1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,740 Greetings, this is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church 2 00:00:04,740 --> 00:00:09,580 with the Moment of Truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. 3 00:00:09,699 --> 00:00:16,140 And today, we want to challenge you to think through the issue of socialism and the upcoming election. 4 00:00:16,539 --> 00:00:24,620 We are glad to have back, then for round two, Bill from Wealth of Health Foods, 5 00:00:24,620 --> 00:00:28,620 where you're going to find some great organic and natural foods. 6 00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,719 Bill and his wife, Dasha, have been at this now for many, many years, 7 00:00:33,899 --> 00:00:39,740 and they have studied and become proficient in foods as medicine. 8 00:00:40,039 --> 00:00:45,659 My wife and I, Deborah, have come around to seeing our food as medicine in life 9 00:00:45,659 --> 00:00:47,719 and bringing us health and well-being. 10 00:00:47,719 --> 00:00:54,420 And there is indeed a wealth of health available to you in natural means. 11 00:00:54,619 --> 00:01:00,560 You don't need big pharma, you don't need big tech to keep you healthy and strong for eons. 12 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:06,239 Nature has been doing that through our foods and environment and water, clean water, clean food. 13 00:01:06,959 --> 00:01:14,980 And Wealth of Health is one of those places where you're going to find good stuff for your own well-being yourselves. 14 00:01:14,980 --> 00:01:22,120 And just full disclosure here, my wife and I, Debbie, have a farm in Teton Valley, 15 00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:26,560 and we produce a lot of goat products, goat milk products. 16 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:32,799 And Wealth of Health has seen fit to offer our goat's milk in their store. 17 00:01:32,799 --> 00:01:41,299 So among the many fine selections that you're going to find, as Bill and Dasha have studied this area for so long, 18 00:01:41,400 --> 00:01:49,000 you're going to find just a great panoply of supplements and foods that you can trust to build up your own health and strength. 19 00:01:49,079 --> 00:01:50,040 And our milk is part of that. 20 00:01:50,159 --> 00:01:54,219 Bill, welcome back to the radio program today. 21 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:55,959 Got a lot of response. 22 00:01:55,959 --> 00:01:57,859 Very good. 23 00:01:57,939 --> 00:01:58,659 I'm glad to be here. 24 00:01:58,719 --> 00:01:59,799 One or two people are listening. 25 00:02:02,099 --> 00:02:08,560 And how quickly the news cycle changes a week ago when we did this was right before Trump got positive. 26 00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:15,159 And then a day later when his personal doctor put out a press release statement that he's on, 27 00:02:15,419 --> 00:02:19,939 in addition to the prescription meds and a cocktail of stuff, that he's on D and zinc, 28 00:02:20,039 --> 00:02:21,300 the whole country went nuts. 29 00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:25,819 And so we've been obviously talking about zinc and D since April. 30 00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:28,099 And now everybody's jumping on the bandwagon. 31 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:28,460 Yeah. 32 00:02:28,680 --> 00:02:30,060 That's a whole other area. 33 00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:30,960 Yes. 34 00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:35,319 The COVID crisis, so-called, the manufactured crisis, 35 00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:41,219 and those mediative elements that will help you not only stay healthy, 36 00:02:41,300 --> 00:02:45,000 but if you do get sick, will help you overcome it at a much faster pace. 37 00:02:45,060 --> 00:02:48,199 And it doesn't have to be big pharma drugs that do that. 38 00:02:48,919 --> 00:02:53,419 As you say, I take a lot of C and D, myself and zinc, 39 00:02:53,419 --> 00:02:55,780 to help me stay healthy. 40 00:02:55,780 --> 00:03:02,340 The big pharma intervention probably plays into once a person is admitted with some serious symptoms, 41 00:03:02,560 --> 00:03:09,780 and they do need some of the pharma intervention, be it oxygen or this plasma cocktail with antibodies. 42 00:03:09,780 --> 00:03:18,659 But the zinc and C and D, on the preventative side, by far are keeping a vast majority out of the hospitals and emergency rooms. 43 00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:19,199 Yes. 44 00:03:19,740 --> 00:03:24,659 This plays right into, as far as I'm concerned, plays right into our topic from last week, 45 00:03:24,719 --> 00:03:30,099 and that is socialism, because big pharma is very much at the heart of socialized medicine as well. 46 00:03:30,240 --> 00:03:30,400 Right. 47 00:03:30,620 --> 00:03:31,780 Government-sponsored medicine. 48 00:03:31,780 --> 00:03:41,419 Bill, one of the listeners left a message on our church phone, and he wanted to ask you this, 49 00:03:41,740 --> 00:03:45,319 and this dovetails right into the medicine aspect of this, 50 00:03:45,460 --> 00:03:49,439 that Biden and the Democrats are offering everything free, quote-unquote, 51 00:03:49,599 --> 00:03:53,699 medicine, education, housing, even a guaranteed income. 52 00:03:53,979 --> 00:03:55,360 What is the two-part question? 53 00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:57,939 What is the cost of having everything free? 54 00:03:58,159 --> 00:04:01,879 And then secondly, what is the quality of these things offered free? 55 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:08,520 So, based on the history of my growing up in the Soviet Union, 56 00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:14,060 free education and free daycare and free kindergarten did exist, 57 00:04:14,580 --> 00:04:18,800 and the quality of education was actually quite good. 58 00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:23,560 Most of the kids coming out of the former Soviet republics, 59 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:26,120 assuming that they didn't sleep through their classes, 60 00:04:26,399 --> 00:04:29,639 were way, way ahead of the U.S. kids, 61 00:04:29,779 --> 00:04:34,120 so you can come in into the U.S. if you had to finish high school, let's say, or college. 62 00:04:34,279 --> 00:04:37,079 And I remember vividly coming into the United States 63 00:04:37,079 --> 00:04:40,779 and sleeping through the last two years of math and science. 64 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:42,459 English was a different story, of course, 65 00:04:42,540 --> 00:04:46,819 because I already had all that two or three years prior as a much younger kid, 66 00:04:46,819 --> 00:04:49,720 and even the first two years of college calculus, 67 00:04:50,220 --> 00:04:53,600 I already knew coming out of high school in the Soviet Union. 68 00:04:53,720 --> 00:04:55,939 So, education was good and it was free. 69 00:04:56,040 --> 00:04:59,199 However, the free part is, again, the taxation, 70 00:04:59,579 --> 00:05:04,740 and if people are willing to live with a 70% overall or 80% overall tax burden, 71 00:05:04,899 --> 00:05:10,639 which is just a redistribution of money from you bringing it home as part of your paycheck, 72 00:05:10,920 --> 00:05:13,819 or the government keeping it and then giving you a bunch of free stuff, 73 00:05:13,819 --> 00:05:17,139 then if you make that decision and you want to do that, that's fine. 74 00:05:17,459 --> 00:05:21,699 However, all those professors and teachers in the Soviet Union, again, 75 00:05:21,779 --> 00:05:24,800 were paid as much as somebody who swept streets. 76 00:05:24,939 --> 00:05:26,759 They did not have the machinery to do that 77 00:05:26,759 --> 00:05:30,379 because they had to occupy people with artificially created jobs. 78 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:34,699 So, you saw thousands and thousands of people with broomsticks walking around sweeping streets. 79 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:36,779 They didn't have machines doing it like we have here. 80 00:05:36,779 --> 00:05:41,259 So, if you're going to pay 80% taxes, you're going to get free education. 81 00:05:41,439 --> 00:05:45,399 And we're seeing that in Scandinavian countries right now with very high tax. 82 00:05:45,540 --> 00:05:49,019 As far as the quality, in the case of education, again, it was good, 83 00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:52,000 but the quality of other stuff was pretty poor. 84 00:05:52,120 --> 00:05:56,000 So, if you walked into a pharmacy, you obviously did not see any prescription meds 85 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:59,600 in line with what you're expecting to see in a pharmacy in the United States. 86 00:05:59,740 --> 00:06:01,160 It was heavily subsidized. 87 00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:07,060 So, what they called drugs were extract of valerian root for sleep aid, 88 00:06:07,240 --> 00:06:12,540 and valerian root is a base of valium, for example, or white willow is a base of aspirin. 89 00:06:12,660 --> 00:06:16,379 So, you could pick up a bottle of valerian back then for a dollar or two dollars, 90 00:06:16,459 --> 00:06:19,720 but you could not find a remdesivir drug. 91 00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:23,860 It would never be on the shelves of the Soviet pharmacy in those socialist days 92 00:06:23,860 --> 00:06:29,600 because they would never spend that much money paying to the pharmaceutical company to stock those items. 93 00:06:29,600 --> 00:06:32,779 And would that have been Western pharmaceutical companies? 94 00:06:32,800 --> 00:06:33,220 Correct. 95 00:06:33,439 --> 00:06:37,220 I mean, they did not have a very robust pharmaceutical industry. 96 00:06:37,480 --> 00:06:40,079 The research into the pharmaceutical industry was very poor. 97 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:42,220 They did not rely on vaccines much. 98 00:06:42,600 --> 00:06:44,339 Again, the value of life. 99 00:06:44,699 --> 00:06:46,459 So, you're tying all of that together. 100 00:06:46,660 --> 00:06:51,420 They really didn't care if a million people died during a localized pandemic or a flu outbreak. 101 00:06:51,699 --> 00:06:53,319 It was just part of the course. 102 00:06:53,319 --> 00:07:00,100 But now, of course, with everything integrated and companies putting plants all over the world to produce the same drugs, 103 00:07:00,180 --> 00:07:04,360 whether it's a U.S.-based or a Japanese-based, there's probably much higher access. 104 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:07,500 And it's not a socialism or communism anymore. 105 00:07:07,620 --> 00:07:09,399 That ended in the late 80s. 106 00:07:09,759 --> 00:07:12,319 Housing was also one of the great contrasts. 107 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:21,560 I know growing up, what is your sense of the comparison between housing and socialist countries and free economy? 108 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:27,079 Right. So, there was no private ownership of housing under socialism slash communism, 109 00:07:27,079 --> 00:07:31,220 with the exception of the higher-ups and people who were well-connected. 110 00:07:31,300 --> 00:07:36,819 All of those, and you've seen famous pictures of the dachas, the second homes of the Politburo people, 111 00:07:37,060 --> 00:07:42,819 or famous athletes, or famous musicians, or famous doctors, or famous politicians. 112 00:07:42,819 --> 00:07:46,779 Everybody else lived in the identical apartment buildings. 113 00:07:47,019 --> 00:07:51,459 There was a very popular comedy, a movie comedy, in the Soviet Union at the time, 114 00:07:51,540 --> 00:07:56,939 where a guy gets drunk and accidentally walks into a building that looks exactly like his building, 115 00:07:57,019 --> 00:08:00,800 and his outside of the apartment door looks exactly like his apartment door. 116 00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:05,319 And his key opens the door just like it would his apartment, except it's not his apartment. 117 00:08:05,480 --> 00:08:08,500 And it's a single gal, and it turns into a funny sort of a love story. 118 00:08:08,500 --> 00:08:12,860 But they all look like matchboxes. We've seen them. Very gray, very impersonal. 119 00:08:12,980 --> 00:08:16,439 Everybody lived in those apartments. Many times, you had communal apartments. 120 00:08:16,639 --> 00:08:19,139 Later in life, they became teeny private apartments. 121 00:08:19,259 --> 00:08:24,980 In the communals, I grew up in a communal apartment where we had six tenants sharing one bathroom and one kitchen. 122 00:08:25,199 --> 00:08:28,839 That kitchen had six stoves, six little refrigerators. 123 00:08:29,079 --> 00:08:32,159 Everybody cooked together at the same time in one long hallway, 124 00:08:32,399 --> 00:08:35,840 and then every family would go into their private door in that hallway. 125 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:39,179 So that existed under the communism-socialism, and then later on, 126 00:08:39,440 --> 00:08:47,519 little private apartments got built in these matchboxes buildings on the outskirts of the metropolitan areas. 127 00:08:47,799 --> 00:08:52,899 Yeah, Bill, yeah, that sounds like the characterization that I've heard, 128 00:08:53,100 --> 00:08:58,840 and the reality of that must have been quite stunning compared to when you came to this country. 129 00:08:59,059 --> 00:09:05,039 Yeah, when you see the mid-America, one-level homes sitting on half-acre building lots with beautiful grass, 130 00:09:05,039 --> 00:09:08,639 and then, obviously, bigger lots for people with horses and all that. 131 00:09:08,779 --> 00:09:10,720 We saw that in magazines. 132 00:09:10,919 --> 00:09:12,440 We saw it in Western programs. 133 00:09:12,899 --> 00:09:18,259 The United States government obviously put out a lot of propaganda in the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, 134 00:09:18,379 --> 00:09:20,580 and in a big, big magazine called America. 135 00:09:20,919 --> 00:09:25,179 It was kind of like a Time Life magazine, except it was twice the size, 136 00:09:25,320 --> 00:09:31,299 and that was purely propaganda for the Eastern Bloc of Europe to show them what America was like. 137 00:09:31,299 --> 00:09:32,500 So we saw the photos. 138 00:09:32,639 --> 00:09:39,600 We saw the cost of real estate, and, of course, not understanding the value of the dollar and the Russian ruble, 139 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:44,299 which was worthless when you saw a home selling for $60,000 in Kansas or Nebraska. 140 00:09:44,500 --> 00:09:46,200 You said, oh, my God, how can you afford that, 141 00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:51,120 not understanding that a wage at the time may have been $20,000 a year, and it was quite affordable. 142 00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:57,500 Well, that dovetails right with my next question from a caller whose nickname is Vlad. 143 00:09:58,039 --> 00:09:58,299 Okay. 144 00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:08,440 And he wants to know, how would you compare the media of the USSR with the mainstream media in America today? 145 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:12,840 And then the second part of his question is, how did you get real info? 146 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:14,440 And you kind of answered that a little bit. 147 00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:21,120 Right. So the real info came from Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, people who traveled overseas, 148 00:10:21,519 --> 00:10:25,559 and a very small percentage of the population had access to that. 149 00:10:25,659 --> 00:10:29,840 The vast majority of the population was in the dark, which is exactly what we have right now. 150 00:10:29,980 --> 00:10:36,019 You've got vast majority of the population not engaged, ignoramuses, watching CNN, MSNBC. 151 00:10:36,019 --> 00:10:43,419 And even though you can call this a free media, it is certainly driven, politically motivated, one-directional media, 152 00:10:43,519 --> 00:10:49,700 with occasional, so to speak, guests who may throw a little objection to the propaganda side. 153 00:10:50,320 --> 00:10:52,559 There, it was widely open. 154 00:10:52,700 --> 00:10:56,100 Here, it's slightly overt, but the end result is the same. 155 00:10:57,100 --> 00:11:01,500 I watched the debate last night, and what frustrated me is the moderator. 156 00:11:01,500 --> 00:11:06,559 So put her in the media, because she is from USA Today, this gal. 157 00:11:06,679 --> 00:11:08,980 She's writing a biography of Nancy Pelosi. 158 00:11:09,299 --> 00:11:10,799 So she's drooling all over Pelosi. 159 00:11:11,220 --> 00:11:12,840 You saw Chris Wallace two weeks ago. 160 00:11:13,419 --> 00:11:15,320 His dad is a left-wing liberal. 161 00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:16,759 He's a left-wing liberal. 162 00:11:16,919 --> 00:11:17,059 Mike Wallace. 163 00:11:17,059 --> 00:11:18,500 Mike Wallace, yeah, and Chris Wallace. 164 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:22,360 So when you start with a question that already puts you on the defensive, 165 00:11:22,740 --> 00:11:24,320 you killed 200,000 people. 166 00:11:24,379 --> 00:11:25,220 How do you defend that? 167 00:11:25,399 --> 00:11:25,759 Yeah. 168 00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:28,740 And she did not do that to Harris. 169 00:11:29,080 --> 00:11:29,279 No. 170 00:11:29,279 --> 00:11:35,340 I turned it off with, to begin with, I was so exasperated, with Pence, too. 171 00:11:35,539 --> 00:11:39,000 And he's much more gracious, I'm sure, than Trump. 172 00:11:39,000 --> 00:11:43,559 He was told not to attack a black woman, and I'm sure he had to keep it in the back of his mind. 173 00:11:43,940 --> 00:11:48,419 But when you start a question with, well, you did this, she never started a question saying, 174 00:11:48,700 --> 00:11:51,840 you created 5 million jobs before COVID. 175 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:53,419 Can you do this again? 176 00:11:53,539 --> 00:11:56,960 So that immediately predisposes you to, why even do this? 177 00:11:56,960 --> 00:12:03,039 Or to Harris, you put numberless black people behind bars with your policy. 178 00:12:03,059 --> 00:12:08,620 Or your voice, your soundbite, yeah, or your soundbite in your voice says, you are opposing fracking. 179 00:12:08,940 --> 00:12:09,200 Right. 180 00:12:09,639 --> 00:12:10,279 No, I'm not. 181 00:12:10,559 --> 00:12:12,340 But here it is, from six months ago. 182 00:12:12,500 --> 00:12:14,000 And she never challenged them. 183 00:12:14,539 --> 00:12:17,779 The moderator never came back and said, but that is out there. 184 00:12:17,860 --> 00:12:18,960 So it's really frustrating. 185 00:12:19,059 --> 00:12:20,740 So this is how the media was there. 186 00:12:20,799 --> 00:12:22,120 You obviously didn't have the choice. 187 00:12:22,220 --> 00:12:23,720 You only had two or three main channels. 188 00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:30,320 Most of the movies were propaganda-based, World War II, heroes, rah, rah, rah, a lot of sports, a lot of cartoons for the kids. 189 00:12:30,799 --> 00:12:37,360 But the main three news stations were all regurgitating the same party line political stuff. 190 00:12:37,460 --> 00:12:43,500 So you really, for an average day Soviet citizen, you did not have the information. 191 00:12:43,500 --> 00:12:55,019 This brings up a question, generates a question for me now, is how would you compare the election process in the old USSR with what is developing here in America? 192 00:12:55,019 --> 00:12:55,419 Right. 193 00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:56,000 Right. 194 00:12:56,120 --> 00:13:04,299 So as of four years ago, we hopefully saw that people could go vote and the votes really did not get manipulated. 195 00:13:04,779 --> 00:13:09,980 Where in the Soviet Union, you were told how to vote because there was generally one person running. 196 00:13:10,279 --> 00:13:12,059 There was no opposition during the communists. 197 00:13:12,159 --> 00:13:16,639 So whether it was Brezhnev or Andropov or any of those people, there was no opposition. 198 00:13:16,639 --> 00:13:21,200 So you went and just checked off the blind box because you knew the outcome of the election. 199 00:13:21,480 --> 00:13:30,399 Here, this year, because of all the mail-in votes, it will be a very interesting thing to see how much of it gets skewed and how much of it gets thrown in the garbage. 200 00:13:30,399 --> 00:13:39,019 And we're hearing every single day now where they're finding ballots and they're losing ballots and then ballots get canceled and somebody's ballot gets delivered to the wrong address. 201 00:13:39,179 --> 00:13:46,779 And the guy who orders a ballot for his wife who passed away three years in California and the state of California says the system worked. 202 00:13:46,879 --> 00:13:48,419 We caught the guy and we threw the book at him. 203 00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:51,220 It's a counter strategy that's been developed by Trump and his team. 204 00:13:51,580 --> 00:13:51,700 Right. 205 00:13:51,779 --> 00:13:53,879 The Democrats have their strategy, of course. 206 00:13:54,039 --> 00:13:54,200 Right. 207 00:13:54,279 --> 00:13:54,899 We'll mail in. 208 00:14:00,399 --> 00:14:02,440 They'll get less than 1%. 209 00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:05,299 But the two major parties will get close to 50% of the vote. 210 00:14:05,399 --> 00:14:09,580 So you can say that here at this moment, it is still an open election. 211 00:14:09,980 --> 00:14:10,299 Okay. 212 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:15,240 We have another caller who wants to ask. 213 00:14:15,240 --> 00:14:24,960 She asks, how many citizens would you say were aware of their circumstances under tyranny, maybe in comparison with the West? 214 00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:33,539 And how many were asleep, that is, just went on living their lives without any realization or understanding of their circumstances? 215 00:14:34,039 --> 00:14:41,779 Yeah, it's probably a very hard question to answer because nobody ever did any statistical studies on who would you vote for or what's your opinion of this. 216 00:14:41,919 --> 00:14:44,340 There was no such thing as questionnaires. 217 00:14:44,340 --> 00:14:56,639 I would say vast majority of people, whether they knew it or not, went along with their life because they were concerned about putting food on the table, getting up in the morning, not getting arrested for some bogus accusation. 218 00:14:56,639 --> 00:15:10,639 I would probably venture to guess maybe 20% to 25% of the people, again, who were more engaged, like my family, people who traveled overseas and saw with their own eyes, were aware that there is a better way of doing it, but they just could never speak out. 219 00:15:10,799 --> 00:15:14,639 And the few who spoke out generally did not do well in a society. 220 00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:15,299 Right. 221 00:15:16,580 --> 00:15:19,679 Solzhenitsyn, of course, wrote his book, The Gulag Archipelago. 222 00:15:19,860 --> 00:15:20,019 Yeah. 223 00:15:20,019 --> 00:15:26,179 Were people generally aware that that was a potential for their fate, like you say? 224 00:15:26,779 --> 00:15:30,799 It was, but the propaganda by the government was he was an enemy of the state. 225 00:15:30,860 --> 00:15:41,659 And when he immigrated to Vermont from the Soviet Union, people here in the U.S. who knew him from the Soviet Union days embraced him big time. 226 00:15:42,019 --> 00:15:45,100 And, of course, he became a hero, and he was a hero. 227 00:15:45,220 --> 00:15:46,039 People read him. 228 00:15:46,139 --> 00:15:47,059 They read Pasternak. 229 00:15:47,179 --> 00:15:49,200 They read the Dr. Zhivago story. 230 00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:55,279 I mean, here's a classic movie that became sort of a fighting song for many of the population. 231 00:15:55,659 --> 00:15:57,659 But, again, you had to be quiet watching it. 232 00:15:57,740 --> 00:15:59,200 You had to be quiet reading about it. 233 00:15:59,240 --> 00:16:05,220 You would never share it that you read Solzhenitsyn's book with someone you didn't know who was a reliable, trusted friend. 234 00:16:06,440 --> 00:16:13,580 You really had to watch for trusted agents and for the observers and stukaches, the people who watched you and reported you. 235 00:16:13,580 --> 00:16:19,659 Was there the kind of technology to monitor you as there is today? 236 00:16:19,659 --> 00:16:31,659 That is a big difference, I think, in the coming turn, is that the technology of monitoring who and what we are, what we say, what we do, is much greater, far more extensive than it was under the USSR. 237 00:16:31,659 --> 00:16:39,279 Yeah, clearly, there was no technology that we knew of, except for if KGB was tracking or monitoring a dissident. 238 00:16:39,279 --> 00:16:49,899 They probably implanted in lights and telephones, the old telephones, you remember the James Bond on twisting the receiver on the phone and finding a microphone or a little camera. 239 00:16:50,179 --> 00:16:54,419 All that existed, as a matter of fact, it existed in every hotel room where the Westerners stayed. 240 00:16:54,779 --> 00:17:02,539 It existed on every Aeroflot plane that flew JFK to Moscow where every flight attendant was a KGB recruited officer. 241 00:17:02,539 --> 00:17:11,039 They knew the moment you boarded on a plane who you were, talking about profiling, a classic case that's been going on for many, many years. 242 00:17:11,279 --> 00:17:14,279 And then the moment you checked into the hotel, they knew who you were. 243 00:17:14,339 --> 00:17:20,359 And the policy in the hotels at the time was when you left your room, you had to leave the key with a floor supervisor. 244 00:17:20,700 --> 00:17:23,200 Every floor had a watch person with a desk. 245 00:17:23,339 --> 00:17:29,099 You were not allowed to take the key with you when you went out from the hotel under pretense of cleaning the room. 246 00:17:29,099 --> 00:17:32,019 You could have also had a duplicate room, but they didn't do that. 247 00:17:32,019 --> 00:17:33,579 They didn't spend the money on duplicate keys. 248 00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:36,279 So every room was bugged. 249 00:17:36,420 --> 00:17:37,680 Every phone was bugged. 250 00:17:37,839 --> 00:17:41,619 Every place where a Westerner may show up was bugged. 251 00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:48,460 But the technology, obviously, in the apartment buildings was not there and just people putting the ear to the door or the wall. 252 00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:53,680 Now we're addicted to our cell phones and there's no need for all those exterior devices. 253 00:17:53,680 --> 00:17:58,400 And blink cameras that are in everybody's home and you can stick it into a little teddy bear. 254 00:17:58,700 --> 00:17:59,200 Facial recognition. 255 00:17:59,200 --> 00:18:02,579 Facial recognition and, yes, yes, cameras on traffic lights. 256 00:18:02,980 --> 00:18:03,460 Yeah. 257 00:18:03,539 --> 00:18:03,660 Yeah. 258 00:18:04,019 --> 00:18:05,259 A tyrant stream. 259 00:18:05,500 --> 00:18:05,640 Yeah. 260 00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:06,140 All of these things. 261 00:18:06,259 --> 00:18:06,339 Yeah. 262 00:18:06,819 --> 00:18:13,420 Bill, one of my congregants also wanted to know what religious life was like. 263 00:18:13,420 --> 00:18:23,039 I know that you were not raised as a religious man or you're a spiritual man, but not necessarily a religious man. 264 00:18:24,099 --> 00:18:30,900 But I'm sure you had a sense from neighbors, friends, relatives who were practicing their faith. 265 00:18:30,900 --> 00:18:38,019 Since the Russian Orthodox Church had been commandeered by the state, many churches turned into museums. 266 00:18:38,619 --> 00:18:47,119 What was the religious life of the average Russian like or that person behind the end curtain where religion was squelched? 267 00:18:47,119 --> 00:18:47,779 Right. 268 00:18:47,779 --> 00:18:53,920 So after 1917 at the revolution, basically religion went out the window. 269 00:18:54,200 --> 00:19:05,259 And being that I was 16 or 15 when we left the country and I turned 16 before we came to the United States, I really did not have any firsthand experience knowing people who were practicing. 270 00:19:05,259 --> 00:19:15,380 But my grandmother, being born and raised before the revolution, still practiced a little bit of Jewish faith, celebrating the biggest holidays. 271 00:19:15,559 --> 00:19:19,180 Never went to the synagogue because that basically did not exist. 272 00:19:19,180 --> 00:19:35,099 But I remember vividly as yesterday, riding on public transportation, pass a Orthodox Russian church and seeing three to maybe 10 old, old ladies with little silk scarves on their heads sitting in front or praying or standing. 273 00:19:35,339 --> 00:19:36,779 Never saw a young person. 274 00:19:36,980 --> 00:19:38,599 And the government left those people alone. 275 00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:39,920 There was no reason for them to go. 276 00:19:40,019 --> 00:19:41,000 They didn't cause any harm. 277 00:19:41,079 --> 00:19:42,619 They just went to the church and sat there. 278 00:19:42,859 --> 00:19:46,119 So the younger generation definitely was not involved in the open. 279 00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:48,339 If some of them were, I did not know any of them. 280 00:19:48,339 --> 00:19:50,519 None of my friends were any of them. 281 00:19:50,599 --> 00:20:01,539 And of course, when their parents were members of the Communist Party, then the religious became a 180 polar opposite to the indoctrination of the Communist Party. 282 00:20:01,539 --> 00:20:15,539 What do you think the lockdowns from the COVID-19 pandemic, what do you think that portends for our future and possible journey, 283 00:20:15,539 --> 00:20:18,839 possibly increased government oppression? 284 00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:20,539 So you're talking about the United States. 285 00:20:20,539 --> 00:20:21,700 Yes, the United States. 286 00:20:21,819 --> 00:20:22,279 Right, right. 287 00:20:22,400 --> 00:20:23,740 And not just the United States. 288 00:20:23,839 --> 00:20:26,220 I think most of the world basically went on lockdowns. 289 00:20:26,599 --> 00:20:31,339 So the fascinating thing to me was we've never had a lockdown in history of this country. 290 00:20:31,519 --> 00:20:38,440 Under any circumstances, 1918 flu pandemic, not the swine flu, not anything else, civil unrest. 291 00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:44,180 There's never been a lockdown, maybe martial law went into effect for the nighttime to protect property. 292 00:20:44,460 --> 00:20:50,779 But it just, it proved, we now have six months past this initiation of this whole COVID thing. 293 00:20:50,900 --> 00:20:52,359 It proved to do absolutely nothing. 294 00:20:52,359 --> 00:21:04,980 Except destroying the economy and putting out thousands of business and people on welfare, unemployment, suicide watches, prescription drugs for depression, kids who committed suicides and we don't know about them. 295 00:21:05,460 --> 00:21:10,900 People going completely haywire, losing their apartments, losing their homes, their businesses, their families. 296 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:12,599 Nobody is talking about it. 297 00:21:12,799 --> 00:21:16,680 And Trump already came out and said this will never happen again on his watch. 298 00:21:16,900 --> 00:21:20,099 But it will happen again on Biden's watch because Biden came out and said that. 299 00:21:20,339 --> 00:21:21,140 He would do it. 300 00:21:21,259 --> 00:21:21,559 Absolutely. 301 00:21:21,559 --> 00:21:24,900 So did they work from a practical standpoint? 302 00:21:25,059 --> 00:21:25,839 Did they save any lives? 303 00:21:25,940 --> 00:21:27,579 In my opinion, no, zero. 304 00:21:28,059 --> 00:21:32,220 Is that the path to tyranny and what the socialism and Bernie Sanders would like? 305 00:21:32,460 --> 00:21:32,900 Absolutely. 306 00:21:33,339 --> 00:21:34,380 Is it going to happen? 307 00:21:34,779 --> 00:21:36,400 Maybe in the states like Idaho, no. 308 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:43,319 In the states like New York, Michigan, Illinois, probably yes, because that's where people, that's where the demarcation line is. 309 00:21:43,700 --> 00:21:46,380 Yeah, California, Oregon, Washington. 310 00:21:46,680 --> 00:21:47,059 Yeah, absolutely. 311 00:21:47,059 --> 00:21:51,440 Yeah, I think that is almost a test run, if you will, a test case. 312 00:21:51,559 --> 00:22:01,539 That, like you say, it doesn't matter to those governors, at least, or to others of the tyrant line, whether it worked or not. 313 00:22:01,539 --> 00:22:09,900 But as we've discussed this before, as Lenin and others have said, the issue is never the issue. 314 00:22:10,279 --> 00:22:11,660 The issue is always the revolution. 315 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:12,059 Right. 316 00:22:12,059 --> 00:22:14,680 So the issue is never the pandemic. 317 00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:21,000 The issue is how do we acquire more power towards the eventual Marxist-Leninist revolution. 318 00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:21,579 Right. 319 00:22:21,579 --> 00:22:26,519 And I think that's very much a part of what we've seen in the pandemic like that. 320 00:22:26,599 --> 00:22:30,819 Not a single bureaucrat, government employee lost a job or a paycheck. 321 00:22:31,059 --> 00:22:31,500 Very true. 322 00:22:31,500 --> 00:22:33,680 And so nobody got laid off. 323 00:22:33,759 --> 00:22:34,779 Nobody got furloughed. 324 00:22:34,839 --> 00:22:35,940 All of them continued. 325 00:22:35,940 --> 00:22:55,240 And so it's easy for that segment of the population to write the rules against those who sign paychecks, as Dasha and I do, as you guys do with your own business, which all of a sudden relies on your potential customers who are no longer buying your products because their income stream has been shut off. 326 00:22:55,240 --> 00:23:07,380 And so it's, again, it's that 50 percent of the population that thinks, yeah, let's shut down the country for the good of the rest without understanding that it's a complete moronity. 327 00:23:08,059 --> 00:23:18,720 That brings up another issue that we have seen begin to happen is the barter system of trade. 328 00:23:19,539 --> 00:23:24,619 What was the barter economy like under socialism? 329 00:23:24,619 --> 00:23:29,700 Yeah, widely accepted, huge black market where people were bartering. 330 00:23:30,380 --> 00:23:33,519 And I remember this when my parents wanted to upgrade their apartment. 331 00:23:34,059 --> 00:23:41,160 There was a market late in the evening in a square where people would basically go in and haggle and say, I have this. 332 00:23:41,640 --> 00:23:42,900 We would like that. 333 00:23:43,079 --> 00:23:44,200 What do you have? 334 00:23:44,559 --> 00:23:46,160 And so you would do that. 335 00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:48,579 My dad was a merchant sailor. 336 00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:51,480 We've discussed it on the last week's podcast. 337 00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:57,500 So he would bring in from the Beatles album vinyl to the pair of jeans. 338 00:23:57,559 --> 00:24:01,140 And my mom would trade it for something that the family needed. 339 00:24:01,140 --> 00:24:05,779 And my dad also had hard currency, which was given to sailors going overseas. 340 00:24:05,779 --> 00:24:07,440 So they were able to go in and buy something. 341 00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:11,400 So those dollars then became a huge bartering tool in the United States. 342 00:24:11,859 --> 00:24:24,359 So if my mom needed a medical procedure outside of what the government prescribed was acceptable, and she wanted a good doctor, not a butcher, to perform that, that doctor would do it on a Saturday or after hours. 343 00:24:24,359 --> 00:24:31,079 And then my mom would pay with a pair of jeans or the vinyl of the Beatles album or the hard currency. 344 00:24:31,279 --> 00:24:35,339 Then the doctor would then go and give to the butcher for a prime cut of meat. 345 00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:35,819 Yes. 346 00:24:35,940 --> 00:24:37,059 So the system existed. 347 00:24:37,180 --> 00:24:39,640 It existed until in every Eastern Bloc country. 348 00:24:39,759 --> 00:24:46,000 We traveled into Czech Republic and other places before 1990 because Dasha's family is from Czech Republic. 349 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:56,460 And we used to bring stuff with us from Nescafe coffee, which was not available, and trade it and butter it for something for Dasha's relatives who had nothing in Prague. 350 00:24:56,799 --> 00:24:58,359 America, you better start thinking about these things. 351 00:24:58,359 --> 00:24:58,680 Wake up. 352 00:24:59,079 --> 00:24:59,279 Yeah. 353 00:24:59,799 --> 00:25:05,140 And begin honing your skills because unless things change dramatically, this is where we're headed. 354 00:25:05,559 --> 00:25:15,480 Bill, in closing, any last thoughts, any last comments in about 60 seconds that you think you might want to impart to those on the fence? 355 00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:16,480 Right. 356 00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:19,460 You've got to get engaged if you care. 357 00:25:20,460 --> 00:25:27,619 And if you hear something and you hear some opposing views, do your own homework and do your own research. 358 00:25:27,619 --> 00:25:33,660 As we heard during this debate where Kamala Harris said, I never said I am going to shut down fracking. 359 00:25:33,660 --> 00:25:40,680 And if you go back dozens of times in the last year, she said she's going to be for shutting down fracking. 360 00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:53,140 If you can find that piece and then scratch your head and say, what else, whoever it is, CNN, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, MSNBC are lying about, maybe there's a lot more to it. 361 00:25:53,140 --> 00:25:58,279 Bill, that is something I've been saying six or seven times a day to people. 362 00:25:58,579 --> 00:25:59,200 Do your homework. 363 00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:00,299 Do your research. 364 00:26:00,420 --> 00:26:00,880 Get engaged. 365 00:26:01,019 --> 00:26:01,579 Get engaged. 366 00:26:01,980 --> 00:26:02,140 Yeah. 367 00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:02,579 All right. 368 00:26:02,900 --> 00:26:04,599 Bill, it's been a delight having you with us. 369 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,799 You have really given us some things to think about. 370 00:26:07,799 --> 00:26:22,700 And just appreciate you illuminating these parts of your life that are so important to keep in mind this anecdotal information from your life, Bill. 371 00:26:22,799 --> 00:26:29,140 And we just wish you the best, you and Dasha, the very best, prosperity, health, strength, and happiness. 372 00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:30,819 And God help us on November 3rd. 373 00:26:30,900 --> 00:26:31,440 Yes, amen. 374 00:26:31,740 --> 00:26:32,339 All right. 375 00:26:32,500 --> 00:26:37,400 This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth. 376 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:44,720 New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. at 101 4th Street on the corner of 4th and Boulevard. 377 00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:55,359 And you can call us for more information and feedback at area code 208-523-0196, 208-523-0196.