. Embassy staff are in Kiev overheard the same call that whole Holmes reportedly overheard that person is Syria j.n.t. a Foreign service officer based in Kiev Democrats also plan to see closed door testimony on Saturday from an official at the Office of Management and Budget named Mark Zandi to try to get to the bottom of whether u.s. Military aid to Ukraine was held up but public hearings will continue with the televised testimony on Friday a former u.s. Ambassador to Ukraine Mario Van which was expected to share how trumpet ministration officials improperly ousted her at the direction of Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani there will be a slew of public impeachment hearings next week on Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday mostly from officials that Congress members have privately questioned Meanwhile House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a press conference on Thursday and slammed Trump's conduct as far worse than Richard Nixon's what President Trump has done on the record in terms of acting to advantage his a foreign power to help him in his own Alexion and of the obstruction of the information about that the cover up. Makes what Nixon did look almost small. Pelosi also challenged Trump to bring forward any evidence that he might have to exonerate him even going as far as explaining a word but the president may not understand and if the president has something that it is exculpatory Mr President that means you have anything that shows your innocence then he should make that known and that's part of the inquiry and what Republicans forcefully defending President Trump during the impeachment process in the FISA.