Chuck Shute Podcast
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Chuck Shute Podcast
Dr. William Fortschen Returns to Discuss EMP Threats and His Book Becoming a Movie!
Dr. William Forstchen discusses the adaptation of his book "One Second After" into a movie. The film, produced by MPI Films and directed by Scott Rogers, is set to start filming in Bulgaria in September, with a release expected in late spring or early summer next year. The movie will focus on the devastating impact of an EMP attack, a topic Forstchen has long advocated for. He emphasizes the importance of realistic portrayals and the need for infrastructure protection. Forstchen also touches on broader themes of societal preparedness, the impact of technology on jobs, and the geopolitical landscape, particularly the potential threats from China and the importance of re-industrializing America.
0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:20 - "One Second After" the Movie
0:08:55 - Power Outage Experience
0:12:20 - Differences with 9/11 & an EMP
0:14:25 - Awareness of the EMP Issue
0:17:25 - Reports on EMP and Response
0:19:11 - Logistics of EMP & Effect
0:24:00 - Teaching Basic Survival Skills
0:29:35 - Artificial Intelligence, Job Loss & History
0:32:14 - Fall of Roman Empire and United States
0:34:51 - Farm Land, Water, China & Infrastructure
0:42:50 - Chip Production & Sending a Message
0:45:22 - United States Current Day and History
0:50:53 - Immigration Laws and History
0:55:05 - Schools, Security & Prevention
0:59:25 - Future Plans with the Movie & Sequel
1:01:58 - Outro
Dr. William Fortschen books on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APZ9N8
Chuck Shute link tree:
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Down with the heavy stars, rock and rolling through the cool guitars. Chuck's got the questions digging so sharp, feeling back layers hitting the heart.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. Well, welcome back to the show. So for people who didn't watch the first episode, they should go back and watch last time I had you on here, because we went through your whole background, all that. So we can, we can skip a lot of that. But I remember one of the questions I asked last time I had you on was, hey, is this book ever going to get made into a movie? And at the time, you said there was an issue with the writer strike, and obviously that got settled, and now it's actually happening. It's exciting.
Dr. William Forstchen:Yes, it's very exciting. Okay, you want me to talk about it for a minute? Yeah,
Chuck Shute:absolutely. Well, I mean, I can, I mean, we could tell them. The gist of it is, obviously, it's the New York Times bestseller one second after and I think I just read that it's MPI films with Scott Rogers is directing, and Michael strazinski is is writing it, and that's all I know. You may know more though,
Dr. William Forstchen:okay, everything broke open about three or four months ago. One MPI is the MPI, you know, I don't know myself at times, MPI production,
Chuck Shute:MPI films. It says MPI, original films in association with startling, startling
Dr. William Forstchen:Incorporated. Yeah, startling Incorporated. Okay, what happened? They acquired it. They have been trying to raise money to get the thing forward. You know that movies are a fair chunk of change that finally came together, and immediately, you know, it started forward. It got green lighted, got the well, the producer was already involved. He was the one selling it and and we got the director, and the director came out here, oh, late April, early May, and spent the day looking things over. And what I really liked about everybody involved in this is they're very dedicated to making a realistic movie about EMP. That's been their key motivation. I mean, EMP has been used in other films in the past. They always get it wrong, you know, oh, we're gonna, you know, it's gonna be emp, and a half hour later, everything's back online, or whatever. So they're dedicated to that. Last month, the producer, the director, and my agent, went out to Bulgaria. That's where they're going to be filming, most of it, because Bulgaria is used a lot for films these days. Scouted out locations. I just received concept art just a couple of days back of how the town's going to be set up. It's all going forward. So right now they're talking about starting filming around September 15. That's six weeks worth of filming, and then producing it and everything, and it will be out late in the spring or early summer of next year. So I'm freaked. I mean, I've waited 15 years for this to happen, I went through production hell and option hell. And, you know, in fact, I almost had it sold about five or six years ago. I was going to fly out to Montana to meet with the producer, and he was an amateur pilot, and he put a plane in the side of a mountain, and that ended that deal that was terrible. He was a really good guy, and then it got picked up by somebody else. So here we are today, and I got a movie coming forward.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, any idea who is going to star in it? Like,
Dr. William Forstchen:I can't talk about that, okay, but you
Chuck Shute:So you do know that there are some people being considered, or they already chose them, or
Dr. William Forstchen:I already know different people being considered. There's non disclosure on my part. I could talk about the generalities of production and all that, but okay, all the details, they'll put that out in press releases, all the usual hoopla and everything else. You know how Hollywood is,
Chuck Shute:sure, sure. So, how big is the budget for this? Like, is this going to be in the theaters, or is it going straight to streaming? Or
Dr. William Forstchen:it's, I can't talk about budget, but it is going into theaters again, late spring, early summer, and then from theaters, it will finally move over to Netflix, Amazon Prime, somebody like that, for TV production, because you got a lot of movies, they come out, and then a couple months later they put them out on internet as well. Sure, all of it is, you know, like, I've waited 15 years. I was for many years, caught an option. Hell, somebody would option it. And. Fact, M Night Shi Avalon optioned me at one point, and, you know, he had control for a year, and it didn't go forward from there.
Chuck Shute:That's crazy, because he's made some really bad movies you'd think, like The Last Airbender That was terrible. This would have been way better than what that was.
Dr. William Forstchen:You know that that was damned if I do, damned if I don't, type of thing. Oh, yeah, big name. He's, of course, famous for the sixth sense. But what has he done afterwards? So I wasn't too upset when the option dropped on that after a year.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. I've been interesting to see Yeah, because I think, I feel like a lot of his problem now is like, yeah, he he's out of ideas, but this is, like, the idea is handed to him on a plate, and he just has to direct it, make it happen. So that's interesting,
Dr. William Forstchen:you know, um, one of the worries I had was that somebody would come out with a similar production and get things wrong, and that would select steal the thunder. Oh, a movie's been made on EMP Yeah. A good example is like the movie Gladiator, or whatever, completely ruined anybody in ancient history for the longest time. Or the really bad one was when 300 came out because Scott Peterson had written an incredible book about it called uh, Gates of Fire, about the Battle of Thermopylae. Very, very accurate historians. We all loved it. And then 300 came out, and I walked out. I got about halfway through, and when the Spartans are marching off to war, and all they're wearing is cod pieces, I couldn't take it anymore, you know, all these rip you know, right? Guys, and they're, yeah, we are the Spartans. And I finally said, Guys, this looks like the San Francisco brigade. It's just it's not realistic at all. And I actually walked out. I was so angry.
Chuck Shute:Wow, that's interesting, yeah, because I would definitely want to get to that, the history and stuff and the parallels with today. But in terms of movies, yeah, was there any scenes from one second after that were in the book that you felt like were essential to keep that in the film? Because I'm sure they have to cut some of those scenes because, you know, book and a movie is unless it's going to be, like a four hour movie, yeah, you know,
Dr. William Forstchen:we went through five versions of the screenplay, and, you know, the first one was pretty good the set, or the third version, I was like, oh my god, don't let them Do it, you know, I'll go out and hang myself. And I shared my complaints with my producer. He agreed with me. So did my agent, and so we went back more to the original. Yeah, there's going to be scenes are compressed and things like that. But I'm really very, very happy on the whole thing. The key thing is emp, when it hits, it's such a devastating blow to an infrastructure, it just simply doesn't recover. How do we live post EMP? That's what the book is about. How do we live post EMP? And the movie is really capturing that. Well,
Chuck Shute:yeah, that's definitely an interesting thing, and it's scary to think about that, whether it's an EMP or some other thing that takes out the technology if we just didn't have electricity, or even just, I feel like Wi Fi, if we didn't have internet or something, how do people survive without Wi Fi? Like there's so many things that I do and that people do on Wi Fi and internet. How do you what do you do if you don't have
Dr. William Forstchen:it? Well, I kind of lived through it last year. Helene. I live about 10 miles, five miles, actually, from where Helene hit the hardest, and over 100 people died there. It's like Texas, a bit like what happened in Texas on steroids. It just is a one river. It's every river overflowed I want without electricity for six weeks and internet as well. In fact, the guys who finally hooked me back up after six weeks were from Quebec, and we had some interesting conversations, and what I remember of French, but it's that really showed me just how horrifying it is. I had nothing. I had no electricity, no internet. I ran out of water rather quickly, and had to scrounge for water. Toilets don't work. Nothing works. It was six weeks but but the key thing is, from day one, volunteers were coming in from all over the country to help out this bunch of guys, uh. Organized helicopters. They had 75 helicopters, volunteers, all ferrying supplies in and out. After five days, I was asked to take a helicopter flight down to Hickory, about 60 miles from here, to watch their operation. Well, what I saw was horrifying, you know, just devastation everywhere across a 50, 100 mile wide swath and 100, 150 miles across. For example, I used to own an antique airplane, an original World War two plane, the war bird. That hangar was under 15 feet of water. Wow. My this precious airplane I owned for 20 years just gone. So I got a taste of what it would be like long term. But let me emphasize, I knew help was coming. Imagine a scenario where we all know no help is coming, except for what we can do on our own. Learned a lot, and yes, my town really did pull together. We even had community meetings. I remember a friend was with the I said, this is like, straight out of the book, you know, an outdoor meeting. What do we do? How do we handle this? Where can we get food, water, things like that. It was a very chilling time for me. And what's happened in Texas in this last week, my heart goes out to them, because they're particularly impacted children. All those children in that camp that were killed is horrifying.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that is really scary. I mean, and that's with with the movie. I mean, that's a big focus of the book is The townspeople and the characters and how people come together and how they would help. But yeah, with something so big, it's like they can only do so much. And then, you know, and then also you've got people that are that are not looking out for the best interest. And if there was a wide scale thing, you know, are gonna, are there gonna be more people who try to help, or more people are trying to steal and pillage and things like that. So it definitely makes you wonder. I mean, it's great to see when a real life example happens and people swoop in to help. But yeah, if it was, if it was the whole thing went down, I don't know, be as many people helping?
Dr. William Forstchen:Yeah, it's not just you and part of that, as well as on 911 Okay, let me ask, Where were you on 911
Chuck Shute:Oh, it's funny. It's funny story. Actually, I was, I was off break from college, and I remember sleeping in, and I woke up and I came down, and my dad was like, not happy. And, you know, he's a financial advisor, so I think, you know, he's thinking of his clients and the market and all this and how, and he's like, Yeah, you were out. You're upstairs sleeping in. He's like, the world's going to shit right now. And I was like, wow. And I just could I it was just surreal watching that on TV. I was like, Wait, I don't understand why. What happened a plane. It just didn't make any sense to me, because I never seen anything
Dr. William Forstchen:like it. Yeah, you know, you know I was, I was teaching a class when one of the first one hit, all right? Well, no, actually, the second one hit. And we gathered together as a college, we're a Christian college. We met in the chapel. We had a prayer service for people and such. But here's the key thing, and that first hour, Giuliani was on television saying, This is what's happening to us. We're going to pull together. We're New Yorkers. Let's all work together. And they really did remember, a million people were just walking home, no looting or anything like that, because a voice that we trusted was out there. But imagine instead that with an EMP it hits, and then all communication nationwide stops. You don't know what the hell happened. Yeah, you know. And most of us, when we get a power failure, we figure, oh, okay, it'll be back in a couple hours, you know, half a day, and now, with the flood, was going to be weeks, because everything was down. But we're used to voices of authority and trust telling us this is what's going on, and we're going to deal with it even in Texas. Imagine a world where everything goes dark. That's what my book is about. Everything just simply goes dark.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. And do you think, I mean, obviously people have read the book, and you know, we're I'm doing my part here by having you on the show to talk about it. But do you think with the movie, maybe that will reach a wider audience in terms of awareness of this issue? Because it seems like there's not a lot of worry about this. A lot of people don't know. They don't even know what an EMP is,
Dr. William Forstchen:yeah, well, in my town, just about everybody read the book and it, it's kind of amusing. Every time I it's a village Black Mountain, it's very much as I described. I go down, drop in, say hello, and there's some. Customers. Oh, you're the guy who wrote the book. But a book is limited. I've sold well over a million copies. So let's say two or 3 million people have read it. A movie, a halfway decent movie, 3040, 50, million people will be exposed to it, and if 10% of them start to react to it and start to do things politically and for themselves, then it will really have served its purpose.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, what did you think about that movie? Now, I forgot the name of it. It was the one on Netflix with Julia Roberts, and I forget who else was in it, but it was a similar kind of idea where the power goes out and they're kind of in the middle of nowhere, and all the cars stop, and then the one kid has some sort of issue with he's like, I think they were, like, bleeding from the ears and stuff. And it was, they thought it was some sort of radar that had made him sick. And, I mean, that was, that was a similar kind of theme that, like, where shit goes down and you don't know what's going on.
Dr. William Forstchen:You know, I never saw it. I've heard about them. I remember, what was it? Jericho, I was optioned to bad eight or 10 years ago when Jericho came out. And that killed me. We were very close to green lighting, and the studio said we don't want to do it. But I don't think anyone has very accurately show there's so like a science fiction quality to some of it. And that gets to me, because EMP is not science fiction. EMP is a cold, deadly fact. I've only seen one movie that treated it correctly, and that was 35 years ago, with the film day after remember about nuclear war starting, yeah, and the doctors trying to get back to Kansas City, and he's on the interstate, and then an EMP pops, and all the cars stop. That's the only accurate portrayal I've seen of this issue.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, usually I just looked it up. I had to it was going to bug me. Leave the world behind. That's what it was called. It was interesting. It definitely, I don't know how realistic you would obviously know how realistic some of the stuff was in the movie, but it definitely made you think, I'm just saying, like to raise awareness of the issue. Because I think last time I had you on, you said that you had been talking with the Trump administration about doing something about this, because I think we, I think you said it was about 30 to 50 billion to make all the Faraday cages and basically prevent this from being an issue. And he they were looking into it, and they had a report or whatever. And then Biden won the next election, and then they scrapped it, and they were focusing on the green energy, but now,
Dr. William Forstchen:what's that? Throw my hands up in the air, and if we weren't live, I think I might even give a finger to somebody, because that was so bloody enraging. Trump's first term about three months before the election, he mandated a study by DOD, DOE, all the different agencies, to do a report on what is the MP How does it work? How does it impact us? How do we respond to it? What needs to be done? The report was supposed to come in around April, three months after the election, Biden came in, and on day one, he killed it, he killed it. He actually killed it. And then we spent a trillion dollars on so called green energy, which was just a giant boom goggle, where if he had taken 5% of that money and spent it on true Infrastructure Protection, that would have been doing something. So we now have Trump second time around. A key thing there is golden dome, which I'm incredibly happy about. I'm not sure what they're doing with EMP protection, but I do know from the Trump admin, well, from some people working there, that that's going to go forward as well.
Chuck Shute:So would the golden dome potentially protect from an EMP or because, because, couldn't somebody bring an EMP? How does that? How? How? Like, the logistics of actually launching one would have to be from another, like a boat or something. Could someone bring in a like a suitcase with an EMP?
Dr. William Forstchen:No, okay, EMP primer for one minute. EMP is created by launching on an ICBM, a or even medium range ballistic missile, launching a nuclear weapon into space. It has to be out there about 200 miles, because when the weapon blows the gamma ray burst, and the gamma ray burst in particular, starts cascading down to the Earth's surface, setting up electrons, separating like a giant electroness. Machine that when this all hits the Earth's surface at speed of light, the overload feeds into the electrical grid. What happens then is the millions of miles of wiring we have become antenna feeds it into the grid, and when it hits into the high tension lines, that's a real vulnerability, the high tension lines literally blow off the pylons. I can remember watching a film with a group of people, it's been 15 years now, where they did a test on that firing an EMP at a high tension line, and the thing literally exploded off the pylon. So all that goes down. The generating systems go down. One, the Soviets did a test in 1962 Soviet test 184 it blew out a power station 500 miles away from the point of impact, well, from the impact in space, setting a nuclear weapon off on the ground won't do it. It sets out a very small EMP. But the further out you get, particularly get to space, the burst becomes far more significant. So the days of mutual assured destruction, of firing hundreds of missiles at each other, that's the past using an EMP you cripple the civilian infrastructure in the first seconds. And no matter what they do, they can't recover. It just is not recoverable. And according to two congressional studies, it's estimated that 80 to 90% of the population would die in the year after such an event.
Chuck Shute:And then, yeah, I think we talked about it too last time, how it would take about five years to rebuild. And then, even then, you'd only have about 20% of the power,
Dr. William Forstchen:yeah. But then the population is down 80% so maybe matter at that, yeah? But that's pretty grim statistics.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, it really is, and most people are not prepared. And I think we talked to last time about how, well, what if you live on a farm and and, but even, like a well, a lot of those things use electricity to pump the water and stuff, and so it's, it's and then a lot of the rivers and lakes would be polluted without the electric, electrical pumps and things and filters and all that sort of thing. So a lot of stuff would just go haywire. It would be really and then also you gotta, if you had a farm and you had food and water, now you got to protect against all these other people who are coming in trying to
Dr. William Forstchen:survive, yeah. How long is that farm on its own going to survive? Not long. Because I think everybody has in their head this, this thought, Well, if the crap hits the fan, I'll just go out to the countryside. I know there's plenty of food out there. You know you're expecting the farmers are a bunch of granola eating. Oh, take my food. Take all of it. It ain't going to be that way. And even if you got out there and you found a farm that was abandoned, do you know how to harness a horse? Do you know how to plow a field? Do you even know how to milk a cow? Very few of us do anymore. I don't live on a farm. What I lived on a farm for about nine months up in Pennsylvania. I tell you, it was hard ass work, you know, from five or six in the morning, particularly in the summer, when you're hanging and everything. I can't imagine myself doing that for the rest of my life. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:I used to work in education for 17 years. I worked in schools in Washington State and Arizona, and I just it seems like there's a lot of things that we teach that are kind of worthless. Like, do you think that that's something that we should do to prepare for something like this, whether it's an EMP or some other sort of disaster that causes us to kind of go back to the basics? Like, should we teach kids survival skills, farming, you know, how to take care of themselves, like, you know, some of these basic survival skills. Because I feel like, yeah, a majority of us would just not know what to do.
Dr. William Forstchen:What did you do in education? I was a counselor. Oh, okay, all right, you must have seen, you know, so you're dealing with kids every day, trying to advise them and everything else and their fundamental knowledge just simply isn't there. So my response to you first will be the Boy Scouts of America. By the age of 11, you know, I become a you know, I'm in the Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts. I became an Eagle Scout. I learned basic survival skills, very basic things that most people don't know, how to purify water, how to, you know, Camp do things like that. The Boy Scouts is a good place to start. And, yeah, I think some fundamental education on survival. Saying the Boy Scout setting, or whatever would would be a heck of a boom. You know, I can remember going camping with some people, and they stupidly drank water straight out of a creek. And I found out. I said, What the hell are you guys doing? Are you crazy? Well, the water's running. And sure enough, the following morning, they were all crapping their guts out. I was like, now you've learned your lesson. It's just basic things like that in a real world scenario that could kill them.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, because do you probably follow this even more than I do, but I've been really interested in just other countries, other governments, other systems, because there's all this talk of different things, like bringing some of these other systems to America. So I like to look at other countries do It does, doesn't, because doesn't China, don't they teach some of those things. Well, I can't remember if it was China or some other country they were. The kids were like, learning how to shoot guns. Like in school, like, this was part of their training as a student was like target practice. Yeah, I'm
Dr. William Forstchen:not sure if that was China or not. I know in Mongolia, it's that way. I've spent four summers in Mongolia. Well, three summers on one autumn, and those kids knew how to survive, yeah, you know, one summer let out, those kids went back to their families, out in the step. And it was amazing. Everything those kids could do and knew how to do. We're such a pampered society we don't know. You know, an analogy I give is, let's say you took a civil war regiment, which was the basis of some of my novels, and you put it all you know starting afresh on a different planet, they would know things. They would know how to farm, they would know how to mine. They would know so many different things they could survive. Now take a plane load of people, 400 people. They crash land on some remote island. How many of them would actually know what to do?
Chuck Shute:Yeah, exactly, that's my point. Yeah, there's a lot of just basic things that even me myself. I don't, I don't know how to do everything. I like to camp and things. I know some basic things, but I don't know. I mean, filtering water and stuff. I'm not sure I'd be able to figure that out just without the tools and things.
Dr. William Forstchen:Exactly you know how to dress a deer, how? You know, I did it once. I never want to do it again,
Chuck Shute:right? Yeah. But you if you have to to survive, you know, it becomes a thing where you can't google it. If there's no electricity, you can't look it up. You can't ask chat, GPT, right? You got to have a paper book,
Dr. William Forstchen:yeah? You can stare at the dark and scream. So,
Chuck Shute:I mean, it really makes you think too, just like, as, like, as I said, as I was a counselor. I mean, when I started in the schools, you know, maybe a handful of kids had a cell phone, right? And then when I left, every kid had a cell phone. And just the psychological impact of kids not have being on their phones so much, and then having that completely gone, like they might psychologically just completely disintegrate without having that technology they're so used to forget, like, how, you know, having to survive off, you know, food and water, like, psychologically, I feel like they'd almost just go crazy.
Dr. William Forstchen:Well, you know, each layer that's added to a technological society. You know, 100 years ago, the layer that was being added was electrification. You know, cities were electrified. The countryside was not. But once they became electrified, some basic knowledge starts to slip away. 120 years ago, out in the countryside, everybody had a horse. You know, they knew how to take care of it. By 1921 out of 10 Americans had an automobile in their house, well with their house. So as they gain new technologies, they forget the old technologies and so. So it's been, you know, all the way through today with chat, BD, GBT and internet and all that. And the kids, therefore, have forgotten how to do things previously, going back to the fundamentals.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, do you think in terms of because if you look at like the Industrial Revolution, I mean, there's a lot of things like, oh, you know, we're going to lose all these jobs and things, and now you got the AI revolution coming. Do you think we're ready for this, or are we totally unprepared? I mean, forget, if the electricity goes out, what if it doesn't? That's almost scarier, like with the AI stuff. I mean, there's going to be a lot of job loss, right?
Dr. William Forstchen:You know, ultimately not. I can remember, in the 70s and 80s, toddlers book, the third wave, which was almost like a Bible, you know what? Whose older jobs were. Uh, so some very, incredibly high percentage of our society today, their jobs are based on computer technology, so it created more jobs than we lost. I'd like to think the same thing's going to happen this time, but I remember doomsayers back in the 70s, oh, we're going to become a society where we're all slaves to the computer, and the computer does everything, and we just sit there and consume Well, that's not been the case.
Chuck Shute:So, okay, so you're, you're talking about, okay, from the 70s days. Is there other parallels in history to the Times today in terms of technology, when technology changed
Dr. William Forstchen:just a second. Okay, all right, I love you too. What's your dog's name? This is Chloe. She likes to crash meetings. I start talking on the computer, and she has to come out and see who I'm talking to. Gotcha. Hi, Chloe. Chloe, say, Hi, what
Chuck Shute:was your question again? Just you know, in terms of parallels of what we're seeing now with technology and the shift from basic computers to AI and robots taking more jobs, but like you said, maybe there's going to be a creation of other things. So besides the Industrial Revolution, was there other times where there was a big shift in technology in history?
Dr. William Forstchen:Well, of course, the big one is the industrial revolution started in the 18th century and initially created a lot of dislocation, because the mills replace much of the labor, particularly cloth weaving and all that. And there was even a movement called The Luddites. These were people who destroyed the mills, saying it was taking jobs, but ultimately it creates more jobs. I can't answer that question. Well, the Roman Empire at its peak, and then they lose a lot of the technologies they knew about. I really can't answer that question.
Chuck Shute:What about other similarities? And just in terms of general, where we're at today, and with the Roman rev empire in the fall of the Roman Empire. Do you think that that's similar to what we're going through now with the US? Because I think what is the math? I think it's like most empires only last about 250 years, and we're getting pretty close to that time. Do you think there's some similarities there? Is that a stretch? No,
Dr. William Forstchen:that's something, of course, I worry about, I mean, my majors in my graduate program more military history and the history of technology, and I can recall a really good assignment from one of my professors where I wrote a read a book published in 1859 and was, actually was report, a report to parliament about American industrialization. This is a group of guys who came to America in 1857, and spent two years studying our systems. And they wrote the report. It was read into by Parliament. I actually got to hold a copy of the report and read it thoroughly. And they were basically saying, the Americans are going to beat us. They're absolutely going to beat us because, first of all, their colleges, all our colleges, are classical based, all right, for the elite, only the Americans. They're opening colleges for working people. And they're they're talking about technology and farming and things like that in their colleges, the social stratas in English society prevented people from moving from lower class to middle and upper so all these things together, they they were saying, By the year 1900 the Americans are going to swamp us. And we did. It became the American century with our industrialization. So the big question now is, will China beat us in the 21st Century? Yeah, I don't think so. I'm fundamentally optimistic about America, particularly now. I mean, so many things have changed in the last six months. So it's obvious who I believe is doing some of this. We have to, as Abraham Lincoln once said, we must disenthra ourselves, and then we will save our country. As our case is new, we must act anew and think anew again from Lincoln. So we have to think better.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, well, and I think that is interesting in terms of the technology is one thing, but then it goes back to the basic things and another. And I don't know if you ever saw that movie, Blackfish. I had the director on my show, and she made another movie called The grab and it was all about all these countries coming in and and grabbing up land for farming and grabbing up water. And it was really interesting to see how much China has come in and grabbed farmland from the US and grabbed water. And I think, I think Russia has done it too. And maybe Iran, or some Middle Eastern countries have come in and and grabbed all these things. So it's kind of like there's almost like this, this race to get as much farmland and water. It used to be oil, right? That was the resource that everyone was going after. I'm sure that's still valuable too. But also now people are seeing, Oh, farmland and food and water are very valuable commodities. We want to get as much of this as possible.
Dr. William Forstchen:You know, China, I'm I'm in a minority. I don't worry about China all that much because there's a number of things about China. The Chinese are only one year's harvest away from a big disaster, all you need is one lean year and their production of food, they can't feed their people, right? I
Chuck Shute:think that's why they're buying a bunch of farmland here.
Dr. William Forstchen:But it still is inside America, if need be, we will buy it back or confiscate it. I don't think that's going to be the situation. 1/3 of China is still in 19th and 20th Century technology. You get 100 200 miles out the the eastern belt of China, meaning the coast, inland for a couple 100 miles. That's, that's 21st Century stuff. You know, high speed trains and all that. When you get into the Outback, they got a population of several 100 million that they have to worry about, that these people can be rather rebellious if need be. So if they lose their food supply for one year, they're gone. Secondly, the male to female ratio in China for Ardmore, you know, not my generation anymore. What the Gen z's? You know, the 2030, year olds? Well, they were children that were born at a time when China had a one child policy. So 10s of millions of future parents, when they found out they were going to have a daughter, they aborted it. They wanted a male so the male female ratio is off. That's going to creep it's called Empty branches. That can be problems. So there's a number of problems lurking just below the surface. So remember, 30 years ago, the prediction was Japan was going to outrace us. The Japanese economy. In the 1980s it was so far ahead we would never come catch up to them. Where's where's Japan? Today, it's more blunt, you know, they have their population. Is actually flatlining and going down, and they're going to have a very serious problem in a couple of years of who's going to support such an aging population, there's not enough workers to do it. That's interesting. So the same thing with us we could screw up over the next five to 10 years. These are very, very crucial years right now. But another key thing for me is re industrializing America right now. And I think we talked about last time we were together, the all the electrical components that we have, the big stuff, the trans right,
Chuck Shute:70s and stuff, right? Yeah,
Dr. William Forstchen:it's from the 70s, and it's made in China. Now you have to bring that industrial base back to women. Yeah, that
Chuck Shute:is one thing I do. What you know would love him or hate him about Trump, when he talks about building more things here, it's kind of a prepping mentality for that, because if something does go wrong, then China has us by the balls. They could just be like, Oh, we're not going to give you that stuff, right? Have fun, you know, right? What do you
Dr. William Forstchen:do? And Gary, I'm thrilled with the wall, yeah, obviously I'm pro Trump. All right, I'm really pro Trump, but we have to the analogy. I think I gave it up when I was with you last time. The analogy I give is, it's December 8, 1941 the President sits down with his Joint Chiefs, you know, his key generals and admirals. And the chief, Admiral King stands up, said, Mr. Problem, Mr. President. We got a problem. All our aircraft carriers are made in Japan, and then the key army guy, Marshall, stands up, sir, we got a problem. All our tanks, all our airplanes, are made in Germany. What the hell we going to do now?
Chuck Shute:Well, they didn't know that. That's really fascinating. What did they do?
Dr. William Forstchen:Well, that's what the analogy is. Because analogy, okay, yeah. Because starting in 1940 thank God we did it. In 1940 we suddenly really kicked loose with industrialization, because only about 50% of our industrial capability was working at that moment, the rest was quiet. Well within a year, that industrial base was humming, producing all the tools of war we would need. And you know, we don't realize it from the day the war started for us until it ended, it was only 44 months. 44 months. By the last year of the war, we were making over 100,000 airplanes a year before the war started. We were making 5000 a year. Think of that, that massive industrialization, you know, we did it before, and we can do it again, type mentality. We should start now on re industrializing. And I think that is starting to happen. Was it Trump said yesterday or the day before? It was $15 trillion of investments in infrastructure are coming back into our country. So that's really important for us. We have to reinvent industrialization in America to make it work.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, no, I think that is that is so important. It's something that doesn't get talked about. And I know Biden had the build back better, but I feel like that didn't include a lot of this stuff, the infrastructure with the grid and all that, those kinds of things. And I don't think it was enough, and in some ways it was too much. It was too much money. It's, I don't know where the money went. I haven't seen a lot of results from that, but it would, it's a great idea to build, rebuild the infrastructure structure, especially, like you said, the electricity, especially because we're going to be so reliant on that moving forward with AI and all this electronic stuff, if we don't have electricity, none of it works
Dr. William Forstchen:well, you know, I can remember well, Biden had been in office some months, and they dedicated something like 10 or $20 billion we're going to make 5000 EV chargers across America. Oh, yeah. Did they only make like five or something? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that comes out to about a billion dollars or two per charger. Where the hell the rest of the money go? Where did it go? While private enterprise Tesla now has like five or 6000 charging stations across the country, all of it through private enterprise. So that that was even, that was one of the big ones. Where the hell the money go for the charging stations? Oh, all the billions and billions for, you know, 100 square miles of solar collectors. They didn't build any of it. It was one of the greatest boondoggles in history. I hope they investigate that more.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, and, well, another thing that I think that they didn't that worries me is the we talk about things that are made in other countries isn't the chips for a lot of electronics that we make made in Taiwan, and that's like the only one of the only countries that does it. Now we started to build, I think there's a chip factory. It's in Arizona. It's, it's a few miles away from me, but it's not ready yet. So I don't know how soon that will be, but that'll be key. I think, moving forward to be independent.
Dr. William Forstchen:You know, chip production that that's a fundamental building block. No chips, no machines, no machines, no computers, no AI. So we have to look at these points of vulnerability and do it better. But again, I'm optimistic, unless somebody does a major move now. But you know what happened in Iran two weeks ago was a clear message to the world, don't screw around with us. The bunker busters, yes, Do not screw around with us. And part of that was sending a message to China and Russia and also any third world players, we have the capability, and for the first time, we're not going to hesitate in using it,
Chuck Shute:yeah. And the irony of that whole thing was, people thought, Oh, God, we're starting another war, yada yada yada. And then all of a sudden it was like, boom, we got a peace deal. Now, how long does it last? Do they do both sides honor the peace deal? I don't know, but at least it's an attempt, and it came quickly. And I'm really happy about that. There's been a lot of peace deals Risa the India and Pakistan. I think we had mentioned that in the last episode, and that there's a peace deal there, because they were potentially going to use, they're both nuclear, so they could have used nukes on each other,
Dr. William Forstchen:and they were threatening, yeah, and I've always thought that could be a place where an EMP might be used, you know, against India or Pakistan. Yeah, it's we have the potential remarkable growth in the next several years. And as long as we can keep the peace, I think it's going to happen, you know, and the same way, the way we built the. Our industry starting around 1939 1940 to 4243 we became the powerhouse of the world. You know, we didn't what was under a national emergency, but we did it. Go and see some of that today.
Chuck Shute:Well, so besides other countries being an enemy or a threat to America. What about the threat from within? Because I don't know if you've read the book Mao's revolution, or what is it called, Mao's America, as I had that author on. It's really fascinating to learn. She talks about, you know, living through the Mao revolution and then to the latest Chinese Communist Party, and she's worried. She's seen a lot of those kinds of themes in America. So what about the threat from within about a revolution and overthrow? I mean, you talk about the Industrial Revolution, people burning down mills. I mean, you're seeing that already, people are burning the way most because of the technology. I mean, these are $250,000$250,000 cars that people are lighting on fire because they because they don't want the technology.
Dr. William Forstchen:I think we'll be okay, yeah? No, yeah. But America, America's flirted in the past with things and the late 1930s it flirted big time with fascism. I mean, there was close to a million Americans were members of the American first party, and a hell of a lot of people were dressing up in brown shirts and marching around the place that history has been
Chuck Shute:forgotten. Oh, I did not know about that. Who was the leader of that
Dr. William Forstchen:America first. And, you know, the Nazis are okay. And Lindbergh, my God, Lindbergh gets involved in it. A funny story, my father and mother, and 19 is 1939 or 1940 the guy in my dad's factory, dad worked in a gas making plant, said, Hey, John, you know we're gonna have a big party on the lake this weekend. Why don't you join us? And, yeah, sure, my father, you know, I'm German, German descent, and my father and mother show up, and they drive in, and they're looking and all these guys are going around, brown shirts and such. And my mother looked at my father and said, Well, look, forget the free beer. Let's get the hell out of here. You know, these people are Nazis. And what did you know? What? A week later, my father gets called into the front office at the factory, and it's a couple of FBI agents. Yeah, you know, we got your license number, John forston, and you were at this Nazi rally and my and but the guy said, It's okay. It's all right. You immediately turned around and you left. But Who invited you to this party, and what? My father was more than happy to give the names. You know, this wasn't I'm not going to report it, but I remember him telling my mother, my mother was freaked out. So aren't you glad you didn't stay for the beer? Because he first said, maybe we'll stay for the beer.
Chuck Shute:So that's scary.
Dr. William Forstchen:Very big movement, particularly in the New York metropolitan area. You know, people with German descent in particular were susceptible to it. So these things have happened before, and we always seem to write the pendulum just at the right moment, you know.
Chuck Shute:So you mentioned, I mean, you're a fan of Trump. So then what is that whole because there is a lot of things where people call him a Nazi, and they're saying, this is parallels, and America first. You're saying that was America first back then. So explain the parallel there. Why do people because I, when I see Trump, I don't, I don't see Hitler, like, I'm not seeing him trying to take he's trying to make peace deals. He goes to North Korea, and he's instead, he's like, Hey, he tells him, you know, instead of, like, worrying about the nukes, he's like, Look, you should build condos on these beaches. These beaches are beautiful. Build some condos. Like, he's kind of more of a businessman mindset. Yes,
Dr. William Forstchen:it's very, very frustrating. I mean, I'm a historian, okay? First and foremost, historian, then author. I know very clearly from my classes what Nazism is. I used to have World War Two vets coming into my class. I had dozens, about 30 different vets from both sides, German and American side, and I had Holocaust survivors. Have you ever been been to Dachau? No, I'll never forget it. I just stood there, and it was so overwhelming that particularly the Jewish temple that was built on the grounds of. Count for commemoration after the war, and you walk into that, and if you don't start crying, there's something wrong with you. So I know what Nazism is. I mean, I'm post war generation, but I know what Nazism is. I am enraged when people are saying Trump is a fascist. He is the furthest possible remove. That is simply rhetoric from the left that is absolutely obscene. Comparing Trump to the Holocaust. Talk to a Holocaust survivor, and I've talked with them. I had them teach my class. You know what they went through. It is evil. It is actually evil to say that conservative Republicans are Nazis, it's just evil.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, it's interesting to like, I don't see I hear a lot of talk of the immigration and the illegal immigration and ice, but it's interesting if I don't think I've heard any side explain, because I was so curious, I was like, Okay, well, what are the actual immigration laws? And if you look back and you go through it, and it's actually, I think your buddy, Newt Gingrich, it was during his time, they made a deal. The Democrats and the Republicans worked together because there wasn't a legal immigration issue, and they made all these rules and laws, and if you look at the reasons why they did it, it's to benefit the workers and a lot, because a lot of what happens with the illegal immigration is the these corporations take advantage of the illegal immigration, and they get the cheaper labor, and they exploit these people, and Then they can, they can take advantage of them, because they're like, well, you're an illegal you can't you don't have any rights. You can't speak up, and we're not going to pay you full wages, we're not going to give you benefits, and you can't do anything about it, because if you do, we'll just deport you. And so if you look at the reasoning behind it, it's like, and then they, they allow so many visas. I mean, the bills that they put together, that Newt and Clinton put together. I mean, it makes sense if you're looking at, could you revamp it and modernize it? Sure, but I mean, the laws on the books, to me, seem pretty reasonable.
Dr. William Forstchen:The laws have been there all along, I mean, throughout, except the day after Biden became, uh president. The gates were opened. It was almost like, if we open the gates, they will come, and they came by the millions. And it was it was obscene. It was wrong. They're being exploited. They're here illegally. I can away. Not blame a family for wanting to get here, but it also involved a tremendous number of males alone, you know, hundreds of 1000s military age and military age. That's scary to me. I wrote a book, it's been 10 years now, called day of wrath. It's a relatively short book, 60,000 words. And it postulated, have you ever heard of the what was it? Bracelin scenario from 2005 can't remember the exact name. There was the Russian school the south of Russia, 2005 half a dozen terrorists seized the school on its opening day. They murdered 250 children. They murdered them in horrific ways, including dragging them onto the roof of the school, where it could be seen raping and then killing them. 250 children died. This scenario can apply here. I mean all of our situations and public schools and all that, they've been lone wolf shooters. You know, white male teenage years in almost every single case, we're not prepared for what could be something far worse, three to five terrorists seizing school, or worse yet, 10 to 15 terrorists, three seizing three different schools on the same day and killing everybody. That would cripple us. We would never really psychologically recover from it. What will happen to that? Can you imagine 500 or 1000 children slaughtered in a day? Well that's what my book was about, and that was the warning we have to think out better ways to protect our schools. And my book's actually been used as a training manual now and a number of different schools have, we have to rethink how to defend them, so things like that can upset the apple cart in upset way. And that's one of our vulnerabilities.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that's, that's, that is really a scary thing with the schools. You're right because, and I think someone had point. It out this too, that, you know, it's interesting, when you go to the airport, you got to go through security. When you go to a concert, you have to go through security and metal detector. And so, I mean, it's sad to say, because I, again, I used to work in the schools, and I liked being able to that it was, it felt like a safe place. But lately it doesn't. And it almost feels like you almost need that metal detector. You know, I did, it's not a future that I wanted to envision, but unfortunately, I feel like we're almost there where you kind of need more protection around schools, because they are our children. And you're right, like the lone wolf thing is scary enough, but if there was a group of people, then that's really scary.
Dr. William Forstchen:Yeah, I teach at a Christian college. We have about 700 students. We're small, we're up in the mountains. We have a terrible sense of security. I say terrible because the student director for all this and I we have a lot of conversations, and we're very, very vulnerable. So so how do we prepare for it? Well, either you become a fortress or not. Do we want to be a fortress? You know, metal detectors everywhere, kids being patted down and all that. No, we don't. But on the other side of the coin, if our school was ever targeted, I'm frightened by it. Therefore I believe very, very firmly in the right to arm certain teachers, not any teacher. Let's say you got 20 people volunteer to do it in a public school. Pick out the ones that are military, military trained law office chain. So let's say you get five. Part of it is you keep your damn mouth shut. You never say if you suddenly went sitting in the faculty room going, oh yeah. Well, you know, I got a gun on me right now. Bullshit. You're fired on the spot. You very quietly train these people, and you just have them hidden. They might be able to buy time, because it becomes a not known factor, which teachers are armed. So that's something I believe strongly in. However, if I did carry a gun into my school, I would be fired,
Chuck Shute:right? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know the exact solution, but I do feel like we do need some, some backup plans for a lot of these things, you know, a lot of these, because it's just, it goes back to September 11, like we were caught with our pants down. We were not expecting something like this, and so we got to start thinking. And I think, wasn't there a government agency that that is their job is to think up these terrible things and then the plan for how we would react to it, right? Wasn't that a thing?
Dr. William Forstchen:Yes. I mean, that's any good military system. Part of it is thinking up scenarios of what could be done, because let's go all the way back to EMP. EMP is what they call an asymmetrical first strike weapon, meaning you launch it as a first strike, you put it up over the United States, you blow it, you wipe out the civilian infrastructure. In fact, you basically won the war in the first five minutes, 15 to 20 minutes. We have to do the same thing with schools and a lot of other things. We have to think up scenarios to realize this might possibly happen. How do we prevent it? Imagine if on September 10, somebody finally said, you know, airplanes could be turned into ballistic missiles. Most likely people did say this, but they weren't taken seriously,
Chuck Shute:yeah. And I think you mentioned that in the last episode, that your, your dream is for people to look back in 50 Years and go, Oh, that guy was such a cook. He was so wrong. You don't want to be right. You don't want it to be to happen.
Dr. William Forstchen:Don't want to be right. Yeah, definitely don't want to be right. Yeah, when I, when I leave this planet, yeah, the whole little celebration of me, yeah, he's the guy I wrote the book that never came true, but he had a good time doing it. Yeah? So that that's what I want out of life, and that means being better prepared.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, absolutely. Well, the book is out. Now, it's been out, and then the movie will be coming this it's starting September. So you think
Dr. William Forstchen:about, well, we're starting shooting around September 15, and we're going to wrap at the end of October, and we're looking at late spring, early summer, for, uh, release as a mainstream, you know, in the theater
Chuck Shute:movie, okay, I'm excited. I can't wait to
Dr. William Forstchen:see it. You're excited? Yeah?
Chuck Shute:No, I know it's your dream. It's amazing that. And then maybe sequels too, because there's the books have sequels, so they can make movie sequels.
Dr. William Forstchen:Oh, yeah, from your lips to God's ear, yeah, if the movie goes well, then we've already said, if it goes well, won't do. A seasonal thing. Next one would be six or eight episodes on book two. And if that goes well, and I'm going to be sitting there talking with my accountant on how to hide the money and but the message, the key thing there is the message will keep getting reinforced and across. We have to build golden dome. We definitely have to do that. We have to upgrade our infrastructure that it could survive a strike. And that can be done, maybe not the whole infrastructure, but at least what I call lifelines of survival and rebuilding one or two power lines radiating out from Charlotte to up here would be a way for this community surrounded to start to rebuild. So these are the things I'm hoping for.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, well, I hope the movie, maybe it'll that'll be big enough to send that message and people will take it seriously. Yeah,
Dr. William Forstchen:it's kind of funny to think that I'm going to have a movie.
Chuck Shute:Well, congratulations. I'm excited to see it, and you'll have to come back when the movie comes out. We can promote it again.
Dr. William Forstchen:You know, I feel very blessed, very, very blessed that that God put me here, put me in the small college where I definitely needed to be and wanted to be. I got to raise my daughter in this community. I just feel very blessed. So thank you Lord for the blessings I have. And man on my family. Yeah, I
Chuck Shute:love to hear, well, that's great. Sounds like you're in a great sounds like you're in a great place and good things are happening. I'm happy for you. Thank you very much. All right, we'll stay in touch. Thank you.
Dr. William Forstchen:Okay, live long and cross. Oh,
Chuck Shute:there you go. Live long and cross first. All right, you too. Okay, goodbye. Bye.
THEME SONG:From the rockers to the wise men soon and Fauci.
