John Birch Society: Conservative Group Behind a Failed Gold Heist

07-02-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, this episode's about the John Birch Society. It's a political action group that was founded in the fifties that founded a lot of crazy ideas that are still exists today and also got involved into some kind of weird, muddy, sketchy waters and we're gonna look into all those different things that has happened throughout its history. This is Tillan Podcasts, where a comedy podcast where we talk about something that's like somewhat educational. You're gonna learn a little bit, but more than anything, we're gonna have fun. We're gonna make fun of some stuff. We're gonna laugh. It's gonna be a good time. So thanks for watching the show. Let's jump right into it. Hey, man, what's going on? Have you ever heard of the John Birch Society? Yes? Yeah, have you really? Yeah? This on genuinely knowing who you are, you might know this. You're into this kind of stuff, like you're into learning and you're not into this kind of stuff. I should be clear. You're into learning about this kind of John Birch Society. Yeah, is a cult. Yeah, and it is, I'm guessing, and it is in the it's in California. You technically in a way like it. I mean, they have people there that are a part of it. All right, we'll go it is a cult though, Yeah, I love cold episodes. Well, I mean, maybe it's not a cult, but I guess in a sense you could probably call it podcast about cults just in general. That has been old case, cold cut, coult cut combol, cult cult combo. That would be our Cold Boy franchise expose. A episode would be cold cut, cold Cult combos cold No coult cut combos cold cut. It was better cold cold cult combos. I'm so again. It's one of those things where I sometimes I just think about there's somebody listening to this for the first time and they're like, God, the show awful. Maybe this is a real candy. You haven't hear sugar bathe the sugar trying to get an out of context quote and I'm just trying to get good stuf. You don't know. So you didn't know what a sugar baby is? No, no, no, no no. But when you showed the package, I've had done before. Oh yeah, have you had a sugar daddy? I respect to get things I learned last night Element John Bird Society. So this is I've realized WEE can time travel you and I. Okay, watch yeah, Jaron, Right now, I know you're on a walk or running, or I'm driving somewhere. I just want you to take a moment, center yourself, and then out loud just scream as scream something or just scream. I was trying to think it will be appropriate, but probably just I have a bomb. It's gonna be really funny if you're on a plane right now. It's gonna be really funny if you're going through TSA and you're like taking your ear butts out and it switches to speaker audio. But like and it's like, Jaron, it's that's that's guided your voice. What is that? What is this? This is my guided terrorism. It's just my guided terrorism. Yikes. Okay, but we have the ability to say something to your future self right now. So I'm saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Do you listen you listen to the episodes? Yeah? Yeah, of course, I'm saying, like when I go on, I don't listen to other podcast and I listened to our podcast a little narcissistic. Yeah, you got in my car last week and my podcast was played. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean I do the same thing. It's like I can't like it is a little narcissistic. But let's be honest. Narcissists have podcasts like I think we do power like influence if you meet someone if actually genuinely speaking, I asked my therapist this the other day. I said, do you think I'm a narcissist? I said, do you think? Do you think I have? You? You're saying your awareness to be like, am I a narcisist? Is what makes it that you're not? Yeah? I said, I said, do you think I have a narcissistic personality disorder? And he opened up the d S M five and he said, do you have a podcast? And I said yes? And he said, you're narcissistic. Let's go to your Instagram explore page right now? Is it? Alex HERMOSI, do you have a Robinhood account? Traits of narcissism? Those are two, those are three very podcast hermos on the four you paid Robinhood account. Robinhood account, that's very likely narcissism. Anyways. Uh So I heard a theory on narcissism that over involved parents in their kids' lives is a form of narcissism because like one interesting you know, well, because I mean, like we've all known that dad that took his kid too seriously, like when we were grown up in sports and we're like, freaking dude, you know, Brian's dad is a little intense. Yeah, they're like living vicariously. Yeah. Someone was saying that that is narcissism and that it's not like I'm trying to live through my child. My child is an extension of me, and therefore they must be successful. Yes, yes, so it's not like I wasn't successful, so I want my kid to be successful so that I can I can secondhand experience that, which is some people's things. That's what living vicariously through someone is. Is you you secondhand experiencing that. But they're saying that you are I have to be successful, right because you carry my name. Yeah, which is the way I feel. Yeah, I don't have kids yet, but they have to go to counseling. Yeah, you better start saving and putting money away right now. Now, way when your kid comes to you when they're like a young adult, and then like in the early twenties, they finally talked to you again after ten years. Yeah, and they go, you put me through so much, and you're like, you know what, I've been waiting for this conversation. I set aside some money, yeah, for your counseling, but to be honest, inflation's really caught up and this is only enough for two sessions now. So his counselors counselors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So the John Birch aside Robert w. Welch, this is him, which Robert Welch looks like a comedian from the eighties. Sure was playing him when this photo was taken. Mike, you look like the actor portrayal of you is a good insult. I'm gonna use that. That's funny. Robert Welch, he was a candy tycoon like Adam Sandler playing you. He's a tycoon. He's a candy tycoon. Okay. So he was born in UH eighteen ninety nine, uh and he and his brother founded the Oxford Candy Company. It did not go well. The school was a lot better. Yeah, their school was a lot better. Their school or in UH nineteen twenty five, Harvard was a tire shop. Before they were like, what have we taught? What? Their all their mechanics were throwing. Mechanics were sitting there talking about I and soone was like, what are we fixing cars for? Why are we doing this car stuff? So you should be riding law. A lot of mechanics think that. The Him and his brother James, they started the Oxford Candy Company together and it didn't well. It was they had a a Jimmy John's Pickleman scenario on their hands. So in nineteen twenty five they split up and they both have our own individual podcast. You'll have a different co host. You can't carry it alone, and we'll have our own stuff. It's like, hey, you can't use road kind of yeah, because it's our Yeah, we use that resually, can't use that. That kind of mayonnaise. I'm keeping up. That's my mayo. What is your mayo of choice? None? I don't like mayo. Mayonnaise is gross? Cool? Yeah, what's yours? Uh Helman's Yeah, that's disgusting. Okay, it would no matter what you said. I was. That's discussed for sure. This maonaise is disgusting, And next they're falling out. They started their two different candy companies. James is his brother James, the James O Welch company ended up being much more successful, and uh Robert failed and then went to work for brother James. While working there, though he because of he's going to be to We just talked about that last night. Yeah, because of one day I'll have to offer you a janitorial position in my office. Yeah, because nothing else is working out. Yeah, the because of nepotism, will always have a job from me. Clad because of nepotism, he had a high ranking position. You can always tell when Tim does not like the joke when he's just like, so, anyway, the topic is this, and you're like, here's a dumb little story. And he's like when you're talking about your gatorade sticker, like it thick. He's just like so James because of nepotism. James his brother and I ranking position at the company. And there this this candy company went on to be like a big deal. They did sugar Daddies, sugar babies, Junior Mints, Pom Poms. Sugar babies is a real candy. You haven't heard sugar babies. It's a big king. I mean I've heard of sugar babies. Yeah, Sugar daddies, Sugar daddies, and sugar babies here, I'll show you the branding. Yeah, I can't believe you've seen these before. I guarantee you they're kind of like they're big in movie theaters. I mean I will say they were. And there's no nice way to say this. If we have any uh, anyone watching this? Above millennial, millennial and above these were old candies for us. You know what I'm talking about. Oh oh yeah, yeah those are good though. Yeah, you can get them at movie theaters. Sugar, you cann't really find them. Shut up, you cann't really find them anywhere else because they're like milk duds. Yeah, the sugar trying to get an out of context quote, Tim, I'm just trying to get good stuff. You don't know. So you didn't know what a sugar baby is? No, no, no, no no. But when you showed the package, I've had them before. Oh yeah, have you had a sugar Daddy? I've I respect the games. Sugar daddy is the same thing. That's why I got the name the sugar Daddy. Never it was like a big caramel pop. It was like a lollipop. But if it was just caramel and it was huge, sure, forty eight grams of milk caramel, and then the sugar baby was like, what if it was just this both? At least I have a caramel apple every day, every day in my life. I have a caramel apple because you know what they say, caramel apple a day keeps the dentist paid. And you're an investor, you're local dentist. The more business they have, the more money. Yeah, yeah, I had. Have you ever had like a Honeybee brand apple? Their Honeycrisp asples. It's a new brand. I just found. They are one huge, two the sweetest apple I've ever tasted in my life. Clearly genetically modified. But go to your local store look for I think it's gross. Is cotton candy grapes? Yeah, that's insane. Do you know those exists? Do they taste like cotton candy? Yeah? There, and they're like they're genetically modified. Yeah, that's crazy. It's like cotton candy grapes. So anyways, Robert Welch, we got a lot to cover here. Robert Welch, he uh, he was successful in business out of a business business tycoon of sorts, and James went to work for him, right, No, they they worked together kind of falling out, James's business was more successful. He went to work for jameson business because nepotism. He was high up in the company and still was super rich because of it. Okay, he might as well have been in his company. He got so rich and uh he uh. In the fifties was looking at a few things, the biggest one being communism, and was like, people are too okay with communisms. Okay, And also he was nervous about the government getting too big and turning into a one world government. And it was also nervous about other a lot of other really, a lot of other stuff. And so he said, what if we started a political activist group called the John Birch Society, And so okay, named after not him, but a guy named John Birch. Here's a picture of him. Here's a picture of the actor portraying him, pointing at the guy he named his society after, which is John Birch. John Birch was, according to Robert Welch, the first person killed. He is real, but he was, according to Robert Weltch, the first person killed in the Cold War. What happened was in World War Two, Japan surrenders and the United States military says, hey, go get the verification of the surrender from this group in northern China. Make sure that they know that the war's over, basically, and so he got sent with naval intelligence offers officers through northern China to go tell these this specific outpost of Japanese soldiers. And on the way they happened upon a group of Chinese communists and not a part of the war, but they were just there and they were like, we're gonna kill you, and they did. And so they killed him and a bunch of other people there. But Robert for some reason latched on why shouldn't say, for some reason, we know exactly why latched on to John Birch. Because John Birch, before the war was a fundamentalist Baptist missionary and then he became a war hero. So this became for him. Not only did he die in active military service, he died as a martyr too because he was also a missionary. So he kind of double dipped causes for him. And so they founded this organization, and the organization did political lobbying and campaigned and tried to teach the public fifties through the fifties. Yeah, and try to teach the public about a lot of stuff. And all these things are things that have like survived to this day that we've heard of a little bit of their political positions, we can hit a little bit. They were historically opposed to one world government, and they hated the United Nations. They hated NAFTA, they hated the Central American Free Trade Association, any free trade association. They wanted to reduce immigration. They had problems with the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement. They are actually the people who started like they're trying to take the Christ out of Christmas thing. They're the people who started this. They actually they campaigned for a while that they were like the UN is trying to take all the Christian symbols out of it and replace them with UN symbols, which is just like the logo like the United Nations, like instead of having an angel, you have Yeah, I just love the idea of Christmas and like all the Christmas cookies that are like, but they're the United Nations of Christmas is the United Nations, like Charlie Brown's Christmas, but it's like the United Nations, Like, oh, world domination in the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like, hey, sign up for grammarly and use code tilling, and we got like fifteen cents, And now we just do Patreon. It's a much better way. It's better for us as creators, it's better for you as listeners, and it's a much more fun way for us to interact. We do monthly hangouts like on Zoom. We just hang out and play games online and get to know each other. It's a really fun time. So but still use our code tilling at grammarly dot com because I think it's still like it if we might get like a couple cents from that, But join us on Patrion because we're having a great time. Yeah, if you don't, we're gonna have to start doing mobile game ads. And then oh they want to dismantle the Federal Reserve. They stopped giving out coal for Christmas because that is a resource now of course anti communist. And then they they they started the floor right in the water was a mind controlled thing. That was them. They're the one people who started that. And uh, they believed they I shouldn't say they started, but they were pretty strong on like that. The United States was persecuting their religious rights and beliefs and stuff like that. Oh, and they they were people who said were not a democracy, were republic. The Fed needs less power, the States need more power because we're republic a democracy. And they were pretty influential, and they've been very influential to this day. Like I said, a lot of these a lot of these things you've heard and you're like, I've heard this today from a lot of modern political groups. Yes, the John Birch Society grew and grew and grew, and by the mid eighties it reached its peak. And at that time there was nearly one hundred thousand members and they had two hundred forty people on staff, a seven million dollars annual budget. Because what are people giving to, Well, they're giving to this organization to like, yeah, to lobby, and not just lobby, but like campaign. They're the cause of, like helping people know about I don't know this stuff that they thought. I guess we need money to help people know about our show. And it's interesting when you look at it, because these beliefs that these people campaigned for right today have become I don't want to say, like, well, accepted, but like pretty normal. Yeah, there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, this is legit specifically like right wing politics. Sure, but in the sixties when they were founded, specifically right wing politics, thought it was the craziest thing in the world, and they constantly were like campaigning against them and being like the stuff that these people are saying is just ridiculous. Okay, so much so. And I'm gonna be honest, I don't There's a right wing philosopher that was interviewed and in a magazine that I don't. Here, here's something I was interviewed in a magazine that I don't here's an idea. Here's the thing in like the sixties and seventies, stupid. There's an interesting thing I've noticed from doing research for this podcast, Yeah, that for some reason, serious articles existed in Hustler and Playboy. Yes, And I don't understand why. We don't understand why, because the same way of like being like MTV was the cultural definition through the nineties. Because what you know of it now, Yeah, you know, Yeah, Reagan has been buying old Playboy magazines for her bathroom. Yeah, because they weren't like nude on the cover. Yeah. I don't even know if they are nude inside, but they're like, you know, she's got like these they're like sixties magazines and the cool looking cup o their vintage. Yeah, yeah, and so but there was a time where that was just on your coffee table and there's like articles in it. Yes, when you had friends over. That's crazy, and that's when the joke became. I read it for the articles. Yeah, yeah, I have heard that. Yeah, because there were legitimate articles. That's crazy. So there's a right wing philosopher that was interviewed in a Playboy in the sixties, and this is his exact quote. He said, I consider the Birch society futile because they are not for capitalism but merely against communism. I gather they believe that the disastrous state of today's world is caused by a communist conspiracy. This is childlishly naive and superficial. No country can be destroyed by a mere conspiracy. It can be destroyed only by ideas, which seems like an omen for the society because the society. Yeah, well, this is an interesting I was just talking to someone the other day about and this applies to governing, This applies to parenting. This applies to you know, dating or whatever it is. You can't There are people still in our government and in our society and like church leaders even who will launch a church and they'll just be like, we're just not like the other churches. We're doing the opposite of what the other churches are doing. That's not a direction. That's not a you can't just be you can't lead by anti leading. We're going a different way, Okay, which way, not that way, not that way. That's not a leader. That's you just being like I don't like that direction, which is fine. It's important to know which way you don't want to go. But like if it's you know, if it's like, oh, I'm just going to parent different my parents did in what ways? Yeah, there's yeah, you have to choose a direction. It's there's not it's not there's just two directions. You just got sixty degrees and you're ruling out one degree. There's three hundred and fifty nine other ways you can go, and you can, but you're just gonna wander aim everyone pinballing your way through your life. Everyone just one eighties from the degree. And it's like it's like who says that's right. But that's why the I mean so many people that you see is like the influencers, is like the exvangelical stuff is just people who we're super fundamental. Yeah through their college years that we just have now gone like you know, they're also fundamental, but the other fundamental yes, yeah, yeah, they're militant about their new beliefs. Yep. Anyway, I agree in yeah, so did this playboy guy. Sure, I could get a couple articles Christian comedian featured. So they established in the sixties, did not have a good reputation in the sixties. Most of the people involved in it were pretty they were very wealthy. It was founded by a group of twelve very wealthy individuals, and then the majority of the early followers were incredibly wealthy people like very successful oil tycoons, business people, candy tycoons, you know, very successful tycoons of something. Yeah, we need to tycoon it, roller coasters, zoo and so by the seventies, I played school tycoon. I'm serious, did not play school tacoon. It would be kind of cool to be a private school tycoon's. I mean that's what every college institution is is. Oh, it's interesting when you put it that way, we should get into that. I mean, we're essentially doing a school right here. Technically speaking, this is a school typer issue. We should start a school, b we should teach. So in the seventies, they started promoting a drug known as LOT Trial the trial, the trial Trial. Yeah, if that's what you want to go with it, LA trial l A E t r I L E the trial, the trial, the trial. They said it was a cancer cure. Turns out it wasn't, and it actually gave you I'm trying to figure out how to pronounce it. Oh, it turns out its poison and it killed a bunch of people. But they were promoting it, and they even after it was like it came out of it was like, this is actually like very bad for you. It gave people sinaniine poisoning. Oh, and they were like this is cure's cancer. And the doctors were like, no, this gives you siniine poisoning because it's cyanide. And they're like, no, we're pretty sure it cures cancer. For a while after, like it was pretty clear that it's and then it was like, oh, well one of your members makes this stuff that's why you're campaigning for it. So this is the kind of group we're dealing with here, just drop ye yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, they did promote ivermactin and you know the twenty twenties, Oh John Birch Society did. Yeah, they literally did spoiler around LinkedIn. Yeah. And so the end of the Vietnam War comes around and they had a huge drop in membership, partially because the light the Trial thing, partially because of just kind of the change in the Cold War and everything like that, Like there wasn't as much of a communist like alarmist society going on, and a lot of people throughout their history were like, yeah, you guys are crazy, and like a lot of people joined and they didn't realize how crazy they were until they joined, and then they're like, oh, we don't really want to be a part of this, and so it it slipped a lot. And then their founder got shot down by a Soviet jet. Down by a jet is different than yeah he did. This was in the early nineties. Remember it was like a pan Am flight. Oh the plane Yeah, yeah, he was picturing him getting out of a vehicle and that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's pretty aggressive. Remember the commercial airliner that got shot down by the Soviet Yeah, and so he was on that flight and that made a lot of more interest. That kind of pop off for them because they were like, why are they shooting down the founder of this organization was coincidence, but conspiracy theorists didn't think so, and so sure, long story short, the organization continues to this day and a lot of people argue, like scholars are, Russia's favorite way to kill people shoot him down is their planes just crashing, Yeah, because it seems accidental. Yeah, but that time they didn't get the jet away fast enough. Everyone saw the jet do it, and they like, you could You gotta be sneakier about it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, a lot of scholars have said that this has led to this organization was kind of like the seed that grew into a lot of right wing politics today, and what we see today is kind of the full grown thing that happened in the sixties. Yeah, so this is the John Birch Society. All of that to say, something interesting happened with the John Birch Society in the seventies. There was a couple of members of the society by the name of Floyd Paxton. This is Floyd Paxton. He invented something. I wonder if you could guess what he invented? What he invented? Something that you've used, honestly, probably close to every day of your life. Paxton. Yeah. Is it very rich, very very rich from inventing this thing? What's his name? They have offices globally pretty much every country. What's his name again, Floyd Paxton? Floyd Paxton, Yeah, invented in the seventies. Oh earlier than that, in the fifties. Yeah, probably forties, like that forties invented Bill Paxton, who went on to star in the nineties Twister movie. Watch. I watched every day the scene where they're at the drive in and the Shining is on. I've never watched the Shining, but I get scared from the scenes that are on the drive and Twister, you know what I'm talking about. And when they go to ants his aunt's house after her house is like destroyed by the whatever, and you just hear the wind chimes. Yeah, every time I hear wind chimes, I I'm going to die at a tornado tonight. Yeah. So what did Floyd Paxton invent? You're pretty close. He actually invented the bread clips on the bread packaging. Have you ever opened up bread every day of my life? Have you opened bread recently? Or fruit that has that little clip on it? Fruit? The plastic clip, oh you're saying, like like on a bag. Made him so rich because he's there. His company is the one company globally. There's a couple other small ones, but pretty much the only company that makes those. To this day, they have offices of globally. Dang it, dude, we gotta get rich. We gotta invent something stupid. Yeah, so he invented that, got ridiculously rich. Join this group. Was one of the founding members, was like the third member of this group. What about? What about? Here's my idea. Yeah, shoelaces and they're like squiggly and then you just pull them tide. Crazy idea, crazy idea. It'd be cool if no one else thought of that. Okay, another guy put a wheel in the shoe, like on the front. Can you imagine if they were in the toes, if the wheel was of the toe tozies. Everyone's doing the n runs. Uh careful, second guy, the second guy, it's like an important person here. This guy Nelson b Hunt. This guy looks like and not in like the anti Semitic way, but in the everything else about him way, because I don't think he looks Jewish, but looks like the bank tellers in Harry Potter. Oh yeah he does. Actually that he does level of old without that old goblins yeah stuff. Yeah he does. He does look that old. His gigantic weird smirk. Yea. Yeah, he looks like he does look evil. That's what I'm saying. He looks like a batman villain got old. Yeah, he genuinely does. He genuinely does. This is Nelson behind. Guess what he's rich for? Is it hunts ketchup? No? Oh Nelson behunt? Yeah, Nelson be hunting Actually, you know the hunts ketchup. So when I was growing up, my grandma Have I told you about this? My grandma wouldn't buy Hines ketchup, okay, because John Carrey's wife is the heiress of the Hins stuff, and so she was like, I'm not going to give buying Hines is giving money to the Democrats, And so we had hunts ketchup growing up. Another example of the one eighty yes objectively better ketchups better the Democrats Liberals make good ketchup uh. Nelson behunt. He is rich because his dad was rich. Oh you know what he did? God born. So his dad was an oil baron. He in harided the company and his dad, gosh, we should have rich dads. Why do we think of it? Why don't we think of being an heir? No, so his dad the myth. And I don't think that I wished it. I wish I wished it. I wished it. So I believe in like multiple lives and what like when you die, you start a new one. Yeah, that's for the bit. But at the end of my last life, I said, I hope I come back as an error, as an error. That's what the genie heard. What I'm saying. I said error, er, you were saying error, they thought, and they were like said error yeah, yeah, yeah, my bad, yeah yeah my error and yeah. So then the genie made you a comedian and I'm paying for her since oh my god, his dad his so his dad h l hunt. Yeah, this is his dad. Guy looks rich too. Dad he got into oil and the story most people don't think this is true, but the story that he would tell was that he won a really good game of poker, and then he bought an oil show I'm afraid of one hundred years from now. Yeah, we got people being like his grandpa was a crypto tycoon. You know, like we'll have those people. Maybe probably not, but you know, so here's where the meat of this episode's coming from. Great Nels Nelson be Hunt the Goblin. Hey, if you're enjoying this episode, a great way you can help us out as by sharing it. Send it to your friends. Click that share link, send them the link and say, hey, this is a little show that I watched sometimes that I think you might like to watch sometimes. And your friends will say this is weird, but it's okay. There'll eventually start laughing at it. I think maybe it depends what kind of friends you have. If you have someone, I hope you do, this is a great way to help uh. In the early seventies, he got into silver speculation. He bought and I kid you not a third of the world's silver speculation. This he bought, and this is not an exaggeration, a third of the world's supply of silver to create an artificial supply and demand crisis, and then sold a bunch of silver and maybe what Black is doing with houses exactly. He just had enough money to buy saying more radically, more radical things. It's like, you know, pushed us to the brink. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I just look at the camera. Yeah yeah. And so him and his brothers were involved in this. It wasn't just he wasn't about only one speculative. Yeah, they go, I think that's so, I think speculation. I think that's silver. So they Tim doesn't want to do bits. They bought one hundred million ounces of silver. They made somewhere, and we're not sure exactly somewhere between two and four billion dollars off this scheme. Duelers globally were campaigning against them, saying, these people this is why, so you're like ruining the market. K was running ads, yeah, saying these people are the reason why your silver rings cost so much. Like they were running like attack ads on the Hunt Family Free disc begins with K Jewelers putting out distracks and they ended up they ended up in a big lawsuit in UH in eighty eight and they had to file for Chapter eleven bankruptcy as a result of it. Do the jewelers did. No, No, the brothers. The brothers did because lost all the money because of the lawsuits. They lost so much money in the lawsuits that they had to file for bankruptcy. So they must have lost to do what they did. Yes, yeah, it's illegal to artificially influence the market. Yeah crazy, Yeah, how that's illegal to do? So? Yeah, so that's interesting, jewelers. I have a proposition. So do you want to take on the hedge fund with me? Okay, so let's kiss while all of this. I like the idea of a guy making the deal with corporate bring it in. I like the idea that it's not like they're like, I'm a kisser. It's like they think that's how K works. It's like that's how they don't. It's not an it's like a kiss deal. I'm so glad that we've come together. So I guess I guess you guys we agree, Like, all right, I'll see you guys next Wednesday. Glad we got the deal done. Sir? What are you doing, sir? Sir? Slightly open? I told you guys kissed a lot. I'm sorry I misunderstood. I didn't. You're you should talk to your branding in the parking stupid, stupid. They don't kiss each other in the office with the zeo kiss each other? You kiss what they don't GISs? Of course you don't kiss. Sugar gets home to his parents. How still is at home obviously, so apparently they don't kiss. Thanks Dad, all those lessons, mom, Dad, I think we got scammed that business school you sent to. Maybe we should sue him. Alf the courses were about kissing. That's a weird noise to making this bit. Okay. So he's doing this silver trading thing and you know, getting in trouble for it. While he's doing this, he gets contacted by the the President of the Philippines type that the it's like you can't hear anything over your typing. He was the President of the Philippines. I couldn't remember his first name, Ferddan E. Marcos. So he was a big president. A lot of people didn't like him. He got ousted and sent to Hawaii. Ironically, his son, no, his son now is the President of the Philippines. Bogbong that's his name. Bogbong Marcos is the President of the Philippines. And then Ferdinand was a president at the time, Ferdinand sends a letter to Nelson Hunt and he says, Hey, proposition for you. He says, have you heard of Yamashita's gold? Have you heard of Yamashida's gold? No, should we go a step deeper. Yamashidah's Gold was a allegedly, allegedly a stash of gold somewhere in the Philippines from a Japanese general named Yamashida Okay during World War two. While they were doing what Japan was doing in World War two, which was taking every country nearby. They were like, there's a big war going on, We're gonna invade everything close to us and take it. And so they were doing that. They amassed a massive fortune of just goods that they stole from everywhere they went. Sure, some reason, as the story goes, they couldn't get the gold back to mainland Japan. I don't know why, but they couldn't get it back to mainland Japan. So they hit it in caves in the Philippines. Sure, allegedly there was somewhere north of two hundred billion dollars worth of gold and a cave in the Philippines, and that was Yamashida's gold. Okay. No one knew where it was though, because when they were storing this, they were Yamashita and the other members of like the Japanese elite were so like careful with it. They didn't want this to get lost because they knew it was worth a lot that they would. They brought in a bunch of Japanese engineers and soldiers to transport it, and after they finished transporting it and getting it into its secure location, they killed them all so that way no one would have all the soldiers. Yeah, they said, no one's going to know where this is except for us, and they killed everyone who moved it there. You gotta have some foresight on that, you know, if you're the one helping hide all the gold, you gotta be like, I don't think they're gonna I don't know if they're gonna let me remember this. Yeah, yeah, so that's Yamashita's gold. Okay. Nelson be Hunt gets a letter in the mail and it says confidential Nelson's eyes only. He said, should have put a last name. I don't know if I'm the Nelson who's to look at that? And it's opened and retaped shut so someone else looked at this. I mean, if I'm the mailman, let's be real, who knows to be a man? Yeah? I know, yeah, every every time I go through my neighborhood, I'm opening up mailboxes looking through strue. But if you see me outside your mailbox, no you didn't, my mail just anybody's. So he gets this letter and uh, Ferdinand Marcos is like, hey, just so you know, I found the treasure. And he's like, he's like, but here's the problem. I've been trying to sell it. No one will buy it because it's close enough to the war that everyone knows this is stolen goods, and so everyone's afraid that it's going to get traced back and they're going to go to prison for having it. So I can't sell this stuff. I can't get any money off of it. And he says, I heard that you had this new technique. Because he works in oil and like ground stuff ground, He's like, I heard you have this new technique to melt down gold that's like untraceable, and I will give you fourteen million dollars of it. He says, all you for helping me. The President of the Philippines, signed Ferdinand Marcos misspelled yeahm also also ps send this to five of your friends, or you will be haunted for forever. An eternity is. So he gets this letter and he looks at it and he's like, he's like, this is interesting. He doesn't say, whatever you said fourteen million. He says, I'll give you two billion dollars if you can help me melt this down. This is the original prince of the Philippines. Yes, kinda. So he sees this and he's like, this is very interesting, and he's like, Okay, he's all I need to do is I need to get the gold to my smelting plant, which I think is in like northern Idaho. And he's like, he's like, all, that's all I need to do. And he's like, but that's going to be a tough thing. And so uh, he arranges this plan where Ferdinand would get shipped to a Now, let's try not to make fun of the way I say this. Okay, Jared, Uh, he's gonna he's gonna ship the gold into a bank, and NASA Bahamas say that right, uh, And then they were going to have the bank transport it from that bank. It was the Bank of Canada and NASA Bahamas to their branch in Canada just north of the border of Idaho, and then he was going to personally smuggle it across the border to his smelting plank. That was the plan. He said, this sounds great, but I remember, take a look at him. Died and not the smuggling type. Oh, you're gonna be like, but I died before this plan could take place. He's like, but I'm unfortunately not the smuggling type. So he's like, he's like, I needed smuggling. I need someone who's good at smuggling, okay, And so luckily he knows a guy, Floyd Paxton, who he's like, this guy is good at smuggling stuff. Why I don't know. Maybe because he's like he's like, he can put stuff in bags and they won't spill because he's got the clips. He's got really good clips. I don't know. I don't know why he has elected him, but he contacted him and he's like, hey, are you interested. I'll give you one hundred million dollars of my two billion. Then I'm gonna make out of this, okay. So these two, these two men, they put together a plot to smuggle in Muchita's gold, so they can melt it down and then sell it, give it back to the President of the Philippines and become a billion and millionaire billion Uh. They start be come to rich guys too, rich guys that are already very rich guys. They're both already very rich guys. They're going to become very richer guys thanks to this plot. So they start That's how being rich works. It's very hard to mess up being rich. Yeah, it's incredible that some people do it. I mean, they filed chapter eleven and they're still rich. They're still super That's what I'm saying. It's very hard to mess up being a rich person. Yeah. Anyways, Uh so they started working on this plan, putting it together, putting the pieces of a in motion. Things are rolling, and then Floyd Paxton has a sudden heart attack and dies. Wow, and you know why, I knew that. I'm from the US twenty thirty seven. And so after Floyd Paxson dies, Nelson contacts the President and it's like, hey, there's been a change of plans. My smuggler died. I'm gonna have to find a new one. And for some reason, Ferdinand Market is like deals off I don't know why, but cuts the deal. It's like, You're not a part of this anymore. I'm not going to have you be involved. Sure, and then he gets austed from government. Years later and there I don't know, mid two thousands, Bombong gets elected president and Bombong says, I know where the treasure is still and so allegedly Bombong can still pursue it and still finish it. Who is Bongbong going to use to finish this? We don't know. There has been no record, there's no there's no I'm not making any allusions to who we think might do that. Anyways. It might be someone who's a part of the might be so John Birch, who's willing to throw forty four billion dollars around anyways. In a completely unrelated note, Nelson b Hunt his brother, the brother that he did the Silver scheme with, that they whatever. You want to know who that is? Yeah? Is it Lamar Hunt? It's Lamar Hunt? Is it for real? His brother was Lamar Hunt. They did the Silver scheme together. Lamar wasn't a part of this gold scheme, but they did the Silver scheme together. If you don't know who Lamar Hunt is, that's the owner, old owner of the Chiefs, his son Clark Hunt now as the team founded the Yeah, yeah, big deal for the NFL. And uh sketchy ties man, always sketchy ties. Yeah, always sketchy ties. Anyways, that's the story of how the John Birch Society was founded and led to a potentially gigantic gold scheme, like the biggest treasure scheme of all time could still take place, could still potentially maybe all lies on Lamar Hunt. Yeah, son, I mean, if the chief Stadium gets built without the tax thing, then there's some questions. We got to call Bombong. Have you seen his apartment in the stadium. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean it was kind of God. It's dated, it's very it's pretty gaudy. But it's pretty sick to have that big in the stadium. It's pretty sick. I wish I could do that. I should have been born to a rich day Bias boxes one day, should have been a rich dude's grandson, should have been a lucky poker player's grandson. If only a fall not too late to investigate. Hey, thanks for watching this episode. If you liked it, we have a past episode about l Ron Hubbard, the guy you know the start Scientology. It's a fun episode, it's a wild story, a crazy person. So if you like this episode, I'm sure you'll like that episode. You go to check that out and if you want to see next week's episode. A great way you can do that is by becoming a patron. And by great way, I mean the only way you can do that is by becoming a patron and supporting our show on Patreon, because our patrons get access to episodes a week early, ad free and a whole bunch of other great persons. Is the best way to support the show. Another easy way to support the show is by sharing it with five of your friends, or we're going to haunt you forever an eternity. So thanks for checking the show out. We'll see you next week on Dylan Podcast


The John Birch Society was a controversial right-wing political group founded in 1958 by wealthy businessman Robert Welch. Named after John Birch, an American missionary and military intelligence officer killed by Chinese communists in 1945, the group was staunchly anti-communist and promoted limited government and states’ rights.

Legacy of the John Birch Society

At its peak in the 1960s, the John Birch Society had nearly 100,000 members and a $7 million annual budget. The group lobbied against the United Nations, the civil rights movement, and immigration. They started conspiracy theories like the UN trying to remove Christian symbols and the government adding fluoride to drinking water for mind control.

In the 1970s, the John Birch Society promoted laetrile as a cancer cure, even after it was shown to be toxic. They lost credibility, and membership declined. Two early members, candy tycoon Floyd Paxton and oil heir Nelson Bunker Hunt, hatched an unbelievable plan to get rich.

The Gold Plot

In the 1970s, Hunt got a letter from Ferdinand Marcos, then president of the Philippines, about Yamashita’s gold. This was the legend of a massive stash of gold worth over $200 billion hidden in the Philippines by a Japanese general at the end of WWII. Marcos claimed to have found it but needed help melting it down to sell.

Hunt and Paxton planned to smuggle the gold into the US using Paxton’s bag clips, melt it down in Hunt’s Idaho smelting plant, and split billions in profits. But before executing the scheme, Paxton died suddenly. Marcos refused to work with Hunt alone, but his son Bongbong Marcos later became president and may still know the treasure’s location.

Though Yamashita’s gold was likely a hoax by Marcos to swindle money, the John Birch Society’s controversial beliefs paved the way for this outlandish plot. Their extreme anti-communist and limited government views became mainstream in right-wing politics. So, in many ways, the group’s ideas live on even as schemes like Yamashita’s gold have been debunked.

Conclusion

The John Birch Society went from a fringe political group to the foundation of some modern conservative thought. They led two eccentric rich men on a quest for billions in mythical WWII treasures, showing how radical ideas can lead to unbelievable stories and schemes.

Things I Learned Last Night is an educational comedy podcast where best friends Jaron Myers and Tim Stone talk about random topics and have fun all along the way. If you like learning and laughing a lot while you do, you’ll love TILLN. Watch or listen to this episode right now!

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Sources

John Birch Society – Wikipedia


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